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Good Government

As founder of WikiLaw.org, I believe that the Government and its body of law should be transparent for the people it governs. As founder of VoterSearch.org, I believe that protecting your right to vote is essential to an accountable government. As former Co-Chair of Community Board 8's Communication Committee, I worked to open the community board by announcingcommunity board membership applications and ensuring they were widely available at meetings. I have continued my work with Community Board 8's Communication Committee and we have made its television show "Community Board 8 Speaks" available online.

As your City Council member I will continue the work of making City Hall transparent by making its business available online through the web, PDF, podcast, and YouTube like videos. I will openCity Hall by creating NYC.OpenLegislation.org, a local version of OpenCongress.org, where anyone will be able to share their views on all business, in support of the mission of theParticipatory Politics Foundation. City Hall will become accountable to you the people as NYC.OpenLegislation.org, will let you track business before City Hall and how your representative voted on issues of importance to you.

tirso tavarez

My Issues: 
Affordable Housing
Good Government
Tax Reform
Health
Public Safety
Education
Jobs
Second Avenue Subway Construction

Andy Wagner

My Issues: 
Good Government
Elections
Other
Endorsement: 

I’m supporting Ben Kallos for City Council.

Ben is a progressive Democrat, a good government type and most importantly a good guy.  A techie by temperament (Bronx Science), he became heavily involved in campus Government (SUNY Albany) and then became a lawyer (SUNY Buffalo).  

He has built his career not just engaging in public service, but engaging the public in service. To some extent the most dangerous thing you can say to Ben is “I have an idea” - with Ben’s can do attitude, 10 minutes later you will find yourself working on a cause with Ben.  

Ben has a unique skill set - sitting at the intersection of technology, law and government - Ben has championed initiatives to make the voting records of State Representatives available on-line (openlegistlation.org) and brought his unique skills to bear on issues like voting machines (showing the BOE the Microsoft publically available planned obsolescence schedule for software MS was promising would be good indefinitely).

His approach to his campaign is a bit quixotic - as a techie in the internet age - Ben has embraced an open source ethos for his campaign: looking to the community to bring in ideas and energy to build a platform to address the needs of the City.  This open source campaign is both Ben’s greatest strength, but also one of his biggest challenges - its new, its untried, it doesn’t fit the “usual campaign narrative”.  Rather than a small cadre of advisors and funders and paying lip service to community support - Ben is casting a much wider net and actually engaging the community through his campaign.

While Ben is running to represent the Upper East Side/Roosevelt Island his vision is far from parochial.  In the time I’ve known Ben, I’ve been amazed at his knowledge of the entire city... unlike many native New Yorkers, Ben gets around - even to the “outer boroughs” - and really takes advantage of the resources of the entire City.

I support Ben Kallos for City Council and I hope you will too.

Andrew E. Wagner
Brooklyn, New York

marc forman

My Issues: 
Good Government
Community
Technology
Education
Elections