April 30, 2008Updates! Crime and Roanoke City Council campaign finance dataOk, there's probably a joke in there about the overlap between crime and campaign finance data. I'll leave that to you, gentle reader. Feel free to offer your jokes in a comment on this entry. In the meantime, we happily report that our Roanoke Valley and Salem crime maps are once again updated through the most recent weekend's offenses. And our database of donations over $100 to Roanoke City Council and mayoral candidates for 2006 and the current campaign is up to date through reports filed by the 10 candidates on Monday, April 28. That's a darn quick turnaround that allows you to see who is financing these campaigns within days of when the checks were written in some cases. In all, 76 new itemized contributions were added. (Donations under $100 aren't itemized.) Again, many thanks to our friends and colleages at the Virginia Public Access Project, who turned the paper reports filed in Roanoke into the electronic data we offer you in the DataSphere. VPAP, in case you don't know by now, offers online searching of an extensive database of statewide campaign contributions. (The non-profit also happens to be lead by a former Roanoke Times reporter, David Poole, whose name still causes a few office holders around here to grit their teeth.) April 24, 2008Roanoke City Council elections: Who's giving money to whom, and what do they get in return?Campaign funding for Roanoke City Council races went through the roof in 2006. Comparitively, anyway. With the fate of Victory Stadium in the balance, money rolled into the campaigns, and as it turned out, the cash-infused independent "For the City" ticket swept the election. That prompted cries of the seats being bought by Roanoke's well-heeled, especially the Business Leadership Fund, the political action committee of the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce, which pumped tens of thousands of dollars into the coffers of all three "For the City" candidates -- David Trinkle, Gwen Mason and Alfred Dowe. That election seemed to have changed the game, and brought to local elections, at least in a more significant way, the idea of special interest groups buying influence. It also shined a light on the importance of making more available information on where money to finance political campaigns comes from, even at the local level. You can find that very information for both the 2006 and the current Roanoke City Council elections right now in the DataSphere. Take a look, and see how much the candidates are raising, and from whom. And, just as important, see where in the city is that money coming from, because the addresses of the donors are mapped for you. You can see, for example, that mayoral candidate David Bowers, while he has a hefty warchest with over $15,000 raised, has funded his campaign almost entirely from his own wallet with a personal loan. 
You can also search by donor, and see what kinds of candidates a particular donor tends to support. It's all there, and it's all a matter of public record. Candidates for local office are required to file disclosure forms detailing each contribution with their local voter registrar. The Roanoke Times collects these paper records and, working with the Virginia Public Access Project, converts them to electronic records. Thanks to VPAP for that. VPAP, which maintains a terrific database of statewide campaign finance data, also has information in individual donors, such as their professions, which they add to the data in the public records. So, you tell me, is anyone buying influence in this election? What does it say about our political process, when campaign finance comes from such limited quarters? All those things you hear about special interests funding for in federal and state election campaigns, can they really be problems at the local level, too? April 14, 2008Is the angler in your life a liar? Smoke out fish tales with our latest databaseSomeone you know been boasting about the bulk of their latest bass? Does their story about landing a crappie sound like a load of, um, garbage? Our database of nearly 12,000 Virginia freshwater citation fish won't tell you about the ones that got away, but you can track trophy catches right down to the pound, ounce and inch. We just updated the database with about 5,500 fish from 2007, so there's two years worth of trophies in there in 23 species, plus the names of the anglers who caught them and where each was landed. And don't think this is inside stuff just for serious fisherman. You won't find me hanging around the baitshop, but I gotta say, when I first saw this database, the first thing I did was try to figure out, what's the biggest darn fish in there? I mean, who isn't interested in the biggest anything? The answer, by the way, is a 95 pound, 11 ounce, 54-inch blue catfish landed by Archie Gold in 2006 in the James River. That's a state record. But there are other curiosities. Like where they are caught. Check out the related graphic of where the most trophy fish were caught in 2007. Here's a tease: The top producers aren't all big rivers and lakes. Think of that cliche about fish in a barrel. Fish in a farm? And if you want an expert's view of the data, read Roanoke Times Outdoors Writer Mark Taylor's take on it. April 8, 2008Crime maps updated through the weekend's reportsRight on time, the latest week's worth of crime data arrived from Roanoke, Roanoke County and Salem yesterday and today, and it's now available for your perusal in our Roanoke Valley crime data map and search and the more details Salem felony crime data map and search. A hearty thanks to all three police department's for their cooperation in providing the data to the public and to The Roanoke Times. I can tell from tracking traffic on the maps that plenty of you all are finding the new maps and aren't spending time looking for the old ones. Still, I haven't heard from you about what you think of the maps and available data. The invitation still stands: comment here, email me, or give me holler at 540.981.3331. April 3, 2008New crime mapping: data you can really dig intoSeems like I’ve been promising better crime maps forever. Forever ended this week. The old static maps with only a few weeks of data are gone, replaced by our new and improved crime data map and search. Now, in one place you can see data from Roanoke, Roanoke County and Salem. Choose one locality or search all three. Search all serious violent and property offenses, or select just a particular offense. Enter a date range to limit your search. You can even enter a street name to see offenses just on that street (though at this point, because of the limited amount of data available, many street name searches won't find any records). We did lose one aspect of the old maps that I really liked, and that’s the color-coding by offense type. However, the web service that we’re using to publish our databases and maps now, Capio Bridge, is promising an upgrade to their map mash-up programming this month that will allow us to add the color-coding again. Typically, I'll be updating the database weekly, usually on Tuesday. In addition, we still have a separate Salem crime data map and search. The Salem crime report we receive by email isn’t limited to serious violent and property crimes. It’s a complete list of reported felonies, large and small and of all varieties. We just didn’t want to throw that detail away. So, if you want even more data on Salem crime, check out the Salem-specific map to see everything from shoplifting and forgery to parole violations and perjury. And, as always, tell me what you think. I consider these changes a terrific improvement, but that’s not to say we can’t do even better. Is any part of the search confusing? Something else you’d like to see? So comment here, email me, call me (540.981.3331). Heck, send smoke signals. I’ll be watching the horizon. |
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