Subject-sorted, Geography-sorted, and Author-sorted Legislation/Reports Databases and Online Community Forum
Subject-sorted, Geography-sorted, and Author-sorted Legislation/Reports Databases + Online Community Forum for greater trackability and accountability of government officials and departments, and easier access to relevant information to facilitate greater citizen engagement and response to current developments in Oakland city policies, programs and services.
Currently, legislation and reports can be found by scanning through meeting agendas and attachments on Legistar and doing keyword searches on the city’s website. Having sortable databases within these categories would make it easier for residents, researchers and community organizations to find location-specific and issue-specific data, or easily evaluate the track record of policies, programs, reports and actions from a given public official or city department. Adding an online forum/comments feature to these databases could also be a way for citizens to provide feedback and ask questions about policy issues and actions in progress, as well as post and read comments online by location or subject.
This idea is related to the post about engaging underrepresented communities in feedback on innovation priorities because it makes relevant information more accessible and provides a direct online avenue for feedback. It is also related to the posts about info stuck in pdf's, people not knowing what info is available and where, etc. because it points back to usability of existing data.