At this week's A2CA we got presentations from the CIty Clerk and the IT department.
A couple things I didn't know about:
If you look up the next city council meeting in Legistar, there should be an "eComment" link which you can use to submit comments. I'm afraid I usually complain to my friends or (occasionally) email my ward 2 council people. Maybe this would be better? It doesn't seem to be used much.
I didn't realize the city had its own fiber. I guess it used to depend on Comcast, but decided at some point that it was more cost effective to just build its own network. The city isn't allowed to go into the ISP business (somebody asked), but it does share its network with the DDA and the AADL.
Mainly though what impressed me was the amount of stuff that the city has online. Some I already knew about, some are worth posts of their own; a few examples:
- A2OpenBook: click on the links on the left side for spending data down to the level of individual transactions. Also downloadable if you wanted to do some analysis of your own. Though maybe you're better off checking to see if the Citizen Guide to Finance and Budget or the Annual Financial Reports answer your questions first.
- Browse the Zoning Map.
- Browse the city code.
- Legistar, for city meetings (previously).
- On a snow day, who couldn't get excited watching the live snow plow tracking?