City invites small companies and teams to develop better, cheaper solutions to sustainable mobility challenges — Today, the City of Sacramento released a Request for Proposals (RFP) to accelerate the City’s progress toward a frictionless, multimodal future. In doing so, we’re testing a new approach that we hope will break down the barriers to entry for local startups to do business with government agencies.

There was tremendous interest in this program from the very beginning. When the City of Sacramento opened the application period in June, we only had two workshops planned. As we observed workshops filling to capacity, we quickly organized additional workshops on a rolling basis to accommodate the demand.

Moving us closer toward a civic operating system — Over the past several years, I’ve been obsessing over an idea. It’s called a civic operating system and these ruminations can be traced back to October 2012 when West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon dropped the term in his TEDxSacramento City 2.0 talk (begins at 12:45):

We have the moral responsibility to sustain our impact — Once upon a time, I was waiting for money to fall out of the sky. I would never admit that, though. And not because I don’t have the humility — rest assured I have plenty of humility. …

A manifesto for culture change — There’s a sense of excitement in Sacramento right now. A sense that we’re not only growing up, but that each of us has the opportunity to make a difference. It wasn’t always like this. Our reputation as a government town has held us back for a long time. …