Memo

To: Lewiston Mayor Larry Gilbert, Auburn Mayor John Jenkins, Lewiston City Administrator Jim Bennett and Joint Services Coordinator Stephen Eldridge

From: Karl Trautman

Topic: Blogs and Democracy

Gentlemen, first of all, I want to thank you for your public service.

Let me get straight to the point. I suggest all four of you seriously consider setting up “Web logs” – blogs – that are linked to your government’s home pages on the Internet. They would enhance your ability to communicate with the increasingly wired citizens of Lewiston and Auburn. These blogs could also help create a feeling that the decisions being made about local government were achieved in the most participatory fashion feasible. As a practical matter, they could help you in your job.

Let me address each one of you separately.

Mayor Gilbert, I think a blog could help you elucidate your priorities to the public. Sure, the local newspapers and radio can summarize what happened in City Council meetings. Citizens can watch meetings on Great Fall TV, the community television station. While the city’s Web site has loads of official documents, what could be improved upon is its interactivity. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could write down your thoughts and feelings on public matters, with no editing, and then make it immediately available to the public in your blog?

City Administrator Bennett, a blog might be the ideal vehicle to demystify the complicated details of administrating Maine’s second largest city for the public. You have talked recently about the city’s fiscal situation and the possibility of a property tax increase. Why not open up your thinking about Lewiston’s fiscal environment to an online back and forth between you and interested citizens?

If you think that city administrators just don’t do that type of thing, you are wrong. A good example is Dave Ruller, the city manager of Kent, Ohio. Kent is a small city (28,032) in northeastern Ohio. Ruller set up a blog in April 2006. It is designed well and is visually appealing. This quote by Ruller is a good description how blogs can help build democracy: “Blogs elevate and connect. They don’t rely on throwing information up over the wall and hoping for a safe landing on the other side, they tear down the wall and allow ideas to be exchanged in conversation. This is a quantum leap for interactive communication and is great news for citizen access and participation in local government.”

Ruller’s blog is hardly an anomaly. The city managers in West Des Moines, Iowa and Davison, Mich. also have blogs. So does Walter Denton, the city administrator of O’Fallon, Ill. Denton has a particularly interesting post that is titled “Budget 101,” where he succinctly summarizes how his city’s budget is structured.

Mayor Jenkins, I presume that this is a “no brainer” for you since you already have a blog on MySpace, www.myspace.com/jenkinsjohn. When I recently read it, I found a few press releases and two Sun Journal articles. But how many people are aware you have one? A link from the city’s webpage could be a good first step to broaden your ability to interact with Auburn’s citizens.

Joint Services Coordinator Eldridge, it appears your new commision doesn’t yet have a Web site. I found a place on the city of Auburn Web site where people could e-mail their ideas to you, but this isn’t enough. The first thing you need to do is set a Web site up. It should be linked to the Lewiston and Auburn city Web pages. Then you can start your blog.

Frankly, I don’t think your commission can succeed without a blog. Without regular and meaningful communication with citizens, your efforts may well fail. Deeper and wider consolidation of services is controversial to many individuals and interest groups. As specific proposals are developed and made public, resistance to them will get more focused and intense. How will you handle this?

In the long run, the most effective way is to be as inclusive as possible. This will not only give you different perspectives but could also increase the commission’s legitimacy when tough decisions are needed. It would also give the naysayers less justification to complain that controversial cost-cutting proposals were reached without open public participation.

I know what some of you might be thinking: wouldn’t setting up a blog be interpreted by some other members of local government (i.e. city councilors) as a way to bypass them? It could be construed that way. However a blog should not replace genuine dialogue with city councilors. Instead, it should enhance it. Moreover, if a councilor still suspects that a blog is a way to “get around” the council, why couldn’t a councilor create one of their own?

To sum up, all of you should embrace the Web and use it to its full potential for public service. Gentlemen, it’s time to fire up your computers. Give us your fears and hopes on local government.

We will give you ours.

Karl Trautman is chairperson of the social sciences department at Central Maine Community College. He received his doctorate in political science from the University of Hawaii. He can be reached at [email protected].