Yearly Archives: 2011

On Seeing Risk Differently

Whenever anyone steps up and tells you that [social media] and the public service don’t mix; when they tell you not to, and when they tell your that you are risking too much tell them that the real risk is failing to soldier on. Tell them that the truth of the matter is this: theRead… Read more »

Proposed OGE rules would hit lobbyists and more political law links

WILEY REIN’S ELECTION LAW NEWS. This month’s Election Law News has interesting items on proposed rules from the Office of Government Ethics and Hawaii guidance on gifts, among other topics. MORE ON OGE PROPOSAL. The Hill. “A new regulation proposed this week by the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) would prohibit all government employees fromRead… Read more »

Weekly Round-up – September 16, 2011

Gadi Ben-Yehuda This week, it’s all about you. Citizen participation in its many and varied forms seemed to pop up wherever we looked this week, for example: Participatory Budgeting Comes to New York, NY. Between October 2011 and April 2012, four New York City Council Members will invite residents to directly decide how to spendRead… Read more »

Rochester rolls out real-time arrival info

The Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority (NY) introduced 14 digital bus stop signs with real-time arrival information. “As soon as a bus is scheduled to be there within 30 minutes, that sign will count down,” said incoming CEO Bill Carpenter. “When it gets within two minutes, it says the bus is due.” The signs costRead… Read more »

Desert island dataset challenge

Blogging in The Guardian, Charles Arthur asks a simple question: “Which set of open data would you like to get from the UK government so as to have the maximum impact on the open data movement?” (He compares the query to the BBC show Desert Island Discs, which asks guests which records they would takeRead… Read more »

UNION COMMENDS LAWMAKERS FOR HIGHLIGHTING RUNAWAY CONTRACTOR SALARIES

The American Federation of Government Employees today commended a group of lawmakers for calling attention to the rapidly escalating salaries that government contractors charge taxpayers. Government contractors currently can charge taxpayers $693,951 a year for each of their five most highly paid executives, a benchmark that has more than doubled during the past 12 years.Read… Read more »

Diversity Gets A Bad Rep!!!

Diversity is getting a bad reputation. On Thursday, August 18, 2011 President Obama issued an executive order for diversity promotion. On August 22, 2011, the Washington Times newspaper issued the following articles “Obama Federal Workforce Diversity Initative Equals “Whites Need Not Apply” The article sited numbers based on race. So perpetuated is the misconception thatRead… Read more »