BELLEVUE, Idaho — The City of Bellevue is taking a throwback approach to a modern problem: getting residents to actually respond to community surveys.
Rather than relying only on online forms or traditional mailers, Bellevue has introduced what it calls the "Plan Phone" — a pre-recorded phone line that prompts residents to leave their thoughts on topics tied to the city's comprehensive plan update.
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"The Plan Phone is a pre-recorded message. It's more or less an answering machine that people will be given a prompt, and then they can tell us their thoughts about whatever the topic is," Community Development Director Brian Parker explained.
Each month, the phone focuses on one of five core initiatives from the comprehensive plan: stewardship of nature, gathering and sense of community, quality of infrastructure, opportunities to live and work, and diverse and accommodating.
The phone is relocated each week to a different location within the city where one of those five focus areas is best represented. It started about a month ago outside a local market, then moved to the city park, and now sits at the bottom of the Howard Preserve.
Callers who pick up the phone are greeted by a bilingual prompt in both English and Spanish. The current message asks residents about stewardship of nature and public spaces. After the beep, they leave their response.
Parker said he got the idea from a former graduate school friend who tried a similar concept in Great Falls, Montana. With Bellevue's smaller population, he figured the city was a good fit to give it a try.
Parker said the response so far has been slow but encouraging.
"A lot of folks pick up and are curious about it— and some of them have thoughts, and leave them behind, and some of them just hung up and walked away," Parker said.
Parker noted that residents are not limited to the monthly prompt. Anyone with a separate issue or idea for the city is welcome to share that as well. Callers can leave their name or remain anonymous.
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