New York Public Interest Research Group's "Who Represents Me?" website has been enhanced with a new feature that allows NYC residents to find their community board simply by entering their street address online.

NYPIRG's "Who Represents Me?" website has been enhanced with a new feature that allows New York City residents to find their community board simply by entering their street address online.

The website -- http://www.MyGovernmentNYC.org -- already allows anyone with a New York City address to easily find and contact the public officials who represent them in the city council, the state assembly and senate, and Congress, as well as borough president, mayor, governor and president.

Once a website user enters an address at the Who Represents Me site, their community board is also listed, along with a link to maps and other information about the board at the new "Community Information Technology Initiative" (CITI) website, sponsored by the Municipal Art Society (MAS) and accessible at http://www.MyCITI.org.

The Municipal Art Society partnered with NYPIRG CMAP and software company ESRI to create the CITI website in order to provide a newer, faster, online technology allowing users to view, access, and comment on information on subjects such as open space, administrative districts, land use, transportation, planning proposals and more.

NYPIRG CMAP director Steven Romalewski said "Who Represents Me?" was also being enhanced to keep contact information for officials as accurate and up-to-date as possible.

A new "Elected Officials Update Link" enables public officials and their staff to email NYPIRG with changes to district office addresses, phone and fax numbers, emails, and website links. NYPIRG has alerted each of the 51 council offices, 65 assembly representatives, 26 state senate offices, and 13 congressional districts in New York about this special feedback form.

NYPIRG staff will check the information with each office once it is submitted, and add the updated contacts to the website, ensuring more timely and accurate contact information online.

NYPIRG CMAP developed, and maintains, the "Who Represents Me?" website, and creates customized versions of this service for nonprofits and public sector organizations. The service uses sophisticated geographic information system (GIS) and database technology to match street addresses with district boundaries. Funding support for "Who Represents Me?" is provided this year in part through a grant to the New York Public Interest Research Group Fund from the New York Community Trust.

Source: NYPIRG, Feb. 3, 2004