Soon Charlottesville residents will be able to forgo the trek to City Hall to pay their parking tickets. In early May, the City will begin to actively publicize its new online service, CityLink, according to City Councilor Blake Caravati.
"It's one-stop shopping," Caravati said. "Its biggest goal is to improve service to the citizens."
But the road to the final product has not been easy. The first phase of the system was supposed to be launched Feb. 1.
According to City officials, the launch was delayed to allow City IT employees more time to test the program and train its employees to use it.
But others said they feel that there were reasons beyond that for delaying the program's launch.
"They have a security problem that they have not resolved yet," said John Pfaltz, retired University computer science professor.
The project also has met some opposition among Council members. Even though the CityLink system purchase was approved by a vote of 5-0, City Councilor Rob Schilling withdrew his support last March, several months after the vote.
"I'm up on new technology, and I like new computers, but I think this is overkill," Schilling said, referring to the new system.
Schilling said he feels that the system is not financially prudent.
"I think there is a better solution -- not just smaller but less centralized," Schilling said. "When we made up our minds to do it, we weren't considering our options."
Caravati is quick to point out, however, that Schilling did not go through the process for retracting his vote on the CityLink purchase.
Looking more at the financial side of the issue, Pfaltz said the City hired an outside consulting firm, Maximus, to conduct a study.
"They did a return of investment study over a five-year period and found it was negative," Pfaltz said.
Maximus proceeded to conduct the same study over a 10-year period and found the returns were only slightly positive. But the City has decided to go ahead with the program anyway.
The Council has been working on creating this system for the past three years. After interviewing various companies, they decided to purchase the system from the systems and software company, SAP, according to Caravati. After they purchased the system, an SAP contractor came in and tailored the system to the City's needs.
"In the end, we made the decision to go with an integrated system -- not stand-alone units," Caravati said. "The future is with integrated systems."
Pfaltz, however, does not agree.
"I think they should have gone into a collection of modules," Pfaltz said. "We're in an Internet age. You can have separate modules that are interconnected."
There also is the question of finance. The city of Bowie, Md., with a population of 47,738 as of 1998, purchased a modulated system of comparable function to CityLink for just $800,000. Charlottesville, with a smaller population of 43,833 as of 2002, purchased a $6.57 million system.
Both Pfaltz and Schilling said they feel that the City can still make what they think is the right decision by canceling the contract, which has a no-penalty cancellation clause.
"It's still not too late for us to get out," Schilling said. "The City may lose a lot of money, but it may well be worth it if you look at the long-term investment."
Read More
Will the Faculty Senate’s no-confidence vote impact the U.Va. Board of Visitors?
By Brandon Kile | 1 hours agoIn many cases, a no-confidence vote may soon be followed by steps taken to remove the leadership that may be acting against the wishes of a community.
Two senior U.Va. Health leaders quietly take new jobs without formal announcement
By Ford McCracken | YesterdayKibbe’s departure marks the end of an ongoing battle between U.Va. Health employees and their senior leadership.
Letter from 12 deans to Board of Visitors goes unanswered for almost two weeks
By Naima Sawaya | YesterdayAt the time of publication, the academic deans had received no response from the Board regarding their offer to meet with the Board “as soon as possible.”
