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HomeMy WebLinkAboutNB 7 COMM. CALENDAR 06-16-80DATE: JUNE 2, 1980 Inter-Corn -- TO: FROH: SUBJECT: HONORABLE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL DAN BLANKENSHIP - CITY ADMINISTRATOR COMMUNITY CALENDAR Attached is a report from Gary Napper, Administrative Assistant, outlining some of the problems and opportunities of the community calendar concept: Basically, the first question is the purpose of the calendar. Ifitistoavoidconflicts, it must be maintained on a six-month or yearly advanced basis as events are firm two-to-three months in advance. If it is to help publicize the events, then a monthly list of events published the preceeding month would be desirable. The second ques- tion is who will do the follow-up to make it work. This would take about two hours per week of one person to solicit the information and post it. The third question is the method of dissemination. This gets back to the objectives or purpose of the calendar. Publication in the Tustin News will be essential for publicizing events, as a free service would be the ideal (if space is available on a timely basis). A physical calendar will need to be maintained in City Hall from which the Tustin News publi- cation can be drawn. We have drawn the inference that the Tustin News would not want to accept the responsibiility for gathering the information. Recognizing the workload, Council must first determine if the need is sufficient to justify the City staff locking in the two hours a week. Personnel and incidental cost would be about $1,000 per year. If the answer is "yes," than Nr. Napper's suggestion is appropriate that we delay implementation until the Com~nunity Services Director is appointed. RECOMMENDED ACTION: Pleasure of Council Respectfully Submitted, City Administrator DB/hl r Attachment DATE: JUNE 2, 1980 nter-Com TO: DAN BLANKENSHIP - CITY ADMINISTRATOR FROR: GARY NAPPER - ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT SUBJECT: CO~MUNITY CALENDAR Staff was requested to investigate the feasibility of a community calendar in City Hall, geared towards listing for public view the events in the City. Contact was made with the. Well-Wishers Organization, as they at one time managed such a calendar. The following comments were received relating to their experience: Calendar attempted to list all functions; service organizations, senior citizen activities, church functions, City events. Found it' to be too encompassing and burdensome. Helpful to newcomers, and to organizations in avoiding event scheduling conflicts. 3. Attempted to get calendar printed on weekly basis in Tustin News. Due to status as unpaid advertising, calendar received low priority and was.usually printed once a month. 4. Very time-consuming for staff to compile and Update.. Staff had to solicit events from organizations continually by mail or phone, rather than organizations committed to submitting informa- tion voluntarily. Based upon the above remarks, the Well-Wisher's contact suggested we limit our listed events to service organizations only to reduce workload. Critical to the effectiveness and utility of the calendar is a commitment by Tustin News to print it, giving widespread publicity and free advertising as an incentive to the organi- zations for active support and participation. City staff contacted the Tustin News (John Hardy) who indicated they would try to print the calendar on a month-in-advance basis as a community service, if we com- piled the information. The largest pre-printed yearly calendar our regular stationery supplier has avail- able is a 22" X 29" for $2.05; there is space under each day to list seven events. They recommended custom-making our own to fit the desired size. Honorable Mayor and City Council Re: Community Calendar June 2, lg80 Analysis The largest cost factor involved in operating a community calendar is staff time to update, solicit information, and prepare copy for printing. To be effective, the calendar would need to be updated weekly in City Hall to stay current. An important decision to be made is whether the information must be generated from the organizations to City Hall, or if staff must weekly call the organizations to solicit calendar information. Commitment by the organizations to support and use a community calendar will increase its functionability and reduce staff time. Listing service organization functions only is perhaps the most'feasible approach, since senior citizen activities and City Hall events are already printed on'separate calendars. Disseminating the information could be handled through several alterna- tives; by mail to participating organizations, posting a City Hall Calendar, and monthly printing in the local newspaper. The latter two are the more cost-effective, although again it relies heavily on the Tustin News to print the calendar for wide- spread distribution. 'In its simplest form, a community calendar would involve City staff time to, at minimun monitor a ~elf-postin§ s~rvice organization calendar for the public to write in their own events. RECOMMENDATION · ~ A community calendar appears to be a worthwhile community service, and would logically fall under .the Community Service (Recreation)Department's jurisdiction. Several forms of gathering and. disseminating the information could be attempted to find the best cost-effective combination. It should be noted that such a calendar will demand some staff attention and time. Due to this requirement, and the fact that the Recreation and Community Services Department is already lacking a director and supervisor, it is recommended that the implementation of a community calendar be delayed to await the appointment of a director within this month. This would permit that individual the opportunity to give input and evaluate the workload level on the department's staff. cc: Recreation GAN/hl r