By James Shiffer, MNCOGI board member
I confess that I am late to the party when it comes to the growing movement of civic-minded hackers who are doing wonders with government data. But the more I find out, the more I realize that those of us who have wrangled with government agencies for years over public records now have a new generation of compatriots who recognize the power of public data to make the world better.
One of those advocates, Bill Bushey of Open Twin Cities, paid a visit to the MNCOGI board earlier this week. One thing he talked about was the open data questionnaire that was sent to all political candidates in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Several of those who responded were elected to office, and now the public has a record of what they said they would do to make government data more accessible. My Star Tribune colleague Eric Roper blogged about it here.
One of newly elected Minneapolis City Council members, Linea Palmisano, gave a statement that we would like to hear more of from politicians: “I also believe that both the media and citizens shouldn’t have to submit a ‘data practices’ request and wait months in order to get data from the city. The irony is that the city has spent millions of dollars in the IT department but accessibility hasn’t improved for citizens.”
Now let’s they make sure they keep their promises.