USA–St. Joseph Mayor Ken Shearin has an eye-in-the-sky idea to improve the city’s communications with its residents. The mayor wants to use the city’s GIS to identify every household within each of St. Joseph’s council districts so the City Council can send news to residents about current events at City Hall. Shearin said direct mailings would be an improvement over the city’s current offering of e-mail newsletters, which he speculates go primarily to city employees.
The GIS system is a set of aerial photographs that lets city employees easily put a name and address with each parcel of land on the computer screen.
