Communications & Public Relations

The umbrella document the rest of this phase implements: who the Council is actually trying to reach (beach users, immediate neighbors, longtime drummers and tradition-bearers, accessibility advocates, prospective members and donors, CPD, and elected offices), what core messages it repeats consistently (independent advisory body, not CPD; supports and does not control the beach's existing culture; transparent by choice), which channels carry which messages, who's responsible for each channel, and the accessibility/language commitments that apply across all of it.

Audience-by-audience approach

• Beach users and immediate neighbors. Practical, beach-season information first (facilities, accessibility, stewardship opportunities); Council governance content second. Meet people where they already are — on-site signage/flyers and word of mouth matter as much as digital channels here.
• Longtime drummers and tradition-bearers. Never the target of a marketing push; a relationship maintained through direct, ongoing conversation per the Cultural Stewardship Protocol (Phase 8, 8-21), not a communications campaign.
• Prospective members, donors, and volunteers. Clear, low-friction calls to action (join, volunteer, donate) paired with visible transparency (published minutes, financial reports) that gives a stranger a reason to trust a brand-new, not-yet-CPD-recognized organization.
• CPD and elected offices. Formal, accurate, and never presumptive of authority the Council doesn't have — every message to this audience is reviewed against the Independent-PAC Public Disclaimer (9-06) before it goes out.

Message discipline matters more than message volume: the three core messages above (independent, supportive-not-controlling, voluntarily transparent) should be recognizable in nearly everything the Council publishes, the same way a small nonprofit's mission statement should be recognizable in its annual report.

Channel ownership

Each channel has exactly one owning role, so nobody assumes someone else is handling it: the website and this document library (Secretary and Communications Committee jointly, per the Website Governance Policy, 9-10); social media accounts (Communications Committee, per the Social Media Policy, 9-07); email/newsletter (Communications Committee, per 9-13); physical signage and on-site flyers at the beach (Stewardship Committee for beach-condition postings, Communications for everything else); press and media (the designated spokesperson alone, per the Media Relations/Spokesperson Policy, 9-16); and direct, relationship-based contact with drumming tradition-bearers (the Cultural Stewardship liaison named in 8-21, never a general Communications volunteer). A message that needs to go out on more than one channel is coordinated through the Communications Committee so the wording stays consistent across all of them, rather than drifting as each channel owner paraphrases independently.

Crisis communications are activated under a separate, faster-moving process (9-18) rather than run through this Strategy's ordinary planning cadence — this document governs steady-state communications, not incident response. This Strategy itself is reviewed annually by the Communications Committee alongside the Annual Communications Plan (9-02), and revisited immediately, out of cycle, if Gate 0 resolves (Phase 0) or the Council's name/branding changes, since either event changes what "accurate" messaging actually says.

Turns the Communications Strategy (9-01) into a working annual schedule the Committee actually executes against, rather than a strategy document nobody revisits until next year. Built each January alongside the Annual Meeting Calendar (Phase 6, 6-09) and Annual Operations Calendar (Phase 6, 6-21), so communications work is planned against the same year the rest of the Council is planning around, not bolted on separately.

Each entry gets an owner, a target publish date, and the channel(s) it runs on (website, email, social, physical posting); the Committee reviews the calendar at each regular meeting and flags anything falling behind before it becomes a missed deadline rather than after.

Not finalized until the Official Name & Naming Consistency Memo (Phase 0, G0-09) and Gate 0 itself are resolved — a brand built around a name or status that later changes is wasted work. Once ready, this guide covers:

• Name and wordmark. How "63rd Street Beach Park Advisory Council" and its public-facing name "Bongo Beach PAC" are used together consistently, and how both relate to the Independent-PAC Public Disclaimer (9-06).
• Logo usage. Cross-references the Logo Usage Policy (9-04) rather than duplicating it.
• Color palette and typography. Drawn from this document library's own existing visual system (navy, culture red, community green, lakefront blue, legacy orange, sand) so the Council's print and social materials feel like the same organization as this site, not a disconnected rebrand.
• Photography style. Respectful, not stock-generic — real 63rd Street Beach imagery (the Beach House, the dunes, the accessible walk, community events) rather than interchangeable stock-photo beach scenes, and never repurposed cultural-tradition imagery without the consent the Cultural Programming Policy (Phase 8, 8-20) requires.
• Tone of voice. Plain-language and community-facing, never bureaucratic — this document library's own writing style (direct, specific, willing to say "we don't know yet") is the model, not corporate boilerplate.
• Accessibility. The same contrast/legibility standards required in the Digital Accessibility Standard (9-23) apply to every printed and digital brand asset, not just the website.

Only the Communications Committee (or its designee) issues the Council's logo files; partners and sponsors seeking to co-brand something (an event flyer, a sponsor's own materials referencing the Council) submit a request and receive approved, unaltered artwork rather than recreating the mark themselves.

Rules for third-party use

1. No third party may modify the mark's proportions, colors, or elements.
2. No third party may combine the mark with their own logo, tagline, or product in a way that implies a formal partnership beyond what's actually agreed.
3. No use may imply Chicago Park District affiliation or endorsement, consistent with the CPD Name/Logo/Affiliation Usage Standard (9-05) — this is a stricter rule for the Council's own mark, applied the same way CPD applies it to its own.
4. Sponsor/partner placements follow the sizing and placement tiers set in the Sponsor/Partner Recognition Style Sheet (9-29), not ad hoc negotiation each time.
5. Any request outside these rules requires written approval from the Communications Committee before use, not after the fact.

Approved logo files (multiple formats/sizes) are maintained in the Digital Governance Repository (Phase 6, 6-02) so a requester always receives the current, correct version rather than an outdated one someone had saved locally.

Practically, this means: no Council flyer, social post, or fundraising appeal uses CPD's seal or wordmark; no headline or subject line reads as if CPD itself is speaking; and any material naming a specific CPD facility, program, or staff title (Park Supervisor, Area Manager, the Department of Legislative and Community Affairs) states it as a factual reference to CPD's own program, not as if the Council speaks with CPD's authority.

Compliant vs. non-compliant phrasing, concretely

• Compliant: "A proposed community initiative focused on 63rd Street Beach, a Chicago Park District facility." Non-compliant: "A Chicago Park District beach council" or any phrasing that reads as an official CPD program name.
• Compliant: reproducing CPD's own posted swim-advisory language with a source link and date. Non-compliant: paraphrasing that advisory in the Council's own words, even if well-intentioned, since a paraphrase can subtly change what CPD actually said (see 7-18).
• Compliant: "We have requested a meeting with CPD's Department of Legislative and Community Affairs." Non-compliant: implying that meeting has already produced a CPD decision or commitment it hasn't.

Before any new template, sign, or ad references CPD by name, the Communications Committee checks it against this standard and against the Independent-PAC Public Disclaimer (9-06) in the same review pass — this is a required gate, not a courtesy check, and nothing referencing CPD publishes without it. If a violation is discovered after publication (a volunteer posts something off-standard, an old flyer resurfaces), it is corrected or removed within the same day it's identified, logged the same way as a Misinformation/Correction Protocol event (9-20), and, if the error could plausibly have reached CPD staff directly, the CPD Liaison proactively flags it to CPD rather than waiting to be asked.

The actual standard language, used on the website footer, printed materials, sponsorship/partnership agreements, and anywhere else the Council's relationship to CPD needs stating plainly:

This exact language (or the current-recognition-status-updated version of it, once Gate 0 resolves) belongs on every page of this document library and every other public-facing Council page — it is the single most important sentence this whole Phase produces. Why it matters this much: without it, a reader (a beach visitor, a reporter, a CPD staff member forwarding a link internally) has no reliable way to tell this Council's own drafts and plans apart from something CPD has actually reviewed or approved, and that confusion is exactly the risk the Standard Independence Contract Clause (Phase 5, 5-40) and the CPD Name/Logo/Affiliation Usage Standard (9-05) are also built to prevent — this disclaimer is the public-facing half of that same protection.

Where it's required, at minimum

• The footer of every page of this site and any future Council website.
• The first page of any printed handout, flyer, or sponsorship deck.
• Any press release or media advisory boilerplate paragraph (9-15).
• Any partnership, sponsorship, or vendor agreement the Council signs.
• Any social media account's bio/about section (9-08), not just individual posts.

Verification, not just placement

Placing the disclaimer once when a page or template is created isn't sufficient on its own — the Communications Committee confirms it's still present and unaltered whenever that page or template is substantively revised, and the annual Website Content Inventory review (9-11) includes a specific check that every page still carries it. A page found missing it is corrected the same day it's discovered, not queued for "next update."

When Gate 0 resolves (Phase 0), this exact paragraph is the first document updated to reflect the Council's actual, confirmed status — the Communications Committee owns updating every page carrying it, tracked against the Website Content Inventory (9-11) so no page is missed, and the update itself is announced (per the Annual Communications Plan's channels, 9-02) rather than made silently, since the Council's changed status is itself news the community and CPD should hear clearly.

Accounts are institutional property, never a single volunteer's personal login, tracked in the Social Media Account Register (9-08) with the Council itself listed as the owner of record. Posting authority is limited to designated Communications Committee members and the President; no other officer, volunteer, or member posts on the Council's official accounts without that authorization, though anyone may of course speak in a personal capacity on their own accounts — provided they don't present themselves as speaking for the Council when they do.

Account lifecycle

A new platform or account is opened only after the Communications Committee approves it and the Technology Lead adds it to the Register (9-08) with institutional (not personal) recovery credentials from day one, per the Digital Access / Credential Management Policy (Phase 5, 5-37). When a Communications Committee member with posting access leaves that role, their individual access is revoked the same week — not left active "just in case" — and the Register is updated to reflect the current authorized list, checked at every officer transition (Phase 3, 3-28/3-29).

Standing rules

1. Corrections to factual errors are issued promptly and visibly (per the Misinformation/Correction Protocol, 9-20) rather than quietly edited away.
2. The Political Activity / Candidate Neutrality Policy (Phase 5, 5-31) applies to every post — no endorsement, implicit or explicit, of a candidate or partisan position.
3. Personal information about members, volunteers, or minors (names, photos, contact details) is never posted without documented consent, consistent with the Photography & Media Policy (9-21) and Photo/Video Release (Phase 8, 8-25).
4. Safety-adjacent posts follow the Emergency/Safety Post Approval Protocol (9-19), not ad hoc judgment in the moment.
5. Any reference to CPD by name is checked against the CPD Name/Logo/Affiliation Usage Standard (9-05) before posting, not after.
6. Posts are archived per the Communications Archive procedure (9-27) rather than lost when a platform changes its retention rules or shuts down.

A volunteer who posts on an official account without authorization, or violates one of these standing rules, is addressed first as a training gap (a reminder of the policy and, where needed, a temporary hold on access) — repeated or deliberate violations are handled as a conduct matter under the Supplemental Member Code of Conduct (Phase 5, 5-25), not left to the Communications Committee to resolve informally.

Maintained by the Technology Lead alongside the Digital Access / Credential Management Policy (Phase 5, 5-37); reviewed at every officer transition (Phase 3, 3-28/3-29) so account access never lapses to a former officer's personal device or memory alone.

Spam, threats, and harassment are removed on sight; substantive disagreement and criticism of the Council are not, and are never removed simply for being unflattering. Moderation decisions apply the same standard regardless of the commenter's viewpoint — a rule stated explicitly here precisely so it can be pointed to if anyone alleges otherwise.

What gets removed

• Threats, harassment, or targeted abuse of any person.
• Spam, scams, or commercial solicitation unrelated to Council business.
• Content that discloses another person's private information without consent.

What does not get removed, even if unwelcome

• Criticism of the Council, its officers, or its decisions.
• Disagreement with Council positions or priorities.
• Questions the Council would rather not answer.

Any removal decision made by a designated moderator is logged (who, what, when, why) so the Committee can review moderation patterns periodically and catch any drift toward viewpoint-based removal before it becomes a real problem.

This is not a hypothetical future website — it's this document library and the rest of the bbpac site already live at selassiefest.com/bbpac/. This policy names who owns editorial authority over it, sets the standards it must meet, and defines how it's kept accurate over time.

Editorial authority

• The Secretary owns governance content accuracy (this document library, meeting records, bylaws/policy pages) per the Records/Transparency duties in Bylaws Article 19.
• The Communications Committee owns public-facing pages (events, programming, member-facing content).
• Anything referencing CPD by name requires joint sign-off against the CPD Name/Logo/Affiliation Usage Standard (9-05) before publishing.

Standards it must meet

The Digital Accessibility Standard (9-23); the privacy commitments in the Privacy Notice (9-25); the archive/backup relationship to the Digital Governance Repository (Phase 6, 6-02), so the site is never the only copy of anything important; and the Cybersecurity Policy (Phase 5, 5-35), with the Technology Lead responsible for the site's technical security posture, credential management, and incident response if the site is ever compromised.

Keeping it accurate over time

Every page owner reviews their own section at least annually against the Website Content Inventory (9-11), checking specifically for: stale status language (a "Proposed" document that's since been adopted, or vice versa); broken or outdated internal links, since a library this cross-referenced (510 documents citing each other by ID) breaks quietly if a document is ever renumbered or removed; and continued accuracy of the Independent-PAC Public Disclaimer (9-06) and any CPD references against the current CPD Name/Logo/Affiliation Usage Standard (9-05). A page found materially wrong (not just stale, but actively misleading) is corrected the same day it's found, following the same urgency standard as the Misinformation/Correction Protocol (9-20).

If the site is ever compromised, defaced, or taken offline outside the Council's control, the Technology Lead follows the Data Breach / Cyber Incident Response Plan (Phase 5, 5-38) for containment and notification, while the Communications Committee follows the Crisis Communications Plan (9-18) for what, if anything, is said publicly about it in the meantime.

Prevents the site from silently accumulating stale, superseded, or orphaned pages — a real risk once a document library this size (510 documents across 12 phases) exists and keeps evolving.

Confirms the Meeting Notice Checklist & Proof-of-Posting File (Phase 6, 6-10) actually gets executed through every approved channel before each meeting, not just drafted and forgotten. For a regular meeting: website posting at least 14 days before, per current CPD notice requirements; any physical posting the current requirement calls for at the park; and, if the meeting is held virtually or hybrid, the agenda and prior minutes made available at least three days before, per Bylaws Article 13. For an emergency or special meeting: posting immediately upon the meeting being called, per the 48-hour minimum in Bylaws Article 12. The Communications Committee confirms each channel was actually used — not just scheduled — and logs the confirmation alongside the Proof-of-Posting File.

Subscribers opt in affirmatively — no adding people from a meeting sign-in sheet or membership application to the newsletter list without separate, explicit consent captured in the Mailing List Consent Record (9-14). Every email carries a working unsubscribe link, honored within a reasonable window (a common standard is 10 business days), and unsubscribes are never followed by continued sends "by accident."

Standing rules

• Only designated senders (Communications Committee, or the Secretary for official notices) send on the Council's behalf.
• Sponsor content, if any appears in a newsletter, is clearly labeled as sponsored, never presented as the Council's own editorial voice.
• Sent campaigns are retained per the Records Retention Schedule (Phase 5, 5-10) as part of the institutional communications record, not deleted from the sending platform once sent.
• Newsletter content is reviewed against the Digital Accessibility Standard (9-23) before sending.

The record that proves affirmative opt-in for every address on the list, referenced whenever the Email/Newsletter Policy (9-13) is questioned or audited.

Standard release format: headline; dateline (city, date); lede paragraph with the core news; supporting quotes from an authorized spokesperson (9-16); a boilerplate "About" paragraph incorporating the Independent-PAC Public Disclaimer language from 9-06 verbatim; and an approved media contact (name, email, phone) who is one of the people authorized under the Media Relations/Spokesperson Policy.

Every release states the Council's independent status in the same boilerplate paragraph every time, not left to whoever's drafting that day to remember or reword — consistency here is a compliance safeguard, not just a style preference. Draft releases are reviewed by the Communications Committee before distribution; anything mentioning CPD by name gets the same 9-05 review any other CPD-referencing material requires.

Names who is authorized to speak to media on the Council's behalf — ordinarily the President or a designated Communications Chair, never any volunteer acting alone, even with good intentions. Requires factual claims to be checked before going out, and draws a hard line the spokesperson does not cross: describing the Council's own plans, positions, and community priorities is fine; characterizing what CPD itself intends, decided, or will do is not — that belongs to CPD's own spokespeople, and a reporter should be redirected to CPD's Department of Legislative and Community Affairs for anything about CPD's own operations or decisions.

If a reporter contacts anyone other than the designated spokesperson, that person's job is to route the inquiry (logged in the Media Inquiry Log, 9-17) to the spokesperson, not to answer informally "off the record" — there is no truly off-the-record answer once a Council officer has spoken to press.

Activated for safety incidents, severe weather, financial or governance crises, or serious reputational events. Works alongside the Emergency Operations Plan (Phase 6, 6-27) and Crisis Management Plan (Phase 6, 6-28) — this document is specifically the public-communications piece of that broader response, not a duplicate of it.

Activation and authority

1. Any officer who becomes aware of a qualifying event notifies the President and Communications Chair immediately.
2. The President (or, if unavailable, the Vice President) has sole authority to approve the first public statement; no one else issues a Council statement about an active crisis independently.
3. Target time-to-first-response: a brief holding statement within 2 hours of activation acknowledging awareness, even if full facts aren't yet available — silence during the first hours of a visible incident is itself a communications failure.
4. Every safety-adjacent statement defers explicitly to CPD, police, fire, or other first-responder information rather than the Council improvising its own account of an unfolding incident — this plan produces a communications response, not an independent investigation or safety determination.

What a holding statement contains

Four elements only, deliberately short: (1) acknowledgment that the Council is aware of the situation; (2) a plain statement of what is and isn't yet known, without speculation; (3) a link or reference to the authoritative first-responder or CPD source, per the Misinformation/Correction Protocol's rule (9-20) about never guessing on CPD's behalf; and (4) where and when the next update will come. It is not the place for sympathy language crafted under time pressure, blame, or any legal characterization of what happened — those, if warranted at all, come later and only after review by the President and, for anything with potential legal exposure, Counsel.

Escalation tiers

Not every qualifying event needs the full sequence above at the same intensity. A contained, resolved-same-day incident (a minor injury, a brief facility closure) may only need a single factual update once resolved. A serious, ongoing, or reputationally significant event (a serious injury, a governance scandal, sustained negative media attention) follows the full holding-statement-then-updates cadence, with the President deciding update frequency based on how the situation is actually developing, not a fixed schedule. Any event involving potential legal liability is reviewed with Counsel before any public statement beyond the initial holding statement, consistent with the Fraud Prevention & Response Policy (Phase 4, 4-51) and Risk Management Policy (Phase 5, 5-42) where those are also triggered.

After the crisis resolves, a short after-action note is added to the Event Incident Report File (Phase 8, 8-43) or equivalent record, capturing what the Council's communications got right and wrong for the next time — specifically whether the 2-hour target was met, whether the holding statement held up as facts developed, and whether any correction was later needed.

Implements the Water Quality Public-Information Protocol and Beach Flag/Advisory Communication Checklist (Phase 7, 7-18/7-24): any post about a beach hazard or advisory reproduces CPD's own current information with a visible source and date, is approved by the Safety Committee before posting, and is updated or removed promptly once CPD's own information changes — a stale advisory left up after conditions change is arguably worse than no post at all. No Council post ever issues an original swim, water-quality, or hazard advisory independent of CPD's own information, consistent with the Swim/Rescue Non-Interference Policy (Phase 7, 7-28).

When the Council itself gets a fact wrong, it corrects the record visibly and promptly — a labeled correction added as a follow-up post or edit note, not a silent edit that erases the original error without acknowledgment. The correction states plainly what was wrong and what the accurate information is, and, on platforms that support it, is linked from the original post rather than left disconnected from the error it's fixing.

Severity and timing

A minor error (a typo, a wrong date that doesn't affect anyone's plans) is corrected at the next normal opportunity, no special process needed. A material error — one that could cause someone to show up at the wrong time, misunderstand a safety condition, or misjudge the Council's actual authority or status — is corrected the same day it's identified, following the same urgency standard used elsewhere in this phase for safety and disclaimer errors (9-05, 9-19). Whoever identifies the error (an officer, a volunteer, a member of the public) reports it to the Communications Committee immediately rather than waiting to see if someone else notices.

Rumors about CPD, not the Council

When a rumor or question circulates about actual CPD operations (not Council business) — a rumored closure, a rumored policy change, a rumored incident — the Council's role is to point people to the authoritative CPD source (the relevant CPD webpage, or a direct referral to the Park Supervisor/Area Manager or Department of Legislative and Community Affairs), not to guess, speculate, or "confirm" something the Council doesn't actually know on CPD's behalf. Getting this wrong once is exactly the kind of error the Independent-PAC Public Disclaimer (9-06) exists to prevent from being read as CPD's own word.

Every correction, minor or material, is logged briefly (what was wrong, when caught, when fixed) so a pattern of recurring errors — which usually points to a process gap rather than one person's mistake — gets noticed and addressed rather than repeating indefinitely.

Covers Council-created imagery generally — releases per the Photo/Video Release (Phase 8, 8-25) for identifiable subjects, especially minors, before any photo of a person (not a wide crowd/landscape shot) is used publicly.

Sets a specific, non-negotiable expectation for anything touching established cultural practices: images of the drumming tradition or other community-rooted programming are used only with the same respectful-representation standard set in the Cultural Programming Policy (Phase 8, 8-20) and the consultation record (8-22) — never repurposed for fundraising or promotion without the consent that policy already requires, and never presented in a way that implies the Council owns, curates, or created the tradition being photographed. The Council maintains a simple photo archive (tagged by event/date/consent status) so a compliant image can actually be found and reused without re-clearing consent every single time, and so a non-compliant image is never accidentally reused because nobody remembered its status.

The communications-side companion to the Meeting Recording Consent Procedure (Phase 5, 5-20/5-21): any proposed recording is announced in the meeting notice/agenda in advance, not sprung on attendees at the meeting itself. If any participant objects when the recording question is raised at the meeting, no recording is made — consistent with CPD's own informed-consent rule.

If a recording is ultimately posted publicly, the posting itself notes that consent was obtained from attendees, and no objecting attendee's portion of the meeting is included in what's published. If technical issues make it impossible to cleanly exclude an objector's contribution, the recording is not posted at all rather than posted with the objection ignored.

Applies to every page of this document library, the rest of the bbpac site, printed materials, and any PDF the Council produces — not just a "nice to have" for the main website. Consistent with the Council's own Accessibility and Inclusive Participation commitment (Bylaws Article 23).

New pages or major redesigns are checked against this list before publishing, not after a complaint. The Accessibility Committee reviews a sample of the site's pages at least annually and logs findings against the Accessibility Review Report (Phase 10, 10-24).

If someone reports a problem

An accessibility concern raised by a member of the public is routed through the Public Contact & Response Service Standard (9-30) like any other inquiry, but gets a faster internal target: acknowledged within 2 business days, and the specific page or material fixed within 10 business days for anything straightforward (missing alt text, a contrast failure), or given a documented remediation timeline if the fix is more involved (a structural redesign, a third-party embed the Council doesn't fully control). The person who raised the concern is told what was done, not left to wonder whether it was addressed.

This standard applies equally to third-party embeds and vendor-built tools the Council uses (an event registration form, a donation platform) — before adopting a new tool, the Technology Lead checks its accessibility claims, and an existing tool that turns out not to meet this standard is flagged for replacement rather than kept indefinitely on the theory that switching is inconvenient.

Identifies which materials get translation priority based on the languages actually spoken by the surrounding community (to be confirmed through the Community Needs Assessment, Phase 10, 10-10, rather than assumed) — meeting notices, safety information, and the Independent-PAC Public Disclaimer itself are the obvious first candidates regardless of what that assessment finds, since those are the documents where a misunderstanding carries the most real consequence.

Sets a quality-review step so a translation isn't published without someone competent in that language checking it against the English original for accuracy and tone — a mechanically-translated safety notice that reads as garbled or, worse, says something different than intended is worse than no translation at all. Translated materials are tracked in the Website Content Inventory (9-11) alongside their English source so both stay in sync when either is updated.

The public-facing plain-language version of the Data Privacy Policy (Phase 5, 5-34): what the Council collects, why, how long it's kept, who can access it, and how to ask a question about your own data. Published before any of that collection actually goes live online.

What it covers, plainly

• What's collected: membership applications, newsletter sign-ups, donation records, event registrations, meeting sign-in sheets, and website analytics if any are used.
• Why: stated purpose for each category — running the Council, communicating with members and donors, and required CPD/state recordkeeping (never sold or used for unrelated purposes).
• How long: per the Records Retention Schedule (Phase 5, 5-10) — different categories have different real retention periods, not one blanket answer.
• Who can access it: the specific officer roles (Secretary, Treasurer, Data Steward) with a legitimate need, not "the Board" as an undifferentiated group.
• How to ask a question: routes through the Public Contact & Response Service Standard (9-30).

Names, concretely, what gets proactively posted and how fast, so "we're transparent" is a checkable claim rather than a slogan.

Anything on this schedule that's more than one full cycle overdue (a missed minutes posting, a skipped financial summary) is flagged at the next regular meeting rather than left to accumulate silently.

At least annually, exports/archives key public communications (major posts, newsletters, press coverage, and the current state of every social account) into the Digital Governance Repository (Phase 6, 6-02) — because relying on a third-party platform to preserve institutional history indefinitely is not a records policy; platforms shut down, change retention rules, or lock accounts, and a community organization's public record shouldn't depend on a company's continued existence.

The export includes enough context (dates, engagement snapshots, screenshots where a platform doesn't support clean export) to be useful as a historical record years later, not just raw data nobody can interpret.

Photos, designs, maps, recordings, and commissioned works created for the Council are owned by the Council unless a specific agreement says otherwise. Volunteer-contributed work (a member's own photos, a donated design) is used under an explicit license from the contributor, not assumed to transfer ownership just because it was shared with the Council.

Rules for commissioned work

• Commissioned vendors/designers sign over rights or grant an explicit, written license as part of their agreement (cross-reference the Performer/Presenter Agreement, Phase 8, 8-18, and the MOA/Services Agreement Template, 8-29) — never assumed by default.
• The Council does not use a vendor's work beyond the scope of the license actually granted (e.g., a logo designed for print materials isn't automatically licensed for a large sponsor banner without checking the agreement).

Nothing in this policy overrides the separate cultural-ownership commitments made in the Cultural Programming Policy (Phase 8, 8-20) or the Drumming Tradition Liaison (8-21) — the Council does not claim IP ownership over a community cultural tradition it merely documents or supports, regardless of who took the photo or recorded the audio.

If a dispute or takedown request arises

Any claim that the Council is using someone's copyrighted material without permission, or misusing a cultural tradition without the consent the Cultural Programming Policy requires, is treated seriously and promptly: the disputed material is taken down or restricted from public view while the claim is reviewed (typically within 5 business days), not left up while the question is debated. The Governance Committee reviews the claim, checks it against whatever license or consent record exists (or doesn't), and either restores the material with documentation of the valid license, or removes it permanently and, where appropriate, issues a correction or apology consistent with the Misinformation/Correction Protocol (9-20).

License and consent records for commissioned work, volunteer-contributed material, and cultural documentation are kept in the Digital Governance Repository (Phase 6, 6-02) — without that record, the Council cannot demonstrate it had permission to use something, which is itself treated as grounds to stop using it until the record is found or renewed.

Standard, consistent placement rules for sponsor/partner recognition, consistent with the Sponsorship Policy and Sponsorship Recognition Plan (Phase 4, 4-34; Phase 8, 8-38), so recognition looks the same regardless of who's designing that week's material.

Every placement, regardless of tier, carries the required disclaimer that the sponsorship does not imply Chicago Park District endorsement of the sponsor, and no sponsor placement may be sized or positioned in a way that could be mistaken for a CPD logo or official park signage.

Sets a real target response time for public emails/messages: an immediate automated or brief acknowledgment on receipt, and a substantive reply within 3-5 business days for routine inquiries.

Routing

• A media question routes to the spokesperson under the Media Relations/Spokesperson Policy (9-16).
• A records request routes to the Public Information/Records Request Procedure (Phase 5, 5-18).
• A complaint about Council conduct routes to the Complaint Intake, Response & Escalation Procedure (Phase 5, 5-46).
• Everything else goes to the Secretary or a designated general inbox monitored regularly, not to a single officer's personal account.

The requester's own contact information is protected from unnecessary exposure (never published or shared without reason), and anything unresolved past the target window is escalated to the next regular Board meeting rather than left to quietly lapse.