2MC Podcast Eps 77 - Information Central!

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MAK
Hi everybody. I'm MAK

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Courtney
and I'm Courtney. Welcome back to two MC.

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MAK
We're in the studio today talking to you about all things Martin County.

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Courtney
Yes, yes we are, we are.

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MAK
We want to jump in. What have we got?

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Courtney
Okay. So we do have a board meeting coming up next week.

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MAK
Agenda is available online.

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Courtney
It is. Yes. And I we thought it might be a good time to just kind of talk about some ways that you residents, our listeners.

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Courtney
Yes could get involved. Stay informed. All of that kind of jazz. Yeah. This is one way, this is one way. But there are so many different ways that you can do that. It's really open government at its best. Yes. So one of those ways that we like to share information, especially towards the end of our year, is by creating our annual report.

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Courtney
And so that annual report is something that gets introduced at the state of the county, and it kind of just goes through the things that the county has done that throughout the year for the benefit of the residents.

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MAK
Right. All the different departments, ways that we're serving the community through different, different categories. Right? Yeah. And so we did it differently this time.

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Courtney
We did. It's a digital version. You can check it out. We will drop all. Everything we're going to talk about will be in the show notes. You guys can check it all out.

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MAK
But it really starts all on our website right. It does. Yeah. Right. Because it's like.

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MAK
The hub of information.

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Courtney
Yes I would say that is what a website is. One do I like sign like.

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MAK
You know, all the things, even the podcast. So you can find all the information.

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Courtney
And we do have, I have to say our search bar and our website is pretty nice. You could just know one word type that in and it's going to come up with whatever you're looking for. Yeah. And so with that we also have our RFS

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MAK
I love the RFS tool. This is something that we talk about to a lot of our residents. Request for service.

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Courtney
Is that right? Yeah okay. Yeah. So with that RFS system you can go in and you can request whatever kind of service.

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MAK
Even if you just have a question. It's not really like a request for service, but you have a question or you see a pothole or you saw a sign down, or you just don't even know if something that you saw is.

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Courtney
Right, that you just brought that up. Because also on our website we have a services web page, and on there it shows all the different things that you can do in RFS for it's real nice.

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MAK
I don't know if I knew that.

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Courtney
Well now you do. Okay.

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MAK
Thank you.

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Courtney
And then we also have our okay.

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MAK
One of my favorites.

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Courtney
Yes.

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MAK
Right.

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Courtney
Yes.

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MAK
When I share concern on social it's like one of the most, like, sought after.

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Courtney
Posts people want to know.

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MAK
Yeah. So it's like lane and sidewalk closures. It's work that's being done in the county, not necessarily county.

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Courtney
I would say. Yeah, it's more.

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MAK
Like it's like utilities or FPL doing lights or changing this. But there are things that you want to know about during your commute. Yeah. Right.

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Courtney
Yeah. Yeah. So we have that on our website. We also have the projects portal. Project this.

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MAK
And that is county projects. And also you can go to proposed development projects and you can learn a little bit more about.

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Courtney
Proposed projects.

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MAK
Yes. Yeah. Those are not county projects like right. But there's two different ways you can go in. So that's cool.

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Courtney
Yeah. And then I know we just had our budget workshop.

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MAK
One of them did.

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Courtney
And so this is kind of a really cool tool. It's the budget transparency tool.

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MAK
It is really neat. You can go in there and you can look at the information in the budget, and you can sort of drill down into how you want to see it, whether you want to look by the department or the bigger categories. And it's got these pie charts. Yeah. And bar charts.

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Courtney
Yep.

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MAK
They turn, they just change like that depending on what information you want to look at. I use it a lot.

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Courtney
Yeah. It's really it's honestly a.

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MAK
Great and the whole.

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Courtney
Budgets.

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MAK
On there too. It's like all I don't know 600 something pages.

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Courtney
You really want to dive into the budget.

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MAK
You can go chapter by chapter.

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Courtney
Yeah you can do that.

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MAK
We use that. We actually use that tool a lot. We've spent some time with our budget department and they have helped us learn how to navigate it. Yeah, yeah.

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Courtney
And then along with budget is we also have our CIP which.

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MAK
Is what's that.

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Courtney
Capital improvement plan.

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MAK
Yes.

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Courtney
And so that's kind of our bigger projects that are long term plan.

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MAK
Long term. And that that I think that starts in February really it's the very beginning of our budget planning. Or does that start in the end of the year?

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Courtney
Yep. It's part of the beginning of our budget planning.

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MAK
Process, beginning of our budget planning process. And and those have to be funded for five years. Right.

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Courtney
Yeah. And so that we have the whole CIP booklet on our website where you can check that out, see what projects could be coming up and whatnot.

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MAK
Yes.

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Courtney
And then another way to get information is our board meetings happen. But we do have the agendas that come out prior to the board meeting.

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MAK
Right.

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Courtney
And so that's a good way to know, like, okay, what's going on in the board meeting.

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MAK
Oh, this is something I might want to learn more about.

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Courtney
You can tune in and watch it if that's something you're interested in. Or if you wait till after the meeting, you could watch us.

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MAK
I would say that I think the one of the really cool tools about the meetings is once they're posted in MCTV on our website, is they're kind of categorized, so bookmarked. Almost bookmarked, if you will. Yes. So if you know this oh is it index. Is that what.

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Courtney
It's called. I think it's index okay.

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MAK
But if you know the specific item that you want to listen to, you can just go straight to that on the video. You don't have to kind of watch the whole thing.

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Courtney
Which we utilize that a lot. We do. Yes. And then we have our.

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MAK
County connection.

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Courtney
And that's.

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MAK
Our.

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Courtney
Weekly newsletter that goes out. It has not necessarily just count like Martin County information.

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MAK
Has like around the town and things that are going on, like maybe at the Elliott or House of refuge or.

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Courtney
Kind of like the local collaboration.

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MAK
Arts, art, things that are happening.

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Courtney
Yeah. So that's that's a really good that's a good sign.

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MAK
It comes out weekly on Fridays. Yeah. And just kind of gives you just all the information that is also in there. The cone zone thing is cool too. You know if you go to cones zone you can click on the map.

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Courtney
Yeah. It shows you a map of where that stuff.

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MAK
You can see all of it. So yeah, if it's hard to visualize the street in that street. We got a map. I like the map.

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Courtney
And then there's some different ways that you can kind of watch or learn or tune in on things. So we have our YouTube channel. We also have our social media platforms. So we have Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn X and all of those. All of those are areas where we're sharing information. Yeah, just.

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MAK
Just a lot of different ways that we're communicating and getting the information out, pushing it out, and then ways that you can actually access it on your own. Yes. Right.

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Courtney
And then I did want to add there are ways to like kind of be part of the conversation. And that's by joining a board or committee. I think those are always such a good.

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MAK
And we do. We frequently have openings. You can just apply for it. It's really easy. And they actually vote on it in the in the board meeting.

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Courtney
Yeah. And I think it's such a it's such a beneficial way. If you do want to get involved, your voice does get to be heard and you get to be a part of some of those conversations.

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MAK
Yeah. Even like even at the board meetings, there's an opportunity for public comment, you know, beginning and end of the meetings and also on specific items. So if you have a particular interest in a specific item, you can, you know, just submit a speaking request and you can speak on that. So I think there are a lot of ways to either get involved or just let your voice be heard.

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Courtney
Yeah for sure. And I did want to add so on our website there is a area called In the Spotlight.

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MAK
Yes.

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Courtney
And all of those items are typically kind of like the highlighted. Yeah. Like like highlights of what's going on. Pretty much like right now.

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MAK
Yeah. So like when I don't know.

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Courtney
Like if you're looking for information or something that's kind of like, like our.

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MAK
Very.

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Courtney
Topical orientation or surveys that we're looking to get people's response.

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MAK
Those are always highlighted in that spotlight section.

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Courtney
Or events that are coming up that are more county events. All of that's kind of in that area. So if you're ever just let me just check what's going on, you can look through that really quick.

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MAK
Yeah.

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Courtney
Yeah. And that's that's kind of all I got.

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MAK
That's it. It's a lot of I think it's a lot of different ways to find the information. I guess. I think it's available if you want to find it. And if you can't find it, you can always put in an.

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Courtney
That's true. That is very true. So yeah, I think our you know, Martin County, they want to be transparent and share the information as best as they can. And so that's how we have all these different platforms and why we utilize them. And so we appreciate you guys taking an interest in it.

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MAK
Yeah. And when people provide comments you know, even on social media, if you're providing a comment or if you're dropping a comment down on on the podcast, that might be a question that other people are interested in finding out, or it gives us an opportunity to say, oh, that's something that we could highlight in a future podcast or in a future social media post or whatever.

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MAK
Yeah. So or maybe that's a presentation that needs to come up to the board in the board meeting. So yeah, let your voice be heard.

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Courtney
All right. Well, thank you guys for joining us on 2MC. Don't forget to like follow subscribe comment share all the above.

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MAK
Yeah get after it.

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Courtney
We'll see you guys next time.

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MAK
Bye bye.