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Seattle bill would restrict employer use of criminal histories

by Matt Rosenberg September 19th, 2012

A proposed City of Seattle bill being championed by Councilmember Bruce Harrell would restrict the right of Seattle employers to factor in to their hiring decisions a job applicant’s past arrests, convictions or pending criminal criminal charges. Under Council Bill 117583, which is scheduled for discussion today in the Public Safety, Civil Rights and Technology Committee meeting chaired by Harrell, employers would be required to:

wait until after extending a job offer to check an applicant’s criminal history;

avoid refusing to hire, or avoid firing an employee because of a past criminal conviction or pending criminal charge – unless there’s a “direct relationship” between the crime and the job’s duties;

and assess “direct relationship” on factors including reasonable foreseeability of harm or misconduct, seriousness of past crime(s), length of time elapsed since the crime(s), and the applicant’s conduct and rehabilitation since then.

According to a city staff fiscal note which summarizes the bill and answers several questions about its implications, Seattle’s Office of Civil Rights would implement the legislation. This would include public education directed to employers and job applicants, and could also involve investigating and trying to settle complaints brought by job applicants against Seattle employers. The fiscal note says it’s not clear whether the bill would require additional hiring at OCR; that the agency “will need to assess their ability to continue to absorb this body of work with existing staff and resources.”

Washington Winners: Public Meeting Transparency Online

by Matt Rosenberg September 4th, 2012

Below: the Washington state winners and champions in public meeting transparency online. They not only put meeting agendas online; they use software platforms which put into those online agendas, individual links to individual business items. This is far more user-friendly than the next-best practice, which is to bundle all the agenda packet documents into one .pdf file dozens or hundreds of pages long. This way constituents, reporters and other information seekers can see exactly what elected officials are considering – on an item-by-item basis – and can link to the specific documents in their online communications at web sites, blogs and in social media, boosting accuracy and accountability for online news and commentary. That’s something badly needed in these times. The Winners List follows. It is made up of direct links to the most user-friendly, document-rich agenda pages of local and regional governments in Washington state, grouped by county.

WA Local, Regional Govts. – Agendas, Documents

by Matt Rosenberg September 4th, 2012

Open meetings laws and public records laws are a bulwark of our democracy, to be widely promoted and firmly upheld. Yet the bar is rising still higher for government transparency as many elected bodies go beyond mere compliance with these legal requirements — by voluntarily providing better public access to their business, online. A key indicator for local and regional elected bodies is ease of online access to meeting agenda packet individual items, prior to meeting times. Following and grouped by county, are links to meeting agenda pages, or where none are available, meeting minutes pages or board roster pages for city and town councils in Washington state, plus school boards, county boards, public hospital boards, public utility districts and local/regional transit boards. Here we cover areas outside Central Puget Sound (King, Snohomish and Pierce counties), which have already been indexed in guides linked to at the end of this post.

This directory’s purpose is to promote wider access to the business of government, and particularly to agenda-specific original source documents posted online. Reporters, bloggers and other information providers can use these government source materials in their own online published work to enhance their own accuracy and accountability, and to better advance rational and richer discourse about current public policy matters.

We assign the following code for each government body included below:

(1) = (Best Practice) online agenda for each meeting has individual links to supporting documentation for individual agenda items (i.e. reports, memos, spreadsheets, ordinances)

(2) = agenda page has link to entire agenda packet for each meeting

(3) = online agenda provided for each meeting, but no link to agenda packet or other documentation for business items

(4) = there is no online agenda provided for official current meetings (minutes may or may not be provided)

(5) = No web site (although we may have provided a link to basic contact information, if available)

(Continued…..agenda page and document links for local, regional govts. in all WA counties)

City of Seattle-funded 501c3 SEED under microscope

by Matt Rosenberg August 20th, 2012

The iconic Seattle non-profit SouthEast Effective Development (SEED), which has increasingly moved into government-funded affordable housing, is reportedly investigating its finances while its high-profile Executive Director Earl Richardson is on paid leave and a big change in direction may be getting a closer look. Former Washington State Housing Finance Authority and Northwest region U.S. HUD executive Mark Flynn is serving as SEED’s interim executive director. A board member who spoke on the condition of not being named said they “cannot deny” reports SEED has undertaken a forensic accounting effort – adding “we’re in the midst of this investigation” – and also noting that “current events have been very unusual.”

In which Ferret bites into the Knight News Challenge: Data

by Matt Rosenberg June 21st, 2012

Public Data Ferret’s parent 501c3 Public Eye Northwest is pursuing plenty of other fundraising strategies, as we must. But we can never overlook the Knight News Challenge. The theme for Round Two 2012 is….Data. Please review our proposal and consider adding a supportive comment and a “Like”.

Knight will divide up to $5 million between winners, typically five or six per round. In the current grant competition, they’re looking for projects which demonstrate:

“new ways of collecting, understanding, visualizing and helping the public use the large amounts of information generated each day.”

An excerpt from our application:

How will your project make data more useful?
Public Data Ferret curates and translates unstructured government data – recent, high-news value documents hidden on the Deep Web – into Plain English, originally reported articles archived by jurisdiction and topic. The data mountain is curated, simplified and distributed. Through outreach, internships and visualizations we mainstream the primacy of data and objectivity.

How is your project different from what already exists?
The originally reported content is government sourced, always with direct links, bias- and jargon-free, and in topic and place archives so users can connect the dots.

Why will it work?
It will work because as the online information exa-flood grows, the need for authentic, reliable, curated knowledge intensifies. Users of search and participants in online social and face-to-face networks increasingly hunger for objective data about public affairs and public policy, rather than more opinion and snark, and know that data lives not only in data sets but in public documents as well. Liberating, processing and daylighting that unstructured data matters immensely. As legacy media decline, new actors must revitalize news and information ecosystems, often as trained volunteers.

[….}

How would you use News Challenge funds?
To fund for three years the work of three bureau chiefs/chief evangelists – one in Washington State, one in Oregon, and one in Idaho. They would each build and expand an infrastructure like the one we’ve begun in WA, working with colleges and a wide range of community stakeholders.

How would you sustain the project after the funding expires?
We would leverage more funds and volunteers through teaching and programmatic partnerships with public university and community college sponsors in each state, as well as legacy media, business interests and major community-based foundations. Fee-for-service revenue strategies will also be developed.

Requested amount:
$750,000

Review, comment on our Knight News Challenge bid

by Matt Rosenberg March 22nd, 2012

It’s brief, and we hope you’ll take a look at our Public Data Ferret project’s entry in the Knight News Challenge funding competition, for innovative news start-ups. Add a supportive comment if you like – very soon please – finalists will be announced April 2 – and share the link and a brief introduction with your networks on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr. The theme this round is use of existing “networks” and platforms, which includes what we do: building on online government information sources; and building awareness and working partnerships around our work in the community. We’re humbled by the supportive response so far, that you’ll see in the 40-plus comments from hyper-local bloggers, news professionals, technologists, educators, students, readers and others. Here are several comments among the many posted that really capture the value propositions we’re trying to embody.

TVW video of Seattle conference panel on open government’s future

by Matt Rosenberg March 13th, 2012

In 1972 Washington state voters were concerned about government accountability and ethics for a wide variety of reasons, some emanating from within the state and some from without. As a result they approved Initiative 276, creating an initial version of what is now the state’s Public Records Act, as well as the state Open Meetings Act and the state Public Disclosure Commission. The PDC daylights and regulates campaign contributions to and financial interests of elected officials. The successful citizen activists who launched and propelled the I-276 campaign later morphed into what is now the Washington Coalition For Open Government.

This past Saturday March 10, WACOG held a conference looking at the impetus leading to I-276’s passage, while also celebrating the present-day successes of citizen activists for public transparency, and looking at what the future holds. I was honored to be part of that latter panel on behalf of the 501c3 Public Eye Northwest and our Public Data Ferret project. Other guests were civic apps developer Ram Arumugan of Cascade Software Corporation; City of Seattle CIO/CTO Bill Schrier; and TVW President and CEO Greg Lane. Moderator was Mike Fancher – Vice President of WACOG and former Seattle Times Executive Editor.

Right below we’ve got the full 60-minute video of that forum, as aired on TVW, Washington state’s non-profit public affairs TV channel. Fancher began by framing the conversation in the context of the Knight Commission’s special report in 2010, “Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy In The Digital Age,” which he helped author. Among the findings that still resonate strongly, he said, are that:

“…the information health of communities is as vital as safe streets, clean air, good schools and a vibrant economy, but…we don’t tend to think of information health in that way;” and,
“…the same technology that is disrupting professional media and causing the loss of so many journalistic resources in so many communities is also creating great opportunities for journalism and democracy.”

Here’s the video on the panel looking at open government’s future, including the role of technology and new media.

TVW has also posted the video of the day’s panel, “Open Government’s Past: Birth and Survival of I-276.” It features David Ammons, former AP Olympia Bureau reporter and now communications chief for Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed; Karen Hildt, widow of I-276 campaign leader Michael Hildt; and former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton.

RELATED:

Ram Arumugan, Cascade Software, “How Technology Should Be Used To Spur Open Government,” Geek Wire, March 11, 2012.

Matt Rosenberg, Amplify Accountability, Technology To Boost Open Government,” Knight Commission blog, March 12, 2012.

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.

Collaboration in Civic Spheres

Archive for the ‘Community Building’ Category

Seattle bill would restrict employer use of criminal histories

Washington Winners: Public Meeting Transparency Online

WA Local, Regional Govts. – Agendas, Documents

In which Ferret bites into the Knight News Challenge: Data

Review, comment on our Knight News Challenge bid

TVW video of Seattle conference panel on open government’s future

Amplify accountability, technology to boost open government

NEWS HUB

How To Mine Open Access Science Journals, And Why

“Making The Open Government Partnership Work”

@Sunlight: “Transparency A 2-Way Street”

“Open Government Key For Us All”

Crunch Time for Open Missouri

Vancouver Mayor’s Gaffe Slows City Trust-Building Efforts

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