South Orange Patch was officially born on Wednesday, Feb. 4. It has sister sites in Maplewood and Millburn, which are run by different editors.

The site will be something like an online newspaper, and as the editor, I'll be showing up everywhere from Board of Trustee meetings to high school basketball games to traffic stops with my laptop and camera in tow. If I hear a rumor that a long-time business is closing or that a fight took place at the high school, I'll report on it. And while I'll be handling most of the hard news—especially anything to do with local government, police and fire—a team of freelancers will help to cover arts, dining and sports.

South Orange Patch is aiming to be your definitive local news source, but not just that. I've gathered local facts on everything from snow removal to public school enrollment to animal control, and they're organized in a way that hopefully makes it easy to find what you're looking for. And since September, teams of researchers have been gathering information on local businesses for a 1,000-page directory that also profiles schools, churches, synagogues and civic groups. Since we want the site to be dynamic and have the most current information, it's set up to let someone from every business and institution tweak information in their listing and add photos.

We're also developing an announcements section to help you share important news in your lives with your neighbors—everything from weddings to births to deaths to honor roll mentions. Another of our goals is to link up individuals looking to volunteer with local organizations that need their help, so we'll be regularly posting and updating that information, too.

Though my plan is to be tireless, thorough and organized, I can't make the site live up to its potential without your help. While I'm hoping that you find my stories interesting enough to read and comment on, your participation has to go beyond that. I need your tips, your story ideas, your photos, your event information and your announcements to give the site your voice.

About Cotton

I moved to South Orange at age 3 and am locally grown. I'm a 2000 graduate of Columbia High School, a 1991 graduate of Marshall School, and a 1988 graduate of South Orange Country Day. While at CHS, I planned on becoming an actress but then discovered I couldn’t act.

I majored in English at Yale University and then fled to Brazil. But, a total Jersey girl, I came back and worked as a reporter for The Jersey Journal newspaper and an editor at New York Resident magazine. I started working for Patch in April 2008.

Please send your tips and story ideas to me at cotton@patch.com, and don't hesitate to send your criticisms, too. I'm a big girl and can take it, and my goal is to make the site as useful and informative as possible. If I get something wrong, I want to know right away so I can publish a correction. And, lastly, please drop me a line if you're interested in writing for Patch—I'm looking for folks who'd be interested in writing real estate, history and education columns right now, but I'm open to other topics if you let me know why they're important.