Category Archives: open government

City of Palo Alto Launches “Open GIS”

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Originally released through city of Paleo Alto

Palo Alto, California – The City of Palo Alto today again stepped up its commitment to open government by releasing the first sets of City Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) data as open data through the innovative use of Google Fusion Tables. Called Open GIS, this release joins Palo Alto’s existing open data sets athttp://data.cityofpaloalto.org, and the award-winning site for City budget information, Open Budget, available here: http://data.cityofpaloalto.org/openbudget.

The new service, accessible via http://data.cityofpaloalto.org/opengis will, over time, make hundreds of data layers easily available. The data will contain a large volume of geographically-referenced features which have been created and catalogued over the past 20 years in Palo Alto’s GIS.  Coupled with these features is attribute data—additional information about each of the features such as size, material, owner, census tract, and other characteristics.

Open GIS was created through the innovative use of Google Fusion Tables, an experimental data visualization Web application to gather, visualize, and share large data tables. Developers can extend the power of Fusion Tables using the Fusion Tables API and by using FusionTablesLayers in the Google Maps API.

Palo Alto City Manager James Keene commented, “Open GIS continues our rapid pace to unleash the value of data stored on our servers so it can serve our community in completely new ways. Geospatial data is particularly valuable to a large range of stakeholders as it is the underlying physical blueprint of every community.”

Jonathan Reichental, Palo Alto Chief Information Officer said, “We’re stepping up to our responsibility as the heart of Silicon Valley by not just being a model for open government, but for doing it in the most innovative way. Experimenting with the power of Google Fusion Tables provides us with a free platform to try new ways to extend the data back to those it belongs: our community.”

Development Services Director Peter Pirnejad said, “Geospatial data is valuable to a wide range of stakeholders such as city planning, construction, architects, utilities, and public safety. I’ve already seen innovative start-ups use our open city permit data to create useful apps so I’m confident by making more and more of our GIS data easily available, we’ll see useful innovation for the community happen.”

The initial data sets on Open GIS include location data, road centerlines, land use, tree data, public projects, and trench plate data. More data will be added in the weeks ahead, so City staff recommends visiting the site often.

News results show papers displeased with state sunshine laws

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A Google News search reveals that one issue on the top of newspaper reporter’s topic list is the strength and weaknesses of public records and open meetings laws.

Last week, I wrote about The Post-Bulletin in Minnesota which reported on an illegal closed meeting of the Pine Island City Council.

A search for “public records open meetings” yields several headlines relating to the strength of state sunshine laws. Included is another story about a paper noticing the flaws in state transparency. Phil Lewis, Executive Editor of the Daily News, sees Florida’s state sunshine laws as lacking in four areas. Lewis believes that Florida’s laws could strengthen the right to speak in open meetings, enforcing the laws, the price of public records and online access to public records.

The top three results for public records and open meetings news stories regard a new bill in North Carolina. State Sen. Thom Goolsby filed a bill Thursday that would criminalize violations of the open meetings and public records laws. As written, neither the public records nor open meetings laws has a criminal penalty. He hopes penalties encourage government transparency. Goolsby is also working on a bill to increase access to personnel issue deliberations.

After these three stories, the next result is from the Youngstown Vindicator with “Weakening of public records, open meetings law is alarming.” The editorial is a two-pronged attack on the institutions weakening the Ohio Public Records Law: the state legislature and the state supreme court. “The string between tax money and the public should not be severed simply because the money is funneled to a ‘private’ entity. Members of the public still have an interest in how decisions are made about the spending of their money.”

On a positive note, Nevada Assembly committee takes on bills enhancing public records and open meeting laws. The bills would make the public records law more clear by listing out exemptions, and they would require state entities to appoint public records liaisons.

Other public records stories on the top of Google’s News search results show exactly why the strength of public records and open meetings laws matter. In Oklahoma, officials deny a public records violation, while in Georgia local officials admit to an open meetings violation.

 

Paper says Minnesota’s open meetings law needs a revamp

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The Post-Bulletin today published an article outlining the imperfect history of Minnesota’s open meetings law (Our View: Open meeting law needs an update). The piece states that the genesis of the state’s law was a cut-and-paste job with the Minnesota Supreme Court pulling language from several different rulings. In the end of the process, the state ended up with the following as the purpose of the law:

“To prohibit actions being taken at a secret meeting where it is impossible for the interested public to become fully informed concerning board decisions or to detect improper influences … to assure the public’s right to be informed … to afford the public an opportunity to present its views to the board.”

An open meeting of the Pine Island City Council is the cause for discontent. Three newly elected members of the Pine Island City Council  began the process of ousting city administrator Abraham Algadi “moments after taking the oath of office” according to the paper.  Algadi’s status was not on the public agenda of the council, but the two individuals allegedly added it and took immediate action.

The paper sees this unique purpose of the Minnesota Open Meeting Law as pertinent. Editors are left to ask:

“Were citizens of Pine Island fully informed ahead of the January meeting in which city administrator Abraham Algadi was handed his walking papers? Were they denied the right to weigh in on major changes in how their city is run?”

Minnesota Newspaper Association attorney Mark Anfinson agreed with the Post Bulletin that the actions of the city council violate the spirit of the state’s open meetings law. The solution, according to the paper, is that the state statute should be modified specifically to apply to candidate-elects.

While a much of the hiring-and-firing that goes on in open meetings is exempt from state laws, there is a lot of information that is public record. For resources on government employee records, see the #FOIAchat tipsheet on requesting personnel records, Public records and personnel data, November 30, 2012

An Alternate Reality: The News Without Transparency

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Ever wonder what the news would look like without transparency? It is easy to forget, or to1-73d3e83cdc never know, what news would look like with the efforts of journalists, citizens, and government making the information available.

“The News Without Transparency” is a project of the Sunlight Foundation that shows you what the news might look like without public access to information. Laws and regulations that force the government to make the data it has publicly available are vital to filling in the blanks in redacted documents available to the public.

The collection of documents throughout 2012 is a poignant example of what the public would know about government without transparency and the freedom of information acts, and is a powerful tool to demonstrate the importance of transparency activists.

Transparency Should Be A Community Effort!

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The Government Records Access Management Act (GRAMA) is a comprehensive Utah law dealing with the management of public records. “It is an attempt to balance the public’s constitutional right of access to information concerning public business, the individual’s constitutional right of privacy when the government gathers personal data, and the public policy interest in allowing a government to restrict access to certain records for the public good.”

Under GRAMA, the Utah Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, responds to requests for information regarding records that are prepared, owned or retained by the Attorney General’s office. Individuals seeking information from other agencies may make a GRAMA request directly to the agency that holds the records.

In 2011, Utah legislators attempted to limit the amount of information accessible via GRAMA requests. These attempts were met with ardent criticism from transparency activists, community members, and many legislators. Ultimately, the changes were rejected. Not only does Utah continue to lead the way with strong, proactive transparency legislation, public involvement and influence on the legislative process has also remained strong.

Now, as Utah legislators consider expanding and improving the state transparency laws, legislators are sure to include input from the public and other interested parties. It is the efforts of the government and public working together that is extraordinary and obviously beneficial. The successes in Utah are demonstrative that contributions from the public and the efforts of the government implementing those ideas produce the best results.

For more information on getting involved, visit Sunshine Standard.