Coordinator will build GIS department
By KAREN MIKOLS
While the geographic information systems coordinator position is new for both the city of Hays and Ellis County, the information collecting is not.
"The city and county have been collecting this data for years and have been trying to get it into the GIS format so employees and the public can access it," Ellis County IT Director Mike Leiker said "The county appraiser has been doing sort of GIS, but there's so many more layers that haven't been touched because it isn't what they need."
Now, that information will be organized by Eamonn Coveney, the newest employee for both the city and county.
The position is a tangible result of cooperation between Hays and Ellis County. While Coveney is technically an employee of Hays, City Manager Toby Dougherty said the county is reimbursing the city for half of his salary and benefits.
His work, however, will benefit both, which is why the joint nature of the position.
"GIS transcends the boundary between city and county," Dougherty said, and added the position is much needed. "There's a difference between having it and being readily able to view it. GIS takes all of this data and puts it together and puts it together in a usable, user-friendly format that we can use and eventually the public can use."
Leiker said the governments have the framework, but it will be Coveney's job to fill in the holes.
"We have a lot of data which has been collected," Leiker said. "We have a good foundation laid. We have the basic structure in place."
But GIS is more than a map.
"It's more importantly the data behind the maps," Leiker said.
For example, the maps are capable of multiple layers. Bringing up information about an appraised property value will also be able to show the utilities tied to the location.
"It can be as deep and rich as the information you have," Leiker said.
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Coveney is a 2006 graduate of Fort Hays State University in geography and attended high school in Lindsborg. He is working on his master's degree.
Prior to this position, he worked as a research assistant for NASA.
"About a year after I graduated, I got the opportunity to do teaching at Beloit and it was the experience I wanted," Coveney said.
He spent last year teaching geospatial technology at North Central Kansas Technical College in Beloit, but driving two hours one-way from Hays to teach was tiring. He wasn't ready to move his family -- his wife, daughter and son -- to Beloit either.
Coveney also wanted something local while he finishes up his master's, which is why he applied for the GIS coordinator position.
"I still assist NASA," Coveney said. "Having a full-time job and trying to do research and do school on the side is overwhelming.
"When this job came along, it sort of fit like a glove."
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Since he is the first person in this position, Coveney will build the department from the ground up.
"The first thing anybody does when they get a job like this is assess where the community and county is at," he said. "See what kind of data and hardware and software they have. Start at the bottom and work your way up."
But having someone to manage the information will be a welcome change.
"He will be very busy at first, going around and getting an idea of what we do have and then what we need to do and then what we want to do and how we want to go about it," Leiker said. "He'll visit with all city and county divisions and departments and what their needs are and what they have or don't have."
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The practical applications of GIS for the city and county vary, but Coveney said it will expedite many processes.
"If you're in any type of decision-making, it allows you to make a constructive model of the world and test some things to see what happens, flood zones, things like that," Coveney said.
The city will also be able to quickly draw up a list of residents if a street will be closed, instead of gathering the information manually.
Dougherty said it will allow potential residents to gather information about an area surrounding a house they might be interested in purchasing.
"It's not just the mapping," he said, "it's the data transformation into usable data. We don't even know our full capability. That's why we hired a GIS coordinator."