Archive for LiveChat
One Year In – The Wins
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Photo by Jason Sandford
December 8th will mark one year since I was sworn in as a member of your Asheville City Council. It’s been a learning curve like no other in my life. Thanks for all of the support that’s been offered by friends and all of the prodding that been offered by others. I’ve managed to help get a lot done in this first year, and I’ve still got a ways to go. My colleagues on Council and staff have been patient and helpful as I’ve learned the ropes.
This week I’ll offer some different ways of looking at what’s been accomplished this year. The Wins, The Vote Spreads, and The Chronology will be featured in separate posts to give everyone various ways at looking at what’s what. I reviewed the minutes of all the Council meetings through Nov. 9 and recorded the stuff that I thought would be helpful for my personal reflection as well as your public reflection. It won’t be perfect, but it’s the best you’ll get anywhere.
Today’s chapter, The Wins, focuses on those things that made good on my campaign promises as well as several bonus items. I haven’t gotten everything done yet, but some big strides have been made.
When elected, I promised to try to make Asheville more affordable and more sustainable. I promised to work to increase multimodal infrastructure. I promised to make Asheville more welcoming to her LGBT citizens. I promised to help balance the budget and protect our progressive priorities. After the jump, you’ll find my list of The Wins.
Asheville City Council Live Chat for 08/24/2010
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Asheville City Council LiveChat hasn’t been working for most people, so today I’m introducing a few changes.
ACC-LiveChat is envisioned as a dynamic on-line conversation within the community about local issues important to our city. To make this happen, I used a tool called “CoverItLive.com” to create a chat-room. It was hoped this platform would enable a cross-blog, non-partisan, tool Ashevillians could use to communicate with each other and elected officials.
While at first meeting with initial success, CoverItLive.com’s moderation queue feature creates unreasonable delays for comments. This killed most conversations before they started. Despite several attempts at fixes – nothing has worked.
Therefore we are going to try a new way to make ACC-LiveChat work. Instead of a chat-room, we’re going to use a Twitter-based tool called “Twub” and this blog’s native comments feature.
Details and video web-streaming after the jump:
Asheville City Council Live Chat for 08/10/2010
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s Asheville City Council LiveChat time.
Normally, I use the first few sentences of this post to comment on various aspects of our community. But today I want to address a technical issue: The extremely long lag-time between when you post a comment, and when it shows up in the chat-box.
This is not only frustrating to you, the user, but to me as well. The lag-time discourages conversations, and encourages people to suspect comments are being censored.
I’ve been researching why this happens – and as best I can tell, it’s due to the duel authentication systems in place to discourage trolls. (EG: A Facebook login and an optional open login.)
Since I don’t know which system is causing the delay, I’m going to run an experiment for the next two sessions: This week, there will be an open login – next week will be limited to Facebook logins.
Therefore, there is no moderation this week. Yeah, you read that right. All comments go from your brain, to your fingers, to the chat. Let’s see what happens.
Council’s agenda and supporting documentation can be found here. Those of you new to ACC-LiveChat, be sure to review the guildelines and instructions.
LiveChat box and live web-streaming is available after the jump:
Asheville City Council Live Chat for 07/27/2010
Posted by: | CommentsJuly has been full of fun, fireworks, frolic, festivals, and festivities.
But now it’s back to business. Come join your friends and fellow local-government wonks for this evening’s LiveChat session – which is simulcast across three websites: Ahevegas, AshevilleNow, and ScrutinyHooligans.
Council’s agenda and supporting documentation can be found here. Those of you new to ACC-LiveChat, be sure to review the guildelines and instructions. (Especially if you’re wondering why comments may take a few minutes to show up.)
You can find the online video live-stream and chat-box after the jump. (Chat starts after 5pm. You won’t see a “start” button in the chat box until 5pm.)
Asheville City Council Live Chat for 06/22/2010
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Asheville offers a lot to it’s residents. Frankly, she has more happening during an average weekday than most cities have all week. For example, tonight we have: The Faux Pas Burlesque show (8pm at the club “Eleven On Grove”), Asheville’s Hoop Jam (5:30pm on Pritchard Park), and screenings of this year’s Asheville 48 Hour Film Project. (4-7pm at Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company)
Of course, those of us who love civics and local politics get to participate in tonight’s Asheville City Council LiveChat; which is simulcast across three websites: Ahevegas, AshevilleNow, and ScrutinyHooligans.
Newcomers to ACC-LiveChat should take a few minutes to review the guildelines and instructions. (Especially if you’re wondering why comments may take a few minutes to show up.)
Council’s agenda and supporting documentation can be found here.
Tonight’s agenda includes, but is not limited to: (My own notes are in parenthesis)
- Discussion of policy direction for the Asheville Film Festival. (Should the city run this event?)
- Discussion of restructuring the Grove Arcade Public Market Foundation’s Certificate of Participation payment. (Seems like Grove Arcade, like the Pack Square Conservancy, is having trouble making payments on time.)
- Ordinance adopting the Fiscal Year 2010-11 Annual Operating Budget (Amazing how quiet the community has been over this year’s budget.)
You can find the online video live-stream and chat-box after the jump. (Chat starts after 5pm. You won’t see a “start†button in the chat box until 5pm.)
- pvh
Read More→
Asheville City Council Live Chat for 06/08/2010
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s festival season, and I’m headed out of town for the Bonnaroo Music Festival. Like other Ashevillians attending this massive event, I’ll be Tweeting experiences via #avlbroo.
In the meantime tonight’s ACC-LiveChat will be moderated by Michael “Muchness” Muller. He’s well-known locally for his astute analysis on local politics, and being an all-around wonderful human being.
As usual, Council’s agenda and supporting documentation can be found here. For those of you new to ACC-LiveChat, be sure to review the guildelines and instructions. (Especially if you’re wondering why comments may take a few minutes to show up.)
If you don’t want to participate via this site, ACC-LiveChat is simulcast across two other websites: Ahevegas, and AshevilleNow. Use the Asheville LiveChat FaceBook page for news and information if you’d like to be reminded of upcoming events.
Tonight’s session includes stream buffers, and campaign finance, and UDO revisions – oh my!
You can find the online video live-stream and chat-box after the jump. (Chat starts after 5pm. You won’t see a “start†button in the chat box until 5pm.)
Live Chat for Asheville City Council 05/25/2010
Posted by: | CommentsWe Ashevilleians enjoy glorious mountain vistas, a vibrant local culture, the best beer in the United States, and Asheville City Council LiveChat.
Is this a great town or what? 
The agenda and supporting documentation can be found here. For those of you new to ACC-LiveChat: Please review our guildelines and instructions. The aforementioned link explains why your comments may not show up immediately and other related technical questions.
ACC-LiveChat is simulcast across three websites: ScrutinyHooligans, Ahevegas, and AshevilleNow. If you’d like ACC-LiveChat to show up on your blog or website, fire an email to brainshrub a t gmail dot com.
Please join Asheville LiveChat FaceBook page for news and information as we expand this experiment in participatory democracy and citizen oversight.
Tonight’s session includes a presentation from the Transit Commission, a public hearing on the Fiscal Year 2010-11 Annual Operating Budget, and consideration of outdoor special event co-sponsorships and partnership agreements.
You can find the online video live-stream and chat-box after the jump.
Chat starts after 5pm. You won’t see a “start†button in the chat box until 5pm.
Live Chat for Asheville City Council 05/11/2010
Posted by: | CommentsDays get longer this time of year, but this particular session of Asheville City Council LiveChat is going to go by quickly. In order to meet with the Southern Conference Basketball Tournament, our City Council voted to start today’s session at 4pm and the agenda has been shortened.
The much-shortened agenda and supporting documentation can be found here. For those of you new to LiveChat: It is recommended you review the guidelines and instructions at this link. The aforementioned link explains why your comments don’t show up immediately, and other related technical questions.
In other ACC-LiveChat news:
- Ashevegas now hosts this LiveChat at well. They are the 3rd blog to do so after AshevilleNow and, of course, ScrutinyHooligans. Remember: If you want this LiveChat to show up simultaneously on your blog or website, fire an email to brainshrub a t gmail dot com.
- Asheville LiveChat now has a FaceBook page. Join the page to keep track of what’s going on with ACC-LiveChat.
You can find the online video live-stream and chatbox after the jump.
Live Chat for Asheville City Council 04/27/2010
Posted by: | CommentsApril showers bring May flowers, a POTUS visit, and another Asheville City Council LiveChat session.
Last week we LiveStreamed video for the first time. This week features another innovation: We are willing to share the embed code with most sites regardless of political affiliation. In other words; If you want this LiveChat to show up simultaneously on your blog or website, fire an email to brainshrub a t gmail dot com. AshevilleNow.com already does this with great success. (NOTE: Websites that advocate racism or violence are excluded from this offer.)
For those of you new to LiveChat: It is highly, highly, _highly_ recommended you read the guidelines and instructions. The aforementioned link explains why your comments may not show up immediately and other related technical questions.
More info after the jump.
Live Chat for Asheville City Council 04/13/2010
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s Asheville City Council night, and that means another vibrant LiveChat session.
Come observe, learn, ask questions, and make pithy comments with the rest of the community as we watch civics happening in real-time.
For those of you new to LiveChat: It is _highly_ recommended you review the guidelines and instructions at this link. The aforementioned link explains why your comments don’t show up immediately, and other related technical questions.
In our never-ending quest to expand this experiment in participatory democracy, today’s LiveChat features video web-streaming. Because this requires two embedded codes – you’ll have to follow the jump to see the video and live chat boxes. (English translation: If you’re reading this from the ScrutinyHooligans front page, click “Read More→” to get access to chat & video)
