A Closer Look at California's Most Digital Cities - Part III

California is inextricably linked with the technology industry. It's the home of Silicon Valley, arguably the global center of artificial intelligence and technological innovation, so it’s only fitting that the local governments spread across the state would carry that torch in service of their constituents.

In this year’s Digital Cities Survey*, California cities made up nearly a quarter of those recognized for their innovation and service to the public. Of the 56 cities on this year’s list, 13 are from the Golden State.

Respondents to this survey highlighted several near-term priorities, including a focus on cybersecurity; customer experience; AI and machine learning; process automation; recovery and resilience; analytics and intelligence; data governance; workforce training and retention; agency collaboration; and modernization.

In honor of these recipients, we’ll be taking a closer look at their work in the final portion of this three-part series. You can find the first two installments here and here.

125,000 - 249,999 Population Category

4th Roseville, Calif.

Roseville continues to make progress in IT, moving up a few spots to fourth place in this year’s survey. Launched last year, it’s MyRSVL CRM continues to grow and expand as a central part of its resident engagement strategy. Integrated with several key systems across the city, the tool automates aspects of customer service for peak efficiency. Roseville recently added a chatbot, “Rosie,” to the system – an award-winning GenAI tool that enables multilingual, 24/7 support. The city reports that for every dollar it has invested in MyRSVL, there is a corresponding $8 in benefit. Results like that likely stem from the city’s move to much more closely integrate financial review and assessment into the review process for technology projects.

Next up for Roseville is a new content management system (CMS) for external-facing and internal-facing city websites. The new CMS will usher Roseville into the “ca.gov” domain as required by law and will also incorporate new accessibility features. A newly launched capital projects explorer will undoubtedly carry over to the new site. Launched in August 2023, the interactive tool lets residents stay up to date on construction in and around their neighborhoods.

Turning to cybersecurity, Roseville deployed a new security solution for email and collaboration tools. The city also continues to innovate in cybersecurity awareness training and phishing exercises for staff. Network upgrades to software-defined networking represent a leap forward in infrastructure, positioning the city to advance toward practices like microsegmentation and a zero-trust posture.

8th Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

The Southern California suburban city, Rancho Cucamonga, finished eighth in its population category this year, doing so with a focus on IT governance as well as user input. The city has taken a targeted approach to serving residents, staying in communication with them through its award-winning lifestyle magazine, The Grapevine, which has a digital flipbook that features QR codes and embedded links. The Grapevine also has a monthly newsletter – titled Off the Vine – that goes out to 58,000 subscribers, boasting a 50 percent open rate.

The commitment to constituent feedback goes deeper still in Rancho Cucamonga. The city uses targeted quality-of-life digital surveys to collect resident feedback. With data mapping, they can focus outreach for these surveys in low participation areas. They also created a dedicated web page and email address for related questions. All told, this year that work netted 2,417 survey participants and 132,712 responses. Rancho Cucamonga has used data from this effort to inform all manner of work, ranging from urban forestry to digital equity.

Internally, this year the city went live with a new financial system, a move that had been coming for nearly two years. They also worked to automate more tasks where it made sense, including for cybersecurity. The city was able to automate updates to user accounts, which combined with an education campaign for multifactor authentication, bolstered Rancho Cucamonga’s cybersecurity. Finally, in workforce matters, the IT department has seven retirements on the horizon within the next three years, a number that constitutes 25 percent of its workforce. As such, succession planning is underway to help soften the impact of those departures.

75,000 to 124,999 Population Category

2nd Carlsbad, Calif.

The city of Carlsbad has made progress in several “fundamentals” of IT — expanding municipal fiber, instituting an audit process for cloud backups, modernizing legacy servers and storage arrays, and virtualizing phones, to give some examples — but it’s in the areas of innovation where it offers some striking ideas. Perhaps the most consequential is in its adoption in the last few years of a new budgeting process for technology: Outside the operating and capital budgets, it began a new Strategic Digital Transformation Investment Program (SDTIP), allowing it to make the case separately for progress. This has supported consistent investment in new technology, including several cybersecurity projects such as the hiring of a dedicated information security manager, contracting with a virtual CISO and migrating important security systems to a 24/7 security-operations-center-as-a-service model.

Also notable is the development of a new internal application for managing travel reimbursement applications, the code for which was 60 percent written by AI and 40 percent written by staff. The project digitized a paper process, saving some $90,000 per year while improving record keeping and transparency and successfully handling more than 1,400 reimbursement applications.

Up to 75,000 Population Category

5th El Segundo, Calif.

El Segundo, Calif., a beachside city near San Diego with just under 17,000 residents, earned recognition this year for its partnership with OpenGov, a cloud software company. The city government partnered with OpenGov to create the E-Z Permit Hub, a one-stop shop for submitting building permits. The hub reduced the permit review cycle timeline from an average of 16.5 days to 8.7 days and the time spent on issuing permits from an average of 26.5 days to 11.4 days. Success with the building permit platform inspired El Segundo to expand the OpenGov partnership to streamline processes for other permits, including special events, temporary use and filming.

Outside of permitting, the city has automated some library services, updated critical IT infrastructure for the police department and improved cybersecurity measures like firewalls and cloud-based security systems. In the future, the city aims to introduce a digital 311 platform. Residents currently use a tool called ReportIT to report issues such as abandoned vehicles, graffiti, potholes and illegal dumping. Residents say the ReportIT interface can be cumbersome and lacks real-time updates. The planned digital 311 platform will improve on these areas with the goal of improving civic engagement and government transparency overall.

10th Newark, Calif.

The city of Newark, Calif., secured a 10th place spot in this year’s Digital Cities Survey for its use of technology in service of the public. One of the highlights this year has been the city's TextMyGov application, which allows residents to interact with their government and the services it offers via their smartphones. Over the past year, the solution has boosted strong response times and resident satisfaction, with officials reporting thousands of users each month.

Where cybersecurity is concerned, Newark has taken an aggressive approach to securing its systems, including an advanced identity protection solution, 24/7 threat monitoring, specialized email security tools, zero-trust and multifactor authentication and more. The city has also taken proactive steps to ensure that its underserved residents have access to high-speed Internet. A new broadband master plan is set to be approved by the City Council. These efforts are supported by a dig-once policy, which should bolster high-speed Internet infrastructure there.

*Note: The Digital Cities Survey is from the Center for Digital Government, which is part of e.Republic, Industry Insider — California's parent company.