Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Harrell

As you may recall, in August of 2008, I suggested a technology platform for the city that requested the Department of Information Technology (DoIT) to work with other City departments to develop a Public Engagement Portal. The intent of this portal is to engage and listen to our residents more effectively and to optimize two-way communications between policy leaders and residents. The Mayor’s office and my colleagues on the council have been very supportive and have provided valuable feedback and input during this process. I have advanced 10 primary reasons to support a Public Engagement Portal:

• 1. Consolidates over 50 available online service registrations to one single login.
• 2. Implements and standardizes online forms and interfaces for resident and business users.
• 3. Reduces user frustration from multiple online accounts and reduces help desks costs.
• 4. Future CRM (Constituent Relationship Management) integration—which will support a ticket feature system and tagging/indexing system.
• 5. Improves City’s communication to residents of available online services.
• 6. Accelerates participation in SPU and SCL’s electronic online billing service which will reduce paper, postage and labor costs.
• 7. Improve Council and Executive’s ability to capture more quantitative feedback from the public.
• 8. The implementation of online polling will allow Seattle’s residents “one-click” access to voicing their opinion on major legislation regarding the City of Seattle.
• 9. Prioritize questions or subjects for Town Hall meetings such as how Google Moderator operates.
• 10. A tool to promote and implement structure around citizen volunteer bases (i.e. block watch formation, regional mentoring strategies…)

The Public Engagement Portal will be accessed online by residents from My.Seattle.Gov. This will be the simple one stop online destination that includes: 1) Single Sign-On (one login account to access a range of online city services), 2) Customizable Home Page, and 3) Public Engagement tools.

Yesterday, at the August 5th Energy and Technology Committee, the committee approved $50,000 to continue funding the development of the Public Engagement Portal. The funds will be used for project management, technical consultation, software, and licensing. The projected “Go Live” date for the Public Engagement Portal and My.Seattle.Gov is the second quarter of 2010. Additionally, I will provide an update at the Open Government Committee on Friday, August 7th. The Open Government Committee is a special council committee overseeing the improvement of communication between the Council and the citizens of Seattle. Stay tune for frequent updates on this project.

My.Seattle.Gov
Public Engagement Portal Initiative High Level Proposal

(as required by proviso in 2009 City Council Budget Action (Green Sheet) 133-1-B-1)

1. The Department of Information Technology’s Citywide Web Team (CWT) will, with the cooperation of City departments, develop a Public Engagement Portal, which is a personalized version of Seattle.gov that allows users to select the City web services that are most important to them and display those services in the way they choose.

2. The Public Engagement Portal will be called My.Seattle.Gov.

3. Fundamental features of My.Seattle.Gov include Single Sign-On (SSO), which will provide users the ability to log in once to access a wide range of services available on Seattle.gov, and on-line surveying, which will provide a means of receiving public input online and in a cost-effective manner.

4. The CWT will work closely with the Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) system’s development team (in the Department of Executive Administration) to ensure that My.Seattle.Gov and CRM are compatible and tightly integrated.

5. Other services proposed to be offered via the My.Seattle.Gov portal:

• Utility bill payment and billing/use information
• Payment of taxes and fees
• Applications and payments for permits, classes, facilities reservations, etc.
• Customizable access to Seattle.gov informational services like My Neighborhood Map, City Events Calendar, News Releases, Weather, Seattle Channel Video, podcasts & RSS feeds, and others

6. Integrating the My.Seattle.Gov portal with City web applications will, in many cases, require modifications to the existing systems. The CWT expects to launch the initial version My.Seattle.Gov, with selected offering of services, in the second quarter of 2010. Additional services will be added as they are modified to be compatible with the My.Seattle.Gov portal.

7. The amount of Public Engagement Portal funding under proviso is $175,000 in 2009. Of this, $125,000 is designated to fund a new IT Professional-A position. The Citywide Web Team’s subsequent research indicates that there are several products on the market which will make the development of My.Seattle.Gov less complex and time consuming, without compromising the scope of services proposed. Thus, the Department of Information Technology believes that the additional IT Professional-A position will not be required and requests that Council lift the proviso solely for the remaining $50,000 for 2009 to be used for software, licensing, project management and consultant services.