(KCPW News) Salt Lake City is receiving national recognition for its use of technology in government, taking first place in a national survey conducted by the Center for Digital Government. Bill Haight, the city’s Chief Information Officer, says the city has been working hard to promote open government and citizen engagement. He says the city tries to make information available to people on as many platforms as possible:
“We just rolled out the quick-pay on the parking meters, which enable them to basically pay for a parking stall, or renew a parking stall, on their cell phone,” said Haight. “But there are also all of the mobile technologies, the mobile apps that we just rolled out. There’s a huge component of that that’s transportation based.”
Haight says that includes bus and bike routes as well as information about the Car Share program. He says the technologies the city uses are making the lives of city residents better, and he says they are working on new programs that will soon make even more information available.
“We’re coming into snow season now. We’re talking about putting an app on there that will show you where the priority for snowplows are, what’s your garbage pickup days. Those are all in the works as we speak and we are moving forward with them,” says Haight.
According to the Center for Digital Government, the highest ranking cities created cost savings as well as improved services and engagement tools, like the Open City Hall page of the Salt Lake City website. The survey’s top-ranked cities also used technology to reduce overtime, hardware costs, as well as power and fuel consumption.
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