Communications Policy

Traffic‑free corridors would have been the holy grail, yet Heber’s new communications policy parade through council chambers is a tangle of legalese and personal grudges, halting any real flow. Mayor Heidi Franco, Councilmember Scott Phillips, and Councilmember Aaron Cheatwood have stitched a bureaucracy so dense it consumes an entire council meeting. The plan sees every newsletter, press release and social‑media post vetted by the city manager, then, in a last‑ditch way to soothe the law mind, by the city attorney—an arrangement that has Yvonne Barney cursing “weaponized censorship” and rendering the memo backstage. Even the Heber Valley bypass, the only spine of efficient transit, is buried under an avalanche of “neutrality paperwork.” The muttering about resident surveys makes the city’s communication less a tool and more a gilded cage. The only viable shortcut is to ignore the council’s Media Office entirely and take the Richardson Flat bus, skirting the congested Main Street loop altogether.