There were several points made throughout the evening about basic underlying matters of practice that Albany will need to achieve in order to move forward with some of its needed systemic changes. They almost seem too obvious to recount, and were presented as very basic, but a couple of them, shall we say, touched a nerve with the audience, and for the same reason that they did so, they are worth belaboring over and over until they come to pass:
The city needs better record keeping and databases about things like vacant properties, and all of that information needs to be open, transparent, and easily accessible to the public, as in online. Mallach made this point several times, and it generated spontaneous applause the first time. "Information is best when it's shared," he noted. [Ed note: anything involving a FOIL request or people having to show up at the Common Council to demand access so doesn't count.]
Inclusive partnerships need to be the foundation of future planning. "This is not easy because power is not evenly distributed, and people who have more are reluctant to share," said Mallach. They need to.
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