Long Beach officials have unveiled a new city website that enables residents or anyone from the public to access information on more than 100 topics related to city government.
The new DataLB website, which opened to public viewing Monday, does not yet contain crime statistics. But users accessing the site can look up information as varied as city zoning boundaries, proposed bicycle routes or flood zones, among numerous other topics.
The site also comes with a ready-made information package that displays where projects are happening (or scheduled to happen) throughout the city, such as:
• Measure A: See where the recently approved sales tax revenue will be spent on capital projects during the current fiscal year.
• Health: View locations of reported coyote sightings or places where dead birds have tested positive for West Nile virus.
• Recreation: Find a dog park or golf course.
“Our hope is to be a leader in open data,” Mayor Robert Garcia told reporters Monday during DataLB’s official announcement. “Our hope is to be as transparent of a government as possible. Our hope is to ensure that people can take this information, can use it to make their neighborhood better. Entrepreneurs can use it to build new technology.”
The data published on the new site is already subject to release pursuant to the California Public Records Act. Garcia suggested the new platform may be convenient for media organizations and others that file public records act requests, since the new platform could give researchers a chance to search for information without needing to send a request to City Hall.
City government developed DataLB with Esri, a Redlands-based firm that develops geographic information systems software.
Long Beach is the second city to develop this kind of project with Esri, company account manager Mike Sumich said. The firm developed a similar project called GeoHub that went live in Los Angeles about one year ago.
Bryan Sastokas, Long Beach’s chief information officer, said city government pays Esri about $180,000 annually for services that include DataLB’s development.
As of its release, DataLB is still a work in progress. Garcia said crime statistics are among the data sets that are not yet available on the new platform.
“It’s our intention to really work with our departments, and work with everyone in the community to try to get as much of this information online as possible,” Garcia said.
The City Council adopted an open data policy in December that requires all city departments to inventory their data and work with the Technology and Innovation Department to facilitate the publishing of their information.
DataLB’s website: http://datalb.longbeach.gov/.
