GIS for the ‘have-nots’: A case study in a small Colorado ‘Mayberry’

GIS for small municipalities: A big problem

• 138 “Mayberrys” in the state of Colorado with populations of 1500 or less

• Characteristics of these towns: “One Bullet”

• GIS: too costly to start much less maintain:– ESRI small government EULA

most likely out of reach for these towns

– High cost of data collection and maintenance

– Staffing and O&M– Cost of data/data collection

“If we have one bullet…we spend it on public works”

The impacts

• Emergency response• Public Works• City Administration• Reliance on hard copy data

(parcels, lots, etc…)– This stuff changes or

worse -disappears!– Hard to update

• No basis from which to plan and share information for disaster/event response

Mayberry has the same GIS needs as Denver – but right sized

The Hayman Fire: A view from

Mayberry

Significant Snow Events

Requirements• So what would a GIS for

Mayberry look like?– Low/No O&M burden on the

town– Requires no staffing– Minimal training curve– Low/No Cost for data– Provides ability to share

information• And…provides a core GIS

capability to town staff for day to day business

A simple, straight forward architecture that I can get to on a browser

If I just had access to a good web based GIS,

with no training or O&M – I could fish

more…

Mayberry: Green Mountain Falls, CO

• Located West of Colorado Springs on Hwy 24

• Surrounded by Pike National Forest• Population 966• Government

– One full time Clerk– One full time Public Works

Coordinator– 2.6 Police (Marshall)– Volunteer Fire Dept

• IT infrastructure– 4 PCs with cable internet– Standard office install with IE

• Expertise…you guess.

Trivia: Most Bigfoot sightings in Colorado have occurred within 5 mi of GMF

GIS for Green Mountain Falls: The Approach

• We identified the problem – Mayberry needs a GIS

• We opted for a web-centric solution and common tools– Common tools minimize the

training curve• We enlisted help (lots of help)• We hosted it externally

– Removes local O&M and staffing needs

– Provides for failover

External Host

Help!

• Boy Scouts of America– Trail network mapping

• El Paso/Teller 911– Road Center Line and Address data

• Trimble Navigation– GPS training and equipment

• GeoCommons– The GeoIQ platform that provides a fully

virtual means of storing spatial data, creating and serving maps and providing means to customize analysis, access and dissemination of spatial data

• Zekiah Technologies– Software Development collaboration

between FortiusOne and Zekiah

The approach• Beg, borrow, (I would not Steal) data

o Make use of data from town plano E/T 911o CDOWo CDOTo GeoCommonso SW ReGAPo Collect

• Upload to GeoCommmons• Apply appropriate role based access rules• Build maps based on user rules• Customize interface for GMF• Share

Architecture

What we wound up with…(demo)

It worked for Green Mountain Falls but…

• The Mayberrys of the nation are underserved in the GIS market

• How to make it work for your Mayberry in the meantime:– Keep it simple -use a web approach– Build your coalition

o Academia, Business, Individuals NGOs– Be willing to borrow, be willing to share data and

technology– Maximize use of free data– Maximize relationships with NGOs and other not for

profits to obtain and collect datao Partnerships

– Scouts– Trail Coalitions– Academia

o Open street map and other mapping partiesNot every town has an aggressive trustee