An Albuquerque city councilor is looking to enforce new social media rules for city employees after posts from the Albuquerque Police Department’s (APD) official social media account caught the council’s attention for the second time in as many years.
At a meeting Sept. 5, councilors confronted Mayor Tim Keller’s administration about posts one councilor called “embarrassing.”
Councilor Renée Grout brought up the posts — which were responses made to private citizens — and said she found them disturbing and was disappointed that it happened a second time since last year.
An APD spokesperson would not tell City Desk ABQ who made the posts but confirmed to KOAT-TV that it was the department’s director of communications, Gilbert Gallegos.
Read more about the posts and the meeting here.
Now Grout has introduced a resolution “directing the city administration to develop a social media policy that ensures appropriate use of official city social media accounts.”
The resolution will go through the Finance and Government Operations Committee and is expected to be on the agenda for the council’s Oct. 21 meeting.
The resolution acknowledges city employees have “diverse opinions and worldviews” and they are entitled to share those views but “not under the banner of the city or any city department.”
It is “inappropriate for city departments, [public information officers], or department heads to use the name of the City of Albuquerque and/or its city departments to ‘push back’ against individuals’ opinions online,” the resolution states.
Grout said any posts from a city social media account should be “factual, respectful and helpful” and that social media policies should reflect that. She said the administration issued a policy in 2022 but it fails to define what is appropriate to post under the city banner.
“Any employee that is posting on a city social media account should remember that they are not just representing themselves but they represent the entire city,” Grout said. “Just because someone reaches out in a negative way, doesn’t mean that we should respond the same way.”
Grout proposes to establish policies outlining behavioral expectations, content specifications, prohibition on personal attacks, response guidelines, monitoring and reviewing social media accounts, disciplinary actions, restorative actions and policy review.
Her proposed policy lays out guidelines for defining what posts are appropriate and inappropriate for city social media accounts, potential consequences for misusing accounts and a plan to regularly monitor accounts to ensure they follow the policies.
“We are in the customer service business and we need to do a better job,” Grout said. “I think [the resolution] is pretty straightforward, there shouldn’t be any reason why it would not move forward.”
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