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This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

Climate & Environment

City's IT Deptartment Gets Ahead & Falls Behind

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Today, the Information Technology Administration (ITA) along with the Department of Neighborhood Empowerment (DONE), announced some Los Angeles E-Democracy, as they call it.

What does this mean? A bunch of online toys for us city nerds. Here's some of what they've done in the past 24 months:

Online Council Votes: stalk follow your councilmember's voting track record.
Online Council File Index: Keep track of any legislation considered and/or acted upon.
Online Council Docs: We would tell you what this is if the link they provided in their press release didn't go something like this: "The requested object does not exist on this server. The link you followed is either outdated, inaccurate, or the server has been instructed not to let you have it."
Community Impact Statement: Let's Neighborhood Council's have a 'printed' word on city council and other agency agendas.
Council Web Casts: Grassroots YouTube for Council Meetings.
Early Notification System: Be prepared. Know what's coming up. Get agendas of upcoming meetings from regular council meetings to the Ad Hoc River Committee.
L.A. Cityview35 – Government Access Channel: They won an Emmy.

While they've done all this great stuff for the community, they have stuck their noses up to the fire department. Since LACityNerd's post four days ago, about them leaving the city's most famous blog off the City's blog list, it still has not been updated. We thinks the next time ITA's server room is on fire, it's going to stay on fire.

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