City looking to hire a public relations firm

With only a few weeks left at the job, outgoing City Manager Glenn Steckman presented a host of requests for proposals to the Nome Common Council last Monday of things to be done prior to his departure: RFP’s for renovation and wiring projects for city facilities, for towing services of wrecked and dilapidated vehicles and, most importantly, the hiring of a public relations firm with the task of assisting the city to stem the tide of misinformation on social media.
Steckman alluded to complaints on social media that the police is not acting decisively when persons are missing. He held up a paper with the police department’s missing persons protocol and said that it was followed, contrary to assertions made on Facebook. He said, Nome police learned on social media of a lady having been missing for four days. Police went looking for her, search and rescue became involved and altogether 18 people were searching.
The person was found, but social media allegations of inaction left city employees reeling, Steckman said.
“We need assistance to get our story out,” Steckman said. “There's so much false narrative out there that it makes it very difficult for the morale —not only in the police department — but the morale in the other city departments; morale was on the floor a week ago to the point where we ended up postponing National Night Out because people just didn't want to participate at that particular time because of the amount of falsehoods that were running through social media.”
“Social media up here is doing real harm,” Steckman said. “It’s hurting the city employees. I will tell you, people don’t understand this, when people want to look at locating up here, one of the things they look at is social media. And while it may be sport up here to tear people apart on social media, it doesn't play well with who might be looking at investing in Nome.”
With only a few action items in front of them, the Nome Common Council voted to grant the first two property tax exemptions based on an ordinance enacted in 2022 that aims to incentivize the creation of new housing by restoring older structures. Council member Scot Henderson said the ordinance needed certain amendments so that the exemptions can be done administratively without council approval and need to do away with language that requires the renovated buildings to be in designated areas of town and the requirement that they are on a list of deteriorated nuisance structures.
Mayor John Handeland brought to the council the longstanding dissatisfaction with the U.S. Postal Service which requires burdensome proof of residency for the post office box rentals. While local employees follow procedure, Handeland said, the accumulation of issues gets to the point where he’s looking for intervention from the congressional delegation. “The fact that we can’t get our mail, that they’re returning packages and the outrageous, whatever word for this verification stuff that people have to go through, to go get their deed to their house and cross reference it to a tax bill and all that stuff, I mean, it’s crazy,” Handeland said. A rumor started on social media that the U.S. post office in Nome was to move proved to be wrong as well. USPS spokesman James Boxrud told the Nugget that it was not true and that there are no plans afoot to move the Nome post office from its current location on Front Street.
 In other news, Councilmember Henderson introduced KNOM’s General Manager Miranda Musich, a fellow board member at the Chamber of Commerce, and KNOM’s news director Ben Townsend as they transmitted the meeting live from the Richard Foster Building.
The Chamber is sponsoring KNOM to live broadcast Nome Common Council meetings on YouTube and Facebook, with the intent to widen the broadcasts to other city commission and NJUS meetings.