" A top complaint among council members and reporters is the fact that the contents of city staff reports -- a main resource for information about the city's actions -- cannot be searched online" - hmmm, copy/paste for staff reports;

Web Link

"Things that other cities are doing that we could provide include electronic permitting.

Web Link

Where have the comments gone to?
[Comments are removed when they violate terms of use, including personal attacks. Also, FYI: the story is about being able to SEARCH for content in staff reports, not cutting and pasting.]

The web link in the first post appears to have a "search" field and button. I think the OP meant they copied and pasted "staff reports" and then searched and the results are in the links below.

Strange that when new comments added to the "new" article, they show up here and the article says it has zero comments. Anyone clicking on the article from the homepage doesn't see these comments.

Never even a manager before, not even one making $100,000. Then the first time they have one, it has to be a $173,000 position? Sounds like a waste to me--pretty top heavy in the management cost. First thing he'll be doing is posting positions for the $150,000 people between him and the staff.

Let's make having Mountain View be the first city in the nation to deliver FREE high-speed internet access to all it's citizens a priority by fixing and eventually replacing Google WiFi with fiber to every address.

High speed access to the internet is considered a UTILITY like electricity in many first class cities in the world. Let's join these cities by providing access to the knowledge base of mankind (aka The Great Equalizer) to all MV citizens!

I do not know any of the current IT employees but it seems this article does not give them any credit.
From what I understand both City Hall and the Library currently have free Wi-Fi provided by the current staff and it isn’t Google and it works - thank you! The above comments that were hidden or moved to Town Square also say that e-permitting is available as are staff reports – keep up the good job and good luck with the ‘next level”.

I'm seeing too many buzz words that say a**kisser for the majority of IT people I have worked with and worked for. If the VTA OUTREACH travel program was reliable, I would be able to do a better job, especially as these are many of the systems I helped build...starting with my original job in Test III and IV at AMD to being a member of the Design Team for the X-MP and Y-MP supercomputers.
When Rollwagen killed off both Seymour's and ( my boss ) Dr. Chen's projects, I was able to go to Les Davis ( the big boss at Chippewa Falls ) and ask him to learn about and work on the DARPAnet that Cray Research was connected to.
DARPAnet was turned into the WWW we know today. I know the hardware and what it can do..and have lived the balance of security vs openness.
As a System Administrator, you walk that line very closely and politics SHOULD NOT AND CANNOT be used to make an Administrator's decisions.
I have also managed teams both here and on the West Coast and have done work from Monterey Bay to San Francisco and the West Coast to Colorado. I have generated repeat business by keeping our clients happy.
The residents of Mountain View need a top notch person to keep information and data flowing WITHOUT POLITICAL MEDDLING AND BIAS. I'm afraid that you may have just hired a face for political reasons. He will not believe in the " DATA SHOULD BE FREE " mantra that I believe in. No censorship or witholding the facts is the foundation of an OPEN GOVERNMENT. Your residents are your boss and YOU WORK FOR THEM, not the other way around.
If I returned to our house near Whisman Road, I will quickly make sure that YOUR RESIDENTS ARE YOUR BOSS and make sure that city government is at their beck and call and not the other way around. Public records are public, no " Need to Know " is required. EVERYTHING CITY GOVERNMENT DOES IS PUBLIC RECORD AND MUST BE AVAILABLE.
If a GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL doesn't want to accept that fact, they are in the wrong job AND MUST LEAVE.

Art Blackwell

Network Engineer
Member of the X-MP and Y-MP Design Team
Cray Research

Project Manager, Apogee Robotics

( and a whole bunch of other jobs )

PS: My home lab has plenty of network research and maintenance tools that can handle internetwork issues.

"A top complaint among council members and reporters is the fact that the contents of city staff reports -- a main resource for information about the city's actions -- cannot be searched online."

Mountain View, home of Google, has not yet figured out how to search documents online?!?!?!