At its meeting on Monday, April 15, the Hillsdale City Council discussed its goals for the 2013-14 fiscal year and a video services contract.
Mayor Doug Moon proposed the list of five potential goals for the council. They included improving the streets, reducing blight, increasing jobs, enhancing communications, and removing obstacles. Moon said that each goal had its purpose.
“Reducing blight is not so much just about peeling paint but raising up everything around you,” he said. “Removing obstacles is getting rid of the hoops you have to jump through.”
Moon also said that the difficulty of the goals should not stop the council from striving for them.
“It’s kind of like eating an elephant. You’ve just got to eat it one bite at a time,” Moon said.
The nine council members approved these goals unanimously.
Next, the council discussed whether to accept a proposal from video stream provider CGI Communications, Inc. to produce informational videos for the city of Hillsdale’s website. City Manager Linda Brown said that the company has earned a good reputation.
“I’ve talked to people in three to four different cities in the state of Michigan, and no one has anything bad to say about it,” Brown said.
CGI offered to create informational videos for the city at no cost; local businesses would instead support the service through advertising. The council also watched examples of videos from Bay City, Mich., and Adrian, Mich., to see what the service was like. While Mayor Moon said that he was very receptive to the idea and execution of these videos, Councilperson Brian Watkins said that possible flexibility concerned him.
“I like the concept of the videos, but my concern would be if they could be updated regularly,” Watkins said. “There’s a lot more to Hillsdale than what they would just come in and shoot.
“Our community isn’t just a pretty shot of the courthouse and a pretty shot of the college.”
Councilperson Ruth Brown said that she wasn’t ready to decide on the issue.
“I need more feedback to see what’s unique about this service. It’s better to have someone local. There has to be something unique if we’re not going with a local person, and I don’t see what it is,” Brown said. “I don’t know about it one way or another.”
Brown recommended that discussion of the issue be moved to the Communications Committee. The council ultimately approved 9-0 Mayor Moon’s suggestion to discuss it at the next meeting on May 6, though council members have until this Friday to get questions to the city manager about the proposal.
“It’s better than what we have now, which is nothing, but we need to dig deeper,” Watkins said.
jbutler@hillsdale.edu
