1) An excellent tool for keeping the Parkway clean and safe, as reported by Governing.
2)Sacramento County Parks posts info for July 4th, which includes a fee increase.
An excerpt from the Governing article.
“The New Haven Green was littered with trash. Using a Web application called SeeClickFix, citizens used their mobile cellphone cameras to photograph the problem and send their complaint to city hall. But instead of waiting for the public works department, citizens in the neighborhood became aware of each other's concerns through the community feature of the SeeClickFix site, and decided to clean the park up themselves.
“The ability of geographic information systems (GIS) to empower citizens to actively participate in the delivery of public services is growing, especially in local governments, according to a recent IBM Center report by Dr. Sukumar Ganapati. (A helpful video version of the report is also available.)
“GIS technology empowers citizens to participate in co-delivery, allowing individuals and small groups to take part in local problem solving, often acting more quickly and effectively than government alone. Not everything can be co-delivered, of course. Many government services take expertise, like building inspections, or authority, like arresting speeders. Still, there are many ways in which citizens can be involved if provided the tools. At the local level, the technology is being used for a variety of functions that are changing the citizen-government relationship.
“Using GIS, government serves as a platform for providing and sharing information. Following are several examples of how governments are doing this.
“Citizen-volunteered GIS. Web 2.0 services are allowing citizens to become directly engaged in co-producing services. For example, OpenStreetMap is a free map of the world that can be edited by anybody to collaboratively map details in communities for crimes, environmental monitoring, parking or even the use of stimulus monies!”
