BIDDEFORD — All of the city’s 18 departments now have another tool for communicating with the public: Twitter.

In a statement released last Friday, City Manager Jim Bennett said the city’s department heads will be using the social media website to connect with citizens, business owners and others interested in what’s going on in Biddeford. Two days earlier, the Twitter account for the city’s IT Department tweeted, “Staff Twitter training is complete. Let the tweeting begin.”

“As part of the effort to share the tremendously positive things that are happening in Biddeford as well as ongoing updates, all departments are now using Twitter as a tool,” Bennett said in the statement. “Telling the story of how ‘Biddeford Is Leading the Way’ was a critical message that the mayor and city councilors shared with me during my recruitment as Biddeford’s next city manager.”

Bennett said Twitter will be used to share information that has traditionally been shared on the city’s website.

Mayor Alan Casavant said in the statement that he and the City Council are pleased to see the effort underway.

“We all know that many citizens use social media as a major source of information,” he said. “Unfortunately, we also know that some of the information that is out there is not accurate. We hope those that desire to use social media as a way to gather information will see our official tweets as their preferred medium.”

Although some of the city’s accounts had not yet tweeted as of Monday evening, several accounts took advantage of the platform to release information related to the Labor Day weekend.

For example, on Friday, the city clerk tweeted, “Reminder: beach permits are still needed through Labor Day. Have a safe & wonderful long weekend!” Likewise, the Public Works Department tweeted, “There will be regular trash and recycling curbside collection on Monday, Sept. 7, Labor Day. However, the Recycling center will be closed.”

Bennett said in an email this morning that people should expect some of the departments to be more active than others, depending on their comfort level with the technology.

“While I don’t expect (Twitter) to be the only tool we will use, we do expect that it will be a preferred tool for some of the citizens and others that are interested in things going on with our great community,” he said.

The following is a list of the city’s official Twitter accounts: Assessing, @ BiddMEAssessing; City Clerk, @BiddMECityClerk; City Manager, @ BiddMECityMgr; Codes, @BiddMECodes; Economic Development, @BiddMEEconDev; Engineering, @BiddMEEng; Environmental Control, @ BiddMEEnvCodes; Finance, @BiddMEFinance; Fire, @ BiddMEFire; Health and Welfare, @BiddMEHW; Human Resources, @ BiddMEHR; IT, @ BiddMEIT; Maintenance, @BiddMEBldgMaint; Planning, @ BiddMEPlanning; Police, @BiddMEPolice; Public Access, @BiddMEBPA; Public Works, @BiddMEPW; and Recreation, @ BiddMERec.

— Staff Writer Angelo J. Verzoni can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or [email protected].