Nice

Brewster, I am drafting an open data ordinance which, after some reviews and edits, will be submitted to the council for consideration. The school district is, of course, governed separately, but it may be worth submitting resolutions that the board can vote on. I have to say that I found the new school district website to be *less* navigable than the former one. I'll be glad to talk to you about the matter whenever you want.

WOW! What an insane idea, to make public documents comprehensible. Can't wait for it. Can I suggest putting the JC School District budget on the queue? I tried once to delve into the "layman friendly" version and it was impenetrable, with terms that were undefined, and undefinable even using google.

And something tells me Mr Phurst will get an extra snuggle tonight...

Awesome job. I hear the woman who designed the program has a very cool husband too.....

Congratulations to Open JC, who took 1st prize at the NY "PDF Liberation Hackathon." See here for more info on the win: https://github.com/pdfliberation/Jersey-City-Budget-PDF-Liberation. Also, to understand value-add of these efforts, check out Open Oakland's budget visualization for an idea of how city budget data can be transformed into a visual display that anyone really can analyze and start to digest (Oakland's example shows the ultimate goal with respect to taking data, digitizing it, and then visually presenting for greatest end-user ease/accessibility): http://openbudgetoakland.org/2012-2013-sankey.html.

Open JC is comprised of our neighbors who aim to help push Jersey City's government into the 21st century; it's a local chapter of Code for America Brigade supporting civic hacking in Jersey City.

I'm a member of Open JC, but more an interloper / interested citizen at this point since I do not have the "hacking" skill set. I think what they are working on is truly fantastic.

Just wanted to socialize their efforts, say congrats and thanks to the hackers for their efforts, and hope that others take some time to learn about Open JC (http://openjerseycity.org).

Would be interested to learn what others think of this, and how you think open data can benefit the city, after you've had time to learn a bit more about it.