"The Award of Excellence is going to a deserving organization that is dedicated to the advancement of GIS within the organization through the development of GIS solutions and the distribution of data," said Mr. Miller. "Their enterprise work is leading edge and their efforts in facilitating these solutions, sets an example for other municipal governments across Canada."

"Our strategic plan, called Vaughan Vision 2007, is based on a commitment to service excellence that gives Vaughan a competitive edge in attracting new business to the community," said Frank Miele, the City's Commissioner of Economic/Technology Development and Communications. "We are putting into place a technology infrastructure that supports efficient delivery of services to Vaughan's 7,000 businesses and 240,000 residents."

"The mandate of our IT Services Department is to support Vaughan Vision 2007 by developing and implementing technology-based solutions that are focused on the City's business objectives," said Dimitri Yampolsky, the City's Director of Information Technology Services. "By partnering with ESRI Canada, and deploying their GIS software as the foundation for the City's Enterprise GIS, we are able to achieve our business objectives in key areas of the City's Strategic Plan. This translates into better, faster, and less costly services to our business and residential communities."

ESRI's ArcGIS software including ArcInfo, ArcEditor, ArcView, ArcIMS, and ArcSDE has been deployed throughout the municipality providing staff with the capability to improve their workflow, and provide the general public with better service by giving access to useful GIS-based information through the City's web GIS portal solutions (e.g. Vaughan Navigator, Business Site Selection, and a Development Tracking Application).

About the City of Vaughan
The City of Vaughan is located in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The City is consistently ranked within the top five Canadian municipalities in terms of development activity. Vaughan has plenty to offer to the business, resident, and tourist communities. Over 7,000 business, and 240,000 residents have chosen Vaughan as their preferred location. Access to major transportation routes, lower taxes, and a high quality of life, are just some of the reasons why the City of Vaughan is one of the fastest growing municipalities in Canada. To find out more about the City of Vaughan visit http://www.vaughan.ca/

About ESRI Canada:
Established in 1984, ESRI Canada is a Canadian owned company specializing in geographic information systems (GIS) solutions. We distribute the world's leading GIS software solutions from ESRI Inc., Miner and Miner, and Azteca. In order to provide organizations with complete industry-specific solutions we have established an extensive business partner program that includes more than 125 Canadian organizations. ESRI Canada also provides professional services including consulting, training, technical support, and enterprise GIS implementation. We are leaders in providing world-class enterprise GIS solutions for many industries including local government, utilities, public safety and defence, business demographics, education, natural resources, and transportation. ESRI Canada has thirteen regional offices across the country, with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario. For more information, please visit http://www.esricanada.com/ or call 1-800-447-9778.

To receive more information, please contact:
Heather Adams
Communications Specialist
T: 416-441-6035

Madeline Zito
Director of Corporate Communications
City of Vaughan
T: 905-832-8585 ext. 8027
W: http://www.vaughan.ca/