Newport Beach has six ongoing smart city programs and is looking to create more. Most of the solutions that are underway have been created by the city's IT team and cost very little, outside of labor.
"We don't have a mandate," IT Manager Jackeline Luengas-Alwafai told Techwire in an interview. "But we are in a community that is very demanding, demanding of connectivity, making things better, easier, more effective. We are trying to live up to the expectations of our users."
One of the oldest digital programs the city offers is its MasterID program, where all the bills a resident can pay are listed in one place.
"It is kind of an overlay system; we were going to put the same ID in all those different systems. It was a very manual effort at the beginning, because you're not really sure if it is the same person," Luengas-Alwafai said. "It was hours and hours of merging people, putting things together. But once it started, it has become almost like a CRM [customer relationship management] system because we know everything that you have."
It improves the customer experience so residents can make single payments across multiple departments. If one bill is overpaid, the extra can be applied to another debt.
The applications team built out the system on an SQL server.
The city has also begun compiling documents, especially agendas, minutes, resolutions, budget documents, permits and policies. The documents have been migrated, and more than 276,400 documents are searchable internally and externally.
Some of those documents feed into the city's OpenData project. The dashboard is built on Socrata and illustrates capital improvement and budget information. The dashboard has replaced the city's old budget books, decreasing printing costs and increasing ease of use.
"It is used extensively in budget periods," Luengas-Alwafai said. "Even budget reviews are sometimes done using Socrata."
The software cost $30,000 initially and costs about $20,000 a year in maintenance.
Included in that project is the interactive GIS map that covers what is happening in individual neighborhoods, real-time emergency response data, and building and planning permitting data.
Newport, a coastal town, has specific needs. The city took responsibility for Newport Harbor from the county in July 2017. Along with the harbor, the city received a spreadsheet and an isolated reservation system that worked for one set of slips.
"We had pieces, but nothing was really put together. When we started the management, we decided we need an inventory, we need a map, we need a reservation system," Luengas-Alwafai said. "That's when we decided we were going to do it internally."
The operations team installed Wi-Fi across the harbor, iPads were installed on the city's patrol and inspection boats, and the full reservations system will launch in September.
"We had to complete the mapping, get the hardware done, write the application, and it all had to be put together in almost two months," Luengas-Alwafai said.
Harbor Patrol still counts empty slips, inspects equipment and marks water levels by hand.
The project cost was for the IT team's labor, building the system and matching application.
The city also manages a junior lifeguard program that includes 1,300 applicants.
"It was first-come, first-served," Luengas-Alwafai said. "We would have 500 kids and their parents line up at the beach to sign up for junior lifeguards when it opened, and it was terrible."
The city built out an iterative application to collect registration and applications, record release of liability and swim test results. The app also allows parents to follow their child during the day, seeing where they are assigned, viewing photos and updates.
"At the beginning, we did the application similar to what we did at the beach, and we realized it was not effective because we had 700 people hit our site the first four minutes it was open," Luengas-Alwafai said. "We've been able to spread around that registration time. It makes it very simple."
The app can track the IP address of the registrant, grandfather in previous lifeguards and their siblings, and accept payment.
The city will begin seeking vendors for a new permitting system that creates an application and permit inspection app in the next six to 12 months. The city estimates this to cost about $1.5 million. Upgrading the library system is also on the horizon and could cost up to $400,000. Both vendors would need to offer SQL server-based services.
