AI may become an integral part of the city of Cape Coral’s code enforcement efforts.
The city’s administration sees artificial intelligence as a less-costly means to become more efficient.
City Manager Michael Ilczyszyn told Cape Coral City Council Wednesday that staff can continue to ask for the money to hire more employees and keep adding more bodies, or the city can look for alternative ways that are better.
“AI is changing everything we do rapidly,” Ilczyszyn said.
The city is looking at it for code enforcement, as AI would save fuel, and time of a code officer driving down multiple streets, he said.
“We haven’t deployed it yet. We are still figuring out funding,” he said, adding staff is developing where they are going into the future. “I have asked all my department heads in every department to find ways to deploy AI to make us more efficient to keep costs down for residents.”
Ilczyszyn said AI in the context of code enforcement could include camera scanning devices on garbage trucks, for example, which would be something the city already has the right to do.
“We would save taxpayer money and accomplish the same job,” Ilczyszyn said.
Councilmember Jennifer Nelson-Lastra said sadly AI is their new reality and it is coming whether people like it or not.
“We have residents report on each other all the time. This could be a much more efficient way to look at it. I would be interested in the cost savings,” she said.
Ilczyszyn said they used an AI demo post Hurricane Ian to look at and identify roofs that were still not repaired. He said this, again, was no different than a code officer driving up and down streets and looking at each house.
The conversation was spurred by concerns of unlicensed contractors working within the city.
“Camera detection systems are not new,” Ilczyszyn said. “I will always find more ways to be more efficient.”
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