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City Releases Latest Progress on Open Data Plan


open data portal

(screenshot from Open Data Portal)


The city released its annual update to its Open Data plan on July 15, detailing the progress by city agencies to release all of their public data by 2018. The initiative, originally launched in 2012 under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, was expanded by the de Blasio administration two years ago under its Open Data for All plan, which aimed to make the data more accessible to everyday New Yorkers. City agencies periodically add data sets to the portal for public access.

In a statement, Mayor Bill de Blasio lauded the transparency efforts intrinsic to the open data plan. “Transparency is vital for a healthy government and flourishing democracy,” he said. “That’s why Open Data for All is delivering more data, in more ways, to more New Yorkers than ever before.”

Under the Open Data plan, information from 92 participating agencies is compiled by the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics and the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, and released online in datasets. According to the city, the portal has been visited 3 million times and is home to 1,700 data sets, 165 of which were added in the past year. The city also redesigned the portal in March, which it says led to a 367 percent increase in data inquiries from the public. According to Miguel Gamiño, New York City’s Chief Technology Officer, the portal is visited by 140,000 users each month, including 50,000 new users.

The new datasets released in the update include NYPD complaint data on felonies, misdemeanors and violent crimes reported between 2006 and 2016; details of City Council participatory budgeting projects from 2012 onwards; data on the programs, benefits and resources for 40 health and human services available to New Yorkers; and a Department of City Planning database of more than 35,000 records on public and private facilities from 50 sources. Other new aspects of the program include legal mandates for compliance with FOIL requests and on timing of responses to data requests.

Though FOIL requests involving data are being streamlined, City Council Member Ben Kallos, a longtime advocate of open data, thinks that it can be improved further by passing his “Open FOIL” bill, which would create “one searchable database of Freedom of Information Law requests sent to city agencies.” Kallos also believes that the city could do more outreach about the existence of the open data initiative.

"The City is getting better and better at getting the word out about Open Data,” Kallos told Gotham Gazette. “I for one want to see Open Data classes taught at our city libraries so anyone can learn how to use the data sets, not just techies." Indeed, while many data sets are available, they aren’t always easy to digest or utilize to find patterns or other takeaways.

Hundreds of datasets are currently scheduled for release. While some of these datasets are collected and released monthly, others involve large studies that will be aggregated on the portal for the first time, including a study on poverty in New York City that augments national spending to reflect the high cost of living in the city. The mayor’s office will also release an “inventory” of greenhouse gas emissions in the city in the ten-year period covering 2005 to 2015 on September 30. Large amounts of wage data from the comptroller’s office will be aggregated on the portal come November 3, along with other data from the comptroller’s office such as an updated quarterly measure of the city’s debt limit. Participation data in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or food stamps from the Human Resource Administration will be aggregated on the portal in December.

The continually increasing number of datasets has been praised by elected officials and good government groups.

“Open Data is a fantastic resource for civic organizations, local businesses, and City residents,” said City Council Member James Vacca, chair of the City Council’s Committee on Technology, in a statement accompanying the recent release. “I’m very happy to see that the number of datasets continues increasing and that the Open Data Portal is being made even more accessible to New Yorkers. I congratulate the City’s Open Data team on these promising results.”

However, the process is not without its criticisms. John Kaehny, co-chair of the NYC Transparency Working Group and Executive Director of Reinvent Albany, a good government group, has praised the open data law but says that many city agencies are kicking the can down the road in releasing some datasets. Many datasets are scheduled for release in December 2018, when the law expires. He recommended that the mayor and City Council prod agencies to get the data out on time.

“It’s like a teacher telling a kid that they can turn all their homework in on the last day of school,” Kaehny told Gotham Gazette in an interview, “but gives them the entire year to do the homework. And then the kid’s like ‘great, I’m gonna turn in all my homework on the last day of school.’ Well, you believe that, you know. They’re gonna finish all their assignments and turn it in on the last day? That’s not credible.”

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by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette

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Max & Murphy Podcast: Mayoral Candidate Bo Dietl


mxm logo

Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits


Max & Murphy is a podcast focused on New York City politics and policy hosted by Ben Max of Gotham Gazette and Jarrett Murphy of City Limits. Recent episodes of the podcast can be found here and can be dowloaded from iTunes and other podcast networks. The podcast began with a focus on housing in early 2016, but has expanded into other areas, now turning to the 2017 city elections, especially the race for Mayor.

Bo Dietl

Bo Dietl talks fast, often switching topics multiple times in what seems like one long sentence that can last two or three minutes, or until he is interrupted. Dietl, a former NYPD detective now running for Mayor of New York City, is not always polite or politically correct. He can be crass and insensitive, he lets curse words and insults fly, but he's also running for office on his compassion, he explained during a discussion on the Max & Murphy podcast held at his office at 1 Penn Plaza. Dietl said he has evolved from being a lifelong Republican to a Democrat, in large part because he has a more inclusive view of the world when it comes to people of various races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations.

After problems with his registration paperwork and negotiations with political party leaders, Dietl is ultimately running as an independent for the November mayoral election. In the podcast interview, he went through some of the confusiong details, explaining that Republican Party bosses have had mixed feelings about him, but asserting that they made a major mistake in not letting him compete in the primary against the presumptive GOP nominee, Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis. Dietl said he even offered to drop out of the race completely if he lost the Republican primary, but GOP leaders still would not grant him the waiver (known as a Wilson-Pakula) to appear on the ballot.

Now, he says his focus is on unseating Mayor Bill de Blasio, whom he disparagingly refers to as "Big Bird" becuase of de Blasio's height. Dietl is sure that New Yorkers will choose him ahead of Malliotakis and believes he can beat de Blasio, asserting that the incumbent Democrat is corrupt, lazy, and a bad manager. Dietl's campaign policy platform isn't always clear, but he gave a few points when asked -- he'd institute zero balance budgeting, he said, in order to reduce the city budget; reinstitute the so-called cell phone ban for students at city schools; and work more closely with the Trump administration to secure federal funding for infrastructure, affordable housing, and more.

In some ways, Dietl is making a similar argument that Donald Trump made -- he's running as a non-politician who can "drain the swamp" and make good deals for his constituents. Dietl doesn't particularly like comparisons to Trump, though, which he made clear during the podcast conversation. Listen to the full conversation through the embeded audio below, or download Max & Murphy wherever you get your podcasts.

July 24, 2017:

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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Bo Dietl: Running City Government 'Isn't Rocket Science'


Bo Dietl

Bo Dietl at his office (photo: Ben Max)


In his 50th floor corner office in Midtown, the characteristically brash private security CEO Bo Dietl made the case Monday morning for his outsider mayoral candidacy. Appearing on the Max & Murphy podcast, Dietl explained his brand, his political evolution from Republican to Democrat, and his independent candidacy for the city’s top job.

A former NYPD detective who gained celebrity status and became a Fox News personality, Dietl is always ready to talk. “Everybody knows Bo Dietl, I have a brand, I’m recognizable,” he said.

Part of the brand is a palpable disgust for politicians and the political system in the city, especially “Big Bird” – how he often refers to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is taller than average – saying “everyone’s afraid of de Blasio because of the Democratic machine,” which he labeled as corrupt and beholden to special interests, especially labor unions.

“All the mayor is good for is citing statistics,” he said, and accused de Blasio of not talking about how lately “murders are soaring” -- Dietl wants to see the data from the last 30 days, he said (New York’s homicide rate is 85% below its 1990 level and hit a near-record low last year). Despite the falling crime rates, Dietl said that people in the city were feeling increased fear, and “fear to me is a crime.”

He also had harsh words for the presumptive GOP nominee for mayor, State Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis (listen to her Max & Murphy episode here), whom he called “that girl from Staten Island” when he wasn’t mispronouncing her Greek surname. “I don’t like that she voted against gay marriage. This is New York City,” said Dietl, referring to a 2011 vote that Malliotakis recently said she regrets. Dietl said Monday he is heading to Long Island the next two weekends to spend time with and raise money from Greek associates, including supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis, who ran for mayor in 2013 but decided against a run this year.

Dietl was particularly irked about his inability to participate in a primary or run on a major party ballot line. He’s been battling the Board of Elections (BOE) over a determination that he cannot run as a Democrat after trying to register both as a Democrat and as an independent. He has also tried and failed to get on the Republican line by obtaining a so-called Wilson-Pakula waiver, which allows a candidate to run if they obtain approval from three of five county committees.

“She’ll do worse than Lhota,” Dietl said of Malliotakis, referencing current MTA chair and 2013 GOP mayoral nominee Joe Lhota, who lost to de Blasio in a landslide, and faulted the state Republican Party for not giving him a fair chance, even after he was endorsed by the Queens County Republicans. He described receiving a call from Republican State Committee Chair Ed Cox asking him to support Malliotakis; according to Dietl, he told Cox off over the course of an hourlong conversation, during which he also offered to drop from the race completely were he to be granted the chance to face Malliotakis in the primary and lose.

When talking with Max & Murphy, Malliotakis had previously given little indication that Dietl was of concern to her, saying she wasn’t really sure what he was doing, other than “making noise.” Dietl replied on Twitter that he was indeed making a lot of noise, and also out-fundraising Malliotakis, which is true.

Corruption was a running theme for Dietl. “I guarantee you this corrupt BOE and this corrupt mayor will still try to keep me off the ballot,” he said about his issues with registration. He also described an incident – one that has not been verified – where an unnamed Brooklyn reverend came to Dietl and said he’d “deliver the black vote from Brooklyn, if [Dietl] put [him] on $15,000 a month as a consultant. I said ‘get out of my office!’”

Dietl’s persona and electoral pitch have invited comparisons to President Donald Trump, who Dietl said he has known for 40 years. Yet the insinuation isn’t welcomed by Dietl, who called the president “narcissist, big mouth Donald Trump,” while allowing that “he gets things done.”

He said he would make sure to work with both Trump and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to act on his priorities for the city, which included floating a $5 billion state tax bond to reform the city’s public transportation system, obtaining federal money for anti-terror, and reimagining the city’s education system.

Asked if he knows enough about city government to have more success than Trump has had adjusting to running government, Dietl said "it's not rocket science" and explained, a la Trump, that he would hire the best people.

Listen to the whole podcast conversation with Dietl here.

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by Felipe De La Hoz, Gotham Gazette
     

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