The Becker City Council held their first bi-monthly meeting Tuesday amidst snow and windy conditions. Though the snow was heavy at times, the agenda was light with one major item on the agenda to discuss.

 

As part of the 2016 budget review and approval, council — along with each city department —decided to develop goals and determine the budget impact to achieve those goals. Prior to 2015, the City of Becker was utilizing a GIS system directly from ESRI. The program was deemed limited, slow, not reliable and quite costly for the product and services received.

 

Community Development Director Therese Haffner said “for 2015, the annual cost was over $4,000 so we did not renew in 2015.” 

 

Haffner said the public works (streets & water) department discontinued using the program around 2012 or 2013 because the information was not maintained (updated) and the program was slow. 

 

Haffner concluded the need to have a GIS mapping system is “critical for city and utility information and as such was identified as a 2016 goal and approved within the 2016 budget.” 

 

Haffner consulted with SEH (Short, Elliot and Hendrickson) and they provided the city a proposal to provide GIS (Geographic Information Services) services. 

 

Haffner says the SEH GIS SmartConnect program is a cloud-based technology versus using the city's server. The cloud-based technology helps improve quality, accuracy and speed. 

 

A full proposal was included Tuesday for council to review and it highlighted the creation of a custom base map, including — but not limited to — sanitary sewer system, storm sewer system and water system.

 

The budget impact for 2016 for SEH to provide GIS services is $9,850. Record drawings, processing of GPS coordinates for hydrants, gate valves and land use, zoning or utility map updates beyond the current map content were not included in the proposal but Haffner says those can be performed and billed on an hourly basis. 

 

Therefore, Haffner said staff is recommending allowing up to $11,000 as budgeted for the SEH GIS Smart Connect and there will be an annual maintenance fee (estimated at $2,150).

 

City Administrator Greg Pruszinske updated council on the consent agenda which included a resolution to accept a donation of $100 from Tom and Janet Cotton to be used by the Becker Police Dept.

 

The scheduled Executive Session was cancelled due to weather.

 

The next Becker City Council meeting is Feb. 16 at 6 p.m.