Confirm Council Direction for the Ramsey Resident in 2016

As part of the preliminary 2016 budget for the City of Ramsey, an increase of about $16,000 was made to the Ramsey Resident line item.  Said increase in budget would allow the City to return back to six full-size color issues of the Ramsey Resident (see table below).  Staff brought forward this potential change as a result of feedback from the City's bi-annual resident survey.  Please see attached survey results, page 10.  In summary, the Ramsey Resident is the highest rated source of information for our citizens.
 

	2012	2013-2015	2016
full size color issues	6	4	6
short black/ white issues	0	2	0
Total issues	6	6	6

 
PURPOSE:
Confirm Council direction to move forward with six full size, color, issues for the 2016 Ramsey Resident. 

Why? Planning/ coordination/ ad sales/ writing articles for the 2016 January/February Ramsey Resident will take place BEFORE final adoption of the 2016 budget/ levy for the City.  If the Council does not move forward with six full-sized, color issues as part of the 2016 budget/ levy--the January/February Ramsey Resident will remain black/ white (which will drastically change coordination for staff).  As a result of the conflicting timelines, Staff would request Council direction on this item now.

The Council can defer this decision until final budget approval in December and implement the full-sized version later in the year.  That is, the January-February version would go out as a short black & white issue.

10 minutes or less

2016 General Fund

Patrick Brama, Nichole Wenberg, Kathy Schmitz

Confirm Council Direction on Ramsey Resident in 2016