By Mike Hazlip—
Elyjah Wilbur, the city’s new hire for communications and public relations, is a six-year resident of Citrus Heights who has a passion for multimedia and making an impact in the city he lives in.
Wilbur replaced former communications officer Nichole Baxter, who left her position in March to work for California American Water. His former job was with the City of Roseville, with prior experience freelancing for Buzzfeed and KVIE. He also earned a bachelor’s degree from the Art Institute of Sacramento.
In an interview with The Sentinel on Thursday, Wilbur said he observed the importance of using multimedia to communicate with the public during his time with the City of Roseville. Starting with a part-time position working in the city’s communications department, he produced short news announcement videos on city projects, with the city later making the position full-time.
“Video is a huge part of what we do as a communications department,” he said. “We have to make sure that everything that we put out is understandable, that a general audience knows what we’re talking about, and it sinks in.”
The short public service videos earned Wilbur a slot as a speaker for Adobe Max, a technology conference for the creative industry. That same technology is part of Wilbur’s everyday work, and he says it is key to making government more accessible and transparent, stressing the importance of community involvement.
“It’s vital,” he said. “We don’t have the community that we have without people participating, getting involved, letting us know what they want to see, what they’re looking for. From what I’ve seen in my time here so far, we have a pretty active community.”
Wilbur calls his work for the City of Roseville rewarding, but as a resident of Citrus Heights, he says he wasn’t as engaged with the community there.
“Part of the reason why I came here was I wanted to see how I can further impact the community I live in,” Wilbur said.
While he made the move back to Citrus Heights about six years ago, he says he also lived in an apartment complex near the former K-mart building along Auburn Boulevard just after high school. He says watching the changes in the community over the years gives him some perspective on the area.
“It’s exciting to be a part of that,” he said. “Getting to be here in the early stages of that and see where Citrus Heights was then and come back, be a part of the community now, and work for the community.”
He calls working for Citrus Heights “fast paced,” and says the job allows him to be more involved locally. One of the ongoing challenges is communicating information to an increasingly diverse community.
Wilbur says the city’s use of technology and visual communication is one way to engage with populations who are not native English speakers.
“It’s not so much of diversifying the amount of languages we’re communicating in, but making sure anyone can understand what it is we’re saying in the language we’re saying,” he said.
He hopes increasing the use of visual communications, such as short video announcements, will help the city meet its goals of engaging with the public.
“It’s important to jump on that and make sure we’re being equitable to our audiences so that everyone can participate,” he said. “Because that’s ultimately what we’re looking for, more public participation in their local government.”
Communicating the city’s core principles of fiscal prudence, local control, and public safety are a top priority for Wilbur as he works to communicate those ideals through multimedia.
“Those are really important to us, and we want to make sure we’re getting that out to the community,” he said.
Seeing the impact of his work is something that keeps Wilbur motivated as he looks to make a difference where he lives, something he says we all need to remember.
“If you want to have a great place to live, you have to be paying attention, you have to be involved,” he said. “We, as a city, our job is to keep you involved and make sure you have those opportunities to get involved.”
