Government Technology - June 2008 - (Page 34)

came in, and we understood enough about it to know that is what in fact would take place. All of those moving parts were very important for me to keep my promises as a politician. GT: HOW IS THE CITY USING TECHNOLOGY TO SOLVE QUALITY-OF-LIFE ISSUES, SUCH AS TRAFFIC CONGESTION? CARDENAS: We did a pilot in my district and another couple parts of the city where we synchronized our traffic lights, where we proved that by synchronizing the lights on some of our main thoroughfares, we could reduce the travel time by 15 percent to 20 percent. And we’re talking about peak hours, not just the easy times: peak hours in the morning and afternoon. We did that pilot, and once we did it, we realized that the results were actually coming through. So we used our political clout in Sacramento, and when they put an initiative on the ballot two years ago — a transportation bond — we actually infused in the bond a minimum of $140 million. We had already calculated how much it would cost for us to do that in the entirety of the city in our JUNE_08 we knew that the elasticity effect would take place. It actually took place a little faster than expected. Before I became a city councilman, I was a businessman; I had as many as 26 people working for me. I remember those complicated forms; I remember the frustration, and I remember having to pay my county taxes, my city taxes, and my federal and state taxes. I was looking forward to having an honest straightforward system and fewer burdens from our city so that [small businesses] could grow and become more successful tax-paying businesses. So I was motivated by that as a former business owner, but at the same time, I was motivated because I didn’t want to be part of the repertoire of people who ran for office who promised reduced business taxes for the city. I made a commitment, and I understood what that commitment meant to businesses because I was [a small business owner] myself. In addition to that, I wanted to be that honest politician who made a claim — who promised I would do something — and actually did it. When I was in the California State Legislature, I understood how risky it is to make promises of reduced revenue, yet we’re going to keep the standard of our funding to the community and all of the things we promised for them. That’s when the elasticity research still saying, “Wait a minute, the implementation is lagging.” So we announced that we were going to put out an RFP to see if we could get a citywide Wi-Fi, and hopefully we could do it with private dollars and the city wouldn’t have to commit its own money. Obviously we would have to have a public-private agreement, and the private provider would have some kind of advantage in providing Wi-Fi privately. Since we started the process, we realized that every single private provider that has agreed with local cities throughout the country has backed off and isn’t moving forward as before. Now we’re looking at the possibility of having a public-private partnership where we come to the table with either resources or dollars with the private industry. One of the beautiful things we have in L.A. is the largest Department of Water and Power in the country. So tip to tip and in every corner of the city, we have hardwired capability to have communications in every home and every business in the city. Our Department of Water and Power may even be one of the components and partners in this future partnership. If we don’t do it with them, we’re “ WE’RE STILL ON THE ROAD TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO BE THE FIRST CITY THAT IS SUCCESSFUL IN PUTTING TOGETHER A CITY WI-FI SYSTEM. going to be working with our other communication providers such as AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner — possibly have different regional components communicating with each other across jurisdictional lines. We’re still on the road to figure out how to be the first city that is successful in putting together a city Wi-Fi system. It’s a tremendous challenge, and again, I had personal conversations with the mayor, and because of my background as an electrical engineer, I said to the mayor, “Look, it sounds pretty good, but there’s a reason why nobody has been able to figure it out; there’s a reason why every other city that’s embarked on this journey is having problems getting to the implementation stage. Since then, every single one has backed off, and now they’re having to reconsider how to do it. Their previous agreements don’t seem to be coming to fruition.” main thoroughfares. That [bond] passed, so we already have the money in place to go ahead and synchronize lighting through technology that is in place on certain corners of those main thoroughfares. The cameras and digital technology can actually be adjusted remotely. GT: WHAT OTHER CHALLENGES ARE YOU FACING? CARDENAS: We’re trying to implement citywide Wi-Fi — and we’re hopefully going to be successful, but the model has changed from what we had anticipated — so we can get digital access, digital inclusion to every part of this city from the poor parts of the community to the most affluent. We were skeptical that other cities had bragged about the fact that they were implementing citywide, but at the same time were 34 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - June 2008

Government Technology - June 2008 Contents Point of View The Last Mile Big Picture On the Scene Four Questions For... 3 Technologies That May Change Your Job ...And Your Life Loosening Medicaid's Grip Better Living Through Technology Immersive Itineraries Help Yourself Taking the Bait Shared Connection Up Close Spectrum Products Personal Computing signal:noise Digital Communities Contents Digital Tactics for a U.S. Recession E-Dilemma Stifling Community Innovation Leadership Interview Estonia Becomes E-Stonia If It Were Up to Me …

Government Technology - June 2008

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