News-Record.com

I've been remiss in not welcoming another elected official to the blogosphere. It gives me another opportunity to encourage one, in this case T. Dianne Bellamy-Small, to embrace the form's potential.

City Council member Sandy Carmany and Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen are excellent bloggers -- and Commissioner Skip Alston is proving to be one. They post positions, opinions and worthwhile information. They interact with commenters. They help me stay better informed. My sense is that they are performing valuable public and constituent service.

This is a big step for Bellamy-Small. She has not been the most responsive elected official, at least to us. She declines to speak with us directly and requires us to fax her questions, which she may or may not answer. And we aren't nearly as, shall we say, feisty as some of the people in the blogosphere.

I hope she stays with it and keeps an open mind about how she can blog and be a better city representative. We'll see. City Hall reporter Margaret Banks has already left her a question in the comments field.

(By the way, when I click on the nameplate on her blog, it sends me to Skip's. You might want to check on that Shu.)