THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 6, 1996 TAG: 9605040282
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, BUSINESS WEEKLY
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Regionalism has taken to the information highway.
Every day Hampton Roads' political leaders are loudly debating the merits and demerits of cooperating to provide services and lure economic development to Southeastern Virginia.
But quietly, ever so quietly, the computer gurus of eight local municipalities decided late last year to team up on a project that may eventually have a major role in fostering cooperation.
In essence, they decided to jointly build what may be one big Hampton Roads town hall of the future.
The first step is a contract under which the seven local cities and one county buy access to the global Internet computer network from a single provider.
Chesapeake, Hampton, James City County, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Virginia Beach signed the deal, worth an estimated $200,000 in its first year, with Newport News-based Visionary Systems Inc.
Eventually, according to Norfolk's director of information systems, Ramesh Kapoor, he and other municipal computer specialists envision using the electronic forum to provide a range of services to individual and corporate citizens of their communities.
Everything from the filing of permits and employment applications to the retrieval of real-estate assessment and rabies-shot records may eventually be accessible electronically, Kapoor said.
``We see a great potential . . . In the long run, that's what we're shooting for.''
The contract that may set all this in motion was awarded in January. But it has been publicized only in the last month by the localities through a group called the Hampton Roads Municipal Communicators.
Drew Wallner, Norfolk's representative on the joint technical team, said his city alone has cut its estimated price of purchasing Internet services and the necessary computers and software from $175,000 to $120,000 over the next three years.
For some communities, the savings was the difference between jumping on the Internet or not jumping on at all, he said.
Five other companies competed for the contract: a Reston-based unit of Bell Atlantic Corp., Computing Analysis Corp. of Arlington, ExisNet Inc. and Metro Information Services Inc. of Virginia Beach, and iTRiBE Inc. of Norfolk.
Ed Fang, president of Visionary Systems, said the contract is the largest for his 21-employee company. ``Hopefully,'' he said, ``it will allow us to leverage this into other future projects.'' He said he'll seek to set up multi-government on-line systems elsewhere on the East Coast, and chase contracts with large companies as well.
The initial goal of the contract, which is renewable indefinitely, is to provide employees of the localities with access to the Internet. A total of about 3,700 workers are expected to have access by January 1997. Some of the municipalities plan to give their workers full access to all the features of the Internet; others plan to provide them with electronic mail only, at least initially.
The next step, Kapoor said, is for the cities to establish sites on the Internet that citizens can use to gain information.
Eventually, he hopes that local cities and counties will provide services or even take bids for contracts electronically.
The localities' action was applauded by Bill Muir, administrative assistant at the Joseph Center for the Study of Local and Regional Government at Christopher Newport University.
The center operates an Internet service called SEVANET that helps municipal governments and small businesses learn how to use the information highway.
``The next step with the telecommunications revolution,'' Muir said, ``is everybody banding together in one town hall.'' In cyberspace, he added, ``there are no boundaries.''
KEYWORDS: REGIONALISM INTERNET by CNB