The Brighton Township Board of Trustees in May approved a resolution expressing their desire to transfer their addressing duties to Livingston County’s Information Technology Department; more specifically its Geographic Information Systems, or GIS, Division.

The division is responsible for assigning addresses to the majority of the municipalities within the county; though currently the City of Brighton and Howell, and Hamburg, Unadilla and Howell Townships, all issue their own. Though Brighton Township is technically still a part of that list, their board’s resolution looking to hand off their addressing duties came before the county’s Health and Human Services Committee Monday and passed unanimously. It must receive the Board of Commissioner’s approval before the change is made official.

A representative from the department spoke to commissioners at their meeting, saying they can maintain greater consistency by assuming Brighton Township’s addressing responsibilities. The representative says it also makes logical sense as the department has to validate the information sent to them by the local units by essentially assigning an address and check it against what the township has done, before it can even be put into their database. CIO Richard Malewicz says performing the township’s addressing will only minimally add to their workload, and will bring in between $1,600 to $2,000 in revenue from the municipality.

GIS is said to have a number of benefits, including better record-keeping and accuracy, as the technology system captures and stores geographic data, which is presented in a mapped format. (DK)