IT'S UNOFFICIAL: SPRINGFIELD ENTERS MYSPACE.

Byline: Jack Moran The Register-Guard

SPRINGFIELD - Earth considers itself a friend of Springfield, at least according to a new MySpace page established by a city employee.

Springfield's community relations coordinator, Niel Laudati, launched the page on behalf of the city last month after obtaining informal approval to do so from Mayor Sid Leiken and other top officials.

The goal is to connect Springfield with the so-called "MySpace generation" of young people who float through cyberspace in search of information. If Laudati's idea works as hoped, the popular social-networking site will help the city recruit its next wave of workers.

"It's a marketing tool," Laudati said. "We want to reach and engage a portion of the population that we really don't have any other outlet to. It's a generation that's going to start working soon, and this is a way to tell them about Springfield, on their turf."

The city's MySpace page is considered unofficial. Laudati said he set it up and works on it from home, on his own time.

Still, much of the information on the main page is clearly connected to city business.

Springfield's slogan, "People, Pride and Progress," appears near the top of the page, just above a link to job listings on the city's official Web site. Farther down, under the heading "Who I'd like to meet," is a paragraph explaining what the city organization is about. Springfield's official symbol - the McKenzie drift boat - serves as the page's backdrop.

"The city has its own Web site, and it's fine," Leiken said. "But I see this as yet another way to provide information about Springfield. It makes a lot of sense to do it this way."

So far, Springfield has 11 MySpace "friends" who requested to be recognized as such. The list includes the nearby city of Harrisburg, as well as Denver, Oregon and Earth - and no individuals.

Harrisburg City Administrator Bruce Cleeton said it's a mystery to him who set up the unofficial Harrisburg page, which includes local news bulletins and directs users to the Linn County city's official Web site for more information.

Whoever did it is operating without formal city approval - something that Cleeton finds a bit unsettling. The truth is that anyone, anywhere, could set up his own Harrisburg page on MySpace.

`Generally speaking, I'd say that if we can help educate people about Harrisburg, (a My Space page) is a good thing," Cleeton said. "But it does make me a little nervous to think that some people could think something on there is coming from the city, when in fact it's not."

Ramona Kenady, chief clerk for the Oregon House of Representatives, also became nervous when she learned Wednesday that a staff member had started a MySpace page on behalf of the House's honorary page program for youngsters. Much like Laudati, the staff member believed the idea would work to help recruit pages to assist lawmakers during the legislative session. The problem was that he didn't ask his bosses first.

"He was hoping to spark some interest in the program," Kenady said. "But I asked him to take it down, because we don't have a policy for whether it can be there or not. I'm not saying it's not a valid way to connect with younger people, because it very well could be. We just don't have a policy covering that."

In Springfield, the primary concern with making the MySpace page an official city Web site is the "friends" issue. Officials say they're not sure what would happen if particular businesses or individuals asked to be named official friends of the local government, and they were rejected for one reason or another. On the unofficial site, Laudati can choose Springfield's MySpace friends as he deems appropriate.

"One thing that we don't want to do in our official capacity is have something that makes it look like we're sponsoring one business over another," Leiken said.