8 ms·

I'm kind of on a negative streak these days, so forgive me, reader, but...why in god's green earth aren't these the government's hobbies?!

toomuchtodo 8y ago
You’re not wrong, not in the slightest. The benefit is the system allows concerned citizens to step in to make improvements at very little cost. Democracy requires constant vigilance in many forms. This is one such form. Matt, we salute you and your efforts! I hope this encourages others to get involved in improving their local government (and perhaps even creates reusable tooling for use at scale [“citizen oversight as code”]).
__jal 8y ago
Because different people have different priorities. Remember, you're part of the government.
- stavrianos 8y ago
  > Remember, you're part of the government. This is a really important idea, and I don't think I've seen it expressed so clearly before. Thank you.
paxy 8y ago
Because it goes completely against the interests of local governments. You will be amazed to see how large a portion of your city and police department's budgets are from fines.
- actuallyalys 8y ago
  That's true of some fines in some places, but to be clear, it's not really true of parking fines in Chicago. The graph in the article indicates there's about $1 million dollars in tickets issued each year. That's around $ .30 per resident and less than one percent of the billions in revenue the city takes in each year (https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/obm/supp_info/2018Budget/2018_Budget_Overview.pdf https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/obm/sup..., see page 23 in particular) I did notice that fines in general amount to $300 million a year, so other fines might well be inflated.
  - sjburt 8y ago
    I believe the y-axis on that graph (assuming you refer to the last graph) is the number of parking tickets, not the dollar amount of fines. So more like $50 to $100 million in parking fines per year.
    - actuallyalys 8y ago
      You're absolutely right. The graph could have been clearer, but I should have double-checked my assumptions and that $.30 per resident figure should have been a red flag. I apologize for that basic error. Looking into this more, it sounds like, while there probably is a perverse incentive because more tickets equals a significant increase in revenue, the biggest problem is the punitive fines for minor non-traffic offenses that tend to compound for poorer residents: https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/02/how-does-chicago-make-200-million-a-year-on-parking-tickets-by-bankrupting-thousands-of-drivers/ https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/02/how-does-c.... Note the headline is a little misleading, they seem to mean "non-moving violations".
forgotmypw 8y ago
This one change cost the government 60K. If changes like this are implemented all over the city, how will they pay for the IBM contract?
- Fjolsvith 8y ago
  Civil forfeiture?
- nerdponx 8y ago
  Heaven forbid that bidding be competitive and that contractors be held accountable.
- actuallyalys 8y ago
  That's nothing at the scale of Chicago. Their seven-cent tax on plastic bags is expected to bring in $9 million dollars this year (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-chicago-bag-tax-use-declined-0808-biz-20170807-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-chicago-bag-tax-us...).
- SahAssar 8y ago
  Perhaps they wouldn't need such an expensive contract if they didn't have to process so many tickets caused by bad signage?
taneq 8y ago
Because it's nigh impossible to get someone to understand something (much less actively do large amounts of work to fix it) when their income (or department budget) depends on them not understanding it.
xbryanx 8y ago
When is...dear educated technologists...the last time you even slightly considered working for city government? Alas, our best and brightest aren't serving the people. They toil at advertising.
- mLuby 8y ago
  This is something the public can control. Make government positions competitive with corporate ones and you'll get a bunch more talented (and patriotic) "educated technologists" working in government. Likewise with teachers. It's not difficult, just costly.
  - garmaine 8y ago
    Not just competitive, but better paying. Take Taiwan and other East Asian countries—government service is desirable, high paying, and a really prestigious job. And lo and behold, their government services really do work very well.
    - dmix 8y ago
      This is why I'm fiscally conservative while also believing public servants should make market rates. Which also means pushing back against obsessing about total employment counts at x rate but rather focusing on the specific utility of individual agencies, policies, and projects. Sadly public salaries and jobs in general are low hanging fruit targeted by short-sighted political campaigns while all other gov spending tends to be a black hole with zero measurable ROI and countless professional public grant/gov money consumers well aware of the lack of measurable ROI and crony/who-you-know-in-gov nature of spending. Or worse the phony claims of adopting 'private industry' to side step accountability via public-private arrangements which feature none of the benefits of markets (true competition, state anointed monopolies, market dominance disconnected from value provided to consumers, etc). Most of which could be blanketly solved by hiring good people (the people who dispense and use the money) and not creating quid-pro-quo incentive systems by underpaying public servants.
      - 8y ago
thatjsguy 8y ago
Because the people who should be working hard to change government simply aren’t. In the US, city governments ARE “the people”. If you have a city council, start going to meetings. It’s a great way to see how your local government actually works (or doesn’t work), and you might even meet some interesting people in the process. Otherwise, run for local office or try to get on a board or a commission. It’s not sexy, but this stuff, especially things like transportation and zoning, have the most impact at the municipal level, and it’s remarkably easy to get involved.
- ddingus 8y ago
  Truth. My city has a thing called a target area. The idea being to spiff a region up, and rotate them to keep the city vital and livable overall. They send a facillitator, who gathers interested people. Some projects get identified and everyone does their part. The people in need of city resources or people get an introduction and help navigating things. Everyone else plays a role. Labor, outside (not city budget) fundraising, planning, feed the people, organizing, whatever. My group used it's few years well. Traffic flow changes, a small park made from abandoned property, refurbish the school play areas and equipment. It took a bit of time and some sweat, but not too much. And I can drive through today and see that net good. Some of the people I worked with did exactly what you just said, and for basic, make it better, reasons.
ssdd 8y ago
Nice humor :)
ddingus 8y ago
Right? They could be. And having a beer or two with govt people will reveal these kinds of desires and ideas. I have had those chats in the past. Got involved in a legislative effort and was given a sort of insiders view, tour. What gets in the way, the number one thing, is money. Not lack of it so much as priorities and ripple effects. Fixing the signs is a net public good. The ripple effect might be revenue targets going down, and the priority being that revenue being made from inane parking tickets all make for a bit of a mess. The number two is people forgetting or ignoring who works for who and why. There are lots of little fiefdoms, all closely guarded. Barriers where there really should be collaboration. And on that note, collaboration can be expensive. Sure, we can step out of your way on this, but about that school levy...
gadders 8y ago
What, work to reduce their revenue?
gnopgnip 8y ago
The government is a collection of people with the own motivations. It is more likely that people working in the government would use their time to further their own personal beliefs than to fix a problem that does not affect them

toomuchtodo 8y ago

You’re not wrong, not in the slightest. The benefit is the system allows concerned citizens to step in to make improvements at very little cost. Democracy requires constant vigilance in many forms. This is one such form. Matt, we salute you and your efforts! I hope this encourages others to get involved in improving their local government (and perhaps even creates reusable tooling for use at scale [“citizen oversight as code”]).

__jal 8y ago

Because different people have different priorities. Remember, you're part of the government.

stavrianos 8y ago
> Remember, you're part of the government. This is a really important idea, and I don't think I've seen it expressed so clearly before. Thank you.

paxy 8y ago

Because it goes completely against the interests of local governments. You will be amazed to see how large a portion of your city and police department's budgets are from fines.

actuallyalys 8y ago
That's true of some fines in some places, but to be clear, it's not really true of parking fines in Chicago. The graph in the article indicates there's about $1 million dollars in tickets issued each year. That's around $ .30 per resident and less than one percent of the billions in revenue the city takes in each year (https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/obm/supp_info/2018Budget/2018_Budget_Overview.pdf https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/obm/sup..., see page 23 in particular) I did notice that fines in general amount to $300 million a year, so other fines might well be inflated.
- sjburt 8y ago
  I believe the y-axis on that graph (assuming you refer to the last graph) is the number of parking tickets, not the dollar amount of fines. So more like $50 to $100 million in parking fines per year.
  - actuallyalys 8y ago
    You're absolutely right. The graph could have been clearer, but I should have double-checked my assumptions and that $.30 per resident figure should have been a red flag. I apologize for that basic error. Looking into this more, it sounds like, while there probably is a perverse incentive because more tickets equals a significant increase in revenue, the biggest problem is the punitive fines for minor non-traffic offenses that tend to compound for poorer residents: https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/02/how-does-chicago-make-200-million-a-year-on-parking-tickets-by-bankrupting-thousands-of-drivers/ https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2018/02/how-does-c.... Note the headline is a little misleading, they seem to mean "non-moving violations".

forgotmypw 8y ago

This one change cost the government 60K. If changes like this are implemented all over the city, how will they pay for the IBM contract?

Fjolsvith 8y ago
Civil forfeiture?
nerdponx 8y ago
Heaven forbid that bidding be competitive and that contractors be held accountable.
actuallyalys 8y ago
That's nothing at the scale of Chicago. Their seven-cent tax on plastic bags is expected to bring in $9 million dollars this year (http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-chicago-bag-tax-use-declined-0808-biz-20170807-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-chicago-bag-tax-us...).
SahAssar 8y ago
Perhaps they wouldn't need such an expensive contract if they didn't have to process so many tickets caused by bad signage?

taneq 8y ago

Because it's nigh impossible to get someone to understand something (much less actively do large amounts of work to fix it) when their income (or department budget) depends on them not understanding it.

xbryanx 8y ago

When is...dear educated technologists...the last time you even slightly considered working for city government? Alas, our best and brightest aren't serving the people. They toil at advertising.

mLuby 8y ago
This is something the public can control. Make government positions competitive with corporate ones and you'll get a bunch more talented (and patriotic) "educated technologists" working in government. Likewise with teachers. It's not difficult, just costly.
- garmaine 8y ago
  Not just competitive, but better paying. Take Taiwan and other East Asian countries—government service is desirable, high paying, and a really prestigious job. And lo and behold, their government services really do work very well.
  - dmix 8y ago
    This is why I'm fiscally conservative while also believing public servants should make market rates. Which also means pushing back against obsessing about total employment counts at x rate but rather focusing on the specific utility of individual agencies, policies, and projects. Sadly public salaries and jobs in general are low hanging fruit targeted by short-sighted political campaigns while all other gov spending tends to be a black hole with zero measurable ROI and countless professional public grant/gov money consumers well aware of the lack of measurable ROI and crony/who-you-know-in-gov nature of spending. Or worse the phony claims of adopting 'private industry' to side step accountability via public-private arrangements which feature none of the benefits of markets (true competition, state anointed monopolies, market dominance disconnected from value provided to consumers, etc). Most of which could be blanketly solved by hiring good people (the people who dispense and use the money) and not creating quid-pro-quo incentive systems by underpaying public servants.
    - 8y ago

thatjsguy 8y ago

Because the people who should be working hard to change government simply aren’t. In the US, city governments ARE “the people”. If you have a city council, start going to meetings. It’s a great way to see how your local government actually works (or doesn’t work), and you might even meet some interesting people in the process. Otherwise, run for local office or try to get on a board or a commission. It’s not sexy, but this stuff, especially things like transportation and zoning, have the most impact at the municipal level, and it’s remarkably easy to get involved.

ddingus 8y ago
Truth. My city has a thing called a target area. The idea being to spiff a region up, and rotate them to keep the city vital and livable overall. They send a facillitator, who gathers interested people. Some projects get identified and everyone does their part. The people in need of city resources or people get an introduction and help navigating things. Everyone else plays a role. Labor, outside (not city budget) fundraising, planning, feed the people, organizing, whatever. My group used it's few years well. Traffic flow changes, a small park made from abandoned property, refurbish the school play areas and equipment. It took a bit of time and some sweat, but not too much. And I can drive through today and see that net good. Some of the people I worked with did exactly what you just said, and for basic, make it better, reasons.

ssdd 8y ago

Nice humor :)

ddingus 8y ago

Right? They could be. And having a beer or two with govt people will reveal these kinds of desires and ideas. I have had those chats in the past. Got involved in a legislative effort and was given a sort of insiders view, tour. What gets in the way, the number one thing, is money. Not lack of it so much as priorities and ripple effects. Fixing the signs is a net public good. The ripple effect might be revenue targets going down, and the priority being that revenue being made from inane parking tickets all make for a bit of a mess. The number two is people forgetting or ignoring who works for who and why. There are lots of little fiefdoms, all closely guarded. Barriers where there really should be collaboration. And on that note, collaboration can be expensive. Sure, we can step out of your way on this, but about that school levy...

gadders 8y ago

What, work to reduce their revenue?

gnopgnip 8y ago

The government is a collection of people with the own motivations. It is more likely that people working in the government would use their time to further their own personal beliefs than to fix a problem that does not affect them