Comments on: Santa Cruz taps social media, citizens to help fix city budget

By: Orçamentos Participativos Digitais | Blog do Vasco segurança pública, web 2.0, wikicrimes, wikimapps, crimes, redes sociais

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:32:18 +0000

[...] O tremendo déficit (cerca de U$ 26 bilhões) da Califórnia forçou ao aparecimento de soluções inovadoras. Santa Cruz decidiu engajar os cidadãos na discussão de como tratar o déficit da cidade. Decidiram criar um site onde os dados do orçamento dos últimos 10 anos foram expostos. Analistas independentes passaram a discutir as razões do ocorrido e, em conjunto com a sociedade, coordenaram um trabalho de definição de prioridades de investimento. Representações visuais e amigáveis foram fundamentais para que a participação das pessoas fosse possível. Várias seções de voto foram criadas no site para que as pessoas participassem e definissem o que consideravam prioridade. O prefeito, através de seu blog, comandou toda a discussão. Um detalhe que mostra o quanto as pessoas se engajaram no processo é o fato de que o site foi construído pelos próprios cidadãos e totalmente de graça. Os projetos foram classificados em ranking e os mais bem avaliados foram eleitos para serem implantados. Um matéria completa sobre essa iniciativa pode ser vista aqui. [...]

By: California City Taps Social Media to Help Fix its Budget « Social Media at Work

Sun, 10 Jan 2010 18:03:44 +0000

[...] This past spring, Santa Cruz, California was facing a $9.2 million deficit. At the same time, the city’s roughly 55,000 citizens were growing increasingly impatient with continued reductions in city services. To help inform residents and tap into community ideas on ways to manage the impending cuts, the city built a website called Santa Cruz City Budget that let people see visual representations of how proposed budgets would be spent and how cuts were translating into lost jobs. But more importantly, the website was interactive. It encouraged citizens to collaborate and participate through polls and comment sections, and it hosted a blog for the Mayor. Nearly 8 percent of the city’s residents registered at the budget website, suggesting ideas and voting on solutions. CivSource has all the details here. [...]

By: Peter Koht

Peter Koht — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:13:06 +0000

Hello there, first off, thanks for the insightful commentary here on the article.

The 8 percent figure is based on unique visits to the site (4,600) from Google Analytics. Like Wikipedia or other open conversational platforms, the majority of our visitors were readers, and the participatory segment of the audience was lower, but we were still excited about the level of participation that we saw, as well as the quality of the discussion.

Again, thanks for reading about this project, and for supporting our efforts to be a better, more responsive City.

By: Tripp Babbitt

Tripp Babbitt — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:50:33 +0000

All:

We have found that sharing services usually results in increased costs. The design and management of work is the biggest lever for improvement. We assume things are optimal and then share services to reduce expenses, bad assumption. As service lessens in a shared services arrangement, more people are hired costing even more money.

Please read:
http://blog.newsystemsthinking.com/blog/shared-se...

http://blog.newsystemsthinking.com/blog/shared-se...

Regards, Tripp Babbitt
http://www.newsystemsthinking.com
http://www.thesystemsthinkingreview.com (government help)

By: JefferySmith

JefferySmith — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:42:59 +0000

Tim – these are excellent points, and perhaps further clarification is needed – according to the UserVoice case study "Over 4,000 people viewed the site and top suggestions have been worked into the budget for 2010." Which is also the number implicitly quoted in the story. (8% was quoted, and as you point out that works to be around 4,000).

As for how those numbers were derived (registered, viewed, how many were non-residents) we'd have to see the site's analytics to be sure.

I'll see if I can get more info/verify registered vs. viewed/participated.

By: JefferySmith

JefferySmith — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:36:55 +0000

I couldn't agree more Craig, these tough times will make for more difficult decisions. But with more ideas along these lines, communities may begin to better gauge how to handle those difficult decisions. Long-live Muni2.0!

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:26:38 +0000

You quote city sources that say "nearly 8 percent of the city’s residents registered at the budget website."

For a city the size of Santa Cruz, that would amount to more than 4,000 registered users.

However, when I last checked the Santa Cruz Uservoice site in late October, the numbers hinted at much lower rates of participation. While the site doesn't readily expose the complete set of metrics, here are some pointers (data from October 21, 2009):

1) A total of 100 ideas had been posted. These ideas came from 32 registered users as well as up to 50 anonymous participants.

2) A total of 108 comments had been posted.

3) A total of 1,782 votes had been cast. Note that each user could award up to 10 votes. For example, the 32 registered users mentioned above cast 6 votes on average.

From looking at these numbers, I'd say there were only a few hundred participants. Only a small portion of them registered (created accounts). And whether all participants were in fact Santa Cruz city residents is not known (I bet many were but some of the voting may have come from outsiders, too).

Am I missing something?

By: Craig Tobias

Craig Tobias — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:23:29 +0000

Web 2.0 certainly allows for greater participation by the masses into local government. I would call this Municipality 2.0. Allowing the citizens to participate in resolving budget short falls is not only prudent it makes shrewd political sense. No matter what choices are made someone is not going to be happy but at least local government can point to the fact that they let the masses participate and they considered the best and the brightest ideas which were presented by the citizens themselves. By allowing such participation it them makes it hard to accuse the local leaders of making decisions from ivory towers.

In the end who knows, there might be some innovative ideas presented which allows the City of Santa Cruz to save significantly.