LAYTON — The city is ready to plunge headfirst into a newly paperless world.
Each member of the Layton City Council was given a new iPad on Thursday as Step 1 of an effort to move the city into the digital world and leave the world of printed documents.
City Manager Alex Jensen, who admits he is not an electronics guru, said making the adjustment from paper to electronic may take some time, but he said city leaders are prepared to make the transition slowly, offering training on the iPad and deciding which applications best fit the city’s needs.
Information Technology Manager Ed Frazier suggested council members take the devices home and play with them for a week or so; then officials can decide whether the devices should have mobile broadband service.
For some council members, the device was not unfamiliar, but for Mayor Steven Curtis, who joked about being able to learn to use the new tool, the iPad comes with a learning curve.
“This is just the beginning, not the end,” Jensen said of using the electronic medium. He said city leaders looked at other communities that have made the transition from paper to electronic. He said policies will also have to be established for use of the devices.
The iPads are standard fare, for example, for members of the Syracuse City Council, who tote the small devices and scroll through documents instead of toting notebooks full of papers.
Councilman Jory Francis said the irony of moving to iPads is the city will save money by using digital instead of printed documents.
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