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City webpage outrage!

Well, not really, of course. But since everyone else is talking about Dave Bakke's column about the city's website, I figured I'd chime in. In particular, I like Marie's comments about the website's failings in terms of web design, content, and structure.

Handily enough, I came across today Politicopia, a wiki of bills before the Utah legislature, started (if I'm remembering correctly) by blogging state rep Steve Urquhart. Seeing some of the bigger ordinances that city council deals with, or even more detail on development issues, would really open up the process.

Similarly, from my experience sitting in on city council sessions, either for the clean energy plan or just out of interest, I think there needs to be a better explanation of the process that council goes through for the interested public. There's no real explanation of the consent agenda, debate agenda, how the committee structure works, how first and second reading works, nor of the actual process of passing an ordinance, including when you have to jump up and down to get someone's attention to let them know you want to talk. Davlin, whatever else you think about him, likes to move stuff through fast, and you've got to know when to jump in if you want to comment.

I think Cecilia Tumulty has a lot of potential in this regard. (At a neighborhood association meeting prior to the election, I had the chance to tell Tumulty some of what I've said above.) She's done some good stuff, content-wise, with the Clerk's webpage (giving it, in fact, it's own site now), although her latest changes haven't yet trickled through to the main site (for instance, the link to the city council agendas from the city's main page gets redirected to her clerk's main page).

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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on April 26, 2007 6:34 PM.

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