Craig Cugini, city manager, city of Ishpeming

ISHPEMING — The city of Ishpeming is working to improve communication with its residents.

“We listen first,” Siren CEO Adela Piper said in an email. “To build a strategy that will help the city achieve its communication goals, we must first understand what the city’s residents think and feel, what they are facing, what they love about the city and what they think could be improved.”

Siren, a public relations and communications services firm headquartered in Royal Oak, has been working with Ishpeming city officials to improve communication since the city council approved the measure in March following a suggestion from City Manager Craig Cugini.

“I got lucky and went to one of the manager conferences that we have within the Upper Peninsula and Adela was doing a presentation,” Cugini said.

He said what Piper was talking about in her presentation was exactly what Ishpeming needed.

“So I had a sidebar with her and said, ‘Hey, I’d love to have you come over and just talk to the council and let them know what Siren does and how they do it,'” Cugini said. “Adela was willing to do that and her and her partner, Lindsey (Grosso), came in and did a presentation for us.”

Siren cofounders Piper and Grosso told the council during a Feb. 22 city council meeting that the company’s approach would help build trust within the community. Cugini said this presentation let councilors see a different way of communication.

“This sort of opened up the idea of strategy versus just communicating,” Cugini said. “Everybody (says) you got to do better. But they don’t know what better is and unless you bring in a professional company to understand how that is and what strategy does, you don’t get it. You’re just spinning trying to do communication.”

The city and Siren are working to collect feedback from residents and businesses to better understand the problems that exist in the city, which will help in shaping a strategy for the future.

“The idea that we’re moving with a strategic focus has always been something I brought to this community. We’ve been focusing on master planning, our recreation plan, deliberate policies and procedures that help people understand that we’re working on strategy for roadway master planning, not just digging up the road to dig up a road and paving,” Cugini said. “Strategy has always been kind of my concept and this is just the next best place for me to have strategy in my programming as a communication piece.”

The city has launched a confidential survey which asks Ishpeming residents questions such as what appeals to them about the city, what they think could be improved, and the biggest challenge they are facing.

Piper said the need for a communication strategy is not a unique problem to any one local government, nonprofit organization, business or any “entity that has important information to communicate to multiple constituencies”.

“It’s a lot to do (communication) well,” Piper said. “Applying the strategy means shifting out of reactive mode and getting into a place where you’re able to foresee things and plan out in advance which other stakeholders need to be involved, which partners are involved, which funding sources are involved. That process in (and) of itself, yes, makes for strategic communication but it also strengthens relationships that the city has with those partners.”

She said the end result of this type of communication is a happy byproduct.

“Relationships are stronger internally (with) the team and external partners and all of that just because there’s that intentionality on communicating,” Piper said.

One of the goals of the partnership is the sharing of critical information with people who need it and are impacted by it. She also said that efforts to improve city operations are not new, but with Siren, the visibility into that effort will be better.

“(The other goal) is starting to show all of the other things that are going on that are benefits or somehow affecting folks, but wouldn’t have previously risen to that critical level where that would have for sure got some air time and visibility,” Piper said. “So with the increasing capacity and the increased strategy that we bring to the table, now all of a sudden it is looking like there’s all this cool new stuff going on in the city. Well, it’s been going on, you just didn’t know about it.”

Ishpeming residents will have until Aug. 1 to complete the public survey at surveymonkey.com/r/Ishpeming2023 or by picking up a printed copy at the Ishpeming Carnegie Public Library, Ishpeming Multi-Purpose Senior Center or City Hall.

The survey is confidential and can be found online at surveymonkey.com/r/Ishpeming2023.

Dreyma Beronja can be reached at 906-228-2500 ext. 548. Their email address is dberonj@miningjournal.net.