By Collin Breaux
Featured image: Courtesy of Pixabay
Plenty of people use Facebook to let others know what they’re up to.
The City of San Juan Capistrano is considering joining in on that trend.
Per an initial suggestion of Mayor Pro Tem Howard Hart, city staff will draft guidelines for a possible new city Facebook page intended to keep residents informed about updates and events in town. City staff expects to present the draft policy to the City Council in November.
Hart has advocated for a city profile on the social networking site in order to communicate news with the public and be transparent. The city does not currently have a Facebook page or social media presence. Other nearby cities, including Dana Point and Laguna Niguel, have Facebook pages.
“When we’re to look at—for instance—the City of Dana Point Facebook site or the City of Laguna Niguel or even the City of San Clemente, you would see a very benign Facebook site that shows community events, road closures, the occasional award being presented or whatever to a community member,” Hart said. “What it doesn’t show is a city councilmember grandstanding about a particular issue or pushing a particular agenda. I would support all the guardrails that the mayor puts up, and I would want it to be divorced from City Council influence.”
The new page—if it were created—is intended to be limited to information from the weekly city manager’s update, which is sent out by email every Thursday. Mayor Derek Reeve said comments on the page should be turned off since councilmembers are generally not allowed to respond to public comments from the dais during City Council meetings.
Councilmembers discussed how the page would be used and expressed their perspectives about the implications of the new outreach outlet during a meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 4.
“I’ve always been concerned about—in this context, at least, on a communication level—about both well-intentioned councilmembers getting frustrated, if you will, and wanting to communicate more information to argue their case and be more political,” Reeve said. “But also, not well-intentioned councilmembers sort of running amok and turning the city’s communication apparatus into an additional problem.”
Reeve and Hart discussed the exact ways the page could be used prior to Tuesday’s meeting, with Reeve wanting there to be a clear city policy in writing and limiting the ability of councilmembers to have an influence on the Facebook page.
“It really reinforces that it is purely limited to basic information and prevents it from becoming an apparatus of propaganda. That’s probably too strong a term, but I’ll use that phrase, nonetheless,” Reeve said. “I’m throwing my cards on the table, for you (Councilmember John Taylor) and (Councilmember Sergio Farias.) This is going to happen. When I’m gone, you’re going to get councilmember candidates say what they think should happen. Get this down first right now. Get the guardrails up. It’s limited to Facebook. Make sure we have rules enforced.”
Reeve is not running for reelection in this year’s City Council District 3 election and is instead running in the South Orange County Community College District Trustee Area 4 election.
“I actually think this is a good idea, as I mentioned to Mayor Pro Tem when we talked,” Reeve said. “I actually had this same discussion with staff many years ago. If we have the proper guardrails in place, I think it can actually work.”
Hart and Reeve both have Facebook pages they use to communicate news, views and with constituents.
“That’s not what (the city page) is for,” Hart said. “This is to offer the city an opportunity to do things like announce when the fireworks show is or what the trolley schedule is or what the road closures are. That type of thing.”
Taylor said he doesn’t “particularly” go on Facebook and had a hard time understanding why it was “so much more difficult” to get information from the city website.
“It seems like we have a solution in search of a problem,” Taylor said.
Taylor also said he didn’t want the page to grow in scope to where it took management by a staff member, though he was willing to go along with it if the policy spelled out that it would be managed by just the city manager and not the council or a staff member.
City Manager Ben Siegel said he appreciated the concerns about limited staff resources, but he thinks it is “well within our current operational capacity” to maintain a Facebook page, given the council’s suggested parameters.
Farias said Facebook is used more by older people.
“I question that Facebook is where everybody is. I know they’re online,” Farias said. “To Councilmember Taylor’s point, we are online. We have an online presence. I don’t think this is a solution. We’re on there. Our city manager and staff are sending out their weekly report via email. It’s available.”
Reeve said the people who attend City Council meetings likely have Facebook pages.
“I agree with what Councilmember Taylor said,” Reeve said. “You have everything you need to know on the city website, but it’s just people tend to use Facebook on a routine basis.”
Hart said there are more people on Facebook than who will go to the city website or get the city manager’s email.
“People can forward items. They can share it with other people via Facebook,” Hart said. “They can post them on their own page, post them on the community boards. There will just be more exposure to people. It’s the old thing of serving your constituents in the best manner. Like it or not, high school kids are not the most involved people in our community.”
“We might want them to be more involved, but this allows us to reach a more interested demographic in our community, and Facebook is where a large population interested in our community do reside, and it allows them to get information about what’s going on within the city,” Hart continued.
Councilmember Troy Bourne did not attend Tuesday’s meeting.
Collin Breaux
Collin Breaux covers San Juan Capistrano and other South Orange County news as the City Editor for The Capistrano Dispatch. Before moving to California, he covered Hurricane Michael, politics and education in Panama City, Florida. He can be reached by email at cbreaux@picketfencemedia.com.
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