Round Up: The First Burg Update, Featured in the LB Post & Westwood Forward
The first month of The Burg is in the books! 📚🏁
We are really excited by the feedback and conversations we saw in the first month on The Burg. From the crazy discovery of brown tap water in Compton, to Westwood Forward succesfully organizing people in Westwood to form a new neighborhood council. . . many issues have been raised to the surface in LA County.
To recap, here's what has been going on:
We released our first update, entirely based on user feedback! Here's some of what we improved.
"Hey y'all, love The Burg but not sure what all the buttons mean.... Help me out, por favor." - You
"Say no more" - Us
We whipped up a How-To guide that's accessible when you sign up or update the app, and you can always find it in settings if you need a quick refresher. We will create a better system overtime, but hopefully this helps for now!
PS: (Not pictured) We added what Your Burg actually means underneath the text (in purple). Each Burg is a City or City Council District and we should've made that more obvious from the get go.
Y'all asked for a better sign up process and more transparency regarding data, and we listened:
Your data is private and will remain that way. Full stop.
THIS IS A NO 👏 ADVERTISING 👏ZONE 👏
You can now verify your voter status even easier!
We were featured in the Long Beach Post!
Click on the image for the link
Shout out to Medina Kabir over at the Long Beach Post! She wrote an excellent article that really explains in simple terms what The Burg is, our mission, and how to use it. We highly recommend you go give the LB Post some love (even donate if you can) and read the article!
PS: To all of our Long Beach users, yes, the LB Post is one of the local news sources that is refreshed every single day at 8 am :)
The Burg was used for the first time as a community organizing tool by Westwood Forward
Westwood is a Footloose town; it's illegal to dance. There's a lot of red tape and students wanted more affordable housing, bike/bird lanes, and a better nightlife. Tired of being underrepresented on the neighborhood council they formed Westwood Forward, a coalition with business owners, students, and homeowners to better represent themselves and become their own neighborhood council.
The leader of the movement and UCLA Graduate Students Association President, Michael Skiles, shared on The Burg and the conversation was awesome.
Many poured in asking tough questions regarding the purpose of segregating and forming a new Neighborhood Council in Westwood. From UCLA med students and Westwood residents, to freshman and recent alumni, everyone wanted to speak their piece & Mr. Skiles was happy to share his vision.
Most importantly: they didn't stop at conversation, they came out to vote and they ended up winning. We stopped by UCLA on the day of the vote with Max, The Burg dog (see top picture), and it was inspiring to see the long lines of students waiting outside of Wooden to vote.
Congratulations to Westwood Forward and I'm sure this is just the beginning for using The Burg as a community organizing tool.
Our next update will be coming next week and we think it'll be an absolute gamechanger:
Complete Ballot Info (including polling location) for the CA State Primary on June 5th!
Much more on that soon.
Cheers!
The Burg Team