Public Engagement Update, Edmonton Heritage Council Board, Community Development Corporation

Here’s the latest entry in my Edmonton Etcetera series, in which I share some thoughts on a few topical items in one post. Less than I’d write in a full post on each, but more than I’d include in Edmonton Notes. Have feedback? Let me know!

Public Engagement Update

As previously mentioned, I’m a member of the Vision, Policy, and Framework Working Group under the Council Initiative on Public Engagement. I am really enjoying working with my team and I think we’ve made really good progress on our action plan so far. I’m also happy to have been named the Community Co-Chair of our working group recently!

City Council will receive its annual status update next week on all Council Initiatives. That includes the Public Engagement initiative:

“An Advisory Committee that includes five branch managers, five community members, and three Councillors (as Council liaisons) has been established and is actively overseeing the work of the Initiative. Five Working Groups, made up of City staff and community members (approx. 60 people), have developed Action Plans and are working to complete them by spring 2017.”

So far my group has developed and tested the definition, vision, guiding principles, and a new continuum. We’re also working on outcomes, an updated policy, and a new framework. It’s a lot of work but I think we’re really going to have an impact on public engagement in our city. The other working groups are Learning and Training; Tools, Techniques, and Practices; Evaluation, Reporting, and Recognition; and Community Leadership.

In addition to the annual status update the initiative has been posting progress updates on its website. I was one of the featured working group members in the last update:

“Don’t let this sweet smile fool you, Mack Male has been one of the leading critical voices in the evolution of the Council Initiative on Public Engagement. Lover of the Oxford comma, unwavered by hierarchy or social norms, Mack speaks his truth from real experience of building online communities to engage with City Hall on controversial issues like the closure of the Municipal Airport.”

That’s me, always talking about whether we need a comma or not!

New Edmonton Heritage Council Board

The 2016 Edmonton Heritage Council AGM was held on May 11 at City Hall to “provide an update on EHC initiatives and organizational work, feature a few of the many dynamic projects underway in the city and, importantly, current EHC members will vote for 2016 Board of Directors.”

Another year, another AGM! Thank you #yeg for coming to support the great #yegheritage work in our communities. pic.twitter.com/7qSAoxzbM9

— EHC (@yegheritage) May 12, 2016

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I have long been a fan of the work that EHC does, including projects like Edmonton Maps Heritage and the Edmonton City as Museum Project. So I decided to run for the board and am thrilled to have been elected as one of the new board members! From the EHC Newsletter:

“We are pleased to announce new EHC Directors Darrel Babuk, Wendy Birch, Martin Kennedy, Jeanne Lehman, Mack Male, Alexis Miller, Arundeep Singh Sandhu, Sally Scott, and Eric Strikwerda. We’re excited to begin another year with new perspectives around the table!”

At our first meeting last week we chose our new executive: Chair Gregory Bounds, Vice Chair Beth Sanders, Treasurer Alex Abboud, Secretary Candas Jane Dorsey, and Past-Chair Satya Brata Das. I’m really looking forward to working with everyone!

Community Development Corporation

One of the actions included in the recently approved EndPoverty Edmonton Implementation Road Map (2017-2021) is to establish a Community Development Corporation “to invest in affordable housing and community economic development.” Council has already been exploring this idea and last October asked Administration to come back with a report on how to establish such an organization.

So, what is a Community Development Corporation?

“A Community Development Corporation is a non-profit company that creates and expands economic opportunity for low to moderate income people. Community Development Corporations target high-needs neighbourhoods experiencing significant social and economic challenges such as high rates of poverty, unemployment and crime, as well as a lack of social support, affordable housing and economic opportunity. In doing so, Community Development Corporations create economic opportunities that improve social conditions for individuals and families living in poverty.”

You can read much more in the report here. Executive Committee has accepted Administration’s recommendation to go ahead and form a CDC, and I expect Council will approve the idea on Tuesday. Here are the details of the recommendation:

“That $100,000 from 2016 Council Contingency be granted on a one time basis to the Edmonton Community Foundation to fund work to prepare a business case based upon the model proposed, conduct key stakeholder engagement, and perform other preliminary work required for the establishment of the Edmonton Community Development Corporation.”
“That Administration and the Edmonton Community Foundation return to City Council, through Executive Committee, in the fall of 2016 to provide a business case containing an analysis of the business model, proposed capital and operating budgets for the first three years of operation, funding sources (loans, borrowing, guarantees), and a list of City owned lands that the Edmonton Community Development Corporation could acquire from the City in order to achieve the outcomes outlined.”
“That Administration prepare unfunded service packages for City Council’s consideration as part of the 2016 Fall Supplementary Operating and Capital Budget Adjustments for the costs to incorporate and establish the Edmonton Community Development Corporation and funding for its initial operating and capital funding expenditures.”

The proposed CDC would “likely” be established as a not-for-profit Part IX company “incubated” by the Edmonton Community Foundation. The idea is to create an arms-length organization:

“Under the proposed concept, the City of Edmonton will play a catalytic role in founding the Edmonton Community Development Corporation, by contributing cash and in-kind contributions towards its start-up, but will not participate as an owner. This approach will allow the Edmonton Community Development Corporation to be fully embedded in the community, and potentially qualify for outside sources of funding.”

Additional funding beyond the $100,000 mentioned above is expected to include operational funding of $1.4 million, capital expenses of $500,000, and $10 million of in-kind resources in City-owned land. Combined with contributions from the Edmonton Community Foundation, Homeward Trust, and the United Way Alberta Capital Region, the total investment for startup and the first five years of operation will come to just over $23 million.

Improving The Way We Engage in Edmonton

There’s a lot of interesting work happening right now on public involvement in Edmonton with the Council Initiative on Public Engagement. With luck the effort will transform public engagement from an exercise in frustration to one based on hope and possibility.

“From October 2014 to June 2015, the Council Initiative on Public Engagement initiated a broad dialogue with a cross section of Edmontonians, City staff, as well as the mayor and members of City council. This included over 40 workshops and outreach events listening to about 1,000 voices and leveraging hundreds of volunteer hours.”

The first phase of the initiative wrapped up in September 2015, and the second initiative is now well underway.

Vision, Policy, & Framework

Below I’ll cover the background of Edmonton’s public engagement initiatives, the formation of the initiative, a summary of the first phase, and an update on the next steps.

Background

The City of Edmonton undertook to “improve and clarify” its varied and unstructured approach to public engagement in the early 2000s, resulting in a City Policy and Procedure (C513) on public involvement. “The City was entering a period of extended growth and citizens’ expectations were growing for how they should be involved in the decisions that affect them,” is how Administration recently reflected on the initial work. The policy included the following commitment to citizen engagement:

“The City of Edmonton believes that a key element of representative democracy is that people have a right to be involved in decisions that affect them.”

The City also developed a framework called Involving Edmonton which “consisted of Core Commitments and Standards of Practice, a Continuum of Public Involvement, the Public Involvement Roadmap, and a Public Involvement Plan (PIP) template.” It received a minor update in 2008, and has remained the key tool City staff are expected to use to guide their public engagement activities.

From 2007 to 2012, the City also used a piece of software called Consultation Manager which was supposed to help staff with planning and reporting on events. The City dumped it “due to lack of use, an unfriendly user interface and high monthly fees.” The City also experimented with different staff roles, establishing a Public Involvement Coordinator position in Transportation Services in 2009, the only department to have such a position. Also in 2009, the City launched the Centre for Public Involvement in conjunction with the University of Alberta.

In 2012 the City revamped its Office of Public Engagement (originally formed in 2006) with a new short-lived initiative called the Corporate Approach to Public Engagement (CAPE). It was late that year that Cory Segin joined the City to lead the office, which moved under Corporate Communications.

Cory Segin, Manager, Office of Public Engagement

The 2013 Municipal Election was a turning point on public engagement. Some Edmontonians had been discussing possible changes and improvements for years, but it was during the election that the need to do better became real for Council and administration. “Many Edmontonians, stakeholders, Councillors, and members of City Administration observed that the City faces a number of challenges and opportunities in public engagement, including responding to evolving citizen expectations, supporting growth, ensuring consistent and quality processes, and capitalizing on opportunities for innovation.”

In 2014, the City Auditor conducted a Public Involvement Audit. While the audit found that “Administration was compliant with City Policy C513, Public Involvement and the Involving Edmonton Framework,” it also identified eight issues with the City’s public engagement process.

“We found misalignment between the expectations of the public involvement process as expressed by City Council, those shared by members of the public, and those documented in the Policy and Framework. We found that the Policy and Framework do not provide sufficient guidance to Administration to meet Council’s expectations of public involvement.”

Shortly after the election, Administration “designated public engagement as one of the City’s top three priority initiatives” while Council committed to its own initiative to improve public engagement. The two initiatives were quickly combined to form the Council Initiative on Public Engagement, led by Councillor Ben Henderson and Councillor Michael Walters.

Phase 1

The initiative’s primary goal is to create a process that will improve public engagement in Edmonton and it was determined that the work of the initiative would take place in phases.

“Public engagement, civil society, direct democracy, collaborative governance; when we talk about public engagement what do we mean? If we agree that public engagement is important, what does good public engagement look like?”

Those are the questions that the initiative aims to answer. The work was originally organized into four main streams:

Engaging on engagement – discussing with Edmontonians and stakeholders options to improve the CIty’s public engagement.
Continuous improvement and innovation – working with branches and department teams to implement pilot projects and different approaches to make positive changes as we go.
Community leadership and capacity building – working in partnership with community leaders and groups to re-energize and leverage our civil society.
City culture and framework – examining how leadership and administration can change to support improved public engagement.

Phase 1 Timeline

Dozens of workshops took place from October 2014 through June 2015. I had the opportunity to attend a few of the workshops during that time, including a workshop on Public Engagement Obstacles in April 2015. The purpose of that particular workshop was to try to determine, “what is getting in the way of effective public engagement?” We worked in groups of 6-8 people to brainstorm obstacles, after which we clustered and labelled them. Some of the obstacles identified included “mutual distrust”, “competing priorities”, “gaps in understanding”, “unmet basic needs”, “inconsistent or poorly executed processes”, and “tension between individual and community interests”.

Public Engagement Obstacles Workshop

It was a productive session, and I really appreciated the working assumptions the workshop began with:

Everyone has wisdom
We need everyone’s wisdom for the wisest result
There are no wrong answers
The whole is greater than sum of its parts
Everyone will be heard and will hear others

Another group came together in June to review and discuss strategies to overcome the obstacles that had been identified. They also worked to identify the key areas of focus for phase 2 of the initiative. The first phase came to a close with the publication of the Final Report in September 2015.

“This first part of Phase 1 of the Council Initiative on Public Engagement provided a foundation of collective wisdom on which to build. It was the first step in a long journey. Together, we started to build a shared understanding and a common voice on why public engagement is important and what we should strive for as a City in our approach to public engagement.”

The end of Phase 1 also marked the start of the Advisory Committee, made up of City staff and community members and modeled on the approach used to develop the Winter City Strategy.

Phase 2

The work of the initiative is now being led by the Advisory Committee, with five working groups focused on the strategic areas of focus identified during Phase 1.

Community Leadership: Expand, diversify and facilitate community involvement and leadership in public engagement by fostering connection points and sharing influence.
Evaluation, Reporting and Recognition: Create a culture of excellence and accountability for public engagement through improved transparency, measurement, and celebration.
Vision, Policy and Framework: Create organizational foundations that support, inspire and guide effective public engagement as One City and Open City.
Learning and Training: Improve public engagement knowledge and capacity through learning, leadership development, skill building, and training (City and citizen).
Tools, Technologies and Practices: Expand and diversify public engagement tools and techniques, and pilot innovative public engagement processes.

Each working group is responsible for determining its own priorities and action plans, and each has the support of a senior member of Administration. In 2015, the initiative’s budget was $425,000 thanks to contributions from various departments and branches. A similar budget is expected for 2016 and 2017.

Councillor Ben Henderson

The working groups were established in the fall, and a working group assembly took place in January 2016. Councillor Henderson spoke at that session about the initiative, and said the decision was made “not to rush this”. He reminded everyone that we “can do something really remarkable” and that there’s “no need to jump to the obvious answer or solution”. You can hear more from Councillor Henderson in this video:

Claire Ashton, the initiative’s project coordinator, provided an overview of the progress to-date at the session and said that she was feeling inspired by everyone’s efforts. In a recent email to all participants, she said “doing things differently in the area of public engagement will require a great deal of commitment from all of us.”

Claire Ashton, Project Coordinator, Council Initiative on Public Engagement

Claire is featured in this video overview of the initiative:

We also heard from the working group chairs, who each described the work of their group and shared a reflection on the initiative thus far. In a show of commitment and support, nearly everyone from the Corporate Leadership Team was present, including City Manager Linda Cochrane.

Some members of CLT

Linda told us that the City will up its game in resourcing public engagement and that “there is definitely permission to explore this and take it where it needs to go.”

I am very happy to be a member of the Vision, Policy, and Framework group! We are tasked with crafting a definition for public engagement, drafting the vision and principles that other working groups will build upon, and we’ll create the framework and policy that will be critical for implementation. We will of course be exploring various engagement approaches to gather input and feedback as we undertake this work.

Our timelines are aggressive. Another working group assembly will take place next month. A public event is scheduled for May where the definition, vision, and principles will be launched, and the next steps will be outlined. The initiative is slated to wrap up its work by the end of the current Council term in 2017, though hopefully it doesn’t end there. “The goal is to achieve a continuous improvement program over longer timelines which builds on previous work and recognizes that lasting improvements are often part of a broader and sustained culture and organizational change effort.”

Get Involved

There are many ways to get involved in the initiative. Start by checking out the City’s Public Engagement Calendar and watch for upcoming events, like the one in May. On Twitter, the hashtag #yegengage is being used to post updates and discuss the work of the initiative. And if you’re not already a member, consider joining the Edmonton Insight Community to participate in regular surveys on City initiatives.

Ward 12 candidate survey on Edmonton as an open, transparent, accountable, and engaged city

One of the issues I care a lot about is public engagement and ensuring Edmonton is open, transparent, and accountable to citizens. During the 2013 Municipal Election, the topic of public engagement came up frequently enough that it made quite an impression on most of the Councillors who were elected. I thought it would be useful to hear from Ward 12 candidates on this important issue.

I sent a survey to all candidates last week asking for their views on Edmonton as an open, transparent, accountable, and engaged city. Each of those topics is broad, so I decided to anchor each with a specific initiative – the Open City Initiative for open, the Open Data Catalogue for transparent, the Citizen Dashboard for accountable, and the Council Initiative on Public Engagement for engaged.

For each section, I asked three similar questions:

Before today, were you familiar with the initiative?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the topic/initiative
What are your thoughts on the initiative/topic?

Out of 31 candidates, 14 responded to the survey: Jason Bale, Moe Banga, Danisha Bhaloo, Victor Viorel Bujor, Nick Chamchuk, Irfan Chaudhry, Jag Gill, Lincoln Ho, Nav Kaur, Rory Koopmans, Rakesh Patel, Nicole Szymanowka, Laura Thibert, and Stephen Wutzke. You can view all the responses here.

I expected a lot of “yes” responses to the question about being familiar with a given initiative, and that’s what I got. After all, what candidate wants to admit they don’t know about something? Though a few did suggest that maybe the City hasn’t done enough to market or promote the initiatives, and that’s a fair point.

On the rating of each topic, I decided to adopt a Net Promoter Score-type approach to the results, primarily to help group the data. Here’s the overview:

ward 12 candidate ratings

As you can see, candidates feel the City is doing well on being accountable whereas they feel there is clearly room for improvement on public engagement practices.

Below is the preamble I included for each section, and a selection of candidate responses, edited for length. Again, you can view all the responses in full here.

Open City Initiative

Edmonton has an Open City Initiative, described as follows: “Edmonton is aspiring to fulfill its role as a preeminent global city: innovative, inclusive and engaged. Building such a city takes foresight, planning and active participation by its citizens. A great city is an open city.” You can learn more about the Open City Initiative here.

What are your thoughts on the Open City Initiative and/or on Edmonton being a more open city? Here are some of their responses (edited for length):

Moe Banga:

“This is an excellent initiative for not only the citizens of Edmonton but it also focuses on the City employees. I think the opportunity is offered to all of us if we want to be the recipient of extensive information available in the operation of the City. It certainly allows for transparency.”

Nick Chamchuk:

“I like freedom of information, but know all about VOIP laws, it’ll be tough to implement. I think info should be available to anyone, easily obtained. I think in most cases, transparency is a myth, a buzzword by people who are not transparent. This is a noble endaevor that I would support as Ward 12 Councilor.”

Irfan Chaudhry:

“I like the fact that the City of Edmonton has opened up access to data for residents to learn more about issues that impact our lives. My biggest critique with this, however, is that it is not very accessible to those who do not have familiarity with pulling data and analyzing it though various stats programs. I would like to build on the Open City initiative and find ways of making it more accessible for residents to use in order to assist community leagues and residents in being informed.”

Jag Gill:

“The Open City Initiative is an excellent program for the citizens of Edmonton. I believe we are ranked number one among all Canadian municipalities when it comes to open initiatives. There is room for improvement, like increasing public awareness that we have an open initiative programs.”

Nav Kaur:

“I believe strongly in open and transparent government, as well as open data. It is wonderful that all of this has been and continues to be made available to Edmontonians. That said, I believe [some] aspects of the initiative can be improved. Without attention to accessibility, communication, and focus of the work, the Open City initiative runs the risk of being limited in its scope and effectiveness, as it would only reach a limited audience.”

Stephen Wutzke:

“It’s a good idea. I like the idea of letting people give their feedback. I do not think they are hearing from everyone. This social media initiative only targets a very small number of people and won’t give an accurate view of what the overall population really think. It will take time before we start hearing from the majority. I sincerely hope that when the silent majority become vocal the city won’t simply dismiss what they have to say when they realize most of us want energy sector jobs, elbow room, and a place to park a truck.”

Open Data Catalogue

As part of its Open City Initiative, the City of Edmonton has made hundreds of datasets available for free to anyone via its Open Data Catalogue. You can learn more about the Open Data Catalogue here and you can see all of the datasets available here.

What are your thoughts on the Open Data Catalogue and/or on being transparent and open to citizens? Here are some of their responses (edited for length):

Jason Bale:

“Open data is great, though I’m not too sure how many people are aware of it.”

Danisha Bhaloo:

“It is a good opportunity for Edmontonians to participate in data analysis in new ways that we can take advantage of as a city for sourcing creative and unique ways of looking at how we do business as a city.”

Rory Koopmans:

“Its a rigged catalogue from what I can see, the questions are rigged to fit the progressive vision of Mayor Iveson & make Edmontonians even poorer.”

Rakesh Patel:

“Data has no meaning unless there are professionals to interpret and provide recommendations and trends based on the data. City’s red tape does not allow professionals to enter the fray.”

Laura Thibert:

“I think anything the city can do to be more open and transparent to the citizens of Edmonton is a great initiative. Independent analysis of information allows for a different perspectives of city issues. This initiative can assist in working with and for community members to improve city services and to get the best value for our tax dollars. The Open Data Catalogue allows citizens to have an open dialogue with Councillors on particular issues with facts. As a Councillor, I will work with administration to continually add data to the Open Data Catalogue.”

Nicole Szymanowka:

“The city has done a great job with the open data catalogue and synthesized the information in a way that is easy to understand by the general public. This initiative brought a lot of information together into 1 place where it can be found and I personally think it does a great job of providing essential information that citizens should be aware of.”

Citizen Dashboard

Building upon the information available in the Open Data Catalogue, the City of Edmonton has built a Citizen Dashboard that provides performance metrics against various goals identified in The Way Ahead, the City’s Strategic Plan. You can learn more about the Citizen Dashboard here, and you can see the dashboard in action here.

What are your thoughts on the Citizen Dashboard and/or on being accountable to citizens? Here are some of their responses (edited for length):

Jason Bale:

“I use the dashboard. I do not like the UI, but I don’t have suggestions for anything better. We need to be accountable to citizens and this is a great tool to do so.”

Irfan Chaudhry:

“I work for the City of Edmonton and did not realize such a tool was available. This is great and should be more widely known about. Again, I think a “how to” video might be helpful for users t understand how the data can be interpreted. Something very high level where when a user comes to the site, they know what the figures mean.”

Jag Gill:

“This is my favorite feature of the open city initiative. Very easy to use and informative for a wide range of data. Could use some improvement like the CPI should be compared to the national average and to other municipalities.”

Nav Kaur:

“It is fantastic that the City has developed a tool that shows how they can be more accountable to citizens and has been intentional in making a simple-to-use and plain language tool. With everything from the number of potholes filled to the City’s current greenhouse gas emissions, this dashboard provides citizens with a wealth of information about our city. Again, my questions about this particular tool are who is using it, and how often they access the data. The average citizen of Edmonton is not aware that the Citizen Dashboard exists. This needs to be improved upon. The City should absolutely be held to account by citizens, and this data source provides the opportunity to do so.”

Rakesh Patel:

“It is a pity that the city officials are wasting tax payers’ money in efforts like tabulating how many pets are returned to owners? This is ridiculous. This is the time to work towards new investments. To create and safeguard jobs. To hire efficient professionals. Citizen dashboard in the present form is just a westage of time and money.”

Stephen Wutzke:

“Livability is missing a section to discuss green space. What used to make this city special was the large volume of green space. We were on of the top cities in Canada for green space per capita. What I’m seeing today is that the city is ripping down our green space and giving the rest to dogs.”

Public Engagement

Improving public engagement was identified as a key area of focus for both City Council and City Administration following the 2013 Municipal Election. That has led to the creation of the Council Initiative on Public Engagement, a collaborative effort to define and implement public engagement strategies. You can learn more about the initiative here.

What are your thoughts on improving public engagement in Edmonton? Here are some of their responses (edited for length):

Danisha Bhaloo:

“There are many tools available to us that we currently do not use to reach out to citizens. We have opportunities to get this and it appears to me that we are still using old methods that don’t work in a modern environment. We need to go to the people, where they are, instead of asking them to come to us on our schedule. So I think we could be doing this very differently, more cost effectively, and with more community buy-in if we try some new ideas in public engagement.”

Irfan Chaudhry:

“I know the City of Edmonton is committed to public engagement. But we have to do it effectively and in meaningful ways. The Office of Public Engagement, for example, provides useful resources on how to publicly engage, however, they do not provide direct public engagement for city departments. To me, this is a huge gap. It is unrealistic to put the onus on separate departments to conduct community engagement sessions without the needed time and/or expertise. I would like to see how we can empower the Office of Public Engagement to provide this service to other city departments.”

Nav Kaur:

“When thinking about engagement and including the people who live in Edmonton in the decision making processes that affect our lives, we need to think about the systemic barriers that limit people’s engagement in the first place. As a community organizer who has lived in Ward 12 all my life, I have a detailed understanding of the population that calls the ward home and how it has been changing over the last several decades.”

Rory Koopmans:

“Frankly the way council takes in citizen input is a joke as they already do everything pre ordained behind closed doors.”

Lincoln Ho:

“I know the city hosts public engagement and consultation forums all over the city all the time. However, based on my experience attending some of these, it’s a waste of time. They make the citizen FEEL engaged, but change doesn’t happen. That’s the disconnect that needs to be addressed.”

Laura Thibert:

“I believe community engagement is critical to the role of city Councillor. It is important that we find different avenues to encourage community engagement, such making it easier to respond to on-line surveys. In addition to engaging the community with the initial consultation, it is vital that Councillors and city officials follow up with the community with the outcomes of the consultation.”

Nicole Szymanowka:

“I would like to see public engagement higher overall in Edmonton. Especially on gathering ideas and feedback before decisions are made instead of gathering reactions to decisions that were made.”

Additional Thoughts

I also gave candidates the opportunity to share any other thoughts they might have at the end of the survey. Here are some of their responses (edited for length):

Moe Banga:

“This is my home and my community. I will work to make it a thriving, vibrant part of Edmonton. I have the experience, I have the drive and I have the commitment needed to properly represent your needs on City Council. My track record proves that I am a person who gets things done.”

Danisha Bhaloo:

“As our city demographics change, we need to make sure our ways of reaching out are suitable to our population, that includes age, background and level of technology use. We also should engage different community leaders to be part of the conversations around how best to reach out to their communities in meaningful ways, including being aware of language barriers and cultural norms. We need to be as diverse in how we connect with Edmontonians to reflect the diversity of Edmontonians themselves.”

Nick Chamchuk:

“I think if politicians, and wanna-be’s lied less, the public would like them more, leading the way for progress, with these initiatives.”

Lincoln Ho:

“While open data and engagement are great initiatives for the youth, it doesn’t capture the snapshot of the entire population nor its actual needs. Data can easily be manipulated and misinterpreted, so users and people who receive information from those who use open data need to understand that. Otherwise, it’s a great initiative other cities should follow.”

Rakesh Patel:

“Increasing property taxes should be the last resort but over the past decade, this has not been the case. My platform is logical though revolutionary and this is how I stand out from my esteemed prospective candidates. I advocate for lowering property taxes. I believe in developing new sources of revenue generation. I will be a change agent to bring new investments and re-brand the city; and be instrumental in re-naming our city as the ‘City of Champions’.”

Nicole Szymanowka:

“I personally have noticed and followed Edmonton’s effort in the past decade to modernize it’s image and create a lively, modern, livable city. We are slowly building a stronger and greater city everyday. All these initiatives are central to that movement, now lets get everyone on board.”

Stephen Wutzke:

“What made Edmonton special was it’s green space and by destroying that we are destroying Edmonton. Many large cities have made efforts to protect the feel of wide open spaces. We have engineered congestion and that needs to stop. Green space and elbow room were what made this city special and we need to recover that.”

Thank you to all candidates who responded, and good luck on Monday!

Northlands Arena Survey Results

Last week we (the Northlands Arena Strategy Committee) released the results of the Arena Survey that asked for input on the future of Rexall Place. The survey launched on December 2 and was open until January 31. I’m thrilled that we were able to gather 26,019 responses in that time, surpassing our goal of 25,000. You can download the full survey results in PDF here, but I thought I’d highlight a few things in this post.

From the news release:

“The goal of the online public survey was to gauge the opinion of Edmontonians and to build consensus in the community about the future use of Rexall Place and the future of Northlands as an organization,” said Tim Reid, President & CEO, Northlands. “Throughout this process, we have determined that the best equation to finding a positive solution involves a combination of studying best practices, strong financial planning and ongoing consultation with those who will be using the facility most – our community. We are astonished by the level of engagement our community has shown with this process and are confident that the future plans of the site will continue to address Edmonton’s needs.”

It was important also to give Edmontonians an opportunity to share their memories and the experiences they have had at Rexall Place over the years. It was quite powerful to read through some of the reasons why this building is so important to so many!

arena survey

We knew this was a bit of an emotional question, but we felt it was important to ask. What we heard loud and clear is that Rexall Place is considered important, particularly to Edmonton. Interestingly, “respondents from Edmonton were less likely to say Rexall is very important to Edmonton (39%) compared with respondents from beyond the Capital Region (53%).”

arena survey

Can Edmonton support two arenas? Just less than half said yes. My hunch is that if the unsure group had enough information to make a decision, we’d come out pretty close to 50-50, which isn’t surprising (to me at least). Remember the new Rogers Place opens in 2016.

arena survey

In terms of what we should do with Rexall Place, most people see a future for the building either as-is, or repurposed in some way. Some of the most commonly cited ideas for repurposing included converting it into a dedicated concert hall, making it a recreation or training centre, turning it into a market or shopping mall of some sort, or using the building for housing.

arena survey

One of the other questions I found interesting was about transportation. Respondents could pick their top two methods of transportation for getting to Rexall Place, and driving came out on top followed by LRT. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised living in Alberta, but I did expect to see the percentage for LRT higher. As you might expect, this answer was correlated with income – the higher your income, the more likely you were to drive.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the survey!

What’s next?

Our committee continues to work on determining the best way forward for Rexall Place, for Northlands, and for Edmonton. We’re optimistic that we’ll be able to deliver a meaningful recommendation to the Northlands Board by April 15, and that’s what we’re working toward. The conversation is not about the past or what could have been, but really is about the future and what’s the best decision we can make now.

Next week we’ll be doing a deep dive into all of the information we have collected thus far. Our Exploration Subcommittee will also be travelling again soon, this time to Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa, to see some examples of buildings and situations in a Canadian context. This week we’re hosting some additional public engagement sessions that are being facilitated by RC Strategies.

My hope is that we’ll be able to narrow down the options we’re considering and take that back to the public before the end of March, most likely at some sort of town hall event, but possibly also via another online survey.

Get engaged with the new Edmonton Insight Community

The City is unveiling the Edmonton Insight Community (EIC) today, its latest public engagement tool. It provides the City with another way to hear from Edmontonians on an ongoing basis:

“It’s a place to collaborate and communicate with us and others in our community. We want to hear your opinions, learn about your needs, share information with you, and ask you to express what’s most important to you.”

You can sign up right now if you want to (any resident over the age of 15 can join). Or if you prefer, try a demo first.

Once you’re logged in, you’ll see available activities (surveys), a quick poll, newsletters, and survey findings. That last one is launching in July, and I think it’s the most important. “Survey findings will be made available by default,” Cory Segin, Manager of the Office of Public Engagement, told me. He knows that closing the loop is critical. The tool also shows you a listing of all the surveys you have completed, but at the moment I can’t review my responses. That would be a useful addition.

Importantly, the tool is responsive and should work just as well on your mobile device as it does on your desktop. This has always been an issue with the tools selected by the City for public engagement, so it’s great to see that it has been considered from the start for the EIC.

The EIC will allow the City to ask citizens for input without being tied to a specific project’s public consultation plan. That will hopefully mean less “tick the box” consultation, and will potentially lead to new insights. But the EIC is less about replacing other methods of consultation and more about adding another way to engage the public. Not every user will receive every survey – some will only show up for users that have indicated an interest in a specific topic, others may be segregated by demographics. The other major benefit to the City is that they can look at trends, something that is currently very difficult to do.

Here’s what Mayor Don Iveson had to say about the EIC:

The tool is powered by Vision Critical, a Vancouver-based firm that provides “a cloud-based customer intelligence platform that allows companies to build engaged, secure communities of customers they can use continuously, across the enterprise, for ongoing, real-time feedback and insight.” Other cities using their technology include Vancouver, Surrey, and Burlington. Other cities are creating similar communities using alternative tools. It definitely seems like the trend lately is to establish communities that the municipal government can tap into from time to time.

Like most initiatives, the EIC is a pilot project. An internal soft launch took place on June 16, and an external soft launch took place June 19 (which is when many of you reading this were probably invited to join). Now the City is hoping to attract up to 5,000 people to join and take part in the surveys, though estimates have varied quite a bit internally (some feel adoption will be slow, others feel the goal is realistic). I really hope the tool proves to be popular, because I think it’s a big step in the right direction.

One challenge will be getting departments within the City to adopt the tool. There is no requirement that the EIC be used by City staff, and a lot of internal communication will need to take place to ensure they understand the benefits of the tool.

There are many other public engagement related activities in the works at the City, so don’t think of the Edmonton Insight Community as the end. I’ve heard more talk about Open City, Open 311, “Mobile City Hall”, and other technology-based tools and approaches in the last six months than ever before. Public Engagement is of course a new City Council initiative, but it’s also one of Administration’s big three areas of focus for 2014. I’m looking forward to many more innovations and opportunities in the months ahead.

Edmonton wants to be an open city

Edmonton was one of the first cities in the world to launch an open data catalogue and to embrace the notion of open government. But unlike in the world of tech startups, municipalities don’t enjoy much of a first-mover advantage. Edmonton’s data catalogue has grown slowly over the last four years, and there has been more talk than action when it comes to “open government” initiatives. Has anything been happening behind the scenes? What more can we be doing?

At its March 4, 2014 meeting, Executive Committee asked for an update on “how the City is improving transparency by provision of usable data through the Open Data Catalogue and Open Government approach” to help answer those questions. A report on the Open City Initiative is being discussed today as a result.

Open City Initiative

The Open City Initiative is described as follows:

“Edmonton is aspiring to fulfill its role as a preeminent global city: innovative, inclusive and engaged. Building such a city takes foresight, planning and active participation by its citizens. A great city is an open city.”

“The purpose of the Open City Initiative is to formalize the goals of the organization and empower staff to lead our transition to being an Open City.”

The twelve-page report on the Open City Initiative highlights five principles. As an Open City, Edmonton is transparent, participatory, collaborative, inclusive, and innovative. The initiative also encompasses five goals and related objectives, which I have listed here:

Information and data are managed as a strategic resource.
Edmonton is a connected city.
Employees act responsibly when managing, maintaining and making public information available.
The City will take a coordinated, consistent and strategic approach to public engagement.
The City will employ innovative approaches to engage with Edmontonians in ways that are relevant to them.
City data will be publicly available.
City data will be accessible and usable.
Build accountability and trust through ongoing reporting.
The City proactively provides valued information to the public in multiple channels.
Leverage technology and news business models to enhance service delivery for Edmontonians.
Support dialogue and consultation with constituents and stakeholders.

Collectively, the initiatives and programs underway to support those goals and objectives form the Open City Framework:

Click for a larger version

There’s very little to argue with in the report. Edmonton should be a connected city, the City should take a strategic approach to public engagement, City data should be publicly available, etc. Some of the initiatives shown as “current”, such as the Public Engagement Calendar, still need a lot of work, but the arrows suggest all of those initiatives are ongoing.

Open Data

Though the City first launched a data catalogue in January 2010, it was quickly replaced by the current Socrata-powered catalogue which launched in July 2011. That’s the catalogue they have been building on ever since. There are currently 437 datasets in the catalogue.

Here’s a look at the number of datasets that have been added to the catalogue over time:

It’s certainly not a hockey stick, but it is creeping up (at a rate of 2-3 per week). One of the great things about data catalogues powered by services like Socrata is that you can access a dataset about all the datasets they contain. Here’s the list of all datasets in the City of Edmonton’s data catalog.

Another interesting data point to consider is the freshness of those datasets. Some are historical in nature and don’t need to be updated very often, while others get updated frequently, perhaps every month.

What this shows is that 56% of the datasets available in the catalogue were last updated some time in 2014. My guess is a large percentage of the data managed by the City is more historical in nature, but the catalogue doesn’t reflect that. It’s an important point, because historical data is incredibly important for spotting trends that might result in “new insights and better decision making”.

The City estimates that it manages around 1.64 petabytes of data. If you download the entire data catalogue as it exists today, it’ll take up about 1.9 GB of space¹. That means that it contains just 0.0001% of all the data managed by the City. Not all of that data is appropriate for the catalogue of course, but it does show there’s lots of room for growth.

Positives

I think there are some key positives to highlight in the report. The Open City Initiative establishes a clear connection to The Way Ahead, which is important for ensuring that open data and open government are part of Edmonton’s future.

“The Open City Initiative articulates how the organization will advance the City’s Vision and strategic objectives defined in The Way Ahead and the Open City Principles.”

Another encouraging aspect of the report is how seriously public engagement is treated. There is of course a Council initiative on public engagement underway, and Administration itself has been undertaking actions to improve the way it engages Edmontonians (which at one point was known as the Corporate Approach to Public Engagement). It’s great to see recognition in a City document of the need to incorporate new tools and approaches, including social media, sentiment-analysis, and more. Importantly, the report also highlights the necessity of making the results of public input accessible and readily available to citizens.

I’m excited to see Open 311 mentioned as well. The City’s 311 service seems to have received more criticism than praise over the years, and I think that has slowed down the adoption of technology improvements to the service. I think 311 is an extremely strategic and valuable asset that should be expanded and opened up. There’s not nearly enough reporting back to the public on how effective 311 is, and clear opportunities for deeper and ongoing engagement with citizens are being missed.

Concerns

Though there are many positives in the report, I have some concerns too.

First and foremost, we’ve heard that the City wants to add more datasets to the open data catalogue for years, but as shown above, the pace has not quickened. Why should it be any different this time? Of the 35 data requests publicly submitted by Edmontonians, just 8 have been approved. Some have been open for nearly 3 years, without so much as a comment in response.

Another concern is that while the report lists a number of actions that will be taken to achieve the objectives of the Open City Initiative, none of those actions reference changes to resources. Will new people be hired? Will resources be shifted from other efforts? How is the City going to expand and improve on open data, public engagement, data analytics, and digital service delivery when it’s still the same handful of people doing that work off the sides of their desks?

The only large change that has happened recently was the departure of CIO Chris Moore early this year, which happened just months after the new General Manager of IT and Services Kate Rozmahel re-joined the City. She was formerly the CIO at the City of Edmonton, before moving to the Province of Alberta where she was Assistant Deputy Minister of Service Alberta. I can appreciate she’s only been back for six months, and perhaps needs more time to reorganize her teams, but it’s a concern nonetheless.

Both the provincial and federal governments have become increasingly active in the world of open data and open government, yet there’s no mention of those efforts in this report. Are there no opportunities for connection, or to learn from one another? There’s also no follow-up on previously announced initiatives, such as the G4 working group on a national data strategy or efforts to establish common data formats with other cities.

Most importantly, the lack of any public engagement on the Open City Initiative is really disappointing. There’s absolutely no suggestion in the report that citizens were engaged in the creation of this initiative. I was asked for a quote in March by the consultant that wrote the report, but that’s it. I didn’t provide one, and I see no others mentioned in the report.

The City was very active in 2009 and 2010 in reaching out to Edmontonians interested in open data and open government, but that activity ceased long ago. Aside from the launch of the Citizen Dashboard in 2012, there hasn’t been much action from the City on open data or open government. Yes they participated in International Open Data Day a few months ago, but it was the library that led that initiative. Likewise, the open data hackathon that took place in May was led by the community. There’s a small but growing community of Edmontonians interested in this work!

It doesn’t seem the principles of the Open City Initiative – transparent, participatory, collaborative, inclusive, innovative – applied to the creation of the initiative itself.

Toward a more open Edmonton

This report and the Open City Initiative continue an unfortunate trend: Council asks for an update on how open data is going and Administration replies with the equivalent of “it’s all good.” That’s why Edmonton has never adopted an open charter or Council motion supporting open government like some other cities have. As a result, buy-in from the various silos within the City has been difficult to achieve.

I’m very pleased that the City has identified and articulated a clear set of principles, goals, and objectives with respect to being an open city, but I don’t think that’s enough. The two key missing ingredients here are demonstrable buy-in from citizens, and measurable, impactful actions that will bring the vision of an open Edmonton to life.

I like the direction outlined in the Open City Initiative, unfortunately I just don’t have much confidence that it’ll go beyond a report and lots of talk. I hope Council and the City can prove me wrong, because I want to live in an open city.

The two largest are the Rooflines and Land Use datasets, which together in KML format take up 1.5 GB of space. ↩

Public Engagement Update

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Community Development Corporation

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Background

Phase 1

Phase 2

Get Involved

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Open City Initiative

Open Data Catalogue

Citizen Dashboard

Public Engagement

Additional Thoughts

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What’s next?

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Open City Initiative

Open Data

Positives

Concerns

Toward a more open Edmonton

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