For many communities, the fall season is a busy time consisting of construction projects, landscaping contracts, and other operations that relate to the changing season. For the Village of Winnetka, this time of year means performing weekly leaf pickup along all the Village-owned streets as a service to Village residents. To assist the Public Works department with their yearly leaf collection budget, the GIS department was asked to provide the total Village-owned parkway area along these streets as a way to estimate the percentage of leaves being picked up that were coming from Village-owned trees versus trees on private property.

The Village of Winnetka hosts numerous special events over the course of a year and, for each event, the Police and Public Works departments are involved in providing operational support. These events range from parades to festivals and require a wide-range of supportive actions. These actions are assigned via an event orders sheet provided to each department that describes the extent of the event and where various elements of the event are occurring. However, in the order sheet format, it can be difficult for personnel to get an overall view of the event’s total operations. To assist with providing this comprehensive view for the Village’s Memorial Day parade, the GIS Department was asked to develop a mapping product that would help assigned personnel to be better informed about the overall event orders.

Keeping a utility system running at high capacity is a major component of local government operations. Coordinating maintenance, capital improvement projects, and every day operations can be a challenging task that requires numerous man-hours to run effectively. Having an accurate spatial inventory of utility system components helps a community perform these operations more efficiently by providing a quick reference tool for checking the physical location of a feature and providing vital attribute information such as manhole depth or pipe diameter. To assist with a recent sanitary system cleaning effort, the Village of Winnetka Public Works Department requested that the GIS Department develop a series of maps to help the field crews gain a better understanding of the system before going out into the field.

During an emergency event, the type of event, the extent of the area affected, and the number of issues occurring as a result of the event are just some of the factors that need to be processed, organized, and reviewed by local government staff to determine the most appropriate course of action. Perhaps the greatest challenge of any emergency response is controlling where information is coming from and which pieces of information are more critical than others. Using GIS (Geographic Information Systems) as a tool in all stages of the emergency management process brings a spatial component to the planning and implementation of an action plan, helping to visualize all relevant information for a more efficient and successful community response.

Having an accurate inventory of the components that make up a municipal utility system is very important to the overall success of a city or village maintaining that utility at a high performance level. While this type of inventory has traditionally involved descriptive text information regarding a particular utility system feature, with a robust GIS system that same inventory can now contain a spatial component. By adding this spatial aspect, the municipality can better track and maintain their capital investments and the overall integrity of the system. Recently, the Village of Winnetka, IL took advantage of its GIS system to help develop an electric pole inventory for its Water and Electric department to use for future maintenance and analysis.

Garbage collection is an essential service provided by municipal government that, in many communities, has become ingrained in the weekly routine of community residents. While collecting garbage seems like a straight forward process, often there are weeks or months of planning that are necessary to determine pickup locations for a given route that are efficient in both time and resources. Recently, the Village of Winnetka Public Works department decided to reallocate their garbage collection pickup locations to help maximize the efficiency of each truck driver’s route. To assist with this, the Village GIS department provided support during both the planning and implementation stages of the project.

During the winter holiday seasons, local municipalities often will setup a series of decorations or lighting displays to celebrate the holidays and provide a fun attraction for the community’s residents. While the amount of decorations on display is mainly regulated by a community’ budget, some times these restrictions can come from a lack of existing space or resources for displaying or powering a certain decoration setup. For the Village of Winnetka, IL, this was the case for a business district area located at the northern end of the Village. While many of the businesses and residents in this area wanted to have more lights displayed in the areas numerous trees, there were not sufficient power sources available to accommodate this request. To determine the best solution for this problem, the Public Works and Water and Electric departments used GIS to assist with the planning and mapping of numerous proposed scenarios.

Utility mapping is a critical function of any municipal GIS system to help support the daily workflows of various departments, including Public Works and Engineering. While most communities are only responsible for maintaining water and sewer utility systems, the Village of Winnetka, IL includes an electric system as a component of their standard utility maintenance. By maintaining this complex system in GIS, the department has helped to streamline their electric system inventory and improve the efficiency of both the field crews and the office staff in locating system components.

Of all the services provided by local municipalities around the world, public safety is arguably the most recognizable and widely supported. Everyone wants to feel that they are safe and that someone will respond to assist them in the case of an emergency. The Village of Winnetka, IL traditionally has provided fire, EMS, and police protection to its residences since it was established, however, over the years, these Village departments have started to provide service to additional areas immediately outside the village boundaries through a series of public service contracts. To assist with coordinating response efforts in these service agreement areas, the fire and police departments asked the village GIS department for assistance.

Capital improvement projects are essential for a local municipality to maintain a good quality of life for its residents. Resurfacing roads and replacing aging utility mains provide a more reliable infrastructure for the community and ensure that residents do not experience things such as uneven roads and interruptions in utility services. Recently, the Village of Winnetka, IL used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to help with the coordinating and planning of future capital projects between various village departments to reduce project duplication and maximize project overlap.

Special events, such as parades, concerts, and street fairs, require additional civil services from local government to ensure everything runs smoothly and efficiently. While all government departments are involved in the planning and execution of these events, the police department is responsible for enforcing city/village policies and ensuring that all participants are safe. To assist with their annual Fourth of July celebration, the Village of Winnetka Police Department started to using map products to provide more information to officers regarding the holiday’s planned events.

As the country’s utility infrastructure continues to age, many local governments will be faced with the task of updating or replacing deteriorating structures. Since this process can result in high costs for a community, many municipalities prefer to develop an infrastructure improvement plan to make sure the areas most in need get updated first. As part of the Village of Winnetka’s utility improvement plan, the water and electric department recently analyzed the structural integrity of village water mains by reviewing water main break incidents from the last 20 years.

Many local governments face the challenge of organizing decades worth of permit, building plan and zoning variance documents in a way that will allow employees to locate them if needed. Most municipalities have these paper documents stored in boxes, filing cabinets or in some other storage container that can be a burden to search through. The Village of Winnetka, IL Community Development Department has recently attempted to reduce their amount of paper documents by scanning new zoning variance requests into a digital, PDF format.

The Village of Winnetka, IL Fire Department recently utilized the Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) to complete a community-wide fire hydrant flow rate review. Accurate flow rate information is critical to the department for knowing how much water pressure is available from a hydrant at a given location in the village.