Casper reflects on transparency goals

It’s been about five months since Rebecca Casper became Idaho Falls’ mayor. One of the points she highlighted in her campaign was transparency. Here’s what she’s says she’s doing to make what goes on at City Hall more transparent.

“‘Transparency’ is a buzz word that’s going around that everyone and their brother is talking about, and we don’t know what that means, exactly,” she said.

Casper said one part of transparency is making it easier for the public to understand city government and better communicate with leaders.

Casper said agendas for city meetings have changed making it easier for the public to follow along.

“They contain more of the information that council is going to be addressing in any one meeting,” she said.

Casper says the city is also focusing on better communication.

“Messaging is more consistent. We’ve started to try to highlight and publicize city events,” she said.

Social media is one way to do that. In a recent national meeting, Casper attended, she saw something big cities used and is now thinking of implementing it in Idaho Falls.

“I was exposed to an app that San Diego County uses, another one that the City of Boston uses and a few others, but those two stick out as being tremendous assets,” said Casper.

The hope is with your cell phone, you would be able to report potholes, broken sprinklers and find out when public meetings happen.

The app for Idaho Falls is still in the early stages.

Casper also wanted to emphasize anyone can attend the City Council meetings to share thoughts on any issue in the first 15 minutes, which are dedicated to public input.