MuniLand

Hack for Change

Attention Muniland! Do you have an idea for a public web or mobile application? Change.org is sponsoring a Hack for Change on June 18th and 19th and is soliciting ideas for their programming competition. Here are some of the ideas that have already been posted:

A reviews site that allows citizens to rate and evaluate city government services and departments A site that makes government data more accessible and actionable An app that lists all San Francisco city legislation and allows residents to vote on it An app that notifies police of suspicious activity

Submit your idea today!

Muni Web 2.0 stars

Government Technology reports on the winners of a wonderful competition to create the best municipal Web 2.0 and social media technologies:

Santa Monica, Calif., was spotlighted for its XML feed that makes real-time parking information available to the public, including the number of parking spaces available in the city. The information is displayed on a city webpage with the number of spaces being updated every 60 seconds.

Arvada, Colo., received the award for its virtual city hall. Called “ASK Arvada,” the tool is designed to increase customer service by providing access to answers and the ability to request service with every department in the city. Requests can be sent through various mediums, including the Web, Twitter and smartphones.

It’s a glorious spring day in America and everything continues to bounce along. A little progress here and some fall back there. Oh and that unpleasant negative ratings watch on United States debt from Standard & Poor’s. Yeah that is not good. Welcome to a new week in muniland.

The sun sets over a pond in Rogers, Arkansas, November 8, 2009. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Increasing the muni investor pool:

Marketwatch has an article which frames the proposed Wyden and Coates federal legislation for muni tax-exemption as having the effect of shrinking the investor pool.

WTC in December, 2010

The $1.275 billion offering to fund Larry Silverstein’s New York City’s World Trade Center Liberty Tower 4 was withdrawn yesterday for the second time.

Goldman Sachs withdrew the offering “due to market considerations”.

The deal was first postponed last December as the municipal market was roiled by talk of mass defaults. The bankruptcy talk caused many investors to exit the market and sent muni yields rising.

When yields spike up issuers tend to withdraw from the market and wait on the sidelines until conditions settle down. Think of a sailor who can wait in the harbor as a storm brews at sea.