Just in time for next week's special city council election, Sunlight is sneak-previewing our latest addition to Influence Explorer — DC campaign finance data — as well as our wish list for how it can be made better.
Washington, D.C. is a hub for political, nonprofit organization and business activity; it’s also well-loved destination for tourists, not to mention the visitors who come to see friends and family. As a D.C. resident, I know the experience of visiting Washington can be expensive, confusing and exhausting. So, to out-of-town TransparencyCamp 2013 visitors next month, let me give you some of the tips I share with friends and family to make your visit as enjoyable and productive as possible. But double-check the decisions you make; we offer these suggestions without warranty and with the understanding that there are many good ways to visit Washington.
Assuming you don’t already have a place to crash, your first decision – after registering for TransparencyCamp and making transportation plans – is finding a place to stay.
TCamp will take place at the Marvin Center on the campus of the George Washington University at 21st and H streets NW.
There are quite a number of nearby hotels, including the Best Western Georgetown and the Melrose Georgetown. Check out Washington.org for more hotel recommendations, often with special rates, from the District's convention and visitors bureau.
I met Sandra Moscoso at TransparencyCamp last year and was immediately impressed by her work opening up D.C. public school data to improve area schools. She is an obvious choice to be this month’s OpenGov Champion.
During the daytime, Sandra manages an open data portal at the World Bank for the bank’s financial sector, so she is familiar with the usefulness of open data. But it is her work in her local D.C. community that sets her apart. As a mom of two public school students, she is a member of the Capitol Hill Public School Parent Organization (CHPSPO), which looks to improve the local school system by organizing rallies and bake sales, restoring school buildings and talking to city officials. Sandra is often very hands-on in these activities, but her biggest personal mission with CHPSPO has been introducing the use of open government data as a basis in all they do.
As you can see in the video, she and other CHPSPO members were able to collect data to show how the schools that had a full time librarian had better test score results than those who had lost theirs due to budget cuts. The group was able to use that figure as an effective basis for their request to the city to restore funding for librarians. She also recently sent an open letter to Mayor Vincent Gray, asking for public school data she wanted use in an Open Data Day Hackathon in D.C. The city released the data, and even sent a data analyst to the hackathon, too. Who knows if Mayor Gray's administration would release this data had Sandra not publicly asked for it? Going to Sandra’s home to film the interview felt more like visiting family friends for brunch. Which, in fact, they were preparing as we arrived. Sandra and her husband have a cozy Victorian townhouse in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. We saw some very nice Lego projects and other things created by her smart and sweet kids and heard about how much they love their school.
“I have the best community here in Capitol Hill” Sandra says. She knows most of her neighbors, many of which also actively participate in neighborhood projects and politics. “I want them to stay.” Many D.C. families end up moving to the suburbs in Virginia and Maryland when their kids hit middle school age, as public middle schools in the District have a bad reputation and it’s a vulnerable age for children. She hopes to improve the situation by advocating for better schools, armed with all the open data she can get her hands on and a lot of enthusiasm. Her home was not the only place where we filmed. When I first approached Sandra about filming her for the OpenGov Champion series, she sent me a flurry of links to tons of activities she was doing around town. If you follow her on Twitter, there's barely a day goes by without her tweeting to D.C. government officials, trying to make them see the usefulness of opening their data and that there are people out there like her who really want to put said data to use.
A case in point was when in 2010 she and a group of other engaged parents drafted a proposal using open DC Public School data as well as data they collected for a new middle schools plan that the then D.C. Public School Chancellor Michelle Rhee approved and implemented (although not perfectly.) Sandra thinks that the most effective change happens at the local level, by people who truly care about what is happening in their own community. That is why having access to local government data is so important, and the more detailed and specific the better: it enables OpenGov Champions like Sandra and many others to be better advocates for their communities.
Our OpenGov Champions are remarkable ordinary people who have done extraordinary things to open up our government. Get inspired by their stories and nominate someone in your community to become an OpenGov Champion.
Most states keep their legal code in the open, but a few hold-outs have asserted a copyright over that material. Until just a few hours ago, D.C. was one of them.
Work on opening the D.C. Code has been moving fast. It was just eight days ago that Sunlight received a lovely box full of D.C. data from Carl Malamud (pictured at right). Carl paid hundreds of dollars to acquire a paper copy of the law, then digitized it, freeing an essential public resource from the weird copyright limbo that it had fallen into.
This was a great example of freeing data, but it was also a provocation: Carl was daring the D.C. Council and their vendors to raise a fuss over copyright to make a point about the public's right to access the law--not only in D.C., but everywhere. But that didn't happen. Washington Times reporter (and former Sunlight staff member!) Luke Rosiak interviewed Vladlen David Zvenyach of the D.C. government, who said the "copyright is intended to protect [the city council] against [our vendors], not protect [those vendors] against the public.” He also said he had no intention of causing problems for Carl.
This, in turn, prompted Steve Schultze, from the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) at Princeton, to issue a challenge:
Ok Vladlen. Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is and put a CC-0 license on your physical and electronic copies of the DC Code?
And guess what: He did! You can now download an (admittedly unofficial) CC-0 copy of the code right from the city council's website.
This has all happened pretty quickly--hopefully I haven't gotten the story wrong. But the upshot is clear: D.C. Code data is now available to the public. This is a great testament to the work done by Carl -- who has some history prying this sort of state info open -- and to everyone else who's written about this issue and why it's important (a partial list would have to include Tom MacWright, Steve, Luke, Martin Austermuhle, Cory Doctorow, Josh Tauberer, Waldo Jaquith, and many others).
Now it's time to actually put this data to use! Our friends at MapBox are hosting a hackathon on April 14 to crack open the Code and start building great stuff with it. If you're in the area, we'll hope to see you there.
UPDATE: Josh Tauberer was on the front lines of this fight, and has posted his own account of how it all went down--it's well worth a read.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight
Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog.
Jase Wilson is Co-founder & CEO at Neighbor.ly -- a civic crowd funding platform.
On April 20, CityCamp returns to Kansas City for its second year. Based on the popular series created by Code for America alumnus Kevin Curry and inspired by the Sunlight Foundation’s own TransparencyCamp, CityCampKC is a day long unconference at the nexus of community, government and technology in Kansas City.
Last year’s event focused on open source and open data, helping to drive communication and innovation within local government in the Kansas City region. Things will be a bit different than last year, but trust us, that’s a good thing! Instead of a predefined speaker list, sessions will be programmed by attendees and will emphasize the increasing diversity in government, government technology and civic engagement. Specifically, trying to balance gender, race and age cohorts involved in the conversations that shape the city. This year, discussion topics will be chosen the morning of the event and can be suggested by anyone!
Passionate about something in the KC community? Come share it and inspire others to get excited too!
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the guest blogger and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not reflect the opinions of the Sunlight Foundation or any employee thereof. Sunlight Foundation is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information within the guest blog. 
Sandra Moscoso runs the World Bank Finances Program (https://finances.worldbank.org) by day and works on community efforts around education, active transportation, and open government by night. Sandra lives in small, quaint, Washington, DC, where she tries to get a little biking in with her husband and two children. Follow: @sandramoscoso Last week, on my way home from work, I met a young man raising funds for a charity. He stood outside of a subway station and as part of his pitch, he asked, "if you could have any superpower, what would it be?" I offered the same answer I have been giving my children for years. "I have a superpower. It's reading." I suspect this both annoys and inspires my children. Given that annoying and inspiring are among my favorite parental duties, I rather like this answer.
Since then, a few things have happened that are making me want to revise my response to that young man.
The Sunlight Foundation recently announced its "new major focus" of "local government transparency," and this has me doing a lot of thinking about the work I do within my community and city I live in.
I have come to realize something exciting. It turns out I have another superpower - I'm average.
The idea that Washington, DC's lobbying disclosure schedule is inadequate is not new, but it might be easy to improve thanks to new legislation targeting campaign finance reform.
Lobbying and campaign finance are inherently linked. Companies that lobby the city government invariably give to political campaigns.
Currently, those who lobby the DC government and Council only have to report their activities and expenditures twice a year. As a result, journalists, watchdogs and interested citizens often have to wait until far after important debates for crucial information about the special interests that were working to influence policy decisions. Moreover, the bi-yearly requirements make it difficult to paint a complete picture of influence spending, especially in an election year.
This post was written by Policy Fellow Matt Rumsey. A version was cross-posted on Greater Greater Washington where Matt is a contributor.
Washington, DC has a unique form of hyper local government. Advisory Neighborhood Commissions are psuedo-legislative bodies that represent neighborhood clusters and weigh in on a variety of local issues and provide constituent services. ANCs are made up of single member districts with each commissioner representing around 2,000 residents. There are currently 37 Commissions spread across the city.
The chairman of one of these commissions stole about $30,000 from his ANC last year. DC agencies struggle to provide enough oversight of dysfunctional ANCs. The District can start to increase accountability and transparency by making ANC financial reports available online.
ANCs must provide the DC Auditor with quarterly financial reports. The DC Auditor is responsible for auditing the financial information, maintaining a database of the information, and ensuring that the reports are in compliance.
It would be a small step to also make this information readily available to the public. The press and interested members of the public could then monitor the ANC financial reports and identify mistakes, omissions, and inconsistencies that may have been missed.
Under the current system, the DC government is not providing the resources required for adequate oversight. The size and scope of the ANC system outweighs the resources dedicated to overseeing it. The DC Auditor has many other responsibilities and the Office of Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, charged with administrating ANCs, only has two full-time staff members.
With financial information effectively hidden from the public, it takes extremely diligent individuals significant effort and time to uncover improper or missing information. In September 2011, the Washington Times discovered that the DC auditor approved ANC financial reports that were missing basic information, proper signatures, or evidence of tax deductions. The Times also reported that the Office of Advisory Neighborhood Commissions doesn't maintain records from the ANCs.
In the ANC 5B scandal, the DC Auditor initiated an audit after failing to receive financial reports for 3 consecutive quarters. The DC auditor currently posts a list detailing if and when ANCs submitted their financial reports.
If the database were available online, the public could have more easily and quickly found out about the DC Auditor's and the ANCs' failings, without having to rely on intrepid reporters sifting through hidden data.
Making this database available online should not place an undue burden on individual ANCs or the DC Auditor. But it will allow the press and public to better scrutinize these elected officials. Knowing that their records are easily available to the public may also encourage ANCs to follow proper financial procedure.
The ANC system is due for change. Putting these documents online would be a small step in the right direction.
The web has done a remarkable job at democratizing knowledge and creating the tools necessary for sharing and seeking out information for anyone with a web connection. From collaboration to creation to distribution, we're able to do much more with much less.
The idea of democratizing education has huge potential for reaching wide and diverse audiences at a fraction of the cost, side-stepping formal learning institutions. That's the beauty of a service like Skillshare. Say, for instance, you wanted to offer an open government course related to data scraping, services like Skillshare give you the opportunity to share your expertise by providing you with an audience to offer offline classes to without anyone having to go through a local community college to teach or sign up.
Whether you're an opengov policy wonk or a community organizer or a developer or social media analyst, you can find a forum and an audience to speak to and educate on the minutiae of your work. You're given freedom to engage your audience, leverage technologies to document and share your talks and to reach large audiences with few limitations.
So what is Skillshare exactly? Crunchbase gives a great summary of Skillshare, calling it "a community marketplace to learn anything from anyone. People can offer classes to others on any type of skill, from baking cupcakes to raising startup capital."
What is Skillshare? from Skillshare on Vimeo.
Similar services to Skillshare exist as well. Knowledge Commons DC here in Washington, Brooklyn Brainery in NYC and Betterfly are three services that offer you the ability to teach, and learn.
If you're interested in learning as well, the sites mentioned above are great. You can also check out the Khan Academy, MITx and iTunes U.
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!
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.
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