I spoke to a standing-room-only crowd at the Association of Washington Cities annual meeting about the use of Twitter, Facebook and blogging to reach our citizens. It was a great day in Spokane. The overall feedback I got afterward is that a lot of people were thankful for a safe environment to learn about these methods, all of which have a lot of hype and mystique around them.

What got very odd is that four people either from or affiliated with the city of Shoreline warned that these methods could bankrupt a city because of a court ruling involving them. Needless to say, their comments had quite a chilling effect on the discussion. I had to acknowledge their concerns without being familiar with the case.

When I got back to the hotel room, I looked up the court case. It’s pretty amazing. It involved tampering with a public document. If I was involved in a case like that, I sure wouldn’t be showing up at a seminar claiming to know anything about public outreach (Read up a bit on the case at http://www.wasupremecourtblog.com/tags/oneill-v-city-of-shoreline/ and the more thorough http://cforjustice.org/2008/07/22/chasing-the-metadata/ )

The short version is that one of the former council members deleted part of an email before providing it through the public records act. Needless to say, a court did not like this. I don’t blame the court. Tampering with a public document is wrong.

The case does have implications in how cities and public officials archive their documents; some guidelines on that subject are badly needed. How folks from Shoreline reached the conclusion that Facebook, Twitter and blogging were as dangerous as tampering with documents is beyond me. I feel kinda bad that I was not better prepared; I console myself that council members in the room who do research now know a lot more about ways to talk to their constituents. And talking to your constituents is always good.

Update Friday morning: when I wrote the below, I thought speakers were from the city of Shoreline. The mayor of Shoreline, Cindy Ryu, did oppose use of social media, but the leadoff speaker was actually an attorney: Ramsey Ramerman of the law firm Foster Pepper. My apologies to Shoreline council members, who as far as I know don’t tamper with public documents. The tampering was done by someone who is no longer on the council)

I’ve picked up good ideas and practices after reading other City Council member’s blogs. For one, I’ve learned to write a lot more succinctly. Shorter is far more effective on the Web.

The other lesson involved an approach I had to learn over a far longer time. The best practice is well summarized by City Councilman Douglas Athas of Garland, Texas, back when I was writing him and other council members for tips:

Indicate what is reporting and what is opinion; your readers deserve to know the difference. I think it generally a good idea to not mix the two. Two separate posts can work better.

I can categorize each post (most blogs can) and if I have any comments that are opinion, I assign that blog post to my Opinion category (and others, too, if appropriate).

I was slow in learning this lesson. I began my columns in the same style as I wrote as a newspaper editor. What I sort of vaguely told myself is that readers must want “interpretation” from me as a councilman. In the life of a newspaper columnist or editor, words are often a tactical weapon you use at those you want to persuade or move.

Of course, what I have learned with age is that darn few people are persuaded of something they don’t want to be persuaded about. They are generally looking for reinforcement of their beliefs; or, more relevant to this post, they want information that is relevant to their lives and/or their understanding of something.

What I found is that the slicing words that got me the most praise as an editor … heck, the words that won me a lot of awards … got me the most criticism as a City Councilman.

Now criticism comes with the territory. This criticism was right on. People like information about their government “straight up.” Walter the opinion columnist had to give way to Walter the City Councilman. Walter the City Councilman would be happy if people just knew what was going on in Lakewood. So he sure doesn’t want to repel people with his writing style.

I had to adjust my attitude and approach. People have told me they like it. I haven’t written a particularly savage column in a long while. When I do, I will clearly label it as such so people don’t enter the post thinking it is something other than what it is.

Take a look at how Douglas categories Opinion posts. Makes a lot of sense and I will start doing it myself.