The View of the Data for all the Maps

So I promised everyone that I'd show all the data that supported the maps I've created. I used the parcel information provided by the county for each city. Then I added that to the layer I created for each individual rooftop then I manually entered in the data for each particular neighborhood.

Here you can see the information such as garbage day, elementary school, voting district, etc.

Thank you all for reading my blog. It was a pleasure to share my experience with you. Have a great Holiday Season!!!

City Council and Planning Commission Presentations

There were several instances where I was called upon to create presentations for the City Council and Planning Commissions. Eagle Mountain is in the beginning stages of updating its general plan and I had to present the beginning stages and purposes for having a general plan. I also had to create presentations for other small code changes. Below are some of the slide shots from a presentation about changing the coding for wind and solar energy systems in Eagle Mountain.

Only those lots that are a 1/2 acre or larger can have small windmill energy systems. I had to create these maps using ArcMap to demonstrate the number of affected houses.



After showing which houses would be affected by the coding changes we had to show where possible locations for the windmills could be in their yards. They had to be a certain distance away from any housing units in order to ensure safety.

Speed Limits

In Eagle Mountain there have been several new roads added and many older roads had their speed limits changed. I addressed those changes and created a map depicting the the speed limits of each piece of road in Eagle Mountain (even the dirt roads). I also marked in bright red the school zones. New elementary schools were being built in the area so I felt that it was important to show these areas of high importance.

Resume Help

The other day I stopped by the Career Services department at BYU to receive help with my resume. This actually was the perfect time to stop in there because I am trying to apply to various jobs in Arizona because we will be there in little over a month. They were able to provide with the "do's and do not's" of resume writing. I walked out of there with confidence knowing that my resume will be able to compete with other strong applicants for jobs. Now let's just hope we can find a job in this economy.

Eagle Mountain Needs A Grocery Store

Getting approval to building a commercial complex can be quite complicated. First a developer must submit a concept plan. This i just a very rough sketch of the buildings and maybe types of businesses that will eventually occupy the development. After the concept plan, other designs need to be submitted and they can include some of the recommendations made by the city staff. These revisions are called a preliminary plat and a final plat. Depending on the city the preliminary plat needs to be approved by the Planning Commission and the Final Plat needs to be approved by the City Council. The designs that are submitted need to meet the city codes. This first picture below is the plan submitted by a developer. During these first couple meetings with the developers we also met with real estate agents to see if the location is a good spot to bring in some bigger name stores. Eagle Mountain still does not have any grocery stores so this plan was submitted to bring in a more well known store.

The plan they submitted did not meet various parts of the city code so the Planning Director and I drew up some plans that would help it meet code. For example, there cannot be any parking spaces between the road and a building. And one part of the development must be a main corner entrance for the area. We made a few corrections and limited the number of parking spaces (grocery stores always have empty spots). Here is the drawing we submitted back to the developer.

I need to vent!!!!

I'm about as big as a suns fan around. I love them dearly and have watched for as long as I can remember and I'm not so sure I can continue to have my heart broken again and again. The first heart break came in the 1993 NBA Finals against the Chicago Bulls. Why, oh why did John Paxon have to make that shot...

Another heart break came when Robert "Cheap Shot" Horry checked Steve nash into the scorers table which caused Amar'e Stoudemire and Boris Diaw to get ejected because they stepped on the court.

Last year when Ron Artest got the rebound and threw up the ugliest shot known to man to win game 5 of the Western Conference Finals was another shot to the heart.

Now to watch this years team is truly frustrating. Hedo Turkoglu is a waste and is taking up way to much cap space. I'm not too pleased with the front office's decisions to bring on 18 different small forwards because now we have no presence down low in the post. The Suns will now struggle to have a winning record and make the playoffs for the next couple years and it pains me to see the careers of Steve Nash and Grant Hill end in such fashion. Someone please give me a glimmer of hope so I won't continue to suffer.

P.S. Living in Utah with all these Jazz fans has about killed me. It's definitely time to leave this state... AZ here we come!!!

Future Transportation Plans

Long range planning is extremely interesting to me. For this project we met with several different developers, private sector planners, MAG (Mountainland Association of Governments), and many others to help show the future needs of the city. With the rapid growth of Eagle Mountain and other surrounding cities there are few acceptable roads in and out of the city. Future plans will bring 2 or 3 new freeways into the valley where Eagle Mountain is located. 2 passes over the mountain towards Utah Lake and even a potential tunnel. There is still a large debate about building a bridge over Utah Lake. The majority of the population in Utah County is on the East side of the lake. But with the growing population on the West side of the lake there is a large need for easier access to the county center (Provo). Many are concerned about the wetlands and the destruction that will be caused to them. Others are concerned with traffic congestion and ease of access to Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs. Below is a map of the future roads in Eagle Mountain. It is still a small community but with rapid growth, new, main roads need to be constructed.

Voting Districts

I don't know about everyone else but isn't it a hassle trying to find what voting district you're in. I came up with the idea to help the citizens out by placing clear and easy to read maps on the internet. Each household's address was also uploaded into the data base so eventually they can go to the city's website, type in their address, and immediately find out what district they're a part of. We would like to eventually get to the point where a person can hover over their neighborhood with a mouse and all the information they needed would pop up. But that will have to wait till the city buys new servers to support the data... and that is probably not going to happen soon due to budget constraints.

Career Fair

Towards the end of September I attended a career fair at BYU. The atmosphere inside the room is electric because of the number and quality of the businesses that show up to recruit. For 2010, BYU was ranked #11 for recruitment. It was amazing to be apart of such a quality university that draws in top businesses from around the country.

I went there mainly looking for government jobs (which there weren't any) but I was able to speak to a couple recruiters that would allow me to exercise my urban planning skills and future MPA skills. I love going to job fairs and it gives me a chance to look into my future to see what all this schooling will actually help me do.

Bug Problems

The area surrounding Eagle Mountain had a major bug problem that they haven't seen in over 50 years. Millions of crickets and other bugs have nestled into the brush that is located throughout the town. Many residents are calling for the city to cut down this brush so the bugs would leave but cutting down the brush would only cause the insects to go into people's yards and houses. If you take away the bug's home they have to go somewhere. This caused some major frustration with the citizens but there wasn't a whole lot the city could do to rid the city of bugs. It was just a phenomenon that happens every 50 years or so. Next year they shouldn't see nearly as many around town.

Snow Removal Priority

These maps were not only used for residents but the public service/maintainance workers as well. These help display the order in which the roads are plowed. Obviously, priority goes to the main roads.

Flood in Eagle Mountain

This flood caused great damage to several homes in Eagle Mountain. The problem was that there were two separate 200 year storms within 4 days of each other. Several residents complained to the city that it was the city's fault that their houses were flooded. They said their houses were not built to code and because of that their houses were ruined. They were expecting the city's insurance to pay for the damages. This is an argument that I do not agree with. No matter how well your house is built, if there are 2 separate 200 year storms within 4 days of each other then your house is going to be flooded. There isn't anything you can do about that. There were several heated debates at city council and town hall meetings where citizens were furious. Take a look at the flooding in these next couple videos.





The local NBC news station covered the storm and show some pretty amazing images of what happened. Take a look at these links to read the news stories and videos. The both storms dropped about 2.5 inches of rain in just 15 minutes. This storm was extremely strong.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=11808415

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=11886051

Fire in north Eagle Mountain

In July there was a wildfire that came close to several homes within Eagle Mountain. The fire started on Camp Williams and slowly mades its way over the hills towards the city when both Camp Williams Solidiers and Eagle Mountain Fire Department contained the fire. Several residents were frustrated wishing the city would have done more to protect their homes. But everyone came out safe and all homes were saved.

Garbage Pick Up Dates

Here are some more GIS maps depicting the different sections for garbage pick-up. Again, all the residents will be able to find this map online or they will eventually be able to type in their address into the city's website and find what day their pick-up is.

More GIS

Here are more maps I created using GIS. These maps display the days and weeks for recycle pick up around the city. Some people have asked how I was able to obtain the information and create these maps. I'll create a special post on this with a picture showing the back-end data I collected.

Our Baby Came!!!

Thanksgiving Day was an eventful one. Prior to Thursday, my wife did not sleep for 3 nights because of contractions. They were too close to let her get any sleep but far enough apart where we couldn't go into the doctor. Finally, Thursday morning came and her blood pressure was a little elevated so we decided to go into the doctor. They hooked her up to the monitor and decided to admit us. While waiting for her to be dilated enough to start pushing, my in-laws brought in Thanksgiving dinner for me to enjoy. Finally around 8:00 PM it was time to start pushing and my wife did great. She pushed for about 2.5 hours until she was no longer making progress. The doctor came in and used a vacuum and after a couple more contractions the baby came out. It was a beautiful little boy. We named him Graham Evans Turner and he weighed 8 lbs 1 oz and was 20.5 inches long. We sure do love him.