Public Affairs

City Manager

Joe Neeb

Director of Public Affairs

Juanita N. Jennings

Public Affairs

In 2021, We Continued to Evolve. . .

This past year, we worked continually in order to produce more communication, marketing, educational pieces into the Roswell community as well as externally.

Our big projects included a process and system to collect Lodgers’ Tax for Short-Term Rentals which makes us compliant with state statute. We subscribed to STR which gives us more data driven results for hotel occupancy and auditing. Our STR analysis and data reporting is done monthly to ensure compliance and real data reporting of Lodgers’ Tax.

Annual UFO Festival Logo Update:

The City took on the UFO Festival and partnered with an outside company to produce the event. Lessons learned from this experience that will continue to improve the event for future years.

Our UFO Festival was officially trademarked under the City of Roswell.

Our Team’s Contributions:

Our team contributed to the Outdoors, Fairs, Festivals Taskforce CSP Development for Economic Recovery Council and participated in the State DMO/Special Event State of NM Tourism for COVID-19. And more!

Guest Services Division:

We implemented a new Guest Services Division at Spring River Zoo with a focus on customer service, hosting of parties, rentals and events as well as membership and donor relations that is crossed trained with our Visitor Center.

No More Spectra:

Cancelled the management agreement with Spectra in order to save on monthly management fees with an unknown reopening state mandate in April 2021. The city received grant funding to reopen in October of 2021.

Upcoming “Roswell Great Blocks. . .”

Great Blocks project kick-off with MWRM Landscaping which is the Market Walk Space. This was a time consuming project, but will benefit the Roswell downtown district. MainStreet Roswell applied for the grant funding in which the City

matched 20% of the $100,000

project for construction ready design documents for the Market Walk Space aka Great Blocks.

Wayfinding for 2022. . .

Groundwork Studio Wayfinding 2.0 Finalized design elements were finalized and will be ready for implementation of Parking, Bus Stops and signage at the Air Center and other tourism attractions in 2022.

Special Events. . .

Planned and executed the following events that included all marketing elements of radio, billboard, décor, posters, invites, programs, social media, paid social media and informational sheets.

• UFO Festival in partnership with

InDepth Events • 4th of July • Job Fair w/EDC x2 • City Job Fair • Fall Festival • Carpenter Park’s Splash Pad Ribbon

Cutting • All-Inclusive Playground

Groundbreaking • Deming-Lea Bridge Ribbon Cutting • Reopened the Spring River Zoo with

Guest Services Division MRO Conference Booth Design and Collateral. Overhaul of the City of Roswell Website:

Roswell-nm.gov

integrated portal pages for Tourism, FlyRoswell, Government and Community Pass system.

New Online Updates:

NM True Co-Op Grant Award of $157,096.48 worth of paid media on a 2:1 match:

• Still Photo Shoot • Texas Monthly Print Display • Phoenix Magazine Print 3x plus Digital ads • Tripadvisor for 10 months • Programmatic Digital Display for 6 months • Instagram Static Ads for 6 months • West Texas Digital OOH for 6 week • Phoenix Digital OOH for 6 week • Connected TV for 3 months • YouTube for 3 months

Graphic Design. . .

Our designer took us to the next level of designing creative pieces that communicated and provided public information to the community in a variety of ways.

News releases/features produced by and issued to media and public by Public Information Officer (PIO): Approximately 180 (Additional releases written by staff of some other departments are also edited and released through PIO.)

Television (usually on-camera) and radio (usually recorded by phone) news interviews (most done by PIO, with some others arranged by PIO for a city official or department representative to be interviewed): 54

Sampling of other functions performed by PIO:

• Research and respond to media inquiries on a daily basis, including evenings and weekends as needed. • Social media posting to City of Roswell, Police

Department, Fire Department and other city department Facebook pages. In addition, posting to city Instagram and Twitter accounts. • Create news items for city website and edit and update information throughout website. • Answer citizen questions and requests through social media, email and phone calls. • Review/edit/collaborate on graphics and videos produced by Public Affairs. • Monitor media reports regarding the city and its departments to ensure accuracy of information being presented to the public and contact media with any needs for corrections. • Text notification to City Council and administration regarding police, fire and other incidents or events. • Write and/or edit internal and external materials. • Assist with scheduling, staffing and logistics/ preparation for public events as needed.

Now Partnered with PBS

In an effort to reach those without internet and build a broader audience, we were able to form a partnership with the Public Broadcast System (PBS). This allowed us to grow our audience to areas outside of Roswell.

Multimedia Producer/Videography. . .

New Videographer Position:

2021 was the first full year of production for this new role in Public Affairs. Seeing only 24

videos being produced in 2020, a whopping 154 videos were

created in 2021. New partnerships were made and community outreach expanded.

Special Mentions:

• Was featured on KOBR news. • Was featured on Creative New Mexico’s website, which showcases artist, community artwork, and videos.

Series Produced:

• 2021 Virtual Public Forums-

Produced and edited forums for

PBS. • Roswell’s Hidden History –

Stories of the hidden History of

Roswell • Money Matters – Videos helping the public to have a better understating of how the City uses its funds. • City Services – Highlights departments that aren’t normally acknowledged within the City. • RPD Tips – Public service tips from the Fire Chief • RFD Tips – Public service tip from the Fire Chief. • Park Life – A fun educational series on animal life and park updates. • UFO Festival: Aileen – A four part series created to help ramp up the UFO

Festival.

Documentaries:

• Zoo Carousel – A wonderful documentary on how the Zoo

Carousel came to be a part of the City’s Spring River Zoo. • Jake Trujillo – A mini

Documentary on a man who’s played Taps every day for the past 20 years. It was also featured on KOBR, which created its own segment on

Jake.

“Your videos got 18,620 views in 2021!”

We have increased YouTube subscribers by 146 with a library of more than 400 videos

Our Social Media presense grows daily, and in 2022 we expect to continue this trend.

Our Visitor Center has Grown Exponentially. . .

We reopened our Visitor Center to 6 days a week after being impacted by COVID-19 in 2020.

During this time in 2021, we had nearly 25,000 visitors compared to 6,000 in 2020.

Our revenue from the influx of guests reached $127,000 up 300% over 2020.

Volunteer Program:

• 50 volunteers have applied • 40 volunteers have been approved and their contact info was provided to departments where they hope to serve. • The other 10 are either pending, rejected, moved since applying or lived in Roswell, GA. • 443 volunteer hours tracked from May 22, 2021 – Jan 10, 2022. • $8,600.79 value, based on the state’s average wage sector volunteer hour value. The volunteer application using their service is currently being branded with Roswell graphics and the City logo. Will transition to this system for future volunteer applications as soon as branding is complete.

In December, 2021 we purchased a one-year subscription to an online volunteer intake & management system (VolunteerLocal.com) and have transferred all approved volunteers to this database.

Recruiting Volunteers

$28,302.56 Grant Awarded for FY22

Appreciation Project for Departments:

• 11 deliveries of thank you “goodies” • 192 staff have been thanked • $856.49 value of goodies donated to date

Departments Thanked to Date:

• Parks Maintenance Team • IT Team • Solid Waste Team • Finance Team • Aquatic/Rec Team • Animal Services Team • Water Maintenance Team • Warehouse Management Team • Transit Team • Waste Treatment Team • Water Production/Central Control Team

Marketing & Social Media: 2021 Followers

Facebook Instagram Twitter Jan Dec

10,707 2,008 465 11,369 2,331 510 Posts

Facebook Instagram Twitter 331 117 120

Keep Roswell Beautiful. . .

KRB Empowering Youth Cleanup Fundraiser Program:

$6,449.55 in-kind value or donations to Keep Roswell Beautiful:

• 10 local youth groups have participated to clean a public area (park, neighborhood, etc) • 172 youth worked doing the cleanups • 37 adults volunteered to supervise and help cleanup

• 548 hours total worked by participants • 35,115.94 lbs. of trash picked up (over 17 ½ tons!)

• $2,800 for 700 boxes of energy efficient

LED lightbulbs donated by Xcel Energy giveaway/incentives

• $2,870.82 value for radio promotion and newspaper ads at no cost for public service announcements. • $763.74 food donated by Hispano Chamber and McDonald’s for volunteer incentives • $14.99 box of 55-gallon trash bags donated by Westlake ACE Hardware

PEER:

Donations to date by community for PEER Gala Prizes: • 83 items donated for PEER Gala prizes • $2,924.19 value of donated items • 86 total items for PEER Gala door prizes so far