Monday, October 10, 2016

“Increased trust leads to being able to manage better in a lot of ways”

From the Milford Daily News, articles of interest for Franklin:

"Massachusetts leads the nation in a lot of things, but transparency isn’t one of them. When news start-up MuckRock published a ranking of government transparency in all 50 states based on how long each took to respond to public records requests in 2015, Massachusetts placed 49th. Only Hawaii lagged behind the commonwealth. MuckRock found Massachusetts hands down little punishment for public records violations and slaps on huge fees for information. The upside, though, is that recent pushback could spark some change in the law. 
Because of social media and the internet, demand for public records has increased over the years. With that, demand for records to be online and easily available has grown. While recent laws aimed at making public records easier to obtain will affect everyone, they are mainly targeted at the state level. At the town level, though, transparency can also be a problem, cropping up at selectmen and other municipal meetings across the region. If you ask Hopkinton's Chris Bullock, though, just putting numbers online isn't enough. Though many municipalities in MetroWest and the Milford area have their records online, Bullock said they need more context."

Continue reading the article online (subscription may be required)
http://www.milforddailynews.com/news/20161009/transparency-changing-municipal-relationship-with-public

screen grab of part of Franklin's 2014 data in ClearGov (note: 2014 is only year currently available)
screen grab of part of Franklin's 2014 data in ClearGov (note: 2014 is only year currently available)



  • For some of Franklin's data in the ClearGov view
http://www.cleargov.com/massachusetts/norfolk/city/franklin/2014


  • Boston is working on CityScore which summarizes the city operations in key performance metrics.
https://www.boston.gov/cityscore


  • More about the dashboard can be found here
http://www.cityofboston.gov/mayorsdashboard/

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