[START PART 1]
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:05:33
>> Good afternoon and welcome to the second public meeting of the Open Government Federal Advisory Committee. The Open Government Federal Advisory Committee is a federal advisory committee subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act. My name is Arthur Brunson, and I am the designated Federal Officer or DFO, and Daniel York serves as the alternate DFO for this committee. As part of my role as a DFO, I manage the day-to-day administrative operations of the committee, I attend all committee meetings and ensure the committee operates in full compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The Open Government Federal Advisory Committee has 15 members, and that composition includes 11 special government employees and 4 regular government employees. The purpose of the OG FAC is to advise GSA on open government initiatives including GSA’s creation, implementation and monitoring of U.S. Open Government National Action Plans and commitments. Additionally, the OG FAC will advise GSA’s administrator on emerging open government issues, challenges and opportunities supporting the U.S. Open Government Secretariat.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:06:55
A reminder for all OG FAC members, please keep your line muted and to unmute yourself when it’s your turn to speak. State your name to help the public identify who is speaking. We also ask that you update your name in the Zoom to include “member” if you haven’t already. Members also when you’d like to ask a question or make a comment, use the raised hand feature by clicking the reaction box at the bottom of your screen and wait to be acknowledged before speaking. All audience participants who have signed up to provide virtual oral comments, please be reminded you are asked to use no more than three minutes of time for your oral public comments and you will be timed. We currently have four requests from the public who wish to provide comments. The opportunity to provide your comment is scheduled to start at approximately 3:30 p.m. When that time comes, we will display a slide listing the order of who is talking. Thank you in advance for making the public comments period a smooth process. As a reminder, this meeting is open to the public and is being recorded. The recording will not include the break and will be posted as a part one and part two due to the size of the video file. A copy of the recording along with the meeting minutes and a list of attendees will be posted to our website, and that website is www.gsa.gov/usopengov.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:08:33
That’s gsa.gov/usopengov in the coming days. Before I go over the agenda, I’d like to confirm that the committee members attendance has been reviewed and a quorum has been established. Members not present have a strikethrough over their names. As previously mentioned, a list of all attendees will be posted to our website. On the agenda today, we will have opening remarks from the committee chair, a report out of the previous preparatory meetings, and then a 10-minute break. After the break, there will be an overview of the timeline for developing the Sixth U.S. Open National Action Plan, an overview of results of the NAP 6 RFI, a future presentation discussion, use of Google Documents discussion, and have oral public comments. As we prepare to hear from the OG FAC chair, I would like to say thank you to all of our presenters, attendees and stakeholders for joining us today including those who will provide public comments. There were no public comments submitted to ogfac@gsa.gov’s mailbox. And at this time, it is my pleasure to turn the meeting over to the OG FAC chair, Mr. Daniel Schuman. Over to you, Daniel.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:10:29
>> Thank you, Arthur. Thank you so much for get kicking us off. It’s good to see everyone. We had a productive month I think where all of us or just about all of us got together and met in preparatory meetings. So, a lot of this month’s meeting is going to be focused on reporting out the analysis that came from there and trying to figure out what to do next. As Arthur indicated, we’ll also be hearing about the NAP 6 timeline. We’ll be thinking about who else we want to have speak to this committee in the future. We’ll be discussing if there are ways that we can collaborate through electronic means such as Google Documents, as well as hearing from the public and a couple of other things. I’m going to try to keep this meeting on track. We’ve got a lot to cover. Just because of the nature of the way the Zoom is setting up, if you’ve got something to say, certainly raise your hand and I can see that. As we discussed before, there’s a non-public chat, so you can flag it there as well and I’ll make sure to put you in the queue. I’ll try to do it in the order in which people sort of indicate what they’re interested in. A couple developments from the last meeting. There is now a place where if there are documents that we want to share with the public, there’s now an online library. So, if there are things that any of you would to provide for the public to be able to see, you can send it to Arthur and me. And for members of the public, you can always email ogfac@gsa.gov and that’s a good way to draw documents or things to share for our attention as well. So, with that, you don’t need to hear from me more. So, I think that what we should do is go into the report backs from the preparatory meetings, and we’ll start with Amy. So, if you’re ready, I’d love to hand it over to you.
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 13:12:25
>> Yes. Great. Can everyone hear me?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:12:27
>> Yes.
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 13:12:29
>> Fantastic. All right. Well, we had a very productive month, as you indicated, Daniel. And so, I’m here to represent the conversation that we had on the committee structure. Other members who attended the committee structure meeting were Ron Keefover and Steven Kull and then Daniel Schuman and then the GSA support team. So, today, I just will share with you all a quick update on our discussion and for the group. So, if we could go to the next slide.
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 13:13:05
We met to really think and talk about the structure of whether we should have subcommittees and the duties that that would entail. So, that was the purpose of what we came together to do. So, we can go to the next slide. And the questions we talked about in our discussion was, “Should our OG Open Government Federal Advisory Committee have subcommittees? What subcommittees should there be?” We talked a little bit about how often they should meet, and we also discussed whether there were good examples from other federal advisory committees that we could draw from and better best practices.
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 13:13:50
So, we had a good discussion. If we go to the next slide. I tried to recap some of the high points, which we did talk about some of our past experiences on subcommittee structures. Really, we focused on thematic subcommittees structures, which some other FACs have had around themes in open government and large topics also functionally sort of task and activity-driven subcommittees and also large topics. And some of the priority areas that we discussed were obviously artificial intelligence is really atop of mind across the open government communities and also public service delivery modernization and how we can be open and transparent in the work being done there and engaging with the public in meaningful ways. And then, we had a nice discussion also around rethinking public participation in open government and citizen assembly. So, a lot of good thoughts there around priority areas. And then, we also talked about how are we going to build into the subcommittee structure measuring the impact of the work that happens, and we thought that was also something that was important. So, if we go to the next slide, I can just share kind of the readout of what we kind of concluded or what we wanted to bring forward to this group was we settled on the potential of three subcommittees. And the structure that we also settled on for sharing back with the group was a subcommittee on a retrospective review of past National Action Plans impact and what was included in that certainly a large body of great work to draw on from past efforts, so having a dedicated group looking at that. Clearly, I think a subcommittee on the formation of the new National Action Plan recommendations could make good sense. Someone to organize all of that and bring all our best thinking together is what we discussed.
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 13:16:03
And then, the last one is how we thought we might manage all of the emerging issues that we see in the open government landscape and having a subcommittee that could support that review on things like AI, public engagement and participation and service delivery and other topics that may come up, that that was a broad enough group that could capture and be able to make space for those kinds of discussions that are certainly important. So, that is a quick readout of what we discussed and what we wanted to bring back to the full committee for review and discussion. So, Daniel, I can turn it back to you unless I would say in this discussion to my fellow meeting members if there was anything I omitted that you also wanted to share, I would certainly want you to speak up. And we had a good discussion and I want to make sure all the best ideas were coming forward. So, with that, Daniel, I can turn it back to you.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:17:12
>> That’s great. Thank you, Amy. So, taking a cue from you, if there are other folks who participated in the preparatory meeting who wanted to raise anything else that was discussed at that meeting, I think Amy did a great job summarizing and synthesizing the conversation, but if there are questions that folks have — sorry — if there are other folks from the preparatory meeting who want to raise things that may have not been included or to emphasize something differently, this is a great time to do so. Just raise your hand and I will gladly call on you. And I’ll just wait a couple seconds.
Well, if something changes and you want to speak up, certainly feel free to do so. Charlie, please go ahead.
[Charles Cutshall (Member)] 13:18:04
>> Yeah, thanks. I did not participate in the preparatory meeting, so I did want to give the opportunity to anyone who did participate to as you suggested share anything that they wanted to share or emphasize any particular points. But not having participated just having now heard the readout, thank you very much for meeting, those of you that did, to talk through potential subcommittee structures. I love the idea of doing a retrospective review of past NAP action items and the impact that they may have had and taking into consideration things that are maybe in motion or things that we want to carry through. I also think having a subcommittee that focuses on emerging open government issues and having a forum to carry through on some of those initial conversations that I think you started having with respect to rethinking public participation and public assembly, looking at artificial intelligence and any other issues that you would explore in that I think also make a lot of sense.
[Charlie Cutshall (Member)] 13:19:05
The second subcommittee on new NAP recommendations, I’d like to better understand the vision for that because in my mind the first one and the second one that we just talked about and that I just spoke about, the retrospective and the forward-looking one, might themselves I see be leading towards potential NAP recommendations. And I wonder if we need to have a subcommittee to look at new NAP recommendations or if based on the work of those subcommittees you do the retrospective review and that subcommittee says, “Well, these are our recommendations for what we think should be included in the NAP.” The emerging open government issues team subcommittee does a similar review and says, “These are the recommendations that we think should be included in the next National Action Plan.” And we tee those up for the full committee for consideration and we listen to the reason for the recommendation and mull it over and then maybe vote on what we think should be included or not. I’m just wondering what your vision is for this subcommittee for new NAP recommendations and why you think that we need that as opposed to being able to consider them as a full committee.
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 13:20:16
>> I can start and then I would welcome Daniel if you want to add to it because I think you were also part of our discussion, but also could represent some of the full committee’s actions as well. But I think our intention was to help organize some of the recommendations that come in for that second subcommittee and it would be to then bring it to the full committee for consideration, but it’s more of like an organizing function given that there’s going to be a lot of — I hope — great engagement with the public and ideas and ideas from across the committee and the public. And so, it’s more of an organizing for the full committee is I think what we discussed and had in mind, but I would invite Daniel for your thoughts here too because I think you might have more to share.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:21:03
>> Yeah. My thinking is in alignment with yours, Amy. It made sense to have people that were focused on pieces of it. So, like the retrospective review isn’t just for looking at NAP 5 and NAP 4. But like in a year when we make our recommendations or whatever time we make our recommendations, we want to look back at implementation having someone focus on implementation of those new recommendations makes sense. So, like this isn’t just looking forward to the NAP 6, but it’s looking forward to the NAP 6 and the NAP 7 as this process continues on forward including challenge issues. Sometimes, it will be more active I suspect and sometimes it will be less active, but its purpose is to tee up and do a lot of the hard work so that they can then be presented to the full committee for conversation. And I should say we can do this a lot of different ways. The subcommittee can have every member of the full committee on it.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:21:59
There’s lots of ways that we can sort of structure it depending on what’s going on at the particular time. It seemed to make conceptual sense because the focus of the work that we’re charged with is both the emerging issues as well as addressing this NAP and then the future NAPs. It doesn’t have to be this way. It was just a way that seemed to make logical sense at the time, but I’m open to all different approaches to make sure that we can do this right. Charlie, did you want to say more before? If not, then I’ll go on to Corinna.
^M00:17:10
[Charlie Cutshall (Member)] 13:22:44
>> Feel free to go on if no one else has any questions. Thank you.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:22:47
>> Okay, Corinna.
[Corinna Turbes (Member)] 13:22:50
>> Hi. Thanks so much. I think this is really a wonderful way to sort of divide up this work. I’m wondering though if there’s any sort of consideration about the sort of recommendations to NAP about decoupling it explicitly from a National Action Plan given that the timing of when the National Action Plan is supposed to come out and the longer scope of the committee’s work. I’m just wondering if there is like a way to think about this as best practices for action plans or if you were conceptualizing this as more as specifically targeted to get it done for the work of the upcoming action plan.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:23:33
>> Amy, would you like to respond or would you like me to respond?
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 13:23:37
>> You can go, Daniel, if you like.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:23:40
>> So, I can go first and then others please feel encouraged to weigh in, agree, disagree or have other perspectives. So, one, we’ll be talking later about the timeline. Like I have real concerns about the NAP timeline and how that’s going to function. Sorry. I’m looking for my agenda. That’s an agenda item for later on that we’re going to talk about is the NAP 6 timeline and how that functions. I think there’s real challenges inherent in that, but I think that there’s parallel processes. So, as issues emerge — so, the NAP is a collaborative process between the U.S. government and civil society to go and create a series of recommendations that then go through a bureaucratic process. It’s the Open Government Partnership. That is part of what we do, but making recommendations on an ongoing basis is also part of what we do.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:24:36
So, I was thinking that the emerging issues folks in part — while it overlaps with the NAP, if there are things that don’t make the NAP, if there is something that has just happened like there’s a news story about whatever and we need to address it, we don’t need to push it through the Open Government Partnership process. If it doesn’t align with the timeframe, there may be opportunities to weigh in more quickly, to make recommendations to the administrator, whatever it is that we decide to do. So, that’s why I was thinking like one is like emerging issues. So, if there’s a thing we need to do right now, we do that right now. Sorry. I don’t mean to clap at you. The other is like if there are things that fit more into this two to three year cycle, then we’re engaged with the two to three cycle and all of this gets synthesized at the full committee level. So, like everybody’s kind of focused on their particular piece of it, but all of us together collectively decide what we’re doing with the different things and how we want to prioritize it. So, that’s the thinking if that makes any sense.
[Corinna Turbes (Member)] 13:25:39
>> No, that’s really helpful and I think does make a lot of sense. I appreciate the explanation.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:25:44
>> And Amy, I know I’ll get to you and Josh in one second. Did you want –
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 13:25:45
>> No, I think you summarized it well and I think the points raised by our colleagues is also well taken. I think we should make sure we frame it in a way that can capture that work that needs to be done and keep it as — I think I’m still learning about how all the process steps go with this, but I think we can be flexible to make sure it kind of meets what we need to deliver when, but that I think was the goal of the of the second piece, the second subcommittee.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:26:18
>> Thank you. Josh.
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 13:26:20
>> So, last time we heard about the administrative difficulty of creating subcommittees and having the administrator appoint people to subcommittees, so I wonder if there was any thought about that and whether we would potentially structure non-subcommittee groups. Should we continue the preparatory meeting style until those subcommittees are formally approved? And if they’re not constituted, how do we keep doing our work effectively?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:26:48
>> That is the $64,000 question and the answer in my opinion is yes. The preparatory meetings to the extent that they have things to do — so, this preparatory meeting, which was about structure, it doesn’t have to meet every month. But if we have an issue that arises with respect to structure, then the folks who are on the preparatory meeting would be able to come back together or other folks as they’re interested to go and address the structural question. But I think that with respect to certainly like the oversight of like emerging issues and looking back, the look back to me lines up really nicely with the committee evaluation work, like what the rubric is. Those two things, it seems like as you think about the rubric, that’s very close to like, “Did we accomplish the things that we were committed to previously and are they things worth coming back?” So, I see like some of the preparatory meeting work will continue until the committees get stood up and then some of that will slide into the committee and some of it will continue as sort of a side thing depending on the needs of all of us together. Does that make sense?
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 13:27:56
>> I was thinking having preparatory meetings that are aligned with — if we decide that we want these three subcommittees, we don’t have to wait until they’re approved if we have preparatory works. We could form preparatory groups that are aligned with the new subcommittees, for example.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:28:08
>> Yeah, I think that’s right, or some of it we can hold at the full committee level. It just depends. If there’s nothing major that happens in open government in the next 60 days, then we don’t necessarily need to have it. We can do it at the full community level, not the emerging level, but like yes. So, the next step if people agree that this structure makes sense, which I’m not sure that folks will. I want to make sure there’s an opportunity for that conversation. The next step then would be between this meeting and the next meeting, I would ask for volunteers for folks who might want to serve on these different things and I would work in the background with Arthur and Dan York to start doing the paperwork to set up these things because it will take two to three months I think for that process to work its way through. Does that track? Okay. Amy?
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 13:29:02
>> Yeah, just one other item that we kind of discussed that I thought was important just especially if we are moving forward with these subcommittees or any subcommittees. I think you said this or someone from Arthur’s team may have shared this, but you can be on a subcommittee, but you can also if you’re not a member of it, you can attend still. So, if a topic like an emerging topic is like your issue and you really want to join even though you’re not on that subcommittee, you can still join and be a part of it. Is that right? And maybe some touching on just like how that would work would be helpful to others. I thought it was helpful.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:29:41
>> I don’t want to speak for Arthur, but my understanding is that’s exactly correct and we can establish a committee norm where anybody can sit in on any subcommittee meeting. The subcommittee meetings themselves would be publicly available because that’s the way subcommittee meetings work so that anybody would be able to watch it and we can have a norm for our subcommittees that committee members are able to participate in those meetings, they’re just not able to vote, and that’s the way that that would work. You need a majority of the subcommittee members to report something out. So, if we have 15 members and if you have a 7 member subcommittee, then 4 members of the subcommittee can report something out. And if there’s other people that are present but non-voting members, they wouldn’t count towards the quorum, but that’s okay. That’s a fine result. Sorry about the structure stuff. Does that make sense?
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 13:30:37
>> Yeah, that’s helpful for me too just to clarify, so thank you.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:30:38
>> Yeah. Other folks who want to chime in on this?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:30:49
Okay. I’m not seeing anyone at the moment. What I’d like to do is just get a sense of — unfortunately because of the way Zoom is working, I can’t see everyone’s faces. Are folks comfortable with moving ahead on a vote on this to go adopt this three subcommittee structure? Or let me do it the inverse. Is there anybody who’s not comfortable at this time with going ahead and having a vote to establish these three subcommittees? Just raise your hand or chat at me or wave or something. I’m just trying to go through the video. All right. I don’t see anybody who’s uncomfortable. I’m just going to wait one more moment just in case.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:31:37
>> Dan, this is Arthur, if you’d give me a second. I’d also suggest that if there is anyone who would like to pass that vote since we can’t see it if you would put it in the chat, that would help us.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:31:53
>> Yes, that’s a good point. Well, I don’t see anyone. It’s going to take us like two to three months to get this going anyway. So, if it turns out this is a terrible idea, then we don’t have to do it that way if people have second thoughts. But for now, I’d like to go ahead and have us vote on that. Arthur, do you have a preference? I can either say, “Does anyone have an objection?” or is there an easier way to just like have — Ade, yes, please go ahead.
[Ade Odutola (Member)] 13:32:25
>> Hi, Dan. Ade Odutola. Quick question. Is this set in stone can we change our minds in a couple of — yeah, if you could talk about that, I would appreciate that.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:32:33
>> Yeah, I’d love to. So, we can always change our mind. So, anything that we do through a committee vote we can undo through a committee vote. Obviously, requesting the administrator to set up these subcommittees is challenging because it takes time for that process to work its way through. Identifying who’s going to be on the different ones is also challenging. I’m going to ask. So, what I will do is if people agree that the structure makes sense, what I’m then going to do is I’ll put out a call for people to volunteer to serve on the subcommittees. And we’ll see how it breaks down. Basically, I don’t mind having some committees which have a lot of people and some which have only a few people. That’s not necessarily an issue because all the work is going to refer back to the full committee anyway, but we’ll see sort of where the weight of interest is assuming people want to participate in them. They may not want to participate in a subcommittee, which is also fine. But if it turns out that like creating a subcommittee on emerging issues is a really bad idea and we should just do it all at the full committee, then there is no reason to say that we can’t get rid of the subcommittee. The only challenge arises — there are two challenges. One challenge arises having outside folks. We’re not going to have outside folks, so that’s not a problem. The other challenge arises is moving people around between the subcommittees. But since people are going to be able to participate anyway, they just won’t be able to vote if they’re not on the subcommittee, then it seems like that’s fine. I think that that works.
[Ade Odutola (Member)] 13:34:07
>> Thank you, Dan.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:34:08
>> Yeah, of course.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:34:12
>> This is Arthur. I just want to make one change or correction just before we move forward. For the subcommittees, you’ll be volunteering to participate in that committee and then you would need to be appointed. So, that would be the process.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:34:36
>> And the person who appoints is the GSA Administrator. It’s not me. Right, Arthur? But I will be making recommendations.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:34:50
>> The DFO will be sending a package forward with these are the names that we’ve discussed that we believe should be on this committee and ask he or her to appoint them.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:35:13
>> So, we can vote without Corinna, although I would love to have her here, but it seems like — I think we’ve got more than a quorum to vote regardless and I don’t think this is contentious, but let’s go ahead and have a vote. Arthur, we can either go by each name if you’d like or we can just do it unless there’s an objection. Do you have a preference?
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:35:35
>>We’re going to do it by name. And when I call your name, just come off mute and —
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:35:41
>> And let me just clarify. What we’re voting on now is to establish three subcommittees, a subcommittee on retrospective review, a subcommittee on new NAP recommendations, and a subcommittee on emerging open government issues. So, we are not appointing people yet. We’re just requesting that the GSA administrator create these three subcommittees. There’s no confusion, right? Okay. Arthur, please go ahead. Thank you.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:36:11
>> Okay. I’ll first start with Ade.
[Ade Odutola (Member)] 13:36:20
>> Yes. Ade Odutola. Yes, I support the motion.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:36:23
>> Thank you. Amy.
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 13:36:27
>> Yes, I approve.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:36:30
>> Bobby.
[Bobby Talebian (Member)] 13:36:32
>> Yes, I approve as well.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:36:34
>> Charles.
[Charlie Cutshall (Member)] 13:36:37
>> I vote in favor.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:36:39
>> Corinna.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:36:47
>> She’s off at the moment.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:36:48
>> Dan Schuman.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:36:51
>> Aye.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:36:53
>> Joyce.
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 13:36:56
>> Yes, I approve.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:36:59
>> Kristen.
[Dr. Kristen Honey (Member)] 13:37:03
>> Approve.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:37:04
>> Steven.
[Dr. Steven Kull (Member)] 13:37:06
>> I approve.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:37:08
>> Janice.
[Janice Luong (Member)] 13:37:11
>> Yes, I approve.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:37:12
>> John.
[John Dierking (Member)] 13:37:14
>> John Dierking is yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:37:16
>> Josh.
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 13:37:18
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:37:22
>> Kiril.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 13:37:21
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:37:22
>> Ron.
[Ron Keefover (Member)] 13:37:24
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:37:27
>> Suzanne.
[Suzanne Piotrowski (Member)] 13:37:29
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:37:31
>> That’s everyone.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:37:34
>> So, that’s 14 yes and 1 non-voting. Is that correct?
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 13:37:40
>> That’s correct.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:37:41
>> Okay. Well, thank you, everyone. So, the next step will be that I’ll follow up with Arthur’s help with an email to everyone for folks to express interest. Don’t feel obligated to serve on any subcommittee. You are welcome to request to serve on more than one subcommittee if you wish to do so as well. And if you’re interested in serving as chair, let me know as well. So, I’ll follow by email with Arthur to all of you so we can work that out. Thank you, all. So, next. See, wasn’t that fun? That wasn’t too bureaucratic, right? Yay. Okay. So, next, we’re going to have a report back from Kiril who’s going to talk about the committee evaluation preparatory meeting.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 13:38:30
>> Thanks, Daniel. Yes. So, we met in general to discuss how we should be thinking about and evaluating the various ideas that come to the committee at large through whichever sorts of processes we end up setting up, but I guess now we’re going to have subcommittees notionally. So, if we could go to the next slide. We were essentially guided by two motivating questions. One was, “How do we think about what is and is not relevant to this broader umbrella of open government?” And then two, trying to think through as we evaluate these ideas, “Are there telltale signs that might suggest that they might be more or less successful or effective or impactful, whatever, however you’d want to measure that?” But those were the two big questions we were considering in our discussion. Next slide, please.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 13:39:46
The first half of the meeting, we had a presentation from the OGP Support Unit where they talked a little bit about how they evaluate National Action Plans and the commitments and ideas that are in those. And then the second half, we had just a member discussion about this broader idea. Next slide, please. So, the OGP presentation, it was led by Pepe Garcia who’s our country support coordinator for the Americas. And what Pepe talked about, he wanted to sort of have us think about NAPs and the commitments that are going into those. The reforms in NAPs are not just discreet things, but rather OGP seeing success as when NAPs are thought of as a package of reforms that are sending a cohesive political message. Like I said, a commitment is not something in of itself, but more successful when it’s a part of a broader web of interconnected ideas. And he provided an overview of what OGP at least looks at when they’re evaluating their commitments. He mentioned that they’ve got three core criteria when they’re judging commitments. One was verifiability. That is, whether the commitments clearly state the actions that are proposed as part of those efforts and whether they have clear milestones as far as how that will be developed and implemented, those commitments. The second was relevance, how relevant the idea is to whatever aspect of open government we’re trying to focus on with that commitment. The third was potential for results. And in that regard, he outlined that they had three categories. As they consider what those potentials look like, he said that they have whether it’s clear, modest or substantial potential for results, they try and slot those commitments into one of those buckets. Next slide, please.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 13:42:05
So, he talked a little bit about what kind of commitments are successful or at least what has OGP experienced in the various evaluations that they’ve done through IRM and through other mechanisms. He highlighted that they have found that well-articulated, results-oriented strategic commitments are more likely to lead to change. So, what is “well-articulated” and “results-oriented” for the purpose of these commitments? Those are commitments that describe a certain problem very well, the change that those commitments aim to make is within the scope of the commitment, that it’s doable, and that the desired outputs are clearly described, that you want to understand the connection between the problem, what you want to do, and what you want to get out of it. What is strategic? He mentioned that OGP is interested in understanding both the feasibility of commitments as well as their ambition. He mentioned that they’ve got a priority on quote-unquote game changing commitments which generate binding and institutional changes across government. OGP has found that those have been particularly worthwhile across the sort of global scope of OGP’s National Action Plans. Some important considerations for better results that we discussed were whether these ideas that are in the commitments are of significant importance to the country to whatever political moment the country is experiencing, whether commitments involve the right people, the right agencies, whether they’re feasible, whether we’re being clear and explicit about the expected results in the text of the commitment. Those are all important considerations as at least as OGP is evaluating whether commitments might be impactful. Next slide.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 13:44:27
Some other lessons learned. We talked about categories for weighing commitment elements. He mentioned that they are broad and flexible from OGP’s IRM standpoint. When people are happy with the result, both government and civil society, that’s what’s really important. And he also noted that government and civil society might differs, so government wants a good grade, civil society pushes for bigger goals. He outlined that a successful process has government and civil society agreeing on the same policy areas before making specific amendments. The main point is to try and get government and civil society stakeholders to agree on the broad priorities and then slot things in after the fact after you establish that. IRM, through their analysis, they found that regular action plans in general, they’ve got between 5 and 15 commitments. And then of those, there’s about 3 to 10 milestones in each which describe how the commitment is going to be implemented. He stressed that it’s important to set modest goals and expectations and that it’s okay to do that, that we don’t necessarily need to work toward every commitment having what they described as substantial potential for results. We’ve got to describe well the current situation, how things will be different with the commitment, to be very clear about those two pieces, and the activities that should take us to the result as well. There might be situations where the commitment is fulfilled, but the change in the results are not as substantial as we expected or as we desired, which is why it’s important to set goals and expectations at a modest level. Well-designed commitments will hopefully lead to those desired results, and the numbers should be ambitious, but moderated. Next slide, please.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 13:46:36
These are some of the thematic areas that OGP is focused on right now as part of their global advocacy efforts including this open government challenge, which is 10 separate topic areas from civic space to justice, media freedom, etc. He also outlines some other OGP resources that might come in handy for the committee to become familiar with. That includes the Open Gov Guide, which is a really tremendous resource on the OGP website where there’s dozens of thematic areas you can delve into that go through and then each page sort of outlines the existing commitments worldwide that are trying to implement that thematic topic, as well as some sample commitments, some things to think about. So, there’s really a wealth of information on the OGP site of things that are working well across the world. Next slide, please.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 13:47:44
And then, we had some committee discussion, if we can move to the next slide. So, we wanted to think about how we can work towards an evaluation framework, and we wanted to figure out how we can run a collaborative process between government and civil society that yields actions that are both doable and important. And in contrast to some prior National Action Plans, we noted that it could be important to have a more transparent process behind the committee’s decision-making with a defensible methodology without being overly mechanistic in that work. There was some great discussion on sort of how we want to ideate these recommendations. One of the members of the preparatory meeting discussed what we were calling a quadrant mechanism. So, for example, plotting an idea’s level of effort versus its ambition or its impact. We considered it might be worth mirroring ambition with impact. There’s space for high impact, high effort ideas, and we wanted to think about how we can plot whatever ideas we have onto some sort of evaluation mechanism and figure out, “If this is an important variable for us, how does this idea measure up? Where does it measure up?” Next slide, please.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 13:49:18
And so, these are some of those possible dimensions which might work on a quadrant mechanism or something similar. We thought about level of effort, ambition, the potential impact of the ideas or the commitments, whether they were risky or not risky to implement, whether they were specific or broad, how easy something would be to institutionalize, how much government buy-in there might be. So, these are all sort of variables and dimensions that we thought would be important for the committee to keep in mind as we’re evaluating the ideas that come in. Next slide.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 13:49:57
And so, these are some other just questions and topics for consideration that were raised during this back and forth discussion by the committee members. We wanted to engage relevant agencies when we’re thinking through commitments that intersect with their work, but whether or not they show up to these discussions we thought shouldn’t drive the advisory committee’s work. We should be careful about our posture on whether the agency shows up affecting the likelihood of including that commitment in the NAP or not. We were discussing that maybe we should prioritize open government related initiatives specifically since historically they haven’t always been at the forefront of the National Action Plans and that that would be some progress if we could really emphasize open government and make sure that everything had an open government lens. One of the members asked, “If we find a gap in the recommendations that are submitted to the committee, how do we resolve it, should we resolve it?” noting as Daniel mentioned earlier we’re not limited to only considering the recommendations submitted to us and we’re also not limited to all of these ideas being molded into a National Action Plan.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 13:51:22
There are ways that the committee can take action on any of these ideas or fill in these gaps between commitments in the National Action Plan, but also through all the other mechanisms that we’ve talked about and will continue to. One of our members mentioned that there’s a diversity of members in the committee that are in states, districts, cities, not just federal or thinking about federal level reform. So, we might want to consider incorporating a subnational element in our commitments and recommendations. And of course, OGP through OGP Local has been emphasizing the value and agility of local reforms. So, it’s something to keep in mind. We also discussed whether we should establish an accountability practice that is our own response to commitments, i.e., if there’s commitments, should we then at the end of the process or whatever publish an analysis of why something wasn’t included, why it wasn’t judged as open government? If agencies aren’t coming to the table, should we try and establish some sort of accountability mechanism where we are informing the public to that extent? What do we do? That was one other question. And again, at the bottom, what can we do with ideas that don’t neatly fit in the National Action Plan? The FACs should feel free to say certain things that ought to happen. I think that was a general agreement across the preparatory meeting. Even if there’s no way it can be included in the National Action Plan, we discussed an idea of having some sort of bucket or a pile of important open government proposals on the side that are that are good ideas, but which might not fit in the actual action plan, things that we can pursue in tandem or in parallel. Next slide, please.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 13:53:27
And so, just some key takeaways here before I open it up to the rest of the committee. One, we thought that it would be important to focus on defining the problem, how the recommendation would make things different. Two, it’s okay to set modest goals for ourselves and expectations. Three, we want to work towards a transparent defendable inclusion criteria? And four, trying to analyze effort versus impact might be especially useful as a framework, but there’s plenty of other variables we might want to consider. So, that’s it from me. I’ll open it up to other members of the preparatory meeting if you’ve all got anything to add, if I missed anything. And if not, I’ll pass it back to Daniel. Thank you.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:54:19
>> So, are there other folks from the preparatory meeting that would like to speak about anything that relates to the committee evaluation process?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:54:38
Okay. Well, Kiril, I thought it was a great summary of what was discussed. I attended the preparatory meeting, and I was particularly struck by the quadrant’s approach. I think it was really a helpful framework to think through it. Sorry. I’m just looking to make sure that we have — Corinna, are you still here? So, she was the one who had suggested it. I was going to hand it over to her to chat about, but she may have stepped away for the moment. So, when she’s back, we’ll come back to her, but I thought that that was a particularly useful way of thinking about these things. I just want to open it up to the group. I know this was a lot to digest. You’re not going to be asked to make any decisions about any of what you just heard today. This is just a starting point. But if folks have questions about the report back on the committee evaluation process or questions for Kiril or for anyone who was there or other things that you’re thinking about that relates to how do we evaluate ideas for inclusion or exclusion in our recommendations, this is a great time to raise those. So, just raise your hand and I’ll be happy to recognize you.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:56:05
You all can’t be that shy. Okay. So, I don’t see anyone. So, what I think might be a useful next step that I’d like to propose is this framework makes sense at least to me of thinking through it. This is kind of high-level thinking. I thought the presentation from Pepe at OGP was really helpful and the framework that they use. Also, the quadrant approach that Corinna had talked about was super useful. I think that it might be helpful particularly in light of a presentation that’s coming up later from the OGP Secretariat in terms of like some of the recommendations that have been received to ask the folks at the preparatory meeting to go back and to start playing with this a little bit to sort of suggest, “All right, these are really good themes, but how would we operationalize it? Is it a spreadsheet with a bunch of weights? Is it is it a grid and you put things on?” I don’t know. I don’t want to assume what the answer would be, but I think that might be a useful next step. And of course, folks who attended the prior meeting or wish to attend this preparatory meeting I think should be able to do so. Kiril, can I impose on you to pull together and I’ll help you do so with Arthur’s help another preparatory meeting to start figuring out like what would this look like in practice? Is that is that a fair request to make of you?
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 13:57:41
>> Sure, yeah. Happy to do so.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:57:43
>> Okay. Do folks agree with this approach or do folks have concerns with this approach? I see some nodding heads. If you feel strongly either — yeah, Charlie, please go ahead.
[Charlie Cutshall (Member)] 13:57:59
>> Yeah, sure. I wanted to just say thank you for the presentation, doing the work, doing the thinking. I think having the OGP presentation was a great idea. I think that we can be as formal or as informal as we want to be with these. If we want to have a spreadsheet like you suggested, Daniel, with some weights, we can certainly do that or if we just want to use these things as north stars and have them be able to guide our discussion so that when we’re looking at and thinking through consideration we’re just making sure that we are systematically considering all of these things, I think that’s fine too. But I fully support the direction where this is headed. I do think that typing it up or having something that’s a little bit more formalized so that we understand what each of these things are and how we might think about them would be helpful, but I just think that this is phenomenal and great and we’re definitely on the right track.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:58:57
>> Awesome. Thank you, Amy.
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 13:59:00
>> I just want to echo that as well and that I support it and I appreciate the work done by the other members, so thank you.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 13:59:09
>> Thank you. Anybody else wish to weigh in? Okay. So, here is what I’m going to propose and then we can vote on it. So, what I suggest is that Kiril will be asked to pull together another preparatory meeting or set of meetings as he thinks appropriate to report back to the full group later on to look to see whether there’s a way to formalize or to figure out whether it makes sense to formalize and if so to come back with some suggestions about ways to formalize this great series of the report backs that he had from the prior meeting. So, basically, to go off and have a preparatory meeting or more. For folks who want to participate, they can email me and Arthur and Kiril and we’ll get you connected and we’ll have a meeting and that will come back with something more formally to be reported for possible rubric. I think I said it well enough. Kiril, go ahead.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 14:00:12
>> Thanks. And just to clarify, because these will be preparatory meetings, we’ll still be bound by the both quorum restrictions and sort of deliberative restrictions, right?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:00:24
>> So, I’ve got good news on that. So, it turns out that the quorum restriction was not a thing. We thought it was a thing. So, as many people from all of us who want to participate can participate in the preparatory meeting. But unfortunately, GSA rules prevent preparatory meetings from being open to the public. It is possible to invite outside folks to come and present. But then when they finish the presentation and conversation, they have to leave. This is one of the reasons why I ultimately want to get the subcommittees going because then we can actually do this in public. Arthur, did I misstate anything or did I get this right?
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:01:04
>> You have it right. Thanks, Dan.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:01:06
>> Okay, great. So, motion is on the floor. If you think that we should have Kiril go and gather together other folks who are willing and report back whether and what a slightly more formal mechanism might look like, say yes. And if you disagree, say no. And of course, you can abstain if you want. And Arthur, would you mind doing the role, please?
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:01:37
>> Sure. So, Ade.
[Ade Odutola (Member)] 14:01:43
>> Yes, Ade Odutola.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:01:46
>> Amy.
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 14:01:48
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:01:50
>> Bobby.
[Bobby Talebian (Member)] 14:01:52
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:01:54
>> Charles.
[Charlie Cutshall (Member)] 14:01:56
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:01:59
>> Corinna.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:02:04
Daniel.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:02:10
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:02:10
>> Joyce.
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 14:02:12
>>Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:02:15
>> Kristen.
[Dr. Kristen Honey (Member)] 14:02:19
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:02:21
>> Steven.
[Dr. Steven Kull (Member)] 14:02:23
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:02:25
>> Janice.
[Janice Luong (Member)] 14:02:27
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:02:29
>> John.
[John Dierking (Member)] 14:02:31
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:02:33
>> Josh.
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 14:02:34
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:02:35
>> Kiril.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 14:02:38
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:02:39
>> Ron.
[Ron Keefover (Member)] 14:02:41
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:02:43
>> And Suzanne.
[Suzanne Piotrowski (Member)] 14:02:44
>> Yes.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:02:48
>> Okay. If I count that right, that’s 14 yes, 0 no’s, and 1 non-voting?
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:02:55
>> That’s correct.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:03:04
>> I would offer for a motion to reconsider, but I don’t think we need to have that much fun. But if folks have concerns with the way the vote came out, this or any other vote, always feel free to raise your hand and I’ll recognize you. So, we’re going to move on.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:03:13
We’ve got the final report back, which I’m going to do this. This is on the community engagement. And then, after we do this segment here, we will take a 10-minute break because I’m sure everybody would be excited to get up and run around and do whatever. So, the community engagement preparatory meeting’s purpose was to gather information and conduct research on how to best engage with the public concerning committee operations. John was honing this process, but he wasn’t able to make the preparatory meeting. Arthur helped coordinate it and I will be the one who’s doing the report back. I do want to flag that John has a number of really excellent ideas on how to improve the public participation process, and I want to circle back on that. But for now, I’m just going to sort of walk through the report back. And actually, do you mind? We’ll just skip the slides because I’ve got some notes and I’ll just talk them through.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:04:14
Here we go. This is great. So, there were more things to cover than there was time to cover those items. The ones that we were able to have a discussion on were as follows. One has to do with — so, let me just back up. This is about like how do we get in comments from the public, how do we communicate back to the public, like what’s the mechanisms of how all of this works because we haven’t established any of those things. So, this was really nuts and bolts. So, I’m going to summarize sort of the weight of where folks were. But of course, as a group we can decide whatever we think makes the most appropriate. There are a number of things that we weren’t able to address, so we’ll probably need another preparatory meeting to address those things, but I wanted to get these initial ones sort of out of the way.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:05:03
So, the first question was, “Currently, we’re having these monthly meetings. How much time should we allow at these meetings for public comment?” And there was a lot of conversation about how it’s done elsewhere. Where it seemed to me that the weight of it was is that we should make available up to 30 minutes at our regular meetings and allow for up to three minutes per person for an oral comment. There’s always the opportunity for the public to submit written comments to ogfac@gsa.gov, and we should encourage people to do that. And we also may wish to consider holding a specific meeting devoted to public feedback, so we’d have like a big listening session. But at least at these meetings, maximum of 30 minutes with three minutes per person seemed to be about right. I’m just going to go through these and we’ll go back through them individually.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:05:59
So, second question was, “How do we let people know that the meetings are happening?” GSA of course is already providing notice for these meetings through list serves, through the Federal Register, through LinkedIn, through press release. The weight of the group seemed to also encourage committee members to share announcements of meetings on their social media that also encourages people to submit written comments or to request to make an oral comment. Another issue that came up — don’t worry there’s only five of these.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:06:26
Another issue that came up was responding to verbal comments. And the weight of the group seemed to be that responding to verbal comments at meetings would be challenging. There’s no individual committee member that can speak for the committee, that the way that we speak is by voting or by issuing recommendations, and the best way to show people about how comments are being used and how we formulate our recommendations. So, if we have a rubric that says that you made this comment and we looked at your comment and it was great and we incorporated it or it didn’t fit, that is a way of showing people that we actually listening and engaging with what they’re saying. But we should of course acknowledge receipt of communications. We can’t always say like what we think until we vote. Now, for responding to written public comments — so, one, written public comments are published on GSA’s website and they’re distributed to all of us.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:07:24
Again, it’s the same issues. Like it’s tough speaking as the committee. We obviously should acknowledge when we receive comments and we should also show like how they’re being incorporated. There was support for — and I think Amy had talked about this at a previous meeting. No, it was Dr. Honey who had suggested this. Using tools like IdeaScale or Crowdicity — I think I said that right — to allow the public to comment, to allow people to respond to each other’s comments, and even for members of the federal advisory committee on a personal basis to engage with that as well. There was a question about like logistics, like GSA would have to provide support for this to maybe a funding issue, it’s something that we can work out in the background about whether it’s actually possible to do something like this, but that would be a good way to have engagement with the written comments if they’re put on a platform like this. But as a group, we don’t really know what we think until we vote and then our vote indicates what we think. And for recommendations that will largely show up again, Kiril is going to help get for us like the rubric and the response to that.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:08:34
So, I won’t be writing letters in response to comments that are received, that type of thing, but we will be showing our work and we will explore using tools like IdeaScale and otherwise to have like a more engaging process. So, those were the ones that we worked our way through. There was a bunch that we did not address. Just for brevity, I’m going to just go through them quickly so that what we didn’t get to, which will have to be discussed. How do you reach out and engage with people who are under-engaged or have issues with engaging? Do I just submit ideas to the committee or to present? How do we engage with things like the Open Government Google Group or comments on YouTube or comments in the live chat? How do we review and organize these comments? This in part goes to like what we were talking about with Kiril. How do we support government officials engaging? How to encourage feedback from the public that takes into account the hard choices and the tradeoffs? Everybody wants rainbows and puppy dogs, but like if you can only have rainbows or puppy dogs, like how do you make people indicate what the weight of their preference is? And then finally, I think this the hardest one, which is how to demonstrate that ideas are being taken seriously. So, those are being held in abeyance for a future conversation. So, with that, one, I’d like to open it up. If there are other folks who were at the community engagement preparatory meeting who’d like to weigh in on any of these things or things that were discussed or not discussed, this is a great opportunity to do so. So, I just want to give the floor to you. Janice or anyone else, like if you guys want to speak up, this is a great opportunity to do that. Just raise your hand.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:10:34
I’m not seeing anyone at the moment. Opening it up to everyone. And just as a point of process, what I will do is after we have a general discussion, I’ll go back for each of these recommendations and we’re going to vote on each of these recommendations to put them into place assuming that folks think that that makes sense. But I want to open up for like general conversation about like any of this if folks have views that they’d like to express. Josh.
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 14:11:03
>> This is like the toughest problem I guess for every government body and I don’t know whether there’s a good solution. I think I worry about having the appearance of having a participatory structure, but not actually having a participatory structure. So, the idea that people would be offered three minutes to talk, but that we wouldn’t respond, right? I feel like that is the appearance of participation, but really maybe not an effective way, that it wouldn’t really serve anybody to recommend that they do that. And maybe just written comments. Not to say one or the other, but that written comments might be just the more effective way for people to be on the record engaging with us in a way that’s not going to get any direct response anyway. So, I guess I might make a counterproposal that we not do three minutes if we’re not going to have an opportunity to respond and maybe limit it to one minute, but really encourage people to have a longer discourse in a written form or alternatively that we also make space for a time where we actually can have an interaction with people. I would love to have more interaction with people, although it would take a lot of time.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:12:18
>> Thank you for the comment, but I’m not going to engage with it substantively. I’m just kidding. Good. Everyone’s awake. Kristen.
[Dr. Kristen Honey (Member)] 14:12:29
>> Yeah, thanks. I agree with Josh about like the allowing for written ones and letting people express as much as they want unlimited in that forum, but feel very strongly that we should have three minutes for public comment because these comments really aren’t about us in a sense and there’ll be a lot of advocates in civil society who want to have their voice heard and can use that three minutes for other purposes and all that. So, I think it’s important we create the space and give people the stage. And three minutes is still pretty short, but it’s enough to I think make a compelling argument. I do like Josh’s suggestion a lot of, “Is there a way we could have some interaction?” And I know one of the things we were talking about in the pros and cons of that is we definitely want people to have their time and not feel like we on the committee are defensive or counteracting or disagreeing or whatever. It’s like the time for the public to express and speak truth to power and what needs to be done and what their priorities are. So, I think if we gave full three minutes and let people go through and then after that if there was maybe a period of more interactive, that would be good, but not immediately after so it doesn’t become a right/wrong, two different views, back and forth that could negate people feeling heard.
[Dr. Kristen Honey (Member)] 14:14:01
So, just some big picture thoughts. And then, one other thing on the technology front and how we could have meaningful input from the public using kind of some of the platforms like IdeaScale, Crowdicity and those ideas management ones, are there examples internationally in the Open Government Partnership where the process a priori says we’re going to include the top three commitments from the public in our action plan or whatever it’s going to be. Maybe it’s just the top one. But if we set up this framework for idea management and the public really engages and say they’re out voting on each others or doing all that, could we ahead of time say here’s the people’s choice and put in the top three? And I don’t know if other places have done that if that’s allowed.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:14:58
So, I didn’t see who was next. I think Joyce is next. Just to respond to that last thing and I apologize for doing so, we did that in the U.S. That was President Obama had “we the people” where if you got a certain number of votes, then the president would address it. So, like there is at least precedent in the U.S. context and we can talk to Pepe or other others who may have international context, but my goal is not to respond to each person, so I apologize. Joyce, you’re up, please.
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 14:15:33
>> I think Kristen has raised three points that I was going to raise, so I agree totally with that. First on the issue of the response, we thought that it was important that we do not portray ourselves as countering the opinion of the public. The only other addition that I would make to that is if an opportunity for interaction is important to us concerning maybe comments that have been made, maybe we propose for a meeting outside that meeting. Maybe like a general forum day or interactions with the public might be something to consider.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:16:21
>> Excellent. Thank you. Janice.
[Janice Luong (Member)] 14:16:25
>> Hi, everyone. I really like that idea of the general forum day, Joyce, and I think Josh makes a good point. I think it’s important to find a way on how to avoid making this a one-way conversation in terms of engaging with the public. I would love to find a way on how we can interact with the public however that looks like. That could be for further discussion. And my third point — I have four points in total. My third point is referring back to how to let people know we’re listening. I was thinking we could do more than acknowledging folks. We can extend that or expand that and say, “Maybe you can refer back to this product that we have worked on before that GSA has touched on before and keep in touch with the work that we’re doing.” Just so it kind of extends more as like, “We have this, this is a receipt that we’ve listened, but we’re not going to tell you the next steps,” I think it’s important to extend an olive branch to the public to keep in touch with us. And my fourth point, I kind of thought of this when you were talking about the preparatory meetings and how to spread awareness and how to reach hard-to-reach communities to participate in government. I think if we can invite external stakeholders to our meetings, I think education is a large part of expanding awareness and how to communicate and engage with the government. So, I think if we can invite some educators, I think that would be really helpful.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:18:10
>> Great. Thank you very much. Charlie.
[Charlie Cutshall (Member)] 14:18:16
>> Thank you, thank you. I thought it might be helpful once we formalize and agree on our evaluation criteria just tying some things together here that we communicate that out in our notices in our open meetings and that to the extent that individuals are taking three minutes to share orally or submitting ideas in a written format or responding to a Federal Register notice that it would be helpful for those individuals to the extent that they have an idea or recommendation to potentially frame that idea and recommendation with some awareness of the evaluation criteria that we’re using. So, you said that we everyone wants puppies and rainbows. So, if we’re hearing from the National K9 Association and they have some ideas for how they think we could do a better job of engaging dog owners, coming with a framework that we’re going to then use to understand the potential impact of their ideas or how those ideas tie into a broader policy initiative, that would be very helpful as opposed to just coming with an idea and sort of dropping the mic afterwards.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:19:32
>> That’s a very good point. Are there other folks who would like to weigh in?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:19:43
Are their folks who’ve already spoken who would like to respond? Okay. So, I’m hearing a couple of things, and one is the concern that I often have when I go to meetings, which is like the idea of like people being in listening mode. Anyone ever had that experience? You go to a government meeting and they’re like, “We’re not here to talk to you. We’re just in listening mode.” Like it’s infuriating. Nobody likes that. But we also are a collective “we,” so it’s hard to respond. I think that, one, as we develop a rubric, showing the rubric that we’re using so that people know how to write things that fits what we’re doing — I’m stealing all of your good ideas, I’m just reframing it — that is a useful way to show engagement. I’m hearing that folks do like the idea of having some sort of either before the meeting or after the meeting or an online mechanism or something where we can engage on a one-on-one basis so people can have a conversation and it’s not just 15 people in boxes staring at you, that is a useful thing. I’m hearing that it’s good to invite outside folks to come and speak and this is something that we’ll be getting at later. It’s later on in the agenda, so I’m glad we’re all sort of aligned. And I’m hearing that there is performative value in having oral comments in addition to like the actual communication that takes place and some people are better communicators verbally than they are writing, that there is value in having the public communicating that way. And I think GSA regulations require public comment, like in-person comment at the meetings anyway. The question is like, “How much? How long and how many and like what duration and like how long per person.” So, actually, I will pause here. Is that a fair summary of what’s been said or are there things that I missed or other things that people would add? Okay. It seems like people are generally comfortable. If you’re not, raise your hand or put something in the chat or text me or whatever, jump up and down or something. I’m trying to be responsive. So, let’s go back. I think based upon what was said, one, that people seem to be — I’m going to hypothesize here, but like it seems that the up to 30 minutes but up to three minutes per person is unobjectionable to folks, that people don’t have a concern with that. So, instead of doing the roll call, what I’m going to do is I’m going to say “without objection.” So, if people have concern with that, then we can go and have a vote on it. Well, then, I appreciate it. You object to my mechanism or you object to that particular item? I’m just kidding. Josh, do you want to say a little more, please?
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 14:22:58
>> I mean, I’m going to vote against a three-minute proposal if that’s where we are.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:23:02
>> Do you have a counterproposal that you’d like to offer?
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 14:23:08
>> I countered one. I’m going to get outvoted I think, so I don’t need to belabor the point, but that’s where I am. I would much rather see we focus on the public engagement day type idea or something like that than spend more time per meeting.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:23:20
>> So, I’m going to negotiate a little bit. And folks, if this is wrong, like tell me this is wrong. And Joyce, I’ll get to you in one second. What if it’s three minutes, but we’d also try to have at least one like either in person or virtual or we’ll figure out a way to do it, but we’ll have a public engagement meeting where the purpose is to do more than just that. Would that work for you?
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 14:23:46
>> I think I would rather just get outvoted. I mean, I want the public engagement part, but yeah.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:23:53
>> Okay. Well, I mean, I think we should do the public engagement part anyway. I’m just trying to segment it. Joyce.
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 14:24:05
>> I just wanted to clarify or provide some clarification to Josh on how we came about the three-minute rule. I don’t know if you’ve attended some of these public meetings and how some of them are structured. So, I would say maybe we could put in the language something about the agenda because there are times where you have a very non-contentious light agenda. Maybe you have maybe three or four or five people that have expressed some interest in providing public comment. In that case, you can remove the time limit. But there are times where you have a contentious agenda and you have maybe 50 people in the public that have expressed some kind of interest in providing feedback. If there is no time limit on how much people could engage in such situations, you could have the situation where you’re there all day.
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 14:25:04
>> I proposed a smaller time limit, like a one-minute time limit. I’m going the other way. I want to make sure that we have time to do our work and are not spending time on things that I think may not be meaningful because we can’t respond to things.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:25:30
>> Joyce, did you want to respond or are you good?
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 14:25:33
>> I think I’m good. I mean, if we have engagement, the more the merrier. We want people to engage. It’s just the structure. Maybe just put some language there in terms of the structure of the meetings because I believe the meetings are limited to time as well so we won’t spend all day in some meetings. So, if you have a 60-minute meeting and one person wants to provide 30 minutes feedback, how do you structure that. So, you must provide some structure to how the meetings will run.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:26:09
>> Okay. So, this is good. And I think John has a good suggestion, which is — sorry. I don’t mean to editorialize. John has a suggestion, which I think is good. Allowing flexibility by referring to the chair depending on the situation so that way — so, here, let me revise. So, 30 minutes, three minutes per, with discretion provided to the chair to come back around if someone gets cuts off if we still have the time that’s available and if it’s in the chair’s opinion like on topic. So, if someone wants to talk about things that are not related, then I can exercise the discretion that I have under the rules. Does that seem generally fine for folks? I know, Josh, this is not where you want it in terms of time, but does it work otherwise? All right. So, I’m going to put it to a vote. So, chair, three minutes per, 30 minutes total, with discretion to the chair depending on the circumstances. We’re going to move to a vote. Arthur, would you call the role, please?
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:27:16
>> Ade.
[Ade Odutola (Member)] 14:27:19
>> Thank you. Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:27:23
>> Amy.
[Amy Holmes (Member)] 14:27:26
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:27:28
>> Bobby.
[Bobby Talebian (Member)] 14:27:30
>> I’m a yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:27:32
>> Charles.
[Charlie Cutshall (Member)] 14:27:35
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:27:37
>> Corinna.
[Corinna Turbes] 14:27:38
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:27:40
>> Daniel.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:27:42
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:27:44
>> Joyce.
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 14:27:46
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:27:49
>> Kristen.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:27:57
Steven.
[Dr. Steven Kull (Member)] 14:27:59
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:28:01
>> Janice.
[Janice Luong (Member)] 14:28:04
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:28:06
>> John.
[John Dierking (Member)] 14:28:08
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:28:09
>> Josh.
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 14:28:10
>> No, sorry.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:28:13
>> Kiril.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 14:28:15
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:28:16
>> Ron.
[Ron Keefover (Member)] 14:28:17
>> Yes.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:28:19
>> And Suzanne.
[Suzanne Piotrowski (Member)] 14:28:21
>> Yes.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:28:23
>> Thank you. So, if I counted that right, it’s 13 aye, 1 nay, and 1 non-voted. So, I’m going to move on to the next element, which is I think that there’s general agreement, but you guys will let me know that we should have some sort of a specific meeting devoted to public feedback. We don’t know what that is yet, like it could be in person, it could be virtual. We’ll have to figure it out, but that would be a useful thing to do as well. Does anybody have a concern with that or just want to speak to that point? Okay, I’m seeing no. So, I’m going to do this by unanimous consent. But if you object, there’s nothing wrong with objecting. We don’t have to all agree. What Josh did before, thank you for speaking your mind. That is totally fine, so I don’t want people to feel any pressure. But with that said, I’m going to do this by unanimous consent. So, does anybody object to that we’ll have a meeting that’s specifically focused on receiving public feedback and engaging with folks?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:29:32
Okay. Without objection, motion is carried. So, the next item — don’t worry, folks. We’ll be taking a break in just a little bit. We’re almost there. So, the next element of that is responding to verbal comments at the meeting. I think the answer to that, I think where we were was generally no, that at the meeting that is not a thing that we will respond to, verbal comments. Is that right? Am I missing something? That’s right? So, raise your hand if I’m hitting the wrong place or if you would like to speak?
[Ade Odutola (Member)] 14:30:23
>> That was my understanding, that we would not respond to verbal comments.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:30:27
>> Okay. So, I’m going to do this by unanimous consent. If someone disagrees, it’s totally fine. As a policy, we will not respond to verbal comments for the oral presentations portion of the meeting either individually or collectively like at that time. Without objection. So, if you object, just raise your hand or speak up.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:30:52
Okay, motion carries.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:31:01
I don’t think we need to vote on this one, but this will just be a request. How do we let people know that the meetings are happening? In addition through the list serves and whatever, committee members will be encouraged to announce or share it through their networks or through their social media or however they want to do that. I don’t think we need to vote on that. I don’t think that’s a thing that’s necessary. But if you think we should vote on it, raise your hand. Nobody finds me funny. Fine.
[Ade Odutola (Member)] 14:31:27
>> Dan got a request that when you send meeting invites out, it should be in form of a meeting invite because for me, I just look at my calendar and if there’s an email with a link saying that I have a meeting, I don’t save it if I don’t remember to copy it and create a meeting invite for myself in my calendar. So, I always miss all meetings that someone just sent me an email and put a link in that email. Yeah, I think I missed some meetings because that was what happened.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:31:57
>> So, Ade, what I’m hearing from you, when we do invitations for meetings, one, there should be an email, two, there should be a separate calendar invite, and in the email, there should also be, “Here’s how you can promote this on social media.” Is that a good summary of what you said?
[Ade Odutola (Member)] 14:32:14
>> No. I’m sorry. No. Just a meeting invite. Just a meeting invite that goes on my calendar, that would be helpful.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:32:28
>> Okay, got it. And I’ll work with Arthur and Daniel about this.
[Ade Odutola (Member)] 14:32:33
>> Thank you.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:32:48
>> I know there’s been some technology issues for some folks, so we’ll try to make sure that that gets addressed because I know that there were some issues with how the different agencies on the federal side, like how they interface with the invitations. Final item. Sorry. I’m scrolling back to make sure I get it. Responding to written public comments, it seemed like there is support for exploring whether or how we could use a tool like IdeaScale or Crowdicity to allow for public comment and for interactive comments in that fashion. If that is not an accurate summary or folks would like to weigh in, this is a good time to do so. Just like raise your virtual hand and I will gladly recognize you. Josh.
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 14:33:30
>> I’m sorry for being the contrarian today. I will try not to do that every time. I guess my concern here is that at least the SGEs, the public members, we’re here to provide our expertise. I’m not here to be a clearinghouse for other people’s comments I guess. I think that those collaboration tools would be better housed at GSA, not within the OG FAC, I guess would be my perspective.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:34:05
>> Great. Thank you. Do other folks want to weigh in? Okay. Yeah, Joyce.
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 14:34:21
>> I guess my question to Josh is if that is the case, say we agree on that, is there going to be a protocol for addressing contentious issues? Like are we providing an opinion or are we acknowledging feedback?
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 14:34:44
>> I mean, I think — we’re here to provide the best advice that we can all provide. And if we know about alternative opinions and we think that those are valid opinions, we should include those in our votes that contribute to our group recommendation. So, the ideas that we know to be good we should be promoting. And I don’t think it’s our job to be a clearinghouse. I think we’re here to provide those recommendations. I’m not sure. I don’t know if that really —
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 14:35:27
>> I acknowledge your point. I’m just wondering if the time — my understanding of how we would respond was by the recommendations will provide by policy. So, once the people provide their comments, I thought at the point of writing our recommendations and policy is our response. It’s not like we’re a clearinghouse for their comments. Correct me if I’m wrong on that.
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 14:36:01
>> I don’t know if that’s — is that back to Daniel?
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 14:36:05
>> I mean, to the house.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:36:08
>> So, I think I can add some clarity. We are not the Multi-Stakeholder Forum. The Multi-Stakeholder Forum to the extent it exists is GSA’s Open Government Secretariat. They have run their process. Their process completed a few weeks ago I think, and one thing that I’ll be speaking about later today will be the sum total of the comments that were received through the Federal Register process. The comments that were received were focused on what should be included in the NAP 6. Our work embraces and includes the NAP 6, but it also goes further and addresses other open government issues particularly on those which are emerging. So, we are not the clearinghouse, but we can encourage people to be able to respond to one another to help like create better suggestions that come into us. So, one mechanism by which we receive suggestions is through emails to ogfac@gsa.gov. But in getting that, it’s not an iterative process. So, if I suggest that we should have — to go back to my terrible example — that we should have puppy dogs. And someone responds to it with, “Yeah, puppy dogs, but with rainbow collars,” there’s no way to have that type of interaction in the way that we have our mechanism set up. There isn’t this public ability to engage in refinement. So, I think the idea is that this would support or allow for people to respond to one another to be able to refine comments. On the other hand, like we don’t have to do that. We are an independent advisory committee. We don’t have to listen to what anybody else says. We can generate our own recommendations, and we will, and we are not obligated in any fashion to listen to what other folks say.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:38:01
So, we’re not a clearing house, but there may be value in having a process by which people who are submitting comments can respond to one another’s comments or we can individually respond to them. So, sorry, that was a longwinded response, but does that — I’ll get to Suzanne in a second, but does that clarify for you, Josh?
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 14:38:23
>> Yeah.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:38:27
>> Okay. Suzanne.
[Suzanne Piotrowski (Member)] 14:38:30
>> Hi. Thanks, Daniel, for all of that. And Josh’s comments, the conversation I think is really interesting. Could you clarify what you see the role as the federal advisory committee and the Multi-Stakeholder Forum? You were explaining you thought those were two separate entities and I would love some clarity on that?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:39:00
>> Sorry, to whom is that question addressed?
[Suzanne Piotrowski (Member)] 14:39:01
>> I think to you, Daniel, because you just said the FACA is not the Multi-Stakeholder Forum. That’s at GSA. So, I was trying to understand what — maybe you misspoke, but I was trying to understand what that meant.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:39:14
>> No, and I’m going to throw this at the GSA folks in just a second, but my understanding is — and this could be incorrect, but my understanding is the Multi-Stakeholder Forum process is that which is managed by the GSA Open Government Secretariat. The role of the federal advisory committee is to provide independent advice to the GSA Administrator regarding the National Action Plan and regarding emerging open government issues. We are close to what a Multi-Stakeholder Forum could look like. But because of the way the federal advisory committee is structured, we are not that. It is a separate and distinct thing. However, we have a lot of flexibility so that we can take on to the extent that we wish to characteristics of what a Multi-Stakeholder Forum might look like. So, like bringing in other folks and like putting our information on their ideas is something that we can totally do, but that is how we ourselves determine the scope and nature of our mission. And Dan York, if you are still on, which I think you are in the background, I’m going to put you on the spot to correct me for all the things that I’ve misstated, so the floor is yours.
[Daniel York (DFO)] 14:40:35
>> Great. No, I think you’re largely right. So, obviously, the U.S. public is larger than the federal advisory committee. There’s lots of folks out there with a lot of great ideas. At the end of the day, it’s the government’s role to write the National Action Plan and the federal advisory committee’s to help advise the GSA Administrator on the recommendations that should be included in the National Action Plan among other things. So, to the extent that the federal advisory committee wants the comments from the public, wants expert advice from agencies, wants to see the results of the RFI or other things, all that is within your purview to be able to write the best advice possible for the GSA Administrator. And then, we take that along with the other considerations and then put the National Action Plan together. Does that clarify some or no? Did I manage to dodge the question adequately enough?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:41:28
>> Does that help or do you want to ask more?
[Suzanne Piotrowski (Member)] 14:41:37
>> I’ll just think it through because this is — that relationship is — I think that’s the crux of what we’re trying to figure out and I think it’s helpful to understand, but I don’t have more comments at this time.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:41:50
>> Thank you. I mean, for what it’s worth, and I don’t want to anticipate our recommendations, but one thing that’s in the back of my head is bootstrapping a better process that is not the federal advisory committee. There’s a bunch of constrictions on the federal advisory committee and what we can do and how we operate. And there may be space for one of our recommendations to be how do we support a better version of a multi-stakeholder process. So, I’m already running into like a bunch of like technical problems in how we do some of the things that we do. So, I think this is a way to get closer to what that vision is, but the structure of the FAC makes it hard to do some of that stuff. So, sorry. That’s not responsible. That’s sort of what’s in the back of my head. And Josh, I see you have your hand up. Is there something else you’d — okay.
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 14:42:48
>> I don’t know why the hand is still up. I can’t lower it.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:42:50
>> I’ll see if I can help you. Nope, I can’t help you. Sorry. Someone else will have to do that.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:42:59
In light of the conversation, let’s defer. Unless folks disagree, we can defer until next time the question. No, actually, I take it back. We should have a vote on whether to ask GSA about IdeaScale and those other tools and get that going at least so that we’ll have more information so we can make a decision next time. So, with that, I will make a motion that we will ask GSA to investigate the use and implementation of these tools and to report back to the federal advisory committee on whether it’s possible to use things like IdeaScale and Crowdicity and if so what that would entail.
[Daniel York (DFO)] 14:43:40
>> So, Dan, if I may. We already are, so you’re happy to vote on such things, but the outcome of the vote is not dependent on us already doing what we’re doing.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:43:48
>> In that case, unanimous consent. Does anybody object to us asking GSA to do what they’re already doing? Awesome. With that, only 13 minutes behind schedule, we will take our break. Thank you all so much. We will be back. It’s 2:44 Eastern time, so we will be back at 2:54 Eastern time. Thank you all for your patience as we work through this.
^E01:38:43
[END PART 1]
[START PART 2]
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 14:54:38
>> We’re going to give another few seconds to allow others to get back to join us. Good afternoon, and welcome back to the second half of the Open Government Federal Advisory Committee’s second public meeting. At this time, we will continue with our agenda. Next on the agenda, the Open Government Secretary will provide a NAP 6 timeline overview. With that, I will turn the meeting back over to the chair, Daniel Schuman.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:55:01
>> Great. Thank you, Arthur. Alexis and Dan York, you’re recognized. I’d love for you to talk through the through the timeline. Thanks.
[Alexis Masterson (U.S. Open Gov Secretariat)] 14:55:11
>> Perfect. Thank you, Dan. Hey, everyone. It is good to be back to present to you all again. So as was just said, we’ve been requested to go back over the NAP 6 development timeline that I presented at your first meeting, just as a refresher, and then to have room for discussion. So we could go to the next slide, please. Perfect, thank you. So as we all know, the U.S. is currently implementing its fifth Open Government National Action Plan, which expires at the end of this month, so we are now talking in terms of days left, and we are going to follow the Open Government Partnership Guidelines for the creation and delivery of the next NAP. And the graphic you see here, which I showed you last time, this comes directly from the Open Government Partnership National Handbook, and it displays that plans that end on December 31st can be delivered to OGP and begin implementation anytime between July 1st and February 28th. However, I want to remind you that the OTP rules also say that if a participating government does not deliver a new action plan within one year after the completion of their previous action plan, they will be officially late. So that means we have until the end of December 2025 to deliver NAP 6 and not be counted as late. So if we can go to the next slide, please.
[Alexis Masterson (U.S. Open Gov Secretariat)] 14:56:36
Thank you. So this slide walks through the proposed NAP 6 development timeline. You might remember that these six years at the top, these also come from the OGP national handbook, and they show the six-part NAP development process that they’ve created, and what we’ve done is we’ve mapped our six steps to the notional timeline, again, with the goal of having NAP 6 created and over to OGP by the end of December next year. So the first three steps, analyzing inputs, defining the problem, and identifying solutions, those are all taking place now and through the end of the calendar year. So as part of these processes, we’ve been engaging with agencies and with the public in various meetings and through the NAP 6 request for information we released in September to collect ideas and recommendations. And as an aside, you might have seen that I’ll be going over an overview of the feedback we received later on in this call. So after this part is done and we have a good sense for the commitments we think should be in the next NAP, we will begin the drafting phase, and that’s the orange bar that runs from January through the end of May 2025. We then have the bright blue bar that goes from June through the end of September 2025, and this represents the time period where we expect to have a solid draft that we share with the public, civil society, and other stakeholders for feedback, and then have sort of a back-and-forth on what changes might be needed to go into the final draft.
[Alexis Masterson (U.S. Open Gov Secretariat)] 14:58:07
Here, I also want to bring up as a reminder. I mentioned last time, and want to emphasize again, that there are going to be multiple opportunities for the public and for civil society to engage throughout this entire process. Those include, just as examples, responding to our previous RFI, attending meetings held by the FAC here, and as well as other public meetings that the Secretariat might hold, and then providing feedback when the draft is released next year. And there will also be multiple instances where the government will share our thoughts and responses, and those will not just be limited exclusively to this one segment of the timeline. Getting back to the timeline here, the green bar, that represents when we hope to finalize and publish NAP 6, and we have it here in October and November of 2025. So as I’ve been saying, our target is to have NAP 6 delivered to OGP by the end of December 2025 in order to not be counted as late with submitting the next plan. And so the gray bar here was the initial amount of buffer zone that we have built in into the timeline in case any unexpected scenarios come up that require us to adjust our schedule. So this is the timeline as it stands today, but happy to answer any questions or open up the floor, Dan, if you all wanted to talk about any concerns you might have with it.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 14:59:36
>> Great. Thank you. First of all, does anyone have any questions about the current timeline that Alexis has discussed? Okay, I don’t see anyone raising hands. So we spoke last — oh, sorry, [inaudible], were you coming off? Did you have some — you’re on mute, my friend. You’re on — you have to unmute.
[Ade Odutola (Member)] 15:00:08
>> I was going to answer the question that, no, I did not, but never mind.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:00:18
>> Thank you. Fair enough. So we discussed this, I think, at the last meeting, but this timeline, I think, is problematic in the way that it coincides with the incoming new administration. So not a criticism of Alexis. I should start there. Like, thank you so much for putting this excellent presentation, together. Thank you for doing that. The OGP timeline does not fit with the idea of our ability to communicate, I think, with the incoming administration. The incoming administration comes in on January 20th. It’s going to take them months to hire people at the top of the administration, let alone to hire some of the more senior folks that we would need to have conversations with, and it looks like, based upon the chart, that May of 2025 is when the commitments would be finalized, not — I mean, I’m using the wrong — Alexis, you can correct me if I’m using the wrong language here but, like, it’s — it would be locked in, and then there would be a public comment period at that point, but we wouldn’t have, as the Federal Advisory Committee, an opportunity to have conversations with the relevant folks at the agencies, because many of those relevant folks at the agencies either won’t be hired or they won’t know what the remit is, or if they know what the remit is, they won’t know, okay, before it’s just going to take them time to get to get organized. So I think that it may make sense to try to push this timeline backward by a couple months, so that we actually have an opportunity to have a conversation with the incoming folks, and not merely to throw something over the over the wall and hope it sticks. I want to turn to Dan York for a minute. Dan, I apologize for putting you — oh, yeah. Will you put the timeline back on the screen, please? And thank you. Dan, could you talk about this from your perspective as well? I’d be interested in what thoughts you might have.
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:02:12
>> Sure, absolutely. So you are correct. So having talked to the OGP Support Unit, being one day late, that is to say, if we were to release NAP 6 on January 1st, 2026 ( I’m trying to get my days right, my years right there), it’s the same contrary-to-process letter as if you’re 360 days late, right, 364 days late. After one year of not being in compliance, the U.S. government or any member government would go under review for removal from the Open Government Partnership. So that, if the U.S. government were to delay its release of NAP 6x, we would get the contrary-to-process letter, and then we would have one year after that to produce it before we’d be submitted under review.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:03:02
>> That’s right. And just, you know, I’m looking to you for your expertise as a federal employee. Is the — is — can you express a view as to whether we would have folks to engage? You know, when do you think we’d actually have folks to engage with inside the agencies, to actually engage in a co-creation process?
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:03:26
>> Certainly. So it’s difficult to predict exactly, right? Every administration does their process a little bit differently in terms of appointments and confirmations through the Senate. I imagine most folks on the call can say that, generally speaking, there’s a series of appointments that happen relatively quickly. There’s others that happen relatively slowly. Some aren’t appointed for some time after the initial — after inauguration on January 20th of next year. So it’s hard to say with certainty when those folks would be available. However, it is likely that many of them will be appointed in the first few months, right, at least at the very executive leadership at the top of each agency’s pyramid.
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:04:08
So you’re talking March, April, May-ish is likely, although it’s hard to say who will be appointed when and then when the non-confirmed appointments will be made as well, right? So there’s a series of appointments that need to go through Senate confirmation, and others that that do not. So those lower-level folks will probably be the ones that the committee are most likely to work with, lower level in that they’re appointed but not confirmed, we’ll probably working with to help draft the commitments, as well as their staff. I think that’s what you’re referring to would be that, above SES but below confirmation level.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:04:51
>> Right. So just to repeat back, make sure I’m hearing it, the above-SES non-confirmation folks probably won’t even, like, get the keys to their office until April or May or potentially later. Is that a —
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:05:09
>> Yeah, it’s likely, depending. Again, some appointments are made. There’s what, like some 12,000, 18,000 appointments that are made, something like that? Some happen more quickly than others, right? So it’s impossible to say when any one spot will be filled, or even which spots will be filled for those positions that the OG FAC wants to interface with —
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:05:23
>> Right.
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:05:35
>> — because you’re not concerned with all appointments throughout the federal government.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:05:39
>> That’s right. And then it — presumably, it will take some time for them to get up to speed in terms of what they’ve done before, and start to work through their priorities. So like, even if you have the keys to your office, it’s going to take some time to actually understand what your priorities are. Is that a fair assessment as well?
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:05:56
>> I think that’s likely, yes.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:05:58
>> Okay. And this contrary-to-process letter, it’s just the letter saying you moved the deadline, but you still have a year to do this. Is that a — is that fair to say?
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:06:11
>> Yeah, that’s the gist of it. There are circumstances under which the — Mexico did it relatively recently, where they decided — they worked with their multistakeholder forum and put out a contrary-to-process letter that is paraphrased to say, “We know we’re going to be contrary-to-process. We’re still working on a thing for all these other good, really good reasons.” In their case, it actually was a change of administration as well.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:06:37
>> Yeah.
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:06:38
>> So there is — you still get the letter, but it’s not as mean, right?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:06:43
>> It’s not as ominous.
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:06:45
>> Right, it’s not as ominous, because they were able to inform their civil society, and their — the OGP Support Unit of their intent to be contrary-to-process.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:06:56
>> Right. In that case, it sounded like the Mexican government and their multistakeholder — the civil society, let’s say, collaborated together or at least had some sort of communication where they made clear that this delay was not unilateral. It was at the — you know, that there — it was — there was agreement that it made sense to do it. Is that — am I describing that right? Like —
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:07:21
>> Yeah, I would have to go back and read the letter, but I believe that was the gist. At the very least, the reason for the delay was the change of the Mexican administration.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:07:33
>> Okay, so it sounds like we’re in a similar circumstance with the change of the U.S. administration.
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:07:38
>> Exactly.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:07:41
>> Is that fair? Okay.
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:07:38
>> Yeah.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:07:41
>> All right, so let’s take the graphic off the screen, just for a moment, if that’s all right. Oh, yeah, Kristen, please go ahead.
[Dr. Kristen Honey (Member)] 15:07:54
>> Yeah. I just wanted to put out there kind of another approach that, like, we may not need to slow down or wait for all the people to, you know, get the keys to their castle and, you know, bearings and all of that, if we have the top cover and, like, you know, from the top. And when we did the NAP, I think it was a NAP 4, that was under the Trump administration, you know, we had the White House support and that top level one, so it occurs to me, like, rather than slowing ourselves down, another approach could be to run full steam ahead and then make sure we dot our I’s cross our T’s, and we have the top cover from the very top and, you know, hopefully we can get those meetings with people who come in at the Cabinet level, or, you know, the White House level, earlier than later. And then, as long as you have that alignment at the top-top, let the other ones sort out in the timeline they’re going to, and just put that out there, rather than us slowing ourselves down, because I I can imagine that, you know, that if we have the top-top cover then and it’s directionally what we’re doing, and the commitments are aligned to that, then maybe we wouldn’t need, like, every single layer, but just an alternative approach if we want to keep pushing ahead, but yeah.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:09:20
>> Yeah, so for my inclinations, like, I think we should push ahead, but I think that for most of what we want to do, like, there may be others that have great relationships with the incoming transition in the Trump administration. I don’t — you know, I — we haven’t had a chance to talk about that as a group, but looking at the timeline, I think that it’s going to be challenging to have everything wrapped up by the end of May, and I suspect the incoming administration may have — you know, we know they’ve got the DOGE stuff, but they may have other priorities. I think I have a suggestion here about, like, what we should do, but before I offer it, I can see Suzanne has — wants to weigh in as well, and I want to give her a chance before make a suggestion.
[Suzanne Piotrowski (Member)] 15:10:11
>> Hi, everybody. I just like to say I don’t like the idea of a getting a contrary-to-process letter. I don’t sort of — going forward with that as the plan is, you know, if that happens, fine, but, you know, I would like to avoid that at all possible. And I don’t know the current policies with the OGP, but in the past, you have been able to ask for extensions, so that might be something we could look into if we felt like that’s what was needed.
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:10:41
>> Yeah, I did ask the OGP Support Unit about an extension, and their answer was they don’t do such things anymore, that that one-year gap between the end of a NAP and the beginning of a NAP is, in fact, the, like, the extension, that ideally you have all the NAPs sort of back to back, but that they — in talking to them as early as last week that they were — they said we couldn’t ask for extension, that we would — you would just get the contrary-to-process letter.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:11:09
>> Yeah, that’s, unfortunately, my understanding as well. So with that, I think — you know, I don’t know how easy or difficult it would be for the GSA side, with respect to pushing back the process, but I think that it would make sense for us as the Federal Advisory Committee, given the fact that the whole point of this is to create a plan in consultation with — you know, for civil society and the executive branch to create a plan in consultation with one another, and for us to facilitate that process, in light that there won’t be people there to be able to do that with, so we’d basically, like, be lobbing things over the over the wall without knowing whether they would land properly, that we should request that GSA or the U.S. government plan on submitting the NAP, but push the process back by three months. That means that the U.S. will receive a contrary-to-process letter because it will be late, but if we do this in concert with them, then that will provide top cover for the political folks in doing that. It won’t push it back indefinitely, so won’t be the end of 2026 but it would be with the goal finishing up by like March of 2026 and that way we’d actually be able to talk to the incoming administration folks to see what their preferences are. I’m sure this is a controversial idea, but I don’t see other ways of actually having a productive conversation with the executive branch, but with that, let’s hear from the executive branch. No, I’m just kidding. Kiril, do you want to go first?
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 15:12:57
>> Sure. Yeah, I would just say I think I’m opposed to the idea of trying to build a timeline which would lead to a contrary-to-process letter. Generally, you know, now that we’re on the steering committee, I think it would — anyone getting this letter, it would undermine their credibility on these issues and certainly their leadership in OGP. Granted, there’s many reasons why you might get a letter. I think we’ve got a good reason, having a administration transition and all of these sort of complications that arise with that logistically and administratively, but also, I mean, the idea of getting a contrary-to-process letter might also act — it might not be a motivating thing for leadership in any of these agencies. If it’s a given that we’re going to be contrary-to-process anyway, it might sort of backfire. It might not light a fire under either leadership or working-level folks to be doing this work, or at least to do it in any urgent way.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 15:14:07
So I think that it’s going — it would do more harm than good to both — to what we’re trying to do here. Over.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:14:22
>> Thank you for the comment. Charlie?
[Charlie Cutshall (Member)] 15:14:27
>> Yeah, I would just want to make sure that I understand the sort of the context and bigger picture around what we’re talking about here. So we, the advisory committee, just received a presentation on the plan timeline for developing and publishing the next national action plan, right? And at this point, we are it sounds like contemplating a recommendation to GSA regarding that timeline and the potential need for consideration of the change in administration. And again, circling back to some of the things we talked about earlier, with respect to how do we evaluate these ideas, right, some of the things that I heard come out of that were feasibility, right, and also having a package of commitments that is tied to a set of well-defined reforms, right? And so, if we don’t have some direction or some idea of what the envisioned reforms are from the incoming administration, or what ideas they might want to support, I do think that, Daniel, the issues that you’re raising are quite valid, right? We could go down some rabbit holes here, just to find out that we are pulling together — not appropriately evaluating ideas that we want to recommend. And so, I think this conversation is really helpful. I think the perspectives that are being brought to bear on it are really helpful, and I think that, you know, in the form of — I don’t know if it’s a formal recommendation or just advice or some consideration to GSA. These are things, to me, we want to think about, right? And GSA, I think, has the authority to take what they’re hearing on this call and come back and say, “Based on the feedback that you’ve shared in consultation with the leadership team that we have here, this is where we’re landing on it. Thank you so much for your input.” Is that — am I understanding this correctly?
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:16:22
>> Yeah. I think — so if the Federal Advisory Committee were to move forward with making a recommendation to extend the NAP 6 schedule, we would take that recommendation and then go to our leadership and ask if they agreed, and then make that proposal to OGP, right? So we would send a letter of some sort from our ministerial level, the GSA Administrator, with the letter of support from the Federal Advisory Committee to the Open Government Partnership saying, “We know we’re going to be contrary to process. These are all the very good reasons why. We have the support of the Federal Advisory Committee,” which is a is a small stand-in for the multi stakeholder forum, right? We had that discussion earlier. So it — that would — that could be something that would allow both the Federal Advisory Committee to have more time to do their work, to understand what those metrics are that they want to evaluate, the recommendations — the commitments, the NAP 6 commitments, with those federal folks who are not yet in their space. I don’t know if, Charlie, if I answered your question or not, but I attempted to.
[Charlie Cutshall (Member)] 15:17:33
>> Yeah. Yeah, it does. It does to the extent that you would be taking our advice and recommendation and consideration with a final decision and potentially using it in a communication to OGP. I will say that I think that, right, we all know that the process is underway. We’re about to get a briefing on input from the public. I do think that Kristen raised a really good point, which is that I don’t think that we should put the brakes on doing the work that we’re doing, right? I think that we should absolutely continue to move forward. I think that we should prepare ourselves to have a conversation, sort of with the incoming administration as they come, whoever that person might be within the White House, and say, you know, “Based on the where we are in the process, these are the ideas that we have. Based on a review of past National Action Plans, these are some ideas that we have. Based on the evolution and trends, these are some ideas that we have. What are the administration’s thoughts on the National Open Government, the National Action Plan, and what are some reforms and areas that you would like to focus on, and how can we then have a conversation about how we tie some of these ideas or evaluate these ideas in that context?”
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:18:48
>> Great. Thank you for that comment. Kristen.
[Dr. Kristen Honey (Member)] 15:18:52
>> Yeah, just, you know, from the discussion and what Suzanne said, you know, maybe not liking the idea of us setting ourselves up for these, you know, letters of not being in compliance, and then everything Kiril said about it could backfire. The more we’re talking about it, the less I like the idea of postponing the timeline, and the rationale is, you know, why make ourselves late and behind schedule with the incoming administration before they’re even here? And then that will be a negative kind of you’re off on the wrong foot. You’re already being defensive of, like, you know, you’re out of compliance and stuff, where we do have a fair amount of information based on some of the appointments so far. I mean, in open data, open science, open intellectual property, open source code, there’s a lot of, you know, leaders in that space who are coming into government, so that’s just a small, small niche, a tiny little portion of the whole Open Government portfolio, but there is information of, like, and signals out there of what are future priorities, and I think we can do our homework and then take the bottom-up signal from civil society, from us, you know, in the agencies, and do our best with that framing to put it forward, and I would recommend we just run full steam ahead, and if we hit walls or we get no’s and get slowed down, let that be the choices in the next administration, rather than us in this administration setting them up for already being behind schedule, because we could be pleasantly surprised, and it could be radical transparency and, you know, all these disclosures and avoiding corruption. I mean, who knows? But I think that us choosing to slow down now in a different administration that will, like, kind of get things off on the wrong foot. I would rather run full steam ahead, give it all we got, and then if we get slowed down six months from now, like, at least we tried, you know?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:20:58
>> Thank you. Ron.
[Ron Keefover (Member)] 15:21:00
>> I just wanted to indicate I agree wholeheartedly with Kristen’s ideas just now, because what she was saying was bothering me from the beginning of the delay conversation. I think, you know, we know what our task is is going to be difficult enough to focus on what it is we want to accomplish without upfront saying we’re not going to get it done, you know, timely, so I just wanted to agree with Kristen.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:21:36
>> Great. Thank you. Anybody else want to weigh in? Josh.
[Josh Tauberer (Member)] 15:21:45
>> We could potentially delay the early part of the calendar, but keep that deadline there, right? So maybe it would be good if we can talk about that possibility also.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:21:57
>> Yeah, that’s right. So, GSA folks, half of the year is devoted to responding to this process. Is there a way to condense the amount of time that’s required so that we have more time to
engage in formulation?
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:22:15
>> I don’t know that’s a good question. I mean, we can’t do much about when appointments are made. I would think that having more time with agency folks would be beneficial to the Federal Advisory Committee. I also think getting out there early and letting folks know the intentions and the reasons why is valuable. Like, I can’t speak to who the next GSA Administrator will be. I can’t speak to the next, you know, next series of GSA leadership. I know we currently have a GSA Administrator who would likely sign a letter to OGP, but I don’t know who comes next. Right? If the Federal Advisory Committee wanted more time to do their work, not to stop their work, but to stand up the committee, to put — to find the right metrics, to make sure they have the right input, to have the right agency leadership, this would be a good time to do that, because we currently have leadership that’s willing to support making it work. If not, that’s fine as well. We’ll certainly make it work. I do think it will be a lot of work for the committee between now and May to put all that together, but again, it’s really what the committee wants to do.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:23:36
>> Great. Thank you, Dan. Josh, is your hand still up? Okay. Would someone help Josh put his hand down? Alexis.
[Alexis Masterson (U.S. Open Gov Secretariat)] 15:23:44
>> Great, thank you. I would just add to that, in response to your question, Josh, a lot of what we have planned for sort of that second half of the timeline is activities that would enable us to do a recent response and to have more opportunities for the public, civil society, and agencies to engage. So what we’ve planned is, you know, releasing RFIs, releasing the draft, having that out for a certain amount of time, and then having various listening sessions where we can solicit additional feedback, responding to all of that.
[Alexis Masterson (U.S. Open Gov Secretariat)] 15:24:18
So that timeline is sort of based on our best guesses and assumption of best practices for how long those activities should take. If we wanted to shrink that, you know, that would mean less time for the RFI, less time for draft review, that sort of thing. So I don’t want to say whether or not that’s possible, just to help everyone understand the specific activities we see as part of that phase of the timeline.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:24:44
>> Thank you. Was there a follow up question, Josh, or did I answer your question? Okay [inaudible].
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:24:48
>> Yeah, I just want to reiterate that if I can. Like, we had planned for the draft NAP to be out for greater than 30 days for public comment. Like, we could shrink that and give the public less chance to comment, which would give you more time, but that’s sort of contrary to what the purpose of the thing is, right?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:25:05
>> Yeah.
[Daniel York (DFO)] 15:25:10
>> White House leadership, at the end, into the fall of next year, we’ll need time to review and approve the NAP, not really much opportunity to make that shorter. There was talk of IdeaScale earlier that GSA is looking into. If you wanted to collect ideas via IdeaScale, and have time to incorporate them and have time to meet with agency leadership to see whether those ideas are feasible or not, like, where in the timeline would that happen? And so, I have concerns about the committee being able to meet, both do open government and get it done by May, but again, as the committee members, if you feel you can, then I’m certainly not one to object.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:25:46
>> Yeah. So let me just sort of say from my perspective, we’re not going to have our subcommittees formed until, if we’re lucky, in February, maybe in March. So it’s going to take time. So like, we won’t know our rubric. It will be tough for us to know who to talk to in the administration, because there won’t be people in the administration to speak with for the most part. A lot of — at least in my experience, a lot of, like, building recommendations is finding out what the problem is on the government side. So, “We want you to do X,” and government says, “Well, we’d like to do X too, but we can’t do it for one, two, three.” And you have a conversation about, well, how can you get there? My concern is that we’re going to go forward with a bunch of things (whoops) with a bunch of recommendations, without having any means testing against the government folks to see whether this actually aligns with what they would want to do, and whether it is something that they’re able to do. I don’t think that we should slow down, but I’m not recommending that we slow down. I’m — we have — we’re going to be doing a year’s worth of work in like five months, right? And GSA rules prevent us — GSA rules — the federal rules, the Federal Advisory Committee Act as implemented, prevents us from doing work largely in between when we have our regular meetings. And that is, like, incredibly challenging. I mean, that’s why, at our first meeting, I pushed for us to have monthly meetings and for these preparatory meetings that we’re pushing to be limited of, like, what we can do in the context of a preparatory meeting. I hate the idea of having us do all the work that we’re going to do, and then, because of a misalignment, because of this calendar, not generate the things that will actually, like, be able to go for reasons that we could have controlled for. So that’s where I’m coming from on this. Oh, sorry, I see this. I apologize. There was a hand up. Kristen, please.
[Dr. Kristen Honey (Member)] 15:27:56
>> Yeah, I want to just build on what you’re saying, Daniel, and put out, you know, maybe it’s not a bad thing if we have all these commitments that are curated and ambitious things. When you look at this group, it’s, you know, largely civil society .The executive branch is in a minority, and I think that’s by design and good, and this is an opportunity to say, what are, you know, the commitments, ambitious commitments the next two years to improve responsiveness, transparency, accountability, and all things that make for good government? And if we have all that pulled together, and then it bounces off of, you know, things out of our control, political winds, whatever it is, that is still helpful, in my opinion, to the open government movement, because you have this delta of what the community says is important and then what the administration is doing, so it’s not like it’s lost work, even if it doesn’t make it into the final NAP, and that’s where I think some of these technologies, like IdeaScale or ideas management, could really be crowdsourcing the power of that. So yeah, there’s a lot outside our control. Yes, we’ll have to do a lot of socializing and really educating people, like, what is this Open Government Partnership and national action plan? I mean, it’s going to be a lot of work in a short time, and if we develop this thing and 90% of it bounces off, I would argue that’s a really important data point for moving forward in the long-term vision. So, and I don’t think we should be asking government for permission to publish this. Of course, we have to go through the clearances. That’ll happen. But this should be civil society’s working group and the ability to put recommendations forward whether or not they make it to the final NAP, if that makes sense.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:29:39
>> Yeah. Thank you. Anybody else? Oh, just one more thing, just from my perspective is, from my point of view, NAP 4 and NAP 5 were not successful. They were not co-created with civil society. If we have another plan where civil society puts out a number of recommendations and they don’t go anywhere, or it’s not co-created, then, like, that is embarrassing for the U.S. on the steering committee, but it also says more about, like, the problems in our process in doing this. My inclination is to try to buy us a little bit more time so that we can have the conversation. I know that you guys have heard me make this pitch. I think I hear most loudly Kiril’s concern, I think, about if there is wiggle room, then the result is going to be that this is just going to get delayed and, like, it’s not going to light a fire under people to do things. I think there might be a way around that by saying, like, we suggest moving this back by 90 days, right, so there’s still a deadline, although it sounds like without the contrary-to-process letter may be viewed as the stick that is encouraging the government to behave better. Kiril, I don’t want to put words in your mouth but, like, that’s how I’m interpreting what you said. Anyway, so I’ll stop there. Are — so I — yeah, Kiril, go ahead, please.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 15:31:17
>> Sure. Yeah. Or it could get people to tune out of the process if they know we’re going to get punished anyway.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:31:29
>> Sorry, my computer froze for a second. Would you say that one more time?
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 15:31:32
>> Yeah. I said, or, you know, or the contrary-to-process letter looming over our head could get people to tune out of the process if we know we’re setting ourselves up to get punished anyway.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:31:44
>> Yeah. All right, I feel like, based on the folks that have spoken up, the weight of the opinion is not with me on this one. Are there folks who are supportive of — well, maybe just come back to this. We can see where we are in January as well. Does that — I see Kirsten being like, “That looks right.” Are there others who think that maybe we should, you know — say that again, please?
[Ade Odutola] 15:32:12
>> Yes, I think so. I think we should wait until January to see how things are shaping up.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:32:20
>> Okay. And Joyce?
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 15:32:23
>> In the meantime, are we to continue as planned, because –
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:32:30
>> Sorry, like, it’s glitching because of the weather here. Would you say that one more time for me, please?
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 15:32:34
>> I said, in the meantime, are we to continue as planned with what we have?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:32:38
>> Yes. Yes, yeah. So, my idea was not to stop our work. It’s that we’ve got nine months’ worth of work to accomplish in a five-month period, and not necessarily partners in the executive branch side to do the work with. So, like, that was — my concern was not to slow down. It was more that the parts of, like, co-creation is going to be challenging, but we can — we’ll revisit this in January. Oh, Charlie, please.
[Charlie Cutshall (Member)] 15:33:09
>> Yeah, thanks. I just want to try to concisely reiterate my point and concern, which is that I don’t think that we’re going to be able to properly and effectively evaluate ideas and recommendations until we have some top cover or official or whoever it is within the White House that can provide that level of perspective, insight and support. So at some point, if, depending on at point, I don’t know when that person, whomever that person is, is going to arrive, right, and how that’s going to affect this timeline, but I just want to be clear that my concern is we had a good conversation, a good readout on evaluation. And I — and your point, Dan, is well taken. We’re going to do a lot of work, right? And I just don’t want to get to a point where we’re starting to evaluate ideas and think through whether or not we’re going to vote or support a recommendation as a committee without having that part of the puzzle in place, because at that point, I think we’re just going to be submitting, you know, something with holes in it.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:34:13
>> Yeah, I agree with that. I also think that to the conversation that we’re going to have later, where we’re going to start talking about who do we invite, there isn’t going to be anybody to invite, right? If we want someone from DOJ to come and speak to us, there’s — I mean, Bobby is amazing. But, like, that’s it, right? Like, we don’t know who else is going to be there, up further up the food chain who could talk to DOJ perspectives, or we don’t know who’s going to be there who can talk to DHS perspectives or Labor, or whoever it happens to be, or OMB perspectives. I think that we’re going to make some progress, and then we’re going to get stuck, and either we’re going to have to switch gears and do something else, or we’re going to put out something that is not tied to what is actually possible, because we won’t be able to evaluate for fit and likelihood of success. I think that that’s going to be really challenging. I can see that — it looks like folks are not with me on, like, asking for delay, at least the folks that have spoken up. I think that we’re going to have to make that decision sooner or later, because we’re going to run out of runway in terms of the ability to have people to engage with the administration, and who knows if we’ll have — you know, if we have an acting GSA Administrator and not an actual GSA Administrator, we may not have a partner with to write a letter asking for the delay, which is an issue. And I think that there’s more political cover that’s provided. If the outgoing GSA Administrator asks for the delay, then the new administrator is going to be loath to take the hit, so like, I think that we are missing an opportunity to provide some top cover from that perspective. So I think that waiting is not great, that making the request now is better than making the request later. But, you know, I can — I’m not sure that everyone agrees with me. Charlie.
[Charlie Cutshall (Member)] 15:36:16
>> Yeah, Daniel, I will say that I personally am somewhat ambivalent on whether this — we choose to recommend to GSA that they pursue the option of requesting a letter or not. I will say that much. And I’ll also say I think ultimately GSA is going to have the opportunity and the authority to make that decision, right? And regardless of whether or not we provide a formal recommendation on it or not, Daniel and the team have had the benefit of hearing the different perspectives, which is why we exist, on the pros and the cons of moving forward, and I’ll be, personally, very excited to hear in January what GSA has decided on this point.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:37:00
>> That’s great. Thank you. Anybody else wish to weigh in? Okay, in that case, I’m going to move on, unless there are any objections. Joyce.
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 15:37:19
>> My question is, we still have, irrespective of whatever the administration, the new administration, does, we still have to produce the deliverable by December, right? Or is that [inaudible]?
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:37:35
>> So the administration is going to have to produce a deliverable by December. We are going to have to make our recommendation, our final recommendations, in advance of May, because those recommendations will then have to be incorporated, and even that’s running late. Like, those incorporation — those recommendations will have to be incorporated by the GSA into —
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 15:37:52
>> Yeah.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:37:59
>> Yeah.
[Dr. Joyce Ajayi (Member)] 15:38:02
>> Okay.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:38:09
>> Okay, all right. So let’s — we’ll move on then to Alexis for the high-level overview of the NAP RFI, please.
[Alexis Masterson (U.S. Open Gov Secretariat)] 15:38:20
>> Sure. If someone could pull up the slides, please, and I will make this lightning fast, because I know you have other agenda items, and then offer, if you’re interested, Yvette Gibson and I would be happy to come back at a future meeting to talk about the RFI responses more in depth. So I’m giving a high-level overview of what we heard in the comments to our NAP 6 RFI, if we could go to the next slide, please. Great. So just as background, to familiarize everyone with this, the purpose was to solicit ideas from the public that could help inform what is put together for the sixth NAP. The comment period lasted 61 days, September 12th through November 12th, and if you want to read the RFI language itself along with the comments we received, you can do so at the link you see on the screen. We gave folks in their RFI, guiding topics to help them when they were thinking about what they wanted to respond with. Those were asking for any problems they identified that could potentially be solved with Open Government principles, examples of existing work we could look to that might be able to be built off of, innovative approaches, that could be examples or inspiration, and then suggested resources and recommendations. We also provided them with the 10 themes you see on the table on the right. These are the themes that come from the OGP challenge going on. We provided this as a proposed framework to ensure that the suggestions people sent in were directly related to open government topics. And I just want to note here, the themes OGP uses, one of them is gender and inclusion, but for the purposes of being able to analyze the comments we’ve received, we are going to be referring to that one as equity and inclusion, just [inaudible].
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:40:02
>> Alexis, Alexis —
[Alexis Masterson (U.S. Open Gov Secretariat)] 15:40:04
>> Yes.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:40:02
>> I apologize. I’m just looking at the time. We’re going to get — would you mind just — I know you’ve got one or two key slides. Would you just hit those, and then we’re going to move on? Is that okay? I apologize for running out of time.
[Alexis Masterson (U.S. Open Gov Secretariat)] 15:40:19
>> No, no worries at all, and again, can definitely come back at another time as well. If we want to hit the next slide. Perfect, thank you. So we received 51 responses. 47 of those were able to be posted online. 23 of those comments were from orgs, 19 from individuals, four from coalitions, and one anonymous. Based on our analysis, we found there were about 140 individual commitment recommendations that were proposed, and that means that it was something specific, so not general, like “increased public participation,” but saying, “This is a problem. We think this is a potential way of solving it.” Next slide, please. This slide shows the most commonly represented themes. Access to information was way at the top, along with the four others were included. So this shows, for instance, 25 of the 47 comments referenced access to information in some way. And the next slide, if you would. And then the five least represented, and so you can see the bottom ones only had a few comments that discussed them at all, and I think one of them, actually, the comment came from our listening session in fact, not a submitted comment. Next slide. And I will not go through these, but for your awareness, we have included summaries of the responses we received in terms of the 10 different topic areas, so you are welcome to look through these and see what some of the most common ideas people brought up, or the challenges they saw, essentially the topic areas that they think we should focus on. So there are 10 slides, one for each of them. I will not go through those, but you can see all of the responses online on regulations.gov, and with that, Dan, let me pass it back to you.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:42:06
>> Wonderful. I — again, I am so sorry to cut you short.
[Alexis Masterson (U.S. Open Gov Secretariat)] 15:42:10
>> No worries.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:42:16
>> So I’m going to go very quickly through the remainder of the agenda. Some of these things that we put a fair amount of time, I could do very quickly. One is future presentations to the Open Government Federal Advisory Committee. Unless folks disagree, I’d like to invite the GSA Secretariat and also the civil society orgs from the — who wrote the Blueprint for Accountability to come and present in January, on what GSA’s findings are, and what the multistakeholder process that civil society has led found. And then in the future, for future folks, I’d like to invite — I will learn how to speak today — the FOIA Advisory Committee, maybe when they’re organized the folks from Congress, so from House Oversight and Senate [inaudible] potentially when the government gets ready, maybe in March, hear from OMB or the Justice Department or other folks, and also to solicit folks for recommendations for individual presenters on themes. Like, I’d love to hear from John on public participation from our little group, but for now, for January, it would be the GSA Secretariat and the Blueprint for Accountability. Kiril.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 15:43:20
>> Hi. I will start by saying I think that it’s a great idea to have these experts come and present to us in some way, shape or form. I think you’ve identified really good experts too. I just wonder if, given the sort of time crunch that we’re under, if it’s more appropriate to try and have a sort of preparatory meeting structure where they’re presenting to us at that so that we can retain as much time for these full-on fact meetings to handle the things that we need to handle, so that we can stay on track in terms of producing recommendations and working towards NAP 6. Over.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:43:58
>> Yeah, it’s a good thought. I think that for the GSA Secretariat and the civil society, like, those are the two that are most relevant in terms of, like, providing ideas for things that we should be looking at, and that’s probably something that is best done in the January meeting in that public forum. If GSA is able to get the subcommittees going in time, then we can take the remainder and have, like, a parallel track process. Would that — does that — I think that should — does that work? Yeah, okay.
[Kiril Jakimovski (Member)] 15:44:34
>> Yeah, I think so.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:44:35
>> Okay, so I’m going to ask two things. One, unless there’s objection, I’m going to go ahead and work with Arthur and Dan to get the GSA Secretariat and the Blueprint for Accountability folks to come in and invite them to speak in January. Is there any objection to that? Great. There was a second part to that. I don’t remember what the second part is. All right, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to — oh, if folks have recommendations for other folks that we should invite to come and speak, either at the full committee or at the subcommittees when they’re established, I’ll send an email asking you to email me those recommendations, and I’ll try to organize them so that we can line it up with the assistance or the cooperation of GSA, so that that can work. All right, one agenda item knocked off. Final one before we get to public comments, and don’t worry, my closing remarks will be just the words, thank you. I’m trying to figure out how we can get more work done in the various periods of time. One of the big issues that we have is that we’re not able to either collaboratively draft items or to show our work in a public-facing spreadsheet.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:45:43
We’re only allowed to have those things be live during the course of our meetings, but in reading the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the GSA rules and elsewhere, I am going to ask the GSA if it is possible to have, what is in effect, an ongoing meeting that lasts for 12 months, that takes place in a shared Google document that will be publicly accessible so that anyone in the public would be able to see it, but not to comment on it, that we would be able to comment on it, that the history of all of our comments would be publicly available so that people can see that so they are able to engage in real-time participation, and that if there are public comments, they can be sent into the OG FAC at gsa.gov. There’s probably — I assume, that the lawyers at GSA are not going to love this, because this is a novel approach, but I think that having something where we can have what is an open meeting, because this would be an open meeting where we can all participate, where the public can participate and watch what we’re doing, that is appropriately secure on a technology that we’ve used before, is an approach that may be able to do this. Yes, we would need to put a notice in the Federal Register, so it would be a Federal Register notice with — and the register would link to where you can find the Google Doc and how you can send it. Like, so like, basically, we are doing what would be the equivalent of an online video meeting, but it’s an online meeting where we’d all be in a shared Google Doc or a shared spreadsheet.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:47:24
This is really weird. Like, I don’t think it’s ever been done before, maybe not be able to do it but, like, I think that everybody’s present all the time, is how I think quorum would work, so everybody’s present all the time. And it’s real time, because you can see the history of what everyone’s been doing, so there isn’t, like, if you step away, well, you still —one, you’re always connected, so you’re always in the meeting, so we always have a quorum. The question is going to be — yes, and we also would not be voting the document, right? It would be so that we can deliberate, so we can, like, here’s my ideas. I’m going to put them together. Here’s my comments on this thing, so we have — so that when we come back, come together, we don’t have to go, like, you don’t have to watch me type something into a Google Doc, because that’s crazy, so that’s the idea. So I’m going to work with Arthur and Dan York to see if we can do this. No idea if this will be successful, but we should try, right? Like, you know, just like our first meeting was publicly available when they don’t usually do that, we’ll try here as well. And I’m hopeful that, with the help of GSA’s lawyers and other folks, that maybe we will be able to find a way to make this successful. So with that, we will go to public comments. To members of the public, I’m sorry that we’re getting to you 18 minutes later than we hoped, but I did just cover 30 minutes of material in two minutes, so I’m doing my best, but before we do that, let’s go to Charlie.
[Charlie Cutshall (Member)] 15:48:49
>> Yeah, thanks, and I don’t know if you need someone to second your motion, but I do want to say that I really love the idea, right? And I think that it’s in the spirit of what of the reason why we have the Federal Advisory Committee Act, right? This is the idea that we are doing work with public oversight, with the opportunity for the public to listen in and hear the conversations that we’re having. And I think that everything that you described, with respect to doing the Federal Register notice, with respect to making this available to anyone who wants to pop in and see the conversation, the fact that there is this background, maybe it hasn’t been done before, but I think that it’s a fantastic idea, and I do think that it’s in the spirit of the law and the reason that that law was passed.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:49:36
>> Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And actually, let me just stay on that for one more second. I’m going to — so that this is a official request of the advisory committee, I apologize for doing unanimous consent, just in the interest of time, and if you object, it’s okay, but does anybody object to my engaging with the GSA to try to create this process that I just described with respect to a collaborative — an open meeting that is handled in a digital format in this way? All right, seeing no objection, it’s endorsed by the advisory committee. All right, and with that, members of the public, sorry, and thank you. Let’s go to public comments. I’m going to hand it back to Arthur so that he can manage that process. Thank you, Arthur.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 15:50:23
>> All right. Thank you, Daniel. So I’ve looked at the attendees, and we had four individuals who had signed up to provide public comments, and currently, I only see two, but I’m going to start with the first name, just to make sure you aren’t signed on under a different name, so is — Tanisha Brown, if you’re here, please come off mute. Okay, I don’t see you in the list. Johny Costello — Castelli, I also don’t see you in the list. I’m going to move to the next person, which is Colin McNamara. Your time to speak is now. Colin, I see you online. Are you able to come off mute? Okay, while Colin is working on that, we’ll come back to you, Colin. Stephen Buckley?
[Stephen Buckley] 15:51:45
>> Yes, I’m off mute. Can you hear me?
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 15:51:48
>> Yes, state your name.
[Stephen Buckley] 15:51:50
>> Okay, got a clock to this time. Thank you very much. Yes, so I guess, since I might be the only speaker, I don’t get the whole 30 minutes, huh? Ha ha. Steve Buckley, I’m the liaison to the — U.S. Open Government liaison to the U.S. Chapter of the International Association for Public Participation. However, I’m just speaking today on my own, in my own voice. I’m not speaking on behalf of them, because I’ve just learned — what I want to say, I’ve just learned in the past few hours. First thing I would say is that it would be very helpful, if in the invitation to these meetings to speak and so forth and so forth, to have the agenda of what you’re going to speak, including the bullet point, the whole packet. My small town where I live, they include the agenda, the information packet. I see the same thing that everybody else that, including the our Select Board, our city council, so to speak, same thing that they get, so it should not come a surprise and find out, “Oh, we’re going to talk about this. Oh, we’re going to talk about that.” You can already formulate something. In fact, it would even be a — so, the other part is that, yes, some kind of asynchronous type of — the idea of having — of using the internet to have asynchronous (meaning, not live) conversations, that’s been going on for, like, 30 years, so if you guys can crack that nut and figure out how to have something and use something as simple, which we have been using a Google group, which is essentially listserv, to do that, to have some moderated, some aspect, so that it’s not just three minutes at their microphone. And the other part is that I would imagine that anything that it’s not clear who is in charge of what.
[Stephen Buckley] 15:54:03
There’s like seven different groups that you have. Now, you have GSA. You have OSTP. You have OMB OIRA. You have Department of State. I don’t know who is making the decisions now. Who am I writing a comment to, as far as the National Action Plan? Who is it? Who are these people who are the decision makers? Who am I trying to reach, and so forth? So that’s the main thing, so anything that makes this whole process clear to somebody, even somebody as involved as I am, if you can’t make it clear to me, then transparency is — this is not the right model. You’re not modeling the behavior you want to see. Thank you very much.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 15:54:56
>> Thank you, Mr. McNamara — I’m sorry, Mr. Buckley. And I am looking at the list. I do not see Mr. McNamara. I just want to make sure I did not miss you. So with that, I think those are all of the public comments that we have that are in line to speak to us today, so I’ll turn it over to Dan for his closing remarks. Dan Schuman.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:55:36
>> Thank you. Yup, thank you, everyone. Members of the public [inaudible] send comments to ogfac@gsa.gov. We’ll meet again in January. We’ll do all the things that we talked about. I’ll be in touch by email. Thank you all. Oh, sorry, John, I see you have an intervention?
[John Dierking (Member)] 15:55:57
>> Yes, just a comment. I remain hopeful that the incoming administration is no stranger to the development of OG initiatives. I mean, we have a shared history with NAP 4. And I noted that two of the primary subject matter’s areas included in NAP 4 in particular, data accessibility and accountability themes mesh well with what Alexis presented in the RFI overview, access to information. And so as far as engagement, I do acknowledge your direction, you know, as we move forward that we might wish to consult with stakeholders and consult with DFO and staff to hear from these interested parties, especially persons who have already worked in the development of NAP 4, GSA, OMB, DOJ, HHS, and other agencies, and build on the advisories contained in the Seize the Moment report, as well as your mention of bootstrapping a better process, so I remain hopeful, especially in the areas of engagement. Thank you.
[Daniel Schuman (Chair)] 15:57:16
>> Thank you, John. And thank you, everyone. Handing it back to Arthur to close us off on time. Arthur.
[Arthur Brunson (DFO)] 15:57:27
>> Thank you, Daniel. I’d like to extend my gratitudes to all of our presenters, the attendees, stakeholders, for joining us today, including those who provided oral public comments. At this time, if you indulge me, I’d like to take a moment to recognize Ms. Denise Ross, the Deputy U.S. Chief Technology officer at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, who will be transitioning to the private sector at the end of next week, after three impactful years at the White House. Here at GSA, we extend our deepest appreciation for her steadfast support of open government. For those who don’t know, Ms. Ross played a pivotal role in the development of the fifth U.S. Open Government National Action Plan, the transition of open government initiatives to GSA, and the establishment of this Federal Advisory Committee. Her dedication and vision has significantly advanced transparency, civic engagement, and accountability. Her expertise, leadership and collaboration have been invaluable, and we are profoundly grateful for her contributions. On behalf of all of us at GSA, thank you, and we wish you the very best in your next chapter. And with that, we bring this meeting to a close. Thank you all for your time and participation. Have a wonderful rest of your day, and we are now adjourned.
[END PART 2]
U.S. General Services Administration