Tech 'pioneers' honored

A group charged with advising municipalities on technology has recognized three local government officials for their leadership in technology.

Public Technology Inc. has given Technology Leadership Awards to:

* Lance Hedquist, city administrator of South Sioux City, Neb.

* Steve Meisburg, city commissioner for Tallahassee, Fla.

* Sally Glora, Boston's city auditor and administrative information systems project manager.

"PTI has spent the past 30 years emphasizing the use of technology in local government," said Costis Toregas, PTI president. "And these three have and continue to fall in line with this emphasis."

Since being elected Tallahassee city commissioner in 1987, Meisburg helped develop the city's 1995 telecommunications strategic plan. Meisburg also was instrumental in creating the city's Freenet community-based ISP and Learnitnow.net (www.learnitnow.net) that seeks to develop the technological skills of city workers.

Glora, Boston city auditor for 11 years, led the initiative to replace and integrate the city's core financial and human resource administrative applications. As project manager for the Boston administrative information systems, Glora has worked toward improving the city's interdepartmental connectivity with the help of a large-scale relational database.

Hedquist, city commissioner of South Sioux City since 1980, was largely responsible for projects that resulted in the city's recognition as one of the nation's most progressive technology communities by the National League of Cities.

Under Hedquist's administration, South Sioux City connected local schools, homes and businesses to a virtual library as well as billing and meter reading services. Other accomplishments include a public/private "FreeNet" Web site (www.sscdc.net) to improve government accessibility and a paperless city council complete with a publicly posted agenda.

PTI (www.pti.org), the technology division of the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties and the International City/County Management Association, is a national organization dedicated to furthering the use of technology in cities and counties and among their elected officials and professional representatives.

The winners will join 11 local governments that were awarded PTI's 2001 Solutions Award for applying technology in innovative ways to serve the public. The awards will be presented April 20 in Atlanta at PTI's annual conference.