Posts
Code for Asheville 2020
Here are some of the projects in the plans for 2020: Open Buncombe - Continue to work with Buncombe County towards adoption of an open data policyGrowing Our Information Commons - Continue to support Buncombe County Libraries with tech-savvy volunteersJustice Equity...
Governing by Video Game: An article review with comments by Patrick Conant
The article I read, "Governing by Video Game", is about ways that gamification concepts have been utilized by government - and whether it actually increases (or in itself represents) an increase in “engagement”. Some of gamification concepts are “Tinder-like”, where...
Police Complaint Solutions
How does the community give useful feedback to the police department when there are segments of the community who feel their voice is not heard, or worse, they fear retribution? This is a question many communities must face, especially those with a history of police...
What is an Expunction?
According to the North Carolina Judicial Branch web site: "An expunction is a legal process to remove a criminal conviction or a criminal charge from a person’s record and to seal or destroy the state’s records of the arrest, charge, and/or conviction." The site goes...
Libraries in the Internet Age
Thanks to Eric Jackson, I've started a conversation with Jim Blanton, the new Buncombe County Library Director. We talked about ways in which the tech community, including Code for Asheville, might be able to support the general public with the internet. The idea is...
Open Buncombe: Trust Through Transparency
At the July Community Night, we continued our work to advocate for an open data policy for Buncombe County. We've created a draft policy, a logo, and a web page for the campaign, and we're ready to start spreading the word about this important effort! Do you know...
Sunshine Request Turns Two
Sunshine Request celebrated its second birthday this March by receiving the 2019 Sunshine Award for Advocacy given by the North Carolina Open Government Coalition. The website, a project of PRC Apps by Code for Asheville members Patrick Conant, Jesse Michel, Lauren...
Turning Requests Into Results: Policing Data at Open Data Day
More than 25 people, including a few new faces and several members of BeLoved's Homeless Voice, joined us on Saturday for Open Data Day 2019. This year's event focused on ways to use the policing open data that began to be released last year. Jesse Michel and Patrick...
Open Data for Buncombe Is Underway
Code for Asheville's February community night, on Valentine's Day, was dedicated to love of open data—specifically, to our plan to push for an open data policy for Buncombe County government. In 2015, Code for Asheville members and supporters led the initiative to...
Code Purple Text Alerts Help People Stay Warm
Brrrrrrr. It's warm this week, but according to the National Weather Service, Asheville had 20 days last month when the temperature dropped below freezing—and one day when it never rose above freezing. That's not even taking wind chill into account, or freezing rain...