The other day at work we visited with our police records office to learn more about their reporting software. One of the issues that came up in our discussion was inputting the “address” of incidents. The software they use relies on either point addresses or address ranges along a centerline – both common methods ofRead… Read more »
In honor of Earth Day, I’m passing along a video that was sent to us at work from Envirocycle. The company makes a composter that looks like a barrel. The operation seems fairly simple. To place the compost, I imagine you could just roll the container to where you need to dump the material. TheRead… Read more »
Today I followed a link Governing had posted in a story. This link (http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/03/identifying_photocopy_machine.html) led me to what appeared to be an excerpt from a deposition where an attorney was questioning an employee who seems to have worked in the recorder’s office in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The proceeding is somewhat interesting because it is aRead… Read more »
If you’re involved in construction in Illinois, you are probably well aware of new CCDD law passed last year and made effective immediately by our state legislators and governor. Many of us have been struggling to understand this new law because it was created with little guidance but severe penalties for noncompliance. Fortunately the ChicagoRead… Read more »
The other day I noticed a tweet with a link to a video posted by a professional news organization, Delaware Online, edited in a way to make it seem that the Delaware DOT was illegally or improperly stealing some guy’s basketball pole. Unfortunately not only did this news agency take this angle, but the majorityRead… Read more »
A few days ago, I noticed a Tweet indicating someone was extremely angry about a video on YouTube. Normally I would not click on something like this, but for some reason I followed the link and found myself watching a man who was very upset that the “government” was pulling out a basketball pole inRead… Read more »
Over the last few years, there have been an increasing number of public works departments, vendors, and organizations taking advantage of video sharing sites. This has been made possible by newer video cameras that now fit into a pocket and websites like YouTube. These new tools and technologies allow anyone to easily capture videos andRead… Read more »
With budgets tight throughout the country and any serious economic recovery years away, states and municipalities are turning to technology to increase efficiency and save money. One example of innovation in action is the Mucker (its actual name is the Microtraxx Tunnel Mucker). The Mucker is used to excavate sediment from culverts and was createdRead… Read more »
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the great job the city of Elgin did in communicating information about their snow removal operations. Today I noticed Elgin has also set up a channel on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/cityofelgin. One of the videos, shown below, is particularly interesting to those of us involved in public works becauseRead… Read more »
This week I came to the realization that the majority of people have a totally wrong view of what it’s like to work for government. I guess having worked in government for so long now, I take for granted all the rules, regulations, oversight, and general culture in the workplace. And I assumed with allRead… Read more »