Local GIS Tidbits
In Lyons County (KS) it’s time to buy some new GIS/appraisal hardware:
A laptop for a field appraiser at $550. The current laptop the employee reflects light outdoors and has to be used in the shade, slowing down productivity.
A GIS computer at between $900 and $1,100. The computer that is now being used is running slow and needs replaced, Stapp said.
A GIS color copier at $4,387. The machine the GIS office has now is 10 years old. The proposed replacement machine from Century United would replace the GIS machine and a copier/printer combination machine.
In Plumas County, California, GIS was identified as part of the problem in a notification event around a SWAT raid on a house.
... Plumas County Administrative Officer Jack Ingstad has been working with the county’s information technology department and Hagwood to correct some glitches in the emergency notification system, used to send a recorded telephone warning to residents.
Ingstad reported about 50 percent of the calls sent out by the system during the fugitive incident didn’t reach the right destination because of a mistake in how numbers in geographical areas were grouped by the county’s geographic information system department.
The Victorian Government in Australia is asking famers to report on a map where they see locust hatchings. The government says untreated locusts could cause significant farming losses, disrupt football finals, Spring horse racing and regional airports.
- ABC News
Ready to go the Nebraska State Fair? Get ready to see animals and agricultural products and GIS.
4-H also jumped onto the digital bandwagon. Adjacent to the Fairport - formerly known as the CyberFair - students competed to build harvesting robots and make GIS maps.
Science, engineering and technology specialist Brad Barker said both GIS and robots are increasingly prevalent in agribusiness.
“We are actually teaching precision agriculture,” he said.
Mecklenburg County is using Google Earth and its own Polaris images to track code violators, just like in other parts of the county. It’s only use when a complaint is called in, such as a suspicion building is going on without a permit. The article and report both imply Google Earth is GIS.
I don’t want to speak to the “raid” on a property in Calabasas, California that sent an unwell senior packing, but the legal document that set it in motion gives me pause.
According to the City, the search was based on affidavit authorizing an inspection of the property for purported violations apparently discovered using satellite photos from the City’s GIS system software and Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine taken on April 29 of “land for sale,” according to the affidavit signed by Maureen Tamuri, AIA, AICP Community Development Director, City of Calabasas, authorizing the surprise inspection.
