Participatory Politics Foundation

We’re excited to announce that the NYC Council has officially adopted Councilmatic.

More info about yesterday’s announcement, made by Speaker Mark-Viverito, with special recognitions of supportive NYC Council members Kallos, Vacca and Lander.

… we’ve decided to retire the previous NYC version, given this positive outcome for our community project. 

Other Councilmatic cities remain active, with more in the works – for updates, follow me on Twttr, @ppolitics, as well as the excellent open-source tech leads, the Chicago-based DataMade – on Twttr, @DataMadeCo. 

It’s free & easy to create a new user account on the official NYC Council version, for email notifications of tracked items and more. 

Previous user accounts were not migrated over, so please do register a new account using the email address of your choice – I can vouch, it’s just as quick & easy as before. If you have any questions about the registration process, email: labs@council.nyc.gov.

If you’re reading this, you probably knew of the free email notifications from our scrappy, civic-hacking, Council-tracking web app – so you have an interest in transparent and accountable city government. Cool. 

Our 501(c)3 non-profit organization has new proposals ready-to-share for free & open tech tools for civic engagement – simply respond to this email to chat more about finding ways to support our work. 

Even one NYC area funding partner could make a huge difference for our work next year – for example, by helping NYC community board members in similar ways that Councilmatic helped the Council enhance its “digital front door”. Wouldn’t that be valuable for local engagement? Get in touch! 

Last, if you’ve appreciated NYC Councilmatic’s free email notifications over the past year, please feel free to make a tax-exempt donation to PPF. Call or write me anytime with questions, I’m easy to reach and eager to chat. 

Thanks for using Councilmatic, 

-David

Video link on Twttr to RT.

Transcript: “Before we jump into the docket for today, wanted just to mention, I’m really excited to announce we are launching a new NYC legislative website, located at laws.council.nyc.gov.

New York City Councilmatic allows the public to more efficiently search the Council’s legislative information and pulls its data directly from our official legislative API.

You can now sign up for notifications about specific issues, notifications from individual members or meetings, and the new site is iterative, which means that the Council will continue to improve it based on user feedback – so definitely we need people to give us feedback.

I’m proud to say that in my tenure as Speaker we have transformed every single one of the Council’s digital assets. We have continued to focus on people over products, and this new tool makes it easier for everyday New Yorkers to access the Council’s legislative information.

By adopting Councilmatic as an official government tool we are continuing to demonstrate our commitment to transparency, access and digital inclusion. Want to thank Council members Kallos, Vacca and Lander for their dedication to these issues, and to our partners: David Moore of the Participatory Politics Foundation; BetaNYC; and DataMade, for pushing this project forward.”

– NYC Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, stated meeting, December 19th, 2017 – video, 15m in: https://t.co/tCuHwZHMja