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Published on 02/22/1999 All articles from this issue

City gets wired

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue

Town Crier Staff Writer

Computer upgrades bring the Internet and latest in technology to Los Altos city employees

Until a few months ago, there were only three or four computers on the desks in all of Los Altos City Hall. A few more were at the police station. Over in parks and recreation, at the city-owned Hillview Community Center, supervisor Joanne Byrne worked on a trusty Apple, hauling disks home, carting copies to Kinko's.

The rest of the 125 city employees, those who had any word processing capabilities at all, had just a keyboard and monitor, with access to a main city server, said Phil Rose, Los Altos city manager.

City employees had no Internet, no access to Web sites for other cities. Nobody had e-mail. And City Hall was not set up to work with a city Web site.

Amazing, considering that Los Altos is close to the epicenter of computer technology. Unbelievable, since Los Altos is home to dozens of denizens who, with their computer wizardry, have re-invented the way the world does business.

But it's a new world now, throughout city offices.

High-speed cables run from the city's computer nerve center in the police station under apricot orchards to other city offices. And new computers, with new software, are on desks.

In fact, things have gone from 10 computers to 62. "And I want to try to take that to 100," said Scott Nielsen, full-time technical services manager for the city of Los Altos.

Nielsen is the computer guru who has been overseeing the city's new computer hardware, software and up-to-the-moment wiring, including a high-speed DSL - digital sub carrier line.

"Now all city facilities are linked," Nielsen said, "by fiber to city hall and the recreation department with 100 megabit Ethernet. And by a 56 K phone line to the municipal services center."

City folks appreciate the change.

"I'm finally modern here at work," said Robert Acosta in parks and recreation.

When Nielsen walked into the parks and recreation office last week, Linda Wood beamed and raised her hands in praise. "E-mail," she said at the sight of Nielsen.

He helped her log on for her first time and establish her password. She had some e-mail waiting.

"My very first time into e-mail," she said, as she clicked away, opening her messages.

No voice chirped, "You've got mail."

"We don't have the sound card," Nielsen said.

In the planning department, senior planner Jim Mackenzie used his new Internet access to download some PG&E wiring plans.

Mackenzie had read about a Cupertino PG&E wiring project. He called for more information. Then he noted a Web address.

"I went onto the Web and got the map I needed," he said. Before the new equipment, Mackenzie was one of the few with a computer, a 486.

But now Mackenzie has much more software capability and "the overall feeling that you're up to date with technology," he said.

City clerk Carol Scharz also had a PC before the upgrade.

For her the new, internal e-mail has made a big difference.

"Rather than interrupting someone with a phone call, I can e-mail them," Scharz said. She has her own computer set up so that she knows when an e-mail comes in.

"I can read it and reply immediately, and it's off my desk," she said.

She also likes the "calendaring" possibilities through the software Microsoft Outlook.

This allows city staff to see each other's calendar. So when scheduling a meeting, "rather than trying to get hold of department heads, I can see when people have a block of free time. You can accept or say you are busy. It works really well," she said.

The impetus to overhaul and upgrade the city's computers came before they hired Nielsen in November 1997. The council had already decided it want an NT system with e-mail and Internet access.

When the 31-year-old San Jose State graduate began in Los Altos, his mission was not to throw out what was here. For his first six months, "I was undoing existing problems," he said.

He also was involved in designing the new system, ordering hardware and software and then overseeing its installation.

"I came in and changed their entire world," he said, "and they fight to figure it out before they call me. There's one of me and a lot of them. They're beginning to e-mail me rather than voice mail. Everyone can e-mail internally and externally," he said.

The city council so far has allotted $155,000 for what it calls the telecommunications infrastructure upgrade, $40,000 from the 1997-98 budget and $115,000 from the 1998-99 budget.

To date $148,000 has been spent, said Dave Standridge, acting finance director for Los Altos.

When City Manager Phil Rose began in June 1998, the computer upgrading was well under way. But many credit Rose with enormous support in enabling the project.

He negotiated training through Foothill College for all city employees. "We said, 'look, most had no experience and were starting from scratch,'" he said. So the training was critical.

There were classes on different days, so they "could keep city hall open," Rose said. The training was for three hours, two times a week for three weeks.

He has created templates, Scharz said, to standardize formats for creating city documents. This streamlines the process and standardizes the final product, creating a nice image for the city, Scharz said.

Rose "has really facilitated" the computer upgrading, she said.

Now Rose is looking ahead to the next step: Y2K compliance for the city.

Two systems at the police department, records management and the computer aided dispatch for 911 calls, "must be replaced because they are not Y2K compatible," Rose said. But before that could even be considered, the upgraded computer infrastructure needed to be in place.

Now it is.

More future computer projects include looking at purchasing maintenance management software, "to manage work orders better," Rose said. He also is considering a computer mapping system for showing all sewer lines and streets.

At the police station, in the air-conditioned, windowless room that hums with file servers, e-mail servers and a fire-wall box to the Internet, there is now a new generator to keep everything running in case of power failure. There also is individual battery backup.

Together they provide uninterrupted power to the heart of the city's system.

Nielsen beams as he looks around the room.

"It's earthquake safe, too," he said.

And for city staff, they are up to date.

"We used to always be a few steps behind the technology curve," Byrne said. "Now our work is to the standard of the outside world."