The city of Elk Grove on Wednesday launched a new online platform to engage residents in budget development.
The cloud-based tool, called “Open City Hall,” presents topics to participants who can contribute their opinion and read what others say on a variety of topics. Officials plan to use responses from forums, as well as information gathered at Budget Town Hall meetings in January and February, to help develop the fiscal year 2017-18 annual budget.
The first and only question currently posted on the site is “How would you spend $500 of general purpose tax revenue in the city of Elk Grove?” The topic allows residents to create their own budgets and write in general feedback on how they believe the city should allocate the funds. Residents are also given the option to share their budget on the website with their name, without their name or only to city staff without their name.
"We want the public to be part of the process, and they’re already online," said Elk Grove City Manager Laura Gill in an announcement. "Open City Hall is a cost-effective way to empower more residents to participate in city decisions from the privacy and convenience of their own home, or anywhere."
Potential forums discussed for the future include topics such as General Plan Update, public transportation, maintenance projects and more.
Elk Grove launched the tool in collaboration with Berkeley-based Peak Democracy, which provides the Open City Hall platform to cities and counties in Canada and the U.S., including California locales Novato, Palo Alto, Vallejo, Walnut Creek and Salinas, and the Metropolitan Transit Commission.
