Local Government

The city launched its 12-month e-scooter pilot program over Memorial Day weekend, allowing private and shared electric scooters to operate on designated portions of the Shoreline Pedestrian Bike Path.

The Bakersfield City Council approved a $250,000 grant for a United Kingdom-based neuroscience startup that local educators and business leaders hope will bring high-paying jobs to the area.

Separated from live systems and sensitive public data, sandboxes let states and cities test drive artificial intelligence use cases without impacting services.

The recent launch of the centralized Workday Strategic Sourcing tool aims to unify and smooth the city-county’s sourcing activities, for a swifter, more transparent process. It unifies requests once managed separately.

In Florida, Tampa and Orlando are exploring new water treatment methods. The cities aim to uncover more effective ways to manage pollutants, improve water quality and significantly cut treatment costs.

In an email before his departure, Michael Pegues said he had an “incredible and productive tenure” that was “marked by groundbreaking innovations and transformative progress.”

The longtime city employee entered municipal service in 2012 and was most recently deputy CIO. She stepped in as interim CIO in February with the promotion of the former IT director to deputy city manager.

The new information security leader, previously part of its technology organization, was formerly with Dallas, where he helped stand up that city’s first-ever cyber fusion and security operation center.

Technology continues changing our travel. Officials at Boston Logan International Airport are testing artificial intelligence to help travelers sort trash, and they’re eyeing remote terminals, with off-site security checks.

A seasoned private-sector technology executive, Tyagi started work Wednesday in the Chicago suburb, which broke ground last year on a “smart neighborhood.” Its other initiatives in progress include creating an artificial intelligence policy.

Veteran city exec Joe Pregler was affirmed last month as permanent CIO. His official arrival comes amid work on AI governance, and a data center move aimed at improving resilience and integrating operations.

The Big Apple should become the “crypto capital of the globe,” according to Mayor Eric Adams. That means using digital coins to pay for city services and taxes, and blockchain for use with birth and death records.

If approved, the state’s 2025-2026 proposed budget would fund pilots in Forsyth and Guilford counties to enable remote driver’s license renewals. Options could include home visits or third-party assistance.

Emergency dispatch officials in Fairbanks, Alaska, the interior’s most populous city, have moved to a cloud-based communications platform for increased resiliency. Doing so enables staff to work remotely if needed.

Officials in the resort town have launched the AI-powered chatbot as part of an effort to improve visitors’ digital user experience. The site’s Public Meetings Portal has also been revamped to enable quicker browsing.

Following a ransom attack in late March that prompted the county to take systems including Wi-Fi, jail databases and court records offline for days, the local government will transition to a .gov website in early June.

County planning commissioners have signed off on a site plan for three buildings at a data center complex — with concerns about noise. The four-building site will use concrete walls as part of a solution to muffle sound.

Waymo has gotten a green light to run its autonomous vehicle fleet in nearly all of San Jose, marking the first time in the city's history that a commercial driverless service can operate on its streets.