PLAQUEMINE - The city of Plaquemine is partnering with multiple organizations to use AI technology to advance city services, provide grant opportunities, and more.

The two organizations involved in this partnership are the South Central Planning and Development Commission and obney.ai.

The three involved say that this innovative partnership is new to Louisiana and they feel that it will serve as a model to other cities and municipalities.

obney.ai was founded by Justin Obney, who became enamored with AI two years ago when using ChatGPT.

"Fast forward a year later, I ended up jumping all the way into the AI piece to see how we could make a difference from our background in systems engineering and how we could kind of coordinate that to bigger pieces with bigger organizations," Obney said.

Plaquemine Mayor JB Barker was one of the first to reach out to see how this technology would allow them to compete with bigger cities.

In this partnership, obney.ai will use the AI tech to help the city find out which grants would help the city the most.

"The component for us is working with the staff to understand where to use AI, where to recognize AI opportunities, and how you can really plug that in to really have a tangible effect. That component is great for the education and workforce development component."

Another thing the AI tech will be able to do is take what's said in Plaquemine city council meetings and summarize it for the public.

"Hopefully better communications back to the citizens, so you look at things like meetings and city councils, if we can use it to get meeting minutes and drafts of what happened out quicker to the citizens," Obney said.

The Planning and Development Commission aims to provide a variety of services to Plaquemine that will greatly enhance and modernize city services. They'll use software they created to help provide citizens with initiating code enforcement, permitting, and inspections online or in person.

"So you're not going to be delayed. We pride ourselves on hopefully next-day inspections. We attend to our requests. If a person comes in for a typical permit, they should be able to receive in a fairly short amount of time. We're not talking weeks, we're talking days," SCPDC CEO Kevin Belanger said.

The SCPDC also has 16 certified building officials who will be able to help with answering questions about topics like building permits and inspections. Belanger says in a city like Plaquemine, they tend to only have one.

"We work with the United States Department of Commerce. We're sanctioned in our area. In working with the AI, we will be able to best advise the city on how best to approach any particular project," Belanger said.

Belanger says the contract for them coming into Plaquemine to do software and code enforcement is around $75,000.

"They will be able to go into the office and be able to use it, now online permitting, that's going to take some time to be able to get all of the connections and credit cards situated, but I think in a fairly short amount of time, maybe two months, we'll be able to get that rolling," Belanger said.

"This provides us with services we need to operate more efficiently, and uses the latest technology to improve our city," Mayor JB Barker said. "We are excited about the many benefits that the city will reap from this proactive and progressive approach."