The City of St. Albert now has a Facebook page but it isn't the city that's doing it.
A new Facebook page entitled The Community of St. Albert has been live for more than a week now, and initially launched as "The City of St. Albert." Despite the title, the page is actually run by a stay-at-home mom who's trying to promote events and businesses around the community.
"This is not a city page. It's a community page," said Saylor McLennan, 34.
She sought and received consent from Mayor Nolan Crouse prior to launching her page. The description accessed through the info tab clearly states it's a community page and not run by the city, she said.
"My intention was to make the page recognizable in the fact that the information was relevant to St. Albert," she said.
She launched the page because she was disappointed that the city didn't have one, she said, but didn't intend to be mistaken for official city information.
"I have in no way whatsoever at any given point tried to pretend it's something that it's not," McLennan said. "That's not my intention."
She had a resident post thanks for planting trees on Boudreau Road and prompted at least one reporter to ask the city's mayor and communications director why the page had launched without a press release.
Last week she was using the city's logo as her photo which prompted a polite request from Crouse to use something else. The title for the page changed Tuesday afternoon.
"That logo can come across as being the official corporate Facebook page," Crouse said. Regarding her choice of wording for her page title, he said he'll "probably give her some more advice."
"She's doing a commendable thing by trying to communicate to people," Crouse said. "I'm not going to stop what she's doing. I'm not going to kill the spirit that she's got."
Representing the community
As of Tuesday afternoon, McLennan's page had 35 people following its updates, which include reminders of events and programs happening in St. Albert, such as the children's festival, the new waste program and the closure of the pool at Servus Credit Union Place.
"I want it to be about celebrating what's great about St. Albert," she said. "If people want to put St. Albert down or are looking to cause controversy, please write a letter to the editor of the Gazette."
Local resident John Carle, a realtor, also has a St. Albert-focused community page. His is entitled "St. Albert," and has been up since early April. Unlike McLennan, he's open to comments about issues.
"I want it to take on a life of its own and for it to be just a part of the community," he said.
Despite their divergent mandates, Carle and McLennan are considering whether to merge their two pages, they said.
City planning
The city, meanwhile, is working to establish a social media presence after council passed a directive in February to start an official city Facebook page.
Round table sessions aimed at gathering input are in the works for late June and will lead to a public survey throughout July, said communications director Maya Pungur-Buick.
"We want to take the lead from the people that want to engage with us," she said.
She noted that it's very complicated for a large organization like the city to launch a Facebook page, because it has to form an overall policy and deal with issues like privacy and deciding whether to have a single page or separate pages for different departments.
"We will probably be looking at absolutely all sorts of social media — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, you name it, blogs, as part of our strategy," she said.
