Member Spotlight

Joni Powell, MMC
Town of Holly Springs
Town Clerk

Innovative Idea:  Holly Springs Clerks Office Serves As Department of Public Affairs & Communications Publishes Business Watch Brochure

In Holly Springs, the Town Clerk’s office is the “public affairs” part of the Holly Springs Department of Public Affairs & Communications, a multi-faceted department in charge of everything from Council minutes to the town’s government access cable television channel, HSTV-11. Our department, headed by me, takes care of Council administrative services; municipal records; historical records and family histories and certain special events in our public affairs division.  In addition, our department manages all external communications of the town through the Web site, the television channel, press releases and printed brochures and other publications.

We are highly visible, and we like the fact that we have evolved into the point of contact for the public get their information.  While no one in any organization is indispensable, we’re close!  We work to support the communications needs of all town departments, and we try to meet our residents’ demands for information that is important to them.  That makes us important to a lot of people, and elected and management officials seem to recognize that and are supportive of our projects and ideas and are mostly supportive of our budget requests.

Business Watch is the result following a recent survey of town residents who said they want more communication from the Town on how the business/retail community in Holly Springs is developing. Residents are very curious about what new businesses, restaurants and retail stores are coming to Holly Springs and when they will be opening.

To assist the town’s Economic Development Department in meeting this information need, I developed a  plan to publish a semi-annual brochure called Holly Springs Business Watch highlighting the latest economic updates and news regarding non-residential development in Holly Springs. Projects were identified, and a four-page newsletter-style publication was designed containing the latest news about those projects. 

Since the publication would be available starting at the beginning of the calendar year, 2,000 were packaged for distribution along with the 2010 town calendar and made available to residents at town facilities. Many residents look forward to receiving a town calendar, an annual publication that has an established audience. By including the publication inside the calendar, we knew a large audience would be reached effectively.  We reached the remaining 6,000 households in our community via other non-print outlets.

Feedback from residents and local businesses regarding Business Watch has been overwhelming. Originally made available only at town facilities, the Business Watch brochures have been requested by organizations and businesses to offer their members and patrons at their individual locations.

Since we cross-promote whenever possible, we included an electronic version of Business Watch on the town Web site, which in turn was referenced by a link in the town’s eNews electronic newsletter.  Our electronic newsletter data reports show that among all the links in that issue of eNews, the link to Business Watch was the most clicked link with 27.2% of the clicks.

In summary, I believe our success with Business Watch is indicative of how we have used our staff member strengths in other professional fields to transform the clerk’s office into one that supports all town departments and not just the Town Council.  In the process, we have gained the respect of those departments and the public we serve.

The Holly Springs Department of Public Affairs & Communications is made up of Town Clerk / Director Joni Powell, who manages the personnel, budgets, guides communications projects, produces television content and performs traditional clerk duties; Deputy Town Clerk Linda Harper, who assists with clerk duties and records and office management; Public Information Officer Mark Andrews, who oversees the Town’s Web site, issues press releases and serves as the news media contact; Public Information Assistant Barb Koblich, who collects and preserves family histories, mans the front information desk and provides support for the town’s and HSTV-11’s Facebook pages; and a communications specialist position, which currently is vacant.