By Dan Walters : calmatters – excerpt
An embarrassing glitch in reporting COVID-19 infection data is the latest in a long string of state information technology failures.
While marking time as lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom wrote a book about how technology could transform government.
“I want to make government as smart as Google,” Newsom told an interviewer after the book, “Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square and Reinvent Government,” was published in 2013.
While technology “is flattening major institutions” and transforming how Americans shop, communicate, research and keep abreast of current events, Newsom said “Government as an institution is not prepared for it” and is struggling even to keep decades-old systems functioning…(more)