Using high-tech tools: Technology differs for governmental entities

Rich Daume, the city's geographic information systems coordinator, has been on the job for seven years and still has passion for mapping the continually expanding and developing city.

"Everything in the world can be mapped through points, lines and polygons," he said. And everything in Cape Girardeau is mapped that way and combined with aerial photography to produce an accessible grid of every house, sewer line, manhole cover or fire hydrant in the area.

The principal equipment used to accomplish this are GPS systems. The city owns four state-of-the-art units worth $4,000 to $5,000 each.

Any new development, land acquisition or sewer line will be plotted by city workers. This can mean either walking off the length of the property with a backpack GPS unit or attaching the unit to a car and driving the length. Either way, the GPS retrieves the exact coordinates by bouncing a signal from six satellites and one Coast Guard beacon, eliminating the margin of error to less than one meter.

The GPS then loads all of this information onto a handheld unit with a touch screen which can communicate through a cradle USB port via Microsoft Active Synch to the computer in Daume's office where the master grid is located. But the handheld unit can also be uploaded with all the street data in order to tell someone out in the field precisely where he or she is in the city or county grid.

This grid is then integrated with black and white photography to form a matrix of the area's buildings and infrastructure.

The fly-over photography, which is updated approximately every three years, is much more accurate than satellite technology, said Daume. "Satellite photography is only accurate up to about one meter, but with fly-over photography you can really zoom in close," he said. Daume said the office uses a process called ortho-rectification to correct photography for the curvature of the earth. It's the synthesis of this photo technology with GPS systems that makes the city's mapping really special.

In that way, people in the field work together with Daume in his office. He gave the example of being able to click on a sanitary sewer line, determine exactly where it is located, where to find the hard copy of the original plans or engineer's blueprints, whether the system is a gravity or force-powered system, the diameter of the pipes, and the elevation and invert elevation of the system, and the material type of the pipe.

Daume can access this information for every structure large or small in the city, and if he doesn't know the coordinates he can access it by typing in an address.

Beyond the basics

Daume said this information can be essential to responders. "Knowing where things are is half the battle," he said. "But even then, getting to where a leak is and not knowing where the valve is located doesn't help you a whole lot, you've got to know it all."

Daume expects his job will be safe for the foreseeable future, "With all the development in our town, it's pretty hard to keep up with and keep everything updated," he said. "I stay pretty busy."

Other city staffers are appreciative of Daume and the GIS system.

"It has really improved the ease of understanding for the city council and really for all the departments," said Gayle Conrad, city clerk. "For planning, engineering, the water department, I mean you can click on a fire hydrant and instantly see its water pressure, flow and all its connections. It's pretty amazing."

Conrad also said this system has made city council meetings more efficient. "When I need to get a map for a city council agenda item, I can log in, pull up the area I'm looking for and print it out myself, and we're ready to go, I don't have to bother anyone from any of the other departments," she said. "It's also good in council meetings because people can see lot lines, and street right-of-ways and buildings. The GIS system gives you a visual of what is being discussed."

At the other end of the technology spectrum, Scott County is trying to get organized. The court system is suffering a paper glut, say local officials, and they're trying to dig their way out of it.

"We're being inundated with paperwork," said 2nd District Commissioner Jamie Burger.

"I've got a hobbit hole under the courthouse, and I don't care who knows it," said Prosecuting Attorney Paul Boyd. "We keep a lot of our old records down there and it's totally inefficient."

Multiple copies

Part of the problem, said Burger and Boyd, is that for every case in Scott County, three different copies of each file must be kept on record by the office of the circuit clerk, by the office of the prosecuting attorney and by the office of the court. That, say local officials is a lot of paper, and they would like to have the ability to scan the documents and save them in CD form.

Boyd said last year his office prosecuted 2,500 misdemeanors and felonies as well as 700 non-support and paternity cases. The paperwork for these cases averages 25 pages in length. The office must store the paperwork for misdemeanors for 12 years and felonies and non-support cases for 50 years.

This is not an efficient system, said officials.

"Two years ago we shredded 40,000 pounds of paper that we didn't need to keep on record, and we didn't even make a dent," said Burger.

Burger said the county has put aside $100,000 in the budget for 2006 get organized, but a large obstacle lies with Missouri state statutes.

"The statutes are antiquated, we have to microfilm all of our files, but what we really need is the ability to scan documents and save them to a CD," said Burger "We are asking for exemption to state statutes, and we are asking for grant funding from the state to hire a group to come in and purge our files and line our documents up." Burger said the current statute does not accept electronic versions of records as a suitable alternative to microfilm and hard copy.

"We're just running out of room to store files, we're trying to have a way to keep them and have access to them without building a whole new wing," said Boyd. "The state doesn't accept scanning as a means of storing your records, but let's face it, that's what everyone is doing. It's just an old statute that hasn't kept up with technology."

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245