Today from 1:00pm to 2:00pm I participated in a Twitter Town Hall with the new mayor of Providence, Jorge Elorza. The idea is, the mayor’s office announced a specific hashtag (#AskElorza) and people asked questions, appending that hashtag, and then the mayor answered them. I was curious about topical trends, so I exported and broke down the tweets that used the hashtag.
The mayor received 141 questions during the hour, and replied to 34 of them. 3 of the questions were offered in Spanish. Here were the most common topics:
- Softballs (answered 6/12) e.g. “Do you have a dog?”, “How was your run yesterday?”, and “Read any good books lately?”
- Alternative transportation (0/10) e.g. “What will you do to make the city safe and inviting to pedestrians and bicyclists?”, “Where can the city combine road diets and stormwater management?”, and “How will you restructure the street design process to slow down cars?”
- Volunteer (3/9) e.g. “Where do I go if I want to help give back to the city?” or “How can my organization work with the administration?”
- Schools (3/8) e.g. “How can we get more of our kids going to college?”, “Any thoughts on implementing restorative practices in Providence schools?”, and “How will you support parents to speak up as their kids have about schools?”
- Public Safety (1/8) e.g. “There is crime! What are you doing about it??”
- Outreach (3/7) e.g. “Quiero saber si la página Web de la ciudad tendra mas material en español?”, “Are there plans for a constituency Twitter and mobile app similar to NotifyBoston?”, and “What will you do to improve customer service at City Hall?”
- Promotion (1/6) e.g. “How are you planning to promote Providence to the world?”, “How are you planning to promote tourism?”, and “How do we help the Providence Cyclocross Festival keep happening?”
- Potholes (1/4) e.g. “There are potholes! What are you doing about them??”
- Open Government (1/4) e.g. “Will more data be put up on data.providenceri.gov?”
- Small business (1/4) e.g. “How can we work together to make locally owned businesses thrive and compete?”
- Development (0/4) e.g. “Baltimore offers large tax incentives in their vacant properties, should we do the same?”
- Arts Festival (2/3) e.g. “What is the progress on the Arts Festival you talked about during your campaign?” and “How can residents get involved?”
- Chief Innovation Officer (1/3) e.g. “What, specifically, will your Chief Innovation Officer be doing?”
- Healthcare (0/3) e.g. “Como resolver el problema de seguro de salud que los empleadores no quieren pagar a sus empleados acortando las horas de trabajo?”
- Sidewalk Snow Removal (0/3) e.g. “Snow hasn’t been removed from the sidewalks! What are you doing about it??”
- Superman building (0/3) e.g. “What’s going on with the Superman building?”
You can read the whole conversation here.