The Local Government Communicator's Playbook
Dino JukloHow local government teams reach every resident from one place, with accessibility and public records handled along the way
City and county communicators keep telling us the same thing. They’re not looking for another tool. They want fewer steps, fewer systems, and fewer chances to make a public mistake.
The job now spans the website, multiple social channels, email, text alerts, public records obligations, and a federal accessibility rule with real deadlines attached. Most communicators are doing this work on teams of one or two, often with systems that were never built to work together.
This free guide turns what local government communicators told us into six practical chapters, each ending with a checklist you can put to work this week, whatever software your team uses today. By the end, you'll know which deadline applies to your entity, how to get one announcement to every channel accurately, and how to answer a records request the same day it arrives.
What's Inside
- The Patchwork Problem: Why disconnected tools cost more than their price tags, and how to take an honest inventory of your current stack.
- Publish Once, Reach Everyone: Why your website should be the system of record, and how to push one accurate message to every channel from a single source.
- Accessibility Is Now the Law: What the 2024 ADA Title II rule and WCAG 2.2 AA actually require, including the April 2027 and April 2028 compliance deadlines.
- Every Post Is a Public Record: Why screenshots are not a records strategy, and what to put in place before your first major open records request.
- Emergency Mode: How to communicate under pressure when you are a team of one, from pre-drafted templates to backup access.
- Close the Loop: How to track the measures that connect communications to outcomes and report progress back to leadership.
- Plus: A 12-point Readiness Scorecard to self-assess your team's operation.
