Before you head out for the weekend, please take a moment to vote for CitizenLex on the Huffington Post website. The project is a finalist in the competition for one of the Bloomberg Mayors Challenge grants. It could be a very big deal for Lexington and deserves a public show of support.
What exactly is CitizenLex?
It’s is an online tool that provides citizens with a platform to suggest improvements to the city and provide access to city data. It opens city government in a groundbreaking way and allows government officials to work with citizens to problem-solve. It’s a bold proposal for our local government because such transparency can open the door to criticism and interests that might otherwise go unnoticed. The openness of the project is a far cry from the mindset that brought us the CentrePoint debacle, which is why CitizenLex matters and is a very good thing.
As Mayor Gray notes in his Huffington Post column,
Giving the people more of a say is challenging for authority figures and elected officials at all levels … it is not for the timid. But it has been proven over the long bend of history that our democratic fabric is stronger when democratic processes are encouraged.
The project is also a good fit for the city because Lexingtonians are increasingly engaged in their community. Skeptics might think that citizens would apathetically avoid an online platform, but the Lexington community is optimistic and engaged. For evidence, look to the Mayor’s virtual and physical town halls, which asked the public for proposals for the Bloomberg Mayors Challenge. Over 7,000 people participated. They generated 440 ideas. That’s a good omen for the problem-solving energy of the citizens. Oh, and 250 Lexingtonians recently got permanent tattoos connecting them to their home. The people are invested in their city.
So again, please vote.
Check out the videos below to learn more:
Bloomberg Mayors Challenge: Lexington, KY from Bullhorn on Vimeo.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
I had trouble choosing between Hillsboro, Oregon, Knoxville, and Milwaukee. Cinci’s selection was great, too. In the end, I voted Milwaukee.
“It opens city government in a groundbreaking way and allows government officials to work with citizens to problem-solve.”
Much like the way that the food truck folks presented a “good idea” and began to work with these same government officials and the problem was quickly solved. Has the criticism on this point gone unnoticed? Has the gentrification of Jefferson St and its inroads on N Limestone, possibly forcing out many of the lower class for the “creatives”, been a better mindset than the CentrePointe effort just because it forced out the “creatives”?
I am not at all convinced that this government is any more transparent than previous ones, we are just looking at different smoke and mirrors.
Streetsweeper, thanks for the feedback. Personally, I like food trucks because they provide more dining options and are a great complement to some of the local breweries. I was glad to see the recommendations from the Food Truck Work Group advance to the Economic Development Committee last Tuesday (Feb. 19). I attended the public meetings, and the process seemed quite open, albeit a bit contentious. Ace Weekly provided a nice summary of what the first half of the proposal addresses:
*Eliminates the requirement and subsequent $15 fee for mobile food vendors to update the Division of Revenue with every address where they set up;
*Removes the requirement to obtain a Certificate of Occupancy from Building Inspection; and
*Requires business owners to obtain a free Zoning Compliance Certificate valid for two years from the Division of Zoning and Planning to ensure retail food sales are permitted in their zone.
http://www.aceweekly.com/2013/02/lexingtons-food-trucks-make-it-to-economic-development-committee/
That seems like a step in the right direction to me because those changes will reduce the legal complexity of operating a food truck. Again, from my personal perspective, I think it’s important to be critical of government but also to support efforts you see in the right direction. The CitizenLex project looks like a good endeavor to me because it makes government more transparent and accessible.
Yes, yes, I have read all of that. The fact remains that these citizens with the good idea of roving food trucks should not have required a Food Truck Work Group or to ask the blessing of the Economic Development Committee of the Council. This is economic development on the grass roots level to make it on its own merit or fall by the wayside if it doesn’t work. I think that the Government should work with ALL the local food trucks to bring good foods to our parks and playgrounds as an extension of the Better Bites initiative begun last year. So far the government seeks to prohibit the food trucks from all public property unless they are part of a sponsored event. Do the Little League Baseball concession stands need a Zoning Compliance Certificate to operate in the few parks that they do?
(There is no Division of Zoning and never has been. From 1926 until merger it was the Planning Commission and their staff. After merger it has been the Division of Planning – now in the Department of Planning. The process of zoning is just a function that they perform.)
I like Food Trucks at locations like Country Boys beer hall, but I think the larger issue is, look at how the Food Truck question passed through City Council. It moved through committees, it got public coverage (Ace, H-L, ProgressLex and other outlets have devoted plenty of space to it), it became a public issue on which its merits were debated. (Sort of…the question began with issues in the Cardinal Valley suburban neighborhood, and then got hijacked by food truck owners and downtown creatives as a near exclusive push for downtown area food trucks..the very idea of their existence in non-downtown areas has largely been forgotten.) The process worked.
Now compare that movement of democracy in the service of downtown foodcarts to, say, the work of the people doing the Affordable Housing Trust Fund–which both current and previous mayor and councils have pushed to the backburner. It’s certainly less covered in ProgressLex, H-L, Ace, etc., and has had way less movement politically, yet it’s had way more stake-holders–though of course, they’ve apparently been the wrong stake-holders. And despite the wealth of information on the subject and way more advocates than appeared at Food Truck meetings, city leaders have not acted on it (nor have public media outlets engaged with it).
What CitizenLex suggests–in typical Lexington booster fashion (we Lexingtonians, apparently, are so uber-creative and active that finally allowing us an online outlet to speak out will just “work,” apparently, by very dint of us being Lexingtonians and not, say, slothful Clevelanders or disconnected Louisvillians)–is that digital wizardry will now allow leaders to “hear” us. THis may be true on the edges, but the problem as I see it is not that city leaders (political, business, media, cultural) have been unaware of citizen desires on how this city ought to work, it’s that they’ve refused to listen to things that they do not want to listen to.
What I see leaders doing with CitizenLex is creating another outlet for faux-democracy–the kind of thing i experienced when, say, I attended three “public” meetings a commission of private business leaders held on the “future of Rupp” that were so tightly managed that no dissent was allowed to creep in. These forums were upheld by our leaders as “engaging” the community when it was really about selling their (expensive, publicly funded) urbanization ideas to city residents, who will of course have to foot the bill at some point, and already are to the tune of $2.5 million…In other words, the open and engaging meetings were the very opposite of open engagement; they were carried out without a willingness to listen to critique. Not even the report that the group issued made any reference to the social and economic dangers associated with the project.
These sorts of faux-democracy engagements have become the new norm in the city for all sorts of projects: a homeless commission formed with public representatives on it, has 1 OPENSPACE meeting (ENGAGE THE COMMUNITY!), issues a report, and has it basicly ignored by the mayor as a serious policy initiative; Steve Kay has an open meeting with his constituents where he completely manages discussion on the “success” that is downtown development; an East End area plan nets a lot of citizen input and an art stop but no serious economic development; a new CentrePOinte idea is released to “engage” the public about a private developer’s project/plans. It’s the appearance, the aesthetics, of democracy, not the real thing.
I’m not sure how an online aggregator (in 2013, is this even “new,” “bold” or “innovative”?) fixes this problem of representation. What I see it doing is allowing leaders to give an appearance of responsiveness and open-ness when, in practice (or at least in my experiences dealing publicly and privately with council members and mayor), they tend to do just the opposite. I can’t count the number of times I’ve spent my time, energy and money attempting to engage with my public leaders through a variety of public and private correspondence, and I’ve yet to see even a public acknowledgement of the sorts of issues I’ve brought to their attention. And I’m not the only person who has worked to engage my leaders only to be ignored; Is CitizenLex really gonna fix that?
I don’t think Citizenlex has a snowballs chance in hell of winning. If it was implemented, it would be clogged with the same crappy “ideas” that we heard on the call in show. “We should do something about teachers”, is not a proposal. I went to many food truck meetings and it was painful to watch a good idea die the death of a thousand memos. Maybe after a few years, we can get a solid food truck plan that can be voted down by the wider council. Ideas that really will make a difference will always challenge the status quo, so are the most likely to be crushed by the people who have power and income based on business as usual. Citizenlex would be great for deciding Pepsi v Coke, but we could do that with a Facebook page.
Sorry for the extra post–I meant to ask Sweeper which project he voted for. Rod, you too. Did you vote for one of the projects?
I didn’t get a chance to look at the other proposals, so I didn’t vote. I feel like I should vote for Lexingon just out of love for the city, but I don’t think our proposal would do anything that a well managed FB/twitter account couldn’t do basically for free. I checked the Citizenlex FB page and it had 14 likes.
Thanks for all the comments on this post. As Tom Eblen noted, CitizenLex “creat[es] an online platform with city data and reports to help citizens identify problems.”
http://www.kentucky.com/2012/09/22/2347187/tom-eblen-lexingtons-big-idea.html
From my perspective, I think that’s a significant step in the right direction for making government more open. That’s more powerful than a Facebook page.
The grant also seeks to fund a staff person, so the feedback could be well managed, as Rod suggested would make a Facebook account more effective. The grant would also pay for a few upstart projects incubated through CitizenLex.
Definitely cool perks for our city if you ask me.
When I see the words “…a staff person, so the feedback could be well managed…” I bristle with the thought of an administration official taking control of whatever good ideas which may be suggested and allocating funds and effort not on the merits of the idea but the whims of the powers that be.
I have seen it through seven administrations over 40 years and a “new” online platform is not going to revolutionize anything. It is all about money and power.
Nathan, I think we have different definitions of innovative and “helping citizens identify problems.” Here’s the problems that Eblen mentions were “found” and which will be funded from the seed money:
Expand the Better Bites healthy-food program now at city park concession stands into local schools to reach more kids.
Create more bicycle lanes and walking trails to improve local health.
Expand the Fayette County Public Schools’ Delivery-to-Diploma program with a focus on expanding early childhood education.
Partner with the University of Kentucky’s True Lean program in the College of Engineering to use Toyota-Lean management principles to improve efficiency in city government.
Are any of these new ideas? Better Bites, bicycle lanes, Kindergarten education, downsizing via Toyota? These look to me like administration goals or national pushes that they haven’t wanted to fund well before–not new, citizen-generated ideas. And on top of that, they’re not focused at all. While the stated goal is to create an online management system (aggregation), it appears that any winning money will be used as a slush fund for a variety of mismatched, disconnected projects, suburbanized fixes that give no thought to implementation, to scaling up of projects, or even to how these projects might work together.
As I understand it, the food truck issue became a joke because they were prohibited from being anywhere people would actually be walking around wanting to buy food. They were not allowed to be within hundreds of feet of any brick and mortar restaurant downtown, which is pretty much everywhere downtown. This type of anti-competitive anti-free-market regulation makes sure any new ideas get crushed because the old guard doesn’t want real competition. They want the appearance of democracy and competition, without any real threat of people choosing to have lunch in the park instead of at their restaurant. That’s probably the same reason they aren’t in favor of adequate 24 hour facilities for the homeless – it keeps working people downtown out of the parks and in their restaurants. Lexington is pretentious, to say the least. Lexington tries to bill itself as a “world class city” without apparently having any idea what actually takes place in world class cities – like street vendors and open air markets everywhere all day long, not confined to designated places and times or burdened with regulations meant to hamper free market competition. And let’s not forget mass transit. Here the LFUCG can’t seem to grok the idea that the younger generation isn’t going to waste money on cars and the older generation is going to be priced out of the automobile market within the next decade. In real world-class cities you don’t need a car to do anything worth doing. You can get anywhere from anywhere. And that open air sewer, er, I mean water feature they’re planning? Do they think that will attract non-downtown residents? Or tourists? Really? Is anybody going to drive to see that? No. They aren’t. If the LFUCG wants to make Lexington better, how about meeting some actual needs of actual people instead of wasting more money on pie in the sky foolishness that ignores the reality barreling toward us – higher gas prices, lowered tourism, and increased need for localization of food production and manufacturing. Lexington’s great plan for economic development? Poach large businesses from other communities, mostly. That’s it. Home businesses? Local entrepreneurs? Re-urbanization of neighborhoods? Eliminating ridiculous zoning and parking requirements? Not a chance. Online comments won’t change any of this. They don’t want real dialog or real change.
Damn Ahavah! Way to knock it out of the park! I totally agree. We are woefully prepared for the next economy, stagnant or negative growth, high resource prices, the death of globalization. Have you ever read the first economic report for Lexington? It was done in the 1940′s and the section on rail travel will break your heart.
I’m going to push back against some of the cynicism here.
Ahava said, “They want the appearance of democracy and competition, without any real threat of people choosing to have lunch in the park instead of at their restaurant.”
But then also criticizes the Town Branch project “as that open air sewer, er, I mean water feature they’re planning?” That would be a beautiful public space and park where people could have lunch. I’d love to do just that sometime with friends. I went to Indianapolis for St Patrick’s Day and the Fourth of July last year, and the canal there created an incredible social space for both events with lots of young people.
Then, “Here the LFUCG can’t seem to grok the idea that the younger generation isn’t going to waste money on cars and the older generation is going to be priced out of the automobile market within the next decade.”
But there’s also criticism of “Do they think that [the Town Branch Project] will attract non-downtown residents? Or tourists? Really? Is anybody going to drive to see that? No.”
So maybe more people would want to live downtown because it’s got a great green space and therefore they would drive less? And maybe the people who want to do just that are younger (definitely applies to me)? I believe investing in a public green space downtown complements a lot of the long-term trends Ahavah mentions.
Please do correct me if I’m wrong here, but to me at least the common theme here is negativity. It seems heartfelt, which is why I’m also addressing it sincerely.
I believe dissent is very important, which is why I support open government and empowering citizens with information. But count me in with the optimism camp. I’m 28, and I’ll live to see many of the ominous global trends insightfully identified in Ahava’s comment. My attitude is to roll up my sleeves and work to make the city the best it can be.
Negativity, maybe. I like to think of it as brutal honesty. There is this cult of progress and technology that insists on re-inventing the wheel, in this case a wheel that will continue to roll nowhere. Have you seen the “ideas” that are being floated on the Citizenlex website? They range from insipid to technobabble. That we need new ideas is not an idea. A way to actually implement the good ideas that have been bouncing around for decades or the old ideas (electric trolly service to/from ring cities) that got chucked for “progress” is what is needed.
I’m with Rod. I think most city leaders do a disservice in emphasizing national consensus and new trends at the expense of ideas that already circulate and have circulated here (and elsewhere) for a while. A big part of me sees the turn to old ideas in new packages as yet another way to give the appearance (the aesthetics) of progress. We didn’t listen to you before, but hey look, online aggregator!
I also don’t quite get the connotations of negativity for pointing this out, particularly as its counterposed against optimistically rolling up one’s sleeves and getting to work. I’m certainly critical of my community’s leaders and the directions/emphases they encourage, but I too work on, engage, and support any number of community endeavors.
Does critiquing large-scale projects in which I have participated but received no civic voice make me a do-nothing negative with no new ideas? I don’t think so. Rod’s experiences engaging with the Food Truck group show him, too, to be both critical and engaged. In fact, I’d say both of our engagements is a sign of our optimism–I know I certainly need it whenever I attempt to engage with the city and many of its open-access, listen-to-the-populace leaders.
But what it’s not is boosterism, a sense that, by very location of our collective residence in Lexington–of our Lexingtonian-ness–that this makes us somehow capable of just getting to work and making things good, or better, or something, so long as it is heaven-forbid not negative.
I guess I see CitizenLex as a good thing because it provides a platform for more engagement around ideas (even if “old”). It also provides access to city data. It’s not a deus ex machina by any means, but it’s a step in the right direction for a more open local government.
What I do not follow is this:
“But what it’s not is boosterism, a sense that, by very location of our collective residence in Lexington–of our Lexingtonian-ness–that this makes us somehow capable of just getting to work and making things good, or better, or something, so long as it is heaven-forbid not negative.”
I guess my opinion on this is that I know a lot of Lexingtonians who are capable of just getting to work and making things good or better. One of them is a friend of mine, Tanya Torp. She’s working on a blog post for us now on her work with Be Bold. It’s an incredible project. She just got to work and did it, improving the lives of over a hundred girls in the community. I really believe in that spirit. It’s optimistic, constructive, and certainly makes Lexington better.
I’ve been involved as a volunteer with city projects for over 20 years. I understand the cynicism. My filing cabinet is full of great ideas that ate up thousands of hours and then ended up on a bookshelf. However, I also have seen how democracy works, both from inside (working in Frankfort for almost 8 years) and outside (sitting on committees and boards). It is slow and tedious, and it can appear to be fruitless because of the time required. The process has to be as informed and inclusive as possible. This takes time and a lot of effort, but it really can work if the people doing the work are passionate and persistent, and if they get the necessary support.
One need only to walk around downtown at 11pm these days and compare it to 15 years ago. Lexington is getting better – way better – and much of that is because of solid leadership and persistent optimism.
I think that what upsets me most about Citizenlex is the wasted opportunity to bring funding to a project that actually would make a difference. I get the “citizen idea of the day” post from Mayor Grey, and they are all just hollow buzz words and wishful thinking. It always smacks of the positive affirmation/ wish yourself rich movement. Just saying out loud for example that we should have healthy local food does not count as an actual idea any more than saying “we should get us some of that money” is a financial plan.
Rod, I agree with the sentiment but just think there’s some confusion about what CitizenLex is. I think the “killer app” of the platform is that the grant would fund two Directors of Innovation who can proactively nurture ideas and connect dots, such as relevant government officials and grants, to fast-track many citizen-led projects to greater success. That would keep them from languishing, as you fear would happen with an online-only solution. In my experience, online projects have the most success when they are complemented by real-life interactions, which CitizenLex provides with two directors. This is why I like CitizenLex, and it opens up city data by incorporating tools like this: http://louiestat.louisvilleky.gov. I’m a fan of open government.
I’m also sympathetic with you on the “positive attitude/wish yourself rich movement.” I just don’t think that CitizenLex is part of that mold. I think the idea has a thoughtful plan of execution, which is why I’m optimistic, not just because optimism is nice a thing.
Amen and amen. I keep wondering how many of these “good ideas” currently have a fleshed out concept of a process, a business plan or nest egg of funding but are finding insurmountable hurdles or complex mazes of rules which prevent their moving forward. Is there something preventing these good ideas from coming to fruition other than our waiting for an official bless, fund, and instruct us in how to do it. Lexington did not become what it is by doing this. Many of our traditions and lasting legacies happened in spite of the government’s involvement.