Call to Order – 10:09am

Approval of Minutes – Motion to approve last month’s meeting minutes made and seconded. Motion passes unanimously.

Attendance

Ex-Officio Members
MSDIS – Thomas Vought – p
OA-ITSD/NSGIC – Tracy Schloss – p
USGS – David Nail – p

State Members
MDA – Jacque Walters – p
DNR – Zackary Becker – p
MDC – Tim Bixler – p
MOARNG – Wiley Howell – p
MoDOT – Colin Duewell – p

Cooperating Members
All State Consultants – Katilin Belk – p
BCFPD – Ryan Rhee – p
City of Columbia – Calvin Patterson – p
City of Jefferson – Buster Schrage – p
Cole County – Melissa Johnson – p
Mid-MO RPC – Jennifer Bowden – p
MO 911 Board – Shawn Penman – p
MU Extension/CARES – Chris Barnett – p
NW MO State University – Ming-Chih Hung – p
Sanborn – Brad Arshat – p
SE MO State University – Indi Braden – p
Surdex – Steve Kasten – p
GISCI – Tony Spicci – p
US ACE St. Louis – Jennifer Backer – p
USDA-NRCS – Katie Philbrick – p
Washington University – Mollie Webb – p
Wilson & Co – Derek Smith – p
City of Springfield – Nathan Huggins – p
City of Branson – Curtis Copeland – p

Other Attendees
Jack King
Joe Eckman
Rick Staudinger
Scott Penman
Travis Tomson

Administration

OGI Report – Still working on enterprise agreement. Getting closer. Master purchase agreement had to be renegotiated. Council will have input on what is in the MSDIS MOA but OA will deal with the mechanics of it. Going to table until October after things slow down some for Tracy. Want some flexibility but it will amount to $500,000 annually to MSDIS.

MSDIS Report – August
MSDIS General News
As I previously reported, my primary goal since mid-May has been to review the LiDAR data currently available to MSDIS, determine which collections were most current, and rebuild both the LiDAR services and downloads to feature only the most relevant data.
The LiDAR directory of the MSDIS Imagery Server now features the eleven services necessary for statewide coverage at QL2 or better. The oldest of these services dates to 2015, while the newest is from 2023. I have not built a complete statewide coverage out of these eleven services and I have no plans to do so at this time. LiDAR project boundaries are, in my opinion, still too patchwork and irregular to be able to cleanly update a statewide mosaic without having slivers of older projects scattered throughout the finished product.
More difficult than making services available was building a better delivery method for LiDAR downloads. In the past, there have been several major obstacles to ensuring the LiDAR data are available for download. Between missing (or competing) tile grids, thousands of unzipped files, and the time delay of simply getting new data, LiDAR downloads have been my least favorite part of this job for a very long time. As of right now, we are trying a different approach. The Missouri Map is now loaded with a new layer named Latest Available MO LiDAR Index that utilizes the tiles available from the USGS LiDAR explorer which have been edited to link directly to USGS data storage. This is not a perfect solution, but it is the best and fastest way that MSDIS can provide LiDAR downloads for all projects currently available.
Needless to say, I want to thank Dave Nail, Katie Philbrick, and Mollie Webb for their assistance and patience with me during this hectic time. Dave and Katie were instrumental in helping determine which projects were necessary for complete coverage while Mollie’s continued willingness to provide offsite storage has been invaluable. This work simply would not have been possible without the three of them.
I also want to make clear that this new LiDAR delivery mechanism does not mean that MSDIS will suddenly stop sending data to WashU. Mollie is one of the most important partners that the clearinghouse has, and every single download link to older LiDAR projects (which make up the overwhelming majority of our LiDAR data) still points to the cloud space that she has generously managed for years. Rest assured, I will continue to throw large amounts of data in her general direction until the heat death of the universe.
Unrelated to LiDAR concerns, I had the opportunity to join the other MAGIC clearinghouses for the 2024 MAGIC Clearinghouse Summit, held this year in St Charles, MO. As is always the case, it was great to catch up with everyone, learn about what projects our sister sites have been working on, and compare notes. In addition to the usual suspects, we were joined this year by representatives from Arizona, Connecticut, Indiana, and Minnesota.
MSDIS Downtime
No downtime was reported during August 2024.
Image Server Statistics
Since the replacement of the MSDIS Image Server, we have struggled to find a software to provide a comprehensive breakdown of server and service usage. We had hoped that the statistics pulled directly from ArcGIS Server Manager would be a suitable substitute, but the very bare-bones records were significantly less than what we wanted.
Moving forward, we will no longer publish these numbers in our monthly reports. We will remain on the lookout for a reliable option for parsing the server usage in the hope that we can publish these numbers again. The raw server logs are still being saved if anyone requires them. Should anyone need a rough estimate of usage for certain specific services, we are more than happy to run those numbers via Server Manager.
Question about small amounts of Lidar that aren’t 3DEP approved if MSDIS still wants those. The answer is yes. MSDIS will take any level of data. It doesn’t have to be big fancy data. For now Lidar is a one-at-a-time download. Interested in figuring out how to allow bulk downloads.

Treasurer’s Report – No expenses. $33,362.53. Support for SEMO conference will come through later this month.

Membership Report – No changes. Going to let OA Planning drop off in spring. Kaleb will be taking over for Wiley until he’s back from deployment.

By-Laws Report – No changes.

Committee Reports

Data Development – QA/QC for south data wrapped up. Looking to get call together to go over available imagery. Survey is ready to go. USGS has Friday deadline for collaboration projects. Putting in for 3DEP this year for Pok, Hickory, and Dallas counties for QL1. Got preliminary data for last year’s 11 county collection. Submitted for Hydrography in 2026 through another program.

911 – Moved deadline from September 1 to until the funds are allocated.

Legislative – Update on legislation language. Prefiling start date is December 1st. Continuing to work with Representative Taylor. Senator Robers was the Senate sponsor originally. Haven’t heard from him. Going to try to retain our branding. The membership section is still the challenge. It mostly mimics the existing council. Have catch all verbiage to keep spots for local government, education, private sector, ect available. The minimum of representatives should be 28. Added language to wrap secretary into the membership duties so it’s not a budget item. Removed anything to do with grants. Currently 11 roles and responsibilities. Probably narrowing down to 6 in the coming weeks. Want wrapped up by November. Question about finances, if they need included in language. It doesn’t seem like we need to. Vague might be better. Question if we will have to vote more often as part of our oversight role? Possibly.

Conference – Logos have been chosen and facebook page setup with the first save-the-date posted. In talks about budget and some items that will go up in costs and if we need to raise rates to absorb some of this. AV last year was a struggle but if we hire out AV it could cost us up to $5k. Must see how much we can absorb realistically. Need to get keynote speaker. Suggestions for Aaron Addison or Nadine Alameh of the Taylor Institute.

Liaison Reports

MAGIC – Second week of April back in Omaha in 2026. URISA conference maybe coming to St. Louis in 2026.

NSGIC – Conference end of September. Tracy, Katilin, and Tony going. Need to pick 3 people for the board. 5 were nominated. Discussion and a recommendation was made.
*VOTE – Motion made and seconded to affirm the recommended candidates to the NSGIC Board. Motion passes unanimously. Casey Dunn Gossin of Nebraska, Jackie Phipps Montes of Colorado, and Haley Feather of Mississippi are the 3 candidates MGISAC will put forward.

Agency Reports

USGS – 3DHP program will be talked about at NSGIC. Southeast project moving along. Delivery sometime this fall for review. 11 county final available between January and May.

NRCS – Should be good to fund several counties and also other project collaborations.

Open Discussion

SEMO conference next week. Going to cover several topics on behalf of council. NGA sending people.
Looking to resurrect the local government survey.
New building footprint data is coming.

Adjourned – 11:57am

Next Meeting – MDC Credit Union in Jefferson City