Keeping Up With Cloudpoint
“It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” - Scott Belsky
Piqua, Ohio is a city of more than 20,000 people in west central Ohio. Providing municipal services for a city of that size requires GIS utility data that is readily available, current, and dependable. City staff needs to know where underground assets are, when they were built, and when they were last inspected, cleaned, or replaced.
Meet Monte Johnson, City Clerk and GIS Administrator for the City of Sullivan!
Mr. Johnson has been with the City of Sullivan for 21 years filling in many different roles and wearing many different hats. He graduated from Illinois State University in 1995 with a degree in Business Education, and has since earned an associate’s degree in Information Technology - Network Administration. He currently severs as the City Clerk and GIS Administrator as well as other roles critical to municipal operations. He began working for the City when he was in high school as a part time lifeguard and swim instructor. His full-time duties began in 1997 when he was hired as the Assistant Director at the Civic Center. He created the City's first website in 2002 and has been serving as the City's webmaster since. He began building the City's GIS system in 2007 and has turned that into a City-wide system with remote access through web-based applications. He began redesigning the City's digital document system in 2012, and it now has a public portal for the public to access documents, allows departments to remotely access documents, has workflows to automate business processes, and has an online forms portal for the automatic submission and handling of web-based forms. He was named the City's Freedom of Information Act Officer and Open Meetings Act Designee in 2013, and the ADA Coordinator in 2017. Through training and education, he was conferred the title of Registered Municipal Clerk by the Municipal Clerks of Illinois.
The City of Sullivan owns Electric, Water, and Gas utilities and contracted with Cloudpoint beginning in 2014 to implement an enterprise GIS system by collecting GPS data, centralizing database records, and securing an Enterprise License Agreement from Esri which opened the door for providing location-based decision making for each department. All departments now have iPads helping them access and update their information in the field in near real time. They also have many web apps available for departments (and the public) to see all of our utility information as well as general public information (Zoning, TIF, etc).
As City Clerk, Mr. Johnson’s responsibilities include preparing agendas and minutes for Council meetings; keeping up with, informing the Council about, and enforcing new municipal laws; preparing and publishing legal notices; handling bidding requirements and documents; handling and coordinating annexations and zoning; tax location verifications; coordinating building inspection and permit reports; assisting the City Attorney with research and paperwork; assisting with and acting as a liaison with engineering firms; IT support for all City departments; administrative support for all City departments and the City Council, including research for health insurance renewals, lawsuits, collective bargaining negotiations, updates to the employee handbook, research for software and technology, updates to policies and procedures; handling of all licenses (liquor, raffle, A frame signs, carnival, golf cart, merchandise on public streets/sidewalks, outdoor dining, peddler's, rubbish, food vendors, waste disposal), and serving as the City's Open Meetings Act Designee. One of the greatest benefits Monte has recognized from the use of GIS is that city staff no longer has to look up paper documents and maps. Everything is there at their fingertips in digital format. Mr. Johnson has a gift for administration and technology and he looks forward to continuing to expand in the City’s use of GIS technology and helping them informed data-driven decision in the most efficient manner. The Cloudpoint team is privileged to have the opportunity to work with him and the City of Sullivan.
Cassidy has been the GIS Coordinator for the Town of Normal for 8.5 years, it will be 9 in May. Before this current GIS position he worked with SAIC in St. Louis on NGA projects with 'Top Secret' clearance. Since he graduated from Illinois State University's Geography program, working for the Town was something of a homecoming for him.
There are many bright spots in working for Normal (aside from the many jokes). One is being able to hire great staff from just down the block at ISU, like GIS technician Daniel Moore. He says his biggest challenges lie far outside City Hall: "It's tough to keep up with the pace of Esri's changes". Something we all struggle with. To do that Cassidy has a steady diet of Online training, Seminars and Conferences including the massive User Conference during the summer.
Lately, GIS at the Town of Normal has been picking up the pace. Much of the utilities data is now fully digitized. That allows their digital infrastructure to be edited and checked out in the field on connected devices. "Implementing the Sanitary Server Master Plan forced us to push data out to the field," said Cassidy. With a series of iPad Minis and Trimble Geo 7s field folks can view, edit, and maintain their digital infrastructure as it exists while still onsite. This includes the new geometric network that the water system has courtesy of Cloudpoint Geographics.
There are plans to use a newly installed version of ArcGIS Geoevent Server to help field vehicles become an efficient fleet. In addition to the aforementioned applications, Cassidy is in the midst of creating GIS tools to be used by the park district and other municipal departments. With an Esri Enterprise Agreement, the GIS team at the Town of Normal are only limited by their imagination.
