CRESTVIEW — It took nine months and countless hours’ research, but for the first time in 15 years city officials and staffers can glance at a map and see the municipal boundaries.
The City Council last week unanimously accepted the updated map and approved having future updates added within 30 days of approved changes, such as annexations.
Teresa Gaillard, the Administrative Services Department’s mapping analyst and city planner, spearheaded the project to produce an accurate city map.
“ … She went back and researched all the ordinances and everything,” City Clerk Betsy Roy said. “Now, going forward, she’ll be able to update the map without going through the council. Now it can be updated whenever there’s an annexation.”
City Attorney Jerry Miller expressed concern about the lack of an updated city map when he started work last spring. Last week he called failure to update the map a “ministerial deficiency.”
“Knowing exactly where your city limits are and having them described in a uniform way is critical to so many jurisdictional issues,” he said.
He called the previous map, which lacked updates on annexations, comprehensive plan amendments and rezoning, “an absolute heyday for any (legal) challenges.”
From 2004 to 2010, Crestview had more than doubled its acreage, but updates to the previous map did not keep pace with the city’s growth, Roy said.
Land surveyor Kermit George produced Crestview’s last comprehensive map in 1998. It had been sporadically but not comprehensively updated since then, Roy stated in a meeting agenda brief.
Crestview News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes can be reached at 850-682-6524 or brianh@crestviewbulletin.com. Follow him on Twitter @cnbBrian.