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Good Government

As founder of WikiLaw.org, I believe that the Government and its body of law should be transparent for the people it governs. As founder of VoterSearch.org, I believe that protecting your right to vote is essential to an accountable government. As former Co-Chair of Community Board 8's Communication Committee, I worked to open the community board by announcingcommunity board membership applications and ensuring they were widely available at meetings. I have continued my work with Community Board 8's Communication Committee and we have made its television show "Community Board 8 Speaks" available online.

As your City Council member I will continue the work of making City Hall transparent by making its business available online through the web, PDF, podcast, and YouTube like videos. I will openCity Hall by creating NYC.OpenLegislation.org, a local version of OpenCongress.org, where anyone will be able to share their views on all business, in support of the mission of theParticipatory Politics Foundation. City Hall will become accountable to you the people as NYC.OpenLegislation.org, will let you track business before City Hall and how your representative voted on issues of importance to you.

Gotham Gazette City Council Passes 'Open Budget' Bill Mayor Has Yet to Support by Samar Khurshid

http://www.gothamgazette.com/city/7287-new-york-city-council-passes-open-budget-...

The New York City Council passed legislation on Tuesday mandating that the government agency that oversees the city’s $85.2 billion annual budget provide all budget documents to the public in an easily accessible and machine-readable format.

The legislation, sponsored by Council Member Ben Kallos, chair of the governmental operations committee, requires the Office of Management and Budget to post documents released in the annual budget process to the city’s open data portalwithin 10 days of posting them on their website. OMB produces multiple iterations of the city’s budget each year as the annual expenditure plan is negotiated between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council. These include the preliminary budget proposal, the executive budget proposal and the final adopted budget, each of which contain hundreds of pages with detailed breakdowns of agency spending and city revenues. The agency also issues a budget modification document in November.

Issue: 
Good Government

Open Budget Legislation Authored by Council Member Kallos Passes City Council

Searchable and Computer Readable Budget Will Open Up $85 Billion in Spending for Public Review

 

New York, NY – How New York City spends $85 billion just got more transparent with the passing of legislation from Council Member Ben Kallos that requires all budget documents released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to be publicly released on its website and the Open Data Portal in a searchable and computer readable format, instead of only printed or in lengthy PDFs.

 “New Yorkers should be able to search the city’s budget to see how every penny of their tax dollars is being spent,” said Council Member Ben Kallos, a software developer, and open data advocate. “Thank you to Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito and Finance Chair Julissa Ferreras-Copeland for their partnership in advocacy for an Open Budget.”

lester shane

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