tv [untitled] November 3, 2010 5:30pm-6:00pm PST
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supervisor mar: good morning. the need to and come to quarter. this is the meeting for october 28, 2010, the meeting of the government on its end of oversight committee of the san francisco board of supervisors. our clerk -- i would also like to thank the sfgtv staff for their great work in the city as well. could you please make any announcements? >> please make sure to turn of cell phones and pagers. completed speaker cards and copies of any documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk.
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items act upon today will appear on the november 9 board of supervisors agenda unless otherwise stated. supervisor mar: thank you, and we have three items on the agenda today. please call item 1. >> item 1, motion directing the budget and legislative analyst to conduct three audits in fiscal year 2010-2011. supervisor mar: this item has been to committee several times, so this is a report from the budget and legislative analyst's office. >> good morning. as you stated, we have had several presentations on proposed audits for calendar year 2010. so this motion is basically the result of the prior meeting. at that meeting, i was requested to also meet with the
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controller's office and the department of human resources to speak specifically about the second audit, the one that had mou provisions. i did meet with them, and we agreed to have a narrower scope for this project at this time. looking specifically at the city's implementation of a worker pays city-wide, they identified that as two high risk areas that need would further review. for the second audit on here, at this point, and narrowed the scope to those pieces. supervisor mar: thank you. are there any questions or comments? seeing none, let's open up for public comment. is there anyone from the public that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. is there a motion on this item? with recommendation, without objection. thank you.
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could you please call item two? >> item two, ordinance on many of the san francisco administrative code to establish the city's open data policy and require city departments to make appropriate data available to the public. supervisor mar: thank you, and we have jason elliott from the mayor's office. >> good morning. thank you for having this hearing this morning. we are discussing this morning a proposed ordinance, but did of policy that would establish what already exists in the form of the executive director that the mayor -- executive directive that the mayor issued about a year ago whereby departments would be required to submit data sets to an online landing pad, 311, where that data would be publicly accessible by anyone to develop applications, to see what the city is doing, and
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generally promote transparency, accountability, and openness. i would like to let jane speak more eloquently about how this works and why we are doing it, but before i do that, if i could read a couple of amendments into the record. i believe you were given paper copies of this. ok, great, on page two, starting with 11, section two from the city departments required to make available each city department, board, an agency shall make reasonable efforts to make available data sets under the department's control, provided however that such disclosures shall be consistent with the rules and standards promulgated by the committee on information technology and with applicable laws including laws related to privacy. if i could also be pleased on page 3 beginning with line one, did a policy, each plan shall
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include an accounting of public data sets under the control of the department, and rules for including open data requirements-applicable city contracts. they evaluate the mayor's feasibility of making city datasets pursuant to a generic license such as those offered by created commons, which could grant a user the right to copy, distribute, display, and create derivative works. thank you for allowing me to do that. >> find you, jason -- thank you, jason. i am with the department of technology. i will be explaining briefly what open date that is, the benefits, and what we have accomplished to date, and a
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quick summary of the legislation itself. so what is open data? open date it is structured data. spreadsheets, a tabular form. it is not .pdf or word documents, and because of that, it is a machine readable, and that is an important part of it here you can create applications and analysis out of it. there is a lot you can do. open did it is also freely available to the public at no charge with very minimal restrictions. it also respects existing privacy and security laws that are in place, whether local, state, or federal, and it is really a proactive disclosure of government information. departments and agencies are for
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one actively putting structured machine-readable data out into the public. so why is open did it important? if improve transparency and accountability. journalists have access to more information. artists, technology community -- generally, anyone interested in government has structured information they can use for various reasons. it also stimulates economic development. we have seen a number of companies that have been substantiated both here locally and elsewhere. an example i would like to submit is a company in san diego on track to make $10 million in revenue by making sense of department of labor information, so there it is a new emerging space of opportunity. it also fosters collaboration between cities, state, and
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federal governments. as an example, the department of technology worked with other city -- cities to establish ways [no audio] it also enhances civic participation. if people have more information, they can provide input and raise awareness, and there is greater trust in government. so what have we done to date? we have made a good foundation, launched datasf.org, which is a data catalog. think of that as a yellow pages for data in san francisco. so far, we have 182 datasets, and i think that is a good start. there is also a mechanism for people to provide feedback. also, we have got really good for dissipation.
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27 departments have precipitated willingly, and as you can see in some of the letters of support, there is great value in sharing data with the public. as jason mentioned, the executive directive was issued in october 2009 that kind of put a framework around this. to date, we have over 50 applications that have been developed. this is a quality of life issue for people, and transit information is critical. we also have a lot of 311 applications, so people see graffiti in their neighborhoods, there is different mechanisms for those people to interact with their city. they can call, and they have many other options now.
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i want to make it clear that the city did not spend a dime on these applications. they were developed by a third party. sometimes hobbyists, sometimes for economic reasons, but the city does not pay for any of this. also, open date it is a growing movement. -- open data is a growing movement. it started with president obama and his position on transparency, and the federal government establishing a web site called data.gov. in san francisco, we thought this was great. we followed in their footsteps. the u.k., and several other countries are doing this now. australia. the state of california is also moving in this direction, and several cities are as low, but we are definitely one of the pioneers and one of the leaders. to give you a sense of what it
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looks like, if you look to the screen, and you will see that it has got data sets there that people can read and comment on. you can get more information as to how to get that information. i want to state that it is very easy for departments to use. they just need to register on the website, fill out a form describing the data sets a bit, and they are gone, so they can be done in about five minutes. here is an example. this is an iphone application that riders of muni can use to know when the bus is coming next. this is a family friendly application. it is using red and hard information, so if you are a
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parent here, you can no what is going on, where the nearest playground is, depending on where you are. there are five applications to date, and they work in washington, d.c., and any other state that has adopted the standard we have worked very hard to establish, and there is a whole bunch more being created. again, this is kind of leveraging the creativity of our community. in summary, the ordinance actually establishes a single portal, datasf, and it institutionalizes the method for public feedback so people can give an idea of what they are looking for. it also requires coit to deal with some of the technical aspects of open data, such as setting technical standards,
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looking at whether we need to make improvements in the software contract, and also, it looks to create a generic license so people are not confused as to what the legal noose is around data. so that is my presentation. if you have questions, i'm happy to -- [no audio] supervisor mar: i wanted to thank you. it sounds like one of the amendments is to address privacy concerns. i know that is something that people have raised when i talk to them about this. can you talk about how we are protecting people's privacy while still being open and ++ for
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my guess is overall, there is no hit on the general fund, and this is promoting policies so that san francisco can be a national leader of open government and data, but what i really like is how many of these applications not just for the iphone but for android phones and other things can make people's lives better from not getting a street take it -- not getting a ticket with there is street cleaning to the mom maps. even the crime statistics and data sets are really useful. another one that i found on the web site, the -- on the web site -- on the website was teh sf trees application. a lot of useful applications,
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especially the one about not getting private tickets. a useful views of data so that it helps people. thank you very much for the help on this. are there any questions, colleagues? supervisor maxwell. >> [no audio] >> i think it can be in that often, departments get requested the same information or data sets, so instead of individually responding, they can be proactive and put this on datasf so that everyone has access to the information. i can give you an example. the people who make maps in the city often get requests for maps of the neighborhood in the city.
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