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Oakland’s Citizen Redistricting Comission

Posted on by spjika

In late 2013 as the city’s redistricting process began to wind down, several organizations involved in the Oakland Votes Coalition and city officials began talking about the possibility of creating a Citizens Redistricting Commission to avoid the usual politicized process in Oakland every 10 years.  The commission concept has been discussed as being somewhat aligned to the structures of those used in the California State Redistricting and the model that Austin implemented (based on California’s).

The main components for consideration in creating such a commission are:

  • Independently appointed citizen commissioners;
  • Diversity amongst commissioners;
  • Size of commission;
  • Budget & staffing support;
  • Authority & Process;
  • Cycle- Oakland is on a strange cycle, a year or two behind other cities/states, we can correct that;
  • Disqualifying factors for commissioners;
  • Who gets to appoint or nominate; and
  • Timeframe for existence- an ad-hoc committee can form the year of a redistricting process and be terminated after the process and any court cases are complete.

The groups present in the discussions so far include: Council Members Schaaf and Kalb, The League of Women Voters, Urban Strategies Council. ACCE, Oakland Rising and the Greenlining Institute.  This is not a formal body of any kind and the group  is not limited to these organizations.

To get broader feedback on this concept the city and the coalition are seeking your ideas, you can respond in the survey here.

The current intention is that this could be passed by City Council for inclusion in the November election as a ballot measure.  This will require Council to hear and approve this starting in May 2014.  it will result in a Charter Amendment to create such a commission if the ballot were to pass.

Those who would like to be involved organizationally can contact the Oakland Votes Coalition or Council Member Kalb or Schaaf’s offices.

In 2013 we created a number of resources to inform our community about redistricting and voting patterns in Oakland, check out our dynamic voting outcomes map tool and our summary of the redistricting outcomes here.

The Last Month of My Life

Posted on by spjika

I realized today that I haven’t written much in the last month, even though it’s been quite a month.  That may be because much of this month has involved the following: (warning, NTSF)

Aand also don’t let your girlfriends see this or they may leave you for me..

it’s pretty hot…

Yup, we’ve once again landed into the wonderful world of sleep deprivation and projectile pooping and well, utter, inexplicable joy.  Lucy Jane was born on 12/13/13, she arrived ridiculously easily to be honest, a long labor but cray fast delivery, it was an absolute blessing for us both.

So we got another of those best Christmas present ever things and now we’re a full car family. Someone recently said Merry Christmas to All the Spikers, and it kinda struck me- there are “all of us” now, we’re a full car load, a family of four, it’s a really strange feeling.  Doesn’t make you feel old or mature still, just strangely unqualified to be a parent once again with all this responsibility. Awesome and nerve racking at the same time.

I honestly expected to be a little less emotional with our second daughter’s arrival- perhaps a dumb idea that the second time is less significant? In the end it was so much the opposite- I was overwrought with joy and love when she arrived, I think perhaps the first child is an unknown thing, you know you want kids but not what it really means.  The second comes with you having a much deeper, realer understanding of the indescribable joy and love that parenthood can bring.  Knowing how much a child means seemed to deepen my reaction to a new addition.

To be honest I was dreading the first few months of having another newborn- Grace’s first few months were hard, really hard. On me anyway… And being a selfish bastard that’s what counts right? Ok maybe not. I had a mixed set of feelings about our second- excitement and anxiety.  But so far this month has been a huge joy, partly because Lucy Jane actually sleeps ten times better than her big sister did, but partly because it’s been almost a whole month of just being with my family.

Which brings me back to the point of this post- the last month. I’ve worked as a social impact org for almost 8 years, like most such orgs the pay is modest but fair and we don’t provide full family health insurance, but we do have an awesomely family friendly workplace and policies.  Making the choice to take a whole month from work once you hit the exec level is really tough- you live with the idea that people really need you, but you have to choose to put time into your family or you risk losing one or the other… So I’m extremely grateful to my CEO Junious Williams for allowing me this time with my new family- many companies wouldn’t give the nod to a time away this long, but it has really been a super valuable time to just be with my girls, all three of them.  When I think about the default in the USA it makes me really fricking angry- we claim to be a Christian country all the time yet we have the most un-Christian, anti-family federal policies and business practices in a developed western country- we don’t encourage strong, healthy families, we encourage profit. 

I’m feeling pressure to get back into the mix, but I don’t want to end this time of just being a dad every day, all day. And all night, like at 4am holding a crying baby while watching Game of Thrones with wireless headphones on.

Oh and sure, sometimes I miss the freedom of not having kids and being able to go to every single hackathon or event in the bay area, but really, you can’t get much happier than sitting on the sofa with a daughter lying on each arm.  This is the shit people.

Google Bussing

Posted on by spjika

Stamen Design’s talented Eric Rodenbeck wrote a very illuminating piece for Wired on the work they did surveying the tech bus route and usage patterns recently- it’s a fantastic example of mapping and data work to provide clarity on a complex issue that affects equity, justice and urban change. Read it here and check out their map below- nothing like hard(ish) data to inform a public discourse!

OpenOakland 1.5: A year and a half in review

Posted on by spjika

As we close out the year, I wanted to reflect on a few things to put our work in perspective and also to lay out the vision for where we want to go in the new year. 2013 was a great year for civic innovation in Oakland. It was a great year for the growing movement to open up government and to build towards a future where our local government is truly by the people, for the people and of the people in the 21st century. But we still have much to do and much to learn. I’m excited about both of those realities.

OpenOakland was created to fulfill two main goals- to provide a backbone level of support for civic innovation in Oakland, and to support our local government in being more open, more agile and more engaged. Both Eddie Tejeda and I believe that the approach taken by Code for America is perhaps the strongest, smartest way to achieve truly open government in the USA and we’re proud to be part of a national movement to transform how government works and is how we as citizens and residents interact with government.

We believe that leadership is best done through supporting others to change, by providing a vision of what could be and by helping others move along that path. OpenOakland was our idea to make that vision a reality and so far hundreds of people across Oakland have been inspired to be part of that journey too- we all want our government to be great- we want to have a positive, trusting relationship with our City Hall and the people working inside. It seems that our approach is yielding fruit in a very small period of time.

We are often perceived as simply technologists who are interested in the technical solution. While many of our members are technically gifted, we are not about the technology- the advantage that technologists offer however is the ability to know what is possible. Take this year’s acclaimed app built by Adam Stiles and Shawn McDougal with support from the city’s Budget Advisory Committee and others: OpenBudgetOakland.org. This app demonstrates so much of what we’re building. Conceived at a hackathon, we offered to help incubate and support the completion of this game changing app. It required the city to release the raw budget in a raw data format for the first time ever- a serious change in attitude from a city hall frequently seen as closed and uncooperative. In releasing this data, the city enabled the development of an incredibly powerful application that would never have been conceived of nor built in city hall. Our team has learned a lot through the launch of this app and has been largely responsible for the increased focus on the city’s budgeting process and the push for increased transparency and engagement in future budget preparation. We’ve helped to change city policy, empower people to ask informed questions and enriched the discussion with trustworthy information. And we’ve helped open the budget data for the first time.

This is what we’re about- technology to change behaviors and to create new possibilities.

In June we participated in a national event called the National Day of Civic Hacking, co-sponsored by the White House. While other cities were hacking on new apps, we knew there was an opportunity to do something different in Oakland. An app and an idea struck us as being perfectly suited to Oakland- something called Honolulu Answers. It was built by a Code for America team and it consisted of an app and an approach. This app was, like all of our work, Open Source. That means anyone in the world can take the raw code and reuse it however they like. Likewise, the team shared their method to build it. In Oakland, we held an event called ReWrite Oakland- while a geeky play on words, we wanted to build this new web app for our city and we invited the city to participate in building it. Seventy people joined us at the HUB Oakland to create a new resource for all of our city: Answers.Oaklandnet.com was the result. What we did was more than just build a new web app in collaboration with the city- we showed that how the city acquires and considers technology can be different, better, smarter. An open source app and a ton of residents time created a website far more accessible to regular people than the city’s current site. We will be holding ReWrite evenings across the city in 2014, giving more Oaklanders the chance to help build something together.

As this article gets published, we’ll also be launching a new app built with a city project in mind. AdoptaDrainOakland.com was a suggestion form the city’s environmental services team- they saw the success of the Adopta apps used in other cities and asked us to help bring that app to Oakland. The result is another open source website that helps Oaklanders contribute in a small but meaningful way to their city. If we can help to clear out blocked drains when it floods, our public works crews can stay focused on fixing all those potholes we love to hate.

We’ve also been hard at work on building an app that breaks down the old barriers between city council and the public- the dreaded Council agenda PDF nightmare. Led by Miguel Vargas, this app allows regular people to easily find information about discussions and topics hitting council and other meetings in the city. It will allow people for the first time to stay on top of matters that relate to them, without the painful process of digging through dozens of lengthy PDF documents. Our hope is that this makes our council more open and with solid outreach on our part, changes the way people choose to be passive consumers or engaged citizens.

With our community we’ve also built some simple apps, based on other great open source projects in other cities, that help residents find services and connect to their local networks:
EarlyOakland.com helps parents find free early childhood education and care
OaklandBeats.com lets easily people find their local Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council.

We also continue to provide technical support for the amazing OaklandWiki.org project- your very own wiki for the Town! One of our first projects, this has spun off into a dynamic community and is a great resource to share what you know about your city.

Late this year we also participated in the first ever crowd sourced legislation in the City of Oakland. Lauded by the Sunlight Foundation as a promising practice for other cities to follow, we joined dozens of people from across the city and the country to help form the strongest possible new language for the City’s Open Data Resolution, which passed the City Council with no dissension. This new resolution requires our city to develop a comprehensive plan to build out the open data efforts across all departments. Providing a strong sustaining force to the efforts underway already (which we successfully pushed for in 2012 also), this will set our city on a strong path for the future where researchers, developers, analysts and even city staff have simple, legal access to the valuable data the city produces already. We see this as an important factor in changing the status quo regarding staff and electeds attitudes towards transparency- when the expectations for city information becomes “open by default”, our leaders will be operating on a very different platform than in the past.

As with our Open Government Pledge in 2012, we will once again be taking up the challenge to convince our next round of city leaders to support the concept of Open Government. We aim to hold a mayoral candidates forum focused on issues of technology, transparency, engagement and procurement.

Clearly what we’re doing is geeky and optimistic. We think this work matters to the entire city and we’ll be making a lot of effort to connect with organizations and people across this great city in 2014. While our focus has been on building relationships with and changing how things are done inside city hall, we almost forgot that “by the people” is bigger than just those who take the time to join us in city hall for our hack nights and other events. When we formed, we established values of engagement with our city and diversity in our membership and leaders. 2014 presents us with the chance to engage more widely and to share this vision with those who want to participate.  While the technology sector is often an exclusive space, we will be putting in hard work to create a truly inclusive movement in Oakland.

Although not the work of OpenOakland itself, it would be remiss to not mention the powerful new public records system that our Code for America fellowship team built- available now at records.oaklandnet.com, this system provides both a streamlined way for the city to manage and respond to public records requests, it also provides the public with an incredible view into what is being requested. Again this demonstrates how we think- interfaces to government should be designed for the users, should be beautiful and easy to use, should serve the business needs of city staff and should provide an open view for the public.

What has this cost? The simple answer is that all this has been accomplished by an organization with no budget (besides the pizza fund Code for America provides- and that is important) and no staff. Our work has been produced by people with a desire to see our city become stronger, smarter and more open. As leaders of this group, we’ve tried to support as many people as possible in doing things that brings innovation to city hall and creates more beautiful, accessible ways for people to interact and engage with our government. Our events have relied on generous sponsors, but other than their support, OpenOakland to date represents what is possible when people who love their city get together, collaborate and innovate for the good of all.

We need to trust in government again, we need to respect public service, we need a government that is open and serves all people equitably and justly. We also need our government to be able to innovate, to take measured risks and to provide better ways for residents to interact with officials and elected members. This is what we’re about.

We’re excited about what 2014 has in store, and we welcome your feedback on our efforts as well as your partnership to make this vision a reality.

Oakland Planning, data and engagement

Posted on by spjika

There’s a frustrating but worthwhile read over at sf.streetsblog on the city’s decision to close down part of the Latham Sqaure pilot in downtown Oakland. The pilot was meant to last for six months and is being partly shelved after just six weeks. This is another sad example of bad use of data, closed decision making and poor engagement in our city.

Problem # 1:

Planning Director Rachel Flynn, when asked for data on Latham Square’s use, said, “We don’t know how to measure pedestrian and bicycle activity.”

This is 2013 and with the powers of Google at our fingertips (yes, despite the clunky computers in city hall they still can get on to the internets). There are two stupidly simple options should this have been something our city staff actually wanted to do- to understand the problem or the situation. We could have worked with local hackers to build simple, cheap sensors using Raspberry Pi devices and off the shelf sensors- read how here. Or we could have simply paid for a small pilot using the super clever MotionLoft system built in SF that is aimed at helping retail businesses understand pedestrian flow and patterns.

No data is not a situation that is acceptable in this century.  No data simply suggests we don’t care enough to gather it. It says that facts are not really what matter, it’s all about perception and personal opinion. No data cannot be adequately challenged or debated. Data are not everything, but no data are dangerous.

Problem #2:

When you hear an official say something like “we were kind of hearing the same thing over and over” you should be skeptical. Especially when you have people representing significantly sized local organizations stating that they have heard almost nothing but differing opinions to those proffered by city staff.  This problem breaks down into two sub-issues. Firstly, the type of engagement common in our planning dept and the city in general- a couple of town hall meetings which tend to attract squeaky wheels who are in opposition to most projects and are only scheduled to suit a small percentage of the community.  In person alone is not a sufficient form of engagement given how digital our community largely is.  Secondly, there is little opportunity to really test this statement- the meetings don’t have nicely recorded videos to replay the conversations and oppositions and the city is not maintaining an online discussion on the pros and cons of this project. We have no record of these complaints within easy reach.

So what?

It’s disappointing that in a city that desperately lacks any innovation or experimentation, we cancel one of the few creative place based projects so fast.  When the rationale to end the project is that it was "prompted by negative feedback… What we’ve heard from property owners and businesses is they need that access” for cars, it’s hard not to wonder if that is the best approach to civic decision making.

Almost no project or idea in Oakland goes without its critics- if we shut down every experiment to improve our city with no data to objectively measure the impact and if we continue to fail to leverage online communities for ideation and constructive feedback, we are doomed to remain a city under-invested in itself and its future.

If you love the current (well, former) plaza, you can sign the WOBO petition.