City Councilman Warren Cooksey recently held his weekly meeting this morning at the Ballantyne Hotel, but with a twist. This week he invited several representatives from the social media scene to discuss the benefits and best practices of this emerging market. 25 people from the Charlotte area turned out to be part of the discussion.
Councilman Cooksey reported that this Monday will be the last meeting of the current board with Mayor Pat McCrorey. First up on the agenda were cases of potential sponsorships for the city, including the recent Coca-Cola recycling project. All new sponsorship deals will be approved by the City Manager if is worth less than $100,000 and anything over that threshhold will have to be approved by the council as a whole.
Another project that was announced was that the Highway 51 fiber optic traffic signal project will be funded with $600,000 in stimulus money. Councilman Cooksey voted against this project. In other roads information, the new traffic signal at Bevington and Elmstone has been installed (previously reported by Ballantyne Scoop) and another one has been approved for Highway 521 and Ballantyne Crossing. Rea Road is also slated to be widened between Colony Road and Highway 51.
Lastly, the Councilman reported that the City Manager was awarded a $16,000 bonus this year and it was approved by a 10-2 vote. According to the Councilman, this bonus is the same the City Manager received last year so his salary was equal to that of last year.
After the briefing on the council’s activities, the social media forum began. If you are new to this arena, then one certainly took a lot away from this meeting. The primary focus was on social media in political campaigns, however the discussion quickly fell into other areas such how to use it for businesses. For a meeting that usually breaks by 8:30, this meeting ran longer. This discussion was rich with lively conversation that went almost two hours.
During the social media discussion, many members of the group were “tweeting” about the comments. While there were some conflicting views as to whether social media can make or break a campaign, it is certainly something that will have to be considered for all moving forward.
Councilman Warren Cooksey hosts weekly meetings at Ballantyne Hotel each Friday morning at 7:30am and his tweets are available @Wcooksey.
