Spencer Critchley

Communication and Change

Spencer Critchley

Politicians’ Web town halls boost their approval ratings – Nextgov

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Lawmakers’ Internet-based town hall meetings increase constituents’ approval ratings for the politician, enhance citizen engagement in politics and ultimately impact the probability of participants voting for that member of Congress, according to a new Congressional Management Foundation report. CMF Executive Director Beverley Bell said online meetings offer lawmakers a flexible tool for communication in addition to traditional in-person meetings, tele-town halls and newsletters. “People like hearing from – and feeling heard by – their representatives in all formats, including online,” she said Monday.

Researchers from CMF, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Northeastern University, Ohio State University, and the University of California-Riverside found that members who engaged in online town halls experienced an average net approval rating jump of 18 points with similar increases in trust and perceptions of personal qualities. Town hall meetings also attract people from demographics not traditionally engaged in politics as well as those frustrated with the political system. About 96 percent of those polled said they would like to be included in similar events in the future.

Among those taking part in the study were Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and Reps. Earl Blumenauer, Michael Capuano, James Clyburn, Mike Conaway, Anna Eshoo, Jack Kingston, Zoe Lofgren, Don Manzullo, Jim Matheson, David Price, George Radanovich, and Dave Weldon. The town halls with the House members were conducted in the summer and fall of 2006, prior to the 2006 election, and the session with Levin was conducted in the summer of 2008.

Read the full CMF report. (PDF)

via nextgov.com

Posted via web from Spencer’s posterous

WhiteHouse.gov Goes Drupal

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From Personal Democracy Forum: http://personaldemocracy.com/node/15131

WhiteHouse.gov has gone Drupal. After months of planning, says an Obama Administration source, the White House has ditched the proprietary content management system that had been in place since the days of the Bush Administration in favor of the latest version of the open-source Drupal software, as the AP alluded to in its reporting several minutes ago.

The great Drupal switch came about after the Obama new media team, with a few months of executive branch service (and tweaking of WhiteHouse.gov) under their belts, decided they needed a more malleable development environment for the White House web presence. They wanted to be able to more quickly, easily, and gracefully build out their vision of interactive government. General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), the Virginia-based government contractor who had executed the Bush-era White House CMS contract, was tasked by the Obama Administration with finding a more flexible alternative. The ideal new platform would be one where dynamic features like question-and-answer forums, live video streaming, and collaborative tools could work more fluidly together with the site’s infrastructure. The solution, says the White House, turned out to be Drupal. That’s something of a victory for the Drupal (not to mention open-source) community.

300,000 strong for health care reform

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The target was 100,000. But volunteers across the country blew past that goal by early afternoon yesterday. New goal: 200,000. The result? More than 300,000 calls in one day! All in support of the health care reform this country needs so badly.

And Monterey County Democrats were part of it. When health care reform is achieved, people like these callers will have the quiet, lasting satisfaction of knowing they helped make it happen:

“I think the overwhelming message with yesterdays calling was gratitude. People still want to talk about their health care stories. Many are so grateful that the Democratic Party hasn’t given up this fight. We kept hearing thank you, thank you, we know you are in a battle, so thank you for fighting for me.” – Teri Short

“My story is of the woman who just lost her job and has NO insurance of any kind.This has happened to several of her friends also. We were just about crying at the end of her story. After I told her about the Public Option she was encouraged and hoped Obama would follow through.” – Ed Weinstein

“I was calling people who were registered Democrats, but not known to be supporters of health care reform. Everyone I reached was incredibly happy to hear from me and glad to take action. All were strong supporters of single-payer healthcare, and also very willing to support President Obama’s current reform efforts. They expressed a desire for a healthcare system that is more responsive to the needs of patients and their families rather than to the needs of corporations and shareholders.” – Liz Ward

Posted via email from Spencer’s posterous

Four schools fixed, six to go

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I’m happy and proud to see this story from the Monterey Herald. Four elementary schools fixed, six to go, thanks to the $90 million Salinas Measure A bond campaign in 2006. Rick Rivas and I did the communications, Gary Karnes did the field organizing, and the school district staff and parents worked really, really hard.

Alisal completes repairs at four schools

Four down and six to go.

As Alisal Union School District administrators and teachers on Friday celebrated the renovation of four schools, ridding them of mold, Superintendent Esperanza Zendejas announced plans to begin the process of fixing six more.

“The good thing is that the state started issuing bonds again,” she said. Teachers and students of John E. Steinbeck Elementary gathered in the balloon-decorated cafeteria to mark the conclusion of the school’s repairs, almost three years after contamination was first discovered in four of its classrooms.

Micaela Leal, 11, still remembers when she and her classmates first felt the impact of mold. Her classroom in 2006 was not one of the contaminated ones, but the portable units brought in to house the students from the affected rooms covered the basketball courts and much of the space available for recreation. “There wasn’t any room to play, and we had all this noise — sawing and drilling,” Micaela said. “It’s a lot better now. It feels like fourth grade again.” …

Measure A, a $90million bond, was approved in 2006. At the time, the multipurpose rooms of Bardin, Alisal, Jesse G. Sanchez, Virginia Rocca Barton, Fremont and Frank Paul elementary schools had been shut down because of water intrusion. Those rooms have never reopened and they still need repair, Zendejas said.

“This is urgent for us and we knew that the classrooms were priority and that is why we fixed the classrooms first,” she said…

By CLAUDIA MELÉNDEZ SALINAS
Herald Salinas Bureau
http://www.montereyherald.com/search/ci_13477942