As 2019 comes to a close, we are taking a moment to look back at a year of great projects completed for the GIS Consortium’s 28 city and special district members. Read this sampling of the GIS and data solutions that helped members increase internal efficiency, boost community engagement, and improve the delivery of services to Washington residents this year.
City of Eatonville | Tier 4 member
Although the City of Eatonville has not employed a GIS staff person since 2008, the city has a wealth of useful water, sewer, storm, and electrical utility GIS data. The GIS Consortium is helping the city utilize those data sets, managing an ArcGIS Online Organizational account to ensure that everything is organized and readily available for city staff to review. The Consortium is also creating several web maps for internal staff to analyze and track city assets. With the imminent retirement of a leader on Eatonville’s electrical utility team, we are helping the city digitize and organize the retiree’s critical institutional asset knowledge and setting up a system to help the city centralize asset knowledge going forward.
City of Harrington | Tier 2 member
Paper maps do have their advantages, but digital maps and web maps have superior capabilities when it comes to analysis, editing, and sharing. Currently, about 25% of Harrington’s data is in paper map form, so we are working with staff to convert those paper maps into a user-friendly digital format. We’re also helping the city collect public works-related field data to ensure that any institutional knowledge held by public works staff planning to retire will be captured before they leave.
City of Pasco | Tier 1 member
Pasco wanted to showcase a new public park and disc golf course to highlight the new amenity and inform their residents how to play—including the rules of the game. Working with high-resolution imagery previously captured by city staff, we created a 3D web map that highlights each hole of the disc golf course so the community can explore the course from any computer, tablet, or smartphone.
City of Port Orchard | Tier 1 member
The GIS Consortium recently assisted Port Orchard with installing ArcGIS Enterprise, allowing staff to keep utility data organized in a secure online location and to create web maps to help staff analyze and interact with the data. We are now assisting city staff with training initiatives focused on Esri’s Web AppBuilder and ArcGIS Pro.
City of Sultan | Tier 4 member
The City of Sultan joined the GIS Consortium to get help setting up a GIS program, as most of the city’s data exist in paper map form and the city does not have any GIS staff. We’re working with the city’s public works manager and public works staff to set up a GIS that can accommodate the city’s needs and we will provide training on how to use GIS and maintain the systems that keep data organized.
Pierce County Conservation District | Tier 4 member
Since 2018, the GIS Consortium has been working with Pierce County Conservation District on projects that will expand the organization’s GIS capacity, including adding GIS data from their respective internal groups to their ArcGIS Online account, installing and implementing ArcGIS Server, and training on ArcGIS Collector for field data collection.
Port of Bellingham | Tier 3 member compilation
The Port of Bellingham is using its GIS Consortium member hours to capture and organize stormwater data for port properties, taking advantage of the consortium’s assistance with developing more streamlined data management workflows to support stormwater permitting. Many other GIS and data needs were identified and prioritized for through the free rapid GIS needs assessment that the port received as part of its GIS Consortium membership.