Following West Hollywood’s open data initiative plan, the city launched a new website last week to ensure transparency and provide better access to data within the city.

The data website, data.weho.org, provides the public with an array of city information such as art projects, parking housing and city revenues. Jim Duncan, West Hollywood’s systems engineer supervisor, said the new website is a great step forward from how the city used to present data.

“The original motivation was to help the city promote more transparency with residents,” Duncan said. “We also aimed to make it easier for the community to access information. The old way of downloading information wasn’t appealing or engaging.”

The new website, he said, allows people to download data in different formats such as Microsoft Excel, CVS or PDF. From there, information can be analyzed more efficiently.

“A lot of data the city provided in the past was trapped in long PDFs,” Duncan said. “People would have to scroll through page after page to read the information. Here they can download it in a format they’re comfortable with. If they want to lay it out on a grid in Excel, they can do that.”

Duncan said opening up data to different formats allows residents to not only have better access to it, but it also allows them to better understand some of the city’s proposals and programs.

“Sometimes when you see data in a new format, it allows you to see it in a different way,” Duncan said. “It allows people to digest the information and better understand it. That’s what we’re striving to do with this new website, and hopefully people will take a look at our data and understand why we do things the way we do.”

West Hollywood Mayor Lindsey Horvath said the city has been working on the website for a long time to make sure residents have access to the same set of facts the city has.

“I want to see people feel like they have greater access to data. I want them to take the data and be inspired to come up with ideas of their own,” Horvath said. “I like to think our city staff is pretty good, but we always welcome proposals from the community. Now that city data is more accessible to residents, we hope to see them giving us more feedback.”

The website features different icons to guide people to specific data topics. Duncan said Socrata, a software platform, hosts data.weho.org. Using the new platform, West Hollywood was able to create an easy-to-use website.

“It’s definitely been a group effort with the city to get the appropriate data up while also making it accessible and appealing,” Duncan said. “I’m in the IT Department so I’m good at getting data on the website, but [West Hollywood’s] Communications Division and Socrata worked really hard on making it appealing and presentable.”

Duncan said the website is part of a series of technical projects aimed at engaging the community and supporting the federal governments 2013 Open Data Policy. West Hollywood is now 40 on the Open Knowledge list of cities with open data, a government census that ranks cities based on open data availability. The census can be found at us-city.census.okfn.org.

“It’s a great tool to look at a broad spectrum of data provided by the city,” Duncan said. “As opposed to our city app, which more so connects residents to city services, the website provides them with data from art projects, parking, housing and city revenues. These projects are all part of our initiative, though, to get the community involved with city plans and programs.”

Horvath said the website is part of the city’s push to improve and revitalize.

“Innovation is in our DNA,” Horvath said. “As a city, we are deeply committed to the highest level of innovation. The new website is an exciting milestone. We’re embracing new technologies that help strengthen and support transparency in local government.”