City amends social media policy

WAHOO – It took only seven minutes for the Wahoo City Council to get through its agenda last week.

The council amended a policy, passed an ordinance, heard department head reports and passed the consent agenda during the abbreviated meeting on Jan. 9.

The council amended its social media policy to address monitoring and ownership. City Administrator Melissa Harrell said she recently read an article about social media and determined the city’s policy needed to be updated.

The policy was originally adopted February 2016 to set guidelines for social media use by city personnel to distribute time-sensitive information, market and promote the city and gather comments and input.

The amendment establishes that posted content will be monitored and that any social networking site is owned by the City of Wahoo. The ownership of user names and passwords are also in the city’s possession, not the employee who does the work, Harrell told the council.

“It is to make sure the city owns any of the product that is put out on social media sites by our staff,” Harrell said.