Councilors get iPads

SCARBOROUGH — Following the lead of South Portland, which last September bought iPads for all city councilors, Scarborough is piloting a similar approach to “paperless” meetings.

Council Chairman Ron Ahlquist is testing an Android Motorola Xoom tablet computer, while Vice Chairman Judy Roy is trying out an Apple iPad. Town Manager Tom Hall says he paid “about $500 [each]” for the machines, using money from the town’s information systems budget.

“We at the staff level for years have been very interested in going paperless,” Hall said. “Right now, almost everything is already done electronically to be put on the town’s website and then we have to turn around and copy everything for packets given to each councilor.

Scarborough gives each councilor a laptop upon election, although Councilor Karen D’Andrea points out they are not always new and that they are rarely used. In fact, no councilor has brought one of these laptops to a meeting in more than a year. Hall said that although the town could go paperless with the technology already in place, there is “a certain fun element” to the tablets, which he hopes will encourage use, enabling him to save on materials and staff time now spent making information packets. The laptops, he said, would be pressed into service elsewhere.