May 2006

In the past decade, Pacific County has seen many changes in the methods used to create and disseminate information.  In 1996 a GIS program began and was followed by a decade of creating spatial data. During this process, many of the counties information systems and data have been converted from paper to computer.  Over the last five years these data have been integrated throughout the county departments in the form of map information, databases and GIS applications.  As a result, over the years things have changed, in part due to the dramatic increase in the efficiency of GIS to disseminate land ownership, political boundaries and other geographic information on request. 

During this time period, the population of Pacific County has been given a geography lesson.  Because of the inherent ability of GIS to disseminate information and the positive personality of its staff, everyone has gained a new perspective about the place they live, the community they live in and its relationship to other communities. No longer does anyone need to guess the population or determine often complicated relationships between often vague geographic boundaries. The days of making the best guess have been replaced with the power to quickly quantify and analyze any geography with ever increasing efficiency and accuracy.

Over time, more demand has been placed on Pacific County to provide GIS service which may include a map, data or some kind of geographic analysis. People have become dependant on GIS to supply them with information every day. For the public, the need to physically go to the courthouse for public records and geographic information is going away