Alaska Dispatch

Most of the talk around Anchorage about Mayor Dan Sullivan's budget presentation today had to do with the budget itself -- particularly Sullivan's announcement that the municipality plans to stop rolling fire department closures and cut 192 jobs -- but there's also been some buzz about the fact that the budget meeting was live-tweeted by the mayor's office.

Sullivan has had a Twitter account since July but had used it infrequently until today, when his feed exploded with a series of nearly three dozen tweets -- live updates from the budget meeting. Some of the tweets were straightforward ("if we tax to cap, we still have $23M gap. Not acceptable"), some were ideological ("Today's action creates stability for tomorrow"), and a few were direct responses to constituent questions coming back over Twitter. A quick Twitter search this afternoon turned up about twenty Anchorage tweeters responding to the mayor or retweeting his messages.

Of course, considering the mayor was probably busy presenting his budget plan, you've got to wonder who was doing the actual tweeting. I don't doubt Sullivan's ability to multitask, but even the most hardcore Twitter users have a tough time tweeting and talking at the same time. So I e-mailed my new BFF, the woman who happily answers my questions no matter how inane, Sullivan spokeswoman Sarah Erkmann.

So really, I asked Erkmann, how involved is Sullivan in his own Twitter updates? Is he rocking the BlackBerry a la Sarah Palin, or is there someone younger and hipper punching out those 140-character messages?

"He is involved to the extent that he knows we are doing it," she wrote. "Like anyone of his generation, this whole social media thing is new, so it has taken some education from the younger folks around here" (that is, Erkmann and intergovernmental affairs director Stacy Schubert) "to get it going."

Just because Sullivan didn't light the Twitter fire, though, doesn't mean he isn't fanning the flames.

"He thinks anything that helps let citizens know what he is up to is a good thing," Erkmann wrote. "While he may not actually be typing the tweets, they are in fact his messages and he knows when they are going out."

Sounds like Sullivan isn't interested in competing with Palin for the title of Alaska's Most Prolific Tweeter (although Palin's gubernatorial Twitter account has been dormant since July 26 and the account rumored to be its replacement has yet to produce a single tweet).

Today's live-tweeting session was "an experiment," Erkmann said.

"Based on feedback, we’ll try to continue with it or otherwise explore ways to reach those using new media."

Contact Maia Nolan at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .