Woodstock hires firm to communications about Route 47 widening

Woodstock will hire an outside firm to help handle communications and other related tasks for the Route 47 widening project.

The City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday to approve a contract with Downers Grove-based Metro Strategies.

Council member Gregg Hanson was the only one who voted no; Mayor Mike Turner and Council member Melissa McMahon were absent. Council members Bob Seegers, Tom Nierman, Natalie Ziemba and Darrin Flynn voted yes.

Hanson said he wasn’t worried about who the contractor was or the dollar amount of the contract, but he said he wanted “some sort of restraint in spending.”

He said Woodstock has the most people in its marketing and communications department of any McHenry County municipality and said it seemed “odd” the city couldn’t do the work in-house. He added he wants the city to control its narrative, and doesn’t want an outside entity to develop a logo or have a website separate from the city’s website.

“These are all things that I think that could be easily done and show some restraint on that. We have eight months. It’s a consequential project,” Hanson said.

Nierman said the more he learned about the contract, he thought it “made sense.” He said his business is outside city limits, but the Route 47 project will still affect him.

“It’s going to affect the whole 60098 and some of the surrounding areas. I’d like to make sure that we do make a full reach out to just about every business in this area because it’s going to affect quite a few people,” Nierman said, referring to the ZIP code that covers Woodstock and much of the surrounding area.

Ziemba said the city needed outside help and that, if the city hired someone and added to the headcount, the City Council would deny the request.

“I would rather spend the money in this effective way to get this project now done to support not only our residents during this project but also the businesses along that really critical business corridor,” Ziemba said.

Flynn said it was a “sound investment” in his view.

City staff responded to Hanson, and economic development director Jessica Erickson said the city has learned over time that kind of communication is very specialized, and none of the marketing people on staff had the needed skillset. Even if someone did, the amount of time and effort to coordinate things over the expected 2½-year time frame of the project would take that person away from their day-to-day duties.

Erickson added that Woodstock reached out to other communities about how they handled large infrastructure projects.

“Without fail, the communities that we’ve talked to that worked with Metro Strategies have said that it was worth every penny,” Erickson said.

Executive Director of Business Development Danielle Gulli said the city has a three-person marketing team for city-related projects and one person for Real Woodstock.

Gulli said the department did some restructuring in the past year, and pressure was high in the department, and the city might have lost people because of workload levels.

“We thought long and hard about this before moving this before Council,” Gulli said, adding the city didn’t think it had the bandwidth to do the work internally and be successful.

Tammy Wierciak, a principal at Metro Strategies, told the City Council that the firm’s job is taking complex terms and making them easy to understand and making sure the public knows about things like detour routes, parking information and garbage pickup information.

Wierciak said many of the updates happen quickly, and that’s one reason the company suggests a separate website.

In response to a question from Seegers about construction companies being open with them, Wierciak said the firm becomes “very integrated” with the construction team and “the more people know, the less they’re going to be onsite yelling at their contractors.”

The contract is for $49,500 and will be paid for over this fiscal year and the next two fiscal years, according to city documents. Among the tasks the firm will handle are developing a project logo and style guide, planning and facilitating a public kickoff meeting, providing bi-weekly construction updates and creating detour maps, construction timelines and project infographics.

After a yearlong delay, Woodstock officials have said the project’s construction is expected to start next year. The roadwork is expected to run through the end of 2028, according to the city’s website.