1. Year to Date Report from Team Macon
Code for America, 2012
2. OUR APPROACH IN MACON
Macon did not have a specific project in mind when applying for Code for America.
During residency we sought out opportunities for using new technology, increasing
transparency, and engaging residents.
Meeting with many city departments, residents, and local organizers helped identify
the opportunities which were most important, across the board. Those opportunities
include SPLOST (local bond referendums), transportation, code enforcement,
and business licensing. We have identified and continue to work on ways to build
sustainable, replicable solutions for these issues — all the while, remaining mindful that
Macon is a unique city with a unique population not always best served by smartphone
and web only applications.
The apps we build for Macon meet a need and allow us to demonstrate the value in
opening data, improve communication across departments/governments, and create
platforms for both citizen feedback and application reuse.
Macon, Georgia
In the 11 county region known as Middle
Georgia or the Heart of Georgia | 2 hours
south of Atlanta | Population of 91,000 |
Median Household Income is $28,366
Team Members: Nick Dorion, Jessica Lord and Zach Williams
3. The Macon-Bibb County Transit Authority runs 11 routes through Macon, surrounding
Bibb County, and a commuter line to the Warner Robbins Air Force Base. Many of
Macon’s citizens depend on transit to get to and from work and around town (>3000
ppl / day ). We saw an opportunity to make transit more convenient for current riders
and to promote transit to a new audience.
To make the system easier to understand we created an interactive map of the network
with all available routes. The MTA now uses this on their website. It has replaced their
previous map which was static, not viewable on mobile devices, and had inaccurate
routes. In the future, this map will also feature an address search and include the next
departure times at each stop. Jessica presented the process of building this map at the
State of the Map Conference in Portland this fall.
To make travel on the MTA more convenient, we are showing a bus times and providing
a bus times API. We calculated these times from records in the MTA’s internal
RouteMatch system and our own mobile phones. Before our launch, the only way
to get schedule information was an in-person visit to the main office or a series of
confusing forms online. Schedules covered only a few main stops, compared to our
existing system which provides the next inbound and outbound bus times for any stop.
We launched this map at the MTA Try Transit Week fair in late June. Several hundred
community members toured the site, and local colleges commented on the need for
this map for their students’ information
TRANSIT
mta-mac.com/map.html
platform for transparency, platform for reaching underserved citizenry, platform for citizen comment
PROJECTS
Inaccurate map the MTA was previously using online and a screenshot of our SMS text messaging bus schedule app.
5. Many cities have bond referendums or sales tax revenue that the city can capture to
fund special projects. In Georgia, this is called a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax
(SPLOST). For the last two years, residents have rejected the city’s SPLOST proposal.
In 2011, thanks to efforts from the city and county leaders, SPLOST was approved with
$19 million to spend over the next six years. Residents should feel confident in their
vote by having information about SPLOST’s projects and funding. In a city with an
average personal income of $19,700 citizens want to know where their money goes.
This year I’ve created an easy to use kit, called See Penny Work, for cities to display
these budgets. See Penny Work is essentially a Wordpress theme (so it’s easy to install
and has Wordpress’s great CMS system) with some powerful javascript built into each
page. The javascript is a library I complied this year and call sheetsee.js. It allows you to
connect website content directly to Google Spreadsheets.
With See Penny Work, users create a spreadsheet and create a Wordpress site. The
two are linked together and each page knows what data to pull from the spreadsheet
to generate tables, charts and maps of the information. Maintenance is therefore
a simple as adding a row of new data into a spreadsheet - it’s then automatically
updated on the website with every autosave.
Sheetshee works well in this instance, but because it can also stand on its own it’s
recieved interest from many news agencies and was profiled on Mozilla-Knight’s
OpenNews (source.mozillaopennews.org/en-US/articles/jessica-lord-sheetseejs).
SEE PENNY WORK & SHEETSEE.JS for Macon’s SPLOST
splost.herokuapp.com | www.seepennywork.in
platform for transparency, platform for citizen feedback
PROJECTS
7. Message Macon allows anyone to text in a public works issue to the city’s SeeClickFix
site. While in Macon, several City Council members mentioned that most citizen
complaints were public works related. This app expands access for the majority
of Macon residents to report issues from their phones, using the more accessible
technology of text messaging. Building this on top of the Open311 API allows cities with
SeeClickFix and other issue trackers to re-use our app.
We are partnering with the city and local non-profits to pilot the program in the
Lynmore Estates and Historic Macon neighborhoods.
MESSAGE MACON
messagemacon.com
platform to reach underserved citizenry, platform for citizen action
PROJECTS
The website supporting the Message Macon app.
8. In neighborhoods across Macon, blight poses a threat to communities and homes. As the state updates
their standards for building surveys and vacancies, Macon’s TeleMagic system from 1997 cannot keep
up with existing needs and could undermine city and community projects which use web / mobile
technology. Without GIS information, the city was limited in its ability to analyze the problem of blight
across the city or map houses on their demolition list.
Our partnership with Macon allows us to publish the data in a new way and increase transparency. We
worked closely with two neighborhood groups — Habitat for Humanity and College Hill Alliance — to
explain our project, create custom visualizations for their neighborhood, and speak with members of
their communities.
The College Hill Alliance asked us to produce an animated map to visualize reduction of blight in their
neighborhood over the past several years. The project is open-sourced as GeoData Checkout, a general
tool where you can create animated maps of blight and construction of historic buildings in Macon.
BLIGHT & INCENTIVES MAP
homestatus.org
platform for transparency, platform for citizen action
PROJECTS
Photos from South Macon.
9. Site to allow residents to easily learn the status of code inforement cases.
10. Starting a small business takes guts, and trying to navigate government bureauocracy
is often confusing and harder than it needs to be. Macon is no exception.
We met with the Macon-Bibb Planning and Zoning Commission to develop a flowchart
of the process which is clear, straightforward and accessible. Currently, there is no
source online that walks entrepreneurs through the full process.
We created a diagram and gathered contact information for a site targeted at new
business owners. This site could serve as a model for other cities with similar issues
and would be easy to replicate. The upcoming consolidation of Macon and Bibb
County will likely change this process, so we did not take the site beyond MVP phase.
Creating a better system has real potential for impact - from a citizen’s faith in their
government’s processes to economic development though filling empty storefronts.
BUSINESS LICENSING / REGULATIONS
maconbibb.biz
platform for transparency, platform for citizen impact
PROJECTS
Portion of working flow-chart of the licensing and permiting process in Macon.
11. Community Meeting at City Hall and Presentations to City Council
Early in February, we held an open community meeting at City Hall where we invited
residents to join us and learn what we are doing in Macon and offer their feedback. We
presented to Macon’s City Council during three of their public meetings, including our
final presentation in October. Jessica and Nick presented four major projects designed
for Macon this year (Transit Map, SPLOST, HomeStatus, and OpenStreetMap data).
Skillshare at Library
In February, we held an event at the main branch of the Macon-Bibb County Library
and used their new Knight-funded computer lab to host a series of sessions on tools
such as Twitter and Google Docs. Residents, including the Mayor, came to learn and
went home with a new set of skills.
Community Meeting at Joshua Cup (local cafe)
In February, we held an additional community meeting in which we rented out a room,
served coffee and invited residents to come and have a talk with us.
Technology Association of Georgia
In June, Nick spoke at the Technology Association of Georgia, which includes
government officials and developers from the Atlanta area. Several learned about Code
for America for the first time and shared their ideas for developing a SPLOST app
which could be used by local governments across Georgia.
Try Transit Week
Our transit map had its official launch at Macon’s Try Transit Week: a week of events
and special rates promoting transit in Macon. Nick handed out flyers and answered
questions from citizens. The local newspaper wrote an article about the launch of the
map.
Mercer CS Meetings
Mercer University’s Computer Science Department took an early interest in Code for
America’s work. We presented at classes and at four meetings of MUGTUG, a group
of students and professors interested in web development. Nick presented Code
for America projects and data APIs at the university’s weekly Computer Science
Colloquium.
Macon Maps
As part of our open data initiatives, Nick collaborated with the College Hill Alliance
and Habitat for Humanity to hold a meeting at Mercer University’s new Center for
Collaborative Journalism. Community groups used open data from Macon and Bibb
County to map their impact. Attendees then discussed Code for America projects and
the need for more open data and technology initiatives in the city.
EVENTS
12. Macon is unique amongst Code for America cities but not unique in America. Macon
doesn’t have the network of tech communities that support some Code for America
projects. Despite its historic, walkable downtown, the region of Middle Georgia is
mostly suburban and a two hour drive away from the nearest major city. Macon has
been listed by Forbes as one of the most impoverished cities of its size, but it doesn’t
have the national buzz that cities like Detroit or New Orleans use to gain attention and
support. The challenges that make us differ from other CfA cities, we feel, make us
more like every other American city. We believe that our work opens the door for CfA’s
partner cities in 2013 and other cities like Macon across the country.
One of our quick wins was GridMapper, a response map for rapidly assessing damage
after natural disasters. The Emergency Management Agency (EMA) manages local
disaster preparation and response, receives calls, and shades in a grid over a paper
map. During our visit, the director asked us if we could digitize that map and share it
with the public. We developed an online map and followed up several times to make
the map fit their needs. It’s currently one of their main links from their emergency
response dashboard, WebEOC.
When we visited one of Macon’s fire stations in February, our IT contact went with us.
We got to go up in the bucket of the ladder truck! In one of our interviews, we found
that only three out of nineteen stations had internet access. Firefighters need internet
access to take online classes at the station and look up official records from the scene
of a fire. They told us about connecting their top-of-the-line firefighter ToughBook to a
personal cell phone in order to connect. Within a few weeks, our IT contact had acted
to give each fire station a connection to high-speed internet and a WiFi hotspot.
STORIES
13. While working to create the transit apps, we lost a lot of time because no one at the
MTA fully understood what their software was or where their data was stored. They
also could not get us in touch with their software provided whom they passed all IT
issues onto. It became clear that it’s important to have a champion for your cause at
the city. Amanda Deaton and Beverly Blake made great efforts to express to the MTA
that this was important, the Mayor supported our project, and they had an opportunity
to work with us. After we revealed to the agency that their software produced data we
could use to build tools, they didn’t feel confident whether they owned their own data.
We also struggled to talk about these things and really show them what we could do
over email. It wasn’t until we were able to send a team member, Nick, back to Macon to
sit down, talk, and present our site to the agency that we were able to gain their trust,
release our map, and hand off the data.
Macon and the surrounding Bibb County have separate and sparring governments
currently in the process of consolidation. We have struggled as the county holds much
of the useful data we want to use in our work with the city.
Government as a platform: cities should engage their citizens by publishing APIs which
make their data available to a variety of applications and users. Open government and
APIs are not such a radical idea for us; it’s just a logical first step to making any apps
available.
None of the government groups which we met in Middle Georgia — even those with
large datasets — had an API to share their data. Bibb County appeared to be taking
the lead by sharing their buildings data and upgrading their maps system. Their new
system includes an API for third-party developers. When we started showing potential
applications of their maps data to the city, the county demanded we remove our apps.
The county was not aware that their data was made accessible by their GIS. We quickly
complied with the county, but our relationship with the county was damaged. We later
made amends, and the county approved of our use of their buildings data to show the
impact of Habitat for Humanity.
LEARNINGS
Throughout the development process, we have made technical decisions to support
our projects’ sustainability. Our SPLOST site is based on Wordpress, allowing it to
be set up and maintained by city employees without depending on IT departments.
Projects such as Message Macon and our Blight & Incentives Map are hosted on
Heroku, a reliable service based on Amazon’s cloud computing network. Heroku’s
open-source platform avoids lock-in - at any point Macon could shift the apps to local
servers.
The best measure of Code for America’s sustainability will be how our momentum is
continued. Our contacts at Mercer University, the Macon Telegraph, the Middle Georgia
Regional Commission, and Macon’s own IT department all have the potential to be
future advocates for open government. As Macon transitions to a consolidated city and
county, our frameworks for releasing data and bringing government services online
offer an opportunity for this new government to continue our work.
SUSTAINABILITY