openness

I attended a great conference last week, OpenGovWest. We discussed open government initiatives, involving citizens by opening up government data, using social media to be more open and involve everyone in their government.
People attending the conference included city-level representatives: a few councilmembers, Walter Neary from Lakewood (@wtneary on twitter!) one from the Vancouver, WA area, and many city IT staff members from all around the region. For instance, the chief information or technology officers (or representatives) attended from the cities of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Vancouver (BC) and Edmonton, Canada. There were also state-level representatives, mostly from Canada. Private sector and nonprofit tech people also attended. It was a great gathering.
One thing that I took away from the conference was the concept of risks and opportunities with being more open. I’m particularly interested about open government as it relates to communication and my position as a councilmember. There are great opportunities in the use of social media. It’s incredibly open and universally easy to access. Openness is a critical component of government in Washington. As Ramsey Ramerman, an Everett city attorney, said at the conference, “our open government laws are as important to our democracy as the first amendment… These laws are one of the best tools we have to build public trust.” However, there are some risks: for instance, issues with legal risks for cities, and the laws related to open public meetings related to council discussions. We must comply with the law, but not to the exclusion of being open and responsive. That’s why I choose to use twitter and facebook as one more way to being accessible to citizens.
There is more that can be done—blogging here is part of that for me, too. I enjoyed the conference and will be thinking more in the future about opening up government data as an concept related to this topic.

Sustainability Committee

We had our second meeting of the Sustainability Committee of the Council on Monday night. Our goal is to find constructive actions to take in the next six months, and identify some longer-term goals that might become part of a larger plan in the future.
We discussed identifying the actions that City has already taken. Staff, Planning & Community Development Director Heather McCartney and Senior Planner Glen Pickus, will be creating a list that we’ll be discussing. The Gold LEED-certified City Hall is our most obvious accomplishment, as well as the efficiencies and features of the new community center (including a green roof). We also recently began publishing the city newsletter using recycled paper. I’m sure the list of green, sustainable actions the city is taking will be much longer.
We also talked about identifying some policy priorities and guidelines for routine project selection. The Council regularly approves annual funding for street improvements, stormwater projects, and other projects. Though city staff likely has systems in place to prioritize these projects, the Committee agreed it would be appropriate to bring in some concepts of sustainability in how projects are designed or selected. We discussed a checklist as a possible tool for staff. We don’t want to introduce some extra bureaucracy, but some documentation to demonstrate consideration of the concepts would be useful.
Finally, planning staff is working with a consultant who specializes in visioning. We hope to have a meeting in May at some point, bringing the council, parks and planning commissioners, and staff together. One of the consultants specializes in strategic illustration. That process entails one of the facilitators illustrating the concepts and discussion, resulting in a graphic representation of the group’s ideas. I’ve seen other examples and they are a great result that is easy to use in the future and communicates the vision well. The photo is from a company called Alchemy—the first google result, and a good example of this concept.

Envisioning a New Future

I recently studied the oldest building in Mukilteo, which was built in 1904. The Smith family who lived and worked at 801 Second Street were part of an America where 8000 cars were owned in the early 1900’s. Twenty years later, there were 10 million cars in America. Every state had a highway department. America changed drastically in those twenty years.
Today, our country demands similar changes and choices for the future. We have to invest in these options, for housing choices, transportation options, efforts to create sustainable, livable communities, economic development, and a better future. At today’s National League of Cities session on Sustainable Development, Beth Osborn, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation described livable communities as places “where people at all stages of life can live close to one another.” It’s really inspiring that the US Department of Transportation understands and is working with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency on these issues. Connecting housing and destinations to transportation planning is so important. Mukilteo needs to do the same wherever we can.
At another session here, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood talked about the need to not force people into communities where the car is a necessity rather than a convenience. That is such an important distinction. I have heard fears about government forcing people to get out of their cars. It’s more about investing in other transportation modes the way we have subsidized car ownership and infrastructure for nearly a century. It’s about giving people choices.

Info Tech

I can't guarantee that it won't be another year before I post here, but this seems like the best way to communicate for right now!

This morning, I attended the policy advisory meeting of the Information Technology and Communications Committee (ITC) for the National League of Cities (NLC). We heard from Blair Levin, the Executive Director of the Federal Communications Commission’s Broadband Initiative. The FCC will release the National Broadband Plan in two or three days. He discussed elements of this plan with the committee. The ITC Committee consists of city councilmembers and mayors from around the country. I am a member of the Steering Committee, as well, which works on policy creation that is later adopted by the Policy Committee, and eventually also adopted by the National League of Cities Executive Board.
The National Broadband Plan was requested by Congress. Mr. Levin explained that the main philosophy of the plan is deployment: getting broadband access to all communities and all Americans.
He pointed out that public service providers are the sectors that are really lagging in adoption of these technologies. He pointed out: “At a bank, you don’t communicate the way that you did ten years ago. Now, you often communicate online at home. At the hospital, information is shared the same way as twenty years ago, you talk, and they write down information on a piece of paper. In high school, kids still carry around their backpack with the same 30 pounds of books. That is going to change.” I would add that it’s already changing: in Kent, the middle schools that I work with in my real job, as a yearbook printer, already provide laptops to every student. They carry those from class to class, along with a backpack of books.
Technology use makes jurisdiction complicated. You can see that in application of sales tax. Amazon recently stopped working with companies in Colorado, I believe, because they needed to apply the state sales tax.
Sometimes state and federal regulations create barriers to technological innovation. Part of the National Broadband Plan addresses some of these barriers and the need to tackle them and reduce barriers. I am personally interested in how open government transparency laws in Washington have impacted adoption of technologies by cities. The need to be completely open often results in councilmembers who say they would never blog, are afraid to communicate by email or with constituents through Facebook or Twitter. I want to see state laws that encourage adoption of technology and use of technology for more transparency and open government. Our residents are becoming more and more familiar with these tools and government should be right there with them.
Mr. Levin closed by saying “We need to make sure our broadband connections are second to none in the world. We have led the world as a country by leading in railroad, electricity infrastructure. We need to that with broadband or our children and their children’s children will suffer.”
I think this is so true. I am looking forward to the release of the National Broadband Plan this week (available at www.broadband.gov).