Councilmember Bruce A. Harrell
Councilmember Harrell announces technology initiatives for 2010
Plan aims to improve city’s accountability, transparency, and
effectiveness
SEATTLE - Councilmember Bruce Harrell, Chair of the Energy and
Technology Committee, today proposed a Government and Technology outline
that will optimize the use of technology, resulting in increased
transparency, enhanced access to customer service and city information,
and improved government effectiveness and efficiency.
The initiatives were developed after reviewing the city’s technology,
governmental systems and protocols. The next step involves the
Department of Information Technology and the Citizens’
Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board working with other city
departments to provide feedback on the recommendations.
“I am proposing the applications that I believe we should use
internally and support externally, both of which can determine the
effectiveness of service to our citizens,” said Harrell.
The Seattle Government and Technology outline calls on the city to
implement the following in the coming year:
- Migrate to a system where publishing and release of city data
are in an open format that is more readable and favorable for
programming. This allows the public to use city data in the most
appropriate way and enhance its original purpose by allowing data
collaboration and integration through mashups and semantic web
technologies.
- Declare an “Apps for Seattle” contest and call upon local
web developers to program innovative mobile applications and
Internet-based applications using open city data.
- Provide service for mobile phone applications that allow
residents to report a city complaint such as potholes, graffiti,
streetlight outage, or abandoned vehicles.
- Use web video conferencing tools for meetings conducted by
employees, boards and commissions, resulting in reduced travel time,
cost and fuel
- Provide residents with new personal conservation management
tools that allow them to maximize their home energy efficiency.
- Provide a suite of applications and products that allow
residents and businesses to communicate remotely with their security,
heating, cooling, and lighting systems. This will increase consumer
utilization and awareness of a smart grid network.
- Deploy a “My.Seattle.gov” Public Engagement Portal that
consolidates the city’s multiple sign on accounts and provides single
sign-on access with features including a customizable interface, status
report checks on problems reported, public polling, and enhanced
collaboration with the public using tools such as IdeaScale or Google
Moderator.
- Maximize the use of technology in reporting, posting, and
tracking photos of graffiti and tree inventory on Google Maps or the
city’s Geographic Information System (GIS).
- Develop a “Wiki” website format for city information that
allows online public collaboration, editing and content moderation.
- Implement new city-wide software to reduce the volumes of wasted
printed pages at the end of print jobs from the Internet.
“These technology initiatives will engage our local high-tech
industry and spur entrepreneurs and development of business,” said
Councilmember Harrell. “Now, more than ever, we must embrace the use
of new technology as a strategic tool to better communicate with
residents, drive innovation and economic development in our local
workforce and save money by improving operational efficiencies in
governmental systems. I look forward to working with our Citizens’
Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board to help drive the
process of moving forward in 2010.”
Additional information regarding “Apps for Seattle” will soon
follow.
Council meetings are cablecast live on Seattle Channel 21 and Webcast
live on the City Council’s website at www.seattle.gov/council
. Copies
of legislation, archives of previous meetings, and news releases are
available on www.seattle.gov/council
. Follow the Council on Twitter at
twitter.com/SeattleCouncil.
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