Only a few years ago, Kirklanders could keep up with local news in a copy of the Kirkland Courier, the King County Journal, a Seattle daily or through any number of evening news stations.
But the Journal is gone, viewers of local news are down and the Seattle Times recently closed its Eastside bureau.
Now filling that gap — along with the Kirkland Reporter, which bought the Courier and transitioned from a monthly to a weekly last year — are a bevy of online neighborhood forums and “citizen journalists” who are transforming local activism by publishing news discussions and community tidbits on the Web.
A number of local residents, most of whom make up for a lack of programming experience with a passion for the community, have started their own blogs and forums. Whether the result of the low cost of Web publishing, the ease of Internet access or Kirkland’s location at the heart of the high-tech community, it’s clear these voices are increasingly shaping the way people in Kirkland view their community.
Well known for its appeals of downtown building projects, CiViK (Citizens for a Vibrant Kirkland) has operated online since at least 2004 at www.civik.org. More recently, sites have sprung up on either side of Parkplace development. The developer’s site, www.envisionkirklandparkplace.com, stands in stark contrast to that of a citizen group opposed to the plans, www.kirklandcrd.org. Web appeals have also been made to save the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream shop on Lake Street — www.saveourshop.com — or to promote and petition the city for an off-leash dog park — http://offleash.meetup.com/42. But these Web sites only provide information, not a dialogue.
City Hall on the Web
Often referred to as part of “Web 2.0,” Web logs (popularly known as “blogs”) and social-networking sites are focused on collaborating and sharing information, right down to local schools, restaurants and babysitters. According to Internet research firm Technorati, there are nearly 113 million blogs on the Web, and that number is growing by 175,000 every day.
Kirkland Chief Information Officer Brenda Cooper, who runs her own blog (“Three Dogs Blog”), said the blog format is oriented toward exchanging ideas and fostering communication.
She said at City Hall City Manager David Ramsay and Assistant City Manager Marilynne Beard run their own blogs, which are used for internal staff discussions. But Cooper said the city is also interested in starting a public blog and inviting the community to interact directly with city officials in a format beyond traditional letters or e-mail.
Outside of City Hall, a number of local residents have taken to their keyboards and started their own conversations with neighbors and area residents.
Kirkland Weblog
One of Kirkland’s most popular online meeting places is the Kirkland Weblog: http://kirklandweblog.typepad.com/kirkland_weblog. Started by Janis and Steve Rabuchin in 2006, the site gets anywhere from 225 to 600 visitors a day.
Tech-savvy Steve, 46, who works as a Web services director at Amazon.com, is an occasional contributor while Janis, a 36-year-old mother of three, is the more frequent voice of the site, blogging about local businesses, Kirkland’s waterfront and the latest celebrity sighting (a recent posting recalled seeing the local contender on the ABC Television show “The Bachelorette”). Janis said she usually leaves issues like downtown development and city politics for others to sort out.
“I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than sit through one of those (city) meetings,” she said.
Kirkland Views
One of the newer voices to enter the Kirkland blogosphere is Rob Butcher, who runs Kirkland Views (www.kirklandviews.com). Previously focused on the annexation issue at a different Web site, the erstwhile property manager started the blog as a way to both frame Kirkland’s “hot topics” and give residents a place to sound off. So far, so good: The blog has attracted 3,884 different visitors, and Butcher, 42, said he’s most encouraged by the average length of time people spend per visit.
“I want to encourage people to read each other’s opinions and not read and listen to opinions they want to hear,” he said. “That just leads to a ‘balkanized’ opinion.”
One of the advantages of such a site, as opposed to a newspaper or other traditional format: Postings can be made anonymously. Apart from spam and libelous slander, Butcher said just about anything goes.
“That is the nature of the Internet,” he said. “The blogosphere is different from journalism.”
Kirkland Highlands Real Estate Buzz
A real estate agent for over 20 years, Debra Sinick first viewed the blogosphere as a way to increase her marketing potential for buying and selling homes on the Eastside.
Now she runs a blog focused on her Highland neighborhood, is a regular contributor to the Seattle P-I Real Estate Blog, writes columns for the Kirkland Reporter and has a voice in many other online publications.
The driving force behind her online activism: her neighborhood. “What’s really cool about this neighborhood (Highlands) is it isn’t cookie-cutter,” she said. “It’s got an ambiance.”
She said the next step for her blog is posting photos and videos from the Highlands during the summer months.
Kirkland 52
Emily Stchur’s blog, Kirkland 52 (http://kirkland52.stchur.com/), makes a statement about Kirkland every week of the year (hence the “52”) through an image that uniquely represents the city.
According to her short biography, Stchur relocated to Kirkland from the East Coast in 2005 and was immediately enchanted by the town and its subtle changes in light and scenery. In inviting blog visitors to comment on the images, she says “I never get tired of the beauty of the Pacific Northwest.”
Google Groups: Kirkland Moms
Laura Zeman, 36, founded “Kirkland Moms” (groups.google.com/group/kirklandmoms) a year-and-a-half ago to help her keep up with the demands of her two children.
Typically focused on children and mothers, the blog’s topics vary as much as its geography. For instance, Zeman said a woman from Australia recently put up a notice asking for advice on relocating to Kirkland.
An attorney who has her own practice in Seattle, Zeman started the blog after a networking trial run proved just how helpful a community site could be.
The story: When she needed a sun top for one of her children on short notice, Zeman put the word out on a network. Sure enough, a mother who subscribed to one of the forums wrote back offering a sun top — that one of her children had out-grown — that was in exactly the size needed.
After that, Zeman was hooked.
Now, she’s “just trying to facilitate interests that are talked about in the town I love — like baby yoga,” she said.
