Athens County
Cooperative Land Administration
and Information Mapping system
July 31, 2000
Athens County Commissioners
15 South Court Street, 2nd Floor
Athens, Ohio 45701
RE: Monthly GIS Progress Report
Commissioners:
In our April Progress Report I listed GIS Success Factors quoted in the
URISA Journal. My application of the Second Factor "Long-term upper
management commitment to the project" to our GIS is included as two extra
pages to this report.
We continue to research tax incentives possible regarding the potential
acquision of the Columbia Gas of Ohio, Athens Facility. However, it
appears that if Columbia Gas has a ready buyer, a gift/tax incentive
scenario would not be as profitable as a direct sale. Columbia Gas is
having an appraisal done, so soon we will know their asking price.
Our Architect is progressing with the preliminary design for our GIS
addition to the County Engineer's present facility. The addition includes
space for GIS, additional Engineer's Department offices, and a conference
room and rest rooms. The Commissioners have agreed to fund one half of the
addition, and the County Engineer will fund the other half. Current
planning is proceeding toward construction in 2001.
Our ILGARD parcel data line work conversion is progressing. J.B. Hoy is
gathering all of our data layers and will combine them onto a CD. Once the
CD is finished, we will make copies available to anyone interested. Our
new server has arrived and so has the new ESRI ArcIMS software. J.B. will
be migrating our current web site to the new hard/software, and placing
additional township parcel data on the site.
I met with Eric Kuhn, Doug Bentley, and Mike Canterbury about development
of a GPS tracking application for Athens County emergency vehicles.
Eric and Doug agreed to discuss options with vendors, and to look into
additional low or high band frequency equipment to supplement the existing
frequencies as well as for GPS signal transmission.
Doug Bentley is making arrangements to extend the E-911 Map Product
display to the Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) such as SEOEMS.
Our GIS show is scheduled for September 20th at the O.U. Inn Ballroom.
Bob Eichenberg is working with two interns to prepare a tourism map that
has themes such as lodging, attractions, farms to visit, and produce
farmland and land capability maps using the Ames Township information.
Chuck Hammer has a graduate "Health Management" intern working on a project
to digitize some of their public health nursing information. Part of his
assignment for the summer is to look at GIS applications to the clinical
side of what they do. They have initiated GIS applications of mapping
animal bites and routes for mosquito fogging. They are planning to put
some GIS data on their web site. They have received an ESRI software
grant and are planning for implementation of the software into existing
programs.
David Underwood reports that the Red Cross is implementing GIS into their
operation. GIS will be used to support direct client services and disaster
information systems such as: emergency assistance to families, disaster
assessment to speed state and national responses, detailed assessment,
historical record creation, disaster response completion tracking, analysis
and budget updates, accurate reports of outages, etc. to Emergency
Management, mass care, tracking of monthly relief efforts (e.g., Single
Family Fires), and public presentation and press releases of
summary information.
Our GIS Steering Committee met:
A presentation was made by OU Cartography on their Campus floodplain
modeling project. Using ArcView Spatial Analyst and 3D Analyst software,
the initial Mill Street breach flooding pattern, the 100 year flood, and
the 500 year flood were modeled, and individual campus building maps were
shown from different perspectives and flood conditions.
The City has completed line work for their water and sewer lines, and are
proceeding with attribution.
OU Facilities Management utility mapping will be completed by the end of
the year. They are consolidating maps from several locations and
constantly updating data on new installations.
The County Planning office is working on three GIS projects: a tourism map,
a farm produce sales map, and a land cover/use map for our Ames pilot
project data.
Our Sub-committee planning our September GIS Show met:
Ron Lucas has completed the invitation list, will offer a GIS demonstration
station during the Poster Session, and present City water/sewer line work,
streets, building, corporation, river, and zoning maps.
Bob Eichenberg will present the three projects noted above.
J.B. will develop a tri-fold brochure type invitation and itinerary.
Our next GIS Steering Committee meeting is scheduled for November 16, 2000
at 10:00 a.m. in the Facilities Management conference room. We shall forgo
a September Steering Committee meeting for our September 20th GIS show.
Our September GIS Show Planning Sub-Committee will meet for final details
on August 28th at 10:00 a.m. at ILGARD and for a dress rehearsal on
September 14th again at 10:00 a.m. at ILGARD. Presenters please plan to
attend these two meetings.
Thank you for allowing me to coordinate this important aspect of Athens
County's future, and for your usual cooperation.
Archie Stanley
GIS Coordinator
555 East State Street
Athens, Ohio 45701
Phone (740) 593-5514
Fax (740) 592-4616
E-Mail: astanley@frognet.net
----------------------
The following factors for successful GIS implementation were documented in
the URISA Journal, Volume 12, Number 1, Winter, 2000, and reported here
last month.
"Overall, researchers have concluded that successful implementation of
a GIS in local government is dependent on a number of well-documented
factors. They include:
* Evaluation of user needs;
* Long-term upper management commitment to the project;
* Sufficient allocation of resources;
* Adequate staffing;
* Timely and sufficient training;
* Someone, called a "GIS champion," who will shepherd the project
from acquision to use; and
* Organizational communication or diffusion to smooth the transition
to full utilization"
These factors, noted by leading experts, will be continually reviewed and
applied to our GIS project. I have applied the third of these factors to
our GIS project development as an evaluation and report on our efforts to
date:
Sufficient allocation of resources;
Resources for GIS development have been sufficiently allocated to date.
Our GIS is being developed at one-third the cost experienced by counties
similar in size to Athens County. We have used consultants sparingly and
utilized local resources to greatly reduce our costs. At the same time we
have ensured accuracy, high quality, and in-house expertise throughout our
GIS project. Financial resources allocated for GIS to date:
Commissioners / E- 911 $314,000
O.U. Facilities Management $80,000
Auditor $50,000
Engineer $92,000
Soil & Water Conservation $17,000
The Commissioners have indicated that they will approve a GIS operating
budget to begin in 2001.
The Commissioners have agreed to fund 50/50 with the County Engineer
a GIS/Engineer facility addition to the County Engineer office.
The E-911 Chief has committed $50,000 toward GIS development in 2001.
The County Auditor, E-911 Director, and County Engineer have agreed to
fund data maintenance beginning in 2002 with $10,000 each per year.
Ohio University Facilities Management continues to contribute to our
GIS development with an average of $20,000 per year.
I believe that we have positioned our GIS very well for successful
implementation by sufficient allocation of resources to the project.
Next month I will cover the remaining items on the list of success
factors for GIS as they apply to our GIS Project.