After last year’s bitter campaign and divisive election, the SOS Alliance and ACLU-backed “open government online” city charter amendment was defeated at the polls, having been decried as too expensive and restrictive. City leaders promised to revisit the issue and provide greater transparency – and that was all we heard. Until now.
Tomorrow, City Council adopts a city website redesign with “the goal of significantly increasing the number of online services available to the public.” It remains to be seen what those “online services” constitute. Updated access to lobbyist information, more meeting transcripts, and expedited development info, for instance, would be good; rinky-dink shit like paying parking tickets online, however, doesn’t fit the bill for accountability and transparency. This press release makes clear the city’s looking for your input:
Mayor Pro Tem Betty Dunkerley, along with Council Members Lee Leffingwell and Mike Martinez, will announce a major overhaul of the City of Austin’s Web site at a news conference 9:30am, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007, at Austin City Hall.
As part of the redesign effort, council members will detail plans for public involvement throughout the process and unveil a Web usage survey designed to gather ideas and suggestions. Council members will utilize computers at the event to be among the first to take the survey.
So there you have it. Continue the push for accountability, folks.
On another note, the presser notes Austin City Connection “was launched in early 1995 as one of the few municipal government sites in the nation.” Courtesy of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, here’s the city website from 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2003. Whoa …
This article appears in Richard Suttle.