Forest Heights delays vote on $54,000 GIS platform after presentation from vendor

Mayor Lily and the town administrator discussed a planned procurement after a technical presentation from GFT on July 15. Town Administrator Clay Jackson said the proposal would let the town use a Maryland state master contract to contract GFT to build a town GIS platform and that the project ‘‘can be as much or as little as we want it to be.’'

The nut graf: GFT presenters outlined how a WebGIS (based on Esri/ArcGIS Online) could serve as an authoritative system of record and public-facing dashboards for Forest Heights. Council members pressed for details about data sources, ongoing maintenance, contract length and annual costs; after questions and requests for time to review contract paperwork, the council agreed to defer a formal vote on Resolution 49-26 to the September meeting.

GFT’s Matt Viverito explained the platform’s three-layer approach—“system of record,” “system of insights” and “system of engagement”—and described use cases such as mapping sewer assets, tracking service requests and generating dashboards for board meetings. ‘‘You can quickly spin up these applications, and you can train your staff to create these applications too,’’ Viverito said, describing desktop, mobile and public-facing map capabilities.

Dave Gilbert, GFT’s technical presenter, showed examples of municipal implementations and said clients have used ArcGIS workflows to collect survey-grade GPS points, integrate CCTV and inspection reports, and tie asset data into capital planning and interagency coordination. He cited a client that had collected ‘‘over 27,000 points’’ for asset management.

Jackson framed the procurement and budget context: the work is in the town’s budget and would be procured via the state contract; GFT estimated the build at up to $54,000 and an annual software license between $1,500 and $2,000. Jackson said departments—police, public works and administration—would contribute the source data and that GFT would assist until staff can be trained.

Council members raised operational and oversight concerns. Council president Noble said the platform’s value depends on ongoing stewardship: ‘‘My greatest concern is that it is managed and continuously managed and not this new dashboard we get, and then all of a sudden, nobody knows where it is anymore.’' Council member McDonald asked for confirmation on costs and responsibilities; Jackson said the $54,000 figure reflects the work scoped to date and that licensing and renewal will be budgeted.

Several council members also asked whether utilities and regional partners such as WSSC could feed data into the platform; GFT said the same system is used by other agencies and that integrations are possible but would be worked out as part of the implementation.

Outcome and next steps: After discussion and requests for more time to review contract language, Mayor Lily concluded the council did not have the votes to approve Resolution 49-26 that night and moved to bring the item back in September so members can review details and submit questions to the town administrator and GFT ahead of the next meeting.