In March of this year, I was invited to attend Taiwan's 2024 Smart City Summit & Expo to speak on two panels. The first was a panel of Taiwanese and American city leaders, speaking about how our cities think about technology and planning for a successful future. The second panel was on "Best Practices Using AI" in the public sector. I am very proud to report that during the conference, the City of Woodstock was named one of the Intelligent Communities Forum's SMART21 cities. This lists us among the 21 most innovative cities in the world in utilizing technology to deliver results for our citizens.

Woodstock is a "smart city" because we leverage technology and utilize data to drive our policy decisions. For those in the private sector, that's nothing new. You would never make a decision or an investment without the data to back it up, but it can be a real difference-maker for cities delivering results to constituents.

As an example, we don't repave all 110 miles of roadway spanning the City of Woodstock every year. There isn't a need for annual repaving, but there also could never be enough funding to do so. Instead, we must choose which roads are prioritized and how we can best stretch available funds to have the largest impact on our city.

To do this, we utilize a third-party service to drive over all 110 miles, use an algorithm to analyze wear and tear, usage, and traffic flow, and then rank our streets by priority for repaving. We don't repave the road that looks the worst first. We don't repave the road in front of the most popular councilman's house first. We prioritize the road that will benefit drivers the most based on this data-driven approach.

For a second example, let's look at the Hub Transformation Project in downtown Woodstock. Years ago, there was a bypass planned to help improve traffic flow in downtown. Before making any decisions, the City engaged a third party to conduct a traffic study and prioritize available infrastructure projects. After analyzing Woodstock's traffic patterns, the data showed that by building a new roundabout and converting Mill Street to a two-way street, the city could see improvements on seven major arteries and better traffic flow than with a bypass.

What's the difference for you? Aside from the easier drive, there are major savings. The bypass was projected to take more than a decade to construct and cost more than $20 million. The Hub Transformation Project came in at roughly $5 million. Data-driven decisions save taxpayers money and deliver better results.

Woodstock citizens have so much to be proud of, and I was so glad to represent our city and state in Taiwan this year. The City of Woodstock has maintained a Smart Master Plan since 2020, and we will continue to relentlessly pursue new, innovative solutions to the problems facing our community in the years to come. It's what we would do in the private sector, and it's how we'll pass down a bold, authentic, collaborative community to future generations.