Encinitas Invites Residents to Join City on PlaceSpeak

ENCINITAS, CA — The city of Encinitas is now on PlaceSpeak, the newest convenient method for Encinitas residents to provide input that can shape and influence decision making, the city announced in a news release this week. The online tool makes it easy for community members to participate in policy and program development, from the earliest planning stages through finalizing results, city officials said.

“We want to make sure that every person that wants to be heard can be heard and are pleased to have another method for listening to our residents and businesses,” said City Manager Karen Brust. “PlaceSpeak is a simple platform that allows verified members of our community to reach us and provide much needed and valued input on the decisions that we make every day. Whether it’s a project that is close to completion or one that is just getting started, we’re looking forward to hearing what residents have to say, whenever they want to say it.”

PlaceSpeak is free to participating residents and gives them the ability to control what type and how many notifications they receive on city consultation topics, discuss topics with other verified community members and provide feedback in a variety of forms to the city. It serves as a new way to discuss city happenings with fellow neighbors, won’t displace other ways to provide input to the city and verifies that each user either lives or works in Encinitas.

By signing up with PlaceSpeak, city officials say, Encinitas residents will be able to influence the city in policy and decision making, have their input heard by the city even when they’re unable to show up to City Council meetings, provide feedback to the city when it’s convenient and have comfort knowing that feedback is coming from verified Encinitas residents or businesses.

“PlaceSpeak makes it possible to consult with people online within specific geographical boundaries,” said PlaceSpeak CEO and Founder Colleen Hardwick. “At the same time, it protects individual privacy and does not share information such as street or email address.”

Residents can sign up for PlaceSpeak by following these steps:

• Go to Placespeak.com
• Create an account
• Accept the privacy terms and conditions
• Input your place of residence
• Set your notification preferences
• Connect with your neighbors (optional)
• Activate your account via email verification
• Login to your profile and join a conversation

PlaceSpeak will gradually be phased into the city's ongoing outreach and community engagement efforts. In the meantime, to encourage residents and businesses to complete the registration process and familiarize them with the new tool, two feedback and discussion opportunities are available on the site. The first is a poll of favorite city beaches and the second is a survey on how residents and businesses prefer to receive city information.

To make using PlaceSpeak as easy and convenient as possible, the city of Encinitas has not activated its various authentication features, but Encinitas residents and business users may wish to verify the location of their home or workplace as these steps will likely be required to participate in future consultations.