10/06, Reason & Purpose for the Blog

10/14/06 MY 1st REASON AND PURPOSE FOR THIS BLOG

The photo is of our city kiosk located on Leary & Redmond Way. With the exception of the Historical Society Walking Tours, our kiosk is a dormant monument to our past, our Parks, and our Art culture. I suggest the people of the City of Redmond consider 'Technology' a Third Pillar of Redmond culture. The following article proposes greater utilization of our city web site, "Electronic Kiosks" and other interactivity tools to advance our city and culture.

Presently, our boards, commissioners, council and mayor operate within a limiting environment...somewhat of a vacuum...and they just don't really know how we feel. Our city council truly wants to hear from us. We have opportunities to be responsible to them and make Redmond a better place to live.

To be frank, citizen input and engagement in government and cultural processes of late has been mostly filtered and mitigated with "one-way communication." As a result, the Mayor and Council and commissioners converse and make decisions while Redmond citizens "stand by" in hibernation (waiting to be re-booted by the next election).

In 'yesterday's past', policy of the Administration has been to a large extent to control and direct public opinion to meet the needs on the city's agenda and the perceived needs of the community; not necessarily ours! Without open avenues and portals for citizen participation Redmond is becoming a bland, slumbering community. We can do better! Just consider how rich is the fabric of our citizenry and grand our latent human resources!

"Redmond Reporter's" inconsistent Op-Ed policy have left us regurgitating and out of the picture. [UPDATE, 2/2007: The new REDMOND REPORTER, under Editor John Huether is already bringing transparency and focus on Redmond issues] Worse, the administration , council, and commissioners have little idea of where WE are on city issues despite sincere desires and attempts to reach out to us. Case in point is the levy lid-lift defeat. The Administration and Council were surely nonplussed and startled by the public's 60-40 defeat of the levy lid-lift measure. We all now understand the disconnect.

Other than the few "relentless vocals" we've never had an ongoing "say" or convenient, ongoing media mechanisms (soap box) to voice our needs of: 1) how do we fund the programs and services we want? 2) where should our tax dollars go? and 3) what do we think about city management and policy-making performance? The Mayor, Council council@redmond.gov and commissioners have their RC-21 TV "router" yet the city still hasn't implemented interactive technologies to plug "us" in! I beg our city's Chief Administrative Officer, CEO, and elected official & politician & mayor aka Rosemarie will soon understand the gravity and take a few of the following actions:

1) improve transparency in council, planning, and development policy-making, UPDATE: Parks Dept. proposed levy 1-page summary offers simplicity and transparency to the public! [TAG parks-commission to find it] We need a similar pro forma summary for Police & Fire! 5/2/07
2) improve our city web site http://www.redmond.gov%20%20and%20content%20for%20online%20%20rc-tv;%20%20%20/9/2/7. ON DEMAND RCTV archived meetings provided on city website now!!!
3) encourage & facilitate greater utilization of our city web site, community email groups, and elected & candidate issues position blogs. UPDATE: several candidates are blogging, most have web sites, 9/1/07
4) recruit student web volunteer interns, Student youth used heavily by the Parks Dept. to market Prop. 2. Still no youth working in city IP dept for data entry, etc.
5) encourage and facilitate citizen, candidate and community blogging ,
6) implement citizen-government interactivity mechanisms and tools e.g. electronic surveys, real time emails, online public hearing proxies. UPDATE: The planning commission is keeping public meetings open for email comments & Korby Parnell, planning commissioner is using an electronic tablet notebook during meetings - to save paper. 5/2/07. 8/1 - now he's using paper again.
7) encourage our local paper & FOCUS magazine to publish a consistent and reliable "Letters to the Editor" policy, Update : done - local paper.
8) invite a citizen a week to sit in on a council, commission, or board meetings; let citizens organize informal NEIGHBORHOOD FORUMS to encourage and engage council members and commissioner's participation in our neighborhood-issues-of-importance. IE. focus groups of concerned citizens need to meet with commissioners, key committee councilmembers and limited staff 5/19/07
9) last but not least, place "electronic kiosks" (computer posting & surveying terminals) at key gathering places around the city.
10) the above may be funded, in part, by charging fees for city online services, workshops and the like.
11) Attract, encourage, and recruit qualified candidates with a fresh perspective to prepare for the replacement of the old guard. 5/19/07

UPDATE, 9/1/07 Brian Seitz began communications months ago with me when he saw my blog. Brian is now actively running for council with a blog & website; full of technology ideas for improving government productivity.

The Council is working hard to put together a coherent budget package; unfortunately our opinions and input were thinly shared. Did you know council deliberations of the "long range strategic budget" dragged out for over 40-sessions! Ugh!... so much effort for our well-intentioned Council with so little return! The process unfortunately included the Mayor and her "strategic STAFF leadership team" who had to spend countless hours, days, and weeks away from their normal duties to educate and sell council on their needs.

Redmond is a blessed city, rich in human & natural resources and untapped potential. We can be so much more than a pleasant, safe, green-treed corporate "edge" community of neighborhoods connected by trails to lush city parks and schools. We are largely a deep and rich gathering of intelligent, entrepreneurial, diverse, creative, economically & technologically secure residents ... in slumber... resourceful, yet untapped! "Together we can make Redmond better".

Our government must continue to unpeel it's layers of fear and welcome us into a dialogue.....putting an end to the dull, incestuous monologue amongst themselves, and a very few relentless city citizens and business owners. The local newspaper Op-Ed participation is just one channel for bringing renewed vitality and vigor to our city. Implementing widely available technology media tools and marketing the government process is required to advance our culture and community.

One other citizen/city "window" long fogged by poor technological linkages and "layering" is our city website: http://www.redmond.gov/ . Considering Redmond is blessed with an abundance of citizens employed by Microsoft, Nintendo et al, Boeing, and biotechs -- some of the premier digital corporations of our nation (!) -- Redmond's non-interactive, heavily layered web site though valuable, is almost an embarrassment. Our neighborhoods, businesses, and elected & appointed citizen resources are simply not being tapped to make our city "a GREAT CITY". If you've viewed http://www.redmond.gov/ or listened to a council or committee meeting you will certainly say we can do better!

Recommendations to improve our city website have been proposed by the Planning Commission (chaired by Susan Petitpas), council member Kimberly Allen kallen@redmond.gov, and planning commissioner and Microsoft employee, Korby Parnell. The door to http://www.redmond.gov/ must open with an interactive, understandable, intuitive welcoming invitation to our neighborhoods, communities, software workers, seniors, teens, schools, special interests, businesses, international community, city staff, and on. Without the activation of our diverse citizenry city governance will remain obscured--reducing our developing neighborhood cultures to a community "employment center".

Honorable Council member Jim Robinson is cognizant and keen to the "neighborhood - employment center" didactic; I consider Jim amiable & analytical -- a visionary in most city issues. However, Jim could be more attentive on two minor issues. Mr. Robinson, on occasion 1) whines about "the same old crowd" always showing up at city Hearings, and Special Meetings while begging for new faces. My comment: What face do I wear? Also, Council and Mayor need to use and expand their “gavel to gavel” TV coverage so as to attract 'new citizens while re-energizing 'the same old crowd' . i.e. video archived meetings 2) Jim is Chair of Parks & Human Services Committee, '06 (which includes Art, I believe) yet he appears to bias his support to Parks over Arts. Arts is a Pillar of Redmond culture and deserves more.

We need Jim's leadership to help Redmond refocus our arts policy to digital venues and a 'Cleveland Street - BNSF art center 'gathering place' for residents and tourists. Redmond has technological resources far beyond most cities in the country. Our technology resources could transform our culture ultimately giving Redmond regional, if not, national recognition.