Our pursuit of innovation
On Wednesday, June 6th, and Thursday, June 7th, the Syracuse Police Department hosted public forums on police body cameras. The forums, held at the Onondaga County Public Library on South Salina Street, were led by Detective Mark Russin, and focused on community concerns regarding the use of body cameras and their footage. But behind the scenes, a different kind of assessment was being conducted: A behavioral insights trial…
[VIDEO] On June 15th, the City of Syracuse Division of Code Enforcement hosted Healthy Housing 101, an event held to teach local residents and service providers how to spot code violations in homes. Our code inspectors reviewed what to look for in homes--mold, infestations, unsafe staircases--as well as who citizens can contact when they have an issue getting problems fixed.
[VIDEO] On June 6th, Mark Headd, in partnership with Syracuse University’s iSchool, organized and hosted the first-ever Upstate Data Summit, a conference of data officers and analysts from across upstate New York. At the conference, public data and innovation professionals held panels on how cities including Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Albany, and Binghamton can efficiently gather and use data to improve everything from housing safety to road & sidewalk repair.
When James Anderson took to the podium last week at the Bloomberg Philanthropies convening of communications directors from U.S. cities, he knew how to get my attention. James, who worked in a role just like mine under Mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York City, is now the leader of Bloomberg’s Government Innovation team. He showed us the hard cold reality from the Edelman Trust Barometer: Americans don’t trust government.
This week we added new data to DataCuse focusing on the budget. In his State of the City address, Mayor Walsh detailed some of the challenges the City faces when it comes to finances.
In an effort to be open and to explain the way the City budgets and spends money, we now have data about spending...
In the past we’ve written about the impacts of unsafe, unhealthy, and unstable housing. But what do we actually mean when we talk about housing stability?
When we say housing instability, we are talking about the high frequency of forced moves that our residents endure...
For the second year in a row, the City of Syracuse partnered with Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and AT&T to run a civic hackathon. More than 30 teams and 90 people signed up to participate, and ultimately 16 teams submitted projects. The winners had creative solutions that were well-conceived and built out enough that we could get an idea of how to implement in the future.
