{"id":21078,"date":"2014-02-20T13:12:32","date_gmt":"2014-02-20T18:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=21078"},"modified":"2014-02-20T13:13:17","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T18:13:17","slug":"city-considers-new-ideas-for-council-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2014\/02\/20\/city-considers-new-ideas-for-council-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"City Considers New Ideas for Council Agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"

Changes are underway to improve the language and the layout of Raleigh\u2019s bi-monthly City Council agenda document<\/a>, though it could be some time before residents see those changes occur. <\/p>\n

First discussed at the recent Council retreat<\/a>, new City Manager Ruffin Hall said he wanted to work with the Council to find ways to streamline the agenda\u2019s format. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery now and then it\u2019s probably a good idea to take a fresh look,\u201d Hall said. \u201cSee what it looks like, how are the items grouped, what the content is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although he did not list any specific changes, Hall said the staff is looking new ways to make the document and its contents available electronically.<\/p>\n

The agenda is uploaded to the city\u2019s website as a PDF. If it was created as an interactive document, denizens and Councilors would have the opportunity to dig deeper into the issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it would be really interesting if they could find ways to tie issues and relate it to data that\u2019s available on the open data portal,\u201d said Jason Hibbets, a project manager at Red Hat and the author of \u201cThe Foundation for an Open Source City<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any changes to the document, Hall said, would likely be proposed by Council members. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not my agenda; it\u2019s the Mayor and Councils\u2019 agenda,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve put this forward for their consideration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hall explained that the new layout is not a high-priority issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the agenda is fine the way it is,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is something we\u2019re going to be working on over a sort of a moderate process; there\u2019s not a tremendous amount of urgency.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Digital Future<\/strong>
\nThe Wake County Board of Commissioners last year made the switch to an all-digital format<\/a> for their agenda. The Commissioners use tablet computers to access not only the agenda, but also any relevant supplemental data. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A screenshot of the Wake County Commission agenda. Clicking on an item with a hyperlink prompts pdfs of supporting materials to appear in the right side. <\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe have our Commissioners using iPads, using iLegislate,\u201d said Wake County Manager Joe Durham. \u201cIt\u2019s been tremendous \u2014 less utilization of paper and a great utilization of automation and technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Hall said there are no plans to make a similar switch, creating a new, online version of the agenda could give taxpayers better insight into their government and the city around them. <\/p>\n

Red Hat\u2019s Hibbets said one way the Council could take advantage of existing technologies is to link agenda items to any and all background information available.<\/p>\n

\u201cSay there was an affordable housing item on the City Council agenda, you can have a pointer to say, \u2018Hey citizens, by the way, you can see where all the affordable housing is on a map through an open data portal,’\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

This kind of information would also be useful to Councilors, Hibbets said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s data available that can help them make a better decision when looking over an issue, and it can just be a link to a map with crime data<\/a> or fire data<\/a> or whatever we\u2019ve got in the system, I think that would be a tremendous help,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Reid Serozi works for Socrata, which developed the city\u2019s Open Raleigh data portal website<\/a>. He said there has not been any discussion on linking an electronic version of the agenda to relevant information from the portal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink of all the internal database systems that are inside the city of Raleigh, like building permits<\/a>,\u201d Serozi said. \u201cWe work with the government to extract that internal database data and then expose it through our portal so you can consume it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Current Agenda<\/strong>
\nThe agenda is an extensive document<\/a> put together twice each month by the City Manager\u2019s office and the City Clerk. It includes everything from background information and staff recommendations on matters requiring Council approval to summations of denizen petitions. <\/p>\n

The first item on the agenda for Feb. 18 regards the issuance of a pawnbroker license, and the level of detail provided demonstrates why the document is often more than a dozen pages long.<\/p>\n

\"Council_agenda\"<\/a>

Ariella Monti \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/p><\/div>\n

The name of the applicant, the address of the proposed shop and input from the planning, fire and police departments are all included. Because the police found the applicant has an outstanding citation for an alleged violation of the pawnbroker statute, the staff recommendation to Council is to deny the license application.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur agenda is pretty detailed; it really is compared to most other local governments,\u201d said Louis Buonpane, a programs manager with the City Manager\u2019s office. <\/p>\n

Buonpane said the procedure for putting together the agenda is a needs-driven process, depending on what items various departments may need approval on from City Council.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn example is a contract,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it\u2019s a construction project in excess of $300,000, it needs to be approved by City Council. That\u2019s an example of city policy that dictates what goes on the agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

When such an issue is present, the relevant department will submit the item to the City Manager\u2019s office on the Monday of the week before a Council meeting. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think the process of generally how it\u2019s put together is fine,\u201d Hall said. \u201cI\u2019m really talking more about, how is the document laid out, how is it pulled together.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Denizen-Friendly Agenda<\/strong>
\nAlthough he supports the depth of detail currently provided by the agenda, Buonpane said it\u2019s important to make sure it\u2019s not overwhelming.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question then is, how citizen-friendly is it?\u201d he said, adding that there is \u201cperhaps too much detail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat a involves a level of effort \u2013 not just people in the manager\u2019s office but from people in other departments who are assembling information and submitting it to the process,\u201d Buonpane said.<\/p>\n

Hibbets said making the agenda easier to consume would be a \u201cbig step forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before delving into anything too ambitious, Hibbets said the city should \u201cget us up to par with where other people are, then we can start thinking about what those new innovative ideas are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hibbets said the city could look toward other municipalities and see how they present their agendas, taking what he described as an open-source approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s borrow those ideas and build upon them; we don\u2019t need to invent the wheel, someone\u2019s already done it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City Council members are looking at ways to streamline the presentation of its agenda documents, which may include new methods for electronic distribution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24061,"featured_media":21082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[1565],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24061"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}