Pop-Up City Hall Coming This Week

One of my main goals has been to increase the communication between the City and the residents and businesses. Some of the ways we’ve done this include –

• Creating a City Manager Report and placing it on the city’s agenda so everyone can see how we are doing with our major projects.
• Creating a Council Committee Reports and placing them on the city’s agenda so everyone can see what’s happening in the nearly dozen committees that Council members and appointees serve on.
• Putting crime information on the city’s website so everyone can see where we are.
• Live Streaming Council meetings on FB allowing people to not merely watch but to participate.
• Having office hours for Council members. Right now three Council members have regular office hours.
• Creating Mayor’s Councils so that groups can open discussions with the City. So far we had one for HOAs and shortly will have another for businesses. More are planned.
• We now have City Information Kiosks that can be used at city events and strategically placed throughout the city to increase contact with residents.
• Every week we produce a Weekly “Mayor’s Minute” video , reaching thousands of residents.
• We now have a Single online source for all new laws/regulations and we now post information about animal control, with monthly updates.
• We Updated City Events Calendar to Yearly
• The “Shop and Dine Lake Forest” mobile app. has been out for awhile and continues to be updated.

All of these changes are in addition to what we were already doing, including our work with the Chamber of Commerce, our Economic Development efforts, and our social media presence. Many of these changes are unique to Lake Forest and together they put our City at the forefront of communicating with residents and businesses. None of this would have been possible without the active involvement of the City Manager and Public Information Services.

Our latest innovation is the “pop-up city hall” and our first demonstration will be at the Lake 1 garage sale, this Saturday, starting at 7 am and running until 11 am. The purpose is to take City Hall to the people. We intend to have one or two per month, at community events and gatherings. There will be City literature, a place to offer comments, and an opportunity to download our city mobile apps if you haven‘t already. The Mayor will be there too. Come by and say hello.

If you’re having a large community event, please contact us and ask us to hold a “pop-up city hall” in conjunction with your event.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest where he serves as Mayor. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His Twitter handle is @DrJimGardner. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a town hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be May 17 at 7 pm at the Lake 1 Clubhouse (Ridge Route).