GIS Steering Committee

“Where People Count” MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1000 Civic Center Drive, Niles, Illinois 60714 Telephone (847) 588-8000 Fax (847) 588-8050 GIS Steering Committee Meeting July 29, 2010 Co-Chairs: Andrew Przybylo – Trustee George Van Geem – Village Manager Persons in attendance: Mousa Nazzal Engineering Dept. Chuck Ostman Community Development Dept. Bob Pilat Public Services Bill Shaw MIS Dept. George Van Geem Village Manager Andrew Vitale MIS Dept. Rich Wlodarski Community Development Dept. The meeting was called to order at 1:03 p.m. Agenda Item #1 – Approval of Minutes The minutes of the May 20, 2010 meeting were approved. Agenda Item #2 – Old Business – Project Updates Monuments A.Vitale reported that B. Pilat posted the new monument information on our website. The monuments were posted individually and as a packet. Users thus far are happy with it. Parcel & Assessment Data A.Vitale and S. Cusick have finished the parcel and assessment data update, so the information that is reflected on Atlas should now be the brand new parcels and the new assessment data that was done a month ago. Digital Data Submission Policy A.Vitale has given the layer list to C. Ostman and M. Nazzal. He would like M. Nazzal to get the metrics of each layer and look through the default line thicknesses and colors that he would like to use for the different groupings of layers that he has proposed. Once that is established, he would like to create a test project and perform the test - either in-house or by an outside consultant - to see how it works before he determines the next step. Perhaps the in-house project could be the land-swap (between the Park District and Jerry’s Fruit & Garden Center.) Agenda Item #3 – Departmental Projects Sewer & Water Mapping Update Sewers - A.Vitale has received many new sheets from Public Works field crews (approximately 20 of 60.) He put the catch basin restrictor information that he has received from M. Nazzal, so the existence of a restrictor on catch basins is now part of the database. The information that is on Atlas is now up-to-date. He has not received any invert information from Hey and Associates; they are almost finished with their field work. He has not heard any final numbers regarding how many structures they will be measuring or where in town they are working. He thinks they were looking at between 200 and 400. When he receives the information, he will put it up. Water – A.Vitale has received the paper as-builts for Milwaukee Avenue from M. Nazzal. This has been put in the database and is available on Atlas. He has reprinted the relevant sheets for Public Services and Community Development, so both of their paper atlases should be up-to- date. A.Vitale stated that regarding water and sewer, he is as up-to-date as he can be based on what has been given to him. C. Ostman asked if a “Last Edit Date” could be put on each page of the paper atlases to reflect the last time the page was touched and changes were made to it. A.Vitale will look into this suggestion. Planimetric Data A.Vitale reported that he and S. Cusick loaded all the planimetric data; all the individual layers are available on Atlas. Snow Route Analysis A.Vitale said that B. Pilat had asked him to look into snow route analysis. Our existing software will not accomplish the analysis that Public Services is looking for, and to get the tools we need might be cost prohibitive. So this request must be declined at this time. Atlas Training B. Shaw reported that Atlas training has not yet begun because the primary focus of the MIS Department has been the Maintenance Management System. We are about a month behind in putting a training class together. We are looking to start launching a training campaign in the middle to the end of August. This will be good timing because it is difficult to schedule meetings - too many people are out on vacation to put together a good, solid training schedule. It will be better in the fall. So we are on target and will avoid the summer and probably start training in September. 2 C. Ostman commented that the Fire Department doesn’t use Atlas at all, and asked if the Police Department uses it. B. Shaw responded that the department heads do not know enough about it and don’t encourage and support its use, but we receive a lot of calls from the line guys. At least four to six officers at Police use it all the time. In the last couple of months, we have focused on giving computer access to all potential users at the Police Department – in the office and in the car. We are trying to finish this project before we train in September. We are also working on providing access to Public Services crews. At Fire, he has worked with Charlie Seleen, Steve Borkowski and other district chiefs on projects and is helping them develop an understanding of Atlas. For the most part, the Fire Department has not embraced Atlas, but hopefully training will change this attitude. A.Vitale pointed out that this new round of training will reach many more people than the first round because of Mayor Callero’s training mandate. He also suggested that as Fire gets more access to Atlas, the need and demand for their pre-plans (blueprints with fire-related information) to be loaded will also increase. B. Shaw believes that a year from now we will see a major discussion on merging the information. Maintenance Management System (MMS) A.Vitale reviewed that he and T. Spadoni held a round of meetings at Public Services to gather information that Water, Sewer and Water Plant crews would like to see in a maintenance management system. They, B. Shaw and S. Cusick have roughly designed what the database would look like, and T. Spadoni has begun the process of writing the code for it. B. Shaw continued that the next phase is application development and should begin next week. The objective is to make it as simple and straightforward to use as possible, and new features will be added as needed. We will stick to the basics and not front-load the system with things we think we need. We should have a prototype in a few months’ time. We will start with Water and Sewer; after we achieve success there, we can work on the other asset layers at Public Services until we have automated the whole work order/service request process. The next, more aggressive goal is to expand service requests to the whole Village so that any request – internal or external – will go into the same system that can become a universal system that will be available on the web to businesses and residents. Agenda Item #4 – New Business / Proposed Projects A.Vitale reviewed older projects that had been set aside for more urgent matters. Signs A.Vitale reported that he has combined all of the sign databases that Jennifer Gandy had previously put together, as well as some others that he had not been aware of. He now has the most complete database of signs that we have ever had. However, it is sorely out of date. The signs exist, but he has no current information as to their attributes. This database is ready for field inspection and is ready to be repopulated with new attributes. B.Pilat asked what method should be used to update the sign information (additions to the sign, current condition of the sign, etc.) It was determined that the forms previously used for sign inspections would not work. A.Vitale said he could easily create a form for field crews to mark existing signs and update fields, or add new signs. B. Pilat will talk to his sign people to determine their needs and will then contact the MIS Department to discuss the best method to complete the survey. 3 B.Pilat stated that after the information is gathered, the data has to be put somewhere. B. Shaw stated that sign maintenance should be the third piece of the MMS. By the time the sign inventory is complete, the MMS should be ready to accept sign data. B.Shaw would like to see a schedule that will provide a time frame to roll the whole sign layer into Atlas. Hydrant Painting A.Vitale reported that the GPSer captured the cap color and the body color of hydrants. (The cap color is based on flow rate.) He reexamined the cap color that was collected by our GPSer and the flow data, and noticed that some of the cap colors did not match the flow data. Some of the cap colors may not have been based on the correct metric of the flow data. He contacted M.E. Simpson and found that there may be some discrepancies in which number was used to determine what color to paint the cap. He would like to reexamine exactly what color was used, what metric was used, based on that flow data, and then determine if it is correct or not. There are many hydrants that haven’t been flow-tested since 2005, and some of these hydrants may have since been replaced. Our flow test information could easily be out-of-date. A.Vitale would like to fix anything that is incorrectly painted. If we need to repaint hydrants, he can easily supply all mapping and all lists of every hydrant in an effort to be as efficient as possible. We may have to coordinate with the Fire Department; they will be interested in repainting cap colors because they use them quite often. To clarify: The flow rate is based on a mathematical formula that rates the gallons per minute if that hydrant has 20 pounds per square inch (psi) of pressure. 20 psi is the minimum according to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency before a boil order is issued. We typically have between 40 and 60 psi at any time. A.Vitale added that because GIS is in a bit of a lull right now (waiting for Hey & Associates to complete their report), he took this opportunity to re-address the sign and hydrant issues. Once Hey & Associates comes back, the Stormwater issue will return to the top of his priority list. In the meantime, he “stands at the ready” to accomplish whatever comes his way. Miscellaneous
C. Ostman asked what the procedure is to keep the water atlas updated. A. Vitale responded that whenever a project is done in-house, he should be getting that as-built from Community Development. He should not get anything until it is in the ground, or until as-builts are ready. C. Ostman continued that what if a field crew member discovers something different from what is on the atlas. Is there a procedure in place for those field crew members to report their findings? A.Vitale said that there has been discussion to make that process part of the MMS. C. Ostman feels that this should be started right now. M. Nazzal said that the crews know that they must advise whenever they find a discrepancy. It was proposed by A. Vitale that the field crews should use Atlas as the basis of information whenever possible, particularly when doing JULIE locates, and not the paper atlases. This is especially true of the paper atlases in the service trucks. If an error is found in the data presented on Atlas, A. Vitale should be notified as soon as possible, preferably with a printout from Atlas displaying the proper information to be inputted. 4 
B. Shaw mentioned that in the last few weeks we have had some trouble with the stability of the Atlas server. We are working on the problem. A. Vitale asked that he be told immediately if Atlas is not working properly.
A.Vitale reported that he has a software update for ArcGIS. He is investigating moving to the new version, and would then update ArcView at the same time. Agenda Item #5 – Schedule the Next Meeting (recommended date: September 23) Due to summer schedules, there will be no meeting in August. The next meeting will be Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 8:00 a.m. in the 2nd floor main conference room 218. The meeting was adjourned at 1:50 p.m. Steering Committee Members Andrew Przybylo Trustee atp@vniles.com George Van Geem Administration gvg@vniles.com 847-588-8002 Bill Shaw MIS wfs@vniles.com 847-588-8015 Andrew Vitale MIS ajv@vniles.com 847-588-8022 Steve Cusick MIS src@vniles.com 847-588-8018 Moses Nazzal Engineering mhn@vniles.com 847-588-7924 Scott Jochim Public Services snj@vniles.com 847-588-7901 Bob Pilat Public Services rmp@vniles.com 847-588-7926 Chuck Ostman Community Development cfo@vniles.com 847-588-8041 Rich Wlordarski Community Development rjw@vniles.com 847-588-8085 5