Town Hall produces videos for residents

LAKEWOOD RANCH — Dressed in a black suit and gray tie, Ryan Heise pauses and waits for the count of Town Hall Executive Assistant Kay DePaolo, who stands yards away with a video camera in hand.
On her cue, Heise, Town Hall’s director of operations, begins.

“Hi, and welcome to another episode of ‘Ryan’s Ranch Roundup,’” Heise says. “I’m your host, Ryan Heise. Today, we’re going to be talking about rain showers that appear like clockwork during our summer months.”

The episode is one of five educational videos now available at lakewoodranchgov.org.

Called “Ryan’s Ranch Roundup,” the video series already showcases topics such as controlling residential irrigation systems and the installation of annual plants.

Videos, which will be produced once a month, or more, if needed, typically last between four and seven minutes.

Future topics include Florida-friendly landscaping, plant health and, hopefully, a wildlife segment starring Happy, Town Hall’s resident alligator.

Although some videos will be tailored to Lakewood Ranch, most will provide information from which residents of other communities can benefit, as well.

“It’s an easy and convenient way for people to get access to topics,” said Heise, noting viewers can watch the videos at their leisure and as many times as they’d like.

The idea for the video series started after a community development district supervisor mentioned how few residents knew how to operate the irrigation equipment in their yards. Town Hall staff members came up with an idea to create a “plant of the month” video because so many residents are interested in plants used in the community.

“It snowballed into an educational video blog,” Lakewood Ranch Town Hall Executive Director Eva Rey said.

Rey said she supported the concept because it promotes Lakewood Ranch and shows residents the challenges Town Hall’s operations team face on a daily basis, while also educating them about best practices.

“We may change the format, but we have a lot of subjects we could cover,” Rey said of the videos.

“There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes that residents need to be aware of.”

Contact Pam Eubanks at [email protected].