Social media debate

South Florida cities struggle to come up with the best way to engage residents — or not

Social media is supposed to be interactive, but some cities throughout South Florida are struggling to figure out how — or even if— they should engage residents.

Some cities, like Parkland, promote classes and activities on their Facebook page, but don’t allowresidents to comment.

“The city of Parkland does not allow comments on any type of posting,” the site reads in capital letters. “Regardless of content, all comments will be removed from the city of Parkland Facebook page.”

The reason: “This allows for the city to ensure that the information that is posted is accurate,” said City Manager Caryn Gardner-Young.

Palm Beach County has 25 Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts, and residents are allowed to post on many of them. The county has hired a company to archive posts, at a cost of about $1,969 a year, said Heather Shirm, county spokeswoman.

For the cities and counties that do have a dialogue, there’s a cost to being social — which can range from a few dollars per month to a few hundred — to keep up with state law that requires preservation of public records.

Almost 800,000 people have visited a Facebook page that appears to be the official page for Fort Lauderdale — except it’s not. The official page for Broward’s largest city and the hub of county government is called “Fort Lauderdale Visioning” and it hasn’t been updated since December, when the city completed a “visioning” series of publicworkshops.

“We are currently in the process of developing a more generic citywide Facebook page that we plan to launch later this year,” said city spokeswoman Shannon Vezina. The city anticipates eventually allowing residents to post questions of their own.

Information that is posted will be printed weekly and saved on computers, she said, because of the public records requirement.

Plantation could have its Facebook page up by Oct. 1, and city officials are considering having two-way communication by allowingresidents to respondto city postings, said city spokeswoman Priscilla Richards. “Obviously we want people to know what we’re doing,” she said.

Coral Springs has a Facebook page and is researching howto preserve posts as public record so it can allow people to respond to its posts.

Sunrise allows a dialogue on their Facebook page and in the process of hiring a company to archive the posts. The cost will be about $150 per month, said city spokeswoman Christine Pfeffer.

Coconut Creek allows dialogue and pays a company $4.99 per month to keep a record of it, said spokeswoman Yvonne Lopez.