Mesa partners with neighborhood social networking site

The city of Mesa announced it’s partnered with a website aimed at easing communication with residents, a city official said Tuesday.

The city announced it has partnered with Nextdoor.com, a private social networking site for neighborhoods. It allows residents to communicate with others in their neighborhood about anything they find important, from lost dogs to suspicious people walking around.

Neighborhood Outreach Coordinator Lindsey Balinkie said now that the city is on the website, residents can communicate easily with them about issues concerning their neighborhood.

“We see this as a resource that is growing throughout Mesa and throughout the country really, and so we decided to join in as well to just use it as another way for us to communicate with neighborhoods,” she said.

Balinkie said there are already 131 neighborhoods in Mesa that are using the site.

“We can connect with new people, we often connect with hundreds of neighborhoods all over Mesa, but we don’t connect with every resident,” she said. “So many residents that we don’t know are joining Nextdoor and we’ll be contacting them and communicating with them through the new site.”

Balinkie said it’s also useful for the city to let residents know about upcoming events, such as community meetings.

“It allows us to share important city information and news and also hear from the neighborhoods about their concerns,” Balinkie said.

The site is free to use for the city and for residents, but users must have their addresses verified.