CITY MANAGER’S REPORT

Week ending February 18, 2011

City seeks citizen input about its website

The City of Lawrence is working to make enhancements to the city website, lawrenceks.org, and is encouraging citizens to give their input. In an effort to improve how we communicate with citizens via the Web, we are looking for feedback on what works, what doesn’t, and how we can improve. The city has placed a form on the website at lawrenceks.org/improve for feedback. eGov coordinator, Eric Gruber, will be the technical manager of the project and receives all comments on the site.  In addition, the city is completing an internal audit of pages by looking for broken links and reviewing the quality of the content of the city’s pages. Communications Manager Megan Gilliland will also be involved in overseeing the project.

Follow up to audit recommendations regarding “cramming”

As follow up to audit recommendations regarding “cramming,” or unauthorized charges on the city’s telephone bills, the Information Systems Department has prepared the attached memo. In the last six months there have been seven unauthorized charges by third party providers. These charges have all been removed from the city’s bills.

Energy efficiency projects update

County/City Sustainability Coordinator Eileen Horn has prepared the attached memo containing an update on energy efficiency projects undertaken by city departments. Progress has been made in pursuing cost-effective energy efficiency upgrades and monitoring and tracking the energy and dollar savings that result. These efforts have resulted in tangible energy-use reductions. Since 2007, the City has reduced energy usage from 36,678 MWh to 34,204 MWh, a 6.74 % reduction in energy usage.

Year end Traffic Engineering Division report

The attached memo provides a year-end update and status of the Traffic Engineering Division. The Traffic Engineering Division maintains 93 traffic signals, 32 flashing school beacons, approximately 15,100 traffic signs, pavement markings, and city-owned street lights.  The division also is responsible for the collection of traffic engineering field data and administration of the Traffic Safety Commission.  This division has eight full time employees: Transportation/Traffic Engineer, Traffic Supervisor, Traffic Signal Systems Technician, Senior Traffic Signal Technician, Traffic Signal Technician and three (3) Traffic Control Technicians.