LYNWOOD — Move over bulky, tree-killing, heavy City Council agendas. The iPad is here.

The City Council and city manager will now be able to leaf through their bi-weekly meeting agendas, staff reports, city contracts and other information via new tax-payer funded, tech savvy Apple iPads.

With the basic Wi-Fi iPads costing around $600 a piece, for City Manager Roger Haley, the purchase ultimately saves the city thousands of dollars in production costs for printing, photocopying and binding the agendas on a bi-weekly basis for City Council members.

In total, the six iPads, along with related accessories, cost the city approximately $5,000.

Every month, the city spends at least $500 to produce, print and bind City Council agendas for council members. While full agendas will still be available for the public, and will continue to be available online as they have been for the last couple of years, the iPads will pay off, compared to how much the city now spends on preparing city council agendas.

Property of the city, the iPads’ costs were paid for from the council’s operational budget.

With general guidelines and protocol guidelines in place for council members’ use of the iPads, council members will now be able to review their agendas, city e-mails and contracts with the swift graze of a finger.

Not only will the iPad help in reducing waste at the city and be more environmentally friendly, Haley said it will also help City Council members be more effective and efficient at their jobs as representatives for the community.

Along with developing more LED-certified buildings, the city recently won an All-American City Award from the National Civic League for its pioneering and technologically advanced surveillance camera program, in which it partnered with the Century Sheriff’s Station to bring the city more into the 21st century.

The iPads are also a convenient way for council members to keep in touch with their constituents via e-mail.

“Printing agendas gets pretty expensive over the years,” said Mayor Maria Santillan, adding that the agendas usually get thrown away after every meeting. “That’s a waste of money. As we see it, this is a cost-saving measure. … There won’t be any more paper copies, [from now on] everything will be electronic.."

The new iPads are also"about going green," the mayor said.

“Council members can’t always carry around those bulky agendas, but with the iPad, we can be anywhere, anyplace and anytime, and you can access the agenda, or an agenda report right then and there,” she said.

Research shows, that elected officials and municipalities across the country are already using iPads to replace paper, including elected officials in Ontario.

The iPads purchase will have long-term benefits for the city, the city manager said.

“It’s a tool,” Haley said. “I think that’s how people should look at it and it will help council members be more effective and efficient at their jobs.”

Haley also said that he has not heard of any complaints about the purchase of the iPads, but said it will be understandable for people to be concerned about the city spending any amount of money on something like an iPad at a time when budget constraints are affecting employees. Still, he said, in the long run, the purchase will save the city thousands of dollars.

Hypothetically, if an agenda costs $10 a piece to produce, in one month the city will pay $500 to produce five City Council agendas. If that is the case, then in one year, the city will spend $6,000 in printing costs for the agendas and that’s not counting the additional full copies the city spends to print for city staff members and residents.

The iPads are full property of the city. If council members retire or lose their seats at any given point in time, then the iPads must be returned to the city.