This is Part II of a three part series. In Part I, I briefly motivated Open Government and Government as a Platform, and used Madison Metro as an example of how we could do better. Unfortunately, we’re not doing much better elsewhere in the city, but there are ways to change that.

This is part III of a three part series. In Part I, I focused on how and why we should look at Government as a Platform, and why it could be beneficial to Madison to think that way. In Part II, I looked at how Madison is and is not participating in the Government as a Platform movement, and what we can do increase our participation. In Part III, I’d like to look at some ideas on bringing modern technology to civic applications.

The City’s James Madison Park Disposal Surplus Property Criteria and Selection Committee met on January 13, 2011. The tl;dr version: The committee will accept proposals that would move two of the houses, but won’t require a move and will in fact give a slight boost to proposals that leave the houses in place. No proposal that moves the Collins House will be considered. Proposals for the Collins House will be biased towards uses that have some sort of public accommodation. The committee drew up a list of criteria they’ll use to evaluate proposals as well as the weight each criteria will receive. Staff will use that to prepare a final version of the RFP, which the committee will vote on at their January 26th meeting. The target referendum (required because its a shoreline property) is February or April of next year.

The Economic Development Committee is continuing its work on improving the built-environment development review process in Madison. At its November 29th meeting, the EDC realized that it was hopeless to try and edit this document as a full committee, and appointed a subcommittee to hash out language over the next few weeks and months. That subcommittee met for the first time on Tuesday night. Read on for a flavor of what happened.

The Capitol Neighborhoods, Inc (CNI) Program Committee is hosting a Madison Mayoral Forum on January 20th at 7pm. John Nichols of the Capital Times will be the moderator. It will be at the Capitol Lakes Retirement Community in the Great Hall, 333 West Main St. From the announcement: “Capitol Neighborhoods residents are eager to hear [...]

A few months back, Paul Soglin linked to a piece about services for homeless people in Ann Arbor. Paul wrote a few lines after the link, but they were a little cryptic. They were bullet-points of principles, but I couldn’t tell if they were meant as a warning to Madison or a general dispensation of [...]

The saga of the homes in James Madison Park continues. Neighbors show up and say “just do what you already decided to do”, Alder Maniaci says “just do what we decided to do”, and the Mayor’s staff continues to look for a different answer while insisting they’re not, to hilarious effect. Read on for more.

At the most recent James Madison Surplus Property Committee meeting, I testified on an idea I’ve been kicking around about enhancing the local high-tech startup scene in Madison. Wondering what the hell that has to do with James Madison Park? It comes down to Collins House, and if the people who wake up there in the morning should be tourists or hackers.

Greg Tracy, local Madison entrepreneur and budding civic hacker, (seriously, check out SMSMyBus) took a photo and asked the hypothetical, “is the city itself the worst offender of graffiti in Madison“? If you combine the city with the various utilities, the answer is probably “yes”. Greg also notes, “There has to be a better way”, and I’m [...]

A few random thoughts on Maniaci’s recent open records request to “determine who ratted her out to the press“, in regards to her health-care coverage for alders idea. 1. I may be one of only three or four people in Madison who thinks this way, but I support making Alders eligible for health care coverage. [...]

“Coworking Spaces” and “Hackerspaces” are two important ideas that you should know about but very well may not. They’re coming to Madison, so read on to learn more.