Proposals For Hoboken. A series of concrete ideas for saving our city.Transparency
It seems everyone is promising "transparency in government" but no one is explaining how they expect to accomplish it.
If elected, I would immediately begin a program to post online all of the city's commitments -- PILOT agreements, union contracts, budgets, any agreement or commitment we have -- in an organized and easy to navigate format. Each would be accompanied by a plain language explanation or summary. Especially important would be an annotated budget with explanations for each line item. I would also initiate a line-by-line comparison to previous years in order to track increases. Our budget has doubled in seven years and we need to identify and address the increases where ever they occurred.
Once this is underway we can begin having informed conversations about how to cut costs, reorganize, or find new solutions for our out of control spending.
Transparency also involves updates on ongoing proposals, negotiations, and new business. We shouldn't have issues suddenly appear without warning.
Another form of transparency would involve organizational charts of the entire municipal government. Who's the head of Environmental Services? What are they responsible for? Don't bother going to hobokennj.org, it's not there. They do have some application forms available if you know where to look, and helpful "Tips for tree pit care" but there's no real organization of useful information. The internet is a powerful tool to give citizens access to their government and we're not taking advantage of it.
Posting documents online isn't enough of course; I'd look into other lines of communication. Maybe a regular column in a local paper, maybe an email list, or something I haven't thought of yet. The point is to get the information to you so you can understand what is being done with your tax dollars.
This is a beginning. Once in office I'm sure lots of other opportunities for sharing information would become apparent. After a while you might get sick of hearing from me. Wouldn't that be nice?
Tom Vincent
