Thursday, August 20, 2015

Ballard Uses Neighborhood Services to Shill For Blue Indy

The Ballard Administration is pushing out ads for Blue Indy's electric car rental for profit business.

Like many of you, I receive messages from my Mayor's Neighborhood Liaison that sometimes tell you about trash pickup schedules, neighborhood clean ups, public information meetings and other items of interest to residents and neighborhoods.

Yesterday I got one from "Mayor's Neighborhood Services" and it contained an ad for Blue Indy.  When I posted on Facebook about it, Ted Dobracki mentioned it was the second one.  So I scrolled back through my not-yet-deleted emails, and sure enough, I had received an ad for Blue Indy in an email blast from my MNL on Tuesday as well.

This isn't right, guys.  These email communications are supposed to be for government business, not ads for companies.

The Tuesday ad was brief and followed by a note on the rise in stormwater drainage fee - which is where my attention was drawn.


Yesterday's ad was more glossy and came after information about a grant  opportunity for neighborhoods :



The blast list must be enormous.  Not to mention the further reach effected when public officials and neighborhood folks forward Neighborhood Services' emails to others.  It has actual monetary value to advertisers.

This misuse of taxpayer funded communications needs to stop.  Hopefully this will be the last ad I get from the City government.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Probably has monetary value to the city, too.
As in "this email blast is sponsored by BlueIndy."

Had Enough Indy? said...

I don't have enough confidence that the city would charge for the ad space.

CorrND said...

I certainly have problems with Blue Indy, but the city is invested in and can technically profit from Blue Indy -- admittedly way down the list after Bollore recoups their investment, etc -- so it's entirely appropriate for the city to advertise it.