With less than one day left for officials to submit project abstracts, EfficientGovNow is already swimming in great government collaboration and efficiency ideas.
As of 5 p.m. on April 14, EfficientGovNow had received 23 project abstracts from government officials across the 16-county Northeast Ohio region. Below, we’ve summarized those project abstracts.
Check back soon to see more ideas, as the deadline to submit project abstracts is today, April 15, 2009, at 5 p.m.
Wadsworth Community Partners
The Wadsworth Community Partners (Wadsworth Public Library, City of Wadsworth, Wadsworth City Schools and Summa Wadsworth-Rittman Hospital) hope to improve the quality of life in Wadsworth by constructing a new facility to house a high school with auditorium, field house and competition gymnasium, a branch of the Wadsworth Public Library, a community recreation center, a Center for Older Adults, a medical/office complex for Summa Wadsworth-Rittman Hospital and an outdoor pool facility.
Geauga County Board of MRDD and West Geauga Local Schools
The Geauga County Board of MRDD and West Geauga Local Schools hope to construct a shared transportation facility that will serve both the Metzenbaum fleet and the West Geauga Local Schools fleet. In addition, the site will serve as a fuel depot for any state or local agency that has vehicles in the area.
Village of Fairport Harbor Fire Dept., Grand River Fire Dept. and Painesville Township Fire Dept.
The fire departments in these three communities would like to purchase and share an ambulance and fire engine. The fire engine will be housed at a single central location and be immediately available to each of the three communities, and the ambulance will serve as a back-up to all 3 communities.
Southern Suburbs Council of Governments (SSCG) – 4 abstracts
The SSCG (consisting of Broadview Heights, Brooklyn Heights, Cuyahoga Heights, Independence, Seven Hills, Valley View, and Walton Hills) would like to draft and publish a Communities’ Council Consortium Model to educate and inform other collaborative community groups on how to replicate the SSCG.
The SSCG proposes to establish a Joint Fire District for the communities of Broadview Heights, Brooklyn Heights, Cuyahoga Heights, Independence, Seven Hills, Valley View and Walton Hills. By reducing management personnel overlap in the participating member communities, operating expenses will decrease with no corresponding decrease in the level of service.
The SSCG to establish a Joint Interstate Safety Force along the Central Cuyahoga County Interstate 77 and 480 corridors. The projected savings will be used to assist in financing the construction of a Regional Safety Center, further enhancing the economic attractiveness of the area.
The SSCG proposes a Joint Dispatch District for Safety Forces. The projected savings will assist in funding the construction of a Regional Dispatch Safety Center, providing enhanced security and safety for commercial and residential customers.
Village of Geneva-on-the-Lake, Geneva City, Geneva Township, Harpersfield Township, Saybrook Township and Trumbull Township
These six communities wish to conduct a feasibility study to examine the possible expansion of an existing five-entity ambulance district, located in northwest Ashtabula County, to include two more communities as well as five fire departments for the purpose of forming one combined emergency medical service and fire district.
Lowellville Village
Lowellville Village wants to expand and upgrade the police and fire departments. Their collaborative partner is unclear.
City of Cuyahoga Falls, City of Hudson and City of Stow
The cities of Cuyahoga Falls, Hudson and Stow have set a 250-acre cooperative zone at their community corners, known as the Western Reserve Joint Economic Development Zone, which shares a new highway interchange. They hope to use funds to raise the quality of consultant crafted zoning and site plan standards to cement the joint venture and be transferrable to other joint development zones.
City of Strongsville, Cuyahoga County Engineers and Ohio Department of Transportation
These organizations want to work together to widen Pearl Road by removing the existing two lane asphalt road and replacing it with a five lane concrete roadway from Shurmer Road to 1000 feet south of Drake Road in Strongsville. Along with the lane widening, all of the major culverts will be replaced.
Cities of Kent and Ravenna, Village of Sugar Bush Knolls and Townships of Brimfield, Charlestown, Franklin and Ravenna
The Portage Area Fire & EMS Research Study Committee (PAFERS) is a formal organization comprised of seven contiguous communities from across Portage County. The purpose and mission of the PAFERS committee is to study and research issues and options to improve the delivery of fire and EMS services to the residents of our respective communities.
City of Strongsville, City of North Royalton and Cuyahoga County Engineers
This project consists of the widening of the Royalton Road / West 130th Street intersection located in Strongsville and North Royalton. Included in this project are the lengthening of storage lanes, traffic signal modifications, additional eastbound and westbound through lanes, a northbound right turn lane, a southbound left turn lane, storm sewers and sanitary sewers.
Euclid City Schools, Cleveland Hts./University Hts. City Schools and Shaker Hts. City Schools
This proposal is being submitted by these 3 school systems to purchase software needed to consolidate automated human resource and payroll processing among the three systems. Euclid City Schools will own and operate the software and establish itself as an application service provider for other school districts and governmental entities.
Liberty Township and Brookfield Township
Liberty Township, in partnership with Brookfield Township, will provide an alternative dispatch service to police departments that cannot dispatch on their own. By combining resources into a central dispatching service, the costs saved by the joining communities can be used in other needed programs, such as economic development; engineering studies and similar endeavors, all needed to expand the growth of the communities of Trumbull county.
New Russia Township, Oberlin City Schools and City of Oberlin
These three entities propose to collaborate on fleet management services. This project is expected to include equipment maintenance for light duty vehicles, heavy equipment and school buses, joint fueling and construction of a storage facility to extend the life of school buses.
Cleveland/Cuyahoga County Workforce Investment Board, Polaris Career Center, Cuyahoga Valley Career Center, and Max S. Hayes Career and Technical High School
Four government entities are collaborating to increase delivery of their services by reducing service duplication, sharing their resources and addressing transportation barriers that prevent customers from participating in skills training and employment assistance. Cost efficiency resulting from this project will enable the Workforce Investment Board to stretch its limited resources and increase training and employment opportunities to more customers across the county.
Summit County Combined General Health District, Summit County and City of Akron on behalf of the Health Department
Summit County government, in partnership with the City of Akron and Akron area hospitals, is developing a plan to consolidate services provided by its three health departments. Coordinating these services through the use of innovative technology would lead to greater efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery, especially in the case of environmental problems and disease patterns.
Stark Council of Governments, Stark County Commissioners, City of Canton, City of Massillon, Jackson Twp., Plain Twp. and approximately 30 additional county subdivisions
This collaborative effort would consolidate ten dispatch centers and one call center to provide a county-wide dispatch center that would provide more effective, cost-efficient service and save taxpayer dollars. The considerable savings generated could in turn be used by municipalities to strengthen their safety forces, purchase new equipment, implement needed programs or fill many other vital needs.
YMCA of Greater Cleveland, City of South Euclid, City of University Heights and City of Richmond Heights
This collaborative effort proposes to build the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Tri-City Regional Recreation, Wellness and Workforce Development Center operated by the YMCA of Greater Cleveland to serve the 50,000 residents in the cities of South Euclid, University Heights, Richmond Heights and surrounding communities. The new building will include a wellness center, gymnasium, child care center, natatoriums, computer lab, locker rooms and administrative offices, as well as a Work Force Development Program focused on training and retraining residents with current marketable skills.
City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County
The goal of this collaboration is to develop an integrated data system that links and tracks already established data sets, which will provide the City of Cleveland and the newly formed County Land Bank real-time information to take immediate action. The system will provide for a proactive prevention program to improve the city’s capacity for enforcing existing city laws, allowing multiple city departments and County Land Bank to quickly identify actionable activities for stabilizing housing disinvestment as related to the high levels of abandonment, foreclosures and destructive market activities.
First Suburbs Consortium and Case Western Reserve University Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development
The partners aim to build on Case Western Reserve University’s existing free, publicly accessible NEO CANDO database to provide the 17 First Suburbs Consortium municipalities with a web-based database that captures a variety of locally collected property information. If cities could integrate the data available through NEO CANDO (ownership, foreclosures, tax values) with their locally collected information on code enforcement, property condition, permits, police activity, vacant properties, etc., the result would be a powerful planning and decision making tool which would help cities and the region as a whole.
Rittman Exempted Village Schools and Orrville City Schools
This proposal indicates the need for group calendaring software, desktop conferencing equipment, laptop/notebook computers with wireless access, wireless access points, as well as a networked group file storage server to be shared between the two school districts. This would allow them to expand the number of course offerings for students at the high school level by sharing teachers.