Reset San Francisco | Phil Ting for Assembly 2012

What's your parking ticket story?

The winning stories get their parking tickets paid!

By: San Francisco Small Business Owners for Fairness

Have you ever parked at a meter in front of your favorite local shop, only to realize you don't have any change? You run into the nearest corner store to get change, run back to your car and find a $65.00 parking ticket slapped on your windshield.

It happens all the time. Every car in San Francisco gets an average of four tickets a year. If I didn’t know better, I'd swear that the MTA had some kind of satellite technology that knows when your meter is just about to run out. And if you feel like the situation is getting worse, you’re right. Read More

Honk If You Think Transportation in San Francisco is One Big Mess

San Francisco Taxi Drivers Protest Credit Card Fees Outside City Hall

Hundreds of San Francisco cab drivers honked their horns and circled City Hall from 12-2pm on Tuesday to protest the Municipal Transportation Agency’s ruling to allow cab companies to charge a 5% fee on all credit card transactions.

The strike was organized by Tariq Mehmood, a cabbie whose goal was to create a taxi gridlock during the MTA’s 1pm meeting to address taxi fares. Indeed, the streets around City Hall were jam-packed with taxis refusing to take passengers, slowing traffic to a crawl.

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How do I report a crime in San Francisco online?

The only thing worse than having your unattended laptop stolen at a Peet’s coffee shop is then having to go to the SFPD to file a report for that stolen laptop. The San Francisco Police Department now offers this service online...sort of... However, the difficult and burdensome in-person process is now just a difficult and burdensome process you can complete online. While points are given for this attempt to embrace the demand for more Web 2.0 tools, this feature misses the mark. Read More

Crowdsourcing the Classroom – Education 2.0

Here at Reset San Francisco we know that Twitter has evolved from just 140 characters about what you ate for breakfast to a powerful communication and marketing tool. So it seems a logical next step for Twitter to enter the realm of education and lead the way for Education 2.0. Some teachers are utilizing Twitter's real-time public conversation to help their students learn.Twittering teachers are making Education 2.0 a reality, by using Twitter to increase student participation and classroom discussion. Additionally, by allowing students to tweet answers to questions, otherwise shy students can find their voice and engage in dialogue without having to raise their hand. Read More

Why is San Francisco So Dirty?

A new America’s Favorite Cities survey by Travel + Leisure readers ranked San Francisco among the dirtiest cities in the nation. San Francisco came in at #12 out of 20. But hey, the good news is that at least we ranked better than Los Angeles, which came in as the third dirtiest big city. Read More

Senior Fiscal Policy Advisor for California Forward Speaks at SPUR Lunch Forum

Governor Jerry Brown’s veto of the proposed budget is just one more data point highlighting California’s government dysfunction.

Since Government 2.0 is so much more than fancy apps – it is the hard work of creating a government architecture that isn’t constantly crashing – we headed down to San Francisco’s leading think tank last week to hear from one of our state’s leading government reform organizations, California Forward (CAFWD).

The San Francisco Urban Planning and Research Association (SPUR) was hosting Fred Silva from California Forward to discuss his organization’s vision for restructuring California’s budget process and government framework. The lunch forum took place at SPUR’s Urban Center located at 654 Mission. Read More

Resetting in Action - What's Happening in Other Cities?

Code for America is working proactively to close the digital divide and advance

Resetting in Action - What's Happening in Other Cities?

At Reset, we’re always keeping our eyes open for new and innovative uses of Web 2.0 technology to advance the principles of Gov 2.0. We try to shine a light on successful examples of open government, crowdsourcing solutions for urban challenges or using technology to make government faster and more effective.

One group already advancing these aims is Code for America – a San Francisco-based non-profit inspired by the ideal of “helping governments work better for everyone with the people and the power of the web.” Sounds right up our alley, doesn’t it? Read more

MTA Finds One Transit Option Not Broken – Moves to Break It

Reset San Francisco Stories to Follow: SFMTA may regulate private shuttles San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency has a lot on its hands.

From Muni buses that don’t come on time, a search for a new chief (since Nat Ford is leaving and taking his $384,000 severance package with him) and cleaning up yesterday’s light rail mess, it’s hard to imagine MTA wanting to make things even more difficult for themselves.

But if they didn’t, well then they wouldn’t be SFMTA.

According to an SF Examiner article, SFMTA may become more involved in regulating private shuttles that transport thousands of San Francisco residents per day.

How about that? The people who can’t make their own buses run on time may now regulate the people who can. Read More and Take Our Poll

Constitutional Crowdsourcing? Now that’s Gov 2.0!

In Iceland this week, the leaders of one of the world’s most wired nations took crowdsourcing and Gov 2.0 to a new level. They decided to ask their citizens to submit ideas online about the content of Iceland’s new constitution.

As Iceland continues to recover from its economic collapse of 2009, leaders there decided that their constitution – first written in 1944 – needs a re-write. And since in Iceland, 90 percent of homes are connected to the internet and two-thirds of the population are on Facebook, taking it to the people online was the logical way to go.

But if Iceland can write a constitution online, shouldn’t San Francisco be providing a stronger voice for its citizens online? Read More

Time to Guarantee Universal Internet Access for All San Franciscans

By: Phil Ting

We know our city government can be smarter, faster and more democratic by adopting many of the web-based tools that are now transforming our region’s economy.

But as we implement these Gov 2.0 strategies, there is a foundational principle that must be addressed – every single San Franciscan is entitled to the full service of government, not just for those 80% of households with access to the Internet.

That’s why it is time for the city to Guarantee Universal Access to the Internet for every single San Franciscan.

The small cost of this investment will pay for itself many times over, as it will allow us to create a true E-Government while expanding Internet access – the most fundamental tool for our new economy – to all of our residents.