City of Glendale, AZ Draft Open Data Resolution
Shared for feedback by City Manager's Office
The city of Glendale is seeking public feedback through June 15, 2017 regarding a draft resolution that would create an Open Data program. This program would establish a framework to support the proactive publication of city data in an effort to provide meaningful information for the community, improve the delivery of services, increase transparency and access to public information, and enhance stakeholder engagement around data and problem-solving.
City of Glendale, AZ Draft Open Data Resolution
RESOLUTION NO. R17-XX A RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF GLENDALE, MARICOPA COUNTY, ARIZONA AUTHORIZING AND DIRECTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN OPEN DATA PROGRAM FOR THE CITY OF GLENDALE.
WHEREAS, it is the mission of the City of Glendale, Arizona to improve the lives of the people served every day, and city leaders value integrity, excellence, innovation, community engagement, and ongoing learning; and,
WHEREAS, today, digital data collected by the City of Glendale, Arizona (the "City”) is not generally readily available to the public for aggregation and analysis; and
WHEREAS, access to public data promotes a higher level of civic engagement and allows citizens to provide valuable feedback to government officials regarding local issues; and
WHEREAS, every citizen has the right to prompt, efficient service from the government; and
WHEREAS, the thoughtful implementation of an Open Data Program can improve the provision of services, increase transparency and access to public information, and enhance coordination and efficiencies among departments, partner organizations and citizens; and
WHEREAS, an Open Data Program proactively provides information often obtained through time-consuming, costly public records requests; and
WHEREAS, by publishing structured, standardized data in machine-readable formats the City seeks to encourage the local software community to develop applications and tools to collect, organize, and share public data in new and innovative ways for the benefit of the greater community; and
WHEREAS, the protection of privacy, confidentiality and security will be maintained as a paramount priority in the open data endeavor while also advancing the government’s transparency and accountability through open data.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Glendale that:
Section 1. It is the policy of the City of Glendale to promote openness, transparency and accountability through open data released by the City while maintaining privacy, confidentiality, security and legal interests.
Section 2. The City Manager is directed to coordinate with other appointed officials to develop an Open Data Program which provides for the proactive release of select data in accordance with the following guidelines and establishes a process for prioritizing the publication of data. Data is to be published:
a. In open standard or machine-readable formats;
b. In a centralized location on the city website;;
c. With clearly articulated rights to reuse the data without registration requirements, access fees, licenses, or usage limitations.
d. In accordance with city policies, public records laws, and any other applicable Federal, State and local laws.
Section 3. The City Manager or designee will review and publicly report on the status of the Open Data Program on at least an annual basis to include an assessment of progress, a list of datasets that are currently available, and a description and publication timeline for datasets expected to become available.
PASSED, ADOPTED AND APPROVED by the Mayor and Council of the City of Glendale, Maricopa County, Arizona this ____ of _________, 2017. New Document Content
Jean Moreno
Special thanks to everyone who took the time to provide feedback and comments on the draft resolution. Your feedback was valuable to the process. I am pleased to report that the City Council adopted a resolution in support of creating an Open Data program on Tuesday 6/27. The final resolution language can be found here: https://glendale-az.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3086887&GUID=68D243FB-66A3-4381-B963-2176AC97CEE9. Special thanks to the What Works Cities and Sunlight Foundation teams for helping us make improvements for our community. We are looking forward to the implementation phase of this project.
Leonard Escudero
This resource would be of great value to the Human Resources Commission. The demographic information would help serve as a guide to commission activities. Kudos for the concept.
Jean Moreno
Excellent insight, thank you for the comment!
David Gonzalez
I am concerned about approving citizen information on a public forum particularly since this proposal does not indicate what data will be posted and whether there will be people identified by the data. If there will be personal citizen information will there be a method for that person to know who is accessing their information and can they approve access to that information to the requester?
Jean Moreno
Great question, confidentiality is very important to us which is why we included the language in Section 1 that makes reference to, "...maintaining privacy, confidentiality, security, and legal interests." We would also still be following legally required redaction/exclusion policies related to the Freedom of Information Act and Arizona Public Records law. Here is a general resource that provides more detail about municipal data: http://www.nfoic.org/arizona-foia-laws
Jeff McAffee
This resolution would serve the residents of the City of Glendale well. Two questions: 1) Is there room for it in the budget? And, 2) Are there any examples of city websites already doing something similar for review? Jeff
Jean Moreno
Great questions, thank you! There are various levels of sophistication when it comes to Open Data portals. Our initial approach is to use existing or free resources and evaluate the city's and stakeholder needs over time. A big part of that will include analyzing how this ties to other initiatives related to our strategic plan (in development). Through the process, we are emphasizing the use of data and evidence for decision making which includes ensuring we have quality, meaningful data; so this initiative ties in to those principles.
We are not seeking any budget allocation at this time, but it is something that could be considered in the future if there is value in continuing to build the program and the level of sophistication of the portal. A good example is getting to "real-time" data sharing with the public.
Here are some examples of Open Data websites that vary from basic to highly sophisticated. I hope this is helpful.
http://city.milwaukee.gov/mkedata#.WScjPe-GNlY https://data.brla.gov/ http://open.mesaaz.gov/home https://www.phoenix.gov/opendata https://data.kcmo.org/
Ray Strahl
I have read the comments from others that have posted here and not to be redundant, I agree that there should be transparency and the process should be easy to find and user friendly. the Mayor and Council are working hard to provide what is best for the City of Glendale, and so I am in support of this.
Jean Moreno
Thank you for your feedback!
Jane Bachmann
Before any new data is added to the Glendale website, glendaleaz.com needs work so that it is easier to find information. For example Planning should be on the home page and readily accessible. A link to a site administrator or someone responsible for the website needs to be created. Presently there is no contact information if we have comments about the website. All of this needs straightening out before adding "open data".
Jean Moreno
Thank you for your comments, separate from this project but certainly related our Public Affairs department is working to refresh our city's website to enhance user functionality and providing user interfaces.
Carl V. Lewis
This, to me, is a key aspect of the value proposition, and it deserves emphasizing. By having agencies upload data to a centralized repository, it allows mashups, composite takes and easy comparison.
Jean Moreno
Thank you for the feedback and we agree, there is great value in a centralized repository for city data not only for external stakeholders, but internal as well.
Gary Deardorff
This is way past due. The current system is awful and discourages citizen evolvement. Please continue on with this vital upgrade.
Jean Moreno
Thank you for your feedback, much appreciated!
Leslie Sheeler
Jean Moreno
Thank you for your feedback, centralizing the data to make it easier to find and use is an important goal. We don't want to publish data just to say we did it, we want users to find utility in the information. The initiative will be managed out of the City Manager's Office, but will require a cross-departmental city-wide approach to ensure we are being responsive to stakeholder needs.
Lynn Harding
My first question is; How much is this going to cost to discover, create, implement & sustain. Transparency is great but not if it wastes my already overtaxed dollars so someone can get all warm and fuzzy about "transparency".
Jean Moreno
Excellent question! We presented information to City Council at the May 2nd workshop where we discussed the options as it relates to implementing this program (video starts at about the 2 hour, 41 minute mark if you'd like to take a look http://glendale-az.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=2651). Our recommendation is to get started using existing resources and we have found that there are a variety of ways communities are going about setting up these programs. We looked at the City of Milwaukee as an example of a model that we could use to get started using tools that we have already or that are free. Milwaukee's site can be found here: http://city.milwaukee.gov/mkedata#.WSXr9O-GNlY We agree, this isn't something to do just to check the box, there needs to be utility and value for our residents and other interested stakeholders; and, it should create opportunities to streamline requests for public information. Thank you so much for your feedback!
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