How to Get the Municipal, City and County to Work Together on a Common GIS Platform John Auel – United Services Group Arlyn Lindsay – Marshall Municipal Utilities Brief History ► Marshall’s population is approximately 13,000 ► Utility is a separate entity, governance by a Commission appointed by the City Council ► City has a Engineering and Drafting Department ► Utility has a Mapping Department ► County has a GIS Department In the Beginning ► Discussed our plans with the City of Marshall ► Started with getting our GIS up and going ► Decided that Marshall Utilities and Lyon County needed to work together in a partnership  Found out what direction they were planning on going  Decided to work together to benefit the City and Utilities  Decision to go with ESRI  Decision to go with USG for electrical conversion  The County has the GIS expertise  All parties agreed that the City GIS should be coordinated with the County GIS program Leg Work ► Contacted ► Setup Lyon County for GIS support Data Sharing Agreements ► Looked for other parties interested in working with Marshall Utilities and Lyon County Formed a GIS Committee ► MMU ► City of Marshall ► Lyon County ► SMSU ► Public School Committee’s Goals ► Provide most current information ► Make information available to everyone, when they need it ► To reduce costs and redundant procedures ► To make tax and property information available to the public over the world wide web Committee’s Goals ► Decided         to Share Resources Printers Scanners Fiber Network Offsite Storage Server Space and Equipment GPS Equipment Laserfiche Document Management System Software Examples of Partnership ► City and Utility share cost with Public School IT Department ► County plans to join agreement for one robust IT Department rather than many small departments ► City and Utility plan to help the County build up their GIS Department ► Shared cost for Pictometry ► Offsite backups for all entities ► Shared fiber network Getting Started ► Electrical conversion done by USG ► County needed to finish Lyon parcel data ► Signing up for GIS classes at SMSU Electrical Conversion ► Started with an AutoCAD drawing ► Exported to Shapefiles and imported to a personal geodatabase ► Overlay electrical feature classes on Lyon County parcels and road centerline layers ► Generated service points from County’s parcels, then matched to MMU billing information Things Coming Along ► Marshall Utilities  Conversion Done  New Map Books  New Feeder Maps ► Lyon County  Finished Parcel Data ► City of Marshall  Has come on board and knows what they want  Staying with AutoCAD and importing shapefiles from the County Why Partnership Became a Success ► Each group was at a point where they needed to move forward  MMU Outdated maps  Lyon County keeping up with the rest of the state on parcel data and internet mapping ► Lack of staff ► Lyon County offices are in Marshall, Minnesota  Increases the amount of people working on GIS in Marshall and Lyon County Tips for Working Together ► Open communication, knowing what each group would like out of the partnership  What makes the partnership look attractive? ► Starting out small and working into larger partnerships  City departments  Possibly going all the way to the state ► Convincing unwilling participants to jump into the GIS pool  Finding advantages for these people Summary ► Marshall Utilities would not be able to use the powers of GIS with out the help of partnerships. ► More willing participants when costs are shared. ► Save time and money by reducing redundancy. ► Great way to expand on GIS expertise. ► Hopefully avoiding mistakes from learning from each other, in return less money spent.