Hull council reaching out to residents

“We’ve got to come up with some ways to better promote our city to the residents within our community,” said Melton. “We have to take steps of becoming more family oriented with our community and everyone in it.”

Becky Elkins asked Melton for his proposed ideas.

“How exactly do you suggest we go about doing this?” she asked.

Melton listed a few ideas.

“We could start by sending out a city newsletter to our residents to keep them involved and informed on what we’re doing within the city,” he said. “And we also need to reach out to the registered voters to let them know that we do in fact have a city government.”

Elkins questioned how the outreach could be afforded.

“Where will we get the money to do these community outreach projects?” she asked. “As a city we don’t have too much that we can actually spend.”

Paige Phillips revealed some cost-efficient means of reaching out.

“We can find inexpensive ways to contribute to the city,” said Phillips. “Whether it’s helping the fire department with their chicken BBQ’s or providing hot chocolate at city festivals.”

Melton offered additional thoughts regarding the issue.

“Anything like that will help,” said Melton. “We need to make our fire department feel more at home here, and also eventually get back to where we can hold city festivals and parades for our community.”

Elkins said more manpower is needed.

“We need more community involvement and volunteers before things like this can even be done,” she said. “It takes a lot of effort to put together these community festivals and events.”

Melton offered something he believed needed to be considered.

“We’ve got to build this group as a collective city, or else we might as well turn everything over to the county,” he said.

Mayor Elkins issued an assignment for the council members prior to their next meeting.

“This is certainly the direction we need to go, but we need to come up with some solid ideas of how we want to do it,” said Elkins. “We all need to draft two or three items that we think should be placed into this city newsletter, and we’ll review them at our next meeting.”