Waupaca Bank Robbery

This past week a robber struck a local Waupaca bank and we need your help catching him. Below is a link to the 'News' section of our city website which has pictures and the video of the heist. If you have any information please call the Waupaca Police Department at 715-258-4400.

Press Release: http://www.cityofwaupaca.org/newsView.aspx?nid=36

Surveillance Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Z2pSb1F5Y

NextGen Technology, Small Town Budget

When I started at the city six months ago, I was dismayed when I learned our main server was running Windows NT4 Server with no RAID and a tape backup (not kept offsite). I wasn't surprised to see NT4 still chugging along, but what threw me was the lack of redundancy and reliable backup options. To say the least, I wasn't going to be the one responsible for a total loss of data and a week of downtime trying to get the network running after a hardware failure.

I set out to find the most cost-effective and reliable technology available and was blown away at what I found. Don't get me wrong, I've been using virtualization on the desktop for several years now, but I had no idea that server technology had come so far yet is free. There were several options, but above all others stood Citrix Xen. With the ability to run multiple servers in a 'group mode' with High Availability for free, how could one go wrong.

Anyways, to make a long story short, three weekends ago I installed a new Dell server running Windows 2008 Std. on Xen (virtualized) for a total cost of around $4,000 (including licensing). With this we are now running RAID5 on 4 giving us redundancy and storing all data off-site along with images of the server which gives us minimal downtime in a disaster. The changeover went smooth, surprising even myself. In the end I can now sleep at night knowing the city is protected against whatever mother nature throws at us, and if something was to happen we could be back up and running in no time!!!

Prisoners Receiving H1N1 Vaccine Before Public

Last Friday while talking with a friend the topic of swine flu vaccinations came up. This friend is an employee at Taycheedah Correctional Institution down in Fond du Lac and come to find out prisoners had received H1N1 vaccinations already. I became quite upset over this and decided to write to NBC26's 'You Ask. We Investigate'. Monday afternoon I received a call from Chad Doran at NBC26 and he said it was a good story and wanted to run with it. Yesterday at 5pm he came to our house and interviewed Becky (my wife) and I and ran the story last night. I hope this helps raise awareness of the very lopsided distribution of the H1N1 vaccine.

Article: http://www.nbc26.com/global/story.asp?s=11404278
Video: http://www.nbc26.com/global/category.asp?C=171398&autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=4252768&flvUri=&thirdpartymrssurl

A Blackberry Experience

I grew up on Microsoft Windows operating systems (DOS 6 and Win3.11) so naturally when smartphones hit the market several years ago I gravitated to Windows Mobile-based phones. My relationship with my Windows smartphones can best be described as love/hate. I love ActiveSync (to Exchange) and the familiar Windows structure but I hate the buggy software (surprised anyone?).

A week ago my mobile life changed forever when I bought a Blackberry Pearl for my wife. She is as technology inclined as my grandpa who just turned 90 (love you hun) so to my surprise within several minutes of unboxing her phone she was surfing the Internet in glorious full-page format with a mouse pointer and trackball. Shortly after that she had her email setup with Google Sync to deliver her email, contact, and calendar in real-time....for free! WHAT? She then showed me the 'Auto-on/Auto-off' and 'Lock upon Holster' features...I was absolutely in love (with my wife of course)!

I was just amazed at the ease of use and the stability of the phone, not to mention it doesn't need to be charged every six hours. How could Microsoft have gotten so far behind in the smartphone market? I'm eligible for a phone upgrade the beginning of December and you can bet your pants I'll be switching phones...I can't wait to see how Google Android stacks up against Blackberry, but that is for a future post!

How cool is it that one can blog from their cell phone? We'll see how often this actually happens...

I'm at the WAPC Fall Workshop and have met some wonderful station leaders and have gotten some very good ideas, but I've learned today just how much danger PEG channels are in. Please call our local legislators and ask them to support the new bill LRB-0945/7, making provisions to Act 42 which will sink a lot of PEG channels.

Save PEG Channels!

This coming Friday I am attending the WAPC (Wisconsin Association of PEG Channels) Fall Conference to discuss and help fight for local television/PEG channels. I am a relative newcomer to the PEG (Public, Education, Government local access channel) scene and am looking forward to learning more about legislative issues we are facing.

PEG channels have long been providing local television coverage of councils and committees. Some stations have expanded beyond this simple coverage (WinTV's goal) to provide local news and event coverage. Current legislation and lobbying by AT&T (provider of U-Verse) aims to wipe out the existing protections that give the viewing public access to PEG channels, such as:

-Channel funding and financial support
-Accessible spot in channel lineup (ie. Channel 3, not 991)
-Free access to PEG channel - want to charge for access
-PEG channel quality - most are grainy
-More info:
http://saveaccesstvwisconsin.org/
http://wapconline.com/

If you enjoy watching Waupaca's City Council or Committee meetings or the 4th of July Parade on WinTV let your voice be heard, don't let AT&T, Time Warner, or Charter coerce our culpable state legislators into leaving PEG channels in the dust...

Importance of Government Transparency

The latest recession is taking its toll on all levels of government, especially local entities. A lot of communities are facing shortfalls due to shrinking tax revenues forcing them to take drastic actions such as employee layoffs/furloughs and capital project deferment and cancellation.

Within this swirl of negativity shines a positive light, the chance for better government responsibility and transparency. Unlike a business whose income is earned from willing customers, government income is derived from a captive customer base. Transparency and responsibility, thus, is extremely important since government is spending another’s money.

This being said, I believe it is very important for all levels of government to be transparent in as much of their operations as possible. Here at the City of Waupaca we are undergoing a technology transformation which will better enable the sharing of information, from forms to audits to budgets to events. We recently rolled out our new website which has updated news along with all of our committee and board agendas and minutes. We also have a new section called the ‘Document Center’ which will make available all of our forms and publications which were only available in-house before.

With the age of government transparency upon us, there has never been a better or easier time to become involved in your local government…so check out our new website at www.cityofwaupaca.org today!!!