Jory Wolf, CIO of Santa Monica, Describes Fiber Network, Other Projects

Each year, American cities that excel in the digital arena are recognized by the Center for Digital Government through its Digital Cities Survey. Now, as part of the Digital Communities initiative, the seventh annual survey in 2007 raised the bar for cities, with winners demonstrating that digital technology can connect citizens with their government on a level never before achieved. As a result of its continuing leadership and innovation, Santa Monica, Calif., ranked first in the mid-size city category (population of 75,000 to 124,999). Digital Communities discussed the city's winning strategies with CIO Jory Wolf.

Q: Can you first give us a capsule summary of information technology deployed in Santa Monica?

A: The city is about 8.3 square miles, located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, and we are surrounded by the city of Los Angeles. We are a city council/city manager form of government, and we have a budget of about $170 million in the general fund, and about $50 million worth of capital improvement project funds. We have a city employee base of 2,146, and of that, 37 are IT employees. We currently have an IT operating budget of $4.9 million and a capital project budget of $6 million, which is inflated because several of our projects, including traffic-signal synchronization and parking advisory involve public works. We have a complement of 1,500 PCs. We have completed our virtualization projects and now have downsized from 140 servers to 75. We currently store 250 terabytes of data through our storage system that uses several SANs [storage area networks] on our network.

Q: You also have your own fiber network, which I understand has been important to much of what you have done.

A: Yes, the applications that we are most proud of are ones that have been built off our broadband networks. Beginning in 1998, the city created a telecommunications master plan and decided to stop paying Verizon $4.2 million annually by creating a fiber network that would serve the city, college and schools. We currently have 50 facilities on that network, and we've reduced our Verizon tab from $4.2 million to $1.3 million.