By Jacqueline Maxwell |Special to East Valley Tribune
The typical “state of the town” address was not something Gilbert residents encountered at Thursday night’s town council meeting.
The town’s recently formed digital media team instead produced a video depicting the up-and-coming businesses of the community, with narrations by Mayor John Lewis and council members as a replacement of the mayor’s annual traditional in-person speech.
“We saw not only the mayor’s vision, but also the business leaders’ vision,” said Gilbert resident Tracye McFarland. “It made it more personal because you got to see each one of the council members get to speak individually.”
Vice Mayor Ben Cooper added that the video clips of the council and members of the community give people outside of Gilbert a chance to see what the town is like. Usually the address can be viewed online or on local television, but in this case, the produced video was played for the audience instead of the live speech.
