Mayor Garcetti Unveils New Public Data Website For Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (CNS)  —  Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti showed off his "open-data" website Saturday during a City Hall tech conference in front of thousands of civic-minded techies.

The mayor will officially unveil the new site during the 2014 techLA conference, which will include panel discussions, a jobs fair and a tech products expo featuring booths on Google Glass and autonomous vehicles.

Garcetti told Video News West this week the raw data collected by city departments can be used by "computer programmers and journalists to further our democracy" and to create apps "that can improve the quality of our lives."

"For me, public data should be public," Garcetti told VNW. "Anything the government does is something the people deserve to see -- what we're doing well and what we're not doing well."

The mayor's open-data website is expected to give programmers access to more than 100 sets of data normally not seen by the public -- this will include details about the police department's 911 response times, recent crime and collision stats, the location of bike lanes and the number of water leaks per month.

Also on the site is data on the performance outcomes of Worksource Center programs, passenger statistics at city-owned airports and a list of foreclosed properties.

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