Granbury council approves GIS inventory of electric system to guide repairs and upgrades

The Granbury City Council approved an engineering services proposal to perform a GIS-based inventory and condition assessment of the city’s electric distribution system and authorized the city manager to execute the contract.

The inventory will locate every city-owned pole, photograph attached equipment and franchise attachments, and record locations with sub-centimeter accuracy to support a five-year capital-improvement plan, a council member said. "We're doing a GIS-level inventory of our complete municipal electric distribution system," the council member said, describing the work as a necessary update to records the city says are no longer accurate.

Why it matters: The mapping and condition scoring are intended to identify deteriorated poles, transformers and conductors so the city can prioritize replacements and reduce the risk of unexpected outages and costly emergency repairs. The proposal includes a separate $20,000 component to inventory franchise attachments on poles — equipment owned by third parties that pay monthly fees for pole use — work the council member said will likely produce a return when reconciled against fees.

What the council approved: The contract calls for crews to locate city poles, score the condition of pole-mounted equipment, photograph attachments and integrate multiple data layers into ArcGIS, the software the city will use to view and query the results. The council member described the intended mapping precision as within about 8 millimeters and said results will feed a comprehensive five-year plan.

The agenda item identifies the proposer as "Synergy LLC," while the motion as read at the meeting referred to "SE Energy LLC." The council did not provide further clarification of the company name during discussion.

Motion and vote: The mayor asked for a motion to approve the engineering proposal and authorize execution of the services agreement. Mister O'Bondier moved the motion; Mister O'Byrdure seconded. The mayor recorded the vote and said, "I hear no nays," and the motion passed unanimously (6-0).

Comments and next steps: A council member noted the approvals that night represented large investments tied to the city's growth and referenced a cumulative figure of $57,800,000 for items approved at the meeting. The council authorized the city manager to execute the engineering service proposal; no timeline for completion of the inventory was specified during the discussion.

The council then prepared to move into executive session.