City Of Yuma Departments Bring Home The Gold
Date:
11/02/2009 (Last updated: 11/03/2009)Summary:
There's no repainting project planned for Yuma City Hall in the near future, but the place is looking more like gold these days. That's because a number of different City departments were awarded or credited for their efforts recently.Contact:
Awards, Recgonition Received For Efforts Of Staff Members
Yuma, Arizona - There's no repainting project planned for Yuma City Hall in the near future, but the place is looking more like gold these days. That's because a number of different City departments were awarded or credited for their efforts recently.
Community Development, Strategic Communications and Information Technology Services won awards; Utilities and City Engineering took part in a project that won an award for the contractor, and Parks and Recreation received international mention in a trade publication.
Here are those awards, in the order they were received.
Department Of Community Development
The City's Department of Community Development was honored earlier this month when the American Planning Association, Arizona Chapter, recognized the City's Bicycle Facilities Master Plan for an award in the Open Category this year. Spearheaded by Lesley Zlatev, Principal Planner, the bike plan outlines where programs and facilities such as bike paths, bike routes and bike lanes will go in the future, for both recreation and transportation purposes. It also provides phased goals for implementation and design standards for future bicycle facilities. Completed this past spring, the 2009 plan was completed after collecting input from bicycle enthusiasts and members of the community.
"In any planning process, we basically always want to have the public involved to create the future that they want to see created, so that we're not planning in a box," Zlatev told City 73's City Outlook program about the bike plan process.
Competition for APA awards includes the private sector as well as other governmental agencies, explained Laurie Lineberry, Director of Community Development. The accomplishment is significant because few opportunities exist for Yuma planners to submit their work for comparison and awards across the state and country.
The City won an APA award last year for its fire facilities plan.
Residents can review the Bike Facilities Master Plan on the City Bookshelf section of the City's web site, www.YumaAz.gov/bookshelf.
Strategic Communications
The City's Strategic Communications staff took home a Western Access Video Excellence (W.A.V.E.) first place award last week in the Municipal Government Access (Professional) category for the program City News, which runs on cable channel City 73 at 7 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. daily. Presented by the Alliance for Community Media, the W.A.V.E. award pitted Yuma's Communications team against those from larger cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tucson, Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Hollywood, Burbank and Santa Barbara.
Agua Viva Water Treatment Facility
The City's Agua Viva Water Treatment Facility (final phase) earned a 2009 Engineering Excellence Grand Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Arizona. The award was presented Saturday, Oct. 24, in Phoenix, and was accepted by Clarence Chau, Project Manager for the City, and Kathleen Carroll, Water and Wastewater Treatment Manger. Accepting for Carollo Engineers, the City's contractor, were Dave Sobeck, Devin Shaffer and Russ Wachter.
As the first membrane water treatment facility to be permitted through the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, Agua Viva is, according to ACEC Arizona, "a positive example of how regulators and the regulated community can collaborate to learn about new technologies such as chlorine dioxide pre-oxidation and membrane filtration. A dissolved air flotation process was also employed to treat waste streams from the membrane filtration process, which is the first application of its kind in the country."
City Engineering and the City's Utilities Department collaborated in the development of Agua Viva, which is located on Avenue 9E between the 'A' Canal and the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.
ACEC awards are considered by the engineering community as some of the most highly regarded awards in the industry.
Information Technology Services
The City's Information Technology Services department tied for first place in the Most Effective Municipal/County Security Program, Project or Agency Head, at the 1st Annual Homeland Security Awards, presented in New York City on Tuesday. By sharing the award with the Nassau County, N.Y., police department, the City of Yuma beat larger competitors such as the Seattle Police Department and the Broward County, Fla., Sheriff's Office.
The City won the award for the Yuma Regional Communication System (YRCS), which is a multi-jurisdiction interoperability communication system used by all Yuma County public safety agencies. Greg Wilkinson, the City's Assistant ITS Director of Telecommunications, has been the Project Manager and Technical Advisor of the YRCS since its implementation more than five years ago. "Greg has worked hand-in-hand with all Yuma County and State and Federal Public Safety leaders and everyone's efforts and support has made this system what it is today," said Laurie Neinast, Director of Information Technology Services.
Neinast also thanked the Arizona Department of Homeland Security for supporting and backing this project.
"The competition was stiff, and our panel of independent judges had to make some very tough choices, but we think we've identified the 'best of the best' for 2009," said Jacob Goodwin, the editor-in-chief of GSN: Government Security News, who oversaw the evaluation process.
The YRCS conforms to the federal P25 standards set for new radio equipment and connectivity extends the others in the state of Arizona, Southern California and the entire California/Mexico border. Since implementation YRCS users have reported a dramatic improvement in both coverage and day-to-day operations. Due to its success the design and implementation strategy is being used as a model by other Arizona public safety agencies. Also because of its success, the City's ITS Technical Team was voted by the Arizona's Associations of Public Safety Officials and the National Emergency Number Association (APCO/NENA) as the Public Safety Technical Team of the year in 2008. Additionally, the State of Arizona Public Safety Communications Commission determined the state would implement a statewide P25 700/800 MHz radio system as part of their inter-operability solution, and the City has now expanded the YRCS to connect to the Phoenix metro system.
Yuma Parks and Recreation
In addition to these awards, Yuma Parks and Recreation was honored when the Valley Aquatic Center, which it shares with Yuma Union High School District, was featured in the October issue of the worldwide trade publication Aquatics International. As part of the magazine's "Reinventing Aquatics" section, the aquatic center was highlighted in "Profiles in Reinventions: A closer look at five facilities that employed solid strategies to stay afloat in tough times."
Recognitions Well Received
The recognitions were lauded by officials. "What we're seeing here is a measure of how hard City of Yuma staff members work to serve our citizens," said Yuma Mayor Larry Nelson. "They get feedback as to what services are needed and wanted here, then take the initiative to find ways of getting them up and running while giving our taxpayers the best bang for their buck."
"These awards represent an expression of the City's four core values of communication, accessibility, commitment and innovation," added City Administrator Mark Watson. "We achieve 'firsts' for the organization, but those are really a byproduct of people coming together to find the best solutions for the Yuma of today and the Yuma of 20 to 30 years from now."
For More Information
For further information, please contact Greg Hyland, CPM, the City of Yuma's Director of Communications & Public Affairs at (928) 373-5023 or by e-mail or Dave Nash, City of Yuma Public Affairs Coordinator at (928) 373-5015 or by e-mail.
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Media Contacts
Members of the media may contact Director of Communications and Public Affairs Greg Hyland, CPM at (928) 373-5023 or (928) 580-4751, or Public Affairs Coordinator Dave Nash at (928) 373-5015, or (928) 941-0199.
