All:
I have recently stepped into a GIS position for a county government planning agency in New Jersey. I have spent my first week reviewing and analyzing workflows and geodatabase structures and have come to the conclusion that the database design needs to be scrapped and rebuilt from the bottom-up. With that being said, some of the long term goals that have been established for the department includes the implementation of ArcGIS Online services for the purposes of promoting community outreach and establishing sets of publicly accessible data as well as providing the ability for both local government entities and citizens to interact with online mapping datasets.
I have been exploring ways of redesigning the current database and reorganizing data that can be salvaged. I came across the local government add-on for ArcGIS and I am trying to decide if this could be the key to reaching the departments long term vision. Obviously, the integrity of its use is wholly dependent upon a cohesive database design for all the necessary data; i.e. parcels, open space, point data, etc. I am curious to find out how much success other government agencies have had in utilizing the local government tool in managing their parcel frameworks, etc. Is this a worthy and effective solution to managing large data sets associated with parcels, infrastructure, promoting web applications, and things of that sort?
If you are at all familiar with New Jersey and parcel availability, you will know that much has been digitized but has a significant lag time in correlation with the publication/release of MODIV data. MODIV data is publicly available tax information that ties in with block-lot information through unified codes ("Municipal Code"_"Block"_"Lot"). How easy is it to manipulate parcel data in conjunction with joined database's such as NJ's MODIV?
I am aware that this is a lot of largely incoherent rambling but I am simply trying to assess the value of utilizing the local government add-on as a comprehensive solution to maintaining some portions of our database. Any input or successes related to its implementation would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Jason