For those who don’t yet know it, parts of Macdonell and Wyndham streets will be closed tonight at 11 p.m. until the following day at 4 a.m. The closure will happen again Friday and Saturday nights, too, as police try to deal with the back-to-school bar crowds.
Most loyal Trib readers will already know this, as Tuesday’s paper featured a front-page story on the pilot project. But I think it’s a good idea to mention it again, because up until quite late Tuesday afternoon, communication on the subject had been missing.
What I’m wondering is: why?
The city posted a brief news release on its website Tuesday, just before 5 p.m., only after I contacted a number of people at city hall to ask why there had still been no official word on the project.
I wanted to know whether there had been a communication breakdown somewhere along the line. The Downtown Nightlife Task Force, which is behind the project, includes representatives from a number of different factions. I thought perhaps there was a mix-up about which organization was to handle the task of getting the word out.
Apparently not.
“The task force had adopted a communications plan, which included providing a briefing note to mayor and council prior to communicating pilot project details to the media and other community members,” the city’s corporate communications manager, Heather Roseveare, told me in an email.
“Last Thursday, the Guelph Police Service provided pilot project details to the mayor and council – one day after the task force finalized its planning for the pilot. In error, information had been prematurely released to one local media outlet,” she said.
That ‘premature’ release gave Guelph Mercury reporter Scott Tracey a story on the plans last Wednesday.
That so-called error was no doubt a headache for the communications team, when people such as councillors and downtown business owners express surprise and displeasure about learning of the project through the newspaper first. (Guelph Police Chief Bryan Larkin told me it was a member of his service that spoke out of turn.)
I would say it is a good thing that someone spoke up when they did. If someone hadn’t leaked the information, when would we know about it?
The project will be of interest to and have an impact on a lot of people. There can be no easy way to get the word out to all of them.
As I am fond of saying, not everyone reads the Mercury. The city’s communications team knows (or should know) that they need to use as many different channels as possible to get the message across.
And still there will be those who will say they didn’t know.
But the earlier the team starts the communications process, the better. It is the best way to reach the greatest number of people.
To the task force’s credit, a number of communications activities are now underway. The Downtown Guelph Business Association is providing information to its members via email, said Roseveare. A map showing the road closures will also be distributed to restaurant and bar owners, as well as to students in their welcome packages. And check today’s City News pages for an ad that includes the map.
I still take issue with the last-minute nature of these efforts, though. A three-day construction road closure at Macdonell and Wyndham streets got more than two weeks notice. This five-week project got two days.