Clean Water Salinas Public Outreach

The City of Salinas' ("City") street sweeping program is an essential ground control strategy to recover pollutants from roads and rights-of-way before they can enter the storm drain system. The City recognized that a significant increase in the amount of debris removed from the streets by sweeping would translate to much greater removal of pollutants that would otherwise be transported by urban runoff to local creeks and rivers. 

Challenge

In 2022, the City determined that to facilitate better implementation of the "No Parking" street sweeping signage program, the City needed to perform community education, outreach, and engagement to ensure the community is informed of the upcoming implementation of this program and the benefits to water quality this program provides. 

In January 2023, the City Council approved a contract with CPRA Strategies to implement a community education and outreach program addressing "No Parking" street sweeping signage. In 2024 and 2025, the City renewed the contract to continue outreach.

Solution

After the contract award, CPRA met with City staff to discuss priority tactics and the timing of the education and outreach campaign. Within the first few weeks of the contract and through a series of meetings, CPRA and City staff finalized the campaign's direction, key community-based organization and stakeholders, and overall program timeline. The plan focused on the following areas:

• Direct Community Outreach and Engagement Strategy

• Digital Media Strategy

• Earned Media Strategy