View photo/Mike Spence Committee of Architecture board member John Hill pores over a report. Hill used his computer expertise to reorganize the COA's database making it significantly easier to access information.

COA gets program upgrade thanks to local resident

COA board member John Hill uses his expertise to reorganize the agency's digital files.

By MIKE SPENCE
The Pueblo West View

John Hill doesn't consider himself a computer expert. About all he will concede is that he has an interest in computer programs.

That interest, combined with being a member of the Committee of Architecture, has resulted in a computer program that already has made the COA's operation more efficient that ever before.

"John spent hundreds of hours and saved the metro district thousands of dollars," said Laurie Cozzetto, who manages the COA office in Pueblo West. "The program is wonderful. What he has done is amazing."

The quiet, low-key Hill estimated he spent between two and three work months (40 hours per week) in solid time over a six-month period perfecting the program that officially went online in mid-December.

Over four decades the COA has produced thousands of documents on 10,000 or so properties in Pueblo West. All that paperwork is stored in a room filled with file cabinets. The COA had been trying to digitize the essential information in those files for many years.

What Hill saw when he became a COA board member last year prompted him to act.

"They'd been entering it (information) into Microsoft Access, like entering it on a spreadsheet," Hill said.

That spreadsheet had 10,000 records spread over 250 columns.

"What that (spreadsheet) had was information about property and the things on the property that had been approved," Hill said. "It contained information on the enforcement of covenants. All that information is complex. To have that information on a spreadsheet makes it difficult to retrieve."

Hill, who had served on the COA board in the 1990s, worked for the U.S. Forest Service. During his work with the USFS, Hill became familiar with Microsoft Access, helping to design a database program that is now used at all 120 national forests across the nation.

When he saw the situation with the COA's database, he knew instantly he could help.

"I asked Laurie how are you doing with computers and information?" Hill said. "She said, 'Here's what we've got.' I looked at it and asked if she would be interested in some improvements. She said, "Give it a go.' ”

Hill reorganized the information from one giant table into several smaller tables.

With a click or two of a mouse, inspectors can call up an updated list of properties due for inspections, not to mention many other types of information.

Cozzetto said the program makes producing a budget for meetings a snap and accessing or inputting information on COA activities much easier.

"They can call up chronologies about the approval or structures on properties and chronologies on enforcement," Hill said. "They can build a log as those sorts of things go by. We can pull reports on the status of that." One example, Hill said, occurred when a COA member asked Cozzetto how many cases had been sent to the attorney.

"She was able to pull up a report and have an answer in two minutes," Hill said. "In the old database, it would have taken much more time." The beauty of the program is that it can be expanded in the future, something Hill expects will happen.

"The more we use the program, the more ways we can figure out how to use it," he said.

Hill is still "cleaning up" odds and ends and he figures there may be a bug or two he has to address, but the program is up and working and Cozzetto couldn't be happier.

Seeing the problem and figuring out how to correct it wasn't difficult, Hill said.

Putting the program online was a challenge, though.

"The essence probably was figured out in the first month," Hill said. "Because it's an ongoing operation, they had to stop using the old program on Friday and had to begin using the new program the next week. They couldn't shut down for a period of time."

Hill said the conversion was figured out early, but there were a couple of problems that had to be worked out before it was done.

"One was to get the interface for the users going," Hill said. "The other was to perfect the conversion process, so that on Friday I could take the data at that point, get it converted and on Tuesday load it onto the new program."

Hill said he went through the conversion process almost 20 times.

"I wanted to trust what was coming out of the program," Hill said. "That took quite a bit of work."

Hill took on the job because of the challenge and his fascination with computers.

"I've always been interested in working with them," Hill said. "User applications are interesting to me. I know how to get under the hood a little bit to make them do stuff for you."

Hill never asked for, or received, a dime for his effort. And he doesn't want any. His reward is seeing the COA office working more efficiently.

"If it's helpful to them and it's useful, then I'm happy," Hill said.

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