The Public Square Project, a new non-partisan government watchdog organization dedicated to improving the quality of local government in the Pittsburgh region, publicly launched its website today at www.thepublicsquareproject.org.The mission of The Public Square Project is to empower citizens to make positive change in local government by building an online hub for information about government and public policy in the Pittsburgh region. The Public Square Project will provide a forum for new kinds of collaboration by bringing together citizens, government officials, policy experts, and nonprofit organizations to devise innovative solutions to the policy challenges facing the Pittsburgh region.

“The Public Square Project will be an experiment in citizen-driven local government reform,” said founder Ryan Hopkins. “Our goal is to give citizens the tools and resources to better understand and effect change in government at the local level.”

Thanks to a generous Seed Award from The Sprout Fund, The Public Square Project’s first initiative will be the creation of an online community newspaper called PittPoint, which will focus on covering public policy and civic affairs in the Pittsburgh region.  The stories on PittPoint will be entirely reported and written by citizen journalists.  Aspiring citizen journalists are encouraged to attend a series of citizen journalism training workshops on Thursdays in March (March 5th, 12th, 19th, and 26th) from 6-8 p.m. at the Union Project (801 North Negley Ave, Pittsburgh).

More information about PittPoint can be found at www.thepublicsquareproject.org/blog-post/what-were-working