Kamloops residents engaged in city projects: report

KAMLOOPS – Kamloops residents appeared more engaged in municipal affairs in 2015 than they did last year.

According to a report to be presented to council tomorrow, Dec. 14, residents this year have been particularly active on social media especially as it pertained to the Overlanders Bridge project, the Food and Urban Agriculture project and proposed performing arts centre.

A public engagement policy was created by council in 2013 as a means to be collaborative and open with residents about city projects and initiatives.

In addition to information on the participation in the city’s open houses, public hearings and input sessions, the report puts engagement figures on social media through variables like post reach and unique hits.

Public engagement was first tracked in 2014, especially as it pertained to social media, but the statistics were not as well monitored. In 2015, the city began working with a contractor to provide detailed social media metrics.

Of the stats available from 2014, participation appears to have gone up across the board.

Not only has the city increased its opportunities for citizens to engage by almost doubling both its number of activities and the amount of materials mailed out, but there is a substantial jump in participation.

In 2014, the city received 854 completed surveys compared with 2,173 in 2015. In addition, the city measures roughly 4,700 participants at city engagement activities in 2014 compared to roughly 20,000 or five times as many in 2015.

Of the projects which received the most engagement, the Overlanders Bridge project received 147,000 social media impressions or more than double the next most popular project; the proposed performing arts centre. The report defines an impression as the number of times a post from a web page is displayed. This does not take into account clicks or the fact that the same viewers may have seen the post multiple times.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Dana Reynolds at dreynolds@infonews.ca or call 250-819-6089. To contact an editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.