More Problems With City Council Minutes
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 4/9/08 @ 1:52 am - Filed Under City Council
City clerk Sandy Kennedy handed out the quarterly minutes to the councilmembers tonight and told everyone that the minutes that are on the website are different than the ones they are getting. Councilman Mitch Harper challenged Kennedy on this and asked why the minutes couldn’t be posted on the city website. Kennedy really had no answer other than to basically say that ACS, the city’s IT services provider, wasn’t getting the job done. Harper scoffed at that response and suggested there were four bloggers in the audience that could do it and also added that he could go into her office and do it in less than 20 minutes. The whole exchange was another doozy from tonight’s meeting and is definitely worth watching.
Harper’s right on this. The technology is free and easy to use so there’s really no excuse for citizens not to have searchable access to the council minutes. I’m not sure what’s going on with ACS but I get the feeling they’re looking for some sort of all-encompassing solution that goes above and beyond what was discussed at the open government task force. I don’t need the diamond solution here - the nickel one would be a good start. I’m going to try and work with the clerk’s office and the city’s CTO to see if we can’t find a solution that makes everyone happy…
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8 Responses to “More Problems With City Council Minutes”
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Jeff,
This goes back to what I told you before.
I do not know that the CLERKS office can upload documents to the server.
Depending on how the server permissions are set, there may be security reasons to limit access. (for instance, you do not want the clerk to be able to update the Public Safety part of the website).
So the process is quite possibly more complicated than you realize.
ACS is a BIG part of the problem. Their contract is up for bid….but I think that THEY are the ones reviewing the bids that were submitted! Sounds like the fox got the keys to the henhouse!
A friend of mine downloaded the PDF minutes last night right after the debate. He used Abode 7.0 reader (not viewer) and was able to search all the files at one time. He said he downloaded them to his computer to search.
He also said that looking at the “tag” of the files that they where created using an older version of Adobe that is designed to run on the Fort Wayne’s NT server.
I am going to try a couple things today and see if I can search the files right online.
To make them searchable online may require the city to purchase some kind of software that will run on their server platform. It is one thing to make a file available for people to download but something else to make the contents of the file searchable.
JQ,
It is unacceptable and unnecessary to force somebody to download all the files on the client side in order to search them. I mean seriously can you imagine if that was the approach taken by Google and other’s years ago? There needs to be a server side application that any citizen can use. It’s unreasonable to assume citizens will know how to download every file and search them with the appropriate software.
Essentially you’re suggesting that the citizens do ACS’s job…
Jeff, I am not going to argue with you on that. Then again Google and others are making millions off of their services.
While you and I may want this info at finger tips does it warrent the cost is the real question.
What my friend did and I have also done today is download the files and search them in one search. I was not able to search them while online. Then again there may be a way that can be done.
My point was it can be done. It may not be the most ideal for everyone but it can be done.
Frankly for me. Considering the finacial shortfall we are facing in the next couple of years I would not support spending any funds to “make it easy” for a few people to search documents. Just getting it online is so much better then what it was.
JQ,
I agree that it can be done - I don’t think anyone is suggesting that PDF documents aren’t searchable. The problem is citizens can’t do it in any reasonable manner and I believe there are solutions out there that can solve this problem at little to no cost.
But Sandy even found a solution she loved but it cost $20k. So here’s an idea - kill the $24k that council allocated for the wasteful Maplecrest Extension project and reallocate it to Sandy. Problem solved…
For the record the $24K allocated by Council is not going to be spent unless and until the Maplecrest project moves forward. The administration needed to know that the money is available in order to negotiate with I&M and to be able to get the federal match (which is another $100K). And of course at this point a majority of the Council decided to hold that money anyway - but that is not the same as freeing it up for IT improvements.
And to further complicate matters-
Freeing up money for IT improvements would also benefit the COUNTY (ACS provided technical services for BOTH entitites). So shouldn’t they pay for part of it as well?
While a applaud the idea behind getting this done, I think everyone needs to realize that if it really were that simple, it would be done already.
That being said, I am sure there is a solution out there somewhere.
Thanks for the insight Karen. I wasn’t necessarily suggesting that money specifically but more generally was pointing out that we can find $20k somewhere if citizens think this is necessary - it’s all a matter of priority at this point. But just for the record I think this can be done significantly cheaper than $20k.
Kevin,
I agree the county should pony up too. But you can’t really believe that “if it really were that simple, it would be done already”. If everyone had that mentality then progress would never be made.
We need to continually look for creative solutions to the city’s problem. I think there are a number of citizens willing to help solve this problem, myself included, and I think ultimately we will.
I had a good conversation with Clerk Kennedy after the meeting and I think I have a better understanding of the problem than I did before.
I think Kennedy is open to suggestions from citizens and if we find a way to work together then we can turn this into a win-win…