Alameda County Prepares New Online Mapping System By : Michael Singer : 6/26/07 Alameda County officials are putting the finishing touches on a project that would combine several county, city and public service maps to allow department staff and eventually residents to customize and view them over the Internet. Similar to online mapping software such as Google Maps and MapQuest, the county’s planned Enterprise Geographic Information System or E-GIS for short — uses aerial photography as the map’s baseline of information. From there, an overlay of detailed street maps, regional boundaries, parks, facilities, community based organizations, and other county services can be added. Various county services such as the Fire Department and Public Works, as well as cities such as Oakland, Hayward and Fremont already have computergenerated map systems in place. The county’s plan would use the E-GIS system to link these individual and non-connected maps together into a larger interactive computer program. Dave Macdonald, the county’s Director of Information Technology and Registrar of Voters, said the program has already been funded through Alameda County’s Information Technology budget. He expects the process will be complete in time for the February 2008 Presidential Primary. “Public Works started the process a couple of years ago when they made their own computer maps, and now the IT department is getting involved. It is hard to say where it will end up in a few years,” Macdonald said. But what’s the benefit of a municipal- sponsored project over a commercial application like Google Maps? Primarily available to internal county offices, the goal is to eventually make some of the maps available to the general public. For example, with a few mouse clicks, homeowners could ultimately see the basic information about their parcel of land as well as access (through a Web site) all the relevant documents such as building permits that pertain to that property.