GIS Steering Committee

Meeting Minutes - September 9, 1999

Present were (+ authorized to vote):

Mahendra Bansal Rick Becker Jim Brown Dennis Burling Lash Chaffin Cam Conrad Blaine Dinwiddie John Erickson Val Goodman Lauren Hill Erik Hubl Ed Kelley Mele D. Koneya Chad Kudym Jim Lacy Josh Lear Tim Leininger Nathan McCaleb Jim Merchant Dick Nelson Carl Nelson Jerry Odum Troy Pomajzl Steve Rathje Boyd Ready Scott Richert Duane Stott Mike Thompson Gary Wells Cliff Welsh Darryl Williams Dayle Williamson Larry Worrell Paul Yamamoto Larry Zink

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Natural Resources Commission CIO's Office State Surveyor’s Office Department of Environmental Quality League of Municipalities Lower Platte North NRD Omaha Public Power District Health and Human Services – Regulations and Licensure Legislature Governor's Policy Research Office Lancaster County Assessor's Office Department of Roads Nebraska Game & Parks HDR Engineering, Inc. UNL/CSD NRC National Agroforestry Center USDA-NRCS UNL/CSD Health & Human Services USGS USDOC - NOAA - NGS Windstone, Inc. NRC Central Nebraska Public Power & Irrigation Lancaster County Assessor’s Office Scotts Bluff County Nebraska Department of Water Resources NRCS NACO - Keith County USGS, MCMC Natural Resources Commission Lancaster County Department of Environmental Quality Coordinator, GIS Steering Committee

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, September 2, 1999.

ROLL CALL. Chairperson Lash Chaffin called the meeting to order at approximately 1:00 p.m. and requested a call of the roll. Eleven duly authorized representatives were present. Therefore, a quorum was present to conduct business.

MINUTES. Chairperson Lash Chaffin asked for a motion to approve the July minutes. Larry Worrell moved to approve the July minutes as distributed. Val Goodman seconded. Larry Zink called roll and the motion passed (see vote #1 on the attached Voting Record sheet).

ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON STANDARDS FOR MULTI-PURPOSE LAND INFORMATION SYSTEMS. Erik Hubl reported that the Committee has met once since the last Steering Committee meeting. They are nearly finished with the cadastral section, which now includes suggested attributes that can be associated with property parcels. The final draft should be available by the next Steering Committee meeting.

ESRI and the BLM are working on implementing national cadastral content standards. Larry added that he learned at the NSGIC meeting that a charter between the BLM, the Forest Service and ESRI has been signed designed to develop a data model and software tools for GIS cadastral management. The BLM has been working for the past three years to develop a system called ALMARS, that was their in-house attempt to develop GIS management tools for cadastral work. They have scrapped that effort to work with the Forest Service and ESRI on a program called NILS, National Integrated Land Systems, which will be compliant with national cadastral standards.

INTRODUCTION OF NEW MEMBER. Larry introduced Dick Nelson as the newest member of the Committee. Dick is representing Health and Human Services Department of Regulations and Licensure.

NACO CONFERENCE. The Committee jumped down to another agenda item as NRC was setting up its projection equipment. Larry said that the GIS Steering Committee has been invited to have a booth at the annual NACO Conference in Omaha. The past couple years, the Steering Committee has had a booth with a GIS demo done by Duane Stott. In order to participate this year, the booth fee is $100 along with Duane's travel expenses. Larry Worrell moved to approve the $100 fee and Duane's expenses. Dayle Williamson seconded. Larry Zink called the roll and the motion passed. (see vote #2 on the attached Voting Record sheet).

DOQ's & DEM's. Mahendra Bansal, NRC, gave a presentation on NRC's DOQ/DEM efforts. Mahendra reported that the NRC has completed and manages statewide DOQ and DEM databases.

The DEM's were completed in a work share partnership between the NRC and USGS. The state was divided into three sections, each to be completed in a year. These are level two DEM's which meet and exceed national DEM standards.

The proposed revision of the DEM's will take them from 30-meter interval to 10-meter interval. This may not add much clarity because they are still level two. To take them to level three would require a lot of GPSed points. The revisions should be done within the year.

The DOQ's were based on 1993 NAPP photos and were also completed in a work share partnership with USGS. The DOQ's were completed at 1/12,000 scale. The state was again divided into three sections for completion but took a bit longer to complete, as DOQ's are based on DEM's, which were not complete until the end of 1998.

The revision of the DOQ's will be based on 1999 NAPP photos. The NAPP flights are complete but the data has not been approved. This project will be a work share with USGS, utilizing Lancaster County as a pilot project.

DEM's and DOQ's are available for no charge online with the DOQ's compressed as COQ's. Demand for these are increasing. Last month they received a request for 1700 DOQ's for precision farming.

Mele asked if tagged vector contours will be available. Mahendra said they plan to have it available but no time frame has been set.

Larry Zink asked if there are plans for the GIS Str. Cmte.'s DOQ/DEM Database Advisory Committee to meet again before a pilot project is approved and undertaken. Mahendra said they will report to NRC's Databank Technical Advisory Committee and will then report to the DOQ/DEM Database Advisory Committee. Larry Zink asked if the Steering Committee wanted to take action now to lend support to the NRC's pilot project to revise and update the DOQs and DEMs or wait for the formal report from the Advisory Committee. Lash suggested waiting until after the next meeting of the Advisory Committee to entertain a motion to endorse the update project.

Governmental Units – Val reported that in an effort to document existing governmental unit databases, he has collected metadata on the legislative districts databases and is working on voting precincts. Val also noted that currently there is no central place to go to get these Governmental Unit boundary databases.

Jim Brown noted that some of the attributes in the individual parcels where they are doing partial tax mapping are the tax districts. Those attributes can be used to sort out all the local subdivisions that are taxing entities. That does not sort out the ones that have no authority to tax, but the county assessors office keeps records of all places with authority to tax, including school districts, fire districts and NRD's. The legislative districts are not included in this group.

Larry Zink said that there are two foundations for political subdivisions, taxation, and voting. Lash said he would like to add zoning, electric service areas, and planning areas to the databases that the Governmental Units Database Advisory Committee is considering.

Larry commented that Val is struggling with the challenge of documenting with metadata the Governmental Unit databases that are already available.

Lash said that they need to make sure they remain compatible with the tax assessors system.

Transportation - Ed Kelley reported that they are still waiting for approval from their director before proceeding any further. They have potential members for a subcommittee selected once approval is obtained.

Hydrography - Larry Zink reported that the Subcommittee initially identified four potential hydrographic catalog units for a pilot project. They did an initial ranking on those based on the information they had at the time. One consideration was the availability of source material. Since the initial ranking, Darryl Williams from the USGS proposed using the Logan hydrolographic catalogue unit because half of the DLG's are already available. It would skew the information a bit in terms of resources required, but they felt the benefit of completing the project quickly and learning from it before the next appropriations session outweighed the drawback. USGS has offered to develop the remainder of the DLG's for this watershed as part of the partnership. It is hoped that NRC, DWR, DEQ, Game and Parks, NRCS and USGS will form a partnership to complete this pilot project. It is hoped to have this pilot project completed by this spring with the results available in time for the next budget cycle.

Lash asked how they arrived at Logan Creek. Larry Zink explained that instead of looking at the most complex watershed, they determined it made more sense to work with one that was more accessible and could be quickly completed. Larry noted that the NHD is to be done in watersheds units, not quads.

Lash asked if this watershed encompassed many different kinds of problems to deal with as an example of what would be coming in the rest of the state. Larry Zink said that this watershed did not have all of the problems that might make for the best pilot project, but that a big factor in selecting this watershed was that the USGS had half of the source data completed already. USGS currently has limited resources to pursue a Nebraska pilot and it felt this one was doable. Also, there is a technology/process change coming that will hopefully eliminate the need to create DLG's as part of this process and so it was felt to be a waste of time training Nebraska folks on this DLG process that will soon become obsolete.

Mike Thompson explained that a new generation of tools will be coming that will change the order of database work. It will be possible to start from map elements instead of DLG3 with database coding. It would take a major effort to get another watershed as far along as the USGS data will take a pilot project for the Logan watershed from the outset.

Dayle expressed his appreciation to the USGS and their efforts. USGS has offered to provide a one-week training session for all the partners involved in this project and will then send back support personnel to assist the teams.

Larry Zink said that they are trying to move as fast as possible on this. USGS is attempting to redirect resources to work with this Nebraska pilot. Dayle added that there is a Governor's directive to 'get rid of the silos' and promote agency cooperation. Both DWR and DEQ have only one GIS person and one ARC license. This project may contribute to expanding GIS use in government.

Larry Zink said the Working Group may want to apply for a collaborative grant from the NITC to support this pilot project. Larry indicated that the timeline for these grants is not available, but Working Group would like to get the Steering Committee's support to apply for a grant for this project. This will also illustrate the Steering Committee's need for a collaborative fund.

Dick Nelson asked if these grants required state or local match or if it would fund the project 100%. Larry Zink did not know for sure, but he thought it was a 100%.

Lash asked if it would be helpful to have a resolution endorsing interagency collaboration. Larry Zink said it would helpful to have a specific endorsement of this project. Mike Thompson added that the timeline may be very short and they might have to move quickly.

Dick Nelson suggested giving the Executive Committee authority, on behalf of the Steering Committee, to endorse a grant proposal on this project when it is better defined. Dick moved to empower the Executive Committee to endorse, on behalf of the Steering Committee, a resolution supporting a grant application for this NHD pilot project. Dayle Williamson seconded. Larry Zink called the roll. The motion passed. (see vote #3 on the attached Voting Record sheet).

Land Cover/Land Use – Jim Merchant reported that he sent out a preliminary survey on land cover/use needs and developed an initial assessment report. He also reported that he has scheduled an initial meeting for a Land Cover/Land Use Database Advisory Committee for the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 21^st in the East Campus Union. He hopes to have a more complete report for the next meeting.

Executive Subcommittee Report.

Lash said that there was some discussion at the Executive meeting about sharpening and narrowing the focus of the Steering Committee to enable it to be more effective. As a result of that discussion, they determined that working to develop the priority databases should be the primary goal. The second main focus should be lending as much support to the NITC as possible and provide them with as much useful information as necessary.

Larry Zink added that the Executive Committee discussion noted that a collaborative funding mechanism is an important key to getting these databases developed. Many of these databases are needed by multiple agencies and will need to be completed through collaborative efforts. A collaborative database development fund would greatly facilitate this process.

Lash commented that portions of certain core databases are already being developed, but that many of these databases will never be completed because there is no collaborative impetus. There is no incentive for agencies to go out and get information or share it between local and state entities. Incentives need to be created to make collaboration a reality. One idea is to allocate some of the document stamp tax for a GIS collaborative fund.

Larry Zink said that Cathy Lang originally brought that idea to the table during the Executive Committee meeting. The state receives 6.5 million from this tax and it is currently dedicated to two housing funds until 2002. If the Steering Committee chooses to pursue the development of collaborative funding mechanism for geospatial data development, it will require moving more into the political arena.

Lash said that he spoke with the CIO who said if projects like this are going to move into policy, a specific project will need to be developed to demonstrate the cost benefits.

Cliff Welsh said that the document stamp tax is a logical means of funding an effort of this type. It is not a new idea for funding land management; many other states already do so.

Jim Merchant pointed out that there needs to be some thought given to not losing sight of other Steering Committee priorities, such as education. Lash said that these are entwined issues and that education must come first.

Duane asked if the Steering Committee could find support in the Legislature for this. Lash said it depends on how the process is laid out. A lot of work needs to be done on this and specific involved agencies or the GIS/LIS Association might be willing to take the lead.

Lauren Hill said that it appears the Steering Committee is going down the right path. Collaborative funding is a good idea as long as it is proposed with a specific project.

Cliff said that everyone seems to have had trouble explaining GIS to the Legislature, but it is really a records management issue.

Larry noted that in an exchange of emails with State Budget Administrator, Gerry Oligmueller, Gerry raised the importance of such a fund not being just new money, but that it would also needs to involve a significant reallocation of existing resources. Larry indicated that he felt a collaborative funding mechanism, with a significant amount of base funding, could be one of the most practical and effective means of reallocating existing agency funding to collaborative database development projects. A fund could be operated to provide seed funding for collaborative projects if it required matching funds from the existing resources of multiple agencies.

Lash asked what the next step is. Larry asked if this is the direction the Steering Committee wants to go, reiterating that this will involve walking into the political arena. Dayle expressed support for the concept, but concern about this being so politically charged.

Blaine expressed concern about the GIS Steering Committee being responsible for managing that much money effectively. The political process may be long and complicated, but it tends to weed out projects that are not of critical importance.

Jim Brown observed that the transportation, governmental units, hydrography, and property parcels are all databases that will not be developed statewide without additional money. However, Jim also noted that the GIS Steering Committee is poorly placed to take on this task because so many of its members are directly under the Governor's policy directive. Jim noted that these same issues have been coming up for many years but the Steering Committee has not seriously addressed this issue in at least five years.

Lash commented that the public is unaware that this information is not being gathered and, in fact, believes that these databases are already being developed. Jim Brown said that some information is being collected but it is being done in a piecemeal fashion and without a collaborative effort and direction, the end result will not be cohesive.

It was suggested that perhaps the NITC would raise these issues as part of their planning process. Larry Zink said that the NITC has a lot to do and this issue will go farther if it is packaged for them. Lash asked how much work it would be to package it. Larry Zink said he was unsure how detailed the first Statewide Technology Plan would be and funding sources are only one area they will be looking at. They are analyzing the total information technology picture for the entire state so the Steering Committee is unlikely to get more than recognition of the need for a funding source.

Lash asked what the most attractive policy GIS project is. Larry Zink said that the hydrographic project would be a good candidate. One possibility is to utilize public safety issues such as E-911, health hazards and crime prevention. Focusing on the results means legislators do not have to understand the technology.

Jim Brown said that there is consensus that this is valuable. The question remains whether the Steering Committee is the group to take this forward or is there another group that would be better able to present this issue that the Steering Committee could support. Lash said that Cathy Lang had many specific ideas and may be willing to take the front line.

GIS Steering Committee Participation in NITC Planning Process. Larry Zink said that he has been working with the NITC and staff in an effort to interject the Steering Committee's concerns into the planning process. The NITC has created three new councils to bring concerns, issues and recommendations in to them. Larry has also been working with the NITC/CIO staff to develop a process for bringing information and recommendations in from existing committees, such as the GIS Steering Committee. Larry said it was likely that the NITC had endorsed some version of that process at its meeting which occurred last week while he was at the NSGIC Annual Meeting.

Larry reported that he has begun to develop specific verbiage for the general areas of GIS recommendations that the Steering Committee approved at its last meeting. Larry noted that he had presented the currently unfinished draft to the GIS Exec. Cmte. meeting and that it was included with the meeting handouts. Larry noted that the recommendations are in the form of a one-two sentence specific recommendation (in bold type) and then one page of accompanying supporting and explanatory narrative. He suggested that he particularly wanted feedback on the wording of the one-two sentence recommendations. Larry said it was likely that only this one-two sentence recommendation would be incorporated into the Statewide Technology Plan and so it is important this wording accurately convenes the complete idea. Larry asked that any feedback on these draft recommendations be given to him in the next couple weeks.

Shift of GIS Coordinator to IM Services - Larry Zink reported that the administration of the GIS Steering Committee Coordinator's position has been shifted to IM Services. After Steve Schafer's appointment to Chief Information Officer, there were some questions as to what would be done with IDSD. It was decided early that the operational component of IDSD, the AS400 computer network was to be assigned to IM Services. There had been considerable discussion as to whether the policy people from IDSD (including the GIS Coordinator) should moved under the supervision of the CIO's office or IM Services, the decision was ultimately made to transfer administration to IM Services. Larry reported that he has been informed that for the foreseeable future, he should continue to perform his position as he has in the past.

Scott Richert reported that they had their first regional meeting with a panel discussion of the ESRI conference in San Diego and discussed the impact of ESRI's direction.

The Association is working on posters for GIS Day and on an association brochure. They are also preparing to approve the bylaws, which will allow them to accept fees.

The GIS Forum will be November 4. They have one speaker lined up and they welcome any suggestions for speakers or topics of discussion.

Lash asked what is available on the Association's web site. Scott said there is a rough draft of the bylaws, a list of board members, the mission statement, minutes from their meetings and a membership form.

Larry reported he attended the National State's Geographic Information Council meeting in New Orleans. This organization is based on bringing together common state GIS concerns at a national level. Larry noted there has been a lot of growth within the council in the past couple of years.

Among the meeting highlights that Larry reported was a decision to focus on public safety issues as a means to get the attention of legislators and to convey to them the importance of developing Framework databases. Larry noted that public safety if a broad category and includes a wide range of applications such as: crime, emergency response, E-911, public health, traffic, and disaster mitigation. Most of these applications require Framework databases for efficient and effective response. Larry reported that NSGIC will be looking for best practice local government efforts and developing educational tools. Larry indicated that to the extent that he has time, he will try to develop a background paper in this area.

The Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service and ESRI are working together to develop new tools focused on cadastral management by the year 2000. These tools will be extensions of ArcInfo 8 and will build on previous BLM/Forest Services initiatives and will be FGDC cadastral content standards compliant. Larry felt that Nebraska needs to track this effort closely to anticipate how it will impact our PLSS efforts and our Multipurpose Land Information System Guidelines.

NASA had a large presence at the meeting. They are trying to connect with state government agencies and looking for pilot projects and internships, as their funds permit. They are attempting to focus on what remotely-sensed data is commonly needed for state government applications.

Jim Merchant added that NASA and NSGIC is sponsoring the Mid America GIS Consortium, Remote Sensing and GIS Workshop at the Eros Data Center on October 5^th. This could be a good opportunity to connect with NASA. Currently their efforts are focused on providing satellite data free to agencies that need it. Dayle said it appears that satellite data may have an increased fee associated with it in the near future.

Larry Zink also reported that Congress is proposing to reduce funding for enhanced GPS capability for general public use. New GPS military satellites will be going up in the next few years, and originally they were to include an additional civilian GPS channel. Congressional committees have proposed to cut the funding for this additional civilian GPS channel. Congressional committees have also proposed to cut funding for a series of GPS base stations designed to provided real-time GPS correction. NSGIC went on record expressing concern about the loss of these funds and hence services. Dayle commented that if these funds are not available now, these military satellites will be launched without this additional civilian capability and it couldn't be added for another 15-20 years and so it makes no sense to cut these funds.

Larry asked if the Steering Committee wanted to officially oppose this action. Lash suggested the NSGIC resolution be forwarded to the Lieutenant Governor along with figures drawn up by Jim Brown and Dayle. Jim said that would be extremely difficulty to get figures on the GPS base stations as they have had many problems with federal government coordination.

Dayle reported that 35 county soil survey updates are complete and the process is going quickly now. Dayle also shared that NRC has developed a way that they can do PowerPoint presentations over the Internet and indicated that this is very helpful for conference calls.

Val reported Phase II of redistricting process and the updating of the precincts boundaries is underway. 92 counties are completed with Douglas County coming up. Lash asked if it would be useful to have Census come in to talk about what they are doing. Larry indicated that from what he could tell, the process is well underway and if you are not a part of it already, it is probably too late. Val said that the Census Bureau is accepting updates to all their maps.

Dick Nelson said that he is the newest member of the Committee representing HHS. Dick noted that John Erickson is heading up the HHS GIS effort. John has outlined two pages of possible HHS GIS applications and they are attempting to prioritize those projects and locate funding for them. Dick noted they had prepared a short briefing on HHS's GIS interests and possible projects, but that given the hour it was probably better to do that at another time. It was suggested as a possible agenda item for the next Steering Committee meeting and Larry Zink invited John Erickson to give the Committee an update on their plans and activities at the next GIS Forum on November 4^th.

Jim Brown reported that there are three counties, Butler, Platte and Hamilton, who have been looking into the State Surveyor's methodology for developing property parcel databases. Butler County seems to be interested in moving forward immediately. They received an ESRI grant but they have not drafted an agreement to work together yet.

The State Surveyor's office has agreed to do the PLSS layer for 51 townships for the Forest Service. Jim has the agreement but they are waiting on funds from the BLM. Jim also noted that Rod O'Sullivan from the Bureau of Reclamation in Grand Island is apparently no longer with the Bureau of Reclamation.

Blaine reported that OPPD developed an AM/FM GIS system about ten years ago. Since then, the system had not gotten much field use, but OPPD is now taking steps to eliminate paper maps and provide access to the system to personnel in the field. They have locators with CD-ROMs and laptops and they have tied in their operation management system with their energy system. They hope to have the transition complete by the end of the year. They are trying to go wireless. Blaine observed that geospatial databases and GIS systems can be developed, but then you have to convince people to use it.

Duane reported that they have attained permission to network all Scottsbluff County agencies. They will all be able to access GIS information.

Nathan reported that NRCS is adding Gage County to the work targeted for the year 2000 on Dayle's soil survey map.

Jim Merchant announced it is time for a newsletter and he is looking for material.

OTHER BUSINESS

There was no other business. The meeting was adjourned. The next meeting will be Thursday, November 4, 1999 at 1:00 PM at the East Campus Union. There will be a GIS Forum before the meeting.

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