Behold the versatile egg. How much better, some say, to harvest eggs from your own backyard than in polystyrene or cardboard packages from the grocery store. As interest grows in urban agriculture and locally-sourced foods, it’s not only in overtly green cities such as Seattle that governments are being asked to help pave the way back to a simpler time. Some suburban communities that were once rural are returning to their roots. And so at its regularly scheduled meeting Thursday May 10 the Lake Forest Park City Council will hold a public hearing on a long-in-the-works proposed ordinance to make it easier for local residents to keep chickens on their properties. At approximately 7:30, half an hour in to the council meeting, the hearing is scheduled on the measure to amend to the Lake Forest Park Municipal Code in response to “an increase in citizen demand for backyard chickens and the need to streamline the process associated with regulating this activity,” according to a city staff memo attached to the ordinance.
Collaboration in Civic Spheres
Archive for the ‘Cities’ Category
Chicken liberation hearing Thurs. night in Lake Forest Park
by Matt Rosenberg May 10th, 2012
Seattle inches closer toward rental housing licensing
by Matt Rosenberg April 11th, 2012
The City of Seattle continued today to advance toward implementing a rental housing licensing and inspection program that officials say would be aimed at especially at chronically negligent landlords and tenants who may well be afraid to use the city’s existing complaint-based enforcement process for rental quarters languishing in poor condition. At a meeting of the council’s Housing, Human Servies, Health and Culture Committee, council central staff member Michael Jenkins presented a draft outline of the program being configured by the city’s Department of Planning and Development (DPD). In its current draft form, the plan would require owners of rental housing units to go through a registration and inspection process designed to ensure code violations are repaired, or face a revocation of registration, plus possible fines and a prohibition on re-renting the unit to any new tenant until repairs are made. Problems with plumbing, heating, electrical wiring and conditions of building materials are among the most common issues. The city council in coming months will work to finalize the program and estimate ongoing costs, to be integrated into the city budget for 2013 and coming years.
Shoreline parks smoking ban survey draws pointed views
by Matt Rosenberg March 19th, 2012
With a planned discussion of a recent citizen survey and a presentation of what could be the final draft of a new ordinance, the Shoreline City Council March 19 is poised to move one step closer to a scheduled vote March 26 to ban all tobacco use in all parts of all the city’s parks and other city outdoor recreation spaces. Enforcement would be voluntary, by parks patrons, not police, and city costs for signs would range from $3,000 to $5,000. Although almost 70 percent of respondents in the online survey supported the proposed blanket smoking ban in Shoreline city parks facilities, comments varied widely. In a special information packet on the policy, for the council’s review March 19, city staff provide the survey results including a broad sampling of residents reactions; while also sharing the proposed final draft of the smoke-free parks ordinance.
In the non-scientific survey accessed at the city’s Web site, ban opponents argued that smoking is legal, not very harmful outdoors, and that peer-to-peer enforcement would be risky. Among their comments:
Amplify accountability, technology to boost open government
by Matt Rosenberg March 10th, 2012
Don’t confuse government “open data” with open government, warn two graduate students from Princeton and Yale in a new paper. Harlan Yu and David Robinson say open data may actually improve government transparency but it also:
…might equally well refer to politically neutral public sector disclosures that are easy to reuse, (and) have nothing to do with public accountability. Today a regime can call itself “open” if it builds the right kind of web site — even if it does not become more accountable or transparent….Technology can make public information more adaptable, empowering third parties to contribute in exciting new ways across many aspects of civic life. But technological enhancements will not resolve debates about the best priorities for civic life, and enhancements to government services are no substitute for public accountability.
What open government needs to look like in the coming decade and beyond involves at least three core considerations: 1) inclusive dialog around potential changes to laws on open records and open meetings; 2) the melding of Internet and mobile technologies with ideals of government accountability; and 3) nourishment for a reformulated news and information ecosystem to fulfill the public interest with robust accountability-driven reporting, teaching and collaboration. We’re going to focus here mainly on 2), and a bit on 3).
Voluntary government disclosure is growing
Baseline voluntary government transparency utilizing the Internet has grown impressively. A wide array of meeting documents, special reports and data are routinely posted online by governments at all levels, in the U.S.
Connected Seattle city worker stayed on payroll after felony
by Matt Rosenberg March 7th, 2012
In a ruling issued this week a state appeals court upheld the convictions for first-degree perjury, and gross misdemeanor counts of stalking and cyberstalking by a then-City of Seattle Parks and Recreation Department employee named Andre L. (Luis) Franklin, now 30. The case stemmed from what the appeals court ruling details as a sexually-themed online vendetta by Franklin against another city parks worker, a woman with whom he had been romantically involved.
But the story goes deeper. Although Franklin was placed on leave in late 2008 after the victim notified city personnel authorities and parks officials understood him to have admitted the cyberstalking; public records show he somehow landed another city job – as a painter for Seattle Public Utilities earning $57,464 base pay in 2009 and $63,739 gross pay in 2010. Though public records confirm he was paid for a full year’s work in 2009 as painter for SPU, Public Data Ferret has learned he did not actually begin working at SPU until December of 2009. In addition, his defense attorney Steven Witchley of Seattle confirms Franklin is currently employed in a temporary position as a solid waste inspector for SPU.
Shoreline Mulls Smoking Ban In City Parks
by Matt Rosenberg January 24th, 2012
Shoreline plans to roll out an online survey of residents in the first quarter of 2012 to help officials decide if it should join a growing group of Washington jurisdictions which ban use of tobacco products in their parks and sometimes other outdoor public spaces as well. At a city council meeting last night, members considered as a study item a detailed information packet including a city staff memo on the policy-making process and written presentations from King County – which is taking a regional leadership role in promoting smoke-free public parks. A key provision identified by city staff in the packet is that there is no money for extra enforcement. That would depend on hoped-for effects of signage and enforcement by local parks users and any police or parks staff who happened to observe violations while conducting other work tasks.
Auburn’s red-light, speeding cameras awash in more red ink
by Matt Rosenberg January 22nd, 2012
The chairman of the City of Auburn’s Municipal Services Committee, Bill Peloza, says he’ll be asking some questions about the future of the town’s traffic safety automated camera enforcement program called PhotoSafe when the panel meets Monday night. The committee’s agenda includes a review and discussion of a new report showing PhotoSafe’s mounting red ink and suggesting beneficial changes in driver behavior that may have resulted from the installation of the cameras is leveling off.
Auburn’s new poet laureate strips away the varnish
by Matt Rosenberg December 30th, 2011
The city of Auburn, Wash. sits 28 miles south of Seattle astride major highways, riven with burger joints, casinos, and the exhaust fumes of sixteen-wheel rigs. Yet here too in the long shadow of Tahoma are rushing rivers, broad pastures of livestock and horses, caring neighbors, a highly-regarded local symphony, and a community of artists and writers such as Richard Brugger who next Tuesday will be appointed Auburn’s first Poet Laureate by the Mayor Pete Lewis at a meeting of the city council.