Over the past few years, Los Altos has added a lot of tools to improve our ability to know what is being discussed by City Council and commissions/committees. The ability to watch Council meetings on line (live or recorded) is great, as is Internet access to meetings and agendas. Recently, the City added a service to allow residents to subscribe to Council and commission agendas of interest via email.

But there is a lot more that can be done. Some subcommittees (the Council/LASD Trustees' joint subcommittee, for example) still only have their agendas posted outside City Hall and not on line. The video is available only in a proprietary format that's not compatible with some computers and tablets. It's also very hard to find search the archive to find a particular topic that was discussed, and in order to find out which Council members voted which way on a particular item, it's usually necessary to actually watch the video.

Los Altos has the expertise to make this information more readily available and searchable. Doing so would further improve the civic engagement of our residents and the accountability of our leaders.

If the Council meetings and committee/commission agendas are available via email, it seems that subcommittees ought to, as well.

Since the Council now makes decisions at work sessions, those agendas should also be online and available to receive a "push". Unless the Council norms have been changed, work sessions are open to the public but no public input is allowed, unfortunately. That has not always been the norm and public testimony was taken at work sessions until sometime in the 80s.

Is/are there anyone(s) who has been consistently advocating and fighting for open government practices? We'd love to help get them nominated and to D.C.!

Here's an example of an honoree who went to bat for fixing the high school tennis courts, and used the public records to support his position on how to get them fixed quickly and more cost-effectively than most options!
http://patch.com/bvaVx