FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

City of Morgantown Honored for Special Achievement in GIS

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Esri, the global leader in location intelligence, presented the City of Morgantown with Esri's Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award on July 12, 2021, at the annual Esri User Conference, which was presented in a completely virtual format. Selected from over 300,000 eligible candidates, the City of Morgantown received the award for its innovative use of mapping and analytics technology to balance the seven City wards.

The Morgantown Ward and Boundary Commission is required to maintain the balance of all seven city wards in population and the number of registered voters, typically through biennial analyses of the wards. Historical attempts to do so were cumbersome and time consuming. Utilizing GIS technologies, the Commission was able to quickly analyze the effects of different ward boundaries with respect to population and registered voters, and ultimately approved a much more balanced ward map that focused on natural boundaries while avoiding dissecting the City's major neighborhoods.

The SAG Awards are intended to demonstrate an appreciation for organizations using GIS to understand complex data and meet challenges around the world. Jack Dangermond, Esri founder and president said "As always, I am honored to present these awards to all the organizations recognized for the bold examples they set applying geospatial technologies to their important work in the government, business, and nonprofit sectors."

“I am honored to have helped the City of Morgantown win a SAG Award in our GIS program’s infancy,” said Marvin Davis, GIS Analyst. “The project for the Ward and Boundary Commission carried so much importance and I am thrilled that ESRI acknowledged the success story of GIS being used from beginning to end in balancing our wards. It is my goal to have many more success stories worthy of a SAG Award in our implementation of GIS across all departments in the coming years.”

The City of Morgantown was one of 193 organizations to be honored. Esri staff annually nominate hundreds of candidates from around the world for consideration, and Dangermond selects the finalists.

For more information on how the City of Morgantown is innovating through the use of geospatial technology, visit https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c51e162208004cc8b514407627d27367

###