Goleta resident Laura Murphy stepped outside about 6 a.m. on Jan. 26 to retrieve her newspaper like any other morning, but this time she noticed the driver’s side window of her car had been smashed.

“I came in immediately and went on Nextdoor to put an alert up for everyone explaining what happened,” Murphy said.

After seeing the alert, others ventured outside and found that Murphy was not alone.

“Within a half a day, we all knew what was going on with these situations,” she said. “I felt it was a great way to disseminate information.”

With the City of Goleta celebrating its 10th birthday on Valentine’s Day, it keeps the tenets of the holiday in mind with its “Love Your Neighbor, Know Your Neighbor” initiative. Goleta launched its Nextdoor.com site on Tuesday as a citywide community building and information spreading tool.

Nextdoor.com is a nationwide social networking website for communities and neighborhoods. The site builds on findings from Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone and the Pew Research Center, which illustrate that as a sense of community increases so does educational performance and physical and mental health while crime decreases.

With a verification process that ensures all members trying to use a neighborhood’s site are residents, City of Goleta public information officer Valerie Kushnerov sees Nextdoor.com as a means of getting to know neighbors and building closer, more invested communities while making government accessible to residents.

“We laid the groundwork to make it easy for people (to join Nextdoor.com), but it certainly provides another way for people to link to government in an easy, transparent way,” she said. “It provides a real face rather than just a government, City Hall building.”

Kushnerov and Greg Sorenson, a community resources sheriff’s deputy, mapped Goleta into 21 neighborhoods based on natural boundaries, such as major roads, while keeping existent community organizations such as neighborhood watch groups in mind.

By Jan. 25, weeks before Tuesday’s official launch, seven of the 21 neighborhoods had been founded and 142 Goleta residents had joined, according to Nextdoor.com. Everyone living in Goleta can create an account, even those in the same household or building.

“Whether you own the home or rent the home, you’re in the neighborhood, and you have something valuable to contribute,” Kushnerov said.

Kushnerov, who will monitor all 21 neighborhood sites, and the City of Goleta have valuable information to contribute as well. After a concerned resident posted about a suspicious person in the area, Kushnerov made the police non-emergency number available on the Nextdoor.com.

Many residents, such as Josh Kohlhaas, were unfamiliar with the non-emergency number. He said he mainly uses the site to get to know his neighbors, but he also uses it to stay updated on community activities.

“Many people only know what they’re told about in their email,” Kohlhaas said, adding that after missing the California Lemon Festival in Goleta for the past three years, he is looking forward to getting community information in a new, convenient way.

Between work, dinner, soccer practice and weekend projects that turn into month-long projects, people cannot always seek out neighbors for introductory conversation or may not be comfortable doing so. Users such as Kohlhaas benefit from their neighbors’ profile pictures and learning about interests that connect households and individuals.

“I am terrible at remembering numbers and names,” Kohlhaas said. “Finally, I have a tool to help me remember who this person is.”

The City of Goleta sees the site as protection for residents as much as connection among them, so the site must be safe and secure to fulfill its purpose. Kushnerov said she is confident in Nextdoor.com’s security procedures.

Everyone registering for an account must be verified to ensure he or she lives in the neighborhood. If a community founder, the person who first began the neighborhood’s site, invites a user, he or she is automatically verified. Nextdoor.com can also mail a postcard or call the registrant’s home with a code that can be plugged into the site to verify. A registrant’s credit card can also be charged 1 cent to verify whether the user’s card is registered at the neighborhood address.

Further, the city has placed community guidelines regarding appropriate and inappropriate uses and materials at the bottom of each neighborhood’s site to maintain Nextdoor.com as a benefit rather than a hazard.

Kushnerov sees Goleta as a prime stage for Nextdoor.com.

“We’re still finding our way, and so we can be a little more flexible and try new things,” she said.

Nextdoor.com, while will launch nationally this year, complements Goleta’s outlook, according to Kushnerov.

“If I had my crystal ball and I could look down the road, I think that we’ll find stronger neighborhoods, really connected people, happy people and neighborhood traditions that transcend the years,” she said.

— Noozhawk intern Erin Lennon can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) . Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk or @NoozhawkNews. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.