The April 1, 2020 King County GIS User Group meeting will feature an important roundtable discussion on issues related to using GIS to support agency response to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in our communities. This meeting will be held via Skype or Zoom. As usual, the KCGIS User Group meeting is open to anyone. Many…
The King County Department of Natural Resources & Parks oversees several ecological restoration sites along the Duwamish River. Because the river is estuarine and will be impacted by the rising ocean levels associated with climate change, there was understandably some concern that these sites would also be affected. They needed to visualize what their projects…
By Joshua Greenberg (WGGL Chair) Over 85 GIS users gathered in Seattle at the King County’s King Street Center Conference Center on February 3rd to share their knowledge and experiences using Esri’s ArcGIS Enterprise portal. ArcGIS Enterprise portal “brings together all the geographic information in your ArcGIS platform and shares it throughout your organization” (Esri).…
The Sound to Summit Regional GIS Project is preparing to initiate one on one discussions within the King County region soon. Regional GIS Project GoalsThe strategic objective of the Sound to Summit Regional GIS Study Project is to determine the best feasible way to organize and operate geographic information system (GIS) services within the region…
Free and fair elections are the bedrock foundation of our democracy. In the United States, responsibility to administer elections is delegated to the individual states, which then support election activity at the county level. Within the state of Washington, elections are the responsibility of the Secretary of State. The Department of Elections is responsible within…
Join us for the October KCGIS User Group meeting next Wednesday, October 2, from 11am-12noon. Our speakers will be Katrina Sroufe & Vance Julien, from King County Elections. Katrina and Vance will explain how King County Department of Elections maps voter turnout to inspire the community to get involved in voting. Other Agenda Items New…
The King County Department of Elections conducts all elections by paper ballot, which a voter either mails or deposits into one of nearly 70 drop boxes that are distributed throughout the county. For its secure tracking of drop-box collections, Elections transitioned in the spring of 2019 to an all-digital workflow using mostly Esri GIS products. The all-digital aspect is notable in part because this is not yet common practice among elections agencies.
The responsibilities of county government are many, including elections, criminal justice, property value assessment and taxation, and dozens of others. One obscure but economically important responsibility of King County is to reduce and, if possible, prevent the negative impacts of noxious weeds.
During the past year interest in using GIS to address issues related to Equity and Social Justice (ESJ) have been accelerating. Recently Mark Salling from Cleveland State University, Nicole Franklin, King County Chief Equity Officer, and I co-authored an article for URISA’s The GIS Professional to initiate a discussion about the role of GIS professionals…
“Strengthening the GIS Profession”—that was the title of a 2012 ArcNews article authored by my friend David DiBiase. David asked: ‘Is GIS a profession?’ As he pointed out, this is an important question. He defined a GIS Professional as ‘…someone who makes a living through learned professional work…that requires advanced knowledge of geographic information systems and related geospatial technologies, data, and methods.’
The GIS profession, or any profession, rightly requires a definition that defines it across multiple dimensions. This article will assess from a personal perspective where the GIS profession stands today, based on the dimensions of the GIS profession that DiBiase outlined in 2012.
