Communications director outlines city strategy: inform, consult, respond, close the loop

Monty Bohannon, the city’s director of communications and community engagement, briefed the Economic Development Commission on Oct. 2 about how the two‑person office organizes work and supports departments, boards and commissions.

Monty framed communications into four functions adapted from public-participation frameworks: inform, consult, respond and close the loop. He described the channels that serve each function—newsletters, website and public‑meeting notifications for informing; flash votes and surveys for consulting; click-and-fix and contact forms for responding; and post‑project reports for closing the loop. Monty highlighted a new public-meeting notification system that allows residents to opt in to text or email when meeting materials post and said the communications office will help amplify board messages and correct misinformation when it appears.

He asked commissioners to 'lend your voice and your ears'—encouraging commissioners to share content with their networks and forward newsletters to people who might not otherwise see them. Monty also offered to help boards find subject-matter experts and to produce a simple one‑pager for onboarding or business-facing communications when needed.