Projects commended for impact and engagement
On Tuesday, May 8th, independent researcher Raymond Weyandt with the International Reporting Mechanism (IRM) shared his preliminary report assessing the City of Austin's 2017 open government efforts in Open Government Partnership (OGP), an international association of nations. His presentation is part of OGP's international Open Government Week.
The City of Austin joined OGP in…
This toolkit was produced as a part of the Making Sense project, which draws on nine citizen sensing campaigns in Holland, Kosovo and Spain in 2016 and 2017. In them, they have developed a form of citizen participation in environmental monitoring and action which is bottom-up, participatory and empowering to the community: this is called citizen sensing. If you are interested in best practices and tools for community engagement and co-creation, this book is for you.
Find the toolkit at the following link: The Making Sense Toolkit
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Below is the full text of the following linked article: Austin Monitor- Sleep researchers cheer on Council members as they consider ways to avoid late nights
Early on June 24, 2016, City Council Member Delia Garza checked her watch.
“We’re making a decision about $720 million at 1:35 in the morning after lengthy discussions,” Garza told her colleagues. “After in my opinion, no real agreement on this.”
Despite the Council member’s misgivings, members voted to approve the $720 million transportation bond – p…
Trends and findings from of an analysis of 40+ open/smart projects throughout City departments
Update 9/8/17: The list of open government and smart cities projects has doubled to more than 80 projects since we first published this analysis in April. We've refreshed this post with new insights on project maturity levels, what barriers they need cleared, and the internal and external partners involved in various efforts.
As we talked about in a previous post, our team working with the City's Open Government Operating Board compiled a list of 80+…
Pioneer Program Extended
Pioneer Program 2018
On September 20, 2017, the member nations of the Open Government Partnership Steering Committee met in New York City to discuss OGP's "Pioneer" program for local government, which is completing its pilot year this December. Austin is in the first cohort of 15 Pioneers, and the Steering Committee's discussion included an overview of Austin efforts.
The Committee voted to not only continue the program but to bring aboard 15 more Pioneers in 2018! Their Resolution states,
"The Steering Committee welcomes the strong early results of the subnational pilot program and the 15 pionee…
Council heard recommendations from staff on immediate and long term recommendations for improving meeting effectiveness and efficiency.
On February 9, 2017, council discussed meeting changes with a related handout and passed Resolution 20170209-035 directing the city manager's office to make council meeting improvement recommendations.
On March 21, 2017, staff…
Council took steps to manage their public meetings schedule and efficiencies by reducing the number of council committees from ten to five, and assigning members to the new committees.
On February 16, 2017, Council voted to discontinue their Public Utilities Committee; Public Safety Committee; Open Space, Environment, & Sustainability Committee; and Economic Opportunity Committee. They also folded the Housing & Community Development Committee into the Planning & Neighborhood…
In 2015, council implemented a 10 council-committee system as an initial experiment, complementing the January 2015 council change from 7 members (mayor & 6 council members) to 11 members (mayor & 10 council members). This committee system named each council member Chair of one of the ten committees.
This year, council utilized their public meetings discussion as an opportunity to revisit the committee structure and streamline the function to better reflect council needs and gain meeting efficiencies.
Council's first Work Session on council meetings, linked below, addresses council committees.
The mayor distributed a…
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 tha…
See below news stories related to Commitment #1:
Community Impact: City identifies potential funding to address Austin's 'downtown puzzle'
Austin Chronicle: The Mayor's Plan to Fix Everything
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