Champaign City Council convened on Tuesday night for their annual township meeting. The annual township meeting provides an opportunity for Champaign residents to vote on city resolutions. These residents must be registered and are asked to confirm their registration outside the meeting chambers.

The annual township meeting moved swiftly and was followed by a study session to choose an auditor to look over the city’s financial reports and also to provide an update on the city’s geographic information systems, or GIS.

Curtis Hinton, CEO of Geographic Technology Group, gave a presentation on the current geographic information systems in Champaign and how residents can utilize the system to their benefit.

The GIS technology compiles information about where roads are in Champaign, where crime occurs, where zoning districts are located and also shows other relevant boundaries in the city.

Hinton said the city of Champaign has been using GIS technology for the last 10 years, but the systems have really evolved in the last three years thanks to Mark Toalson, assistant information technology director.

In the past, GIS technology has only been utilized by the city for street light placement and tracking, land use planning and crime mapping.

Toalson said with the prevalence of Google and Bing Maps, the city decided it was ready to make this information available to the public.

“We’re ready to put out a test application,” he said.

Champaign city residents can access the new technology via the city’s Web site, by clicking on the maps tab.

Toalson said he is very interested to hear public feedback and he expects that there will be some glitches with the program.

Hinton said the GIS technology is comparable to Google street view but has more comprehensive information about the city of Champaign itself.

By looking at the maps, Champaign residents will be able to tell what police district they belong to, what their voting district is, what their zoning district is, and whether there are neighborhood watch groups in their area, among other things.

Eventually, each planning district will be able to see crime report summaries for their district only, rather than receiving e-mails about crime reports for the whole city, Toalson added.

Council member Marci Dodds said she was impressed by the technology but expressed concern over privacy. Toalson said that the technology will not reveal any personal information about Champaign residents and that it should be protected from hackers.

The last item on the agenda was choosing an auditor for the annual review of the city’s financial records.

It has been the city’s policy to retain a firm to do their auditing for five years and then choose another firm even when it has been satisfied with the current audit firm, said Steven Carter, city manager.

The city had proposals from six firms and each were reviewed on a number of elements, including cost.

Council members voted 6-0 to retain Martin Hood as the auditor for this year.

The next annual town meeting will be held April 12, 2011.