Finding local bloggers?

So, I've been asked to find local bloggers in our coverage area for a possible ongoing print feature.

I thought that would be relatively easy, but I'm having a crazy hard time. That could be for a number of reasons, but I'm beginning to believe that no one's blogging local affairs in our patch on a regular basis.

Why? Most reporters here say their beats aren't being touched by anyone else. Ditto for other general local affairs. (Which is great for leverage in our news coverage, but that's a whole 'nother conversation.)

I've used a couple online tools to winnow the field — Blogorama and Google Blog Search to name a couple — but with limited success. The searches that do fetch results lead to either splogs or pages with infrequent updates.

I've also sent Facebook and Twitter messages out. Zero feedback on those.

Are there any other tools or methods out there to help my search?

Thanks everyone,
C