The Lake Forest Parks and Forestry Departments are in negotiations to outsource their cul-de-sac and right-of-way landscaping maintenance. Previously, city staff maintained these areas but a cost-benefit analysis determined that the budget would be more efficiently spent by contracting out the maintenance responsibilities. The city was looking to develop an effective method to display maintenance areas while also providing contractors a way to confidently and accurately bid on the project.
Using GIS, all of the proposed maintenance areas were mapped. While creating the maintenance area boundaries, square footage was automatically being generated. The Parks and Forestry Department now has the ability to visually represent landscaping maintenance areas while also being able to determine the amount of total square feet of an area. This information can then be shared with contractors and in turn be used to budget time and personnel commitments.
Rather than distributing printed maps to contractors, the Parks and Forestry Department is also considering integrating the landscaping maintenance area information onto MapOffice Public.
Contractors will be directed to MapOffice Public where they would have the ability to visualize the maintenance areas as a custom overlay. By selecting a specific area, square footage information would appear in a dialog box. The bidding process for contractors can now be expedited because they no longer have to acquire any materials from city staff. The bidding reference material can now be available online.
The Lake Forest Police Department has recently collaborated with the GIS department to spatially display the city’s crime and incident data within MapOffice. Previously the GIS department would create maps displaying the most current crime locations as well as trends that may have been occurring over time. These maps were typically created on a monthly basis. Although the timeline in which the maps were delivered was effective, there may be a need to analyze data more frequently depending on consistency of the occurrences.
The GIS Department has enabled the police to analyze crime and incident data for a specific day, week, month or year by integrating the data into MapOffice’s Business Intelligence feature. Business Intelligence can access live data from law enforcements crime and incident records. The data that is actively being edited by the Lake Forest Police Department is held within a record management system. GIS can connect to the record management system, read the data and spatially display the data in MapOffice. . By referencing a live data feed, information can be viewed and analyzed on an up to the minute basis in MapOffice.
Police personnel now have the ability to select a desired incident(s), specify a time period, produce a map of the incidents, and export the map and associated data all from their own workstation. The spatial analysis aspect of crime reporting now can be accomplished independently and more efficiently.
The City of Lake Forest’s City Manager’s Office recently requested that GIS construct a map identifying potential locations for medical marijuana distribution facilities. There is currently a bill under consideration in the state legislature that would allow medicinal marijuana organizations in the state of Illinois. The bill states that distribution locations must not be within 2,500ft of a public or private preschool, elementary, secondary school or childcare facility. City administration needs to identify potential business locations that fall outside of this 2,500ft range.
Using GIS, all public and private preschools, elementary schools, secondary schools and childcare facilities were located and symbolized. Schools and childcare facilities were also located from surrounding communities to determine if their location was within 2,500ft of the Lake Forest municipal boundary. If schools and childcare facilities were located within 2,500ft of the Lake Forest city limits, the location of medical marijuana distributor would be impacted. Once all schools and childcare facilities were identified, a 2,500ft buffer was created around each location. All non-residential zoning districts were then added to the map. Now that the 2,500ft buffer was determined and all non-residential zoning districts were identified, locations of potential medical marijuana distribution facilities could be determined. All areas located within non-residential zoning districts and residing outside of the 2,500ft buffer would meet the criteria of a potentially housing a medical marijuana distribution facility.
The results of this project allow the City Manager a reliable method of visualizing where medical marijuana distribution facilities are able to reside. The City Manager can use this location data to manage areas of concern and to effectively plan for the future if the bill were to pass.
Regular hydrant flushing is essential for maintaining and the water system and ensuring the safety of residents. Hydrant flushing can detect pressure issues in the water system; remove sediment build up, and identifying malfunctioning hydrants. The City of Lake Forest recognizes the important of hydrant flushing by ensuring there are flushed every year.
Public Works uses GIS for tracking hydrant flushing as well creating an end of the year report. Every Spring, the GIS Office copies the hydrant features and base map to laptop that is used by Public Works to track which hydrants have been flushed. To update a hydrant, the employee selects a hydrant and records how long it was flushed and the date it was flushed. At the end of the year, the laptop is returned to the GIS Office and they collect the hydrant flushing information The GIS Office uses the hydrant flushing information to create two reports. The first reports list each hydrant and how long it was flushed. It shows notes that employees wrote in the field noting any issues they noticed with specific hydrants. The second report show the amount of time spent flushing each size diameter of pipe. The second report is especially valuable because it allows the City to estimate how much water used during the hydrant flushing process.
By using GIS the Public Works Department has an efficient to track hydrants during the flushing program. It as has a great way to create summary reports of hydrant flushing for the current year.
The City of Lake Forest’s Fire Department recently requested that GIS construct a map to display Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) and Special Rescue Team (SRT) assets in Lake and McHenry Counties. The MABAS and SRT assets are spread throughout Lake and McHenry Counties. Fire needed a method of knowing where assets were located while simultaneously being able to identify the type of asset.
In GIS, a list of fire station locations was geocoded and displayed over the Lake and McHenry Counties. Each fire station was then labeled according to which assets were stored at that given location. The assets were then color coded to identify the difference between MABAS and SRT assets.
The results of this project allow users an effective method of visualization that enables a more legible method of reviewing MABAS and SRT asset location information. Fire can use this location data to manage emergency response protocols. This project assists MABAS Division 4 personnel and Lake and McHenry Counties Specialized Rescue Team personnel efficiently assess where assets are located and how to spatially use these assets.
The Public Works Department tasks the GIS Office with maintaining several maps related to snow removal. The first set op maps are 8.5” x 11 inch plow zone maps that are kept in the truck as a reference to the assignment area for their truck. There are maps for specific trucks as well, such as one shows showing arterial route plowing, cul-de-sac snow removal, and main salting routes. In addition the GIS office creates large wall sized maps of snow removal zones, arterial plowing routes, and slating routes to assist the foreman with managing the trucks during a snow event.
Based on changes in personnel and equipment as well issues that might have arisen in the previous year, the maps are reviewed and updated every Fall. Updating the maps is easy because the map layout remains consistent from year to year. The dates on the map are dynamic text and are automatically updated every time the project is opened. All the maps reference the same data set, so an update to a snow removal route in one map will automatically display in the other maps as well.
By using GIS, the Public Works Department can quickly have new maps that show updated information. Thus the snow removal drivers will have the most accurate information to complete their task efficiently.
The City of Lake Forest recently decided that they wanted to reevaluate and possibly reorganize their storm drainage upkeep procedures. Currently, the City of Lake Forest is divided into 10 rainfall zones. A streets crew is given responsibility to maintain and oversee all storm drainage features within their assigned rainfall zone. Storm drainage features include manholes, inlets, and catch basins. To ensure that the street crews have similar amounts of features to be responsible for, the water foreman requested that a map and table be created to illustrate the amount of features in each rainfall zone. If the feature are counts substantially unequal then the water foreman may decide to reassign storm maintenance responsibility.
In GIS the storm drainage utility features (manholes, inlets, and catch basins) were displayed over the rainfall zones. All utility features not maintained by the City of Lake Forest were removed. These included all private and IDOT maintained structures. The Identity tool in GIS was then used to calculate a count of each storm utility drainage feature and determine which rainfall zone that feature fell within. The counts were then organized into a table as well as displayed onto a rainfall zone map.
The results of this project revealed many disproportioned feature counts within the rainfall zones. GIS enabled storm drainage features to quickly and reliably be calculated. The water foreman can now take this information and reallocate maintenance responsibilities where necessary.
At the beginning of the 2012 fiscal year, the City of Lake Forest had been delivering new recycling carts to all of their households. To accurately determine the number of recycling carts that were needed; a list of all non-commercial addresses in the city was generated and excluded from the recycling cart delivery list. The remaining residential address list was used as a reference to the Sanitation and Public Works departments to determine who was in need of a bin.
City resident addresses were then mapped to appropriately display the status of their recycling cart, either received or not received. With the cart delivery process still underway, the City of Lake Forest is now offering the option of choosing between a 64-gallon recycling cart or a 35-gallon cart. By completing an online request form, residents had the opportunity to request a smaller cart. The addresses of the residents who requested the 35-gallon recycling cart were then extracted from the master list and composed into a separate list. The recycling cart information was then added into an interactive mapping interface (MapOffice Advanced ™). MapOffice Advanced ™ allows city employees to quickly search an address, view the address spatially, and know the status of that resident’s recycling cart. Without integrating the recycling cart information into MapOffice Advanced™ city employees would have to refer back to an address table. If a resident calls Public Works requesting the status of their recycling cart, the recycling cart layers within MapOffice Advanced™ can be used as an efficient and effective resource.
Every year the City of Lake Forest requests a map to illustrate roads that are being planned for resurfacing. These maps help manage the spatial distribution of where these resurfacing projects are occurring. Poor road conditions are an issue for all communities and by ensuring residents that these conditions are being recognized can assist in exceling the government-public relationship.
The requested map illustrates the proposed 5 year pavement resurfacing program ranging from 2012 to 2016. The engineering department provided a spreadsheet defining all road segments that were planned for surfacing along with their proposal data. Line features were then created based on the spreadsheet specifications. Being able to visualize areas with a high resurfacing occurrence allows engineering staff to determine if their past replacements were effective, as well as to target new resurfacing areas in the coming years. The proposed pavement resurfacing routes were grouped together by fiscal year, each year being symbolized by a different color.
The City of Lake Forest hopes to continue their resurfacing initiative to help ensure the yearly CIP funds are meeting the needs of the residents and city infrastructure.