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GIS and engineering staff ask for servers, licenses and an in-house water resources engineer
Summary
The GIS coordinator asked the council for $5,000 toward server replacement and outlined a $30,200 annual enterprise licensing cost; engineering staff requested a full-time water-resources engineer and more bandwidth to manage rising project volume and future traffic-signal work.
Thomas Wilkinson, Hurricane City's GIS coordinator, told the council GIS supports many city functions — mapping, field data capture and asset management — and asked for a modest capital allotment to maintain servers. "We are requesting $5,000 this year," Thomas said, explaining the city operates two servers (active + backup) and recently relied on a backup to avoid multi-day downtime after a hardware failure.
Thomas also outlined licensing costs for ArcGIS enterprise: the small-government enterprise license quoted in the presentation would cost about $30,200 for their current scale (32 users), which Thomas said is more cost-effective than buying individual licenses.
Engineering/Planning staffing: Arthur LeBaron, speaking for the engineering team, said project volume has increased and the department lacks bandwidth to manage right-of-way negotiations, traffic-signal warrants and the city's water model. Arthur urged hiring a water-resources engineer (split between drainage and culinary water) and an additional engineering/project-manager position to reduce consultant dependence and preserve institutional knowledge.
Traffic signals: Arthur said several intersections will need signals in coming years and provided a ballpark construction estimate of $400,000 per intersection, noting that operations and maintenance costs will follow once signals are active.
Next steps: staff requested council feedback on timing for server replacement and hiring; council members indicated they may defer server purchases this year but will consider staffing requests during budget deliberations.
