Urban Research Group Provides Emergency Management, Revenue Recovery,and Analysis

Small GIS Division Takes Lead Role in Los Angeles County

Los Angeles County, California, is the most populous county in the nation. It is larger in population than 42 of the United States and has an annual budget of more than $15.3 billion that serves the needs of the County's approximately 9.9 million residents. And, to add to its enormity, with 4,083 square miles, the County remains one of the largest in the nation.

In 1979 a small group of County researchers formed the Urban Research Division within Los Angeles County's Chief Administrative Office. Weathering austere times of budget cuts and downsizing, Urban Research has flourished and expanded its capabilities by providing research and information technology to many of the County's agencies while maintaining a fiscally responsible operation. Urban Research's services have had a major impact on Los Angeles County's efforts to streamline operations and save taxpayers' money.

Wayne Bannister, chief of Urban Research, was at the forefront during the division's start-up and continues to be its driving force today. "We started out doing regional planning and community development projects. But it just continued to expand," says Bannister. His division is somewhat of an anomaly within County government—funds are only expended based on the amount of services supplied or revenue recovered.

Serving as the central GIS group for the County, Urban Research embraced GIS projects since its inception. "We bought into GIS very early," says Bannister, "and at some point we made a Business decision to move to a Sun platform and use ArcInfo."

With a staff of approximately 30 people, Urban Research maintains a basemap of the County and provides its clients with expertise in GIS, database management, applied statistics, and social science and policy research.

The Defining Moment

Bannister says that the group's "defining moment" in GIS came after the Northridge earthquake in 1994. Urban Research's basemap was vital to the recovery operation. "We did maps of freeways, water districts, and damaged buildings, and we were doing geocoding on a daily basis to try to establish patterns," Bannister explains.

That work led to the development of the Los Angeles County Emergency Operations Center (EOC), which Urban Research supports with mapping and analysis services. The emergency management information system was completed in ArcInfo and then converted to ArcView GIS for ease of use at the operation center. Urban Research supports all of the computer systems within the EOC including the local and wide area networks, 92 local workstations, 30 remote sites, and the Oracle messaging system and database.

The Emergency Operations Center has been successfully reporting and tracking emergencies such as wildfires and floods since 1997. Urban Research produced maps for flood planning during 1997's El Niño. They showed areas of potential flooding along with demographic information, which enabled emergency managers to tell, at a glance, where they needed to deploy bilingual personnel. The maps also depicted various income level areas that determined the types of County services provided and how they were deployed.

Bill Butler, an emergency manager at the center, says in the event of a disaster, GIS will enable emergency workers to see affected areas along with supervisorial boundaries and city boundaries to quickly determine where the affected areas are located. "It is extremely helpful to emergency managers to see things graphically," says Butler. "A list of the areas doesn't give you an idea of the proximity of problems. Only a map can do that."

Among its other services, Urban Research GIS assists in recovering revenue that might otherwise be lost to the County. By geocoding the State's sales tax files to locate County Businesses correctly, Urban Research generates an additional three million dollars in sales tax annually for the County. Developing a jury pool system that saves mileage costs and eliminating redundancy in the County health and welfare facilities are among other projects in which Urban Research has helped the County realize savings.

Acting as the official Census 2000 liaison to local governments in the County, Bannister's team worked to ensure that populations were counted completely. "We wanted to try to make the geography as clean as possible for the year 2000 census. We started working with a block boundary suggestion program, and we added about 10,000 new blocks in the County," explains Bannister. Working on the census track definitions and dividing them into smaller geographic areas have helped create more homogeneous areas that will be eligible for federal aid, he says.

Looking to the Future

Bannister sees the Urban Research Division moving faster toward developing ArcIMS Internet-based applications. "I feel that we are only scratching the surface of the power of the Internet. Government services via the Web will not only display the data but also use technologies such as Computer Aided Mass Appraisal (CAMA) modeling and GIS tools to respond to property information inquiries. This will not only save time and resources but also level the playing field and make many government processes more equitable."

For more information, contact Wayne Bannister (tel.: 213-974-5121, e-mail: wbannist@cao.co.la.ca.us).

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