I'm working to get a copy of the LA Municipal Code from the OpenGov Foundation (one that isn't copyrighted). The current one that's online is not user-friendly. Any ideas of what we could do with it? I would have loved to take the CA Vehicle Code and turn it into an app for people who get ticketed, but it's copyrighted by the DMV.
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The LAMC is super self referential and does take a keen sense of policy and law to really understand how its formulated. It would be interesting if you combine crowdsourcing with this app idea. There are many grad law students and professors (LMU, Pepperdine, UCLA and USC) that offer up there time to provide free legal services to under-served communities. What if the app was able to connect you to these law students to offer free consultation on how to read the LAMC?
When the LAPD was doing the jaywalking sting last year, I tried to go through the LAMC to find out the specific rules on jaywalking. It was extremely difficult, becuase the best I could do was search for “jaywalking” and “crosswalk”, and parse through many results. There was no way of asking “Show me the part of the municipal code that deals with jaywalking”.
Maybe building a list of common questions, and being able to return the relevant codes to the questions?
“This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the State of California that was in any way “involved in the governmental process” and “prepared, owned, used or retained by any state or local agency” or officer. That work is available pursuant to court interpretation of the Sunshine Amendment of the Constitution of California, and/or the California Public Records Act (CPRA), which contained no relevant provision(s) for copyright."
from wikipedia