When: June 1st and 2nd 2013

Where: Gangplank Chandler (260 S Arizona Ave Chandler, AZ 85225)

Why:

Gangplank Chandler creates the opportunity for citizens to get involved in serving their community by using technology to create new, innovative applications and platforms.

Chandler, AZ – [...]]]> What: National Day of Civic Hacking – Random Hacks of Kindness and Brigade Meetup

When: June 1st and 2nd 2013

Where: Gangplank Chandler (260 S Arizona Ave Chandler, AZ 85225)

Why:

Gangplank Chandler creates the opportunity for citizens to get involved in serving their community by using technology to create new, innovative applications and platforms.

Social media is outpacing public news organizations.  When major accidents, disasters and crimes occur they often hit Facebook and Twitter well before local news media picks them out.  This causes confusion, frustration and uncertainty by the public.  An easy solution to ease these problems is [...]]]>

Social media is outpacing public news organizations.  When major accidents, disasters and crimes occur they often hit Facebook and Twitter well before local news media picks them out.  This causes confusion, frustration and uncertainty by the public.  An easy solution to ease these problems is by having municipal police, fire and emergency radio services live streamed.

I know you are probably thinking why on earth would municipal agencies do this?  Won’t criminals abuse the public broadcasting of radio communications?  I thought that “police scanning“ was illegal.  The truth is that criminals will abuse any number of things and that ultimately the public good of opening such communication has to be weighed against the possibility of misuse.

So what is this “public good” that you speak of regarding opening radio communications?

Neighborhood Crime Awareness

Do you know what is going on in your own neighborhood everyday?  You would be amazed at the activity that happens.   It will give you insight into what cops have to deal with everyday in their beat in your own neighborhood.  Allowing you to be informed and proactive in helping make your community the kind of place you want it to be.

“Citizens with scanners are a valuable resource for the police department. Many times information has come from people with scanners that has led to crimes being solved.” – St. Joseph News, Dec. 16, 2002

Major Accidents and Mishaps

Major accidents and critical mishaps such as toxic chemical spills, natural gas ruptures/explosions, deadly highway hazards, power outages and  air/rail disasters result from human error or intentional acts and can strike at anytime without little or no warning.  When these events occur near you, a open radio communications can provide you with information you need to know to avoid danger before it’s too late.

Avoiding Dangerous Police Activity

Police activity such as high speed pursuits, crimes in progress, neighborhood lockdowns, suspect containment searches, riots/civil unrest, bomb threats and more can be dangerous as they unfold.  Knowledge is the key to avoiding putting yourself in harms way.  If there’s an armed suspect on the loose in my neighborhood, I want to know about it. If police are in high-speed pursuit of a fleeing suspect in my neighborhood, I want to know about it.  If the local fast-food restaurant is robbed, I want to know about it. Open radio communications can provide you with important information you need to know during any dangerous situation.

Key Information When Disaster Strikes

Many types of disasters including earthquakes, hurricanes, thunderstorms, tornadoes, floods, winter storms, blizzards, severe wind conditions and wildfires strike with little or no warning.  Open radio communications can provide you with key information that could save your life.

Recent events like the SF Riots after the world series and hurricane Sandy highlight how radio communications were key in early reporting of information to citizens.

So who else has open radio communication?  In Maricopa County alone the following agencies have open radio communications: Buckeye Police, Goodyear Police, Maricopa County Sheriff, Mesa Fire and EMS, Peoria Police, Glendale Police, Phoenix Metro Fire, Phoenix Police, Tonto National Forestry Fire Crews and more.

Chandler Police and Fire when will you step up to the plate and open your radio communications to your citizens?  What are your thoughts on opening of municipal radio communications?

Once registered, developers will have access to the GTFS feed, which updates daily. Valley Metro is also working with the City to open up more of their data to those registered as it becomes available.

Checklist

1. It helps to have the top public official (e.g. Mayor Bloomberg) visibly champion open government, civic apps, and data-driven government.  In [...]]]> Open Austin has posted 7 great lessons that can be learned from NY becoming the premier digital city.  You can see the Austin summary here and the original summary here.

Checklist

1. It helps to have the top public official (e.g. Mayor Bloomberg) visibly champion open government, civic apps, and data-driven government.  In particular, I’ve been struck by how often his data-driven refrain is repeated in the press: “In God we trust. Everyone else, bring data.”

We need to find our champion.  Jeff Weninger you willing to step up?

2.  Making a long-term commitment to continuous release of key performance management data even when it is unflattering fosters engagement and credibility.  NYC provides data both through canned, relatively user-friendly applications and data files.  APIs are not fully ready yet, but an acknowledged priority.

We need to help the city define the data that they should be sharing regularly.  Where do they need to be held accountable?  Where can they put out data that is useful?

3.  NYC created a Chief Digital Officer position (filled by Rachel Sterne) that focuses full-time on open government and is quite a pro-active evangelist to the citizenry, potential civic developers, media and so on.

The City should be naming someone as this point person.  This does not mean creating an entirely new position, it could be giving the authority to someone that already is on staff.  

4.  The Bloomberg administration released a concrete 65-page ‘digital roadmap’ outlining its strategy to make New York a premier digital city.

The person in position listed in #3 should be in charge of meeting with citizens, business and the city to define this road map.  It doesn’t need to be 65 pages.  It could be a mission statement and a one page document of whats next.  How can we help.

5.  They have evolved their approach to civic apps to ensure that civic hacking efforts produce quality applications that can be maintained and have an audience, as opposed to a plethora of unsustainable tools. I particularly applaud that NYC is not just focused on citizen-focused, consumerish applications, but also on more boring tools that might boost service productivity and tools aimed at helping the bureaucracy provide better services.

Let’s schedule our first City Hackathon.

6. NYC’s Mayor, Chief Digital Officer, and IT leadership all publicly reinforce a view of the ‘city as a platform’ as opposed to seeing open government as just a compliance initiative.  In particular, I am really impressed by how they have internalized the importance of APIs instead of just data dumps.

We are too far off from being able to have this conversation.

7. NYC supports the broader emerging open government ecosystem by engaging initiatives such as Open311.

Chandler let’s be the leader for the Sun Corridor in getting open government in place.

When we were working with the City of Chandler to jump start Open Government, we found that we needed to explain what exactly it was we were wanting them to participate in.  We have uploaded the slide deck we used during a presentation to explain what we were looking for as well [...]]]>

When we were working with the City of Chandler to jump start Open Government, we found that we needed to explain what exactly it was we were wanting them to participate in.  We have uploaded the slide deck we used during a presentation to explain what we were looking for as well as a pitch for Code For America.

Open Government Slide Deck (.key version)

Open Government Slide Deck (.ppt version)

OpenChandler is the gathering place for people looking to foster civic participation and facilitate communication between citizens and government.  The goal is to have events, share data, build applications and have conversations to make Chandler, Arizona the place we want it to be.

Our Goals: