I’m on a mission to Codify the bylaws that govern Brooklyn Community Board 1, because the current bylaws stink. They are:
outdated
impossible to read BY VIRTURE OF BEING IN ALL CAPS
inaccessible due to PDF format
Difficult to update. The current process seems to be
The Chair or District Manager updates the ALL-CAPS word document containing the bylaws (wherever that is stored…)
They print out that document
Then, they scan the printed document to PDF
They upload that PDF to `nyc.gov`’s asset management system
I propose an alternative system.
Bylaws are stored publicly on Github in an open data format (xml), like the DC law
Amendments to the bylaws are drafted in a simple web editor
The law is readable via a simple HTML site that is automatically built and updated from the open data. (See DC, again)
The advantages are abundant:
The published law can never be out of date, because it is updated automatically.
Nobody has to store or upload the laws from their home computer
Accessibility is built in, because HTML is the gold standard for accessible publishing. Citizens can reformat, recolor, use e-readers, or create visualizations of the law without any help.
Luckily for me, there’s already a company that has built tools for Drafting, Codifying, and Publishing open law libraries. It is, unsurprisingly, called OpenLawLibrary.
Unfortunately for me, (and ironically?) their code is closed source.
That being said, they seem to be open to requests for access to their tools, so I’ve sent them an email (on Saturday, July 1st). I’ll update you here if they get back to me.
In the meantime, I’ll just have to reverse-engineer my own tools from the dc-open-law project. They have a historical library from 2016 called dc-law-tools that may have what I’m looking for.
And that’s exactly what I’ll be doing in the next post. Stay tuned.