June 7, 2011 – Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle has completed his gathering of public input on the City’s budget. This year’s collection of ideas from Omaha residents was conducted via a virtual town hall website called Engageomaha.com. The goal was to expand the level of participation to more people living in Omaha and allow for greater diversity and transparency in collecting public opinion on the city’s budget.
Since EngageOmaha.com was launched six weeks ago, more than 12,000 people visited the site. Over 700 individuals signed-up and participated in the pre-budget issue public discussion. This is almost 7 times more than last year’s pre-budget public forums. “New questions about city services are now open for user idea generation,” said David Arnold, Deputy Communication Director. “As additional questions are posted on EngageOmaha.com, we believe the amount of citizen participation will continue to grow.” Many of the new questions were chosen by City Department Directors in order to continue discussion on specific topics submitted by users during the first term of questions.
MindMixer – the City of Omaha’s private partner for EngageOmaha.com – will deliver all submitted data on the budget to the Mayor’s Office. The City’s formal response will be posted on EngageOmaha.com and e-mailed to all users on June 22nd.
EngageOmaha.com is part of the Suttle Administration’s embracement of technology as a way to improve city services. This “Government 2.0” project is the first of a series of policy changes which will strengthen the connection between Omahans and city officials. Just last week, Mayor Suttle revealed his online Public Calendar, a project to increase transparency at City Hall. The calendar is updated each Monday with the previous week’s events and can be found on the Mayor’s website: http://www.cityofomaha.org/mayor/calendar/.
The City of Omaha partnered with Omaha technology company Mindmixer to produce EngageOmaha.com. MindMixer is an idea generation and concept prioritization solution for city leaders, elected officials, stakeholder groups, and professional organizations. MindMixer was created as an answer to the long-standing challenge of integrating stakeholder ideas into the decision-making process.
Engage with your city government. Sign up at www.EngageOmaha.com and make your voice heard!
