Nebraska GIS Steering
Committee
1:00 PM, Wednesday, July 9, 2003
Main Auditorium, Nebraska Department of Roads
Meeting Minutes, July 9, 2003
Present were (authorized to vote *):
|
|
Mahendra Bansal |
* |
Department of
Natural Resources |
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, July 2, 2003.
ROLL CALL: Vice chairperson Duane
Stott called the meeting to order at approximately 1:10 PM. There were ten duly
authorized members present therefore a quorum was present to conduct business.
APPROVAL OF 5/15/03
MINUTES: Lash Chaffin moved to approve the minutes as submitted. Paul
Yamamoto seconded. The motion passed (see vote #1 on Voting
Record sheet) .
WATERSHED
BOUNDARY DATABASE (WBD) WORKING GROUP:
This is the initiative primarily sponsored by the NRCS to redefine and further
refine the watershed boundaries. The Nebraska Hydrographic workgroup was
reconvened and the decision made that if the federal government had resources
available to address this issue, other agencies within the state wanted to
participate.
Resource allocation
has not yet been determined and further action will depend on that.
GIS AND HOMELAND SECURITY AND BIO-TERRORISM UPDATE: CALMIT is contracting with HHS and NEMA in the
areas of homeland security and bio-terrorism to pull some data together, do
some training, and complete a needs assessment. Progress has been slow. CALMIT
has hired a person to work with specifically with NEMA and one to work with
HHS.
UPDATE ON STATUS OF LAND RECORD MODERNIZATION STUDY:
Draft
Land Records Modernization Study Report and Recommendations (a 23-page
pdf-formated report)
Draft
Program Governance Insert. (This insert on a draft Program
Governance model was inadvertently let out of the above proposal. It
should be inserted beginning on page 18)
This project must
be complete by the end of July as that is the cutoff point for funding.
Following Bill Holland’s presentation of the draft version of the Land Records
Modernization Study Report at the symposium and the last Steering Committee
meeting, Larry solicited feedback. There was consensus that the needs aspect of
the report needed to be stressed more and Bill reworked that portion. The other
feedback, Larry received was some concern about the proposed organizational
structure, how that will look, and how closely it will be tied to the PAT.
There were a lot of disparate ideas about how to fix the problem but Larry was
unable to provide any consensus for Bill and that is something that needs to be
determined prior to the final submission of the report.
Briefly, the first
part of the report includes a statement of the problem and a review of needs
assessment. The assessment revealed a fairly low level of computerized mapping
in the State of Nebraska. 21 counties have it, 25 counties are seriously
considering using it and most of the automation consists of CAMA, computer
aided map assessment. The needs assessment also revealed that there is a
considerable amount of money being spent by local government across the state
to develop geographic and land information system data.
The next section
addresses state government interests along with a detailed list of state
agencies interested in GIS followed by a section detailing the specific drivers
for modernization in Nebraska. Those drivers include the status of automation
and modernization, legal vulnerability, homeland security, and economics.
The final proposal
is based on the meshing of two initiatives, the GISSC initiative to develop a
digital geospatial cadastre for parcels and land ownership and Property
Assessment and Taxations’s desire to build a statewide interoperable assessment
database and system. The Conceptual Spatial Data Model is based on the premise
that the money made available for basic land record cadastral mapping will be
made available to local government to use on developing digital spatial data.
If the base layers have already been developed, the money will be made
available for the development of other eligible layers.
The area of the report
most in need of work is the organization section. The main question being how
to structure the proposal, both in terms of governance and funding.
Funding
Two suggestions are made in the proposal as potential sources of funding. One
is an increase in the document stamp tax. Currently that tax is $1.75 per
$1000. A .50 increase would result in a gain of approximately 2 million dollars
to be used as grants in aid. The second suggestion is an increase in the
recording fees. During the last session, there was a bill in legislature
sponsored by the Register of Deeds proposing an increase in the recording fees
from the current $5 per page to $10 per page. That increase would result in the
receipt of $1.257 million to be distributed among the counties, with $838,000
to be allocated to the grant fund and nearly $210,000 earmarked for the Records
Management Cash Fund for administration. The proposal included in the Land
Record Modernization Study is not proposing to divert this new funding for
Register of Deeds, but ratherto propose an additional increase in the fees and
dedicate them to a Land Information Systems Program.
Local Governance
There is a great disparity in the available resources existing in Nebraska,
which will require any proposal to be very flexible. At the same time, there
are some basic elements that need to be included.
Statewide
Governance
Organizational Considerations
There are many questions to be answered with respect to the governance model
such as who will be the primary sponsor and/or administrative home for a
statewide land information system? There is an ongoing need for policy and
strategy development to meet a huge variety of needs as well as a need for
ongoing coordination at multiple levels. Priorities must be established along
with a means of resolving disputes, and ongoing communication and marketing,
and standards development. These are all issues that need to be addressed when
developing the final organizational model.
Operational
Model
Issues to be considered with respect to the operational model is program
administration, staff direction and oversight, budget development and planning,
system administration, data custodianship and project management.
As the proposal is currently
drafted, the administration of the overall program, including financial
management oversight, project coordination and direction of the GIS coordinator
will be the responsibility of Property Assessment and Taxation. The GIS
Steering Committee will be responsible for policy formulation, priority
setting, budget development, project oversight, GIS Stds development, grants in
aid and financial oversight.
Bill Holland needs
feedback from GISSC about what the proposal should reflect in terms of
administrative structure from the GISSC’s perspective.
Comments
Scott McIntyre said that basically this is really about money and who has
authority to raise and spend that money. At this time, there is a major
difference between the land records status of the rural counties and that of
the urban counties. While Douglas County’s contribution of the four million
dollars to be raised by the proposed tax increases will be a fairly significant
amount, a good part of those funds will be used to subsidize the rural
counties. Due to budget issues across the state, that proposal is likely to be
met with some resistance from the urban counties.
Erik Hubl agreed
that some marketing would need to be done to sell the concept of subsidizing
the smaller counties to the bigger counties. Another area that will need to be
addressed is resistance among county assessors to meeting standards.
Larry pointed out
that the need for technical assistance in the counties has been discussed a
number of times. It may make sense for the counties to form a regional grouping
and contract out for data development. Scott added that if an umbrella
organization to help organize counties may also wind up being the contractor
for the counties although there will be counties not interested in developing
the technology. Bill Holland recommends not structuring something such that state
government does the work for local governments. Project management and
oversight by state government is fine but for state government to do the actual
work not a good idea.
Lash Chaffin asked
about the nature of the final study, whether it is for internal Steering
Committee use or if it is meant to be a report issued from the Steering
Committee to the public. Jim Brown said that the final report will belong to
the Steering Committee to do with as they see fit. Initially Jim thought that
the report would provide a lot more answers than it has turned out to do. Jim also noted that in hindsight, his
expectations in that regard were probably not realistic. He was hoping to be able to submit the final
report to the Legislature as a solution to the problem of land records
modernization but final solutions are not in these draft reports. Bill’s report
does a fair job detailing the needs but there is no formal plan for physical
implementation. Jim recommended pulling the structure recommendations section
because there is no consensus on this part, no idea who is to do the work,
collect the money, set the standards, etc. In addition, there are major issues
among counties that are already online and producing the greatest revenue and
those with no technology, little revenue and great need. The only thing from
this section that there is consensus about is that money is necessary to do the
work. The best course of action would be to take what is good from the report
and work out the remaining details among the Steering Committee members at a
later date. There is only a week left and no way to resolve it in that period
of time.
Larry Dix from NACO
said that there have always been issues with larger counties subsidizing
smaller counties. LB232, introduced by the Register of Deeds, was to be used
specifically for records management with no provision made for using funds for
data development and GIS. If that initiative is passed, it will be virtually
impossible to raise the $5 doc fee $5 for records management and then another
$5 for GIS data development. The initiative was tabled during the last
legislative session pending input from the Steering Committee. Subsequently,
there has been some tentative interest expressed by the Governor’s office in
doing something with land records modernization and in further defining the
relationship between the NITC and the GIS Steering Committee. John Erickson
said that was the reason he wanted to get the report published and distributed
before too much happened in the Legislature. John agreed that the report and
recommendations provide a good starting point for discussions with the Legislature
if the diagram and specific references to which agency will be responsible for
what are removed.
Larry Dix indicated
that NACO could support the concept, standards and GIS component of the
proposal but expressed concern about the final outcome if the proposal is heavily
based on funds and no funds are provided. NACO could not lobby for the proposal
as it stands and Larry Dix agreed that the report should be given to the
Legislature without the final structure section.
There was a
question about whether there would be any value to developing only part of the
parcels in the state or if the data would only be useful if 100% were
completed. The answer is that all data development is useable and as a county’s
parcel data is completed, it is highly useful, mainly on the county level.
Steve Schafer asked
what work is left to finish the report based on the terms of the RFP. Larry
Zink said that the remaining steps include putting the state profile and data
into one report. Steve asked why the report is considered short and whether it
meets our expectations or not. Larry responded that he felt the Study
committee, including himself, had hoped that Bill would be able to come up with
a fairly structured proposal that most folks could get behind. But, as the
draft reports illustrate, there is a clear need and interest, there is a clear
need for additional resources, coordination, standards, and there is also a pretty
solid consensus on the need for program flexibility due to Nebraska’s diversity. However, so far we have not found consensus around
how a program should be structured. It
is not that there are two competing ideas; there is a mix of differing opinions
and perspectives that we have yet to shift through. I think the hope was that in
the course of this study, GeoAnalytics could somehow come up with a solution
that would be perfect.
John Erickson
volunteered to work with Larry and Bill Holland to complete the final report.
Steve Schafer requested that additional information be included in the form of
projected statewide costs. Any other comments or suggestions about the report
should be submitted to Larry Zink within a week.
Steve Schafer moved
to authorize payment for work done on the report, with final approval of the
report subject to the changes to be made by Larry Zink, John Erickson and Bill
Holland. Scott McIntyre seconded. The motion passed (see vote #2 on Voting
Record sheet).
There was
discussion about changing the wording of the funding section to clarify that a
significant amount of the funds collected would be returned to the county.
There was a feeling that the report should be left as generic as possible to
obtain as much support as possible. Larry Dix said that at the time the bill is
drafted, NACO will ensure that funds are available or there will be no support
for it. He indicated he would prefer wording that makes clear that the funding
will go to counties and state as the Steering Committee runs the risk of not
getting both funds if it is not defined. John Erickson pointed out that the
more that is removed the more the report is open to someone else defining it
and the harder the battle will be to get it through the legislature. Scott
McIntyre said that if there is some value in having 80-90% of the parcels
completed then there should be no issue if some of the counties have to take
5-10 years to get their parcels automated. Budget issues have made local
government sensitive to funds redistribution. Jim Brown pointed out that there
are some counties that are so small with so few parcels that they will never
generate enough money to become automated and must be subsidized by the bigger
counties.
Larry Zink agreed
to take all comments from the Steering Committee meeting to Bill to complete
the report. Links to various sections
and draft reports related to the Nebraska Land Record Modernization Study can
be found here.
STREET CENTERLINE/ADDRESS DATABASE: The GIS-related needs for homeland security
and bio-terrorism applications have created a higher priority for the
development of a statewide street centerline/address database for
Nebraska. In response to this need, there
was a meeting two weeks ago to discuss the optimum approach to address this
need. Two approaches were compared.
CALMIT looked at
GDT data, a primary national vendor of street address data. GDT data involves
taking the TIGER data and enhancing with local-developed enhanced data. The street
address working group’s decided that the best approach for meeting the short-term
need was to take the Census Tiger data and where it is available, add enhanced
local data. CALMIT will take the lead on inserting enhanced local data into the
Tiger file. Larry is helping by making local government contacts to explore the
availability of local data and their willingness to share that data for this
purpose. Lincoln/Lancaster,
Omaha/Douglas, Papillion/Sarpy, Blairr/Washington, Scottsbluff/Scottsbluff, Fairbury/Jefferson,
Crete/Saline counties have enhanced data and will share. Beaver City/Furnas,
Holdrege/Phelps, Kearney/Buffalo counties have it and have been contacted.
Steve Schafer and
Larry Zink have also meet with the Public Service Commission staff about their
need for street address data. The
Public Service Commission needs to get highly accurate street address data for
the E911 applications in selected counties. They will need this data as
counties are ready to go to phase II for cellular. They do have funding
available from fees on cell phones. They are currently looking to private
vendors to develop this data and acquire datasets. They plan to issue an RFP at
six months. Steve Schafer said he was encouraged by the spirit of cooperation
that came through at the meeting.
ON-GOING OPERATIONAL SUPPORT FOR INTERAGENCY GIS
EFFORTS - A Discussion Needed? This issue came about out
of dialogue Steve Schafer and Larry Zink have had with various agencies. There
are a number of potentially new major GIS users such as NEMA, HHS, PAT, PSC.
All four of these agencies have data needs that are interagency in scope and
they will want to get the most current data from its source. They will largely
be data consumers rather than producers and will not have much experience
and/or trained GIS personnel on staff. Their applications will probably be
fairly customized and may need quite a bit of operational support. However, it appears that not a lot has been
done in the way of long term planning for how operational support will be
provided for these applications. Some interagency
discussions and decisions should probably occur relative to how this apparent
need for on-going operational support will be provided. One of the main
questions is whether IMS, CALMIT or DNR should/will be preparing themselves to
provide this on-going support. Larry Zink has written a draft discussion paper
providing an overview. Steve Schafer said it provides a good summary of
situation and outlines the available options to provide support to the new
entrants to the GIS field.
COORDINATING GEOSPATIAL DATA SHARING INITIATIVES (Nebraska
Clearinghouse - NDNR; America View - CSD; National Map; USGS Mapping Projects
Office; and Homeland Security Initiatives): DNR has completed their internal
review and CALMIT and DNR are looking to see how they can integrate their data.
Larry and Steve Schafer will try to arrange a meeting with Roger Patterson,
NDNR, to discuss a plan for proceeding from this point.
NEBRASKA
GIS/LIS ASSOCIATION: The Association met on
June 28 to elect officers. Doug Steinke is the new President, Marcus Tooze is
the president elect. Email list serve problems were discussed along with the
plan to add extra links and GIS certification efforts. They will be finding out
if attending conferences and symposiums will count toward certification.
Jim Langtry has
been elected to represent GIS/LIS Association at the Mid-America GIS Consortium
this year.
Attendance at the
symposium was down a little but there were still over 300 persons in
attendance. Some surveys were issued to get feedback from participants and Jim
Langtry will be putting together a report on those surveys to help better plan
for future symposiums. The symposium was well received. Jim Langtry said this
fall is not too soon to begin thinking about 2005.
Throughout the year
the Association sponsors regional meetings to encourage local groups. There
will be a Lincoln/Omaha forum group meeting soon.
MID-WEST ARCUSER GROUP
CONFERENCE, Omaha, September 22-24, 2003
They are getting down to the final weeks of organizing the conference. Online
registration is now open. 12-15 speakers have signed up along with a dozen
vendors. In the next couple of weeks, they will be making a push to increase
attendance and will be looking for 300 people or more to attend. The website
address is www.midwestarc.org
REPORT
ON GIS ACTIVITIES FROM MEMBER AGENCIES:
Mahendra – two projects. Statewide database to be completed this year. Progress
on NHD.
Dick Genrich
Roads recently signed a contract with the Cornhusker for a symposium to be held
April 2005. Also, Roads released their first nationwide Internet mapping
server.
Scott
An RFP was issued for the four-county region around Omaha, including Douglas,
Sarpy, Pottawatamie and Washington Counties to fly 1 m color imagery. Douglas
and Sarpy are also looking into contours. Lidar and digital photography will be
factors in the decisions they make.
Steve Cacioppo
Recently they discovered that NRDs could get arc extensions and that allowed
him to obtain a copy of Arc among other things. He is currently working on some
IMS stuff and is working in conjunction with 10 counties to try to eradicate
purple loosestrife. He will be coordinating the tracking system.
Alan Beierman
NPPD is still working on the implementation phase of their system for power
lines. They are also looking at flying about a dozen more towns, possibly next
spring.
Steve Frederick
HHSS has some GIS software loaded and training has started.
Mark Kuzila
CALMIT is working a lot with agencies at this time. CSD was supposed to have
been merged to form the National Resources Water Division but nothing formal
has been done at this time.
OTHER BUSINESS
NACO Booths: Mark Kuzila moved to have a booth at the annual NACO conference.
Mahendra seconded. The motion passed. (see vote #3 on Voting
Record sheet)
Erik Hubl said that
the National Imagery and Mapping Agency has partnered with the USGS to obtain
high quality imagery of 133 cities for the purposes of homeland security.
Recently they flew 1-foot color orthodigital photography for Lancaster County
and that imagery is now available. As a part of the of the High Accuracy
Reference Network, X’s were placed on several targets and 35 points hit within
6 feet. That means that the aerial is accurate within 1 meter.
|
. |
Roll |
Min |
Payment to Geo-Analytics |
NACO Booth |
#4
|
#5 |
#6 |
#7 |
#8 |
|
DAS - Steve
Schafer |
A/P |
NV. |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
DEQ - Tom
Lamberson, |
A |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
CSD - Mark
Kuzila |
P |
+ |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
NGPC - Bruce
Sackett |
A |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
NRC - Mahendra
Bansal |
P |
+ |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
PTD - Cathy Lang |
P |
+ |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
PRO - Lauren Hill
|
P |
+ |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
DOR - Dick
Genrich |
P |
NV |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
St.Surv - Jim
Brown |
A/P |
. |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
Clk of Leg. - Patrick
O'Donnell |
A |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
Sonia Sebree |
A |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
John Miyoshi, |
P |
+ |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
Alan J. Beierman |
P |
+ |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
Cliff
Welsh |
A |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
Larry Worrell
|
A |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
Lash
Chaffin |
P |
+ |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
Duane Stott |
P |
+ |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
Scott McIntyre
|
A/P |
. |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
Dick Nelson |
P |
+ |
+ |
+ |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
|
TOTALS |
10/13 – P |
9 +, |
13 |
13 |
. |
. |
. |
. |
. |
"P"=present, "A"=absent,
"+"=voting for, "-"=voting against, "NV"=not
voting