SOMERVILLE BECOMES FIRST COMMUNITY IN NEW ENGLAND TO HOST DATA ON CLOUD-BASED SOCRATA PORTAL

The OpenData initiative is

the latest in a series of City steps to provide information online.  In 2006, Somerville became the first city in

the nation to offer a combined 311-CitiStat-mass notification constituent

communications and work order tracking system. 

The City's ResiStat program, which provides neighborhood-based data summaries

for public meetings and discussions, was introduced in 2007.  The City's somervillema.gov website has

earned Common Cause's E-Government Award for five consecutive years.

"Somerville has continually

been at the forefront of innovative government management and transparency, and

we're excited to roll out this latest data tracking tool to bring real time

information to residents," said Mayor Curtatone.  "As part of our ACE Initiative - Accurate,

Courteous, and Easy customer service - our goal is to provide residents with

the best possible experience with all of our City departments, and through this

OpenData portal offered by Socrata, we'll be able to offer additional services

and follow up to our constituents, further ensuring that all needs are met and

all concerns adequately answered."

"Since its inception in 2006,

the focus of 311 has always been to provide excellent customer service to our

residents, and to make access to City Hall as easy as possible," said Director

of Constituent Services, Steve Craig. 

"We are excited about this new partnership with Socrata, which will

further our mission to make this kind of information available to the public in

real-time and provide another way for us to engage residents. We look forward

to seeing what new and innovative ideas our constituents come up with once they

are able to dive in and review the data for themselves."

The initial dataset will be

posted n July, with additional information posting to the site in subsequent

months.  Data available on the portal

will include (but not be limited to): 

• 311 work orders and related data;

• Geospatial and mapping data;

• Public safety data:
  
  Moving vehicle violations,
  
  crime stats by neighborhood, parking violations;

• Health and ISD information;

• Budget and government expenditures

Through the portal, community

members will be able to track and map work orders and other important

information by neighborhoods, streets, or citywide, in an interactive and

user-friendly format.  OpenData will

utilize data tracked through Intelligov, the City's current work order

management vendor through 311, as well as data analyzed by SomerStat, 311, and

other City departments.  Most data will

be available in real time - the public will see it at the same time as city

managers.

"In the last year, we have

updated our City's websites, including the main City webpage, Traffic &

Parking, and others, as well as begun to post "ACE Scorecards," identifying

exactly how our City departments measure up to work order management

expectations.  With Socrata, we will

offer a more in-depth look into City data, allowing residents to hold us even

more accountable for work orders and follow-up," Mayor Curtatone said.

 About

Socrata

Socrata is the leading

developer and provider of Open Data cloud services, a category of Web 2.0

solutions that enable public sector organizations to dramatically improve

citizen access to information and online services, while reducing costs.

The Socrata Open Data

Platform^TM optimizes the management and speeds up the dissemination of data-driven

interactive content to citizen, professional and internal government audiences,

through multiple interfaces: Web, social, mobile, API, apps, voice, SMS.

Information assets include tabular data, geospatial data, unstructured content

and real-time data from government transactional systems of record.

Socrata customers include

cities such as Seattle, Edmonton, Chicago and New York City; states such as

Oregon, Illinois and Oklahoma; and federal agencies such as Medicare, SAMHSA

and GSA (Data.gov). Socrata is a private company, based in Seattle, Washington,

with venture financing from Frazier Technology Ventures and Morgenthaler

Ventures. To learn more about Socrata, visit www.socrata.com.