Open Government Partnership - All Teams Meeting July 26, 2017

Meeting Date:  7/26/2017 2PM-3:30PM

Attendees:

• Ginger Yachinich
• Kerry O’Connor
• Sabine Romero
• Sarah Smith
• John Spiers
• Brion Oaks
• Mateo Clarke
• Marni Wilhite
• Raymond Weyandt

Introductions

• Our Independent Researcher - Raymond Weyandt!!!

Workshop Debriefs

Kerry O’Connor, Mateo Clarke, and Brion Oaks attended a recent OGP Forum

Kerry:

Talked about OGP trip to DC

Subnational action plan (SNAP acronym)

• There’s something that happens when you get someone else's lens on Austin’s work.
• Categorized all the actions people are taking
• Show % of commitments made in those categories
• # of people impacted by commitments
• Austin put on the map for focusing on marginalized communities - that was their interpretation as its not how we talked about ourselves

Mateo

General impressions

• Sat in on participatory budgeting - facilitated by paris
  
  • Working on budget party, similar to budget simulator. Had strong opinions
    
    • How much is your house worth, what your taxes are. People don’t own
  • Main takeaways: even where participatory budgeting has been implemented, its a small % of the city’s budget and there is a lot of filtering and curation on top of those.
  • Ex, public works is super backed up because their funded but don’t have the time
  • Scotland pushes through local authorities for part. Budget
• Open contracting
  
  • Tanzania, Indonesia, Bojonegoro - facilitated by Bojonegoro
  • Facilitator (from Bojonegoro) Wants this to be part of his legacy - he represented political change most
  • Interesting perspective in meeting from Tanzania - if you publish things in PDF its more secure because it can’t be tampered with
    
    • Don’t think that’s right, any doc can be tampered even if it has a govt seal
    • Can’t we get the same thing with open data?
    • We are in a room where people were more or less on the same page about things, hadn’t heard the pdf perspective on security. It was interesting
• How did other people’s example help you put our work in perspective?
  
  • Inspired by convo led by jalisco, mexico. Permanent Mechanisms (PDM’s)
    
    • Talked about how we have implemented our action plans in different subnationals.
    • Talked about how they had done things. It was very structured and rigorous. It was meant to reflect that at a federal level a OG plan
      
      • They had 8 different sectors reps
      • 9th being institute for transparency
      • 1 seat for judge from jalisco, and a co-chair
      • Same for legislator, someone from governor or his ministries
      • City mayors had a spot
      • academia/tech/general private sector/non profit.
    • The group was how they made decisions
    • Next had tech liaisons - someone doing the work day to day, lobbying to chairs/co-chairs.
    • Striking to me that whole implementation to commitments is rigorous
      
      • Minutes
      • Public testimony
      • Done things in open way, had input and engagement
        
        • Wonder how much we are missing opportunities by doing things in this closed room.

Kerry:

• Compared to scotland for dialogue mechanisms, thought of Brion’s team and their outreach
• Then thought of aspirations for OGOB and linking to the CTTC
• This might be the opportunity to take the different approaches of dialogue mechanisms into OGOB
• Thinking about brion’s action team, any time we are planning to do a project..we have these structures right now but not cross-pollinating

Brion

• We have tons of permanent dialogue mechanisms, but problem is how effectively we do it.
• We have 82 boards and commissions that meet monthly or quarterly that are permanent
  
  • How effective are they?
  • If we had an assessment tool, it would appear that we have all these dialogue mechanisms to check the box. We have the structure - a civil society member appointed by council but i don’t know if that actually plays out in outcomes in our boards and commissions.
• Potential opportunities for us: capacity building
  
  • Sao Paolo = educating workforce on principal os OG
    
    • Had a pretty good training/capacity building system
      
      • Made me think of city works - we can again check that box but there are opportunities for us to get better
• Shared diversity in types of projects
  
  • Level that other cities have to deal with
    
    • Peru - app just to get clean water in the city. Those are really basic needs.
    • Benefit in having such diversity in the types of projects
    • We complain about what we are dealing with but it put it in perspective

Mateo

• Open contracting - outcome saw cost savings with transparency
  
  • Gana/etc just expected there would be bribes involved
  • Not just trying to bring transparency in decisions, but also into their day to day life
  • Tbilisi - build in a mark up due to corruption from the beginning because its expected.

Brion

• Day 3 - OGP team asking what we saw value for them
• What was the value prop for being in the OGP subnational
  
  • Whether or not as a city would we pay money to be part of the sub-nat’l partnership
  • Honestly Brion said he didn’t see the value as we aren’t seeing hte expertise we would need to get value. We are providing a lot of information. Would be odd for us to pay when we are putting in this much work
  • What could be valuable: benchmark/rating system so that subnat’ls can go through so we can give everyone clear standaards and minimum best practices in being open transparent. I can see the value in that. Give us metrics to see where we started and where we progress
  • We are such differnet cities...maybe be able to break out so aren’t making unfair comparisons.

Kerry

Day 3, broke out into tables and put answers into a spreadsheet, not sure when we will get the info processed

Questions:

• How do you feel about commitments
• Length of next plan
• Should any commitments be mandatory
• Sharing across
• Should we play a coaching role

Thinking about: What are the roles of the game?

Doing things different for nat’l vs subnatl. Of interest is the response policy. If your national partner does something that gets them kicked out, what happens to the sub-natls? Up to this point, they were linked. So trying to figure out those linkages and dependencies.

Taking subnat’l farther - they have interest (100 that want to join). Some of the conversation on the last day

Talked to Joel Powell - gave him first iteration the Smart Cities Maturity Model and how OGP principles were baked in. Told him its something OGP needs to step in. Nobody is talking about privacy.

Mateo

Take away for Civil Society Orgs (CSO)

• They split govt and civil societies in separate directions at one point, i am literally in the middle as I move from CTTC/Open Austin to a CoA employee.
• Went to CSO side
• There was some real talk in that room. Regarding being an OGP partner, this wasn’t something that Open Austin was looking for, we were identified as a natural partner.
• Noticed real tensions trying to push govt partner into doing what they know is right but they don’t have the power to act.
• Conversation made them aware of what’s missing - protected forum with CSO’s sharing strategies.
• What do we do in january w/ the new govt that doesn’t like us since we have pointed out that some of their people are bad? What can we do to highlight issues before/during candidate process
• OP - questions about open data/privacy/guide books
• One thing OGP really lacks - i don’t think i got any emails directly from Britney. Communication flows through govt partner.
  
  • We have a good communication so not a big deal for us, but one way they could be providing value to the CSO’s since we are treated as partners to our corresponding government within OGP. That’s unique.
  • But really there isn’t a safe place for us to share strategies and struggles. Hopeful OGP will be able to provide.

The way that convo played out, there were some civil society orgs talking about some specifics of they knew their govt partners had access to them….making an assumption there but his impression

Kerry

• Concern in OG being a priority
• We do these things, but to what degree do we do them well. (ex, how are we accountable for the boards and commissions being effective, we didn’t start taking notes at the beginning of this meeting.)
• How do we solve for that? - Brion’s comment on capacity building
  
  • Brion’s work/John Speirs/Open Austin but htere’s no movement, rallying flag, forward momentum.
  • These principals get lost as we all have so much going on. We forget.
• A real great outcome of this partnership to me is the commitment to open. WHat i want to see us rally, solidify that commitment of open.
  
  • Maybe we co-opt smart to combine to say that when we say are being smart its also about being open

Next OGP open forum - end of november. Its an America Summit.

Kerry:

At this point forward, what is the value proposition in going and being involved? If they decide to do the standards, that will mean something. IF they decide not to do the standards we have our own decisions to make at the beginning of next year.

Mateo:
They are thinking of programming for sub-natl but they haven’t gotten that far. Mostly focused on national level. There are only 6 of sub-nats so, would they even do programming around it.

Kerry:
Invited OGP to SXSW - Sanjay is coming. Signed up for panel

Scotland - panel on performance mgmt

Brion did a 2 minute story about his commitment - Mateo posted to bloomfire

• Fun part of the day, got to formally hear about projects from other cities.

   

IRM Presentation

Independent Reporting mechanism: Raymond will take us through this

Raymond

Meant to be objective review tool

• Govt signs up, makes commitments, at some point the irm comes in
• is an indendent researcher
  
  • Doesn’t work for OGP.
  • “I don’t work for any orgs involved. Never held job at CoA or part of the civil society.”
• Research experience - internat’l field - innovations for peace and development at UT. Where i heard about this project from there.
• Resident since 2011, so familiar with the Austin culture and how our city council works.

IRM assessments year one

• First part, desk research.
  
  • Gathering background info
  • Understanding action plan
  • Research on groups (open austin), what they care about, who is doing it, etc.
  • Historical context around equity issues
  • Reviewing bloomfire docs
• Next couple of weeks
  
  • Interviews that are structured around questions from the OGP-IRM
    
    • Hybrid design
    • Submitted research plan
      
      • How he’s assessing each commitments
      • Most research will be with the semi-structured interviews
      • Probably not a lot of civil society on the OGOB process, but plenty to talk to about equity. So as it makes sense for each commitment
• 1st 2 reports are about the commitments to the action plan
  
  • Sent it in to IRM, once they are happy with it we will send it to you, and a review for civil society partners before it is published.
• Process of completing assessments
  
  • Invision myself as our storyteller, more so than as a USDA stamper saying this is good or bad
  • I care about transparency, accountability, civic engagement. I see this as an opportunity to tell the story of austin and the place we are at with buy in to address these long standing issues in Austin
  • Every subnat’l has different goals
    
    • Goal with these is that they are organically built.
    • Approach assessment and writing - looking at it as a formula. Looking at the story of what you are working on.
      
      • What did they seek to accomplish
      • How did they put together
      • What they are doing
      • Not here to check some boxes and ranking us.
      • Want to keep writing more about this so this is a learning opp for me
    • Prezo has a hyperlink to the research plan
  • IRM coaches us to use their language and use their questions. I think its a really good tool so I am sticking to that.
    
    • 1st is into plans
    • 3 things in assessment
      
      • Specificity
      • Potential impact
      • Which OGP values your commitment addresses.
        
        • Just because you don’t address all values that’s ok. Not all projects are able to address all at once. Its ok that you don’t hve checks in all the boxes. Just means that it doesn’t mean that defintiion.
• Position of the researcher was supposed to be part time, but there has been so much work so it has been my primary. Scheduling other work around periods of review, but this is my primary project and thing im most excited about.
  
  • Would love to know what your teams are doing, if you are presenting. Would love to come when those are open and i can see that stuff.
• After first 2 assessments into plans and how it was developed, then time to dig into where you are now, how things are going,
  
  • Looking at milestones are good, but want to understand and develop a qualitative review of each. Why i think of it as more of a storytelling.
  • Final report published in march of 2018. Then whatever we can turn it into from there.
• Its been interesting interacting with other researchers. Its interesting to see the disparities but also the comparisons. Tbilisi georgia people complain aobut construction and traffice
• People are looking to have an example being set. They are excited about what we are doing in Austin. We are working on an advanced step in open government. We are looking to address gaps and share knowledge..

Project Updates

Homelessness

• Behind the curve. More than a curve...its arterial. There are so many working int eh sapce since its a moment of crisis.
• We are just getting started as it took this long to get through hiring/grant/transition of HOST off our plates
• Feel that what we are doing now with the Bloomberg i-team
  
  • Asked what you don’t know and what we might be assuming
  • Using those prompts as design sprints. That way we do interviews and bring those stories to city hall regularly
  • There are alot of moving parts
  • Mayors goal: functional 0 in 10 years
    
    • Won’t necessarily end it completely, but can we catch people before they fall out of housing and get them back in.
  • Nationally don’t see us focusing on people falling into homelessness and how that happensin the first place. People are paying attention to after it happens, so we will see how it will go
  • Normal structure we use with advisory/awareness/etc.
  • Connecting with KTXN so they can follow us from the beginning.
     

Public Meetings Commitment

• Sabine - catching up after out for 3 weeks
• Public meetings is interesting - demonstrates a different trajectory with differnet political influences on progres and direction
  
  • Started with small concept around minute scope of control around how council conducts itself
  • Council stepped into that space - think its great. They have taken ownership of it
  • We can see what kind of a change their changes have made
    
    • They have taken a series of approaches
  • Desk reserach has change from what we can observe to what we can measure.

OGOB

• Talking about a permanent place for these discussions and community action teams, most notably the CTTC
• Vast portfolio of open/smart projects. 80+ projects
  
  • Growing as depts understand how it related to open and smart
  • Abiltity for board to get updates - meeting tomorrow to get status on these projects
    
    • 5G grant/data rodeo grant/US ignite/Digital Services Discovery Project
• Board is very much in the place - relevancy and awareness.
  
  • Reaching out to staff and departments - hard fo rthem to understand the value that the board brings.
  • Had some updates being requested to be dropped from agenda
  • Having to explain to depts why they want to present to this board
• Board - what is our place, how can we best help these projects? What are the patterns and identified needs?
  
  • Interesting opportunities - seeing behavioral shift. ITs ok to share the info and what we are up against. Bringing down the level of percieved fear
  • Exemplified one we pulled projects to give updates...people asking if these were audits. Really nee to clarify the role of the board and also have that permanent forum to prioritize/research/etc.
• Service Model - design for intake (daniel not here)
  
  • Intake process for can submit projects for review and get a self assessment and find out where there needs are.
  • Chance to propose their projects based on a certain criteria
  • Have experts meet with them/coach them/provide guidance they need on their gaps on their needs.
  • Get to meet board and go through the iterations

Equity

• We have our pilot data
• Gone through quality control check
  
  • Depts are in the process for re-submitting
  • Dell will do 3rd party evaluation
  • They will come back and then we can take their info back to depts
• Start being able to recognize what are we doing well, what could be best practices we could put in place
• Want a review/eval body that isn’t just dell. Once we have all 32 depts doing this, then have it sent to this body that should be made more of community and compensated for doing analysis. No existing structure (boards/commissions influenced by politics) so concerned about what can be created and have validity. Trying to figure out what that looks like

Project Tracking Tool

• Tied to OGOB process - this would be the front door for taking part
• That would be the piece to share the project information with the public.
• Currently implementing our research plan
• Interviewed city staff for their needs in a project tracking tool
• Currently meeting with civil society and their needs, what they want to know.
  
  • CTTC _ mateo, christopher kennedy
  • People from Open Austin
  • We have 7 people scheduled right now - aiming for 10. If aren’t seeing convergence we will add more.
  • Mateo: might be interesting to see how a journalist might approach. A natural adversary. Might be interesting to see how the tool can be valuable to them.
    
    • How do we make open government a story that can be covered? Usually when something goes wrong, there’s a lack of transparency.
    • There’s positive and negative stories. Maybe they use different words and the marketing of what open government means
    • Good to talk to low level city reporters that have to sit through our meetings.
  • Evolve Austin - maybe another type of advocacy groups - a bunch of different orgs in this coalition. Done a good job of explaining code next and imagine austin.
• Refine scope based on these findings once done.