Official blogging

Two weeks ago, the central Idaho communities of Sun Valley and Ketchum were under siege by the Castle Rock fire. Some residents had to evacuate, and others were watching warily as the flames crept closer. Through it all, Nils Ribi - a member of the Sun Valley City Council - basically "live blogged" the fire, packing his blog with news updates, reports from community briefings, road and trail closure information, and lots of dramatic photos.

Ribi is one of a small but growing number of public officials who use blogs to communicate with their constituents. The DemocracySpace "Public Officials' Blogs" blogroll at right shows seven such sites, ranging from those written by local officials to a blog recently launched by Mike Leavitt, U.S. Secretary of Health & Human Services - the first cabinet-level blogger in U.S. history. (Leavitt's blog is an outgrowth of a two-month pandemic flu blog that he and other flu experts convened earlier this year. HHS has a history of seeking citizen input into its policies; the Centers for Disease Control worked with the Study Circles Resource Center to produce the Public Engagement Pilot Project on Pandemic Influenza, or PEPPI.)

Of the seven blogs listed here, five accept comments. (A recent post on bridge and road safety by Portland (OR) City Commissioner Sam Adams generated more than 60 comments.) All offer insights into the daily work and concerns of government; Bill Gentes - the "blogging mayor of Round Lake" - made posts this week about home foreclosures and mosquito spraying.

DemocracySpace is eager to know about and feature other blogs written by public officials from all levels of government. If you know of one, please mention it in the comments below or email the blog address (URL) to us.

Comments

[Nisha Thompson]

My name is Nisha Thompson and I am the outreach coordinator for the Sunlight Foundation. I just wanted to contact you and let you know that I have been reading your blog and liked this post on public officials who blog. I have started doing a weekly blog post highlighting state and local coverage of member of Congress or issues relating to ethics, earmarks, and transparency here: http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/local_sunlight_1

I wanted to let you know that I highlighted your post on our website.

Thank you. Keep up the good work.

Nisha Thompson

Organizer and Outreach Coordinator
Sunlight Foundation
1818 N Street NW
Washington DC 20001

[Julie in Boise]

Thank you, Nisha! We just started last week, and we really appreciate the notice at the Sunlight blog.

[Mike Kujawski]

Hi Julie, in response to your question about other public sector blogging examples, you should have a look at "Point 5" in the following blog entry I wrote:

http://mikekujawski.wordpress.com/2007/09/

I have subscribed to your blog as well, great work!