http://codeforamerica.org

1. Year-End Report
Honolulu
Code for America 2012

2. Honolulu, Hawaii
The Approach
Code for America’s partnership with the City & County of Honolulu was a
unique experience for both parties. The City & County of Honolulu’s area of
responsibility includes all of the island of Oahu which houses 75% of Hawaii’s
population. Honolulu’s culture is also deeply rooted in native Hawaiian history
and traditions. This really sets it apart from any city on the mainland.
Although Honolulu is known to be a popular tourist attraction and one of the
most beautiful places in the world, Honolulu is still a city with city problems.
When the fellows arrived, there was no specific project in mind. During the
5 week residency, the fellows worked out of city hall, conducted over 100
interviews, and hosted as well as attended many events.
City & County of Honolulu’s Population: 953,207
10th largest municipality in the U.S.
On the island of Oahu
Honolulu’s 2012 Fellows: Mick Thompson, Diana Tran, Sheba Najmi

3. The Projects
Honolulu Answers
http://answers.honolulu.gov
Sometimes it’s really hard to find an answer
to a question on a city website. And even
once someone finds the content, it might be
difficult to understand, incomplete, or not
linked to the relevant resources to complete
the task. Honolulu Answers puts a simple
search interface front and center for the
user, allowing them to ask a question about
city government much like they would ask
a neighbor. The answers are rewritten from
the cities website to ensure they are both
complete, concise and straightforward. If
there are steps needed to take the action, it
lists them. If there are online services that can
help, it links to them.

4. Adopt-a-Siren
http://sirens.honolulu.gov
There are many things that residents can do to help their city. But sometimes is
easy to assume that someone will do it or that someone else will report a problem.
The warning sirens across Oahu are very important in the event of a disaster. They
are the first line of defense. So it is important that they work properly, and that
issues are reported promptly. Because Adopt-a-Airen reused the Adopt-a-Hydrant
application from last year’s Boston team, Adopt-a-Siren was able to be launched
quickly. This simple application prompts residents for feedback about their nearby
sirens on the day of the test.

5. Art Finder
http://art.honolulu.gov
The city has a wealth of art in public places. Most people dont where they can go to
view these pieces of public art. Most definitely dont know the history behind many
of the pieces of art. In Honolulu, which has a very distinct history, this can be very
interesting and important. The public art finder was a reuse of an application from
last year that allows residents and visitors to find out more about the public art in
Honolulu.

6. Adopt-a-Stream
http://streams.honolulu.gov
After launching adopt-a-siren and seeing the successful adoption of so many sirens,
other departments in the city got excited about extending their adopting programs
online. The department of environmental services, identified stream adoption sites
and the adopt-a website was updated to support both sirens and streams.

7. RouteView
http://routeview.honolulu.gov
Combining some the existing camera image data from the city with Google maps
and traffic data produced a valuable tool for finding a clear route across town.
Honolulu can have some of the worst traffic in the country, and routeview can help
give driver a better idea of where they should avoid.

8. Social Media Handbook
http://social.honolulu.gov
Social media can be an effective tool when used well. Nowadays cities are expected
to know how to communicate with their citizens and visitors using social media. In
some cases this is a new thing for cities to take on and their can benefit from some
shared best practices. As the city of Honolulu ramped up their efforts to do training
internally this guide was produced to capture some of the highlights for others to
use.

9. data.honolulu.gov
http://data.honolulu.gov
Many of the projects involved getting new dataset released to the public. As more
datasets came together there was a need to provided a resource for the community.
This new data portal has become the canonical place for the city to post new
datasets and provides developers with an API to build applications that use city
data.

10. The Events
Unconferenz — This event in February
was a great chance for the fellows and
community to mix, talk about new ideas,
and find opportunities to work together
for the coming year.
Geeks on DaBus ­— The city did a great
job developing the very handy DaBus
application, this event focused on getting
the message out to the community that
this awesome application exists.
Write-a-thon ­— The Write-a-thon brought
the community and the staff of city hall
together to make easy to understand
answers to questions that citizens
commonly ask. By collaborating both
the city and the residents gained new
perspectives. Their combined efforts
are what go into the Honolulu answers
website, as simple concise answers to
everyday questions.
Data.honolulu.gov — There were several
of these events around the launch of
the new data portal in order to get the
developer community up to speed on the
newly released API and get the community
to collaborate on new ideas based on
public data.

11. Conclusion
In many ways the contributions of Code for America will live on most in
Honolulu through the changes inside and outside of city hall. Although
we launched several successful projects, and worked with the city and the
community to make sure those can be sustained, the larger changes are in how
the city and citizens now have increased avenues of working together. We have
made the city data more accessible to the public. This has resulted in an move
civically inclined and motivated developer community.
As citizens stand up and take a more active role in working with their city
government, there is more understanding on both sides. By connecting with
the citizens that are users of the website city staff has been able to add easy to
understand explanations of how to interact with city services. As citizens see
the vast amount of services the city provides to so many people, they not only
appreciate the scale of city government but have been looking to see how they
can be a part of the solution. Using applications like adopt-a-siren the city can
organize efforts of the community to work together to report issues, and make
sure critical infrastructure is in place when needed.
While the applications and the data that we produced and released were
certainly important. The lasting impact of citizens that are trying to solve issues
in their city, with a city that is receptive to getting input and working together
with residents, is the most important outcome.