Coral Springs, the first city in Florida to ask the State Attorney’s opinion about joining Facebook, is set to join the growing list of cities in the country that have joined the social networking site to better communicate with residents.

City staff hope to have the Facebook page up and running by next Monday. Commissioners will become fans but won’t post comments as doing that would amount to violation of the state’s Sunshine Law. There will be a one-month trial period; the city commission will take a final decision on the issue after seeing the kind of response the page gets from residents.

The city will use the page as another tool in its communications toolbox to publicize events, activities and important issues. It would allow wall posts for up to two weeks on hot topics. All posts will remain on the page for a minimum period of 30 days after the two-week period to comply with the state’s public records retention law.

All comments – positive or negative – will remain on the page as the city as decided to stay away from censorship and let the site decide on “inappropriate” comments.

His fellow commissioners were not as enthusiastic as he was, but Mayor Scott Brook, who championed the idea, succeeded in winning them over. “Forty two percent of our population are 25 and under. A great percentage of our population; we are missing. Young people in the city want us to communicate with them; this is how they love communicating, through Facebook,” he said at a recent workshop.