Jamestown DPW crews collecting leaves
Jamestown residents may be able to view a digital map online where leaf clean-up is happening in the next year or two.
Interim Public Works Director Mark Roetzer shared with the Jamestown Planning Commission that an engineer in DPW has been working since July 2023 to build a digital map of the city over the last year using the web-based ArcGIS system.
He said the department has been relying on paper maps or maps “in people’s heads, which is a problem.”
Roetzer showed the Commission a digital map of the city’s storm sewer system, which includes thousands of feet of pipe along with different structures like drop inlets, catch basins, or manholes, “In these maps, you can click on any one of these lines and it’ll tell you inside diameter, outside diameter, lengths.. that kind of stuff. All of these parcels are connected to the County GIS, so we’re able to get property owners, sizes, and all of these streets actually have the info of the street as well. So, length, width, what the current street is paved with.”
Roetzer said, going forward, they plan to record when work is done on city streets. He said all of the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities‘ data for sanitary, water lines, and electric lines is included in the map as well. He said that information is helpful when looking at how storm water might need to be mitigated while properties are undergoing construction. Roetzer said that the engineer and a summer employee also worked this past summer to add 7,000 city signs to the map.
He added the DPW is doing an internal test on the map to track leaf collection this Fall, “So, the DPW, typically starting at the beginning of November goes around the whole city and collects all the leaves. It’s all of our forces for around two to four weeks. That’s all of DPW. We’ve never had a really good way to show people where we are except they call and we say, ‘Oh, we’ll get to you in two days.'”
Roetzer said the hope is that sometime in the near future, people will be able to visit the city website to see the map of where crews are collecting leaves that day and how soon they might be in their neighborhood.
Leave a Reply