PlaceSpeak expands into California with first consultation in Encinitas
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The City of Encinitas has become the first city in California to utilize PlaceSpeak, an award-winning location-based smart cities civic engagement platform, for consulting with residents and key stakeholders on an ongoing basis.
Encinitas selected PlaceSpeak for its unique geo-verification technology, which ensures that participants are real people who live within the City’s geographical boundaries. This allows the City to engage specifically with residents, and acts as an effective deterrent to trolling, spamming, and other inappropriate online behaviour. In doing so, PlaceSpeak facilitates the collection of defensible feedback data and increases confidence in the public input process.
“We want to make sure that every person that wants to be heard can be heard and are pleased to have another method for listening to our residents and businesses,” said Karen Brust, city manager of the City of Encinitas. “PlaceSpeak is a simple platform that allows verified members of our community to reach us and provide much needed and valued input on the decisions that we make every day. Whether it’s a project that is close to completion or one that is just getting started, we’re looking forward to hearing what residents have to say, whenever they want to say it.”
To start familiarizing residents with the platform, the City has launched an initial topic where participants can voice their opinions on their favourite beach in Encinitas and their preferred ways to receive information from the City.
“Residents and community leaders in the City of Encinitas wanted to ensure any online consultation was as convenient and credible as possible,” said PlaceSpeak founder and CEO, Colleen Hardwick. “PlaceSpeak has been specifically designed to ensure that participants are real people that reside within jurisdictional boundaries.”
To start participating, visit http://placespeak.com/encinitas.
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About PlaceSpeak
PlaceSpeak is a pioneering location-based citizen engagement platform that solves the problem of how to consult with people online within specific geographical boundaries. Developed with the support of the National Research Council of Canada, PlaceSpeak has expanded across Canada, into the USA, Northern Ireland, UK and Tasmania, Australia. For more information, please visit http://placespeak.com.
About City of Encinitas
Located along six miles of Pacific coastline in northern San Diego County, Encinitas has an approximate population of 60,000 and is characterized by coastal beaches, cliffs, flat-topped coastal areas, steep mesa bluffs and rolling hills. Our city was incorporated in 1986, drawing together the communities of New Encinitas, Old Encinitas, Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Olivenhain and Leucadia.
Media Contacts:
Mary Leong
Communications Manager, PlaceSpeak Inc.
604-336-6977
[email protected]
Julie Wright
(W)right On Communications
858-755-5411 ex. 8
[email protected]
