Austin

Below is the message I just sent to the local Komen chapter, at info [at] komenaustin [dot] org:

Dear Staff and Directors,

When I look at the range of organizations that the local Komen chapter has supported, it strikes me as a list of groups with blue chip pedigree, all doing great work in Central Texas.

http://www.komenaustin.org/grants/current-grant-recipients/

Some local Komen chapters have expressed unease over the political realignment of Komen's grant process. I hope you do too.

The work you are doing is too important to get caught up in politics. I think that if the local chapter was to take a stand against politicizing health issues, and offer a promise to continue support to the good organizations that deliver services to those in need -- if you were to do that I think you would find Central Texans would stand with you.

The silver lining to this very dark cloud is that people are talking about important health issues. Please seize this opportunity and offer some leadership -- the kind of bold thinking and action that Central Texans pride themselves on.

With your bold action, I think you could help rally Central Texans in support of this important issue.

Thanks.

9:58PM update - Oh dear. Looks like the Austin chapter has weighed in and they are hewing the very political party line. See: Texas Planned Parenthood Clinics Bracing for Komen Cuts

Below is a message I just posted to the Austin Neighborhoods Council mailing list:

The City of Austin website is going down for maintenance Sunday. When it returns Monday, the historic "Austin City Connection" will be replaced with the first public release of the new city website.

This will be what they call a "beta" release, made available for public shakeout and testing. The full release is scheduled for January 12.

The press release is linked here:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/news/cnews.cfm?nwsid=4338

(I wouldn't normally do this, but due to the impending downtime I'll include a copy below.)

As some of the most engaged users of the city website, it's very important that we all get involved during this critical time. This rollout is a massive undertaking. It's likely going to be similar to the final phases of a kitchen remodel. There will be some dust and hiccups, but as the pieces go into place for completion, it (hopefully) will be beautiful -- so long as we pay careful attention.

I gave this speech last night at a tribute to Gary Chapman, held before the annual Dewey Winburne Community Service Awards ceremony.

I've had the privilege of working with Gary Chapman several times over the years.

The first time was back in 2000. We were both serving on the very first Austin Grant for Technology Opportunities review board. GTOPs was a brand new program, designed to provide grant funds to local digital divide/digital opportunity projects. Gary was an early supporter of GTOPs, and chaired the review board its inaugural year.

Since then, GTOPs has grown into a successful and widely popular program.

I moderated a session this morning at Texas Gov20 Camp on open data issues in the City of Austin website redesign project. This post collects some of the resources from that session.

Session Title:
AustinGO: Can the city and citizens collaboratively develop an open platform?

Summary:
The City of Austin is in the process of creating a new web site, built on an entirely new publishing platform. As part of this project, the City has entered into an agreement with OpenAustin, a private group of local volunteers, to help build tools on the new platform. We'll get an update on the project, and discuss what will be required for this collaboration to succeed.

Panel:
Chip Rosenthal -- moderator, Austin Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission (chip [at] unicom [dot] com)
Matt Esquibel -- City of Austin
Dan Pattyn -- OpenAustin (dan [dot] pattyn [at] gmail [dot] com)
Rob Pettengill -- OpenAustin (dan [dot] pattyn [at] gmail [dot] com)
Jon Lebkowsky -- EFF-Austin (jon [dot] lebkowsky [at] gmail [dot] com)

Resources:

http://www.austingo.org/ -- AustinGO, CIty of Austin government online initiative website

The City of Austin currently runs parking meters until 5:30pm five days a week. There is a proposal to run them until midnight, and run them on Saturday. The City is conducting a survey where you can register your opinion: http://www.downtownaustinsurvey.com/

Extended meter hours makes sense. The people who use the parking ought to pay for it.

The proposal on the table, however, is deeply flawed. Asking people to fumble with their purse or wallet, street-side, in the dark, late at night is a stunningly bad idea. I'm surprised this proposal wasn't dismissed out of hand, due to safety considerations. Unless the City is willing to add lighting and video at every parking pay station, this plan should be rejected.

A better proposal would extend the hours to, say, 7:30pm, and add Saturdays. That would help share the cost of parking more fairly, without incurring a safety risk.

On Friday afternoon, Austin submitted its response to the Google "Fiber for Communities" Request for Information. We joined over 1,100 (!!) communities around the nation, who asked Google to build an open, super-high-speed, fiber broadband network in their towns.

Google created a two-pronged process, one for municipalities to submit their response, and another for individuals and community groups to nominate their hometown. The community support aspect snowballed, and we ended up with towns doing stunts such as mayors jumping into lakes and swimming with sharks.

One of the most frequently asked questions I received was, "What stunt is Austin going to do?" The answer, as my friend Chad Williams said, is, "We're going to be Austin."

Here is a message I just sent to members of the Big Gig Austin group on Facebook.

Hello Big Gig broadband supporters.

The Google deadline for nominations is this Friday (3/26).

1. Now is the time to submit your personal nomination to bring the Google gigabit fiber to Austin, if you haven't already. It's quick and easy and only takes a minute. Directions here:

http://www.biggigaustin.org/index.php/biggig/nominate/

2. I'll be doing the final count of supporters on Friday, and obviously the more the better. We're currently at 3,300 and I know there are a lot more -- thousands more -- broadband supporters here in Austin. Can you help? Please make one final pass through your friends list, and invite interested friends to our group.

To invite your friends just go to:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=337158056344

and click the "Invite people to join" link in the left sidebar.

3. Finally, come celebrate at the "How Can Google Not Love Us?" Happy Hour this Tuesday. Event info here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10150148563425582

Hope to see you there.

Chip Rosenthal
chip [at] unicom [dot] com
info [at] BigGigAustin [dot] org

We'd also appreciate your support on Twitter. Please follow @BigGigAustin.

Hope to see you at the Big Gig "How Can Google Not Love Us?" Happy Hour and Tweetup on Tuesday, Mar. 23..

One month ago, Google challenged us to show them why Austin, Texas would be the best city in the world to build their gigabit fiber network. We came together and showed them the creativity and enthusiasm that makes Austin world famous.

The end is in sight. The Mar. 26 nomination deadline is days away. So, let's get together to celebrate what we've accomplished and push this effort over the finish line.

Please join us:

Big Gig "How Can Google Not Love Us?" Happy Hour and Tweetup
Sponsored by Big Gig Austin
Tuesday, Mar. 23, 5:30pm
The Highball, 1142 S. Lamar Blvd. (map)

Happy hour specials until 7:00pm: $2 Lone Stars, $2 pints and $4 wells. Plus free karaoke.

Hang out for Geeks Who Drink at 8:30pm.

Thanks to the groovy cats at The Highball for hosting us.

Co-sponsored by: Slackerwood, Helios Project.

The Big Gig Austin effort continues tonight, with a public forum to discuss the Austin response to the Google "Fiber for Communities" initiative. The forum is sponsored by the Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission.

Public Forum
Wed, Mar 10, 7:00 PM
Austin City Hall
Room 1101, Boards & Commissions Room
301 W. Second St.
Austin, TX
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/cityhall/visit.htm

The public is invited to attend and participate.

The forum is tentatively scheduled to be cablecast live on City of Austin cable channel 6, and streamed live online at: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/channel6

Statement by Chip Rosenthal
"Big Gig Austin" Press Conference
March 9, 2010

I'm Chip Rosenthal. I'm the chair of the Austin Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission. One of our jobs is to advise the City on what the people of Austin want for technology services. I'm here today to say that the people of Austin want Google to select Austin for their gigabit trial network project.

Within hours of the Google announcement, there were flurries of emails and tweets all across Austin. People were asking our city leaders to respond to the Google proposal – and they have. The Mayor and City Council have unanimously passed a resolution to submit a response to Google. City Manager Marc Ott and city staff have been working aggressively to produce a response that documents why Austin is the best place in the nation for Google to build their gigabit network.

That's what the people of Austin have asked for. And that's what the City is doing. That's great – but it's not enough.

This is not a standard company recruitment effort. The City isn't offering any economic incentives to Google. The City can't – and Google doesn't want them anyways.