About Me

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I have served the City of Isanti as Mayor since 2007. We have accomplished great things together and I look forward to building on our success. United, we move forward to a better future. You may contact me at 763-442-8749 or e-mail me at george@georgewimmer.com.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

February 5th Council Meeting Update

The Council has, I hope, laid the idea of a new or significantly renovated liquor store to rest tonight. The request to spend another $16,300 on design plans for a major renovation lost on a 2-3 vote.

We moved forward on a project I have been working on. I have always believed the City needs to do a better job communicating with our residents. In this light the Isantian will be given a facelift. The City staff photocopied quarterly news letter that goes out to 2000 homes and tax payers will be professionally printed. We will be selling advertising to defray the cost. These will be business card sized ads at the bottom and a possible full page ad.

The new Isantian will cost the City less, save labor cost and photocopier wear and tear. This is the quintessential project that offers more, cost less and becomes a blue print for future progress in communicating with our Citizens.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

What is the current cost of the newsletter? What will the new news letter cost without advertising? How much will it be to advertise in the Isantian? How many spaces will be available to advertise?

Anonymous said...

Here is a direct quote from the bottom of http://www.jeff-kolb.com

"Government officials need to be receptive to the concerns of the community and act as though they are here for us, not us for them."

Is Council Member Kolb standing by this?

George said...

the current cost of the news letter is a bit buried in the overall budget as so many items can be....the labor portion is lumped into several positions that work on the typing, editing, forming, copying, stapling and so on. There are over 2000 copies printed each quater. There is also the opertunity cost of other city business not getting done.

The ads will be $75 for business card size at the bottom of each page...two per page and then $300 per half page and $600 per full page. The budget has $7500 in it for the printing of the Isantian....We will be at or lower than this amount....There are 12 pages to the Isantian and ten pages would have the smaller ads and then added pages for the half or full pages.

The response from the business community has been quite strong.

We will not move forward unless this does pay for itself.

George said...

not sure what you are getting at with your comment about Council Member Kolb...

Anonymous said...

I'm am not sure what they are trying to say either. ??? Feel free to call me and we can discuss this if needed.

Brian said...

Lets say I want to read the Isantian in PDF format that I can download from the city's website. Is there a plan or a way I can say "don't waste money printing this for me, just email me when a new one is available"?

I realize that if just I was the only one to do this, it wouldn't be a cost saving, however if 100 people did this, that would provide some cost savings and paper.

I suppose though if it pays for itself, then the only thing saved would be paper.

George said...

that is an interesting Idea...we might run into trouble if we are use to sending to a person this when but then when people move the new residents may miss a few editions....

The Isanti will be on line in pdf as well as on the publishers website...