City Council Goes Green With Laptops: Mayor Steven Witt, "We're in the 21st century now."
Posted February 5, 2013 07:05 am
With the City Council's laptops lined up like soldiers,
Mayor Steven Witt gets ready to bring the City Council
into the electronic age.
LAKE CITY, FL – Last night in City Hall the City Council had a new perspective. Instead of shuffling through reams of paper the Council members were following the meeting agenda on sleek new laptops. In a memo from City Clerk Audrey Sikes, she advised the council that February would be the last month for paper agenda materials and beginning in March all agenda material and supporting information would be sent via email. Ms. Sikes wrote the Council, "I'm very excited to move forth with this implementation." Ms. Sikes moved the Clerk's Office to digital records management years ago.
Veteran City Councilman and downtown businessman, George Ward was pleased with the move from paper. He told the Observer, "In the thirteen years that I've been here we've used countless reams of paper to print the agenda and supporting material. The agenda packets will be e mailed to us on Friday. We will have use of these computers 24/7. This is a step in the right direction for Lake City."
Newly elected Councilman Zack Paulk, an executive with Walmart and well versed in the necessity of computers to increase productivity, told the Observer, "I'm glad to see we have taken advantage of technology because it saves a lot of paper; we can pull our emails up right here on the computer; and you can have the agenda packet right in front of you and still have your note pad. It saves us a lot of time; it saves the city staff a lot of time; and it saves the LCPD officers a lot of time from having to go around and deliver the packets to each individual councilman."
Lake City's popular Mayor, Steve Witt called the meeting agenda from his laptop.
The Observer asked Mayor Witt, "Are you going to be able to deal with all this technology?"
Mayor Witt, with a big smile answered, "We're in the 21st century now."