June 23, 2009 -- St. Charles, IL – In November 2008, Jefferson County, Colorado issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the purposes of acquiring parcel data conversion services and parcel maintenance software for their Assessor’s office. With the responsibility of parcel maintenance for more than 200,000 parcels in more than 170 taxing entities, the Jefferson County, Colorado Assessor was faced with the need to upgrade and improve the way in which this his office handled this critical need. The County and Assessor Jim Everson clearly defined their desire for a state-of-the-art solution that would support his land parcel information needs and workflow strategy. After review of the solutions offered by the vendors who responded to their RFP, Jefferson County selected The Sidwell Company to provide the parcel data conversion and parcel maintenance solution the County sought. By selecting Sidwell’s team of GIS and mapping experts, Jefferson County will be able to take advantage of the many GIS technology innovations that Sidwell has been a part of, and they will also reinvent their geodatabase design to serve their needs for many years into the future.

The Sidwell team will prepare a prototype geodatabase schema using information gathered at the County. Upon acceptance of this geodatabase, all existing cadastral data will be converted to an ESRI geodatabase feature dataset based on the tagged data model. The County also elected to purchase Sidwell’s Parcel Builder® software. Parcel Builder is a suite of software developed by Sidwell for the specific purpose of creating and maintaining cadastral maps. It is compliant with ArcGIS 9.3.1, and extends the functionality of ESRI’s ArcGIS software platform by introducing over 40 tools to improve GIS-based land records workflows.

Jefferson County has also selected Manatron as their CAMA vendor, and will benefit from the ongoing partnership between Sidwell and Manatron which will provide the County with a long-term integrated workflow solution between their GIS and CAMA data. According to John Hansen, GIS Programmer/Analyst with the Jefferson County Assessors’s Office, "Jefferson County concluded that Sidwell’s approach to GIS/CAMA integration provides the most synergy with our long-term strategic goals.” Adds Hansen, “We also concluded that the tagged-line data model is ideal because it is cartographically based, and can leverage our current data model as we transition from coverages to the geodatabase." Ultimately, Jefferson County will have a streamlined cadastral system that will support their land records management needs and help the Assessor’s staff provide the necessary services to their constituents in the most efficient manner possible.

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About Sidwell
The Sidwell Company is an employee-owned firm providing integrated land records management solutions and GIS mapping and software development to local government and private-sector organizations across the United States. Sidwell’s premier parcel mapping solution, Parcel Builder™, is currently used by over 140 customers nationwide. Sidwell also offers a full range of aerial photography and photogrammetric services, and is the Midwest Distributor for Magellan™ GPS products and solutions. For more information about Sidwell services and products, call 877.SIDWELL (877.743.9355) or visit www.sidwellco.com.