Dotted Line

And the winner is…

Miami-Dade TV, the government access cable television station of Miami-Dade County, Fla., has received a first-place award in the Best Station category in the 2003 Government Access Beacon Awards competition.

Arvada, Calif., has received a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting by the Chicago-based Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada. The city won the award for its annual financial report.

The San Diego Police and Fire departments have been named 2003 Co-Citizens of the Year by the city. The departments received the award for their efforts during the Cedar Wildfire that destroyed more than 330 single-family homes in October 2003. No lives were lost in the fire.

Broward County, Fla.’s Cultural Division has received two awards from the Washington, D.C.-based American Advertising Federation. The division won a Gold Award for Cultural Quarterly, a fine arts magazine that the division produces. The division also won a Silver Award for its Get Going advertising campaign, which encourages residents to purchase vanity arts license plates to support the local arts community.

Getting there

The Red Rose Transit Authority in Lancaster, Pa., has contracted with Wichita, Kan.-based Optima Bus to provide two American Heritage Streetcars.

The Regional Transportation Authority of Washoe County, Nev., has contracted with New York-based Parsons Brinckerhoff to design new transit centers in Reno and Sparks. The new facilities, which will replace existing centers in each city, will serve as the main transfer facilities for Citifare, the county’s bus system. The Reno center will feature 25 bays, while the Sparks facility will contain 16.

The Mid-America Regional Council in Kansas City, Mo., has contracted with locally based HNTB to conduct a year-long study to determine the feasibility of a commuter rail line that would run along Interstate 70 from downtown Kansas City to Odessa, Mo. The line would use existing railroad tracks.

Anchorage, Alaska, has contracted with Greensboro, N.C.-based DaimlerChrysler Commercial Buses to provide five low-floor buses to the city’s People Mover bus system. The vehicles feature a passenger capacity of 25 people, a Mercedes-Benz 904 engine and a digital voice system that provides route information to passengers.

Company news

Springfield, Ill.-based Crawford, Murphy & Tilly, an engineering services company, has acquired Indianapolis-based Engineering Design and Inspection Services, also an engineering services firm.

Dayton, Ohio-based Woolpert, an engineering and architectural consulting firm, has acquired Washington, D.C.-based Tesseract Technologies, an information technology firm. Woolpert acquired the company to augment its GIS and Internet application services for federal clients.

San Francisco-based URS, a construction management and engineering firm, has acquired Chicago-based Trkla, Pettigrew, Allen & Payne, a consulting firm that specialized in assisting public and private clients in the planning and management of urban revitalization and development programs. The firm’s entire staff has joined URS.

Houston-based US-Filter Operating Services, a water and wastewater service firm, has changed its name to Veolia Water North America Operating Services. The change incorporates the name of the firm’s parent company, Paris-based Veolia Environment. The firm’s new name does not involve the sale or transfer of any assets.

Plugged in

Minneapolis has contracted with Dublin, Calif.-based Accela to provide software that will allow the city to offer many of its services — such as permit application — online.

The Portland, Ore., Police Bureau has contracted with San Diego-based ImageWare Systems to upgrade its crime-data software to provide an enhanced ability to share information with the Multnomah County, Ore., Sheriff’s Department.

Wright County, Iowa, has contracted with St. Charles, Ill.-based Sidwell to provide a series of GIS-related services, including aerial photography.

The Delaware County (Pa.) Regional Water Quality Control Authority has contracted with Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola to provide software to track and analyze work orders.

Riverside County, Calif., has contracted with Sacramento, Calif.-based Hansen Information Technologies to provide software to manage the county’s building permit, code enforcement, licensing, GIS, transportation and other processes.

Tigard, Ore., has contracted with Sacramento, Calif.-based RecWare to provide software to automate its park and recreation facility reservation process.

Water, water everywhere

The St. Louis Metropolitan Sewer District has contracted with O’Fallon, Mo.-based Paric to perform a $3.6 million upgrade of a wastewater treatment plant that will nearly double the facility’s capacity.

The District of Columbia Water & Sewer Authority has contracted with Zelienople, Pa.-based F.B. Leopold to upgrade the Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant by installing a new filtration system.

The Bexar (Texas) Metropolitan Water District has contracted with Fort Washington, Pa.-based Severn Trent Services to provide a testing system that can detect chemical and organic contaminants in the community’s water supply.

Austin, Texas, has contracted with Chesterfield, Mo.-based Insituform Technologies to make repairs to the city’s sanitary sewer system.

The Sacramento (Calif.) Regional County Sanitation District has contracted with San Diego-based Berryman & Henigar to provide construction management services for a section of the Lower Northwest Interceptor. The 20,700-foot-long section will feature dual 60-inch pipes.