MOUNTAIN VIEW IS CALIFORNIA'S FIRST E-COMMERCE CITY WITH HOSTED, FULLY INTEGRATED ONLINE PERMITTING SYSTEM

SAN DIEGO, Calif., Aug. 8, 2001 -- The City of Mountain View, CA has launched the first e-Commerce system in California with an online permitting system that is hosted by GovPartner.

Unlike other online permitting systems, Mountain View's PermitPartner allows the public to purchase permits directly from the Mountain View Web site, although the e-Government processing functionality is hosted by GovPartner. In addition, Mountain View's system does not impose an additional processing fee on applicants, and is fully integrated with its internal management system, CommunityDevelopmentPartner.

Mountain View, pop. 75,000, is located 40 miles south of San Francisco. According to Ron Geary, Deputy Community Development Director for Building & Safety for the City of Mountain View, PermitPartner™ from GovPartner allows users to apply for the City's basic building, electrical, mechanical and plumbing permits; schedule the inspection; pay the permit fees with a MasterCard or Visa, and sign the permit application online. PermitPartner™ was originally developed by the City of Sunnyvale, CA and Microsoft - both of which have since become GovPartner partners. Mountain View has been using CommunityDevelopmentPartner™, a community development management software suite, since 1999 to streamline daily internal building and safety tasks.

Through GovPartner's hosted services solution, the City of Mountain View has become a true e-Commerce government as its system is fully operated, maintained and upgraded at a remote, high security data center. The hosted solution allows the City to save time and money by leasing its e-Government services and avoiding up-front costs for the state-of-the art hardware and related e-Commerce software necessary to operate the advanced system.

"The beauty of a true e-Commerce system is that with the current energy crisis in California, even if the power were to go out in Mountain View an applicant from any place in the world can still be processing and paying for permit applications and scheduling inspections because the system is hosted at a state-of-the-art data center," said Geary. He added that, "Our new system is compliant with federal and state Internet signature laws."

Geary said PermitPartner™ is in use to process these City permits (which are considered "simple" permits and do not require submission of plans):

Electrical (residential) Furnace replacement Masonry fireplace Re-roofing Sewer line (residential) Shower and tub enclosures Water heater replacement Water piping (residential) Water service line

"Our online permits system makes the permit process simple and minimizes the time you have to spend at City Hall," Geary said. "We're making city government more accessible to our constituents - either from home or from work."

Geary added that feedback from commercial contractors who have used the permitting system has already been positive.

"They're able to devote more time to their business," he said. "It has also reduced administrative tasks for our department, enabling us to improve overall turnaround times and better manage the plan check tracking process."

Scott Kvandal, CEO of GovPartner, said "Mountain View is the first City to go up at our data center, and we expect many more to go online later this year. This hosted solution allows many local governments to enter the e-Government arena that otherwise would not be able to due to the highly advanced technical and support requirements necessary for running this kind of a system."

About the City of Mountain View

Located in Santa Clara County, California, the City of Mountain View is home to many of the professionals that work in the Silicon Valley. With a population of approximately 75,000, Mountain View is located in the midst of tremendous technology development and is home to 11 percent of Santa Clara County's top firms. In addition, five of California 's fastest growing companies are headquartered in Mountain View. For more information, please visit www.ci.mtnview.ca.us.

About GovPartner

GovPartner is a leading provider of comprehensive and affordable e-Government solutions for cities, counties and special district government agencies. An affiliate company of Berryman & Henigar, Inc., GovPartner also works in partnership with the City of Sunnyvale and Microsoft to develop and implement cost-effective, long-term e-Government solutions.

Among GovPartner's offerings are various Web-enabled software applications, including PermitPartner™ (online permitting), RequestPartner™ (online service requests) and ReservePartner™ (online parks and recreation) - all available through a hosted model. GovPartner also provides a powerful workflow management system, CommunityDevelopmentPartner™, which interacts with the online transactional systems. Please visit www.govpartner.com for more information, or call 888.256.5777.

About Berryman & Henigar

Berryman & Henigar, Inc. is a municipal professional services firm headquartered in San Diego, CA, with 14 offices nationwide. The firm provides municipal engineering, public finance, asset management, community development, construction management and e-Government services to public agencies nationwide. With a staff of over 350 professionals, Berryman & Henigar is ranked as one of the top 250 consulting engineering companies by Engineering News-Record. Further information is available on the Web at www.bhiinc.com.

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