What Works?? The Cycle of Transparency Here In Mesa = Broken

Government transparency is that rarest of political phenomena -- a great idea with support across the political spectrum and popularity among the public.
Yet, here we are in the 21st century with every tool we would need to make government more transparent and accountable, and still we are operating with a government that often behaves as it did in the 19th century.
[Mesa founded in 1878]
So, transparent government is a good thing, but we do not yet have one
Source: Sunlight Foundation [2010]
Now what? . . . notice the word "now" // not "NextMesa"
Take a look at this transparency cycle - what's broken here in Mesa is public engagement.

For the annual State-of-The-City speech back in January - and frequently thereafter - the words "Things are great" start the newspeak.
When your MesaZona blogger recently posed a question to mayor John Giles why there had been nothing published about his campaign for NextMesa since August of last year he replied that it had failed to engage people, getting "more luck" using social media.

Having made the effort and taken the time to be at various City Council regular and study sessions and advisory board/committee meetings where the public is officially "encouraged to attend", few are seen in council chambers and public comments are unusual. Indeed, one member of a board stated he hadn't seen any public comments for ten years!
However, in recent City Council gatherings the audience has been overwhelming stacked by city government employees filling up the room that's usually close to empty.
It's clear that there is a breakdown between conceptual support for the idea of government transparency and enacting the changes necessary to make it so.
There is fear and resistance to change inside government that requires cultural, political, and attitude adjustments.

And there's a large gap between the good intentions of citizens and watchdog groups and think tanks and reporters, and translating those good intentions into effective results.
Many people want to act, but they rarely know how or where to begin.
For many, the concept of transparency still simply feels too vague to get behind in a meaningful way. People strongly support transparency in theory, but don't know what they would need to do, or how they would need to think, to create the "open, transparent government" we talk about.
Welcome to the City of Mesa open data portal
We are excited to celebrate Open Data Day by launching, for the first time, Mesa’s open data portal, which will make it easier for citizens to access data and learn more about the progress Mesa is making towards addressing city-wide priorities.  The City of Mesa as part of What Works Cities, an initiative of Bloomberg Philanthropies, has committed to using data and evidence based practices to improve the lives of Mesa residents. 
Is that what open data and transparency is all about??
Data housed under each priority will be used to inform decisions on policies and programs that positively contribute to the city-wide priorities. The City of Mesa welcomes residents to explore the data found on this site to stay informed on the progress Mesa is making to improve resident’s lives.  We also welcome your feedback and participation, which is what open data is all about!  Feedback will be incorporated into the portal as you can check back here for future updates and even suggest a data set. 

The City of Mesa would also like to recognize our partners that assisted us along the way.  Our participation in What Works Cities has been of great value and their partners, Results for America, the Sunlight Foundation, and the Center for Government Excellence at John’s Hopkins University have been instrumental to incorporating the use of data and evidence into decision making and launching the portal to share that information freely with residents.

We've grappled with these challenges at Sunlight since our founding four years ago, and have been thinking about it with increased urgency over the last year in particular. How do we connect all the necessary parties and resources, and how do we put them together and act on them in the right way to actually make government more open and transparent?
We know that at the heart of the open, transparent government we seek is 'open' government data that is available online and in real-time.

Government information should be as accessible to us as information about the weather, sports scores or knowing what's going on in the stock market -- and we need it to be this way so we can both hold government accountable and create new enterprise with what is made available to us.
In order to reach our vision of an open government - or an online, real-time government - we also know there are a number of "things" that must occur - and not just occur once, but continue to happen over time and continuously reinforce each other along the way.
Take a look at the biggest pieces of the Pie Chart by expenditures -money spent.
Does the City have A BLOATED BUREAUCRACY for personnel?
...and more to the point: Why such  HUGE service???
This "Cycle of Transparency" demonstrates, in one image, the specific actions and the variety of actors that need to work together to create the open, transparent government we seek. We hope this graphic can be a useful tool in thinking about how to make city, state, federal, and even international governments more transparent.
Each type of actor and action complements the others in the Cycle to make every other element easier, or even possible at all. Of great importance is that just about anyone - from hardcore Internet developers to academics to government staff to reporters to activists - has a place in it.
One of the first places we often start in talking about transparency is in the crafting of policies that require the release of data from government. While no one piece of this Cycle is "first" or more important than others, the legislative component is a useful starting point. (Mostly because it's the first one we wrote down.)
Lawmakers, lobbyists and think tanks (as well as citizens) all play a role in articulating new transparency policies and pushing them through the twists and turns of government processes.
Those policies must adhere to core principles of openness, such as making sure government data is "raw," that it is complete, or that it is searchable (in total, there are nine of these openness principles that government data should adhere to).
With data being made easily accessible, journalists and bloggers can begin to dig into it, mix it up, identify relevant information and give the data context. As that critical context is provided, citizens absorb it and spread the information to others - both online and face-to-face - and make the data actionable.
Ultimately, informed citizen action creates greater public awareness; citizens become more effective, responsible advocates; holding government accountable becomes informed by data rather than "behind-the-scenes" maneuvering, "news spin" from the City of Mesa newsroom, or half-baked Pie-In-The-Sky proposals . . . better decisions can be made for our City.

Additional reporting >>https://ballotpedia.org/Main_Page

Capital Improvement Projects

 http://www.mesaaz.gov/about-us/city-projects/capital-improvement-programs