Wright City will contract with Utilisource, a Jonesburg engineering firm, for geographic information services within the city. The bid was approved at the Aug. 8 Wright City Board of Aldermen meeting. 

The contract includes just under $15,000 for the first year to establish the software and an additional $8,000 per year for the remainder of the three and a half year contract. City Services Director Mark Strutman was optimistic that at the end of the first contract the city may be able to renegotiate those terms. 

“I wouldn’t anticipate it going up, I would anticipate us, because we’re at the forefront of it, … we could negotiate something that would keep that the same for quite some time because we’re driving a lot of the software improvements,” Strutman said. 

The contract also includes 40 hours of work from Utilisource to be allotted between city departments to optimize the software for individual departments. 

Geographic information services allow city officials to map a wide variety of items throughout the city including but not limited to: zoning, utilities, roads and many other options. Strutman said the software would significantly improve the efficiency of city services over a wide range of assignments from road repairs to citations. 

“If they see a stop sign has been hit, they’ll be able to photograph it and they’ll send it to us,” said Strutman. “It’ll not only take that photograph, but it’ll make an assignment for Kyle (Roettger) or it could be a Parks Department thing. So that’s just one layer, now we have an infinite number of layers.”

The software will allow city officials and citizens to view different maps and items on a map of the city including sewer and gas lines, road repairs and many others. Strutman also said once everything was up and running the software would be available to access on the city website. 

It was also discussed that the software could be used to more efficiently issue citations for code violations within the city although that would not be its primary use. Alderman Ramiz Hakim took issue with the idea that the city was going to spend public funds just to issue more frequent citations. 

“I feel like there’s some positives to that, if the goal of this is just to cite more people. I think we just need to come to terms with that and see if we can handle that domino effect of all of this stuff,” said Hakim. 

Strutman and Mayor Michelle Heiliger were quick to chime in that while that was a potential use for the software, that was not the city’s goal. 

“The purpose of this software, the actual reason for it, is to map the city, right?” Said Heiliger. “That’s the purpose of why we’re getting this, it’s to be able to map our utilities, to map all the things that right now, half the time we don’t even know where they are because that guy doesn’t work here anymore, right. To be able to layer in our zoning maps, that’s the initial purpose and my hope is that’s the first road we’re going to go down.”

At that point Hakim acquiesced and agreed that as long as the software would not be used exclusively to place an additional burden on citizens, he found the contract acceptable. 

“If the driving factor is to cite more citizens and find more people, I do have a slight issue with that, but if the driving factor is efficiency in the city, better communication, mapping our infrastructure, I’m all in favor of that,” said Hakim. 

The contract is being paid for by funds from building permit fees and Strutman said ideally, he expected the software to be up and running by the end of the month.