Present were (authorized to vote +):

Complete Meeting Agenda

MAJOR MEETING TOPICS

NOTICE OF MEETING: A public notice of the meeting, pursuant to Section 84-1411 R.R. S. 1943, was published in the Lincoln Journal-Star on Thursday, February 28, 2002.

ROLL CALL: Acting Chairperson Duane Stott called the meeting to order at approximately 1:00 p.m. There were twelve duly authorized members present therefore a quorum was present to conduct business.

MINUTES: John Miyoshi moved to approve the minutes from the December meeting. Lash Chaffin seconded the motion. The motion passed. (see vote #1 on Voting Record sheet)

I-TEAM MEETING: Larry reported that there was a good turn out for the I-Team meeting. 35 people signed in, including 11 federal agencies, 1 tribal and 2 private organizations.

Attendees affirmed the direction of the strategic plan. Four additional databases were suggested; Land Ownership, Public Utilities, Cultural/Historical Data, Weather Data. The decision was made to add the Land Ownership and Public Utilities/Communications databases as priorities.

Additional information that surfaced in the meeting included the Census Bureau being designated as the lead federal agency for legislative boundaries and transportation network.

Breakout Sessions included discussions of the hydrographic database, Transportation/Street Address database, Land Records modernization, and the GIS Clearinghouse.

Larry said that the sessions ran over and they did not have a chance to reflect on the process. He plans to schedule another I-Team meeting for six months in the future. It will be a good opportunity to check the direction the I-Team has taken.

Milt Krohn commented that Nebraska is doing a good job of creating an I-Team in comparison with the other states working on the same initiative. He was glad to see the focus on developing a plan for the Western Governor's Association.

Larry said he would transform the strategic plan into I-Team format and add financial information and lead agencies. In addition, he will include a discussion about developing a land ownership database and public utilities/communications database. The I-Team participants expressed support for creating a transportation and street address advisory committee, which will be included in the I-Team Plan, as well as a discussion of the NHD database.

The NHD database discussion will name DNR as the lead agency and cite funding that will be provided by DEQ. Larry invited all agencies to participate in the development of the NHD database. There are three primary ways to participate.

1. Financial
2. Review of data
3. Development of demonstrations of applications for use.

Mike Thompson added that the I-Team meetings were helpful to DNR and requested that agencies work on developing more demonstrations to show the practical applications and value of databases.

The I-Team plan will also include a discussion of the status of the Transportation and Street Address database. The I-Team meeting highlighted the fact that there is a fair amount of work being done to develop the street address database through the Public Service Commission and the E911 effort. GIS is not necessary for that work but it is a convenient way of getting that information developed. There has been some dialogue in this respect between the Census Bureau, USGS, the Federal Highway Commission and FEMA about some kind of standardized national transportation database.

The Dept. of Roads is working to bring in all the local roads and street and then to incorporate standard street segment and intersection identifiers.

Jim Brown expressed concern that there are a lot of roads with the same name out there and a common identifier needs to be determined. The Department of Roads has a good numbering system and could provide the best standard numbering convention.

Lash added that this is an issue that needs to be addressed quickly as many of the E911 efforts have already begun. At the very least it must be mentioned. Steve Schafer asked if setting the common identifier is something that needs to be done now or if it can be done as part of the advisory committee's work. Kim Menke said it needs to happen now because in spite of the need for coordination, there has been little occurring.

Duane added that a map of the work already done in other counties would be helpful.

E911 appears to be driving addressing efforts in rural areas but no one has taken the lead to coordinate these efforts.

Larry said he would draft a resolution to create an advisory committee to investigate this issue for the next meeting. Lash, Jim Langtry and Dick agreed explore these issues in the interim.

LAND RECORD MODERNIZATION: The grant money should be available soon to begin work on this project. A consultant will be hired to study structural and policy issues surrounding land record modernization in Nebraska. The study will follow the concept outlined in the Project Charter for a Nebraska Land Records Modernization Study that has been approved by the GIS Steering Committee. The proposed Advisory Committee consists of Jim Brown, Cathy Lang, Duane Stott, Dan Hoffman and Steve Schafer.

Steve Henderson has signed the paperwork needed to begin drafting an RFP to locate a consultant to begin the project.

John Miyoshi moved to adopt the draft resolution with a wording change of 'roughly' to 'generally'. Jim Langtry seconded. Steve Schafer asked if the membership of the committee was broad enough or if it needed to be expanded. The Committee chair was given the authority to add members as needed. The motion passed. (see vote #2 on Voting Record sheet)

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON FACILITATING GEOSPATIAL DATA SHARING: Larry explained that the Adv. Cmte. had met once.  There was a broad consensus on the need to enhance the existing clearinghouse structure and services, but also an appreciation of the limited resources that are available at this time.  Larry indicated that he had been tasked to develop a survey to identify what spatial data is currently available and to research other state's approaches to data sharing. Larry indicated that so far in this research of other states, he has found a wide variety of services offered and structures to facilitate data sharing.  However, he indicated he has found some good models from which we can learn. The I-Team also expressed an interest in developing a survey of what databases are needed but he is not sure how to get the survey done. Efforts will be made to see if these two efforts can be accomplished at the same time.

NDOR CLASSIFICATION: Dick reported that the players have been identified but no meetings have been held yet.

GIS/LIS ASSOCIATION: Ed Kelley reported that the newsletter has been mailed for the last time. It will now be available online. Email notification will be given if members register for it.

The annual membership drive is underway. The current membership stands at 320-350 members. February 28 was the deadline but that has been extended to the end of March. Brochures are still available.

Individual Memberships are $35.
Student Memberships are $15.
Agency Memberships are $150.

Elections are now being held. There are several vacancies on the board. Three member seats are available as well President, Treasurer, and Secretary. Ballots will be due March 25 and the results will be announced at the May Annual Meeting to be held the day after the GIS Steering Committee Meeting.

The Mid America GIS Symposium will be held in Kansas City in mid April.

There have been several regional meetings held. Attendance has averaged about 40 people at the Lincoln forum, 27 at the Omaha start up meeting, 20 at the Grand Island meeting. There will be another meeting in Kearney next week.

Future Events
The 2003 GIS Symposium will be held May 13, 14, 15. Jim Merchant will be calling the Cornhusker to begin making arrangements for the conference. They already have some big name speakers in mind for the symposium.

The 2003 Regional ESRI Users Conference will be held in Omaha on May 14, 2003.

AGENCY REPORTS: Alan reported that the Public Power District has obtained formal board approval for a GIS in their retail division. They will be selecting a vendor and moving forward on obtaining a system designed to track and maintain lines. The most important effect this will have is to expose the company to GIS and the potential benefits and uses of it. Steve Schafer asked if they would be developing databases to be shared. Alan said that the databases they develop will be available but only to a limited extent due to homeland security issues.

John Miyoshi reported that Ryan Axman has their Internet Mapping service up. They are hoping to put up the Farm Service Agency color photos. The wellhead protection contaminant database is online also.

Duane reported that Scott Bluff County's E911 mapping system is up.

Steve Fredrickson reported that his agency is working on a proposal to use anti terrorism money on GIS. They would be interested in sharing any data possible. The will be developing data on everything they use but do not plan to use a GIS coordinator as they are looking to create a one time infrastructure enhancement.

Kim reported that 72 counties have been SSURGO certified, 6 are in process.

The well registration process needs to be revisited. Well contractors will obtain the GPS lat/log but they do not know what the township or range is. A system has been devised to determine from lat/log coordinates what that information is using DNR's section corners.

The Salt Creek NHD digitizing is complete and the Elk Horn NHD project is 20% complete.

Dick reported that they are in the process of turning county road maps into vector maps. Twenty counties are still to be done. They plan to have those complete by June. Roads is moving into the implementation phase of their strategic plan.

Jim Brown reported that next week he will be attending the Western Governor's cadastral meeting.

Field boundaries from the Farm Service Bureau will be coming available. The State Surveyor's office will be getting the Dodge County boundaries and comparing them to their own to determine accuracy.

Dick announced that the next meeting will be moved to East Campus due to scheduling conflicts.

The meeting was adjourned.

"P"=present, "A"=absent, "+"=voting for, "-"=voting against, "NV"=not voting