
Improve communication to engage diverse communities and disseminate information on community-building events and activities.
Community outreach and engagement have been made easier with the development of online tools. Through email distribution of our monthly newsletter, we reach thousands of recipients, mostly comprised of Sunset District residents and stakeholders. Given that our district is comprised of many monolingual, non-English speakers, we also translate our newsletter into Chinese to reach as many constituents as possible. We also use various social media channels to reach a wider audience on a daily basis.
While these tools have been helpful in disseminating information to residents, various online tools have also greatly assisted our office in receiving feedback directly from constituents. Websites such as Nextdoor.com provide a forum for residents to express their neighborhood concerns and connect with other residents who feel similarly. By monitoring websites such as these, our office can anticipate and work on issues we may not have been aware of. In addition, our office will be implementing a new constituent management system that will allow us to better track and follow-up on requests for assistance. We hope to launch this new system by the end of 2015.
Despite the advancements in technology, however, we must continue to improve our efforts to engage residents who are not digitally connected. The creation of new neighborhood organizations such as the Outer Sunset Parkside Residents Association (OSPRA) and additional neighborhood watch groups in the past year have helped us disseminate information directly to residents. One example of how we are working to bridge communications between various communities is that our office started bringing Taraval Police Station officers and the captain to meet with Chinese-speaking seniors at South Sunset Recreation Center on a quarterly basis.
During the Fiscal Year 2015-2016 & 2016-2017 budget process, our office successfully advocated for additional staffing at the Office of Civic Engagement & Immigrant Affairs (OCEIA) to allow for more translation and interpretation of city services. We want to ensure that anyone who wishes to access city services will be able to do so in an effective way.
Our office will continue to identify strategies that will effectively target populations in our district that may not have technological access, such as the elderly and monolingual communities.
Find out more:
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Access current and archived copies of our newsletter:
http://sfbos.org/index.aspx?page=14723
For an example of a technologically-connected neighborhood watch group, check out the Sunset Neighborhood Watch:
http://www.sunsetneighborhoodwatch.org/