Intern puts city infrastructure in GIS
By:
Jill Meier/Journal Editor
A summer intern in the city engineer’s office has put Brandon on the map, or rather, has mapped out Brandon’s infrastructure and city amenities by plugging information into geographic information system (GIS) software.
GIS is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage and present spatial or geographic data.
With an initial goal of mapping out all of the city’s sewer and sanitary sewer manholes and water valve locations, summer intern Ryan Mellema went above and beyond, city engineer Paul Sanow told the Brandon Council on Aug. 7.
“Ryan, this was his baby. He really took ownership of this and wanted to make it look neat and fun,” Sanow said.
Sanow said the GIS project had been on the city’s to-do list for more than a year. With funding available for the project this year ($10,000 for the intern and $25,000 for GIS software), Mellema, a third-year geography major at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, tackled the project. Sanow said using an intern saved the city money by not having to hire a consultant. Mellema even did some pre-employment research by looking at what the city needed for software and hardware.
“The amount of work that he got done was a heck of a lot more than we anticipated,” City Administrator Bryan Read added.
Using an Ipad application and a GPS receiver, Mellema was able to map items within one to two feet of their location. Mellema was able to identify 898 sanitary sewer manholes, 982 water hydrants, 940 water valves and all of the storm sewer inlets. He documented the depths of manholes, inventoried all of the parks and outlined input of every building in the city. The parks inventory, for instance, allows the public to see the shelter, contact information for reservations and amenities each park has to offer, and even the length of each hole at Pioneer Park’s disc golf course.
Previously, all of this information was documented on paper.
“He went out and verified all of these locations,” Read said. “There were even some manholes on paper that we did not know about and he found them.”
Read said the digitalized information will help staff easily access and identify infrastructure, for instance, when a water valve needs to be shut off.
“Before it took a lot of time to find them, and this is more accurate than the hand-drawn diagrams,” Read said. “Eventually we want to get out there with whomever is doing locates with a handheld device.”
The software allows users to click on any one of the points identified and all infrastructure information (i.e. manhole, depth, location, etc.) is available.
“If a manhole is invisible or buried in 10 feet of snow, literally all you have to do is take the iPad and Garmin GPS the city purchased,” Sanow said. “That’s the beauty behind GIS.”
Alderman Don Wells was impressed with Mellema’s end result.
“For those of you that don’t know, every time I walked into City Hall, Ryan was sitting at the computer, and I just assumed you were surfing the net, but this is amazing,” he said.
The public will also have access to Mellema’s mapping efforts on the city’s Facebook page.
Sanow encourages the public to utilize the information.
“A lot of maps we create are more for internal use … but this map is more interactive,” he said.
Sanow said additional maps can also be created, listing zoning maps, socio economic maps, and master planning maps, for example.
“Moving forward, these are some things that we need to continue to focus on. I really see this as a tool that was worth the investment. If we keep it in the forefront…this is really the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
P&Z APPOINTMENT
Alica Thiele was selected from a field of seven candidates to fill the vacancy on Brandon’s Planning and Zoning Commission. The vacancy was created earlier this year when Linda Weber tendered her resignation.
Thiele’s appointment is through April 2018.
“We had seven very, very good candidates. Bryan and I read their resumes, and I took into consideration how long they’ve been in the community, any public service and wading through all those, I came up with a lady who has been on P&Z before, was editor of the local paper, and if you’ve been in the city as long as I have, you remember her dad (Ed Polzine/Brandin’ Iron Café),” he said. “I’d like to go on record and thank all the people that sent me their resume. It was a very difficult decision because there were a lot of talented people that wanted to serve.”
REDWOOD BLVD. UPDATE
Jon Brown of Stockwell Engineers informed the council the Redwood Boulevard project (from Splitrock Boulevard to Splitrock Creek) is approximately three weeks behind schedule, but is expected to be completed on time. Read confirmed Monday the west end of Redwood was paved late last week.
Issues with an unstable (gravel) wwwbase on the west end had kept the contractor, Asphalt Surfacing Company, from paving the west end of the project.
POLICE REPORT
Brandon Police Chief Dave Kull reported the 2017-18 School Resource Officer contract with the Brandon Valley School District has been finalized. Only one SRO (Anthony Lingen) was contracted this year, as opposed to two last year.
Kull said his department will continue to maintain a good relationship at all levels of the district despite the SRO decrease. Read said the school district was not willing to reimburse for the cost of a second officer.
CHIP SEALING
The Road Guy Construction Co, Inc., of Yankton, was awarded the 2017 chip seal project at a cost of $38,475, which was the lower of the two subitted bids. Topkote, Inc., also of Yankton, submitted a bid of $54,037.80.
Streets scheduled for chip sealing are in the Corson Industrial Park area (North Walnut Avenue, East Linden Street, North Plum Avenue, North First Avenue, East Willow Street and North Railroad Boulevard). Sanow said the project was estimated at $37,152.00.
“If we didn’t have a quote less than $50,000, we wouldn’t be bidding this project,” he said.
CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS
Council members began exploring the purchase of new Christmas decorations for street light poles. The decorations considered range in price from $250 to $450. Beesley appointed Alderpersons Jo Hausman and Blaine Jones to the decorations committee, and asked them to have a report for the council’s Aug. 21 meeting.
Decorations will be paid for from the city’s promotions fund.
