Last year, city staff in Rexburg faced a question: How can we get more input from people in the community?
Sarah Kennett-Cromwell, Rexburg’s social media strategist, worked to find a program where people could tell city officials what mattered to them in the city.
Kennett-Cromwell and her team researched five or six different companies before settling on Citizen Lab to host Engage Rexburg. The next step was to go through the budgeting process and get approval from the city council. Kennett-Cromwell said the city council had never approved something so quickly.
Engage Rexburg launched in October 2022. Over the last six months, the platform gained 500 participants.
Improving relationships with local government
Kennett-Cromwell said Engage Rexburg provides a better avenue for community members to communicate, as compared to the three-minute time limit of public comment during city council, which is used to raise issues and often doesn’t allow for much discussion.
“I think it’ll benefit the community short- and long-term because it allows voices to be heard,” Kennett-Cromwell said. “We work here at City Hall and we think we know what’s best and what everybody needs, but that’s not always the case. So it’s best if we can hear from as many voices as possible to kind of give a necessary outcome.”
Aaron Denney, the economic development assistant for the city, shared how public input is shaping city projects and policy. The city announced a new park and Engage Rexburg posted the park’s design with a survey to gather citizen feedback.
Over 1000 people responded to the survey. Denney said they did make some changes based on the feedback they got. The new design will be posted in a couple of weeks.
Denney said Engage Rexburg will help members of the community form more positive relationships with city government.
“I think citizens of the community are most happy when they’re participating with government and kind of a bottom-up approach,” Denney said. “In a lot of communities, the government will kind of have a top-down approach with their citizens, but community members become disgruntled and so as we kind of flip that narrative and participate more as a bottom-up local community, members want to take more pride in their community. They’ll be happier.”
Goals for the future
Kennett-Cromwell and Denney hope to grow the platform to at least 2000 participants by the end of the year. She said that the best way to help them accomplish that goal is to sign up.
Kennett-Cromwell said eventually projects will be able to be geared toward specific audiences, such as BYU-Idaho students.
“My goal is to develop projects that drive people,” Kennett-Cromwell said. “I don’t just expect people to come to the platform, just because we say to. I want the content to be meaningful to them. And I want people to actually get something out of being on the platform.”
To sign up for Engage Rexburg, visit its website.