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, June 28, 2001.

ROLL CALL: Larry announced that Chairperson Jim Brown would be late and that Vice Chairperson Duane Stott would be unable to attend the meeting. Mark Kuzila was designated acting Chairperson until Jim's arrival and called the meeting to order at approximately 1:00 pm. Eleven duly authorized representatives were present at the time of the roll call. Therefore, a quorum was present to conduct business.

MINUTES: Acting Chairperson Mark Kuzila asked for any comments or corrections on the minutes from the March meeting. There were none. John Miyoshi moved to approve the minutes as submitted. Tom Lamberson seconded. The motion passed(see vote #1 on Voting Record sheet).

PUBLIC COMMENTS: There were no public comments.

NATIONAL HYDROGRAPHIC DATASET:
a. Status of Current NHD Pilot Project (Logan Creek). Larry announced that this project is close to completion.  The main hurdle is getting the time and attention from the USGS personnel for final evaluation.

b.  Status of LPN NRD Salt Creek Watershed Project. Because the funding to develop this dataset for the entire state is not available at this point, funding for additional watersheds is being sought on an individual basis. The intent is to maintain both the interagency interest and momentum that has been generated in developing this database. John Miyoshi, Lower Platte North NRD has applied for and received a grant to fund the development of a second watershed, Salt Creek - Wahoo Watershed. This is to be a joint project of DNR, CSD and the Lower Platte NRD and will be a first trial of the efficacy of using student digitizers.

c. NITC State Council Collaborative Grant Fund Application. According to Steve Schafer, there is an additional grant opportunity available through the State Government Council for collaborative projects that might be used to develop another watershed. Larry indicated that the NHD working group was interested in applying for a State Government Collaborative Grant for further NHD development and that the Dept. of Natural Resoucres would probably take the lead in applying for an NHD grant.  Larry Zink asked if there was any possibility of obtaining financial support, in the range of $5,000, from other interested agencies. It was Larry opinion that the ability to place collaborative money on the table will strength the Committee's position with the NITC and improve the chances of obtaining funds from them. There was a generally positive response from the Committee. Tom suggested approaching the NRD's with potential watersheds to be developed for funding.

Larry offered for the Committee's consideration a resolution confirming the Steering Committee's endorsement of the NHD project, the specific NITC grant application, and worded in a general enough fashion to allow it to be used by anyone applying for money related to the development of the NHD database.

Mark Kuzila suggested applying for trust grants from the Environmental Trust Fund which are required to be dispersed across the state. Larry indicated that the working group had considered this possibility but had gotten some negative feedback regarding the likely of funding this type of project.  John Miyoshi agreed to follow up on that.

John Miyoshi moved to approve the resolution. Tom Lamberson seconded. Steve Schafer commented that while he strongly supports this effort, he will abstain from voting due to a conflict of interest. The motion passed (see vote #2 on Voting Record sheet).

Larry also shared with the Committee an NHD strategy paper that had been drafted for Rep. Bereuter's consideration in support of funding for statewide development of NHD.  The response from Rep. Bereuter was apparently very on the concept, but that the budget was very tight at this point.  Steve Schafer indicated that he really liked the way this statewide proposal was put together.

DEVELOPING AN I TEAM: Larry gave some general background about the I-Team concept as it was developed by the US Office of Management and Budget.   Larry noted that the general thrust of this effort is to facilitate and encourage the development and implementation of intergovernmental plans for the collaborative development of core Framework geospatial data.  Larry also noted that the feedback he has received is that the Steering Committee's Strategic Plan is precisely the right direction to go to begin development of an I-Team in Nebraska.

During the last meeting, the USGS set forth a proposal to work with the Steering Committee in getting an I-Team plan created. Pending Steering Committee approval, they will allocate one of their staff member's (Shelley Silich) time toward that endeavor, as well as pay any expenses she might incur through September 30th. In addition, there is $50,000 of additional federal funds available for use by the Steering Committee for efforts directed toward developing or implementing an I-Team.  The one except is that these funds can not be used for data development.

The Steering Committee elected to have the Executive Committee look into this issue. The Executive Committee determined it was in the Steering Committee's best interest to accept the proposal advanced by the USGS. Shelley will be asked to focus her efforts on converting the Strategic Plan into I-Team verbage and to arrange a second meeting of federal agency representatives. The federal representatives meeting will serve two functions; it will allow the Steering Committee to better assess opportunities for collaboration and funding and it will allow the selection of a new federal representative to replace Nathan McCaleb who has been reassigned out of the state.

At this point, the Steering Committee needs to take formal action to adopt a resolution to develop an I-Team and to accept the USGS proposal.

Lash Chaffin moved for the Steering Committee to develop an I-Team for Nebraska and adopt an I-Team Proposal paper outlining the Steering Committee's intent. Steve Schafer seconded. The motion passed (see vote #3 on Voting Record sheet).

Lash Chaffin moved to adopt a resolution outlining the Steering Committee's acceptance of the USGS proposal. Dick Genrich seconded. The motion passed (see vote #4 on Voting Record sheet).

Jim Brown offered the following options discussed at the Executive Committee meeting as possible uses for the available $50,000.

- Travel expenses
- Meeting of federal agencies
- Pilot project for well based mapping
- Development of a model inter-local agreement
- Education and outreach
- Consultant to develop a model for creating regional map centers
- Enhancing current clearinghouse
- Exploration of web mapping with possible support from the Emergency Response Team

Jim Brown noted the benefit of hiring a consultant to draft a model regional map center is that no one agency will have the resources to do this and will directly address completion of one of the Steering Committee's goals, assistance to local government. If this concept is ever to seriously be broached with legislators and the Governor, the Steering Committee must have a detailed plan with estimated costs to present to them.

Steve Peasley stated his opinion that another issue that could and should be addressed is enhancement of the state's geospatial clearinghouse.  Steve suggested that regional GIS centers will depend on the clearinghouse to find and share data. Larry agreed that clearinghouse is in definite need of improvement and noted that this issue was also raised in the Strategic Plan the Steering Committee adopted last year.  

Jim Brown also agreed that the clearinghouse is in need work.  Jim stated his belief, that in hindsight, the Steering Committee probably made a mistake when it decided to base its clearinghouse on Nebraska Online, when it was transferred from the Nebraska Library Commisison. To be effective and current, the clearinghouse needs at least a minimal level of on-going support. With the clearinghouse based just on Nebraska Online, the needed institutional/staff support is just not available. Jim raised the question as to whether the Dept. of Natural Resources would be will to take on the responsibility of hosting and maintaining the entire state geospatial data clearinghouse, instead of just their Data Bank Clearinghouse.

Brian Dunnigan indicated that he would raise this issue with the DNR directors.

Jim Brown also noted that the USGS money is to assist in the completion of a one-time project rather than to provide an ongoing funding source. Jim stated his view that study on the development of Regional Mapping Centers would be a finite project while the Clearinghouse is an ongoing concern. In the course of the on-going discussion, it was agreed that Steering Committee needed to focus some attention on enhancing the Clearinghouse and that the Executive Committee was probably a place to begin that discussion.

Tom Lamberson moved to submit the following as potential projects to the USGS and to empower the Executive Committee to work with USGS to further define a specific proposal.

1. Land Records Modernization to include hiring a consultant to develop a model regional GIS center.
2. Use of GIS for Emergency Planning and Response.

Lash Chaffin seconded. The motion passed (see vote #5 on Voting Record sheet).

NEBRASKA GIS/LIS ASSOCIATION: No representative was present to give an update.

Steve Schafer asked if there was any word about the success of the symposium. Larry indicated while he didn't have the exact figures available, he thought that overall most folks felt that the Symposium was a great success.   It was his understanding that overall the Association's Symposium budget was comfortably in black overall, but they did have some higher that expected expenses due to the large mailing list. Mark Kuzila seconded his concern about the size and cost of the GIS mailing list.  Larry reported on current discussions of ways to pare down the list and maybe move to electronic copies of the newsletter. Lash offered to assume the cost of mailing to municipalities if a list could be prepared separately.

STATE TRIBAL GI WORKSHOP: Larry reminded the Committee that he has been invited to participate in the State Tribal Workshop that will be held on August 21 and 22 at the EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Larry said that this regional forum was being underwritten by the FGDC and was being organized by the GIS coordinator from New Jersey.  Larry invited anyone with concerns or suggestions in this area to share them with him prior to this meeting.  Mark Kuzila indicated that he would check on information that might be useful related to available funding related to Native American colleges.

REPORTS ON GIS ACTIVITIES FROM MEMBER AGENCIES: Tom Lamberson announced that he has been appointed to the National Data Standards Committee and commented that one main priority for them seems to be locational standards. They may be interested in utilizing Steering Committee expertise.

Lash Chaffin introduced the South Sioux City Administrator, Lance Hedquist. Lance gave a brief overview of South Sioux City activities related to online, digital local government.

Bob Martin said his office is prepared to take up the fight for land records modernization.

Steve Peaslee said the NRCS is looking at a nationwide purchase of GIS software. One of the main issues they will be facing at that point is training as ArcInfo/View is installed in all their field offices. SURGO is bottlenecked due to a major revision that has proven to be buggy.

Larry Zink asked the Committee members to mark September 5 as the federal representatives meeting.

There was no further business. The meeting was adjourned.

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