NY State Senate

council.nyc.gov

Brewer.

The Bloomberg administration is generally perceived as progressive when it comes to giving citizens access to municipal data. Dozens of reports and statistics from city agencies are just a click away on nyc.gov, and New York's 311 information service was a significant logistical achievement, even if the technology behind it—the telephone!—now seems a bit archaic.

But there's a growing demand among transparency advocates for a more comprehensive and sophisticated level of data sharing.

The latest sign: a new bill making its rounds in the City Council that would create unprecedented open data standards for New York City government.

The bill, which is being spearheaded by Gale Brewer, who chairs the Council's Technology in Government Committee, is up for a public hearing on June 29. It would compile all of the city’s public data on a single Web site, like data.nyc.gov, as well as making the data available in a raw, machine-readable format so that programmers could develop useful online and mobile applications out of it.

Here's an interesting bit of food news from Albany.

Yesterday, the New York State Senate passed legislation intended to promote business growth for small food processors by enabling them to apply for grants from the Empire State Economic Development Fund. 

The program works by providing grant funding for the development of kitchen incubator/shared use facilities sponsored by not-for-profit or government agencies, to be used by small emerging food businesses.  Kitchen incubators provide inexpensive shared space and services and access to financing.  Facilities can be built from scratch but most often are located in underused existing buildings that already have food preparation space and equipment.

The legislation, which is geared toward "distressed communities," was spearheaded by Sen. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan), who said in a statement: “Helping New Yorkers, particularly those in struggling communities, establish an up-and-coming small businesses right now is smart economics. The investment is minimal compared to the benefits that will come as a result of this program. Yes, this will create jobs but even better, budding entrepreneurs will receive the support they need to put their talents to use in a way that helps us get our economy back on track."

Full release after the jump: