Heard that before eh? Does it even exist? Depends on who you ask.
What is transparency in government? Posting the city’s payroll online or the check register? What's the point? Knowing who makes what or where the city spends the money is of no value to the general public.
Of the 36,972 worcesterma.gov visitors from February, where did they go? Think they were watching Council, Boards, or Commission videos? Nope. WPD, voter registration, or assessments? Who knows. Would be interesting to know where folks go on the city's site. That would be transparency.
Putting the WPD’s online crimes reporting is for some locals interesting, it satisfies their morbid fascination with Wusta’s underbelly. Or knowing that a crime took place a week ago on the next street over does me no good. Or what happened in Tatnuck or Main South last week, means nothing to me.
Yeah, we got our share of crime around here, some of it regularly takes place near our property - drug dealers, drunk students, B&E’s, and yes, stalkers too. Even got prostitutes. They usually show up during the St. Spyridon's Festival. Seriously.
We even got a neighborhood crime watch guy, Jim May, aka ElmParkBlogger, occasionally wandering the streets with his half-blind mutts, certainly doesn't instill a feeling of security among the neighbors. The fact is, the crimes happen in the AM, not after dinner when Jim May makes the rounds. But a timely call to the WPD usually puts a damper on illicit activity. At least for a while. But it always comes back with or without Jim May standing guard. Interestingly, after we installed cameras around our property, we had a drop in illicit activities. Oh, the crime is still there, it’s just taking place a block away. Anyway, I’ll take cameras over mutts any day. No poop to clean up.
The point is, even seeing daily crime reports means nothing to the average citizen. Recalling Mike Benedetti’s recent APB about some guy’s stolen wallet (it was on the WPD's page). Still haven’t figured out if that was a pre-April Fool’s prank or was Mike Benedetti serious. Putting out an APB to local bloggers (like all 3 of em) is just plain dumb. Or is that the beginning of online vigilanteism? Lots of that goin around eh.
Still Mike Benedetti has our interests in mind. He’s now calling for city government meetings to be posted online in multiple video formats. Yup, you read that right. What for? Please don’t say, because other cities do it. They don’t. Okay then, it’s good for democracy? Come on, really now. What’s the point? However some of Mike’s pals are pushing more interesting things like records retention and updated policies. All for it.
Um... have to ask sumptin, why wasn’t City Clerk Rushford already on top of that stuff? Records retention is his job. Oh, must be lack of manpower - too busy performing marriages on city time.
To be continued...
