By Naomi Hatch–
Additional work on a geographical information system for the Town of Snowflake was approved at the Jan. 10 town council meeting.
“In May 2011, the town entered into an agreement with Melodi King to provide services to initiate the development of a geographical information system,” said Town Engineer Rob Emmett.
Emmett explained that King is an independent contractor and is pursuing a master’s degree in geography with an emphasis in GIS. She had an agreement with the town to complete a schematic of the town’s water system, develop paper map books and wall-sized maps for the water and wastewater systems, begin initial steps to develop a pavement management system, exchange data with Navajo County to begin improving the collective working knowledge of the town’s roads, and to develop a GIS for water, wastewater and pavement management systems that can be accessed online and from a desktop computer.
Emmett explained that additional GIS services are required to assist with a Water System Infrastructure and Energy Management Master Plan, and to further advance the mapping and data collection for the wastewater and streets infrastructure.
“The water system master plan is the result of a grant notification of the town in December 2011 by the Water Infrastructure Financing Authority of Arizona (WIFA),” Emmett explained.
The $35,000 grant from WIFA requires a 40 percent match, but the town’s match could be made through in-kind services.
Emmett said that King was requesting approval of 500 hours, which would carry a cost of $7,500. Previously the town authorized $5,000, which would bring the total to $12,500.
“The payment to Ms. King for work associated with the water system master plan will serve as the town’s in-kind match to the WIFA grant,” noted Emmett.
Emmett said that King will address tasks which include development of land use and population maps for existing and future uses; finalizing the existing water system mapping along with attributes, such as pipe sizes, pipe material, pipe age, node elevations and node demands; import GIS water mapping data into a water system hydraulic model; finalize existing sewer system mapping; continue development of a pavement management system (PMS) and street mapping with attributes; and provide staff training to allow for in-house data manipulation and retrieval.
“No work on the water system can be done until the grant is approved by WIFA and by the council,” said Emmett, noting that this would be accomplished through an intergovernmental agreement.
“It’s kind of a three-dimensional map,” explained Town Manager Paul Watson in response to a question posed by Mayor Kelly Willis.
Emmett added, “It is a computer based mapping system.”
Councilwoman Bev Kay asked if King was hired for this one time, or whether the town would need to hire her to update information. “Do we have capabilities of learning this ourselves?” she asked.
Emmett noted that it can be complex, so major changes would require someone with a background in art GIS instead of computer programming, but there are “lots of people that have that background,” he said, noting that town employees will be trained to do some of this.
“This is actually a smoking deal, what she’s charging us,” said Emmett, explaining that she will use this as part of her master’s thesis.
“My question to you, Paul, is do you feel like this is money well spent? We don’t want to spend money if we can use it somewhere else,” said Mayor Willis.
Watson explained that this was a project specific grant. “Most communities have GIS staff in house, so whether we want to or not, we’ve got to get up to speed,” said Watson. “It’s kind of like any software; users can be trained fairly easily, it’s the writing and knowing how to adjust the program that takes the more technical background.”
A motion to approve a contract amendment with King in the amount of $7,500 to perform GIS services for a total contract amount of $12,500 passed unanimously.
In other action Jan. 10, council:
* Held the first reading of Ordinance 12-01 to rezone a property from Residential 2 Acre (R-2A) to General Commercial (GC).
Mark Burquest was present representing the owner of the parcel located at 1885 S. Main St.
Zoning Administrator Dale Call explained that this parcel is located on the road to the Field of Dreams subdivision. He said there was a larger piece of property owned by Dan Stratton and it was rezoned as he broke parcels off for different uses; however, there were two parcels that were not rezoned GC.
The council unanimously approved the rezoning.
Burquest said that they are planning to put in an auto parts store similar to Checker Auto.
* Held the first reading of Ordinance 12-02 to rezone a property from Residential 2 Acre (R-2A) to General Commercial (GC). The parcel is located at 84 E. 1900 South, and is home to Owens Livingston Mortuary. This was a housekeeping item similar to the previous request.
