September 18, 2003
(Updated) City Elections Website Now Includes Candidate Background Information
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
In addition to adding a ninth official candidate for mayor today, the 2004 election candidates page of the City website now includes links leading to information on each candidate's occupation, occupational background, edicational background, and prior governmental experience.
Note: This information is merely taken from what each candidate provided on their filing form. But it should give us a place from which to start learning something about those who have thus far officially filed.
Also note that the information for each candidate is provided via pdf files.
Update
Those pdf files also appear, as of this writing, to be entirely blank. Not sure what's up with that. But this fact does mean -- for the moment anyway -- that this candidate information is not quite yet available after all. But keep an eye on the candidates page.
Update
On an unrelated note regarding the city website, kudos to someone in Commissioner Sten's office for being (as far as we know), the first person to bother providing an explanation and instructions for creating a website account and subscribing to its notification features. Thus far, since first checking out the website prior to its public launch, I've never come across any other document providing that information. If it's there, it's extraordinarily well hidden -- and therefore non-existent as far as usability is concerned.
Update
The pdf files mentioned are now functional.