There’s little in life that’s more elemental than water. And yet, in most developed countries, it’s easy to take access to safe water and sanitation for granted.

Prior to the creation of the Central Contra Costa Sanitary District (CCCSD) in 1946, however, Contra Costa County—located east of San Francisco, CA—was in crisis. A post-war building boom had brought an influx of new residents, most of them relying on septic systems that didn’t take well to the area’s heavy adobe clay soil. With septic tanks overflowing and waterborne diseases such as typhoid becoming a potential threat, health authorities considered the polluted conditions in the county to be among the worst in California.

As a result, the CCCSD was formed as a special district, a sewer system and treatment plants were put in place, and the public received much-needed access to safe water and sanitation.
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To be honest, the City of Albany, OR, hadn’t really been maximizing Laserfiche when its new Finance Director wanted to do away with using it altogether five years ago.

The city had installed Laserfiche in its Finance Department in 1998 as a virtual file cabinet. “Between 1999-2003 we were only scanning a few thousand documents a month and it was limited to just the Finance department,” admits Network Administrator and Laserfiche Luminary Allen Pilgrim. By 2004, Laserfiche storage totaled just ten volumes of 4.6GB each. A significant number, but apparently not significant enough for one new city administrator.
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In Bakersfield, CA, a town known for its agriculture, manufacturing and petroleum extraction and refining is now known for something different: its innovative technology.

As the fastest-growing city in the United States with a population of over 250,000, Bakersfield was experiencing an explosion of records. “We wanted a document management system to store public documents in a secure, easily searchable manner,” says IT Director Bob Trammell. “We chose Laserfiche because of its pricing and how easy it was to search for and retrieve documents.”

“I had already installed Laserfiche in a city where I was previously employed, so I was very familiar with it,” Trammell adds. “That was eleven years ago, and today all 19 departments in the city, as well as thousands of citizens, use Laserfiche.”
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According to Merton Auger, City Administrator of Buffalo, Minnesota, good government is all about collaboration. After thirty years on the job in this rapidly-growing city of 15,000, he understands that success depends on the free flow of information among citizens, officials and staff. His vision of a paperless office and his goal of promoting effective collaboration led him to investigate digital document management. Full story »

Brit Fontenot

A stunning view of the Rockies, a rich cultural life and a strong local economy led Bizjournals magazine to conclude that Bozeman, Montana offers the best quality of life of any small town in America. Excellent public service is one reason Bozeman calls itself “The Most Livable Place” for its 32,000 citizens. To maintain that high standard, the city clerk of commission’s office adopted an electronic document management solution for public records. Full story »

Tax collection is a major factor in determining the operating income of the city of Acapulco, Mexico. In city government, efficiency is directly related to the size of the operating budget. The success of tax collection efforts determines how much, or how little, a city needs to rely on federal funding.

On the average, Mexican cities rely on federal government for approximately 85 percent of their funding. That means local income, generated from tax collection, usually only constitutes approximately 15 percent of city budgets. The average Mexican city depends heavily on the federal government for money because, in many cases, its tax collection efforts are lacking.
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The City of Chula Vista, Calif., has a growing population of 200,000, up almost 10 percent from 2001. The city is expected to continue to expand at a similar rate over the next several years, bringing an influx of development opportunities as more citizens need housing. Continuous growth has made City Hall a bustling business unit dealing with constant activity, employing 1,100 people and issuing approximately 2,000 building permits per year.
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