Fifth District Councilmember Gerrie Schipske launched the project Open Up Long Beach, with an accompanying website, last Monday, describing them as “a website and a project to make the City of Long Beach more accountable, transparent and collaborative with its residents.”
Schipske issued an email on Jan. 16 announcing the website’s launch, stating, “From the White House with the Open Government Initiative to states and cities across the U.S., more and more levels of government understand the need to create an unprecedented level of openness, transparency and public participation to strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government.”
In her email, Schipske said she believes the process of opening up the local government will not only encourage and ensure more citizen participation but will also spur creative, entrepreneurial businesses as it has done in several other cities where open government was launched. “Readily accessible government data allows businesses to assess whether or not to locate here and/or to expand,” she said in her announcement. “I was the first [Long Beach] councilperson to publicly post my schedule and to provide city documents through my blog. I have also pushed for the City to open the collective bargaining process and to provide more data on the City website.”
The first meeting of Open Up Long Beach will be conducted on Monday, Feb. 6, at 6pm in the El Dorado Community Center, 2800 Studebaker Rd. Participants will review what some other cities are doing to open their local governments and to brainstorm about what needs to be done in Long Beach. Plans for a CityCampLongBeach, a “transparency” camp, will also be discussed.
The meeting and project are open to any resident of Long Beach.
More Information
openuplongbeach.com
(562) 570-6932
