MarinMap is a county-wide geographic information system (GIS), which maps municipal and utility infrastructure and Assessor’s data. Marin County and all the towns and cities, and some utility and fire districts participate in the program. Mapping is maintained by contract with Marin County and consultants. The Program is led with the advice of the MarinMap Steering and Executive Committees.
The MarinMap website has public facing and government employee private facing elements.
Access to the mapping website may be found at www.marinmap.org.
MarinMap Benefits
The benefits for agencies cooperating via MarinMap can be significant. For example, by mapping and sharing information about public works projects, agencies can coordinate any digging and street repairs. This can prevent your street from being dug up several times by different agencies that didn’t know what their colleagues were doing. Agency employees can benefit by learning from each other and sharing ideas. This leads to the development of “best practices” among them. There is probably one best way (or at least a very good way) to do something that everyone could do. This alone can improve public service. MarinMap can also improve the “geographic literacy” of everyone by placing GIS technology on the World Wide Web. Anyone with Internet access can learn about any area in Marin County. Information can be published with map locations.
Problems rarely respect jurisdictional boundaries: natural disasters such as fires, floods or earthquakes may affect many jurisdictions. MarinMap provides a forum for agencies to coordinate their preparations and response to larger scale problems. Members can share all relevant data necessary to address a problem and negotiate solutions. Today’s GIS technology can help agencies update their information in real time and keep current as a situation unfolds.
Goals
- Provide improved customer service to customers seeking geographically based information;
- Reduce the cost of service to taxpayers and ratepayers;
- Improve agency business processes;
- Provide the opportunity for better decision-making; and
- Encourage cooperation among public agencies, eliminate redundancies, improve efficiency and minimize conflicts.
Objectives
- Create a system to collect and distribute geographical information
- Maintain the integrity of the geographical information
- Provide enhanced access to geographical data to public agencies and the public
- Develop an equitable means to share Geographic Information System costs
- Establish the exchange of information between participating agencies
- Create a GIS database and computer applications to support agency programs