City Is Catching Up to High-Tech Era, Mayor Says

One year after a special advisory committee described Los Angeles city government as languishing in the technological Dark Ages, Mayor Richard Riordan said Thursday the city is beginning to emerge from its cave and join the computer-driven Information Age.

Something of a technology wonk himself, Riordan told a gathering at the newly logged-on Los Angeles Public Library that a host of changes--from putting personal computers in the offices of City Council members to establishing a city government site on the Internet--had helped Los Angeles “step into the 21st century.”

As many city agencies still operate without such everyday modern conveniences as fax machines, voice mail and desktop computers, however, city officials concede that it will take some years to catch up with the times.

In its January 1995 report, the Mayor’s Special Advisory Committee on Technology Implementation said that Los Angeles, home to some of the world’s most successful high-tech companies, had for decades given technological improvements low priority.

As a result, the report said, many city departments had become highly inefficient, hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes and other fees went uncollected because of confusing billing methods, and basic public records were inaccessible or lost, among other problems.

“We found out that many city workers were better equipped at home with computers than they were at the office,” Patricia Nettleship, chairwoman of the committee, said Thursday.

After attacking the problem with $40 million in city, private and federal money during fiscal year 1995-96, Riordan, Nettleship and other officials said they were pleased with the strides taken.

Among the biggest improvements to come in the wake of the report, the mayor said, was a privately funded primary computer system for the Los Angeles Police Department. The money, rounded up by the Mayor’s Alliance for a Safer L.A., helped electronically link the department’s 18 police stations, four traffic bureaus, Parker Center headquarters and a Westchester training facility.

The donation also helped purchase personal computers and software for officers who had been banging out reports on ancient typewriters. The improvements saved time equivalent to having 368 more officers on the streets, officials said.

Perhaps the flashiest of the year’s techno-improvements touted by Riordan was the city’s home page on the World Wide Web, which can be accessed with any home computer and a modem.

Although many of the sites list information such as how to apply for a job with the LAPD or the business hours at City Atty. James K. Hahn’s office, few allow a user to conduct any real business with the city.

Logging in to the Bureau of Street Lighting, however, allows users to let officials know when a lamp burns out.

The plan, Riordan said, is eventually to allow residents to conduct all sorts of business--from paying traffic tickets to applying for a building permit--by logging onto a computer, either from home, at a library or at one of a host of kiosks that officials would like to place around the city.

But lining up money for technology can be tough when the public is calling for greater expenditures on police and other services, said Greg Nelson of Councilman Joel Wachs’ office.