Inspired by Kristin’s puff piece on Mayor Dave Cieslewicz blogging . . . not her fault its a puff piece, not much news happening and I’m sure she had to write something and I’m sure the Mayor’s office encouraged her to do it for the free pr. Anyways, here’s my mishmash of thoughts on technology and the elected officials.
THE MAYOR’S “BLOG” – BREAKING THE LAW? ER, POLICY.
I’ve written about this before. None of the policies have changed. In fact, I double checked and about the only thing on the sorely-in-need-of-an-update IT website is their web policies from 2006. It still says, on page one:
Blogs, Chat Rooms, Forums, etc.
Creating blogs, chat rooms, forums, or any other avenues for content to be posted without prior review are prohibited on any sites associated with or hosted by the City of Madison. The City would be liable for the content and does not have the resources to review or monitor what gets posted. Current Network and Security Policies prohibit City employees from using personal email accounts, chat rooms, and instant messaging.
Now, on its face, you’d think blogs were not allowed and what the Mayor is doing is against the policy. He writes something called Mayor Dave’s Blog. And this policy says that “creating blogs” . . . “are prohibited” . . .
There are three reasons that he is allowed to do it. One is, according to IT staff, it’s not a blog. It doesn’t allow comments. And it doesn’t even link to anything, so its little more than a daily update of a website. Originally, it wasn’t even archived. It’s finally archived, which is good, since they need that for open records purposes.
The second reason that is given is that the policy was created because they don’t want things posted to the web that have not been reviewed by staff. Since the Mayor’s staff reviews it, they say its ok. However, I’m not sure they are reviewing it to make sure it confirms to the website policies of the City of Madison, which is the point of that requirement.
The third reason is, quite frankly, he’s the Mayor. See below for why alders haven’t yet been allowed to blog on the city’s website.
Any which way, its a good thing he’s blogging but a) its too bad that it’s not a real blog with links and comments and b) I think that someone other than the Mayor’s staff should probably be reviewing it to make sure it conforms to city policies, particularly to review if it has political content. However, I pity the city staff person that would have to tell the Mayor he can’t post something because it doesn’t comply with the web policies.
COUNCIL BLOGGERS ON PRIVATE SITES
Several Council members over time have started and stopped blogs:
My blog started at the end of November 2005 and it is the only one that has been around consistently for this long. I started mine because I had blogged for Dane101.com and Madison.com and I wanted to do it my own way and not interfere with or adhere to the rules of the other blogs or use their clunky software. I was also wanting full disclosure on how much I was getting lobbied since the lobbyists weren’t filling out their reports, but I wasn’t sure my content fit well with the other sites. I’m not sure my content is still on either site, but a HUGE thank you to Dane101 for helping be provide information to the public that was not available through the city website.
Zach Brandon started his January 2006 and ended December 2006.
Larry Palm’s blog says you need to be invited to read it. Which, I’m not sure an elected official can do due to open records laws, depending up on what, if anything is on it. I don’t recall when he started his, but I think it was shortly after Zach’s.
Eli Judge had a blog that ran from April 2007 to April 2009. He incorporated video into his site and posted relatively frequently – meaning a couple times a month, but there were a few skipped months, typically in the summer when students were gone.
Brian Solomon had 5 posts in 2007, 3 in 2008 and 1 in 2009.
Bryon Eagon seems to have a post or two a month.
Bridget Maniaci has a blog, with 32 posts this year. You’ll have to see for yourself what you think of it. Anything I say will be suspect.
Michael Schumacher has a blog. He started it in May and posted until about the same time he stopped being in town. He’s talked to me about blog posts he was working on, but they never materialized.
And that’s it, I think. I apologize if I missed anyone. Former Alder Webber now has a blog site. It’s got 21 posts in the last two months. As you can see tho, most blogs are either failures, shut down or they post very infrequently. Part of it is that not many people read them if you post that infrequently, which is why it would be useful to have them located on the city website were more people might view them, or at least let them link to them from the city’s website. That might encourage more alders to think it is worth it to start and maintain a blog.
ATTEMPTED ALDER BLOG ON CITY SITE
When I was an alder, I asked if I could have a blog on the city website, like the Mayor’s. I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to use it, but I envisioned using it for district news and comment about upcoming and past council meetings and larger issues within the city. Tho, I realized it would be a challenge to have appropriate content and to not link to anything not on the city’s website, but I still thought it might have some value and could supplement my current blog. Mostly tho, I thought it would be an easier way to put content on my web pages that the council office and IT set up.
At first I had to wait for them to work out the kinks and get the archiving system in place. Then, I had to wait for policies to be written. (I requested a copy of the policy, I saw a draft in early 2009, but never saw a final version.) Then, I had to get permission from the “department head”, that being the Council President. This email was sent . . .
From: Edgerton, Sarah
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 4:34:23 PM
To: Bruer, Tim
Cc: Clear, Mark; Konkel, Brenda; Veldran, Lisa
Subject: Alder Konkel’s request for “Blogging”
Auto forwarded by a RuleGood Afternoon Alder Bruer,
Alder Konkel has requested rights to the Web Alerts application. The application will allow her to “blog” to the District 2 Council web site. As the Council Department Head, I need to get approval from you, before we can give Alder Konkel rights to the site.
Thanks,
Sarah
And, uh, guess what, no reply. I finally asked in person, and I was told to wait until after the election. There was too much concern about politicians blogging on the city site – even tho the Mayor was doing it. And that was the end of that.
Finally, I’m real curious if having a link to the city’s website would help with page views. The Mayor says he had 15,000 page views last month. This month, on this blog, I have over 20,000 at the moment. I have to believe that if it were connected to a site with other content, that number might be even higher.
LISTSERVES
The other thing I really wanted to do was have a listserve for District 2 residents that could be signed up for through the city website. I had listserves set up for my neighborhood associations, but I either “own” them or “manage” them separate from the city. Which, is awkward, cuz now that I’m not the alder, I still control the listserves. I’ve left them in tact and am encouraging continued use of them and have authorized other neighborhood leaders to manage the lists, but it would be great if the districts could have those resources so that when alders turn over, the lists remain in tact. As far as I know, this was also something we were going to work on after the election and based on the lists you can sign up for – it looks like that resource still isn’t available for the alders. Or they aren’t using it. See comment below about Mark Clear’s Council website.
GRADING THE ALDERS ON THEIR USE OF THE CITY WEBSITE
DISCLAIMER: First, let me say, its not their fault. They get no support whatsoever. It’s pretty sad for a city our size. The primary council office staff are too busy gossiping and playing solitaire to be bothered with being helpful to the alders. And the quality you might get from that staff is hit and miss anyways. In fact, as you can see above, the alders are almost discouraged from using new technology.
As far as a I know, the council members are in charge of their own content, get little or no support from council and IT staff and had minimal training on the Contribute software that was finally loaded on their laptops. I think they should get more support and help in keeping their websites up to date. It could be a powerful tool for communicating with and educating their constituents about what is going on in their districts and in the city. There are several flaws in the system, of course, the largest is the archiving tools/lack of tools. They have to manually transfer the information to the archive page. And, if I were to do an open records request for the information that was on my website when I was an alder, I’m quite certain they would not be able to provide you with that information.
Just so you know, the alders have 6 areas which they can influence
– DISTRICT X HOME
– BIOGRAPHY
– DISTRICT NEWS
– INITIATIVES
– PENDING & ADOPTED LEGISLATION (This could be automatically fed from Legistar, but its not)
– ARCHIVES
Here’s their grades
– F (No content in any of the areas, likely doesn’t even realize they can add content to the site.)
Steve King
Bryon Eagon
Chris Schmidt
Mark Clear – Content on every page except initiatives and would have been a C or C+/B-, however, he has link on his front page for a listserve that is linked to his inactive campaign website (markclear.com). It think that’s a huge no-no. He’s not real big on ethics and open meetings and open government type issues, so I’m not surprised. A huge failing for council leadership. For what it’s worth and to save it for the future since it won’t be archived by the city, here is what it says:
If you live or own property or a business in District 19, I encourage you to join my e-mail list by sending a blank e-mail to join-d19news@lists.markclear.com.
– D (Random minimal content.)
Jed Sanborn – Has a bio, that’s it.
Bridget Maniaci – August Edgewater Meeting, that’s it.
Mike Verveer – A September Lisa Link meeting, an archived meeting and a minimal bio.
Shiva Bidar-Sielaff – Two district items from early fall.
– Marsha Rummel – Minimal bio, some district news items and some archived info.
Paul Skidmore – A bio, some district news and a post from September on the fire station.
Brian Solomon – A decent biography.
Tim Bruer – Weak bio and nothing else.
Thuy Pham-Remmele – A minimal bio and some good neighborhood links and an archived meeting.
NOTE: Those with only a bio are alders who have been around for a while. Council staff pushed us to get a bio to them before they turned over access to the website to us, so, the newer alders didn’t get that same assistance.
– C (Minimal content, semi-current. Semi-current defined as posted in last 3 months.)
Lauren Cnare – A minimal bio, a newsletter from 2006 and an October meeting.
Judy Compton – A minimal bio, a September and October neighborhood meeting listed.
Joe Clausius – Minimal bio and October meeting.
Michael Schumacher – Bio, one piece of legislation and some neighborhood links.
– C+/B-
Julia Kerr – Content in every area but Pending and Past Legislation, not current.
– B (A bio, minimal content and current. Current defined as posted in last month. Or, an attempt to have content on each page.)
Satya Rhodes-Conway – Content on every page, but outdated.
Larry Palm – He was the leader for so long, but I didn’t find much current. It was probably frustrating if no one else was using the pages no one was looking there for relevant information.
– A (Current site, with relevant regularly updated content and content in all areas.)
None.
And, there you have it folks. The council could really be using the city resources to help keep people informed, but without support, its difficult. On the other hand, the Mayor has a full time press person, a total of 10 staff in his office, plus command of the entire city workforce and the ability to “blog”. The council, for comparison’s sake, has 2 staff people for all 20 alders and rules that make it difficult.
