Frequently Asked Questions
The Big Picture
How Government Agencies Use Open City Hall
How Citizens Use Open City Hall
Technology and Support
The Big Picture
Q: What is Open City Hall?
A: Open City Hall is a service that enables citizens to post statements in an on-line public comment process hosted by a city or other government agency.
Q: How is this different from a blog?
A: Government agencies and bloggers have very different requirements.
For example, a blogger can arbitrarily delete or edit comments submitted by the general public, and can also prohibit comments all together. If a government agency did the same, it would violate the basic free speech rights of a modern democracy.
Q: How does Open City Hall protect free speech while maintaining civility on the web?
A: The conflict between civil speech and free speech is not new, and not restricted to the web. For many years, government agencies have run public meetings under strict rules of order and decorum, designed to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to participate in civil public discourse.
Open City Hall is an on-line public comment process monitored by a neutral third party (Peak Democracy) to have the order and decorum of a government meeting.
Q: How does Peak Democracy monitor Open City Hall to maintain order and decorum on-line?
A: Through Peak Democracy's
moderation,
authentication,
support and
privacy services. Click to read more about each service.
How Government Agencies Use Open City Hall
Q: What is the role of the government agency in an Open City Hall forum?
A: The government agency selects the topics for discussion, writes their introductions, and decides when to open and close the topics.
Q: What is Peak Democracy's role?
A: Peak Democracy provides
moderation,
authentication,
support and
privacy services for each topic. Peak Democracy also provides the government agency with all the technology and support services they need for a successful Open City Hall implementation.
Q: What kinds of topics do government agencies run on Open City Hall?
A: Any topic of interest to the community - typically a mix of general topics and specific agenda items under consideration by a governing council, commission or board.
Q: Does Open City Hall replace existing channels for participation?
A: No. The public can still participate in traditional city council and other government meetings; citizens can still write, phone, fax and/or visit government officials. Open City Hall is simply another opportunity for citizen participation.
Q: What do government agencies do with the statements?
A: In the case of agenda items, government agencies typically download and print statements from the Open City Hall PDF file and include them in the official record for the agency meetings. In other cases, the government agency takes the statements under advisement, and sometimes comments on those statements in newsletters and other public communications.
How Citizens Use Open City Hall
Q: Who can participate?
A: Anyone with a browser.
Q: How do I know which statements come from within my community?
A: Participants must register with Peak Democracy in order to post statements. Registration is free, but requires participants to confidentially submit their full name, home address and email address to Peak Democracy. Peak Democracy displays the city of residence next to each statement.
Q: How do I know that participants have registered using their real city of residence?
A: Though there is no fool-proof protection against fraudulent registration, Peak Democracy's
authentication service provides excellent protection against systematic fraud.
Keep in mind that Open City Hall is not a vote or referendum. Government agencies are mostly interested in the ideas expressed in statements, not the tally of positions held.
Q: To prevent any one person from dominating a meeting, government agencies generally restrict speakers to a single, time-limited statement. Are there similar restrictions on Open City Hall?
A: Yes. Each participant can only submit one statement per topic. This is enforced by software that requires every participant to register, and restricts each registration to one statement per topic.
Q: How do I know that someone isn't posting multiple statements under false registrations?
A: Though there is no fool-proof protection against fraudulent registration, Peak Democracy's
authentication service provides excellent protection against systematic fraud.
Keep in mind that Open City Hall is not a vote or referendum. Government agencies are mostly interested in the ideas expressed in statements, not the tally of positions held.
Technology and Support
Q: What kinds of websites can host Open City Hall forums?
A: Any website can host Open City Hall forums, though they are typically hosted on a government site, a Peak Democracy site (e.g., paloalto.opencityhall.com) or a newspaper site. In fact, one Open City Hall forum could run on multiple websites in parallel.
Q: What are the software, hardware, bandwidth and other IT requirements to run Open City Hall forums on my website?
A: None. You merely need to include an html snippet from Peak Democracy on your website. That snippet contains an iframe tag – as soon as an end-user's browser renders that page, all further communication between the user and the forum occurs between that user's browser and the Peak Democracy servers. Your website need not supply any additional software, hardware or bandwidth.
Q: What are the in-house staffing requirements for a government agency to administer Open City Hall?
A: Under Peak Democracy's annual support plan, government agencies can administer Open City Hall using less than one hour of staff time per topic.
Q: If Open City Hall runs on a Peak Democracy website, will it show advertising?
A: No. Advertising is not appropriate in government meetings, and it is not permitted on any Peak Democracy website.