OpenAustin

www.open-austin.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: - OpenAustin, Jacob Dirr, 512-826-7372, jakedirr@gmail.com - City of Austin, Texas, Communications and Public Information Office, 512-974-2220 - Code for America, Abhi Nemani, abhi@codeforamerica.org, 415-625-9632 7/11/2011 -- The City of Austin has been chosen as one of 10 finalists to participate in a ground breaking collaboration with Code for America (www.codeforamerica.org), a national nonprofit, to promote government transparency. Code for America enlists the talent of the web industry into public service to use their skills to solve core problems facing communities. More than 20 cities entered a competition to partner with the organization. The organization is modeled after Teach for America and focuses on recruiting innovative technologists into the civic Web and application development field. Austin is one of 10 finalists, which will be narrowed down to five to eight city partners for the Code for America 2012 program. Selected cities will be announced in the fall. The announcement comes months after OpenAustin (www.open-austin.org), a memberdriven organization that promotes open government, open data and civic application development in Austin, formed to begin working with the city's Web development team to create an open data portal. OpenAustin is also advocating for local passage of the model open government directives adopted by the federal government and the City of San Francisco. "The Code for America announcement is great news for Austin's open government and civic technology efforts, said Julio Gonzalez Altamirano, one of OpenAustin's driving members. We have a lot of work to do to be a national leader and Code for America will accelerate existing grassroots efforts." The City of Austin is presently in the process of redeveloping its website presence with internal developer resources after opposition by OpenAustin led to the rejection of an out-of-town vendor. Separately, Austin City Council so far has authorized spending $399,000 to hire outside attorneys to provide advice to bring the city into compliance with the Texas Open Meetings Act and to defend a Texas Public Information Act lawsuit by the Austin Bulldog, which is not associated with OpenAustin. Austin Council Member Laura Morrison, who serves as Chair of the Austin City Councils Emerging Technology and Telecommunications committee, said a partnership with Code For America has the potential to position Austin at the forefront of open government and civic engagement, which is exactly where we should be. OpenAustin applauds city leaders for moving towards an open data model of governance and recognizes it as an important step to fulfilling Mayor Lee Leffingwell's campaign pledges of making City Hall more transparent and inclusive. On the Web: www.open-austin.org and www.codeforamerica.org/2012-city-finalists/austin/ City of Austin announcement: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/austingo/austingo_details.cfm?nwsid=3677

www.open-austin.org Editors note: The correct style for OpenAustin is no spaces, capital O and A.