Information technology is the medium of the future for the city of Danbury to communicate and conduct business with its citizens. That was the message brought to DACS on September 6 by Wade Anderson, manager of Danbury’s Information Technology department.

Anderson opened the program with a number of statistics on Danbury’s population and land base and pointed out that municipality issues more building permits than any other city in the state. One interesting point from his numbers was that Danbury Hospital was the city’s largest employer, but was way down on the list when it came to paying taxes. This surprised the audience until he explained that they are a non-profit organization. The charts and numbers he presented certainly gave the attendees a feeling about the complexities of managing a city the size of Danbury.

He also pointed out that in recent years the city has moved away from custom IT applications to standard commercially available software. This makes supporting the city’s IT functions easier and less expensive and gives it the flexibility to change and upgrade its services in a timelier manner.

Wade discussed the rising amount of SPAM that the city has to contend with on a daily basis. Each of us thinks we have a problem with SPAM, but as he pointed out the city’s problem is much bigger and they have to deal with it just like we do.

He brought with him numerous examples of the equipment used and in development by the city, along with drawings of the new police station to be built in the coming year. One of the interesting things he demonstrated was the new cameras being installed at various traffic intersections in the city. He made clear that the city’s intent was only to use them for traffic control and not keep historical records. This addressed some of the privacy concerns expressed by the audience.

Unlike the outdoor video cameras that we have seen available for under $100 these cost in the thousands and have many features to withstand harsh weather conditions. They can even clean their own lenses through the remote control functions they provide and have an image stabilization capability, to maintain a steady picture even in windy conditions.

He described the status of the wireless water meter reading project, and how Danbury is slowly converting its older meters to support this new technology. For the newly installed meters, a specially equipped vehicle can get accurate readings by just driving slowly down a given street. The equipment is even smart enough to know which meters may have been missed during the process.

Next, he updated us on the technology installed in police cars and fire trucks. The city is moving from its first generation laptops to newer and more rugged equipment with improved communications capabilities.

He displayed pictures and described the police’s new fingerprinting and mug shot equipment. It’s amazing that each of these machines costs over $100,000 and the fingerprinting machine no longer requires the fingers to be inked as we have seen in movies for years. This equipment not only performs its basic functions, but automatically sends its information to a central state wide database for access by other communities.

He ended by showing us the newly redesigned web site that Danbury had just put up the very evening of his presentation. It has a cleaner look and makes information easier to find. These changes, along with others occurring in the coming days, should make finding information and communicating with Danbury officials easier for the general public and people needing to do business with the city.

It was a very enjoyable and informative evening, and Wade was able to answer every question thrown at him.

Thanks, Wade.