The Lake Forest Parks and Forestry Departments are in negotiations to outsource their cul-de-sac and right-of-way landscaping maintenance. Previously, city staff maintained these areas but a cost-benefit analysis determined that the budget would be more efficiently spent by contracting out the maintenance responsibilities. The city was looking to develop an effective method to display maintenance areas while also providing contractors a way to confidently and accurately bid on the project.

The Lake Forest Police Department has recently collaborated with the GIS department to spatially display the city’s crime and incident data within MapOffice. Previously the GIS department would create maps displaying the most current crime locations as well as trends that may have been occurring over time. These maps were typically created on a monthly basis. Although the timeline in which the maps were delivered was effective, there may be a need to analyze data more frequently depending on consistency of the occurrences.

The City of Lake Forest’s City Manager’s Office recently requested that GIS construct a map identifying potential locations for medical marijuana distribution facilities. There is currently a bill under consideration in the state legislature that would allow medicinal marijuana organizations in the state of Illinois. The bill states that distribution locations must not be within 2,500ft of a public or private preschool, elementary, secondary school or childcare facility. City administration needs to identify potential business locations that fall outside of this 2,500ft range.

Regular hydrant flushing is essential for maintaining and the water system and ensuring the safety of residents. Hydrant flushing can detect pressure issues in the water system; remove sediment build up, and identifying malfunctioning hydrants. The City of Lake Forest recognizes the important of hydrant flushing by ensuring there are flushed every year.

Having the largest business park in the nation provides Elk Grove Village, IL many benefits as a community and initiating improvements to make it even more desirable to current and future business owners is an ongoing objective of Village staff. In 2011 the Village began planning for a major drainage system improvement program. In many ways they have utilized their geographic information system (GIS) to support those efforts.

The City of Lake Forest’s Fire Department recently requested that GIS construct a map to display Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) and Special Rescue Team (SRT) assets in Lake and McHenry Counties. The MABAS and SRT assets are spread throughout Lake and McHenry Counties. Fire needed a method of knowing where assets were located while simultaneously being able to identify the type of asset.

The Public Works Department tasks the GIS Office with maintaining several maps related to snow removal. The first set op maps are 8.5” x 11 inch plow zone maps that are kept in the truck as a reference to the assignment area for their truck. There are maps for specific trucks as well, such as one shows showing arterial route plowing, cul-de-sac snow removal, and main salting routes. In addition the GIS office creates large wall sized maps of snow removal zones, arterial plowing routes, and slating routes to assist the foreman with managing the trucks during a snow event.

The City of Lake Forest recently decided that they wanted to reevaluate and possibly reorganize their storm drainage upkeep procedures. Currently, the City of Lake Forest is divided into 10 rainfall zones. A streets crew is given responsibility to maintain and oversee all storm drainage features within their assigned rainfall zone. Storm drainage features include manholes, inlets, and catch basins. To ensure that the street crews have similar amounts of features to be responsible for, the water foreman requested that a map and table be created to illustrate the amount of features in each rainfall zone. If the feature are counts substantially unequal then the water foreman may decide to reassign storm maintenance responsibility.

At the beginning of the 2012 fiscal year, the City of Lake Forest had been delivering new recycling carts to all of their households. To accurately determine the number of recycling carts that were needed; a list of all non-commercial addresses in the city was generated and excluded from the recycling cart delivery list. The remaining residential address list was used as a reference to the Sanitation and Public Works departments to determine who was in need of a bin.

Every year the City of Lake Forest requests a map to illustrate roads that are being planned for resurfacing. These maps help manage the spatial distribution of where these resurfacing projects are occurring. Poor road conditions are an issue for all communities and by ensuring residents that these conditions are being recognized can assist in exceling the government-public relationship.

The City of Lake Forest Park Recreation Department is considering installing a new football field and or new soccer fields at Deerpath Park. The flood way and flood plain for the Skokie River run through Deerpath Park. It was important that any new facilities were not placed in the flood plain. Another concern was how the new facilities would fit into the existing park.

The City of Lake Forest recently began a project to help determine the costs and effects of water main construction projects in relation to water main breaks. Water main breaks are an issue for all communities, and ensuring residents that the most needed areas are being repaired is an important part of government-public relations.

During the 2012 fiscal year, the City of Lake Forest has been receiving and delivering new recycling carts to all of its households. To aid in ordering the needed number of bins, a list of all non-commercial addresses in the City was generated. The Sanitation and Public Works departments were responsible for keeping track of who was in need of a bin throughout the year, with the goal of having each household’s bin delivered within the year.

The City of Lake Forest recently began a project to help determine the costs and effects of water main construction projects in relation to water main breaks. Water main breaks are an issue for all communities, and ensuring residents that the most needed areas are being repaired is an important part of government-public relations.

This fall, the Committee for Representing Our Young Adults, also known as CROYA, has introduced a visual aid to help with their annual poinsettia orders and deliveries. CROYA is a branch of the Rec Center in Lake Forest, and offers programs for young people to become involved in their communities.

In August, Lake Forest College worked with the City to determine the names and addresses of residents that shared property boundaries with the College and were along the Bloodroot and Withchazel Ravines. Lake Forest College is planning on working to preserve the ravines, and contacting the owners provided two solutions- notification of work being done near their property, and asking if the property owner would be interested in joining the College in their efforts.

Many communities often use GIS in one way or another to help plan out events, whether it is as simple as a basic street map or as detailed as a full site plan for a community’s annual taste event. In June, the City of Lake Forest came upon a unique opportunity and GIS was able to help.

Each year, communities flush their fire hydrants and take note of flow rate, time flushed, and condition of hydrants. For 2011, the City of Lake Forest used GIS to aid in visualizing the locations of hydrants that were found to be in need to attention.

The City of Lake Forest is planning on planting around 180 trees this year that were purchased with funding that was donated from city residents. Known for its tree lined streets, these donated trees will help fill in areas of the City from newly renovated parks to medians along major roads. The Parks and Forestry department worked with both Engineering and GIS to create a map project that served two purposes; to help plan the locations of the Oak and Elm trees, and create an online interactive map that would allow residents to click on each tree and see its sponsor.

The City of Lake Forest has been preparing for its upcoming 150th Anniversary event, which is scheduled for the fall of this year. While there are small events going on throughout the year, the big focus is on the festival that will take place on Market Square in the downtown area.

The City of Lake Forest has recently been reviewing the types of drainage available on its streets to consider new projects for the upcoming fiscal year. As an old community, many areas of the city do not have curbs or gutters, and solely rely on ditches or small 6’ pipes to help move retention waters away from the road.

The City of Lake Forest has begun using GIS to make a map and store data that shows current plans for their 10 year Capital Improvement program. In the past, employees would rely on spreadsheets and individual maps produced for that year to visualize projects and their locations. With the 2011 Capital Improvements plan being mapped this October, the city has also requested to begin keeping long term project data in a database feature class, which in turn will allow for editing and quick visualization.

The City of Lake Forest has begun to take an inventory and place orders for signs throughout the city. GIS was able to provide accurate tables of sign counts for Public Works. Using these counts employees were able to categorize work zones by ward and know how many signs they would be dealing with from certain categories, such as regulatory and warning signs.

The city of Lake Forest updates a list of residents who have signed up for Rec Center services on a yearly basis. To aid in seeing the layout of where these residents are located, the City has used GIS to map out point locations for each address recorded. In addition to the point locations, a density analysis is also run to help give a more visual, picture of the results. This year’s map included 2500 addresses, which accounts for nearly 40% of all households in the city.

This month, Lake Forest staff were presented with a new format for accessing GIS data, as well as PDF maps for printing use. The new setup uses a shared, read-only folder that is hosted on the GIS server, and contains layer files for most of the City’s GIS data.

Lake Forest will be celebrating its 150th Anniversary next year, and with that celebration is a potential record-sized fireworks display that is in the planning. The idea is to have every resident of the city be able to view fireworks from their home. GIS has been able to help with planning this out by showing the committee the areas that require cover, as well as using the supplied data of minimum safety distances and viewing coverages for different sized fireworks.

Lake Forest will have access to the web version of MapOffice™ beginning June 1st. The month of May was spent preparing the base data needed to get MapOffice™ up and running, which involved loading previous GIS data into the GIS Consortium standardized database.

As a new member of the GIS Consortium, the top priority in Lake Forest has been getting data ready for New World. New World used in some of the other Consortium communities, is a CAD software that uses GIS to map out the location of where calls are coming from.