The City of West Hollywood has been honored with three awards recognizing excellence in communications by the City-County Communications and Marketing Association (3CMA). The awards recognize the communications and outreach efforts of local governments throughout the United States.
3CMA conferred its Savvy Award for Promotional Video and its Silver Circle Award for Public Service Announcement to recognize West Hollywood’s short documentary-style video “Getting to Zero.” The video, which was released for World AIDS Day in December 2017, features an emotionally captivating interview with Jeffrey Rodriguez, program manager of the Los Angeles LGBT Center WeHo’s Sexual Health Education Program. The video highlights the city’s support for local HIV/AIDS organizations and its vision to build an HIV Zero future. The video can be viewed on the City of West Hollywood’s WeHoTV YouTube channel.
“The City of West Hollywood takes great pride in telling its stories, and I’m thrilled to see that 3CMA has, with these awards, embraced the stories of our city,” said West Hollywood Mayor John Duran. “Getting to Zero, in particular, is so very important. During the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s the disease’s elevated infection rate among gay men caused a devastatingly high number of deaths in West Hollywood. Now, more than three decades later, the story we can share with the world is that the end of HIV and AIDS is within reach. It’s incumbent on us to continue to fund and support education, prevention, and treatment to get to our HIV Zero vision.”
Since its incorporation in 1984, the City of West Hollywood has been at the forefront of efforts to confront the HIV/AIDS epidemic. West Hollywood was one of the first government entities to provide social services grants to local AIDS and HIV organizations and, throughout its history, the city has directed millions of dollars to fund HIV/AIDS direct services, education, and public awareness efforts. The city sponsored one of the first AIDS awareness campaigns in the country in October 1985 and the city’s response to the AIDS crisis has been recognized as a model for other cities, nationally and globally. For additional information about the city’s HIV Zero Strategic Plan, visit www.weho.org/hivzero.
In addition, the city’s WeHoTV NewsByte: Domenic Priore, received the Award of Excellence in the video category Interview/Talk Show/News Programming. The NewsByte focuses on author Domenic Priore concurrent with arts programming about the history of the Sunset Strip in 2017. Priore discusses, against a backdrop of extraordinary historical images, pivotal moments 50 years ago when West Hollywood became the epicenter of the California folk / rock music scene. That video also can be viewed on the city’s WeHoTV YouTube channel.
3CMA was founded in 1988 on the philosophy that communications and marketing are essential to helping governments engage and build stronger relationships with their residents. 3CMA received approximately 750 awards entries this year. Entrants were judged by volunteers from throughout the United States.
The mission of the city’s Communications Department is to connect residents, businesses and visitors with timely news, events and information. The Communications Department oversees media relations, digital media, TV production, public relations, marketing, branding and advertising, and works closely with the city’s more than 20 departments and divisions and the City Council to provide transparency and open communication among stakeholders, the media, and the public.
The Communications Department oversees the city’s website www.weho.org, which provides wide-ranging information to more than 65,000 visitors each month, and WeHoTV, which offers Emmy-winning content and coverage of civic meetings and cultural events to viewers through Spectrum and AT&T U-verse cable television, on YouTube at www.youtube.com/wehotv, and on multiple streaming platforms including Android TV, Apple TV, Fire TV, and Roku TV.
More than 60,000 people follow @WeHoCity on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for up-to-the-minute WeHoTV NewsBytes, alerts, updates, and stories. The Communications Department has been honored with dozens of awards in recognition of its innovative approach and effectiveness in engaging with the community.
I just wish we could clean the sidewalks already. But congrats to the excellent work of the city mmunicstions team.