09-14-2016 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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STAFF REPORT TO: Mayor Keis and Members of City Council FROM: Heidi Heller, City Clerk DATE: September 9, 2016 RE: Social Media Policy The Council and Staff have drafted and reviewed a social media policy to be adopted and added in to the personnel policy, and a disclaimer page that will be posted on the City’s website and social media platforms. The City Attorney has reviewed the proposed policy and made a few suggestions. The policy has been amended to incorporate these changes. The City Attorney asked the question of what benefit is there to allowing comments on the City’s Facebook page. Allowing comments leaves a Facebook page open to anyone to post anything, which is Council and Staff’s biggest concern with social media. Staff’s opinion is to not allow comments on the City’s Facebook page, at least not in the beginning. We can determine after the Facebook page is up and running, if there is a need to allow commenting, or if there are complaints about not allowing it. Residents can still contact the City through Facebook by sending a private message. Even though comments will not be allowed on Facebook, comments are still allowed on the Little Canada YouTube video pages, so language pertaining to comments will be kept in the policy. The City Attorney recommended removing the list of reasons why a comment would be removed from a social media page, and simply state that the city reserves the right to remove any comments for any reason. Since all of the listed “reasons” are subjective, the City does not need to justify which reason and why a comment is deemed inappropriate. The Department Heads will meet prior to the Council meeting to review this most recent draft of the social media policy with the changes suggested by the City Attorney.