Drafter
Clerk 05/12/2010
Title
AN ORDINANCE relating to establishing a requirement for the county to strive to publish existing, high value data sets appropriate for unrestricted public access on a single web site; and adding a new section to K.C.C. chapter 2.16.
Body
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. Many cities, including San Francisco, New York, Seattle and Washington, D.C., have released public data to web and mobile application developers in order to allow for the development of web or mobile applications that will benefit the public. For example, San Francisco has released selected crime data that has allowed application developers to develop web and mobile applications that provide interactive crime maps so that citizens can map the crime patterns in their neighborhood.
2. The federal government, as part of its Open Government Directive, requires all federal agencies to release high-value data sets. There are now over one thousand federal data sets available on the federal government's open data web site. Examples of data sets released by the federal government include air quality data, on-time flight data and data on federal recreation sites.
3. Data that resides in technology systems is different from information such as documents, emails and calendars in that it is structured and can be used by other computer applications for analysis or to develop web or mobile applications that display the data in new ways.
4. Providing access to county data can lead to innovation in how the public interacts with government, resulting in social and economic benefits for the county.
5. King County has a long history of innovation and is home to hundreds of technology companies that are changing the way the world operates.
6. By publishing county data in one location, King County seeks to encourage innovation, entrepreneurs and job development and to increase public access to government information.
7. Citizens are the greatest asset of any government. There are many...
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