4/12/2005 CABLE AND ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE Minutes

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Town of Nashpee ' 16 Great Jlreck &ad Arth Mashpee, Massachusetts 02649 To: Mashpee Cable and Advance Technology Advisory Board (MCAT) From: Eric R. Smith, Assistant Town Planner ( A Date: January 13, 2005 Subject: Proposal for use of Cable Account Funds for Web-browser based GIS Introduction At this time I am writing to you with a proposal seeking use of a portion of the Cable accounts funds. This proposal is for $12,000 to develop and implement a web-browser based Geographic Information System (GIS). This type of GIS will allow each Town employee and, ultimately, the general public with a web browser to be able to display and utilize our GIS information. For those MCAT members who have been on the Board for the past couple years, you might recall that you provided $84,400 in funding to have the Town's GIS Planimetric data updated. I have good news on this front. First of all, the Town has already received the color prints from the April 2004 flyover. In addition, based on feedback I received at a meeting in December with the company preparing the GIS data, the digital aerial orthophotos and planimetric data are expected for delivery sometime in mid-January. Before the planimetric data is to be integrated into the Town's GIS, our GIS consultant will be conducing Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) on it. The integration of the updated GIS data is an important step in updating the Town's GIS. Some of you may recall the Town of Mashpee GIS Implementation Status Report that I prepared in August 2003, which outlined the status of GIS before February 2002, what had been done from February 2002 to August 2003, the direction the Town should be heading with GIS, what is needed to fully implement a town-wide GIS -Syste4n, along with a proposed timeline for full implementation. Besides an update to Mashpee's GIS data, a second significant identified issue was the need to provide access-to-Hzg-Towrr s GIS data to all Town employees and the general public. The Web-browser based GIS Concept Introduced in the GIS Implementation Status Report was the concept of a web-browser based GIS. This approach was recommended as an economical alternative to the purchasing of individual ArcView GIS software seats for each Town user and, ultimately, to provide GIS data to the general public. This type of GIS has come a long way in a short time. I attended a GIS conference in November 2003 where three vendors had demonstrations on their respective web- browser based GIS. Each of these vendors has since visited the Town of Mashpee and put together a quote for the development of a web-browser based GIS. (For a full review of the three vendors, including the individual quotes and links to the mapping web sites that each vendor has developed for other communities, see the provided Town of Mashpee Web-based GIS initiative: 1