Name: Bassil Silver
Job title: Chief Operations Officer
Hometown: Arlington, MA
How long have you been with ViewPoint?: 18 years
Describe yourself in three words: Motivated, Energetic, Excited
Favorite App: Strava
Any busy city official will tell you, there’s nothing worse than a crowded inbox or non-stop notifications with no clear path for how to dig yourself out. A missed deadline or overlooked application step could mean non-compliance, an incomplete inspection, or unwanted delays to community development.
Population: 24,386
State: North Carolina
Departments: Community Development—Building, Inspections, Code Enforcement, Fire
Problem Addressed: Cumbersome, makeshift software
Project Highlights: 2 month implementation & inspection management
Kernersville, North Carolina is a town of 25,000 residents and a booming commercial base. Located in the center of “The Triad”—the third largest metropolitan area in the State—the Town is a popular location for business and industrial parks, contributing a vast amount of work to the Community Development Department. One prime example: the 1-million-square-foot Amazon fulfillment center being built in Kernersville right now.
In honor of the new year, we wanted to reflect on some of the people, podcasts, and platforms, that we’ve learned from and been inspired by in 2018. ViewPoint works to carve out our own mission of digital transformation, but nothing exists in a vacuum, and we’re excited to be surrounded by so many other leaders in the realm of government innovation and technology.
So without further adieu, here are our 10 favorite voices powering government innovation (presented in no particular order):
ViewPoint Government Solutions is excited to announce that Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) has selected ViewPoint Cloud to bring modern, user-friendly permitting to the agency. VTA will be using ViewPoint Cloud to manage construction permitting in and around their transportation hubs, furthering their mission to provide community-focused transportation options that are innovative, environmentally responsible, and promote the vitality of the region.
Far too many government staff members find their daily workload bogged down by inefficient and unintuitive processes and tools. Whether it’s trying to physically deliver paper documents and manually track applications, or using outdated software that doesn’t quite fit your needs and makes collaboration difficult. Local governments everywhere are realizing that decades-old tools are no longer cutting it.
Sharon Lee, Low Income Housing Institute’s (LIHI) founding Executive Director, joined the National Association for County Community and Economic Development (NACCED) and ViewPoint Cloud to speak on tiny house villages as a crisis solution to homelessness.
Watch for a history and how to guide, sharing how Seattle developed its innovative Tiny House program to quickly and affordably provide shelter to people living on the streets, and how other communities could do the same. LIHI went from one village to ten in three years, learning valuable lessons in construction, management, and key partnership formation along the way.
With the near universal presence of Airbnb, there’s no denying that short-term rentals have cemented their place in modern life. For some, hosting has become a necessary second source of income. For others, short-term rentals present a form of cultural currency for meeting new people or exploring a city. However, they also represent a modern regulatory challenge for local governments—how to regulate globalized, tech-based markets within their own jurisdictions.
Population: 9,722
State: Maine
Departments: Code Enforcement and Planning
Problem Addressed: Lack of centralization and flexibility
Project Highlights: Tailor-made templates and high-level reporting
When Town Manager Kendra Amaral and then Code Enforcement Officer, Bob Marchi, set out to improve Kittery’s permitting process they were looking for a platform that would bring start-to-finish tracking and a centralized database. They wanted a solution that would help the Town streamline their workflows and lessen the load on residents and business owners—overall, making the process as efficient and responsive as possible.
Name: Ryan Morrow
Job title: Software Engineer
Hometown: Boston, MA
How long have you been with ViewPoint?: 3 months
Describe yourself in three words: Curious, Goofy, Empathetic
Astrological Sign: Virgo
If you’re wondering what our favorite moment from this month’s ICMA conference was, there’s one particular night that stands out. (Though our conversations with thoughtful government innovators offered too many highlights to recount!) We always knew local government folks loved karaoke, but it wasn’t until this year at ICMA that we found out just how much.
Name: Tom Crosby
Job title: Municipal Relationship Manager
Hometown: Weymouth, MA
How long have you been with ViewPoint?: 2 years!
Describe yourself in three words: Curious, Calm, Extroverted
Go-to karaoke song: Ramble On by Led Zeppelin.
Inspection capabilities are crucial when it comes to the health of municipal permitting and licensing processes. Building codes serve as the tentpole for ensuring physical public safety, but they’re only as valuable as a municipality’s ability to conduct quality inspections and ultimately confirm compliance. This is why the upcoming release of the new Inspections feature in ViewPoint Cloud is taking the product to the next level.
Name: Rachel Keyser
Job title: Director of Strategic Growth
Hometown: Seattle, WA
How long have you been with ViewPoint?: 2.5 years
Describe yourself in three words: Principled, Creative, Curious
If you could have one superpower, what would it be: To speak every language in the world
Population: 12,857
State: New Hampshire
Departments: Building, Code Enforcement, Health, Planning & Zoning, Fire
Problem Addressed: Outdated software and inefficient permit processing
Project Highlights: Shared cross-departmental workflows & integrated record history
Purchasing new ePermitting software was far from a snap decision for the City of Claremont, New Hampshire. Building Inspector and Deputy Health Officer Sean Glasscock helped lead the City’s year-and-a-half long research process, comparing the different companies and products available to them.
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