On Wednesday (Feb. 8), the city of Anchorage announced the launch of its new open data portal. The website is designed as a one-stop shop for the public to get information that’s already collected by the municipality, but not always easy to find. So far, it includes everything from crime statistics to health inspections. But officials are quick to stress, this is only the beginning.
Inside a conference room at City Hall, Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz summed up the logic of his administration’s push to get public information in front of residents.
“It’s really particularly important in a changing world that we have a dynamic form of civic engagement. And when you have open data it creates a portal for that civic engagement,” Berkowitiz said, adding that it gives community members an easier way to “harness public information.”
It was a wonkish way of saying: sometimes your best ideas about how to govern a city come from innovative citizens.
Since taking office, the Berkowitz Administration has consistently tried to improve municipal services by tinkering with them internally. That’s included measures like bringing social service providers together to cut out duplication and boost efficiency, as well as designing interactive maps on snowplowing and street lights (forthcoming). Many of those efforts fall under the city’s open data initiative, which is steering resources towards tech innovation, much of it overseen by Brendan Babb, the city’s chief information officer.
Babb excitedly rattled off the data-sets that have been collected at the new site.
“We’re highlighting restaurant inspection data, some childcare inspection data, and we’ll also have property appraisal and parcel data,” Babb listed.
There are also limited data-sets on crime and homelessness. The idea, as Babb explained it, is to have the city’s public health inspection data integrated into websites like Yelp! so people have more information to make a decision about where to eat — that started last summer. Or having childcare inspection results easy to find when a parent is looking for daycare options.
The portal is powered by a Seattle-based company called Socrata that specializes in opening government data.
Part of Babb’s job is working with different city departments to get more data sets pulled into the portal and waiting to see what members of the public do with it — whether that’s finding un-spotted patterns, developing new apps, or plugging in numbers for a brand new application.
“This is just the beginning,” Babb said. “We’re going to be adding additional data throughout the year. I think it’ll allow people to really explore the data and ask additional questions.”
Decisions about which information sets to prioritize will be made by an “open data governance committee,” comprised of five municipal employees and five members of the public.
Zachariah Hughes reports on city & state politics, arts & culture, drugs, and military affairs in Anchorage and South Central Alaska.
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