The City of Goleta was once again honored for doing more with less through its Nextdoor.com program. 3CMA, the nationwide City-County Communications & Marketing Association presented the Silver Circle award to Valerie Kushnerov, the City’s Public Information Officer, at its annual conference last week. The award was given in the category of “Most Creative Activity with Least Dollars Spent”. This highly competitive process saw over 500 entries for 30 awards.

“I am delighted to see Goleta being recognized once again for good stewardship with public funds. I am proud of the creative work by our staff to educate and inform our community,” said Mayor Roger Aceves. “Goleta is one of a handful of cities its size that funds a Public Information Officer position and I believe that this award confirms the on-going benefit we receive from that investment.”

With nearly 20% of the City’s households participating in the program, Goleta sees it as a great tool for its residents. The program was implemented for just $320 plus staff time. This equates to less than a penny per resident and a nickel per household.

The judges said, “Goleta did a great job maximizing the Nextdoor.com tool and came out with a successful program to connect neighborhoods. [It was a] good use of partnerships and traditional and social media to promote this form of communication between residents and residents and the city. The competition between neighborhoods for an ice cream social was a neat way to spur participation in Nextdoor.com. Great success overall!”

“Goleta did an amazing job rolling out and implementing Nextdoor. The city immediately understood that Nextdoor could create more connected and safer neighborhoods in an extremely cost efficient way,” said Sarah Leary, Co-Founder and Vice President of Marketing at Nextdoor.

Goleta received an Award of Excellence earlier this year from the California Association of Public Information Officers in the “dollar stretcher” category for the Nextdoor program.

For more information about Goleta’s Nextdoor program, contact Valerie Kushnerov, Public Information Officer, at 805-961-7507. To join Nextdoor, go to www.Nextdoor.com.

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