Kankakee, IL – City Council voted 14-0 to amend the City’s social media policy. The amendment includes all of the City of Kankakee’s social media platforms and website. A previous ordinance was passed regarding social media, however as social media evolves, the policy will continue to be updated.
Effective immediately, all information shared with the public will be posted on the official City of Kankakee’s main Facebook page, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram accounts. All City of Kankakee’s Facebook pages will be consolidated into one in order to continue to effectively communicate with the public.
“We learned at the Illinois Municipal League conference earlier this all that the more administrators you have, the more misleading it can be with multiple people posting updates and sharing information. Many government social media sites have similar policies. All of our departments and elected officials will still be able to share their updates and send them directly to our Technical Services Team (TST) to post on social media, however we would like to keep everyone on the same page as a part of our community outreach and engagement. We also share a variety of updates from the public as we receive daily requests,” said Marketing and Communications Coordinator, Jasmyne Humble.
The City of Kankakee’s amended social media policy states that comments will continue to be monitored by the Technical Services Team and will be removed if the user violates the amended policy. Previously, comments were not removed. If a comment is removed by a Technical Services Team (TST) administrator, the user will be informed of violations to the social media policy. The comment that is removed will then be retained pursuant to public record retention laws and will be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). It is important to note that all social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn have their own private policies and may remove comments based on their own criteria. These sites are not administered by the City of Kankakee or the Technical Services Team (TST).
The City of Kankakee encourages user interaction such as sending updates to be shared with the community. Questions from the public will continue to be answered daily through email, social media and submissions on the City of Kankakee’s website by the Technical Services Team, as well as, events the public would like to share on social media.
“The social media classes were well attended at the Illinois Municipal League (IML) resulting in many local leaders asking the same question. How do we better communicate with our residents? Previously, the City of Kankakee did not have a social media presence. Without it, users lose the opportunity to be informed. We believe it is important to continue to promote community engagement. As we keep that in mind, our amended social media policy makes it easier for everyone who will receive the same information in one place,” said Mayor Wells-Armstrong.
By resolution, the City Council also amended the City of Kankakee’s employee handbook by adopting the amended social media policy and updated employee social media use.
