Patrick site to go live -- activists can't wait to log on

Governor Deval Patrick's political committee has heralded his new website as a way to reenergize the grass - root ideals that helped lift him into office last fall. But advocacy groups seeking to be heard on Beacon Hill see an irresistible opportunity: a new, high-tech tool for directly lobbying the chief executive.

Even before the website's official launch today, organizations had begun to pounce.

The Conservation and Recreation Campaign, disappointed that Patrick has reneged on a campaign promise to increase park funding by $10 million next year, blasted its 1,500-member e-mail list this week, urging them to log on to the site, even in its unfinished form, and "vote" for parks.

"We are here to raise awareness of the underfunding of parks," said the campaign's director, Tom Philbin. "We'd be foolish not to jump on the opportunity to take this directly to the governor."

The newly reconfigured website, devalpatrick.com, goes live today. It will allow users to discuss and organize around political and civic issues and to tell Patrick they support a particular issue -- wind farms, for example -- by voting with the click of a mouse. Aides said they will track the discussions on the website and alert Patrick when large numbers of users begin aligning behind an issue. In response, they said, the governor will occasionally post his own comments or take action.

"When the governor ran his campaign, he talked about the grass-roots not being just about campaigning, but about governing," said Liz Morningstar, executive director of Patrick's political committee. "This is a great way to start doing that."

With a launch during a contentious budget process, however, the site is also a perfect vehicle for paid staff members of advocacy groups that want more money for their programs or a way to capture the freshman governor's attention. But Philbin says he sees little danger in professional organizers taking over the governor's new site. He said his e-mails, which members pass on to others, ultimately reach thousands of people, most of whom are involved in friends groups supporting their local parks.

"It's not me telling people what to say, it's people speaking from the heart," he said. "What I try to do is educate them on the process and give them the ability to affect that process."

Already, discussions have cropped up about affordable housing, a commuter rail link to Western Massachusetts, and same-sex marriage. A few local officials proclaimed their enthusiasm for the governor's proposed municipal partnership package. Another person started a forum about a broken walk light button in Teele Square in Somerville, which he said "results in pedestrians jay-walking or standing for extended periods of time on the sidewalk." So far, no one else has joined that discussion.

Patrick will host a community meeting at 2 p.m. today at Boston Latin School to officially relaunch his campaign website with its new look and goals and to reengage with his grass-roots supporters about issues facing Massachusetts. He will continue the effort with similar forums across the state in coming weeks.

Morningstar said the governor will use the site to promote his top issues, including job creation, property tax relief, and investment in education. But she said the object is not to mobilize the governor's vast campaign network to lobby the Legislature on his behalf, but rather to establish a conversation with residents, including those with issues they want the governor to address.

"I see it as an opportunity for activists to push their priorities into the governor's priorities, and the governor to push priorities on the local level," she said.

The site will be financed with political donations to Patrick's political committee, not taxpayer money. Morningstar said it will include a fund-raising section, separate from the issues forum. The governor's campaign committee provided about 350 core supporters with access to the demonstration version of the website, to test it and begin participation.

Patrick's campaign owed much of its success to its new-media team, which built a sophisticated website that helped supporters to independently organize and raise money.

Charles SteelFisher, who handled new media for Patrick's campaign, also designed the new version of the website. He said the new site is not only aimed at helping people attract the attention of the governor, but also to meet similar-minded people from across the state so that they can organize on their own.

"I think the whole idea is to blow open the doors of government and to give people access to the governor, regardless of whether you're in an organization or not," he said.

Tom Lang, an activist from the North Shore who runs a website supporting same-sex marriage, said he was not sure how his network of activists would use the governor's new site. But he said Patrick's campaign volunteers are still in touch with one another and eager to find ways to get involved in civic life.

"I think people are just going to make the transition from an almost primitive way of communicating on e-mail groups into community conversations" on the new website, he said. "It's a cleaner version of what we've all been doing."