I think there are two (at least) areas re: a link to the city. one is
insuring citizen access to city information, services, and personnel;
the second is getting city services on line (so they can be accessed).
These are two different perspectives to the same problem; info access.
but the two perspectives are needed because there are likely two
distinct solution paths. The communities ability to access the information
is (currently) gated by:
1a - their "access" to machines (either personal or institutional)
2a - their ability to "connect" to an internet service provider
3a - their ability to "find" the information they are looking for
via the net (ie. web/news/mail etc.)
The Cities abilty to provide access to the information is (currently)
gated by:
1b - their ability to "feed" the information to the net
2b - their ability to "make accessible" the information (ie. htmlify
the zoning ordinance, or meeting minutes/agendas/announcements etc.)
3b - their ability to "respond" to requests for services and/or information
via the net.
In general, the solution to 1a is not the same as the solution to 2a at the
connectivity level and the same goes for the others....
I think these are two separate problems, it may be that the "home" for
both problems is in the "citizen participation" section of the plan, but
clearity of the issues should be of high importance....information access is a
two way street. infrastructure requirements at the connectivity level are
generally a bit different for each world. and information management
requirements are drastically different.
johnt