Cities and villages around the area are using Facebook to stay in touch with citizens and inform them of municipal events, activities and other government planning and functions. One area village - Dundee in Monroe County - used it incredibly effectively to keep residents well informed about matters of public safety when a tornado blew threw town in June, leaving power out but sparing enough cell phones to let people use the village's Facebook page to learn about what was really happening. 

Here are links to many of the official area government Facebook pages in Washtenaw County.

Local government

Some local governments have official Facebook pages set up, and others don't. For the ones that don't, Facebook helpfully provides an automatically created page using information from Wikipedia to start things out. It's a bit confusing.

Ann Arbor: The City of Ann Arbor has an official page with 476 fans. "The City of Ann Arbor is committed to providing excellent municipal services that enhance the quality of life for all through the intelligent use of our resources while valuing an open environment that fosters fair, sensitive and respectful treatment," it says. There are also pages for Ann Arbor Parks and Recreation (341 fans), Ann Arbor City Elections (117 fans), Natural Area Preservation (270 fans), and the Community Television Network (241 fans).

Ypsilanti: I didn't see an official "City of Ypsilanti" Facebook effort; or, more to the point, I did see something that might be an official City of Ypsilanti placeholder page, but it only has one fan (that's me). That doesn't mean that Ypsilanti as a place isn't online, just that the municipality hasn't created something official.

Dexter: The Village of Dexter has an official page with 411 fans. "Located 7 miles west of Ann Arbor, the Village of Dexter is a quiet, quaint historic community with a population of approx. 3500 people," the page says. The page has a focus on upcoming events in the city, including events looking far enough forward as Apple Daze on Oct. 2.

Chelsea: I didn't see an official "City of Chelsea" Facebook effort. There are, however, two pretenders to the title: one, a Chelsea Michigan page with 127 fans that is an automatically created and curated "community page," and a second Chelsea Michigan page with 1,716 fans.

Saline: The City of Saline maintains a page with 1,272 fans. Again, confusingly, there is a second Saline Michigan page with another set of 304 fans.

Innovative use of Facebook in Dundee

The village in the area that has the most notable, active and useful Facebook presence is the Village of Dundee, located south of Milan. When a tornado hit Dundee earlier this year, the village used Facebook to get the word out about what was happening in the area, coordinate relief and cleanup efforts, share news with residents who could get Internet access on their cell phones but who didn't have power at home, and keep people tuned into news and not rumors. Residents offered each other help, and every incoming news crew had a ready place to share and gather their stories or footage from the people most affected.

Dundee (population 3,522 in the 2000 census) shows the best of what a small town can do to use online communications in an emergency. Facebook is not their only tool - they keep a Village of Dundee web page, and a Village of Dundee Twitter feed that is fed from Facebook. In Dundee, at least, Facebook is the busy channel: only 28 people follow the city on Twitter, compared to 1,576 fans on Facebook.

Edward Vielmetti is the lead blogger at AnnArbor.com. Reach him on Facebook or via email at edwardvielmetti@annarbor.com.