City Agrees to GIS Workshop Agreement

What started as difficulty filling a staff position evolved into an agreement that could provide better services to the City of Sidney and save the City money.

The City of Sidney’s GIS/Zoning Officer Ben Dayton left the city in 2017. A replacement was hired and trained, then left a few months later for personal reasons.

City Manager Ed Sadler said in advertising again, “the candidate pool showed neither any GIS nor zoning experience, even with having advertised outside of Sidney for candidates.” Sadler told the council his thought was to contract with GIS Workshop and their Simple Cities GIS system. He said the program would be maintained, hosted and secured by GIS Workshop, and expected to save a significant amount of money.

Sadler also proposed the zoning duties be divided between two existing staff members; each will receive a pay increase and cross training.

According to his proposal, the agreement could save the City $50,000 or more annually.

“Anything that rolls out in our Simple City program, you get,” said Geneie Andrews, solutions consultant for GIS Workshop. “This is a one, two, three, four-year process that we work with your department managers,” she said.

Sadler said most of the program will not be available to the public; however, there are some layers he would like to make accessible.

Councilman Wendall Gaston compared the agreement to having 25 GIS coordinators instead of one.

In other business, a rezoning request on behalf of Darin VanNatter and Susan Hiett to rezone 2525 11th Ave from R-1 Residential to R-1A Rural Residential Estate was withdrawn, the City’s Code Enforcement Officer Lisa Handley was introduced to the city council. Handley said she is a Sidney native, worked at Cabela’s before separating from the company. She worked at the pool before applying for the code enforcement position.