Laptops, Facebook for City Council?
The Port Angeles City Council is considering using less paper and relying more on laptops and social networking sites like Facebook.
Laptops should make it easier to track documents and comply with record retention laws.
Laptops should make it easier to track documents and comply with record retention laws.
posted by Tom Harper at 8:38 PM
17 Comments:
The paperless part sounds okay, and being able to provide records sounds good, too. But Facebook?
As if this city really cares about what the citizens think. We have years of experience that shows us they say all the perfunctory niceties about public participation, and soliciting public comment. But anyone can look at what actually comes of it.
We saw the fluoride petitions (some people signed so they could vote to support the city) where dozens of residents walked the streets in the city for weeks, dedicated to try to get "the vote" in Port Angeles, only to have the city do everything it could to block any voting on the issues.
Or, look at the written responses to citizen input to city proposals. Go down and look at any of the current project records. The city just defends what it wants to do. There is no citizen input into the outcomes.
But now they want to communicate with the citizens via Facebook?!?!
With what as an outcome?
So they can justify the expenditure as "public outreach" in their grant application to some Federal agency?
Now Max can have his own "The Watcher" page on Facebook!
i think they should use i pads
I think intentionally going paperless and placing public records on computers will serve to further obscure public scrutiny of how the city conducts the public's business.
Already city officials whine and complain about "burdensome" public records requests. But if the records are accessible to staff because they are written on paper, then the staff can be working on gathering the records and responding the the request. Under the laptop computer system, compiling the requested records will be delayed by the staff having to get access to council members to search council-members' hard drives. More time and excuses for the city to keep hiding what is really going on.
...approximately six-hour meeting at Olympic Medical Center, which was intended to review policy and set goals for the rest of the year....
So was this all that was discussed, or is this all that our crappy "newspaper" is reporting?
"Now Max can have his own "The Watcher" page on Facebook!
5:50 AM, January 18, 2011"
Com'on Edna, Give it up. This became SO lame, so long ago.
And, Max has done SO much more in his few months on the council, than you did for the whole time you were on the city council. All the time you wasted, until the voters got rid of you, the first chance they got!
My plans , well - Darlene and Norma's plans, are nearly complete! Once that doofus Myers is out of town I can begin to regale you, my dear constituents, with the inside scoop on what really goes on in city hall!
Oh, sorry! Wrong thread.
I think it’s a forgone conclusion, that if Teabaggy has nothing to say, she’ll post the Max stuff… So don’t play. Wait for “capitalist” or one of the smarter dopes to post something actually relating to the thread. You can’t really make a fool out of Teabaggy - she comes prepackaged.
The thing is, I’ve noticed far fewer posts while the dopes are sulking… so what’s the deal, do we need to push AGAINST the teabaggers in order to motivate ourselves?
ha ha ha ha ha ha!
I'm on the side of full disclosure.
No laptops for city council members, unless they want to buy them for themselves.
"I’ve noticed far fewer posts while the dopes are sulking… so what’s the deal, do we need to push AGAINST the teabaggers in order to motivate ourselves?"
Not that I'm a big poster, here, but I am a regular. Just have been pathetically busy for the last week.
Still am busy, and have been thinking about how to get "us" past the last impasse. I am very interested in talking with folks sincerely interested in moving this community forward in positive, sustainable ways. I have a few years background, and innovative, proven materials I've collected on the subjects to share.
I certainly don't need the mindless reactionaries to motivate me. There are far too many real, pressing issues facing our futures, to waste valuable time with their crap.
"Clallam County lost 440 jobs for the month: 240 in the private sector and 200 in the public sector."
From the PDN, today. Interesting to see this during December, when usually the employment numbers rise as stores hire temporary workers for "the holidays".
But, not in Port Angeles.
Also, as has been raised here before, we see public sector jobs being lost, locally. Is this because government is responding to the voters of last November?
Port Angeles man plaintiff in national health care lawsuit that also includes 26 states
Tom please start this thread...
"Also, as has been raised here before, we see public sector jobs being lost, locally. Is this because government is responding to the voters of last November?"
I heard on the radio that the Conference of US Mayors is being held, and the big issue is the lack of funding. How cities are laying off half of their police force, because they don't have funding.
And, the story went on to say that the prospects are not good, as the Federal Stimulus funds are drying up, with the "mood" in Washington being to cut budgets further.
Although cities elsewhere are facing laying off staff and reducing services, Port Angeles adopted its largest spending budget ever for 2011. How did they do it? By borrowing, borrowing, borrowing; strapping the taxpayers and utility rate payers to huge future debt loads. Another reason why Myers is smart to be looking to get out of town before the $#!* hits the fan. His fiscal management has been short-sighted and against the public interest.
"Although cities elsewhere are facing laying off staff and reducing services, Port Angeles adopted its largest spending budget ever for 2011."
Yeah, because Kent is backing Glen Cutler in his huge antiquated CSO project. Without that $40 plus million in budget, the picture would look a lot different.
People are being buffalo-ed into these huge expenditures, without knowing what it going on. I'm all for abating sewage overflows, but at LEAST look into what other communities are doing! We're being screwed, and the tax bill is the biggest in the city's history! If this is not important for everyone, than what is??
I'm certainly not going to "friend" the city of Port Angeles.
I have some thoughts about why they're doing this, but then I realized it was just the city council members. Seriously? No, I think Port Angeles should go paperless as much as possible. The web site should be one huge database of public records. There should be a kiosk at the city that lets public citizens without computers access and print out whatever they want. Charge them for the prints like you would a public copier. That eliminates time public officials spend and money spent on copies.
The entire website should be overhauled to make it more "Web 2.0"ey. Simplify, remove content from presentation, make everything pulled dynamically from a database. Make it easy for the public to access any data they choose.
I wouldn't worry so much about Facebook. That should be an afterthought. They have a website, they could have blogs there. It just needs an overhaul, that's all. But it'd be useless until the entire city is geared towards the digital age.
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