Complete Meeting Agenda

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, May 2, 2002.

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

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

UPDATE ON STATUS OF USGS GRANT AND NEBR. LAND RECORD MODERNIZATION STUDY: The grant from the USGS has been received. The RFP has been released and is now posted. Some interest has already been expressed from various companies.

The plan is to have the project completed in just under one year. The targeted completion date is scheduled for July 1.

The next phase will involved developing scoring or evaluation criteria. This will be followed by the actual review of any proposals received in response to the RFP and selecting a vendor.  Larry suggested that it would be easier to manage the review process if the Steering Committee authorized a Selection Committee to conduct the proposal review and make final select of a vendor.   Larry noted that based on coversations he has had with interested Committee members, he was proposing the following members for a Selection Committee that would be authorized to conduct the proposal review and make final selection of the preferred vendor:  Jim Brown, State Surveyor; Duane Stott, Scottsbluff Surveyor; Dan Hoffman, Governor's Policy Office; Jim Koch, Property Assessment and Taxation; and Larry Zink, GIS Steering Committee Coordinator. 

John Erickson noted that it was likely that he would be taking on Dan Hoffman's role of representing PRO on the Steering Committee.  In response, Larry suggested that John Erickson should probably replace Dan Hoffman on the Selection Committee.

Steve Schafer moved to approve the Selection Committee as proposed by Larry Zink. Dick Genrich seconded. Steve amended his motion to allow the Selection Committee's chair to appoint any additional members as needed. The motion passed. (see vote #2 on Voting Record sheet)

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON FACILITING GEOSPATIAL DATA SHARING: Steve Schafer reported that the committee met again. They have made progress in identifying some of the specific tasks they will be undertaking. They are moving forward on metadata and identifying partnerships. There will be one more meeting to determine a future direction. All information including minutes are available at http://www.calmit.unl.edu/gis/Data_Sharing_Adv_Cmte_Index.htm .

NDOR CLASSIFICATION: Dick reported that Jon Ogden has turned this committee back over to Dick. They will begin work again next week.

Larry added that there is considerable interest in GIS certification at the national level, particularly by a group called URIS, Urban Regional Information Systems. The debate is largely a question of the value of academics versus practical experience.

2002-2003 PROPOSED MEETING SCHEDULE:   Larry called attention to the list of proposed meeting dates. Larry noted that most (except one) of the proposed meeting dates are scheduled on the first Thursday and in the Nebraska Department of Roads Auditorium.  The main execption to this was the September meeting, in which there is a scheduling conflict with at the Dept. of Roads.  Larry noted that this is further complicated by the fact that we also have an I-Team meeting scheduled for the day before. Larry proposed moving both meetings back one day and then they could both still be held at the Dept. of Roads.   There was some concern expressed regarding the change of date for the September meeting and it was requested that the possibility of alternative sites might be explored so that we could keep the Thursday date.  Larry agreed to explore other possible meeting places.

The meeting schedule was accepted as proposed by Larry, with the cavet of further research on the Sept. meeting date and place.

STREET ADDRESS DATABASE: At the last meeting, there was discussion about the various agencies that have done or are in the process of doing work on this database, i.e. the Public Service Commission is involved in helping to support two E-911 efforts, one for land lines and one for celluar. The federal government has committed itself to a major modernization of the TIGER data. The Department of Justice has express possible interest in helping to support a regional standardization effort of street address information and local government's need for this information is increasing.

There is little or no coordination among these initiatives and agencies, in part because there is no logical lead agency. Larry drafted a resolution to create an Advisory Committee on Street Address Databases.

There are a number of agencies that have a felt need for this information but none have made development of this database a priority. Consequently, there is still no lead agency and it is difficult to make progress on a coordinated effort without one. If a coordinated effort is not undertaken, there is the potential of missing the opportunity to apply homeland security funding to this objective as well as wasting opportunities to leverage money already allocated to the development of this data.

Steve Schafer offered to facilitate meetings of an Advisory Committee but as his agency is not an operational agency he would not be able to coordinate the efforts. Jim Brown proposed that rather than form a formal committee, an informal meeting of representatives from Civil Defense, State Fire Marshal's Office, HHS, and PRO should get together for a meeting to discuss how to proceed. Anyone would be eligible to attend, private sector entities, counties, Census, etc. simply to get the stakeholders talking. It was suggested that John Erickson, PRO, and Larry Zink take the lead in pulling this ad hoc committee together.

Larry commented that the Census Bureau has been designated as the lead agency to develop a National Transportation database. They have committed to a major upgrade in the TIGER data files.

Stu Sutherland suggested the utilities would be a good resource to tap for this effort. The entire database is organized by address and they might have some input on how to put something like this together.

ELECTION OF OFFICERS: Election of officers will take place at the next meeting.

GIS/LIS ASSOCIATION: Ed Kelley reported that the next GIS/LIS Association meeting will take place May 10 at the University of Nebraska Omaha. This will be the Annual Meeting, and consist of a full agenda including an Association meeting and two break out sessions in the afternoon. The topic of one of the sessions will be planning the GIS Symposium for next year and the other will be on the Education and Certification of GIS positions. All are invited to attend.

John Miyoshi pointed out that in the past, the Steering Committee has traditionally held it's May meeting in conjunction with the Symposium. In order to accomplish that, the May meeting date will need to be changed. The Committee agreed to change the date to coincide with the GIS Symposium.

AGENCY REPORTS: Jim Brown reported that his agency has been learning how to do property parcels and are now moving into a more proactive role. They are working on an agreement with Gage and Kearney Counties to facilitate data sharing. They are aware that public information must be shared, but still plan to draft an agreement simply to remove any ambiguity. It will be very simple and state that any information developed as a result of their combined efforts will be equally shared between them.

John Miyoshi said they are trying to hire a GIS person.

Steve Fredrickson said they (HHS) are in the beginning stages of making their database information publicly available.

Alan Beierman said they have released an RFP aimed at developing a GIS for their a retail system.

Mark Kuzila said CALMIT has been working extensively with COHYST, mainly on land use. They are currently in the process of developing a cost analysis on landslides using GIS.

Mike Thompson gave a progress report on the NRC efforts. The 10 meter DEMs will be completed tomorrow. They went online with well registration in January in an effort to make location verification easier and they are working to improve Internet access to their data. They are improving flood mapping information and their efforts have been recognized by FEMA. Sarpy County has received a $25,000 grant for GIS use. They are working to GPS the section corners. They are estimating one year to eighteen months to complete the county. Some of the A and E firms are using GPS to resection the corners and are having some success with that.

Jim added that Gage County is coming in to the State Surveyor's office for training on the PLS layer.

Mark added that they have been in contact with Luis Hernandez, the new state soil conservationist. They have traditionally had some difficulty getting their maps out to the public and are now working with Luis to get those out on CD-ROM. They are planning to publish five per year.

OTHER BUSINESS: Larry said that he approached NACO about making a couple of presentations at their meeting, one on the street address database and the other about hiring a land records modernization.

The data sharing cooperative has been on the back burner because the legislature passed the open records act. Prompted by Jim Brown's agreement, Larry asked if there was a need to readdress that issue. Jim offered to share the document they are using. Stu suggested it not be made an issue if it is not necessary. Jim agreed but said they wanted the agreement to be documented. Larry explained that the benefit of the New York model is that it would standardize the agreement.

Bill Sheldon pointed out that it might become important with the development of the street address database as that might be construed as a customer list and therefore would be exempt from the open records act.

Jim Brown said they were not trying to keep anyone from making money they simply wanted it to be clear that any data developed jointly would be shared.

Larry Worrell said that drafting an agreement of this type was not high on the list of priorities.

Larry Zink brought up the discussion about a possible seat on the Steering Committee for NEMA. They appear to be making a significant commitment to GIS and one that could affect many of the agencies already on the Steering Committee. There was discussion previously on this topic and some concern that the state/local balance of representation would be skewed. This will require a statutory change.

Jim Brown commented that this could be a broader issue also involving all federal agencies acting as lead entities for respective framework database. This would include the Bureau of Land Management, USGS, Census etc.

Erik Hubl said that the FSA deserves recognition for the quality of the 2 meter resolution color data product they have produced. They have flown 26 counties in Nebraska and 25 in Kansas.

Committee members are reminded to add the new meeting schedule to their calendars.

The meeting was adjourned.

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