By Tracy Overstreet
tracy.overstreet@theindependent.com

As Grand Island's cartographer for four decades, he has literally evolved from a triangle and T-square map maker to a proficient computerized mapper.

"It's a little quicker on the computer, but in some ways drawing it up on the board was easier there are so many settings on the computer," Maslonka said from his second-floor office in Grand Island City Hall.

Regional Planning Director Chad Nabity said besides Maslonka's efficiency at map-making, he's a walking book of knowledge when it comes to land use and development in Hall County because he remembers things so well from his 40 years of service.

Maslonka started work in Grand Island Jan. 29, 1968 a mere 22-year-old not long out of Columbus' architectural drafting school and from his first full-time job with a Columbus architectural firm.

He joined the Regional Planning Department itself just a fledging organization about a year old.

There, under the direction of then-Regional Planning Director Nelson Helm, Maslonka worked on subdivision maps, lot layouts and elevation maps for Grand Island, Hall County and the county's other incorporated areas the city of Wood River and villages of Alda, Cairo and Doniphan.

Maslonka worked from a drafting table using rule and scale. On mylar maps, he tirelessly used a Leroy lettering set to ink in street names, ownership titles and thousands of intricate measurements.

"I just keep it up to date," Maslonka said of his many maps.

For Grand Island, that keeping up-to-date has meant mapping the growth from a population of 30,000 to a city now pushing 50,000.

Maslonka recalls standing on the Highway 30 overpass and looking out to the north to just a few lights marking county farmsteads.

Now the entire area is a sea of street lights, intersection signals and the high-rise of a hospital that gives way to Grand Island's fastest-growing retail and residential areas.

It's growth that Maslonka said is best plotted out on a 42-inch-by-46-inch map.

"Everybody wants a small map an 812-by-11 with the whole city on it. That's fine I can reduce it down. But you will need good eyes," he said with a chuckle.

Maslonka's map-making goes to benefit every city, county and village department.

"Every time you see me go to the city council with a PowerPoint on conditional use permit or cell phone towers, Ed has done that," said Grand Island Building Department Director Craig Lewis.

"He does an excellent job and he has for years. He's a good individual," Lewis said. "He has a good work ethic and he's willing to help out when you need someone to help."

That includes work for the city Utilities Department, which covers half of Maslonka's salary, as he helps with utility maps.

"He's done a lot of the work on the subdivisions and joint maps used throughout the city," said Tom Barnes, the civil engineering manager for the Utilities Department.

"He does a lot of work on the GIS (Geographic Information System) so all that stuff is conducive to go into Mapsifter and it helps us to keep our records updated," Barnes said. "Ed has a real good knowledge of ownership, parcels, where subdivisions and lots are in the city it's invaluable to know those references."

Barnes said Maslonka also has a good reference for how land was used in the past, how it lays out and what its strongest future uses might be.

Parks and Recreation Director Steve Paustian said Maslonka's knowledge of the past has helped the Parks Department.

"He may say, 'That used to be a dump site or you need to make sure there are no foundation remnants there,'" Paustian said.

Paustian said Maslonka is also key to the future.

"So many times in the Parks Department, a picture is worth a thousand words a new park, a new trail layout, the layout for an irrigation system," Paustian said.

Maslonka has helped with that layout and often creates it via aerial photographs, which give a better appreciation of the scope, size and area and save making tedious measurements by hand at a site.

"It's a tremendous time saver," Paustian said.

Maslonka zips around City Hall on a Jazzy a remnant of a childhood bout with polio past walls and map cabinets full of his work.

He has worked with three planning directors Helm, Dave Barber and Nabity and at various Planning Department office sites, including one at the Yancey Hotel. That was in the early 1970s when county officials feared having the Regional Planning Department officed in Grand Island City Hall would show preference to the city.

"Later, the city and county kissed and made up and they put us back in City Hall," Maslonka said.

He's done countless research on annexation, made police maps, fire maps, traffic maps and has answered endless questions about whether homes are in or out of the floodplain.

He has color-coded countless city and village maps red for businesses, orange for apartments and duplexes, blue for industrial properties, green for public and government parcels and yellow for single-family housing areas.

Besides map-making, Maslonka loves listening to oldies, watching the History Channel and collecting tractors.

"I spent a lot of time on them as a kid," he recalls of tractors. "Out in the fields corn, wheat, alfalfa, milo some beans later on."

He was the baby of the family, with two older sisters to keep him in tow, growing up on the family farm near Fullerton, where he graduated from Fullerton High School.

While he used to own full-sized tractors, he now sticks to model versions that dot his office. John Deere is among his favorite and most collected.

City staff practically needed a tractor to haul Maslonka in to his own recognition ceremony held recently before the Grand Island City Council to honor his long tenure.

He's a shy and modest one that pays little heed to accolades and attention.

While most folks know him best as "Ed in the Planning Department," for the record, his last name, Maslonka, is Polish and translates into English as "buttermilk."

When pronounced correctly, the "s" has a kind of "z" buzz and the "lon" has the emphasis.

While those outside of City Hall may not recognize his face, many bankers offering loans on homes in the floodplains know his voice well.

And anyone who has looked at a map of Grand Island; driven on the city's streets; visited or bought a home here; shopped, worked or farmed in Hall County; walked on a city/county trail; or called from a cell phone in the area has benefited from the work of Ed "the map maker" Maslonka.