Missouri GIS Advisory Committee Minutes – September 19, 2002

Missouri GIS Advisory Committee Minutes – September 19, 2002

Members Present

Elizabeth Cook, USDA-NRCS
Tony Spicci, Department of Conservation
Jeff Falter, State Emergency Management Agency
Tim Haithcoat, Missouri Spatial Data Information Service
Kevin Kulhmann, Boonslick Regional Planning Commission
JimLaScala, City of Liberty
Jennifer Peterson, City Utilities of Springfield
Steve Daw, Shafer, Kline and Warren
Mark Duewell, Department of Health and Senior Services
Greg Dorge, City of Jefferson
Ray Fox, US Geological Survey
Arnold Williams, Department of Transportation
Michelle Carey, City of Kansas City

Members Excused

Julia Cole, East West Gateway Coordinating Council – sent proxy Gary Mook
Jeff Schloss, Department of Natural Resources – sent proxy Renee Holder
Janet Duncan, Department of Insurance

Members Absent

Don Yoest, Department of Agriculture
Gary Beahan, Department of Economic Development
Ryan Burson, Office of Administration
David Drum,MOREnet
Jim Davis, Department of Mental Health

Others Present

Sonny Sanders, ESRI
Debbie Briedwell, Department of Health and Senior Services
Jason Smith, Department of Health and Senior Services
Joseph Weidinger, Department of Health and Senior Service
Ann Peton, University of Missouri – RUPRI-CIRC
Andy Wagner, City of Maryland Heights
Chris Vanderheyden, Smart Data Strategies
Jeff Stevenson, City of St. Louis
Ken Boyko, USGS
Kelly Cobb, ESRI
Tim Hensley, ESRI
Bob Hurst, City of Kansas City
Scott Smith, City of Florissant
Gary Higgs, St. Louis University
Ken Walk, City of St. Louis
Dan Backowski, City of Jackson
Hilary Perkins, Jacobs Civil
Helen Steward, SEMA
Scott Russell, SURDEX

Call to Order

Chair Tony Spicci called the meeting to order at 1:40 pm. in the GIS Lab at St. Louis University, following a morning session on the USGS National Map program.

Approval of Minutes

Minutes of the last meeting, emailed to the membership and posted on the Web, were approved as written.

Announcements

Mark Duewell is now Vice-Chair of the Committee due to Renee Holder taking a new position at MDNR.

Subcommittee Reports

By-Laws

No report.

Communications

No report.

Education and Outreach

JimLaScalareminded us that GIS Day is coming up in November. Please try to participate. Tim Haithcoat brought the draft committee brochure for one last-ditch perusal. Renee asked if the committee’s mobile exhibit was revised. Tim said it was ready for the Assessors’ conference October 1.

Federal Initiatives

The national interagency group funding digital orthoimagery will meet soon. Missouri is high on the list for consideration. The state is close to a commitment for cost-share.

GIS Merit System Positions

Tim Haithcoat sent the merit position descriptions to a list higher education programs.

GIS Standards

Renee Holder would like to get other standards besides street centerlines get started. Tim Haithcoat will have a write-up a summary of the street centerline meeting recently held in Kansas City. Renee asked for participants interested in developing GPS standards and there were several volunteers.

Homeland Security

Mark Duewell and Tony Spicci will co-chair this sub-committee. The next sub-committee meeting will be September 23, 2002, at 10am at MDC. Tony has a summary of activities from about 5 states. He will forward it to the committee via email in .pdf format. A Federal committee developed a document regarding homeland security and is asking for input and participation. More information can be acquired by sending a request to hsip@nima.mil or hsip@usgs.gov. Mark discussed testing and development of MERGIS. He is interested in the next phase of the tool being MGISAC-sponsored rather than it being specific to Department of Health and Senior Services. JimLaScalasuggested that funds from various organizations could be leveraged to improve MERGIS. A discussion took place about the role of National Map in providing data for emergency situations.

I-team

Call for Participation materials will be on the MSDIS web page, and also mailed.

Nominations

No report.

SMAC

Tony asked for a volunteer to chair this sub-committee. No one volunteered.

Strategic Planning

Mark Duewell will send out a draft report soon.

State Architecture

NASCIO is looking to develop a guide for GIS-IT integration. MAGIC will be assisting with development of the plan. Gerry Wethington (Missouri CIO) is incoming President of NASCIO. One of his platform items is for all states to have a state GIS Coordinator. Renee asked about the status of a Missouri State GIS Coordinator. There are currently no funds available. Tony is planning to develop a proposal to find funding, such as contributions from state agencies. Federal homeland security money (coming from NIMA) can not be used for personnel.

Liaison Reports

MAGIC

The next MAGIC meeting is on September 26, 2002. A group will be leaving from Columbia at 7am. if you need transportation.

MACOG

MSDIS and Department of Geography surplused four computers to certain Regional Planning Commissions. ESRI provided temporary software licenses.

ITAB

No report.

MMA

Jennifer Peterson reported that she had read reviews of their annual conference. Many said they would not be getting GIS anytime soon, so they would like to have fewer talks about GIS.

Missouri 2003 GIS Conference Committees

Program

JimLaScalapassed out a program layout. The call for papers is on the Web site, but needs to be more visible. The hard copy will go out soon. A discussion ensued of when to give out awards so that most of the people have not left the conference. Michelle Carey suggested after the keynote speakers. We need to start filling the program, slots with papers.

Exhibitors

Renee reported one exhibitor has signed up.

Publicity

Steve Daw has notified various GIS-related publications to show the conference dates on their calendars. Tony asked that the announcement also go to NSGIC. Renee wants to start to prepare the program materials and not wait until the last minute.

Posters

No report.

Shortcourses

No report.

Social

No report.

Awards

Michelle Carey distributed an awards nomination form. The award will be a plaque. Nominations are due by Feb. 10, 2003. Michelle asked for a committee to help decide on the winners. JimLaScalaand Steve Daw volunteered.

NSGIC

They recently met in Park City, UT. Tony suggested MGISAC endorse the NSGIC “interdependency declaration.” He will have the vote by email because we had lost quorum by this time in the meeting. The purpose of the document is to raise awareness and seek support for GIS data development, especially in regards to homeland security. No money currently allocated for homeland security has gone toward data development or other GIS infrastructure. A call will go to Congress to spend $1 billion annually for NSDI. Stu Davis, Bill Burgess and Tony Spicci were elected to Board of Directors, and Bill Johnson is President-Elect.

MSDIS Activities

No report.

Round Table Discussion

No report.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:10pm. The next meeting isOctober 10, 2002 at 9am. Location will be announced.

Minutes from The National Map Meeting

Saint Louis University September 19, 2002

USGS Mid-Continent Mapping Center and the Missouri GIS Advisory Committee, held a joint meeting hosted by Saint Louis University to discuss implementing The National Map in Missouri, and the St. Louis region. Forty-one people attended the meeting, which was followed by a scheduled meeting of the Missouri GIS Advisory Committee, and then a meeting of the St. Louis chapter of URISA. The following is a summary of the meeting with attendees.

Topic: Introduction, Welcome

Speaker: Ray Fox, USGS MCMC, Gary Higgs, SLU

Gary Higgs, Director of the GIS Lab at Saint Louis University and Chair of the St. Louis URISA Chapter welcomed everyone to Saint Louis University. Ray Fox explained the reason for the meeting. USGS has designated Missouri as a place to implement The National Map starting with the St. Louis region. There is a wealth of data available in the St. Louis region, contacts have been made, and the potential for partnerships is high. Ray asked for input on several questions: work on the state of Missouri first, or develop the St. Louis metro region including the Illinois counties. Other questions included how to work together. USGS does not have the resources to build partnerships with each county and city, can the regional planning councils serve as regional collection points for the state allowing the USGS to work with just the 50 states when The National Map is implemented?

Topic: The National Map Overview

Speaker: Ken Boyko, USGS MCMC

Copies of Ken’s presentation were distributed at the meeting. The National Map (TNM) conception and implementation plan were briefly discussed. TNM is a web mapping system that will be Open GIS Consortium (OGC) compliant. The OGC services include the following aspects. A map service which creates a map image from vector data. A coverage service which uses raster data such as imagery,DEMs, andDRGs. A feature service which returns GIS information on the objects and not just a picture. A catalog service which identifies the known possible web sites that can possibly satisfy the query. The final service is a utility service that will develop / convert between the projection, symbology, and other cartographic information requested.

The architecture plan for The National Map describes the content, semantic mapping functions, normalized datasets, achieved consistency, and data integration necessary to produce these mapping functions. The 2003 USGS plans are to:

  • complete TNM content definition,
  • perform semantic mapping of local content to TNM content,
  • implement the catalog concept,
  • increase Mapping Partnership Offices where needed,
  • further development of the product generation engine,
  • develop a strategy for acquiring data where it doesn’t exist, and
  • begin retraining USGS employees

Topic: Missouri GIS Advisory Committee role

Speaker: Tony Spicci, Chair MGISAC

Tony spoke about: a) how TNM fits into the plans of Missouri and surrounding states for making GIS data available, b) the Missouri Homeland Security plan, and c) the Memorandum of Understanding signed between USGS and the MGISAC to work together on implementing TNM.

Topic: Progress to Date

Speaker: Rick Bradford, USGS-MCMC

Rick spoke about the Cape Girardeau, Missouri pilot project, and gave a demonstration of TNM Missouri web-site which will soon be operational. The web address is:http://mcmcwebmap.usgs.gov/website/nm_mopilot The Missouri pilot demonstrated use of environmental hazards information such as geologic maps, and flood potential areas for use by emergency response personnel.

Topic: Homeland Security Efforts

Speaker: Bill Harris, USGS-MCMC

Bill presented on Homeland Security efforts undertaken by USGS in conjunction with NIMA. Copies of the slides used for this presentation are available upon request by contacting Ray Fox at rfox@usgs.gov. USGS was able to cooperatively fund aerial photography planned by the St. Louis Metro Sewer District, and is in the process of producing 1/3-meter pixel resolution, true color, orthoimagery for the St. Louis area. These images are being mosaiced by 1500m x 1500m chips which will be produced as a geotiff, within a NAD 83, UTM Zone 15 projection. Delivery media is still being investigated. The 120 Cities project is now the 133 Urban Areas project which in addition to St. Louis includes Kansas City and Jefferson City. Cartographic data layers are structures, boundaries, hydrography (NHD), transportation, land cover, geographic names, and elevation (NED).

Topic: Implementation Teams efforts

Speaker: Ray Fox, USGS-MCMC

The Missouri GIS Advisory Committee has organized an Implementation or I-Team. I-Teams are part of the Office of Management and Budget’s Geospatial One Stop initiative. The objective of the I-Teams are to assessthe progress made for each of the Framework data layers, determine what agency should be the data steward, and what it will cost and how to fund and complete the framework data layer. A call for participation will be posted on the MSDIS web page at:http://msdisweb.missouri.edu/

Topic: Discussion, where do we go from here?

Speaker: Ray Fox, USGS-MCMC

Comments included the following:

  • Local governments need data standards.
  • Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Kansas are working together in developing architectural standards for the IT environment.
  • The National Map website should include examples on how different users can benefit from TNM. Specific groups mentioned included policy makers, health care planners, etc.
  • What’s in it for me, why should local government participate? One advantage cited was in freeing up personnel that currently have to process data requests.
  • Is this another federal flash in the pan? Do not think so due to the fact that states are developing similar capabilities on their own, and several local governments have already done so.
  • MSDIS will have difficulty dealing with more than 100 Counties and incorporated cities in the state. Suggestion made to work through the regional coordinating councils such as East-West Gateway in the St. Louis area.

Topic: Missouri GIS Advisory Committee Meeting

Speaker: Tony Spicci

Minutes from this meeting are posted on the MSDIS website at:http://msdisweb.missouri.edu/

Topic: URISA Chapter Meeting

Speaker: Ray Fox, Gary Higgs

The URISA Chapter meeting was a follow on discussion of The National Map meeting with the following proposal made. Gary Higgs and Andy Wagner suggested a similar presentation be made to the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council soon. SLU has worked with the council and would serve as the data collection, (integration?) site. This could be done reasonably soon and serve as a prototype for other coordinating councils. MGISAC and MSDIS would need to participate in the meeting. Andy will discuss having USGS on the agenda with East-West Gateway (Maryland Heights is a member of this organization). MSDIS and East-West Gateway would need to develop a procedure for making the data available. Having SLU as a technical resource is a major advantage and good reason to start here. The USGS presentations would need to be tailored towards the decision makers on the council.

 

 

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