GIS to give parish a fresh look

A computer program that provides a map filled with information about St. Landry Parish should be online later this year.
The St. Landry Parish Economic Industrial Development District board approved a plan to create a GIS -- Geographic Information System — for the parish.
Implementing the system is to cost about $52,000 over three years.
The district’s board agreed to a parish GIS after a presentation by Bob Miller of Map Analyst, a Fentstermaker company, which is to do the work.
Bill Rodier, executive director of the development district, said, “If we put the type of progressive things that are happening in St. Landry Parish and incorporate that into the GIS system as just one of the tools that we have that is going to change perceptions.”
Rodier said parish government has agreed to pay 50 percent of the base mapping cost. Other map details will cost extra, he said.
Such maps are capable of providing layers of details about an area.
Don Reber, chairman of Eunice’s economic development committee, said GIS allows an accumulation of data overlays. Besides the usual information on a map, such as roads and political boundaries, a GIS may have property details such as taxes, flooding and utilities.
Rodier said, “This really forms the basis for continued collaboration with the parish entities and future collaboration with municipal entities on things they want to include that are important.”
Initially the map will be accessed at the development district’s website, opportunitystlandry.com, and at the parish government’s site, stlandryparish.org.
Miller said of the GIS, “you are going to get out them exactly what you put into them.”
GIS is not magic, he said.
“What it does though is give you an opportunity to show yourself in the best possible way,” Miller said. “The reason you need to start considering it in all honesty is because everyone else is doing this.”
People are using computers linked to the Internet to interface with the world.
“Your presence on the Internet is what is going to be your ability to attract people,” he said.
In the old days industrial site searches took place by telephone calls and traveling, Miller said. Today, those searches on the Internet.
“The more you get online, the better probability you will be found,” he said.
The information also presents an opportunity for transparency, he said.
“We all know how we the public are getting a little tired of non-transparency with our governments,” he said.
“The more transparent you are the more comfortable people are,” he said.
When the Lafayette Economic Development Authority went online with a GIS map, the number of phone calls dropped, “but the number of eyeballs that were looking at this type of data tripled because that is the way they work,” he said.
With a GIS available the telephone calls became more focused, he said.
Miller touted the Fenstermaker GIS as fast because it is derived from the company’s field needs, which included speed using low-band width connections.
The base map is to include aerial map overlays, soil type data, flood zone data, section township ranges, parish boundaries, available industrial properties, and tools such zoom and printing.