[Am-info] Cities Giving IT A Bigger Role

[Fred A. Miller]

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Cities Giving IT A Bigger Role 

More city governments are placing tech initiatives front and 
center in 2002--due in part to a new breed of mayors, as well 
as heightened concerns about public safety.

Some of the new mayors are from a younger generation than their 
predecessors, and are more comfortable with technology as a 
result, says Cathilea Robinett, executive director of the 
Center for Digital Government. The most striking example is 31-
year-old Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit's youngest mayor (and 
probably the only one who's ever worn a diamond stud earring). 
During his campaign, Kilpatrick said the Detroit Police 
Department was one of his top priorities, and he wanted to use 
computer technology to help the city solve crime problems. "For 
mayors, public safety has always been the entry point for 
technology," says Robinett. That's increasingly true, as public 
safety issues are driven by potential terrorist threats. 

Several cities have appointed new heads of IT within the past 
week, including New York's Information Technology Commissioner 
Gino P. Menchini. The city's new mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is 
no stranger to technology--he made billions because of it. And 
he certainly values IT's role in his administration--Menchini's 
appointment was one of the first he made. "That usually doesn't 
happen with an IT office," says Robinett. In the past many 
cities tended to fill other posts first and didn't treat IT 
appointments with a sense of urgency. 

Robinett says that the most recent mayoral campaigns focused on 
technology more than ever. One campaign promise from Jane 
Campbell, now Cleveland's mayor, was to create an office of 
technology and innovation and appoint the city's first "tech 
czar." The person charged with creating the office of 
technology and innovation is Campbell's chief development 
officer Tim Mueller, who's also the co-founder of Vantage One 
Communications. - Sandra Swanson
 
For more:
States, Municipalities Desperate For IT Workers
http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eFf80Bce7K0V20bWq0A4

The State Of Technology
http://update.informationweek.com/cgi-bin4/flo?y=eFf80Bce7K0V20BE170A5

- -- 
Fred A. Miller
Systems Administrator
Cornell Univ. Press Services
fm@cupserv.org

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