New Haven Independent

Posted by: jade | September 17, 2007 10:54 AM

This sounds like a good idea. Keeping my fingers crossed...

Posted by: WEBbloger 1 | September 17, 2007 11:05 AM

Sounds like a plan.

However Alders, accountability does not start and end with the public works/ engineering departments. The city lacks efficency and accountability and public reporting standards accross city departments, most notabaly the police department as described in the Perf report. In addition, you have the fire and police departments whose overtime budgets is in hyper drive out of control spending mode.
Both the city charter and the code of ordinances
currently have provisions for departmental accountability.
The fiscal oversight function is under the controller in the finance department. In as much as task reporting is concerned, it's apparent that no one city department has this responsibility, therefore, passing a new ordinance seems pratical, but a new ordinance will have to go much further and be much more inclusive than this one proposes.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | September 17, 2007 12:16 PM

Hmm do we know when this is going to be brought to vote??? It is a great idea! Can they add other city dept. in it as well.

Posted by: jeffreykerekes | September 17, 2007 3:29 PM

This is a good start. We need the whole city government to be more accountable and this is a reasonable first effort. I hope it can become a model for other departments such as education, police, fire. Together, those three departments make up almost 80% of the entire city budget. I think accountability is a good thing and we need metrics to measure what our tax dollars are actually buying. Nice work to both Perez and Chen for this proposal. I am looking forward to its enactment and future accountability projects. See the BOA accountability project .

Posted by: Been Called Worse | September 18, 2007 8:20 AM

Wow. All this thinking outside of the box might cause a headache. So by 2008 I should be able to lookup on this internet-thingy when a sidewalk is scheduled to be repaired? This would have been a big deal circa 2002, notable even. But to be impressed about an idea that is just common sense (and not a fully developed idea at that) leaves me feeling kind of empty inside. Maybe the BOA can contract this out to the NHI and they can include it with the crime maps which do not appear on the city's site.

While they are at it, how about:

* Access to police accident reports (the accessibility and decrease in staffing costs should balance out the 50 cents per page they are making now)

* Tow lookup. Would be nice to be able to pop in my license plate # and see where my car has been towed to.

* Apply for building permits, vendor licenses, job applications, appraisal contestments, etc, etc, right from the City's site. (Why can't all city forms be made available as online forms for submission right from the web? With the exclusion of things that need to be notarized, etc). I can do without the download-and-print PDF forms as well (hint: this internet thing can *recieve* data as well as *send* it to users).

I agree the quality of life issues like missed trash add up and need to be addressed. However, what I read in this 'Government Accountability Order' all seem like low hanging fruit. The range and scope of the order is pretty limited in comparison to what services/solutions can be offered via the web.