Louisville’s Open Data Growth; Hawaii Lava Stalls But Is Building Up
The lava flow is just outside Pahoa, Hawaii. Hawaii Volcano Observatory / USGS
Also in our State & Local weekend roundup: Dallas city manager is now a streetcar convert.
Here is our State & Local news roundup for the weekend of October 31-November 2, 2014 ...
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky: The largest city in the Bluegrass State has increased the amount of open data it has released by 200 percent in the past year , according to an inaugural report from Metro Technology Services. Jacob Ryan of WPFL-FM reports that the open data portal is still in its “infant stages.” A year ago, Mayor Greg Fischer declared that the city’s data should be “open by default,” unless its release is sensitive and prohibited by law.
BALTIMORE, Maryland: The city’s finance department has downshifted its estimates for community impact revenue from a new casino, Mark Reutter of Baltimore Brew reports, “throwing a monkey wrench into plans to expand sanitation services, plant trees and establish a summer youth program for the neighborhoods near the facility.”
PAHOA, Hawaii: Although the lava flow advancing on this Big Island village halted on Saturday morning, “ the main flow itself continued to inflate, growing taller and wider as the lava inside builds up ,” Ben Gutierrez reports for Hawaii News Now . The break in the slow advancement of the lava is giving residents in the lava’s path some additional time to make preparations to leave. The lava is less than a half mile from a major state highway.
SAN BENITO COUNTY, California: This central California county is one of three Golden State counties with fracking bans on this week’s ballot and as David R. Baker reports for the San Francisco Chronicle , major oil companies like Chevron and Occidental Petroleum have spent $7.7 million to defeat them. Santa Barbara and Mendocino counties are the other county-level jurisdictions in California with fracking bans on the local ballot.
DALLAS, Texas: City Manager A.C. Gonzalez previously thought that streetcars were expensive, useless “toys.” Now, as Tom Benning of the Dallas Morning News reports, Gonzales is “ preaching the streetcar gospel as fervently as anyone and pushing an $800 million plan for a downtown trolley network ,” something that’s critical economic development in the city.