It was only last month that the City of Seal Beach began webcasting the City Council meetings on the internet (see related article below). Now, the City has approved a contract for $144,000 to cover the initial set up of their next digital venture.
At last night’s City Council meeting, Seal Beach approved a contract with Digital Map Products, Inc. to prepare and build a database for the City’s Geographic Information System (GIS). GIS is a database of information that allows users to view and obtain data graphically through maps and drawings.
“When a department of the city has a project and they need to send out a mailer to everyone within 500 feet of a specific address, they are looking into paper records, pulling together addresses, and then they have an administrative person enter the addresses,” Assistant City Manager/Public Works Sean P. Crumby told OC180NEWS. “On a gis system, all of that data is tied to the map. It takes all that owner information and exports it into an Excel spreadsheet and you just do a mail merge. What would have taken an administrative person three hours to do, just took ten seconds.”
The initial use of the system will be for the Public Works Department, but the system can be expanded in the future for other uses, including law enforcement. At the most basic level, a gis system connects data base information ( such as crime statistics, public works plans, building permits, names and addresses, or utility line locations) to a digital map.
“Public Works is building it and it’s being set for Public Works,” Crumby said. “Once it’s built, it can be expanded to serve the other departments.”
He indicated the initial set up of the system is included in this year’s budget. Expansion into other departments could come in future years, but nothing beyond the initial set up is committed at this time.
The system will also include new aerial photos of the city, which has not been done since 2004 Crumby said. But, the system will not include any access to the public. Some of the personal information which will be included in the system could not be released to the public because of privacy concerns, but there are no current plans to allow access to non-restricted information.
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About Dolores Barr, Publisher
Dolores Barr has lived in Rossmoor since 1992 and has created this site to provide local news for the people of Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Rossmoor, Leisure World, Sunset Beach, and Surfside, California. My husband and I have had two students graduate from the Los Alamitos Unified School District and currently our Grandson, Ricky Apodaca, grade 3 at Weaver Elementary, is actively involved in youth baseball through LAYB and youth football through FNL.
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