Villa Heights Voice delivers nearby news, partnering with The Charlotte Observer

Leaders in the nearby Villa Heights community have started a neighborhood news site, “Villa Heights Voice,” as part of a partnership with The Charlotte Observer.

It’s a great place to check for nearby news you won’t get anywhere else. It’s also part of a national trend of big, traditional news organizations partnering with smaller sites to provide local information. Other sites working with The Observer include Ballantyne Scoop, Davidsonnews.net, QCityMetro, and Tega Cay Talk, all through a program of J-Lab at American University.

But Villa Heights shares some interests with Merry Oaks: a focus on the Eastway division of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, the same zoning inspector for residential concerns (unless staffing changes affect assignments), the same city council representative (Patsy Kinsey) and a focus on the availability and concentration of affordable housing.

They also write often about nearby Cordelia Park and efforts to create an EcoDistrict with their nearby neighborhoods, Belmont and Optimist Park.

The neighborhood is roughly north of Parkwood Avenue and east of North Davidson Street, over to Matheson and The Plaza. It includes the yummy Amelie’s Bakery and is close to the NoDa neighborhood.

Some other recent sites also focus on events and businesses in NoDa itself: NoDa.org, from the NoDa Business Organization, and a closed site for the NoDa neighborhood, which occasionally opens pages for events, like a scavenger hunt planned for May.

I’m adding Villa Heights and Noda to the “Connections” list here. Check them out.

A disclaimer and a promotional note: I was paid to give the Villa Heights organization some journalism lessons. If you or your organization want similar coaching, feel free to contact me with the form at the bottom left.

U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell’s vote on health care

The battle for the health care vote for U.S. Rep. Larry Kissell, who represents Merry Oaks and the sprawling 8th District, still seems up in the air.

Television ads from the Employers for a Health Economy are airing regularly during evening newscasts asking people to call Kissell’s office and urge a vote against the health care bill, and emails from Democratic organizations continue to hit inboxes.

Factcheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, gives some context to the television ad.

For updates, you can also check BlueNC, which is publishing open letters from constituents, and you can also check stories from reporter Jim Morrill at The Charlotte Observer about the 8th District primary and election.

Should people be able to search Mecklenburg County property records by name?

Mecklenburg County is conducting a survey on whether it should remove the ability to search by name for property owners in the county. And officials are also looking for feedback from "power users" of the online property records system for future development of the county's property records search tool.

For background, check a story in the The Charlotte Business Journal.

My personal opinion on the name search: Keeping government records open and accessible to all is important. Some people apparently are concerned about safety when anyone can search property records by name. I suspect that if this search method is taken away, someone else will just step in to provide the service for a fee to those who can afford it. These days, if someone wants to find out where you live, even without an online name search capability for your property records, they can find you. And the advantages to all of being able to track absentee landlords or other property owners enhance transparency, safety and community as a whole, outweighing some individuals' concerns.

Your two cents may vary, and I encourage you to take the survey.

If you're a "power user" of the POLARIS property records online tool, consider attending a focus group at 9:30 a.m. Monday.

Town meeting with Susan Burgess and Rodney Monroe

At-large Charlotte City Council member Susan Burgess is hosting a town meeting from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday in Room 267 at City Hall, with featured speaker Police Chief Rodney Monroe.
Details from an email to community leaders:
The meeting will focus on public safety and will include updates on the impact of the economic stimulus plan on public safety, presentations on the three top citizen concerns from the 2008 Citizen Survey (burglary, drugs, and gangs), and a question and answer session with the Chief and other police department personnel.
Details or questions: Contact Sergeant M. W. Sloop, Response Area Commander, Eastway Division, at 704-336-8535, or 704-336-3817, or
msloop@cmpd.org

Online Carolina and national election results

Go here.

Finding gas using Twitter

(Edited December 2009: Embedded Twitter box no longer included, because #cltgas tag isn't being used at the moment.)

The box up above is a feed of notes people have posted on Twitter about gas availabilty in Charlotte. Posts with the keyword #cltgas will show up in the box, with a small bit of delay, human intervention and moderation using Google Reader.

It's not instantaneous, and it's not really high-tech. Someone with programming skills could do a better job than me, I'm sure. But it's working somewhat here in Charlotte, and definitely in other places like Atlanta. You can search Twitter at Twitter Search for the tag #atlgas and see an illustration.

What's so cool is that Twitter is easy to use from a cellphone, just the sort of thing you'll have with you while driving your dinosaur around town looking for fuel. And it's an illustration of how we can help each other quickly: Anyone in Charlotte for Hurricane Hugo or an ice storm can attest to the need for immediate information about basics like ice, gas, firewood, open restaurants and hotels. And sometimes, instant messages are the only communication method that works.

So check out Twitter. You might not need it now; in our neighborhood, many of us are lucky or smart enough to not be too dependent on gas. And walking and biking are certainly green alternatives. But live long enough and you will find a time when you need good local information from neighbors; Twitter can help.

Update Monday, Sept. 29: The Charlotte Observer added a link to Twitter Search on Monday for the #cltgas tag, and The Atlanta Constitution had a link up through the weekend for the tag #atlgas. Both used links directly to Twitter Search, so the results were real time. You can go there too for faster updates than you'll see here.

And Scott Dodd wrote about the shortage at Switchboard, a blog for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Merry Oaks communications: a quick guide

Here's a quick guide on the various ways that Merry Oaks neighbors talk with each other online. It's for newcomers, old timers and anyone who wants more clarity and transparency on our current ways of communicating. It might be edited over time as I talk with others. Please feel free to share your ideas in comments.

The Google group: The neighborhood association has had a Google group for awhile with a couple of moderators. The discussions are widely read by at least one city council representative and one county commission representative, as well as a law enforcement representative. It's moderated by a couple of different people. You can post pages and documents there as well, though we haven't gone that far with it yet. The Commonwealth Park Neighborhood Association has used their Google group for the posting of files (including police "mugshots" of people working the streets in their neighborhood). This is the most active and quick way to communicate with each other; just remember you're broadcasting to a large audience of elected officials, police and perhaps potential home buyers and real estate folks. I have not seen any ads there; if there were any, the revenue would go to Google.

Neighborhood Link: This is a free long-standing website initially funded by a private company in partnership with Mecklenburg County or the city (I can't remember which, it's been so long). It's part of a network that provides the websites to neighborhood groups. It has excellent reference material about local government, schools and other neighborhood associations, as well as a discussion area and PDF documents of current and old newsletters. Those newsletters include contact information for all the current neighborhood association board members. The site requires a Neighborhood Link signon to participate in discussions. It has no ads. It has ads, and it's unclear where the revenue goes -- not the neighborhood association.

Under Oak blog: That's where you are now. This is a personal blog, run by me, a board member of the neighborhood association. It is not an official vehicle of the neighborhood association. In that respect, it's similar to Under the Water Tower in Elizabeth. That neighborhood has an official website, and that blog is a personal endeavor by a resident of that neighborhood. Under Oak has no ads.

Facebook Neighborhoods application: This is the newest way I know of. Eight people are now members of the Facebook Merry Oaks neighborhood -- for the longest time, I knew of only three. This method seems to have potential for posting event information and meeting new people. It's free, but any ad revenue goes to Facebook.

All these methods might be a bit confusing. My point of view: It's good to have a variety of ways to talk with each other, though we all need to continue to work on being transparent so that people know how to use these ways to communicate well. In addition, I suspect that the folks running these various communication methods would love to have help.

To quote a co-worker recently: "Where there's no logic, there is history." In some cases, these methods evolved because neighbors didn't want to share their email addresses publicly, or wanted to be able to comment anonymously. As tech tools and the neighborhood evolve, I'm sure we can continue to improve.

And of course, there's always a chat along the sidewalk. Sometimes, that's the best way.

Thoughts? Let me (Andria) know at akrewson45c AT mac DOT com.