Extracted From MarketWire

MOFFETT FIELD, CA–(Marketwire – May 25, 2010) –  CiviGuard, a pioneer in Emergency Communications 2.0, today announced the City of Manor, Texas as its first public sector customer. CiviGuard and Manor will collaborate on a pilot deployment of the CiviGuard platform, which delivers authoritative, location-specific alerts and guidance in real-time to civilian populations via smartphones. CiviGuard will discuss details of the partnership and initial deployment during a keynote presentation at the Gov 2.0 Conference in Washington, DC later today.

The CiviGuard platform is the first in the world to deliver near real-time information from authorities to civilians by combining cutting-edge smartphone technologies such as HTML5, cloud-based infrastructure, multi-touch scenario management and intelligent multi-channel message distribution into a single offering.

“We are thrilled to be announcing Manor, Texas as CiviGuard’s first public sector client at the prestigious Gov 2.0 Expo,” said CiviGuard CEO & co-founder Zubin Wadia. ”Manor has a proven reputation and appetite for innovative technology solutions that focus on enhancing the way citizens interact with their government. This partnership is the first step towards achieving our goal of making CiviGuard’s platform the global standard for Emergency Communication 2.0.”

“The City of Manor was thoroughly impressed by the innate capabilities of CiviGuard’s cutting-edge emergency communications solution,” said Dustin Haisler, CIO for Manor, Texas. “CiviGuard’s advantage is clear — its rapid-messaging capabilities, its location-specific alert focus, and cross-platform optimization enable the City’s first responders to more effectively disseminate crucial, actionable information to civilians in crisis situations. The City of Manor prides itself on making sure government is more accessible, efficient and responsive to the needs of its citizens and we feel confident that CiviGuard will be a solid partner to further our citizen-centric approach to governance.”

CiviGuard will present at the Gov 2.0 Expo keynote kick-off on Tuesday, May 25 at 5:20pm (EDT) at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. Please visithttp://www.gov2expo.com/gov2expo2010/public/schedule/detail/14850 for presentation details.

About CiviGuard:

With offices in Silicon Valley and New York, CiviGuard provides a highly resilient “Emergency Communications 2.0″ platform that rapidly delivers location-aware alerts and guidance to civilians. Combining trusted government information, cutting-edge smartphone technology, cloud-based infrastructure and intelligent message distribution into a single offering, CiviGuard is poised to redefine crisis communication. For more information, please visit www.civiguard.com.

About the City of Manor, Texas:

The City of Manor is a burgeoning community just east of Austin, TX and has received worldwide coverage for its innovative uses of technology. For more information, please visithttp://cityofmanor.org/wordpress/.

About O’Reilly Media:

O’Reilly Media, Inc. spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly has been a chronicler and catalyst of leading-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

About UBM TechWeb:

UBM TechWeb is a global leader in technology media and professional information and enables people and organizations to harness the transformative power of technology. Through its three core businesses — media solutions, marketing services and paid content — UBM TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed brands and media applications in the technology market. More than 14 million business and technology professionals actively engage in UBM TechWeb’s communities and information resources monthly.

February 18, 2010

The Center for Digital Government honored selected public agencies and leaders for their outstanding information technology (IT) innovations and contributions at the 2010 Best of Texas awards ceremony held in Austin on February 18.

“Through their diligence and determination to serve the citizens of Texas with technology that enhances interaction with government, this year’s winners truly embody what public service is really about”, said Cathilea Robinett, executive vice-president for the Center for Digital Government. “These individuals and teams are great examples of how working together to solve difficult issues in infrastructure and delivery can produce superb products with greater efficiency and access for citizens.  Congratulations to all of you.”

The Best of Texas awards program was established to salute IT professionals and local government organizations for their dedication, hard work and contributions in the state of Texas. Winners are selected based on a set of criteria, including collaboration among agencies, innovative use of technology and improvement of services and business processes for citizens and state and local government employees.

Best of Texas Awards – 2010 Winners

Visionary Award
City of Manor, Texas

Excellence in Leadership Award
Jake Nicholson, Information Resources Manager
Department of State Health Services

Excellence in Leadership Award
Richard B. Goldgar, Ph.D.
Deputy Chief Information Officer/Chief Technology Officer
Texas Education Agency

Project Excellence Award
CLASSMate
Texas Department of Family & Protective Services

Project Excellence Award
MyCity: Houston’s Enterprise Geographic Information System
City of Houston Planning & Development

Project Excellence Award
Amarillo Emergency Communications Center
City of Amarillo, Texas

Special Award for Technology Innovation
Consolidated Entitlements Management System
Texas Education Agency

See Something That Needs To Be Fixed In Manor; There’s An App For That…SeeClickFix Plus for iPhone

Within two weeks of the apps launch, the City of Manor is the first to launch their customized version of SeeClickFix Plus. When you walk into the City of Manor and load up your SeeClickFix Plus app you will see the City’s logo and their reporting channel. Walk out of Manor and you can report just as you do now on SeeClickFix.

The SeeClickFix Plus app allows users to take a photo of an issue, get and verify the address from GPS, describe the issues and report it to all who are watching. Citizens and other entities who want to help fix or receive alerts can also follow Manor from the town’s homepage on the app. From that homepage citizens can see top issues and other top users in their area. Users can attach the app to their facebook account for easy tracking and to earn “Civic Points”

For City inspectors and other city employees, the app allows for viewing issues on the map by service request type or filtering by keyword. Blackberry and Android applications will be launching by the end of the month to allow users to easily submit problems regards of what mobile platform they are using.

SeeClickFix designed and built SeeClickFix Plus to allow governments to customize and launch their smart phone reporting applications within minutes of sign-up. An easy dashboard allows cities to customize the colors and the logos on the app as well as the service request types that a city wants its citizens to choose from when reporting to them. Governments can add additional questions as well as private data questions to the app to collect personal information from constituents.  This application was developed with advice from the City of Tucson’s City Manager Andrew Greenhill. Tucson, New Haven, CT and Hillsborough, CA have all signed on as SeeClickFix Plus Customers.

The City of Manor announced today that they have chosen SeeClickFix, a website that empowers residents to take responsibility for their neighborhood, as the tool to create a community solution for improving service orders in Manor. The technology will first be utilized in the Public Works department to report issues related to the City of Manor’s street, water and/or wastewater systems. Mike Tuley, Manor’s Public Works Director, stated, “I’m excited that the citizens will have a useful tool for a faster response to utility and street issues using SeeClickFix.” In coming the coming weeks, the Development Services Department will be evaluating SeeClickFix for code enforcement and building inspections.

The SeeClickFix.com website allows anyone to:

• See – See a non-emergency water, street or wastewater issue in your neighborhood.
• Click – Open a ticket over the Internet, phone, e-mail or mobile app describing the issue.
• Fix – Take responsibility to help alert the city of the problem.

As a pilot city, Manor will be among the first cities to take advantage of this new tool.

SeeClickFix will empower Manor’s citizens to participate directly in maintaining the infrastructure of the city. Citizens can also see view real-time information about active and closed service orders on the City of Manor’s website.

Fore more information or to submit a service order with SeeClickFix please visit the City of Manor’s website at http://www.cityofmanor.org and click on the SeeClickFix tab.

Manor’s CIO, Dustin Haisler, explains how the process works below.

About SeeClickFix

SeeClickFix encourages residents to become citizens by participating in taking care of and improving their neighborhoods. By creating a few watch areas for the people responsible for the public space and reporting a few issues and encouraging your friends to do the same, you can have a full blown 311 in minutes. As a web-based service free to the public, SeeClickFix empowers local governments, business improvement districts, special service districts and others with the tools to identify, track and resolve local issues. Founded in 2007 and based in New Haven, CT, SeeClickFix is in pilot mode.

Contact:
SeeClickFix Main
Ben Berkowitz
ben@seeclickfix.com

City of Manor
Mike Tuley
Director of Public Works
seeclickfix@cityofmanor.org

The cities of Arvada, Geneva, Manor and Rockwall have teamed up with DotGov, Inc. to participate in a unique innovation project. The goal of the project is to develop an iPhone Application, at no cost to the citizens of Manor, which will offer citizens mobile access to city services and information. You can participate by sharing your best ideas or wishes for a mobile app on: http://ideas.dotgov.com/ You can add your ideas till February1, 2010.

The following State of City Report reflects on the events that transpired in the City of Manor during 2009.

Council and Personnel

The Manor City Council had to replace two of its members in 2009, when both Jamie Allen Jatzlau and Steve Shanks moved out of Manor.  Each had previously served on the Planning and Zoning Commission and Jamie was serving on the Capital Metro Board representing the smaller cities of Travis County.

The council appointed Eric Cuomo to replace Councilmember Jatzlau and Michael Burke to replace Councilmember Shanks.  Like their predecessors, both Cuomo and Burke were serving on the Planning and Zoning Commission at the time of their appointment.  Councilmember Cuomo’s term as the Place 4 member will expire in May 2010 while Councilmember Burke will fill the Place 5 seat until the May 2011 election.

The two vacancies on the Planning and Zoning Commission were filled by the council with the appointments of Willie Haywood and Gerald Schmalzried.   Commissioner Haywood resides in the Carriage Hills subdivision and Commissioner Schmalzried’s home is the most northwestern property within the city limits.

In addition to Commissioners Haywood and Schmalzried the other members of the commission are: Chair Mary Ann Parker from central Manor, Gaylon King from the Wildhorse subdivision, and Richard Peterson of the ShadowGlen subdivision who represents those living outside the city but within the city’s extra territorial jurisdiction.

Long time Associate Judge Billie Valentine who ran the municipal court, retired after 16 years of service to the city.  The court was reorganized to fill the void.  Dustin Haisler was named Municipal Judge with Dennis Jones and Bill Gibson serving as Associate Judges.  Josie Calvillo-Rodriguez who has been with the city for over five years and Paulina Torres who returned to the city after a three year absence, are the court clerks.

In December, Dustin Haisler was named Assistant City Manager.  Dustin has been the primary leader in pushing the city’s technology efforts forward.  In addition to the technology responsibilities, he also serves as the finance officer and City Secretary as well as the aforementioned Municipal Judge.  Some of these duties will be shifted to others over the next few months.  In late 2008 the city, through Dustin’s efforts was awarded a Best of Texas-Most Innovative Use of Technology award for its Smart Code program.  That was followed in early 2009 with Dustin being named one of the 25 Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers in the United States by Government Technology magazine.

City Finances

The downturn in economy certainly had a negative impact on the City of Manor.  Over the last two years, building permit fees dropped 33% and sales tax revenues dropped 21%.  The overall affect has been an approximate $950,000 decrease in revenues for city operations in each of the last two fiscal years.  In 2006, the city staff began discussing the probability that home construction might falter and the related revenues would not be available to sustain the city financially.  Operational reserves were built up and that money covered revenue shortfalls experienced during the last two years.  However, those funds are now exhausted.

The good news is that new home construction picked up significantly in the last half of 2009 (see Developments below), and the city finances look stable enough barring an unforeseen problem, to meet the basic financial needs of the city through the fiscal year which ends on September 30, 2010.

Water Issues

Water continued to be Manor’s most pressing issue in 2009.  The city water supply comes primarily from three wells located near FM 969.  As the drought continued into the early part of the year, one of the wells fell below pumping level while the water level of other two steadily declined.  Three of Manor’s subdivisions are supplied entirely by Manville Water, but that company also has wells in the same field as Manor and was also experiencing a decline in water production.  Water demand continued to rise within the city throughout the spring even as the conservation restrictions went into effect.  By early summer the situation looked very serious.

A five year agreement was reached with the City of Pflugerville and Manville Water Supply to obtain an extra quarter-million gallons of water daily.  Pflugerville provides the water to Manor and it is passed through Manville lines for a fee.  While the cost to Manor is several times higher than the cost of water from our well field, the city and Manville were able to meet most of the demands for water during the drought.  At the time of this writing, the well field had not seen sufficient recovery even with three months of good rains, and the one well remains unusable.

The city constructed two new 500,000 gallon elevated water tanks in 2009.  One is located west of downtown immediately behind New Tech High on a tract provided by the Manor Independent School District.  The other is located on Tower Lane northeast of downtown.  The west tank is fully operational.  A water line will be constructed from US 290 to the east tank in 2010 to bring it onto the system.  Together, these tanks will more than double the storage capacity of the city system.  The cost of the west tank was $1,464,480 and $1,291,038 for the east tank which is not as tall as the west tank. The city issued Certificates of Obligation to fund the projects.  The tanks were constructed by Chicago Bridge and Iron, parent company of the firm that constructed the old water tank in downtown Manor in the 1930s.

Streets and Drainage

Back in 2001 Manor voters approved $6.5 million in General Obligation Bonds to construct streets, storm drainage systems and make wastewater improvements.  During the first phase in 2004, work was completed on the east side of central Manor.  In 2006 street improvements and drainage work was completed along the streets south of the railroad.  The final and largest portion of the work was undertaken last spring in the core of old Manor.  The six month project completely reconstructed a number of streets, storm drainage structures, driveways and replaced depression era wastewater lines and manholes.  The street and drainage work was completed by Austin Bridge and Roads at a cost of $1,936,946.

Additionally, approximately 12 blocks of streets were resurfaced utilizing $157,000 in funds accumulated over the last three years from Capital Metro grants.  There are roughly 22 blocks of streets in old Manor still needing resurfacing as well sections of FM 1100 and Albert Voelker Lane located within the city limits.

Wastewater Improvements

The final part of the 2001 bond package was used to upgrade Manor wastewater infrastructure.  The work began by testing the entire system with smoke to locate breaks and leaks.  Benitez Construction from here in Manor was the low bidder to repair city lines, manholes and private lines that were determined to have defects.  The cost was $337,092.  Repairs to city owned lines and manholes have been completed and work on the private lines will begin immediately after the first of the year.

This was a very critical project for the city in that Manor has to pay the City of Austin to process about half of its wastewater and that includes any rainwater that flows into the system due to a broken pipe or through a missing cleanout cover.  That cost often runs as high as $40,000 per month.  It is anticipated that when the private lines are refurbished that cost will be cut significantly.

Back in 2001 an agreement was made with the Travis County Municipal Utility District #2 (MUD) to jointly construct the Wilbarger Wastewater Treatment Plant located near the cemetery.  Under that agreement, the city’s 60% of the plant capacity was funded by the developer and the MUD financed and owned 40%.  Manor was obligated under the agreement to repay the developer out of Capital Impact Fees collected on each new home constructed and to purchase the MUD’s capacity in the plant in October of 2009.  The city issued $945,000 in Revenue Bonds to make the purchase.  Additionally during 2009, the amount due the developer was paid off.  About half of the city’s wastewater goes to that plant and about half flows to an Austin plant located just west of FM 973 south of Manor.

Other Road Projects

Another road project that was nearing completion in December was the construction of a turn lane on FM 973 (South Lexington) in the area of the Dollar General Store.  This was a Texas Department of Transportation project paid for by the Wildhorse Creek Commercial development company (Pete Dwyer) though an advanced funding agreement between the City of Manor and TxDOT.  The project was slated for completion on October 3 but construction has lingered past year end.

Travis County and the Texas Department of Transportation restored the old bridge over Gilleland Creek and constructed a new bridge alongside eliminating the necessity of cars only being able to cross in one direction at a time.  Additionally, the old sidewalk was removed and a new sidewalk put in place.  The old bridge was constructed around 1932 and is the longest of these period bridges still standing in Texas.  Under federal law, the bridge could not be removed but had to be restored.  Both TxDOT and the county should be commended for this important improvement to our community.  The city did not participate in this project since that portion of the roadway is not within the city limits.

Sidewalk Project

Manor finally received approval from the Texas Department of Transportation for the funding of a sidewalk project that has been pending for about ten years.  The city will construct sidewalks from the Gilleland Creek bridge, along the north side of Parsons to the City Hall.  From City Hall, sidewalks will be constructed north to Townes and south to Carrie Manor.  And from the Burnet and Carrie Manor intersection new sidewalks will be built to a point near the entrance to the Wildhorse Creek subdivision.

Bids were opened in November with Travis paving and Excavation submitting the low bid of $139,438.  The preliminary awarding of the contract was made at the December 2 council meeting pending approval of the award by the Texas Department of Transportation.  Construction should begin in the first quarter of 2010.

Ambulance Service

For probably the first time in Manor’s 137 year history, an ambulance has now been stationed in the city.  Travis County and the city reached an agreement to allow emergency health care personnel to operate out of an office building moved onto the city yard two years ago.  The city refurbished part of the structure to allow use as a station.  At this writing two Emergency Technicians are normally stationed at the Manor site from 7 a.m until 7 p.m.

Developments

Residential construction saw a dramatic rise in the latter part of 2009.  For the year, the city issued 119 construction permits for new homes with most coming after August 1.  The estimated value of the new homes is $17,497,119.  The most residential permits the city ever issued in a one year period came in 2003 when 275 were issued.  In 2008 only 26 permits were issued.

Five permits were issued for new commercial construction with an estimated value of $3,185,000.

Commercial construction included a new business center directly across from city hall.  That building will contain about 5,000 square feet of rentable space.  In addition to the building, the developer is also making improvements to La Grange Street south of Parsons and constructing a sidewalk along the front of the building.

Bentoli Agrinutrition acquired the old Eltex property and is converting the facility to its primary food supplement plant. Bentoli will then move its international headquarters into the building.  The site is the easternmost tract in the Manor city limits along the north side of US 290.

A new Manor Post Office was completed in 2009 as the first building in the Greater Texas Center.  The new Post Office is scheduled to open on January 11, 2010, fifty years after moving to its Burnet and Boyce location from the old hotel (now a martial arts studio) on Lexington.

Expansion also began on the Manor Fire Department facility on West Parsons.

Technology

A Travis County official asked city staff how it felt to be working in the most technology advanced city in Travis County.  Initially, that compliment seemed a little over the top, however after thinking about it, Manor is indeed leading most communities in the county with its new technologies.  More importantly, the cost to the city has been minimized by partnering with several worldwide corporations and universities.

The technology effort began three years ago.  At the time, four of the city departments operated on completely different platforms which could not share information and required multiple service and maintenance contracts.  The city had no servers and one department had no operating system of any kind.  After a complete study of needs and available software, the city replaced the four platforms with Incode system.  The utility billing, accounting, payroll, police, court and development services areas all are now converted to that system and information such as a traffic ticket no longer has to be manually entered three separate times into the police, courts and accounting systems.

The monitoring systems for the water and wastewater networks were also expanded and can now be monitored and controlled offsite in cases not requiring hands-on attention.

The following year, the city began the Smart Code project which allows residents and visitors to get information about various historic sites and capital improvements throughout town.  The recognition gained from being the first municipality in the world to place these funny looking signs around the community, led to a series of partnerships with software companies and universities from around the world.

As the result of one of those relationships, the city implemented M@nor Labs which allows anyone in the world to make recommendations and suggestions for improving the city.  It also rewards the participants with points called Innobucks.  Accumulate enough Innobucks and you can make purchases from merchandise donated to the city or you can be mayor for a day.  The software for this site was provided by one of Manor’s corporate sponsors, Spigit Inc.

M@nor Labs quickly drew the attention of web users around the world.  In November, following a discussion of Manor’s activities in New York City at one of the largest technology conferences held in in the United States, the White House recognized our city’s efforts on its web site.

Partnered with the city are Stanford University and the University of Trento, Italy.  Corporate and technology partners include Spigit Inc., RI Labs, 3G Vision, OKKAM Foundation, and GovFresh.  Staff members also serve on board of the Texas Association of Government Information Technology Managers (TAGITM).

The Manor City Manager and Assistant City Manager were asked to speak to other communities in north and west Texas and at a technology meeting in Washington D.C. where the two met with numerous federal agencies as well as being interviewed by a British firm assembling a video for its Parliment.  They have since been invited to speak to the City of Las Vegas, and at conferences in Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, New Orleans and another conference in Washington D.C.  “Have speech will travel” only applies if the trip is funded by an outside sponsor and not by the city.

Other Grants

Because of the significant loss of revenue caused by the decline in home building over the last two years, the city did not budget for replacement of vehicles during the ‘08-‘09 fiscal year.  Midway through the year, Travis County was able to secure a grant that allowed the governmental entities within the county to replace older vehicles with hybrid vehicles that provided much better mileage with less environmental impact.  The city council amended the budget and authorized the purchase of two police vehicles and a utility department vehicle.  The city paid half of the cost and the rest was covered by the grant.  The grant ultimately saved the city $42,531 just on the vehicle cost.

Business Development

Although the city cannot have an economic development corporation, the city staff is always open to bringing in new business.  To that effort the city is conducting a grocery survey/petition on its blog in an effort to encourage a large grocery change to look at Manor.  You can take the survey through February by going to http://bit.ly/manorsurvey or by clicking on the Survey key on then navigation bar above.

Water Tower Christmas Lights

For the last four Christmas seasons, the city utility crews have converted the elevated water tank along US 290 into a Christmas tree.  During the holiday season of 2008, numerous days of high winds severely damaged the lights.  This year new L.E.D. lights and stars replaced the old bulbs.  The new lights were much brighter and withstood the winds of December 24^th and 25th without breaking.  They will be back and hopefully enhanced for Christmas 2010.

Police Department

As Manor grows, so too do the number of calls to the Manor Police Department.  In 2005 Manor Police were dispatched to 4,609 calls.  In 2008, (2009 numbers are not yet available from the county) the number of calls within the city rose to 8,249.  The police also assisted on calls outside its jurisdiction pushing the number of calls requiring Manor police assistance to over 12,000.

In 2009, only 81 of the calls received by Manor Police involved a felony charge.  The two leading complaints were burglaries of a residence with 22 incidents and burglaries of a non-residential building with 11.

Dispatch services continue to be handled by the county at a cost to Manor of approximately $13 per each dispatch call issued.  In 2009 the city paid in excess of $122,000 for dispatch service.

National Night Out meetings were held in October this year rather than in the blistering heat of August when the national event is held.  Wildhorse Creek and Bell Farms each held gatherings in their subdivisions.  Old Manor held its event at the park.

2009 State of The City by Phil Tate, Manor City Manager

It seems like today so many agencies are plagued by the expenses of online web development and associated hosting; Manor was no different. Smaller agencies pay thousands of dollars to private companies to developed attractive websites that can be done at a fraction of the cost.

After discussing my frustrations with Luke Fretwell, the founder of GovFresh, he had a solution that would not only work for Manor, but many other cities as well. His idea was to build the entire site on WordPress, which is an open-source blog publishing application, with full-social media integration. I knew of WordPress, and had even used it for my personal blog, but have never thought of using it for a government site outside of a traditional blog.

After doing some research, it became quite evident that the WordPress platform was optimal for our agency, and would help empower the non-technical employees to become involved with the website. Soon after, we set out to make the WordPress idea into an actual site. Over the next day, Luke designed an amazing WordPress theme, while I transferred and tweaked page content. In about 48 hours the entire site frame and basic page content was completed. A few days later, the site was rolled out and is now live at http://www.cityofmanor.org.

The story isn’t over yet. GovFresh has packaged the theme and made it available at http://tools.govfresh.com for any agencies to use at no cost. This story highlights the power of social media tools, like WordPress, to help make government more efficient, transparent and cost-effective.

Benefits to using WordPress:

• Simple Web design practices
• Easy site administration
• 508 compliance
• Social media integration
• Cost savings
• Faster site deployment
• Ease of site administration

Site template features:

• Site search
• Simple primary/secondary/tertiary navigation
• Home page template with rotating carousel
• News page template for updates and press releases

So take a look around and let us know what you think.

The City of Manor is please to announce a collaborative partnership with GovFresh to bring you live innovation updates from Manor, Texas. The City of Manor will use this collaborative partnership to share current research and development being done by Manor Labs and as an opportunity to learn from other agencies and their research. You can visit the Manor 2.0 live innovation stream at http://manor.govfresh.com.

Manor Labs was recently highlighted at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City by White House CTO Beth Noveck. A video clip is available here (Minute 36). There is also a White House Blog posting (located here) about Manor’s use of innovative technology. Manor Labs, which is powered by Spigit, is the City of Manor’s open innovation platform designed to build citizen engagement and participation.

You can also keep up with the City of Manor’s innovation in real-time through GovFresh.

Please vote for the City of Manor’s panel for the 2010 SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, Texas. The panel will bring together government innovators from across the area to share about their Gov 2.0 efforts. CLICK HERE TO VOTE