CYPRESS : City Microfilming Project Approved

The City Council has voted to spend $28,000 for microfilming to save deteriorating city documents that show the location of sewers and other infrastructure. By unanimous vote Monday night, the council authorized the expenditure after Public Works Director Mark Christoffels made a plea for preserving the city’s aging maps, drawings and public work documents.

“These original records are beginning to deteriorate at an alarming rate,” Christoffels said in a memo to the council. “Should they be destroyed or lost, the city’s inability to accurately address its infrastructure needs or repairs would be severely impacted. More importantly, should the city experience a large natural disaster such as a major fire, flood or earthquake, the city staff would not have the infrastructure records to effectively respond to restoring the city’s streets, sewers, storm drains, etc., to operating conditions.”

The council agreed with the proposed expenditure.

“I think it’s important to do this,” said Councilwoman Cecilia L. Age. She added that the city drawings and records are “an important asset” that need to be preserved.