Morrisville council hears communications plan; town highlights language access and website improvements
March 30, 2026 | Morrisville Town, Wake County, North Carolina
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Erin Hudson, Morrisville’s communications and outreach director, presented the department’s strategic communications plan and an update on the town’s language access work during the council meeting. Hudson said the town received national recognition in the Cultural Diversity Awards program for its language access plan and described ongoing tools including an embedded video Q&A pilot (REPT) and the Ask Morris chatbot integration.
Hudson highlighted performance metrics she said demonstrate community engagement: “Morrisville’s average open rate over 365 days is 36.4%,” she said, adding the town’s email bounce rate is about 0.47% and that the figures exclude mail‑privacy protection false positives. She argued those data show residents are opening and interacting with town communications.
The presentation covered a proposed restructuring within the department to rebalance workloads and create a dedicated website coordinator to improve search and archival functions. Hudson said the town has translated more than 55 documents into seven languages and is piloting pocket‑talk translation devices with some departments.
During questions, council members pressed staff on how metrics are measured and how archival access to agendas and minutes will be restored. Hudson said the vendor for the town’s mailing system provides confirmed opens and that social‑media engagement metrics are calculated using impressions and interactions. On records access, Town Clerk Kayla Burtling said staff and IT are testing a chatbot integration so residents can ask natural‑language queries (for example, “find me the minutes where we talked about the alternative transit study”) and that minutes — the official record — will be prioritized on the website even though agendas are retained online for a shorter period per the town’s records schedule: “Our agendas are only supposed to be kept for three months… the minutes will be there,” she explained.
Several council members urged staff to offer targeted, opt‑in text alerts for topic categories (traffic, parks, public safety), to keep some hard‑copy newsletters for residents without digital access, and to publish clearer KPIs for each channel so the public and council can see trends over time. Hudson said the department will follow up with additional information and that staff will continue testing the website search labels and chatbot features.
The presentation drew no immediate formal action; staff said they would return with implementation details, timelines and recommended metrics.
Hudson highlighted performance metrics she said demonstrate community engagement: “Morrisville’s average open rate over 365 days is 36.4%,” she said, adding the town’s email bounce rate is about 0.47% and that the figures exclude mail‑privacy protection false positives. She argued those data show residents are opening and interacting with town communications.
The presentation covered a proposed restructuring within the department to rebalance workloads and create a dedicated website coordinator to improve search and archival functions. Hudson said the town has translated more than 55 documents into seven languages and is piloting pocket‑talk translation devices with some departments.
During questions, council members pressed staff on how metrics are measured and how archival access to agendas and minutes will be restored. Hudson said the vendor for the town’s mailing system provides confirmed opens and that social‑media engagement metrics are calculated using impressions and interactions. On records access, Town Clerk Kayla Burtling said staff and IT are testing a chatbot integration so residents can ask natural‑language queries (for example, “find me the minutes where we talked about the alternative transit study”) and that minutes — the official record — will be prioritized on the website even though agendas are retained online for a shorter period per the town’s records schedule: “Our agendas are only supposed to be kept for three months… the minutes will be there,” she explained.
Several council members urged staff to offer targeted, opt‑in text alerts for topic categories (traffic, parks, public safety), to keep some hard‑copy newsletters for residents without digital access, and to publish clearer KPIs for each channel so the public and council can see trends over time. Hudson said the department will follow up with additional information and that staff will continue testing the website search labels and chatbot features.
The presentation drew no immediate formal action; staff said they would return with implementation details, timelines and recommended metrics.
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