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OBITUARIES
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OBITUARIES FROM
AUGUST 19, 2010
OBITUARIES FROM
AUGUST 12, 2010
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07-22-2010 County's GIS System Ready Soon
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County’s GIS System Ready Soon
By Dave Maxwell
Lincoln County’s new Geographic Information System is expected
to be ready soon for public use through the County Planning
Department. Marybeth Grant and Sandra Atkinson, from Gnomon, Inc., in
Carson City, who created the program, gave a demonstration at the
County Commission meeting July 6. Grant said a Geographic Information
System (GIS) is a “computer system capable of holding and using data
describing places on the earth’s surface.” Gnomon has been doing this
kind of work, assisting federal, state, and local agencies for about 15
years,” she said.
Common GIS systems most people are familiar
with are Google Maps, MapQuest and YahooMaps. “They show us a dot on
the map,” Grant said, “they can show a location, and get us there
quick. They can provide us with direction, they can show us distance
between two points, but they often lack data accuracy, and tabular
data, and is not something we can fully rely on,” she said.
Because
of the deficiencies in the well-known, popular GIS systems, Gnomon has
created a special one for Lincoln County called an Enterprise GIS. Ms.
Grant explained that it is integrated throughout the entire
organization so that a large number of users (the public) can manage,
share, and use spatial data and related information to address a
variety of needs including data creation, modification, visualization,
analysis and dissemination. “A way to organize all of your data from
various data sources,” she said. For example, the County’s new enhanced
911 Emergency Response system, uses the Gnomon Enterprise GIS.
One
benefit feature of the new Enterprise GIS is what is called the
Community Mapper and the E911 Mapper. The E911 Mapper, however, is for
Emergency Management resources and personnel, and not available to the
public. When it does become operational, those wanting to access the
Community Mapper, can log onto http://maps.lincolnnv.com/communitymapper.
“Everyone
is part of an Enterprise GIS,” Grant said, “all connected together to
answer general questions that the public would have. Where is this,
where is that? It’s all up-to-date, unlike Google maps would be.”
A
specific location address can be entered, and the system will bring up
an aerial photo of the general neighborhood where the property is
located. A disadvantage she said, is that the photo does not zoom in
real close. “Not like you are looking through someone’s window. With
this one, you don’t have to be close. You can see the address listed,
and where on the street the location is.”
Tabular data on the
property is also available on the map, including name of the occupants,
owner/renter, and other types of information. On the other hand,
though, more personal, private information is not displayed.
The
information is quite up to date, Grant said. As more and more County
offices become fluent with the system, changes can be added quickly to
the Community Maps. Planning Director Clint Wertz said the new FEMA
floodplain maps will also be added soon to the Community Mapper.
“What
has been done,” Grant said, “is that the County has identified a need
for enterprise management and moved ahead to get everything started to
fulfill the need, also they have identified the major stakeholders
within the enterprise.”
What is needed now, she suggested,
“it’s time to formalize a GIS steering committee, a group of internal
department people, as well as external agencies, and build a committee
that is going to create a strategic plan for the entire County as a
whole, set enterprise-wide priorities, establish data standards, and
develop long-term support plans for the GIS.”
Another way to
make the system work for the County, Grant mentioned, would be to
create partnerships and information sharing agreements with other
people in the County who may already have the knowledge of certain
aspects of computer work.
In concluding her presentation, Grant
said, with what Lincoln County, as a rural county, has done so far, it
is way ahead of what other rural counties in the state have done, and
puts Lincoln County on the cutting edge of GIS implementation as a role
model for other counties throughout the state.
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