Last week, I blogged about a somewhat unusual event going down this Wednesday: DC Arts Advocacy Day. It’s an event close to home for Sunlight, but our participation is far from sentimental. The DC Advocates for the Arts, who put on Arts Advocacy each year, have a clear stance that increasing government transparency is part of their vision for long-standing changes to the the government works with and supports artists. Here’s an excerpt from their Advocacy primer from last year:

We ask that the District make public the programming and granting program budgets for Arts and Humanities support in the District, and encourage public input in any revisions of those programs.

Sunlight is one of 15 other local groups partnering with the DC Advocates for the Arts for this event because we support their call for budgetary transparency. If you’re a local and you’re interested in showing your support for open government in the District, please join us at the event tomorrow. At noon, we’ll be gathering in front of the John A. Wilson Building to hear from arts and transparency advocates -- and might event get to take in some surprise entertainment. I’ve posted a recap of the details below.

Hope to see you there!

DC Arts Advocacy Day

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Public Gathering & Statements: 12PM - 1PM

John A. Wilson Building (the District’s city hall)

Full disclosure: I've received funding from the DC Commission for the Arts & Humanities and sit on the board of the DC Advocates.

Our guest blogger today, is Sid Burgess. Sid is the Director of Government Relations at DotGov, Inc -- the creators of YouTown-Putting government in your pocket.

For some time now, mobile government has been touted as the next big thing for agencies striving for better connection with citizens.  After all, mobile communications are growing as the tools become more affordable and common.  If people are already using their smart-phones for social, business, and consumer purposes, it makes sense for governments to reach out this way -- but many agencies don’t know where to begin, especially if resources and funds are limited.  It’s one thing to create a Facebook page, but mobile technologies can seem to be an elusive goal for your average local gov.

Enter the newly launched, fast-growing mobile gov app YouTown  -- making open government more easily achievable for agencies at the municipal and county levels.  It functions as a platform that allows governments to publish news, maps, events, and services to the smart-phones of citizens, so an agency can go mobile without a long app development process.

Combining a familiar user interface with customizable settings that cater to specific people groups (i.e. Families, Tourists, Seniors, Residents, etc.), YouTown delivers a mobile citizen-to-government connection that has been difficult for most agencies to achieve -- until now.  This isn’t an app that has a long ramp-up phase either. Governments can sign up for free and go mobile the same day.

For end-users, YouTown provides a mobile resource for things that are sometimes hard to find -- schedules for council meetings, information on licenses or recycling programs, traffic or police updates, maps for city facilities or libraries.  Cities like Prattville, AL are finding the app useful for tourism as well -- visitors can download the app free, gaining immediate mobile access to local attractions, events, sports schedules, or shows.

Openness made easy

Governments aiming to increase transparency and openness will find YouTown an inexpensive, easy-to-use platform that allows them to leverage any open data feeds or calendars they may already be publishing to a website.  By simply pasting the feed into the YouTown interface, the data becomes viewable on the mobile devices of citizens.  The app also supports real-time data, like the “911 Map” in Shawnee, OK, which allows citizens to view the location and nature of recent police incidents in the area.

No website?  No problem!  Even small agencies with little or no web presence can go mobile with YouTown in just a few minutes.  Governments have the option of manually creating content right in the YouTown interface -- news articles, events, service descriptions, even maps.  Publishing mobile data allows agencies to take that first step toward open government, regardless of whether the agency already has an online presence. It’s not uncommon for big cities like open-data leader San Francisco to develop dozens of their own customized mobile apps .  Smaller agencies don’t have the resources for this, but YouTown acts as a platform so cities can provide an “app experience” to citizens without breaking the budget.  “We bundle mobile development efforts for all these cities, so agencies don’t have to create their own apps.  They can sign up and start publishing, skipping the whole development and design process,” said Michael Riedyk, CEO of DotGov, the Seattle-based company that created YouTown.

Helping citizens understand their governments

YouTown opens a world of information and services to residents, making it easier for them to understand the workings, schedules, and offerings of their local governments.  For services like paying traffic citations, licensing pets, or probating a will, citizens can view info on cost, what to bring, how long it takes, and more.  Some cities have even integrated their online bill-pay services, so people can make payments right from their mobile phones.  Agencies across the U.S. and Canada are publishing unique information to help residents get the most out of their communities:

• Nanaimo, Canada publishes information about their parks department under “Recreation Services.”  This is an example of a city that uses the YouTown app to connect citizens to a portion of the city website (essentially creating a mobile version of an existing site).  Clicking into recreation services, residents and visitors to Nanaimo can browse Activity Guides, Trails, Parks, and more.

• Morris County, NJ provides directions for their historic Downtown Walking Tours on the YouTown app -- useful for tourists.  In addition, they publish county-specific services like how to get a passport, probate a will, or seek career services in Morris County.  All these services contain links to further information and contact numbers.

• Enid, OK has focused on providing excellent maps for their citizens.  They’ve grouped their maps into categories that make it easier to “browse” the city geographically.  The map labeled “Family Fun in Enid” provides locations for a water park, golf courses, planetarium, country club, bowling, speedway, etc.  Local “Dining” and “Shopping” options are contained in maps of their own.  For everyday needs, the city has also published maps pinpointing local schools, fire stations, and lodging.  Citizens and tourists will all benefit from the convenience of having these maps waiting for them at the literal tap of a fingertip.

Mobile communications continue to expand, reaching a broader segment of the population than ever before, with a heavy focus on data and interaction.  It just makes sense for governments desiring greater connection and transparency to “go mobile” in some form.  YouTown combines open data and mobile communication -- making it easier for even “little govs” to achieve their open government goals.

We welcome Mark Cavers - our guest blogger. Mark serves as the Government Reform Policy Analyst for the Illinois Policy Institute, focusing on transparency and government reform. Today, he shares with us his organization’s venture at creating metrics for government websites that officials and citizens can agree on. He can be reached at mcavers@illinoispolicy.org.

The Illinois Policy Institute promotes transparency and accountability as a first step towards good and effective government. Last year, the Institute began using the “Ten Point Transparency Checklist” in partnership with grassroots volunteers to bring transparency best practices to local units of government. The Ten Point Transparency Checklist creates a standard for local governments and citizens to strive towards. It measures the availability of online information about: contacts for elected and administrative officials; public meetings; accessing public records using the Freedom of Information Act; budgets; audits; expenditures; employee salaries and benefits; contracts; lobbying; and taxes and fees.

Our checklist is by no means a complete list, but it is a good place to build from and very helpful for giving governments and activists a common framework to work towards. Using a simple 0 to 100% grading scale, this tool is easy to use and understand. It takes the guesswork out of transparency, puts everyone on the same page, and demonstrates to citizens and governments alike how they are performing.

As a first step, local citizens perform “transparency audits” of government websites and grade their level of openness based on the straightforward recommendations in our transparency checklist. Next, the Institute works with the citizens and the local governments to help them improve their scores by becoming more transparent.

The local government transparency audits using the Transparency Checklist have so far been successful in getting governments and citizens to work together towards clearly defined transparency goals. By auditing all the government units within a geographic region, the audits encourage local governments to compete against each other for the highest score and the recognition by their communities and the media that comes with it. We’ve seen governments improve their scores by over 30 points in 24 hours, as was the case with School District 54 in Glenview, Illinois.

For over a year, the Illinois Policy Institute has been performing local government transparency audits using the Ten Point Checklist as a grading scale. To date, we’ve performed over 130 audits on the websites of local governments ranging in size and responsibilities from park districts to villages to school districts to county government.

Recently the Illinois Policy Institute worked with the Village of Orland Park to implement the recommendations in the Checklist. Orland Park Mayor Dan McLaughlin had this to say about the opportunity:

“I commend the Illinois Policy Institute for creating a format with achievable goals that any government agency can follow.”

Transparency should not be a contentious issue, and as Mayor McLaughlin’s quote shows, it doesn’t have to be. TheTen Point Transparency Checklist is a great way to facilitate cooperation between local governments and their citizens while making measurable improvements in transparency. The Illinois Policy Institute’s aim is to help citizens across the state and country bring transparency to their local governments.

Why? Because transparency allows citizens and taxpayers to get actively involved in government, it is a powerful tool for rooting out corruption, and once we know how tax dollars are spent we can find ways to solve the budget crunches governments across the country face.

Government websites are great tools for increasing transparency. Our goal is to make these tools as useful as possible. The Illinois Policy Institute’s Ten Point Transparency Checklist  is a great way for governments and activists to work together towards improving their websites.

The open government movement (like most of the online world) is obsessed with “unconferences” -- meet-ups, of sorts, where the participants determine the content of and lead sessions around a pre-determined theme. When done right, it can be a powerful tool for building community.

Sunlight held its first unconference, TransparencyCamp, three years ago in an effort to get the diverse groups of people thinking about and working for government transparency together. From the conversations and problem-solving that took place there, we’ve seen the emergence of some incredible initiatives - take, for example, CityCamp.

This year, we want to go further. We want to focus on government transparency not just on Capitol Hill, but where you live. So, we need your help.

Please take a minute to fill out this survey and let us know what you want to get out of TransparencyCamp.

Never been to a TransparencyCamp or even an unconference before? Not a problem. We’re still interested in knowing what open government issues interest you, what you would want to get out of this sort of experience and how we can improve on the experiences you’ve had at similar events in the past.

TransparencyCamp 2011 will be open to people from across the country. We’re relying on your input to make it the best it can be.

http://transparencycamp.org/survey

Thanks for your help.

Sunlight gave Code for America its very first grant (a mere $10,000) and served as its fiscal sponsor while it organized itself.  We are amazed and pleased by the enormous progress they have made in the last 15 months.  They have a really ambitious program planned for next year and tomorrow you can tune in to the webinar they have planned (Tuesday, November 16th, 2010) at 1 pm PST/4 pm EST. It should be a great opportunity to learn more about who they are and what they're up to.

For those of you who don't know, Code for America is a project to foster better city governments by forming a more perfect union between talented and innovative developers with motivated cities. We're really excited to see the inaugural class of fellows that was announced a few weeks ago. Jennifer Pahlka, founder and executive director of Code for America, recently announced the fellows with this introduction:

Out of a pool of over 360 amazing applicants, these 20 stood out for their talent, experience, and passion. They will be the first participants in our experiment to help city governments better leverage the power of the web. Starting in January, it will be their challenge to not only build innovative apps for each of our cities, but also become the leaders of the ongoing movement to make government more open and efficient. Having gotten to know each of them over the past few months, I can assure you that they can and they will.

I hope you’re as excited as we are to see what together they can accomplish.

[image via Code for America's Binary Art]

This week's round-up highlights some major issues affecting state transparency from the East Coast to the Pacific. Here is a quick look at the topics that made news:

• Residents of Santa Ana City are concerned about the closed-door meetings held by their city council. CalAware Today reports here that these closed sessions critically prevent public comment.

• Incoming Honolulu city mayor, Peter Carlisle will have a tough challenge in attempting to enforce a citywide public disclosure of rail contracts. As Ian Lind of the iLind.net blogs, the city needs some help getting its transparent policies in line with its actions.

• Jennifer Pebbles of Texas Watch dog critiques public officials who use transparency as a weapon towards their opponents yet fail to be transparent themselves. She emphasized that transparency should be a genuine goal for all public officials.

• Fort Collins city council in Colorado is not using the public email account specifically set up to help residents access information about their council members. Amy Oliver Cooke of Colorado Spending Transparency considers the city’s lack of transparency in official communications.

• Still in Nevada, we discover how publicizing overpaid government employee information can be a way of promoting accountability in government. Eric Davis showed how the cities of Laughlin and Pahrump made the list of overpaid public employees. (Bell, California, anyone?) Transparent Nevada has more.

Welcome to the Sunlight Blogger Round-up. Each week, we will be giving you a look at what is happening in the world of Sunlight on the state and local level. Have a tip for good local news or blogs? Get in touch with us in the comments.

Enjoy our pioneer round-up!

• Open Records' Joshua Meyer in Wisconsin blogged about how state government rules on Open Meetings provide lessons in Federalism. He discussed Alabama Mayor Tony Kennon's refusal of video recording public meetings and how this hinders transparency in a democratically elected government. Read his blog here.
• Commissioner Greg Hartmann of Cincinnati said that Hamilton County should not allow its employees to fund overtly political groups such as Community Shares of Greater Cincinnati. See Carl Weiser's take on Politics Extra, and find the rest of the story here .
• On the Kentucky Open Government Blog, Terry Anderson wrote about the city of Salyersville among those cited by the state's attorney general for violations in open records cases. The attorney general found that the city undermined the Open Records Act when it refused a request for employee payroll records.
• Diana Lopez of the Sunshine Review Blog in Virginia takes a look at the pros and cons of transparency, inspired by an article in The Guardian. Lopez’s suggestion? Though there may be negative consequences, it is always better to provide people with information so that they can empower themselves.

This is long over due but the Sunshine Review has completed one part of their My Government Web site project.  “The goal of the My Government Website project is to produce evaluations of the websites of every city, county, school district and state agency in all fifty states.” A few weeks ago Sunshine Review and their community finished evaluating every county Web site in the country, all 3,140.  This is an incredible first step.  They evaluate every site based on their ten point checklist.  Does the Web site have, the budget, meetings, information about elected and administrative officials , permit info, audits, contracts, lobbying, public records, and local tax information.  You can see all fifty states compared and then drill down and compare counties in each state to each other.

Sunshine Review, a project by the Sam Adams Alliance, also keeps track of transparency legislation, state spending databases, and state FOIA information.  There is a lot of transparency initiatives happening on the state level and Sunshine Review is a great resource to start finding out what is going on.

County, city, and school district Web sites tend to be the most unusable, poorly designed, impossible to navigate.  However, they are really important for getting information about local community events, issues, and general government information.  It is great to see them being evaluated in a systematic way.  There is a lot of room for improvement.  These sites are where people get information and they should be  hubs for the local community and transparency measures.

However there are a lot issues at the local level that prevent them from being transparent.  It can be difficult to understand why some local sites that might be run by one or two people and just need a handful of elected officials' are having such a hard time upgrading.  Local government information tends to be run by contractors who have contracts for years that are hard to break.  Also most county level governments don't have the expertise on hand or the staff capacity to run a Web site that has to be updated with the frequency that new online measures require.  Add to that the lack of political will  to want to get out of a contract, hire a developer, open up information and potentially collaborate.  You get a lousy Web site.

With projects like My Government Web sites, there is now a way to give constructive feedback and also a way to talk to your elected officials about their Web presence.  Every state, county, and city should have a functioning Web site that allows people to find information that is essential to their community.  City,  school, and state agency sites still have to be done.  So get to work.

Loudoun County in Virginia just launched a new wiki to collect community news and information. Loudounpedia is run by the Loudoun county library system and has sections for local government information, blogs, job board, recreation and other community related activities.

The government section now has all information regarding the election including a Google map of polling places. This is an excellent resource for the community and the choice of a wiki allows people to edit it with their own knowledge making it a resource that is owned by the community.

h/t to the Municipalist