Strategies for Communicating Value to Consumers in Water and Sewer Utilities
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Introduction to New Jersey Future's webinar on communications strategies for water and sewer utilities, including a look at the dire need for new investment in New Jersey's urban water infrastructure and why that means utilities will have to communicate differently.
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Strategies for Communicating Value to Consumers in Water and Sewer Utilities
- 1. Communicating Value to Consumers: Strategies for Water and Sewer Utilities New Jersey Future May 14, 2015
- 2. About New Jersey Future Smart Growth research, policy, advocacy and assistance www.njfuture.org
- 4. Agenda • Introduction: Why Change? – Elaine Clisham, New Jersey Future • Case Study: What we do, and how we do it – Rick Dovey, Atlantic County Utilities Authority • Case Study: Building a Communications Strategy – Tiffany Ledesma, Philadelphia Water • Making the Media Your Friend – Elizabeth Ruebman, Amplify, Inc. • Questions
- 5. WHY CHANGE? Isn’t the way we currently communicate good enough?
- 6. Consumers’ Experience of Us
- 7. Why We Must Invest
- 8. Why We Must Invest
- 9. How a CSO Works
- 10. Profile of New Jersey CSO Cities • Most are “small” – 60,000 residents or fewer • All are older, with very old infrastructure • Many are distressed, with large numbers of residents earning well below the statewide median income • Many have declining property tax bases, making it difficult to find ways to finance infrastructure upgrades that won’t burden residents • Most have begun to grow again!
- 12. NEXT UP: Rick Dovey, Atlantic County Utilities Authority
- 13. QUESTIONS?
- 14. THANK YOU! We will email all participants with links to the webinar and the presentations as soon as they’re available. GET IN TOUCH Chris Sturm, Senior Director of State Policy 609-393-0008 ext. 114 or csturm@njfuture.org Jane Rosenblatt, Planning and Policy Associate 609-393-0008 ext. 110 or jrosenblatt@njfuture.org RESOURCES http://njfuture.org/water
Editor's Notes
- Good afternoon – let’s get started. RECORD Introduce/Welcome
- About us What happens in New Jersey’s cities is of great concern to us, and as I’ll explain later, we are heavily involved in working with cities to take advantage of opportunities to upgrade water infrastructure.
- Rough idea of how the next hour is going to go. We are recording this, so it will be online for you to refer back to. Speaker bios are on the event page on our website; they will introduce themselves more fully at the beginning of their portions. Questions via chat – please submit at any time, and we’ll take as many of them as possible at the end Pop-up windows are movable
- Most customers take us for granted! Not true of everyone, but for many of us, we talk to our customers only when: We raise rates They have billing problems There are service problems Current environment: Distrust of government Broken faith – rates keep going up, things don’t get any better Perception that the water system works OK; why fix if it isn’t broken? Growing trend toward wanting things without paying for them Ignorance of what is involved in delivering clean water, removing wastewater
- American Society of Civil Engineers Infrastructure Report Card
- Facing Our Future report on needs and costs -- $9.3 billion for combined-sewer overflows alone Behind the rest of the country on CSO remediation: 859 cities nationwide have or had CSO systems 775 have addressed their CSO problems; 84 have yet to do so; 21 of those cities are in New Jersey New DEP permits require action; estimated cost: $4 – 13 billion
- Who we are State’s land-use watchdog: Where and how should we grow? Why we’re involved New Jersey’s future growth will take place in its cities; the health of the cities determines the health of the state Very diverse set of people and organizations have a stake in this issue; we bring them all to the same table What we’ve done Grant to work with cities on taking advantage of this opportunity Ripple Effects, other reports Convened thought leaders from broad cross-section of perspectives Agenda for Change – including education on things like communication; this webinar is part of that Newsletter; sign up on our urban water resources page http://njfuture.org/water
- Thanks for attending; HUGE thanks to speakers Webinar link will be emailed