Welcome to the Coatesville Dems Blog

Public Corruption in Chester County, PA

I believe an unlikely mix of alleged drug trafficking related politicos and alleged white nationalist related politicos united to elect the infamous “Bloc of Four” in the abysmal voter turnout election of 2005. During their four year term the drug business was good again and white nationalists used Coatesville as an example on white supremacist websites like “Stormfront”. Strong community organization and support from law enforcement, in particular Chester County District Attorney Joseph W. Carroll has begun to turn our community around. The Chester County drug trafficking that I believe centers on Coatesville continues and I believe we still have public officials in place that profit from the drug sales. But the people here are amazing and continue to work against the odds to make Coatesville a good place to live.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Coding Government Crowd Sourcing

" Government is at its core what we do together that we can't do alone." Tim O'Reilly

After several years of diminishing federal assistance municipal bureaucracy like the City of Coatesville's can use a little help from citizens.

Crowd sourcing apps can link neighbors and people inside and outside of government bureaucracy with answers to problems and get things done.

Jennifer Pahlka at TED

One crowd sourcing app is now in place in Coatesville, SeeClickFix. Things do get fixed.
See:

City of Coatesville joins SeeClickFix

Some cities use apps to link to volunteer fireplug snow cleaners and volunteer snow sidewalk shovelers.

I would like to see an app that could help to fight violent crime. Maybe it would be two separate apps; one to find suspects and one to prevent violent crime from happening.

For instance, elderly and disabled people are justifiably afraid to walk in Coatesville alone. A "Walk Coatesville" app could link them with neighbors to walk together. It's just an idea, I don't know how it would work out. And I don't yet know how to write apps.

This is a study that in my view opens windows to possibilities for a crime prevention app: