Melissa S. Razdrih
CityGrader, the social platform that encourages constituents to become civically engaged with their local government, expands to all Florida cities.
Just one year ago, you’d have to be in South Florida to benefit from the network, but now it is “available in all Florida cities and counties including the Tampa Bay, Orlando, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee metropolitan areas,” according to a news release.
“After launching a year ago in South Florida, we were overwhelmed by the positive reception we received by both users and municipalities seeking to increase civic engagement in order to help improve services,” Tony Newell, Co-Founder & CEO of CityGrader.com, said on Monday.
“We are excited to roll this platform out to the other municipalities across Florida and soon to other major metropolitan areas nationally in the near future.”
How it works? Users create a free account using a name or alias, and they can join the conversation about their local government, in a similar fashion to Yelp or TripAdvisor, but touting total transparency.
The idea is all registered users can see all reviews, unlike other review platforms where some reviews can be hidden.
On the government’s side, officials can join CityGrader with a paid account option.
In doing so, it allows the local government to interact with individual users and “educate citizens about on-going initiatives, actions, and other happenings within their municipality to foster an open, active and informed community,” a news release claims.
“CityGrader is an invaluable resource for the public and government agencies that want to improve their quality of customer service, increase their accountability and enhance the lives of constituents,” said Newell.
“By joining CityGrader, local governments can show that they are listening to their residents with the utmost care.”
CityGrader’s existing features may be useful for local governments and constituents who want to keep their finger on the pulse of local happenings and share their experiences, but the “Open Access” feature that is around the corner for Florida CityGrader may make it even more appealing.
With Open Access, users can use the CityGrader portal to request government records, perhaps, cutting through some of the otherwise lofty red-tape of bureaucracy.
This feature will be made available in some Florida cities, so stay tuned in to CityGrader.com to discover if it’s coming to yours.
