And The Winner Is....Cedar Park Media, Communications Office Garners Awards (Videos)

CEDAR PARK, TX — The city garnered several awards at a recent conference for its various community outreach efforts, officials said.

The city's Media & Communications Office received six awards for its efforts over the past year. Most notably, the newly redesigned City of Cedar Park website, www.cedarparktexas.gov, tied with the City of Hurst for the Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers’ TAMI (first place) in the category of cities with a population of less than 85,000.

Co-designed with government website expert Vision Internet, the Cedar Park website was launched in December. Media & Communications staff spent about a year with Vision researching web traffic analytics and creating a design based on web traffic analytics and user experience (“UX”) best practices, officials said. Judges lauded the site for its clean design, organization of information and use of photography and simple icons. It's the second time the City of Cedar Park website has won a TAMI as the former city website won the top honor in 2013.

The City’s 2016 Year in Review won the TAMI in the Report category among cities with population greater than 65,000. The Year in Review is a reflection on the past year’s accomplishments, and is in its fourth year of publication. It also won the Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers’ (TAMIO) Award of Excellence in 2015. This years’ judges praised the report’s reader-friendliness and visual appeal, with one judge noting that Cedar Park’s “community pride came through on the pages.”

The Cedar Park Quarterly e-newsletter garnered its third consecutive annual award from TAMIO this year, winning its second TAMI (first place) in the e-newsletter (population less than 100,000). Judges especially liked the e-newsletter’s design, use of photography and important information for citizens, officials noted.

Nationally, Cedar Park brought home the Telly Awards’ highest honor, the Silver Telly, for its Follow the Signs, Stay in the Lines video that showed drivers in real time how to navigate the new continuous flow intersection. The video was part of a larger marketing campaign collaboration with the Texas Department of Transportation and garnered nearly 2,500 views on YouTube.

The City also won a Bronze Telly for its Water Thrifty Tip of the Week videos on WaterThriftyCedarPark.org/resources. The videos feature Lower Colorado River Authority Water Conservation Coordinator Brett Briant showing viewers real-life ways to conserve water, as well as one Cedar Park family who managed to win their neighborhood’s Yard of the Month and still have an exceptionally low water bill, officials explained.

A bronze Telly was awarded for CPTV-10 News programming for public education and government channels on Spectrum Cable (channel 10.110) and AT&T Uverse (channel 99). The winning submission featured stories about the July Fourth Celebration honoring World War II veterans, Austin Spurs Basketball and the City’s Teen Court program.

With its latest haul of hardware, the city's Media & Communications Office has amassed 12 Tellys, 8 TAMIs, 12 TAMIO Awards and three previous years’ awards from the Texas Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (TATOA). The city department comprises manager Jennie Huerta, specialists Mauro Lopez and Kevin Riley and technician Angel Interial.

Watch some of the city's award-winning videos below:

>>> Uppermost image: Awards haul for the City of Cedar Park's Media & Communications Office