We can't keep our eyes off the City of Bell, California -- and for good reasons.
The city gained notoriety in 2010 when the Los Angeles Times began to expose high salaries for city officials who did next to nothing. It was a problem that had been brewing for years, as the LA Times charted in a timeline of the corruption.
Bell's government is different now.
Bell has most recently been in the news not just for reaching a culminating point in the scandal -- the trial of six former city council members on corruption charges -- but also for a high transparency grade as part of a government website review. Sunshine Review, a non-profit that examines state and local government transparency, gave the city an A- grade in the 2013 Sunny Awards. The grades are based on whether certain information like budgets, open meeting laws, and lobbying records are posted online, as outlined in this checklist.
This is one indicator of the many steps the city government has taken toward greater transparency. Bell's efforts are notable for several reasons.
Continue readingGreetings from #OpenData Land
Publishing open data has many practical and normative implications which can be noted and explored in the text of the open data policy. We've rounded up some of the interesting reasons policymakers in cities across the country have pursued these policies. Check them out in our #opendata policy postcards.
How States Set Local Transparency Policy
Although we tend to think of cities as largely autonomous, the municipal context is really defined, and entangled, by the... View Article
Continue readingComing to a City Near You: Open Data Day
The third annual International Open Data Hackathon is this Saturday, and it’s an exciting opportunity to explore what’s possible with... View Article
Continue readingOpenGov Champions: Shea Frederick, Baltimore, MD
Meet Shea Frederick, our latest OpenGov Champion. Last September, Sunlight’s video team — myself and Associate Video Producer Solay Howell... View Article
Continue readingIt’s Complicated: State and Local Government Relationships
Crafting useful transparency recommendations for local government requires taking the time to understand the complexities of policy-making at this level. To engage thoughtfully in this, we have to better understand the relationships between municipalities and states. Understanding how governments function and interact with each other is essential to understanding where and how transparency reforms will make a difference. When we look at local governments, we have to consider not only how that government is structured, but also how it operates in relation to the state structures that surround it. We use cities as an example in this post for the sake of consistency and clarity, but these different relationships can apply across the spectrum of municipal governments and municipal government structures. There are two basic types of interaction between cities and states:
- A general law city has a structure largely shaped by a state's law or constitution. The municipality can adopt local ordinances setting rules for its residents, but only within the range allowed by state law. This format can also be shaped by Dillon's Rule, which essentially means that local governments only have the powers granted to them by the state. There is debate about the challenges and benefits of this system. Some local governments feel the rule restricts them when they try to deal with evolving issues such as a growing population with changing needs. A general law city would have to seek power from the state to deal with new problems if that authority hasn't already been explicitly granted, and that's where this system can be seen as a constraint.
- A charter city or home rule city functions more autonomously from state laws and regulations. These cities have a charter establishing how government will be structured, what its duties are, and what local ordinances will be. The process for creating a charter or revising an existing charter varies from state to state. Any municipality with a charter is still subject to state laws, however. It might have more authority to deal with local issues, but any laws it sets are subject to the state law and constitution. Even in the places that have home rule, they might sometimes feel more like a general law city if the state is aggressive with the amount of legislation it passes impacting local policies and authority.
Learning why transparency matters: a new Sunlight Foundation research project
We have so far been fortunate that most people intuitively grasp the value of technology-driven openness and transparency, and as a result, an impressive range of NGOs and governments around the world are building on the basic understanding that “Sunlight is the best disinfectant” (Justice Brandeis’ aphorism that gave the Sunlight Foundation its name). For example, as of this writing, 58 countries have signed onto the Open Government Partnership. But the quick-to-grasp nature of transparency’s potential has its dangers: 1) that we cease asking questions about it because it has become an article of faith; and 2) that, as strong advocates for the cause, we begin to oversell its potential (and thus undermine its genuine contributions). This year, we are kicking off an attempt to both clarify and test our understandings of what transparency can do. Thanks to support from Google.org, we at Sunlight are embarking on a research project to evaluate the impacts of technology-driven transparency policies around the world. We plan to conduct a series of case studies.
Continue readingOpenGov Voices: Building a Community of Data Professionals and Opening Government Data, One Meetup at a Time
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.
Sean Patrick Murphy and Harlan Harris wrote this post. Sean has served as a senior scientist at Johns Hopkins University for over a decade. When not doing research, he currently advises several startups and provides general data science and learning analytics consulting for EverFi. Follow him on Twitter (@SayHiToSean) or contact him at SayHiToSean@gmail.com
Harlan has a PhD in Computer Science (Machine Learning) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and post-doctoral work in Cognitive Psychology at several universities. He currently is Senior Data Scientist at Kaplan Test Prep, and co-organizes Data Science DC. Follow him on Twitter (@HarlanH).
Potential
The greater National Capital Region (i.e. the DC metro area), has always had a wealth of technical talent, waist deep in data, calling the region home. Whether launching satellites at Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt to decrypting messages at the NSA, this region is literally littered with three (or more) letter organizations -- NIH, JHU, DoD, DARPA, AOL, NIST, etc. -- working extensively with data.
Despite this intense concentration of professionals who share this common bond, these groups exist in isolated silos preventing the open dissemination of knowledge and best practices that would accelerate progress across industries. A rising tide of data-expertise would indeed raise all ships.
OpenGov Voices: Being average is your superpower
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.
Introducing: OpenGov Voices — Sunlight’s guest blogging program
For a while now, we have been encouraging folks from across the nation who are either directly or indirectly involved in opening up their governments -- through the work that they do -- to write about their experiences. In our guest blogging program, we have heard from several individuals including technologists, civic hackers, journalists, educators and transparency activists. By opening up the Sunlight platform, for other similar voices to be heard, we have nurtured a spirit of collaborative action that says: You are not alone in the OpenGov movement. 
Are you doing unique work in your community to make your government more transparent? Maybe you are actively involved in creating special projects that are opening up your local government. We believe that you can spur transparency in your hometown by taking action to demand for openness.
Write a guest blog and share your experience with us and the rest of the world. Some of our guest bloggers are citizen activists, website developers, teachers, journalists and local bloggers like you who are unlocking their governments through the work they are doing.
Our guest blogging program was created to reach out to the growing yet diverse community of government transparency advocates -- as a way of sparking national discussion on the issues that are shaping their democracy. With that in mind, several folks have written inspiring accounts of how they helped make their leaders more accountable.
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