Georgia County Government - October 2008 - (Page 30) GIS Is Delivering Results in South Georgia By Chris Strom South Georgia Rural Development Center R ural county and city governments are under more pressure than ever to operate efficiently. This challenge extends to local staff charged with managing community resources such as schools, planning, transportation systems, sanitation, policing, medical services and the list goes on. Therefore, the decisions about these services need to be met with access to the best information and tools possible. More times than not, the questions prompting these decisions have some spatial or location component to them. Local government staff and decision makers across the South Georgia Regional Development Center’s (SGRDC) nine-county region have benefitted from the perspective that only a geographic information system (GIS) has given them. For more than 15 years, SGRDC has been partnering with local governments to help them gain that perspective and put GIS data and tools in the hands of their frontline staff and community leaders. Through a partnership with SGRDC’s GIS program, local governments’ spatial data is captured, constructed and maintained. Today, in the data inventories of these counties you can find everything from parcel boundaries and zoning districts to crime incidents, public utilities, street sign inventories and even a few cemeteries along with hundreds of other layers of spatial information. It’s through this same cooperation with the RDC’s GIS program that all of this data is on the front lines of decision making and right at the fingertips of the local staff. It’s at that point that the data springs to life. As parcels are divided, properties rezoned, utilities constructed, or other changes take place, those changes are managed by the RDC through service contracts and the refreshed data is pushed back out to the users’ desktops. From the description so far, this may seem to be modest program of GIS assistance to local governments but it extends much farther and has delivered award-winning and some nationally recognized successes. The Valdosta-Lowndes Regional (VALOR) project of SGRDC’s GIS department is one of these successes and a rare fi nd in Georgia. Th is project is cooperatively funded by Lowndes County and the City of Valdosta. Aside from the seamless leveraging of data between the five governments operating in Lowndes County, this project is an outstanding example of the innovations that are possible when communities collaborate. In recent years, the VALOR project has helped dramatically improve response times of Fire and EMS by pinpointing weaknesses in coverage and then E.R.SNELL CONTRACTOR, INC. ERS P.O. Box 306 Snellville, GA 30078 770-985-0600 Phone 770-985-2998 Fax In Business Since 1923 Twelve Asphalt Plants To Serve You Equal Opportunity Employer ROADS & BRIDGES ROADS * BRIDGES * CULVERTS * SITE WORK ASPHALT PAVING * ASPHALT SALES * PARKING LOTS COMMERCIAL * INDUSTRIAL * MUNICIPAL Drug Free Workplace 30 GEORGIA 385996_LPA.indd 1 COUNTY GOVERNMENT 6/17/08 11:59:48 AM 307867_ER_Snell.indd 1 11/21/06 7:51:04 AM http://www.ersnell.com http://www.lpagroup.com
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