Passing on paper

Lake in the Hills officials took a giant step into the technology age about six years ago, discarding countless pieces of paper in the process.

The village went "paperless," opting to share much of its information electronically, rather than on paper.

"I don't know of anybody else that did it in McHenry County at that time," Village President Ed Plaza said. "To me, it's incomprehensible in this day and age that someone wouldn't do it this way."

Paperless operation is catching on in McHenry County, a trend that can help the environment. The less paper used, the fewer trees that need to be cut down. A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime, reducing the amount of the greenhouse gas that is released into the atmosphere.

Municipalities, school districts and other groups have replaced many of their inches-thick paper documents with electronic files that are stored on computers.

Organizations that have become paperless spend less time and money preparing documents and are able to use less paper. Bulky paper documents that sometimes garnered mere glances Ð or were never used ÐÊnow are produced on an as needed basis. The mass printing of meeting packets and other information is becoming a thing of the past.

About two years ago, Woodstock officials began using laptops during council meetings, instead of paper packets that often contained hundreds of pages.

Mayor Brian Sager said several factors played into the city's decision to go paperless, something that he strongly felt needed to be done.

"We knew we were consuming large volumes of paper as we were making the hard copies," he said. "We were not being good stewards of the environment."

To ensure a successful transition from paper to electronic operation, Sager said, a gradual integration of the new technology took place.

After staff members were trained how to compile electronic council packets, City Council members began using laptops and paper packets during meetings.

By the third electronic meeting, paper council packets were not used, Sager said, adding that time and money were saved as a result of the switch.

He estimated that Woodstock saved about $2,000 a year in paper costs, acknowledging that laptops had to be purchased for the transition to occur.

Cindy Smiley, executive assistant to the mayor and city manager, said fewer work hours went into putting council packets together since Woodstock started having electronic meetings.

"It used to take us [about] two days [to put the packets together]," she said. "Now it takes about two hours." The benefits of going paperless have caught the eyes of other elected officials in the county as well.

Paul Meyer, board president of Woodstock District 200, said he anticipated that the district would be using laptops at meetings by 2008.

"The secretary has everything typed up," he said. "Why not put it on a computer?"

Environmental groups also find the idea of going paperless encouraging.

Moria Marcucci, an administrative assistant with McHenry County Defenders, said the environmental protection group advocated the change.

"It doesn't matter what the reason is as long as it's happening," she said. "Even though you can always recycle paper, a lot of businesses don't take the time to do that."

Plaza said the transition to paperless operation has been nothing but positive for Lake in the Hills.

He said nobody had complained about the change.

"It was simple for us," he said. "There has been absolutely no one in the community to raise an issue about it."