The Pittsburgh Foundation has developed an online opinion gathering initiative called Allegheny Forum and with the support of everyone within Allegheny County they hope to turn the Allegheny Forum into the biggest-ever opinion-gathering exercise based on local government improvement.
Launching today, the Allegheny Forum aims to provide public officials in Allegheny County’s 130 local municipalities (City of Pittsburgh included) with feedback and ideas on how to improve the region, and increase cost-effectiveness in many areas.
Essentially, the Allegheny Forum has been developed to give the people within Allegheny County a communication base to officially, publically, voice their opinions and ideas, read and comment on others and vote topics up for further discussion.
Its all about public opinion, collating the information and getting it to where it needs to be. 
As well as a discussion base the Allegheny Forum is an ever growing resource as it includes a library of information and resources, videos, links, and more.
Initially, the featured issues on the site include, water and sewer infrastructure, parks and recreational facilities, emergency services and fire protection, and street maintenance.
There are community experts who will participate in the specific areas of discussion. Discussions will be moderated where and when necessary too.
The ‘Water and Server’ topic is the first to see some discussion in the online forum and has already seen quite some activity among its participants learning about CSO Flags, rain barrels, swimming and storm water systems.
The forums and polls are open – there is no need to register or sign up for anything.
Hopefully the forum takes off, hopefully the nearly 1.3 million residents of Allegheny County participate and hopefully the pertinent information gets back to where it needs to for appropriate action to be taken.
Visit the site at AlleghenyForum.org participate, vote, educate and learn.
What do you think? worthwhile exercise? will you participate?
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