The Glen Cove City Council voted 5-2 on Sept. 24 on a resolution to allow the building department to move towards online filings.
“We do have to get modern,” said Mayor Pam Panzenbeck.
Scott Grupp, the building department director, said the department will now use Open Gov, a system many neighboring towns use.
The new system will help the department prevent hacking and store incoming applications, Grupp said.
Glen Cove City Council Member Kevin Maccarone, who along with Council Member Grady Farnan cast the lone dissenting votes, asked if the department will be moving towards an exclusively online system.
“That has been something that has come up, significantly, in particular, the resident base,” Grupp said. “We may have to help them out by logging information in.”
Grupp said engineers, architects and large developers prefer the platform.
“There are some people who are going to resist this,” Farnan said.
Farnan raised concerns over residents who do not have access to computers and are not comfortable utilizing the online system.
Grupp said staff will be ready to help residents and small contractors who are unfamiliar with the platform adapt to the new program. He said there will be a terminal at the building department where residents can come in person to use their computers and receive help filing their applications.
Maccarone said the building department is one of the most visited departments by residents and has the most applications on a daily basis.
“Are we ready to go forward with this?” he asked. “Do we even have the capacity as far as personnel to deal with this?”
Maccarone also expressed concerns about accessibility.
“I know you’ve dealt with it, Scott, in the Town of North Hempstead. I’ve dealt with it,” Maccarone said. “Unless you’re specifically trained in it in a very intense way, it’s not exactly easy to navigate.”
Grupp said nearby towns, such as Hempstead and Huntington, currently use Open Gov. The Town of North Hempstead uses a different platform.
“Everyone I speak to about Open Gov from the user standpoint seemed to have no issue with and seemed to be very comfortable with it,” Grupp said.
Maccarone said he was also concerned about the department’s workflow.
“You’re completely changing the way in which our building department takes in applications,” he said.
He asked if personnel was made aware of the potential change and was prepared to deal with the technology.
“I’m not saying that they’re not capable of learning it, but this is not an easy thing to deal with,” he said.
Panzenbeck said the city’s IT department reviewed the proposed changes, and the building department has been informed.
“We’re not just installing this without asking them in advance,” she said.
Scott Grupp said the staff is “very comfortable with that electronic aspect.”
He said that the change “will not happen overnight,” and the department will maintain booth systems until personnel are ready to switch permanently.
“Yes, there is an absolute learning curve for the employees, but that is something that is, I think, inevitable,” Grupp said.
He said the current system does not provide the support they need.
Additionally, as it stands, Grupp said the department is “subject to potential hacking.”
“By allowing this programming to be integrated, we will be on the cloud and will be safer from a hacking standpoint. We will also greatly reduce our necessity for file storage,” he said.
He said the department has run out of physical storage for incoming applications and paperwork and that file storage has “become extremely problematic.”
Grupp said the new system will relieve the burden the building department currently faces.
