August 28, 2002
Board Members Attending
Mr. Bill Bush, Arkansas Geological Commission
Ms. Phyllis Smith, U of A at Little Rock
Ms. Suzanne Wiley, U of A Cooperative Extension Service
Ms. Susan Cromwell, Fayetteville Public School District
Ms. Shirley Sandlin, Benton County Assessor
Mr. Chris Boudreaux, Conway Corporation
Mr. Mike McGibbony, Department of Information Systems
Dr. Fred Limp, CAST
Mr. Jubal Smith, Entergy
Board Members Not Present
Mr. Earl Smith, Arkansas Soil & Water Conservation
Commission
Mr. Randy Jones, First Electric Cooperative Corporation
Mr. Jim Wells
Attending By Video Conference
None
LIB Advisory Panel
None Present
Arkansas Geographic Information
Office
Mr. Shelby Johnson, State Geographic Information
Coordinator
Mr. Learon Dalby, GIS Program Manager
Mrs. Leann Manning
Ms. Bethany Holmes
Guests
Mr. Erik Blaty, Department of Parks and Tourism
Mr. Kelly Boyd, Governor’s Office
Mr. Mike Kemp, CIO Office
Mr. Jason Donham, Arkansas Soil and Water Conservation
Commission
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The meeting was called to order. The minutes of the last meeting of June 18, 2002 were approved and accepted unanimously.
Report from State Geographic Information Office
Update on ECIO
Shelby Johnson announced that Governor Huckabee
has appointed Ms. Carolyn Osborne to the position of
Chief Information Officer.
Arkansas Digital Ortho Program
Learon Dalby announced that all of the aerial
photography for the state has been received. All files
have been received and all state deliverables have been
processed. Remainders have been sent to USGS and they
are in the process of QAQC. They are reporting that
everything is passing validation. All data has been
passed on to the GeoStor staff and is now available
through GeoStor as well as VMFTP site.
Arkansas Centerline Street
File
Shelby reported that on September 5, 2002 the
centerline standard will be presented to the ALC Rules
and Regulations Committee for final review. One technical
amendment to the standard has been identified, concerning
driveways. The amendment is, if a driveway is 500 feet
or longer and or has two or more addressable structures,
that driveway should be mapped. This incorporation will
be made into the standard and it will be passed before
the review board.
Shelby elaborated on how important the centerline program
is to the state. He gave an example of an evacuation
notification in Columbia County that did not include
all of the streets. The county purchased a system from
a vendor who claimed would be at a certain percentage
accurate. After an investigation it was found that commercially
enhanced Tiger Data is not remotely accurate enough
for the application. If the centerline standard had
been in place this could have been avoided. If standards
are in place and if a vendor wants commercially enhance
for a particular area, our standards would be used and
thereby achieve greater accuracy and consistency statewide.
SR22 E-Plat Filing Project
Shelby reported that The Arkansas Society of
Professional Surveyors has been acting as the group
who is studying this resolution. At the meeting of Joint
Committee on Advanced Communication and Information
Technology, Representative Ted Mullinx made a presentation
about their report. They plan to bring some legislative
changes and some appropriation to begin work on the
development of an electronic plat filing system. The
system would be administered by the State Land Surveyors
Office. It would enable the surveyor the capability
to use all of his technology to produce a file, port
it to a portable document format, and then file it on
line rather than filing it in several different places
on paper.
If this effort moves forward and is successful in the legislative session, it is recommended that the board consider supporting it.
AGIO Staffing Update
Shelby reported that with the assistance of
Doug Elkins and Mike McGibbony, funding has been put
into place to build the office staff. The search process
for a GIS Specialist and a Project Management Analyst
is underway. In four to six weeks, plans are to add
a GIS Applications Specialist to assist in providing
education and a GIS Cadastral Specialist.
Homeland Security
Shelby reported that The Arkansas Department
of Emergency Management held a meeting inviting a number
of state agencies and asked them to provide an update
on how individual state agencies would participate and
assist the state in making our homeland secure. In response
we took the seven fundamental recommendations that the
board endorsed during the previous meeting and delivered
a report that highlighted some of the major things that
this board and this office has undertaken to support
and assist the homeland security effort. The seven recommendations
are:
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The state needs to take quick action to develop a redundant operational version of GeoStor with the Department of Information Systems
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The state must develop a road centerline database that will form the fundamental map layer to support detection, planning and response to events. The layer should be accessible to GeoStor.
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The Land Information Board in cooperation with ADEM should seek appropriate funding mechanisms that would enable counties to acquire and develop GIS to support homeland security efforts.
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The Geographic Information Office in cooperation with ADEM should promote the development of road centerline database and GIS education to County Judges, County OES Coordinators and County 911 Directors.
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ADEM in coordination with the Geographic Information Office should acquire an experienced GIS staff member to assist in the Geo Spatial coordination activities.
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The staff member should be assigned at the Arkansas Geographic Information Office during the development phases of the road centerline database.
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Establish Regional Disaster Response Technical Centers at Arkansas high schools where there is GIS equipment, software, resources and expertise.
Kym Patterson, has been designated to participate in the homeland security committee. Kym has requested that Shelby attend the next meeting.
Health Department Bio-Terrorism
Staff Requirements
Shelby reported that a presentation and proposal
was made to Jerry Perkins, IT Director for the Department
of Health, concerning the road centerline initiative
and the value of the program. Pursuant to this the
Department of Health has included a GIS person in
their staffing requirements. Shelby explained he will
help with the interview process to hire this person
and the person selected will be detailed to the Geographic
Information Office for a period of a least one year
to assist in the road centerline project.
I-Team Plan
Shelby reported the plan is not finished
yet but should be in the next couple of days. Shelby
explained there are other initiatives at the Federal
level that will be looking at state I-Team Plans for
a leverage point on their initiatives. They will be
relying on a lot of figures from the I-Team Plans
which may mean for those states that have submitted
an I’ Team plan may be in the que ahead of other
states to receive any potential funding.
Arkansas Association of
Counties
All of the land use cover maps were distributed
at the Arkansas Association of Counties Annual Conference.
Shelby will distribute the remainder of the maps at
the County Judge’s Conference. Post letter follow
up will be sent out by mail. Shelby reported we will
be on the agenda for the Assessor’s Conference
Shelby said all feedback was positive and they were
very well received. Suzanne reported that all maps
have been rolled and attached to the letter. A memo
from Dr. Lyle is to go out to District Directors in
every County Extension Office in the state. Shelby
announced that Bruce Campbell, Director of the Department
of Rural Services, is to host a fall retreat for the
Legislators and has extended an invitation for us
to attend and distribute maps to the Legislators.
There is a linkage on line for the maps through the Land Use Land Cover Website.
URISA Award
Shelby received word by mail last week that
the Urban Regional Information Systems Association
honored us with Honorable Mention in their Exemplary
Systems in Government Enterprise category.
AHTD Research Grant
Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department
data continues to be a top ranking data set. Shelby
reported that we proposed to them to streamline a
process in updating their data into GeoStor. Another
proposal was to integrate all of the historical aerial
photography into GeoStor and a third component of
the proposal was the capability to connect through
their enterprise level GIS database and directly write
into the GeoStor database. Shelby participated in
a panel review with their GIS Steering committee and
the aerial photography proposal was rejected. They
also rejected the transactional database update portion
of the proposal. They did however have some additional
data they wanted to add. There is a change in the
initiatives they want to pursue and the existing draft
is being retooled. It will be taken back to that committee
to seek their approval for this research grant to
extend some of the capabilities in GeoStor. The most
significant change requested by them was to include
their Geodetic database into GeoStor.
Arkansas View Consortium
Shelby reported Dr. Limp attended the America
View Consortium meeting in Sioux Falls. Fred reported
that Arkansas received a funding award which will
allow the creation of a facility with a 20 seat PCI
based remote sensing training facility to be located
in the Cooperative Extension. The America View Consortium
is negotiating with companies to acquire copies of
software to be made available at either a low or reduced
cost.
Arkansas School District
Boundary File
Phyllis Smith reported that they are assisting
the Secretary of States office with a project that
involves accurate presentation of boundaries. This
is the first statewide project where digital orthos
are being used as the base. Deadline for the project
is the end of the year.
GeoStor and National Map
National Map Pilot Activities
Dr. Limp reminded the group that Shelby has
been working carefully with the national mapping group
to develop a MOU. Shelby explained that they are exploring
the placement of a person to be located at the Water
Resources Division here in Little Rock. This person
will serve as a mapping and technical coordination
point with GIS and all of the other state agencies
that utilize and rely on their data. Dr. Limp reported
there is another effort going forward to look at the
GeoStor architecture as a pilot or proof of concept
for national map sites and other things of this kind.
There is an effort to locate a technical USGS person
in Fayetteville to work with the GeoStor development
team in that regard. In that respect the National
Map Center has a direct connect access into GeoStor.
GeoStor Development and
Usage
Dr. Limp distributed status documents to
the group. The standard usage status report showed
we are up to 33,000 downloads. All of the DOQQ data
is available for direct downloads. He reported that
things are moving along and seem to be going very
effectively.
Two new major data sets have been added since the last meeting, the National Elevation Data set, and the National Hydro Data set.
Board Decisions and Old Business
Legislative Session Planning
Susan Cromwell opened the discussion concerning
the business model draft. The business model will
provide the foundation and rational for the funding
request. Shelby explained the model provides a sense
of direction for ways to support and identify revenue
while still meeting the mandates. The business model
will differentiate the dollars it will take to provide
the core as a state public office (GIS). Fred went
over other features that could be added.
Kelly Boyd related that Governor Huckabee’s vision for the state as a whole is to take state government to the citizens in the most seamless manner possible. He feels the state agencies would provide funding to make these services available and accessible to the citizens of Arkansas. He encouraged the board to seek outside funding. The more funding raised the better justification when it is presented to the Legislature.
Discussion followed concerning the ROI model and using value added services to develop justification for the project.
AGIO Appropriation
Shelby discussed the mechanism that was used
in the last session to get the GIS fund established.
The appropriation was made through DIS, OIT and then
actually funded through general improvement funds.
The question has been whether or not the board should
seek appropriation or have a section of appropriation
inside the ECIO office.
Carolyn Osborne, has related to Shelby that her vision is for the GIS appropriation to be a component of the ECIO appropriation bill.
Definition of Agency in
Legislation
Shelby explained that in our law agency means
any agency or instrumentality of the state which utilizes
GIS data. Suzanne related that in Act 242, the ECIO
Legislation, there is a definition of agency which
includes cities and counties. There was discussion
relating on how to obtain buy in from cities and counties.
Shelby explained Southwestern Bell is promoting a package called MAPSTAR. MAPSTAR is a computerized dispatch system that requires centerline data to be structured a certain way and is not the same structure as the road centerline standard. He related how this could cause problems in the future.
Board Policy Action (GeoStor
Data Import)
Susan stressed that standards are important
because people want to upload and distribute data
through GeoStor. The board needs to figure out how
to articulate standards to potential customers. A
handout was distributed containing the proposed data
acquisition and loading priorities. The board was
asked to review the information. Action will be taken
at the next board meeting to adopt a policy.
SDSFIE Task Force Recommendations
Chris Boudreaux gave a report on the SDSFIE
technology that standardizes database models for GIS
and CAD applications. This report was distributed
to the board members. The consensus of the task force
members is that database standardization is a necessary
next step to ensure that total return on investment
is achieved by AGIO projects such as GeoStor and the
centerline projects. The board reviewed the recommendations.
A motion was made to accept SDSFIE as a spatial data
guideline. The motion was seconded and the recommendation
was accepted unanimously.
Amendment to ACF
Driveways greater than 500 feet and or have
two or more structures need to be included in the
standard. A motion was made to amend the standard;
it was seconded and accepted unanimously.
New Business
FEMA Flood Map Modernization
Strategic Plan
Jason Donham gave a report on the FEMA Map
Modernization Program. Flood maps are the most important
thing in implementing this program. Communities are
using these maps to determine who is in the flood
plain and who needs to develop to the standards of
their ordinance. Most of the maps being used are old
maps from the 70’s. Now for the first time official
FEMA maps can be obtained on line and downloaded.
Mr. Donham reported that President Bush has put money into his budget for flood mapping. This money will be distributed among the ten FEMA regions. Mr. Donham emphasized the importance of GIS getting involved and using available information to make sure Arkansas will get the greatest benefit from the funds available.
Arkansas Assessment Coordination
Department Assessor Mapping Program
Shelby reported that ACD has negotiated vendor
contracts with an industry leading software vendor.
The software will be installed and an ACD staff person
will be trained on how to use GeoStor.
State Police Vehicle Accident
Tracking System
Shelby reported they are assisting State
Police in the area of centerlines.
NSGC Conference
Shelby reported they will attend the NSGC
Conference.
Amendment to ACF
Learon discovered the wording on amendment
to the ACF standard needed to be changed to say Driveways
greater than 500 feet and or have two or more addressable
structures need to be included in the standard. A
motion was made to include the word addressable to
the amendment; it was seconded and accepted unanimously.
Future Meeting Dates
The next potential meeting date is Wednesday, October 2, 2002.
Meeting adjourned 5:30 p.m.
