Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Information Technology

TO:	Dave Corliss, City Manager Diane Stoddard, Assistant City Manager
FROM:	James Wisdom, Director of Information Technology
CC:	Jim Lawson, Douglas County Director of Information Technology
Date:	January 5, 2012
RE:	Douglas County Fiber Sharing Agreement Consideration

Overview

The City of Lawrence and Douglas County Information Technology Departments have been working together for several years on various technology initiatives and have had excellent working relationships for sharing technology, ideas, and services which have produced many cooperative successes.

The City and the County have many of the same needs and also have facilities in close proximities to each other in several situations, thus there are opportunities for the two entities to help each other when possible to lower our expenses to provide services to the citizens of Lawrence and Douglas County.  During the planning stages of the fiber installation by the City of Lawrence, extra fibers were installed with the idea of sharing them with Douglas County and others where other organizations were willing to help the City of Lawrence extend our network in directions where the City may not have conduit, but has technology connectivity needs.  As the fiber network expands, the City is looking for opportunities to connect buildings, traffic signals, water towers, lift stations and other City needs where opportunities become available. 

Douglas County has connectivity needs to the Douglas County Jail, Juvenile Detention Facility, Haskell Public Works Facility, Douglas County Fairgrounds, the newly purchased property on 25^th Street near the Jail for their new Public Works facility and others.

Sharing fiber with Douglas County could offer several advantages to the City of Lawrence.  Our current 23^rd Street fiber project will run fiber from 23^rd and Iowa to 23^rd and Harper.  Douglas County could extend that fiber to the Fairgrounds which could allow the City to connect to Fire Station #2 and the Harper Water Tower along the way.  When the County extended fiber to the Jail and possibly their new facility on West 25^th Street, the City could partner with them to extend fiber to the Farmland property, East Hills Business Park, and potential new traffic signals along the path.  Also, the City of Lawrence would prefer to have fiber to the Jail facility for several reasons.  This agreement could offer both organizations a “win-win” opportunity.

Cooperation Successes

In 2006, the City and Douglas County shared a fiber installation project that installed fiber between City Hall and Douglas County’s offices and the two organizations have been able to share connectivity, offsite data hosting, GIS data, access to applications and many other positive successes.  In addition to these successes, just some of the advantages that past cooperation has yielded are:

• For many years the City Municipal Court has been able to access Douglas County’s video conferencing equipment at the Douglas County Jail allowing the Municipal Court to use video arraignment, saving the costs and time of transporting jail prisoners back and forth to Municipal Court which also provides additional safety.
• Douglas County has shared oblique imagery with the City in 2006 and again in 2009, making sure their contract allows them to share with government entities within their boundaries.  Oblique imagery is aerial photography that is captured at a low elevation from a downward 40 degree angle in all four cardinal directions and straight down.  The resulting data allows users to view all four faces of buildings and structures.  The city has utilized the oblique imagery in Planning and Developments Services, Police, Fire and Public Works.  Its uses are varied, from measuring building heights and vertical surface areas for code enforcement, or historic street views to visual aids in tactical and emergency response planning.  Douglas County pays about $60,000 to update this photography and having it available for City personnel is much appreciated.
• Douglas County has allowed authorized City personnel to access records from their Register of Deeds, Land Records, tax and ownership records allowing the City staff to do their jobs quicker.
• Both the City and County I.T. Departments have shared training of our employees, allowing the other entity to fill empty seats when available.   For example, several City employees are taking training at Douglas County next week.

Recommendation

The Information Technology Department recommends that the two organizations work together to develop and propose a fiber sharing agreement that will be brought to the City Manager and the City and Douglas County Commissions to outline how existing and future fiber projects can be accomplished to help both organizations.