CAPE ELIZABETH – Cape Elizabeth residents have a new place to go to socialize and it has nothing to do with a new park or coffee shop opening; this community center is devoid of physical space and is located online.

Earlier this month, a handful of Cape Elizabeth residents, including Mary Esposito, Lisa Fernandes, and David Plimpton, launched The Village Green: A Virtual Town Square for Cape Elizabeth, Maine, an interactive website aimed at improving communication in the town.

The website, villagegreen.grouply.com, is an outlet for anyone, once they sign on as a member, to post news, topics or calendar listings. It also contains links to news stories from the town of Cape Elizabeth website and links to stories about Cape Elizabeth on other websites. Videos and pictures can also be uploaded to the site.

Despite launching the website mere weeks before the November elections, Fernandes, who designed the site, said it is not politically motivated or tied to Cape Elizabeth government.

“This isn’t because of government,” she said. “It is really a way for the citizens to be connected on a number of topics. Some of the things that we connect about could be about government or what is happening in town, but it is broader than that.”

Plimpton said part of the impetus of the creation of the site was due to Cape Citizen being removed from the municipal website. Cape Citizen was a collection of e-mails to and from town officials that was on the town website from early 2009 to early 2010. It was removed in February 2010 when the town changed its communication policy.

“It can fill the gap from the departure of Cape Citizen, but it can be so much more than that,” Fernandes said.

Esposito, who writes a column for The Current, said such a feature not only allows residents to see the exchange between citizens and town officials, but also allows citizens an opportunity to see what is on the minds of their friends, neighbors and coworkers.

Fernandes said the website offers forums on a number of topics, including food and agriculture, education and schools, local government, business and economics, good news and accolades and odds and ends.

It also includes a swap shop, were members can exchange goods, as long as no cash changes hands.

Fernandes said there aren’t too many similar sites in the area, although they are becoming increasingly common in other parts of the country.

“We realize something like this is a little new to people, so we recognize it will take some time for people to get used to it,” Fernandes said.

In her experience, she said, it generally takes up to a year for a community website to take off, although the hope with Village Green is that it establishes itself much more quickly.

Fernades said the name, Village Green, is a throwback to the time when green spaces in the middle of communities were central gathering places for the public to talk and connect.

The site, she said, is intended to support and compliment other means of communication in town. “It really supports and fills in the gaps that are around out there in terms of communication in town,” she said.

Plimpton said the goal of the online community is not to replace the websites and communication from the town and schools, or from such community groups as the Cape Farm Alliance, but to add to them.

While the hope of the Village Green is to increase communication between Cape Elizabeth residents, Fernandes said the hope is that translates into meetings outside the cyber-world.

“Any piece of internet technology is only as good as its ability to support real life action,” she said. “If it never materializes in anything but online discussion, maybe it is not fulfilling its purpose or potential.”

Increasing communication in town has also been a goal of the Town Council and Town Manager Mike McGovern. In July the council adopted a new communications strategy to “improve the effective communication with citizens on municipal services and on local issues.”

The strategy includes expanding the online access to materials relating to Town Council agenda items, enhancing public comment periods at all public meetings in town, and examining the efficiency of meeting rooms.

The publication of exchanges of e-mails to and from town officials was discontinued as a result of the new communication strategy, in part due to the amount of time and resources it took town staff to go through the e-mails prior to posting them.

E-mail exchanges between residents and town officials, however, are still public record and can be requested by the public.