By Hub City Times staff

MARSHFIELD – Marshfield officials will explore the possibility of adding a communications coordinator position at City Hall.

The Common Council voted 7-to-2 Jan. 23 in favor of directing city staff to draft a job description.

City Administrator Steve Barg said the concept of the position came from discussions by a special communications team which was appointed by Mayor Chris Meyer last year to look at ways the city is communicating to the public and ways to improve that moving forward.

“I would propose that over the next 60 to 90 days, we could do a good thorough review of this and figure out what it would entail, what we would expect, what the outcomes would be anticipated, metrics – those types of things – what the cost would be, how it might be funded, and bring it back to (the council.)”

Alderman Ed Wagner said a prime example of why a communications coordinator is needed was the failed street-funding referendum in August 2015.

“We thought we were communicating,” he said. “We did everything by the traditional means, we did everything we could, we did everything we knew how, and we got thumped, badly. There were people out there that said, ‘Boy, I guess we showed those guys up in City Hall.’

“They showed themselves, I mean they deprived themselves of some streets, and I think the point was, we did not get our message out. We were completely and totally inept in getting out the message to the citizens of why they needed this referendum.”

And since it sounds as though the public access television operations would fall under the communications coordinator’s department, city staff will also evaluate the scope of potential equipment, staffing, and facility needs for that operation, currently run by Tri-Media, which has a contract with the city to do so.