It was, perhaps, the most confused Clark County’s two older commissioners had ever been willing to appear in public.
“They’re our fan?” Commissioner Marc Boldt murmured, dubious. “If they’re our fan, are we their fan?”
“We all sit around the table, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet?” ventured Commissioner Tom Mielke.
“What’s the difference between a fan and a friend?” Boldt asked.
“It’s new language,” county spokeswoman Mary Keltz offered. “A friend is not usually a friend, indeed.” Then she burst into giggles.
For Boldt, 55, and Mielke, 67, the public meeting in Vancouver last week was their first look at their colleague Steve Stuart’s latest enthusiasm: official Facebook and Twitter accounts for the Board of Clark County Commissioners.
Stuart’s assurances seemed to calm the other commissioners’ worries, but not their general unease.
“I think when I answer my e-mails for half an hour, I’m a Web master,” said Mielke, a father of seven.
Boldt, a father of six, seemed especially shocked to learn that if he entered his high school and graduation year, Facebook would recommend old classmates with whom he might reconnect.
“Really?” gasped Boldt, the possibilities opening up before him.
The 1973 Evergreen High School graduate glanced out the window, toward the county jail.
“Most of mine are right over there,” he said dryly.
Interactive speech
The county commissioners’ new Facebook and Twitter pages (see the box) aren’t the county government’s first dip into social Web sites.
In December, when it was unloading old equipment to make ends meet, the county’s computer department used Twitter to advertise its “for sale” posts. This month, the public health department informed its 79 Twitter followers of national influenza vaccination week.
In all cases, the county says it’ll keep its own copy of every comment its employees make or receive on the job, to be used in public disclosure requests.
“It appears to be an informal way of communicating, but being a public institution, we have to be somewhat formal about it,” Keltz said.
Maybe for that reason, Stuart is the first Clark County politician to embrace Facebook in his day job.
To kick things off, he’s using it to solicit advice while he writes his Feb. 4 “state of the county” speech.
“I want to be considering a more interactive ‘state of the county,’” Stuart said last week. “I will be sending out tweets on specific lines that I’m considering, and I’m going to be looking for feedback.”
Stuart, who faces reelection in November, said he’s accepted everyone who asks to be his Facebook friend.
It’s “just another tool” for interacting with the public, he said.
One last lesson
Stuart’s Facebook experiment is part of a larger social-media project by the county Youth Commission, a group of teens who advise the county government.
So far, Stuart said, he’s loving it.
“Struggling with State of the County,” Stuart wrote on his Facebook page Monday morning. “Feel like I’m forcing the Sustainability theme. Feedback and gut tell me to talk about how to enhance the options we love here, and how government can — for lack of a better term — stop pissing people off. Thoughts?”
By dinner time, five of his friends had weighed in.
As Stuart scrolled around his page last week, showing it to Boldt and Mielke, one notification caught their eye.
“Do you want,” Facebook asked Stuart, “to add Royce Pollard as a friend?”
Stuart clicked away from the smiling photo of the former Vancouver mayor, whose re-election campaign Stuart opposed last year.
Stuart offered one more lesson about the subtleties of Facebook.
“It’s a suggestion,” Stuart said, a little stiffly. “It’s not a request.”
Michael Andersen: 360-735-4508 or michael.andersen@columbian.com.
