Attendees

 

 

Ex-Officio Members

MSDIS – Thomas Vought – p

USGS – Cyndi Rachol – p

 

State Members

MDA – Jacque Walters – pp

DNR – Zackary Becker – p

MDC – Tim Bixler – p

MOARNG – Kaleb Bauer – p

MoDOT – Sarah Rowell

SEMA – Sydney Roberts – p

 

Cooperating Members

Boone County – Matt Smith – p

City of Columbia – Calvin Patterson – pp

Mid-MO RPC – Jennifer Bowden – p

MU Extension/CARES – Chris Barnett – p

Sanborn – Brad Arshat – e

Bowman – Steve Kasten – p

GISCI – Tony Spicci – p

USDA/NRCS – Katie Philbrick – p

Washington University – Mollie Webb – p

Wilson & Co – Derek Smith – p

City of Springfield – Nathan Huggins – pp

City of Branson – Curtis Copeland – p

 

Other Attendees

Aaron Lee

Christopher Michael

Dan R

Dustin Goodwin

Jack King

Joe Eckmann

Justin Foss

Katilin Belk

Rick Staudinger

Rob Ryan

JamesRakestraw

Wiley Howell

 

 

Call to Order – 10:02am

 

 

Approval of Minutes – Motion to approve meeting minutes from March. Motion seconded. Motion passes unanimously.

 

 

Administration

 

 

OGI Report – The QVL is available on MO Buys. OGI has had a couple vacancies and will be looking to fill some spots soon.

 

MSDIS Report – March 2026

 

New Data

• MSDIS did not receive any new data during March 2026.

 

Updated Data

• MSDIS did not receive any updated data during March 2026, however we did make progress

on improving the flow of data from OGI to MSDIS via ArcGIS Online. Once the new servers

are fully deployed, we will focus on perfecting our methods for data intake to enable easier

sharing. We will also take that opportunity to improve our metadata guidance.

 

MSDIS General News

 

Server Replacement and Migration

Two of the new MSDIS servers are now available for public testing…

 

11.5 LiDAR Server – https://lidar.msdis.missouri.edu/arcgis/rest/

11.5 Imagery Server – https://lidar.msdis.missouri.edu/arcgis/rest/

 

I am still working on a crosswalk to explain the difference between the existing MoImagery server and the two new machines. Most changes are self-explanatory, but documentation is always a good idea. The existing MoImagery server will continue to function until mid-May 2026. Our ESRI license renewals begin in late May, so I see no reason to retire the older server prematurely. As for the other new MSDIS servers…11.5 State Imagery Server – Continues humming along as expected. I am 99.9% certain that we are ready to swap the existing statewide server for the new one. This will require me to work with our networking administrators to schedule a time to properly realign the IIS and Web Adaptor configurations. Users will not need to change anything on their end but may experience some downtime with the realignment resolves. I will use the MSDIS listserv to announce the switchover once I have more information.11.5 Development Server – Pending

 

MSDIS Web Presence and Digital Accessibility

MSDIS continues to prepare for the rapidly approaching digital accessibility standards deadline. The MSDIS Hub Site is being reviewed by an automated accessibility checker, and we have made several major modifications to the individual pages to bring them into compliance. As of 04 April 2026, the MSDIS Hub Site was determined to be 96.9% compliant. The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of the MSDIS Hub Site already complies with digital accessibility standards. What I find particularly interesting (or vexing, depending on how you look at it) is that many of the newest elements being flagged for review are completely out of our control. For instance, after its first run through the accessibility checker, the Hub Site reported no dead links or misspellings. Subsequent runs, however, have thrown flags for both dead links and misspellings. Upon investigation, every new flag was traced back to a dataset distributed by the Hub and not the Hub itself.In this case, the dead links were found in a Dept of Natural Resources attribute table, and the misspellings were several abbreviated attribute titles from a different dataset (which does not bode well for any GIS clearinghouses navigating the same process). As previously mentioned, the original MSDIS website is being completely rebuilt. We will share more information on this as it becomes available.

 

State Training

The next state employee training session will take place on 22 April 2026. Katilin Belk has completed most of the necessary work on developing an Introduction to Basic Spatial Analysis course to supplement the existing Introduction to ArcGIS Pro course. We expect to begin offering the new training in the coming months.

 

Reference Maps

Thanks to the hard work of Katilin Belk and the Team MSDIS interns, we are very close to producing review copies of reference maps for several Missouri school districts. The basic layouts are complete and have been implemented for a variety of districts. The team is currently finalizing symbology and determining best practices to meet digital accessibility standards.

 

MSDIS Downtime

There was a brief outage of the MoImagery server on 10 March 2026. MoImagery began experiencing connectivity problem at, or about, 9:53AM. Upon investigating, I discovered that the ArcGIS Server process was stopped and could not be manually restarted. After brief discussion with the University of Missouri Division of IT, I restarted the server. On reboot, the ArcGIS Server process restarted automatically and continued to function as expected. This outage took slightly longer to resolve than usual because one of the MU DoIT administrators was logged into the server at the time of the outage and I was reluctant to perform a complete restart. Discussion after the incident confirmed that the administrator was only logged onto the server to examine the IIS settings in preparation for the rollout of the new MSIDS imagery and LiDAR servers. Please note that the statewide imagery server was not affected by this outage and remained accessible.

 

MSDIS Traffic

The following traffic reports are based on data harvested from the raw server logs and represent the total request load for each machine. Compared to the number of requests reported from theArcGIS Image Server Manager, these numbers are very high. In virtually every case, the total number of requests from the server logs are double those reported by ArcGIS Image Server Manager. I am still refining the process for reporting usage, but research indicates that there is more value in reporting the total number of requests than in reporting only the requests that were successfully resolved by the Image Server

 

If we test links and like them can we go ahead and use them? The answer is yes, you can go ahead and make the shift if the links work for you. An announcement will come before current server goes away sometime in May.

 

Treasurer’s Report – $33,615.21. No expenses this month.

 

 

Committee Reports

 

 

Education Report – Updated the story map with any new events going on. There are a number of conferences and student opportunities coming up. Finals are coming up and then off to summer. Story map also accessible on the education page on the MGISAC website.

 

Legislation Report – Senate 959 is moving forward and has headed into the house. This is the last step before going to the Governor’s desk. No clue what will happen with any of the bills this year. Nothing more for us to do. We want to see it get on the calendar. We made it further the first year where we were on the Governor’s desk and then time ran out due to filibuster, hence why we don’t count it done until a signature is for sure on it.

 

HB3174 is a larger bill to establish emergency response activities in schools. It pushes indoor mapping, panic devices, etc. Goes with a federal bill. It’s had a public hearing.

 

Marketing, Outreach, Communications Report – Accessibility Webinar is on youtube. Resources links went out afterward. Had community chat on Tuesday. Got to hear about several hobbies throughout the state. Talked about some different courses coming up at WashU. They are online. Make sure you get any jobs sent to Tom to get them updated on the jobs page of MSDIS. Looking for topics or webinars that the council is interested in seeing. Please let us know.

 

Data Development Report – Still looking for a committee chair. This is a pretty active committee. Data acquisition and coordination happens through this committee. Leaf-off/on and Lidar all goes through here. Zack will be on leave in May and needs someone to step up. Needs to get the group together once a month or every other month, have a light agenda on what to talk about, and report what was discussed at MGISAC meeting. Sometimes you may need to do some outreach to get feedback on what’s going on. Reach out to Zack if interested.

 

Currently working on 3DEP. Just finished 11 county in Ozarks. Southwest part of state has some going on in Barry and McDonald which cost about $350k.Another application to get Lidar around greater St. Louis area through USGS and NRCS. Looking for folks to cost share on that project to expand coverage and get cost down per county.

 

Conference Report – Mollie and Tara did site visits week or so ago and after seeing the spaces presented to us we asked for a couple to make some changes and resend us updated proposals. We got those a couple days ago so will be having a meeting shortly to discuss what turned up at the site visits and to choose a location. Due to a tech conference in town that will also have some GIS components it’s best that we avoid the week of April 12th.

 

David said he would see about having State’s graphic design folks look into getting us a logo together. We will be checking back in on that effort soon as well.

 

 

Cooperating Agencies

 

 

USGS Report – Next DCA cycle. Another webinar to come in August. The intent is for any counties looking to change analysis there are some additional products out there.

 

NRCS Report – Hoping to add more the St. Louis area and things attached because it’s more cost beneficial to work on counties that are adjacent to each other and the more folks involved in an acquisition the more likely NRCS can get approved to partner on a flight.

 

 

Open Discussion

 

 

Nominate someone for council seats. We need a chair elect, treasurer, and secretary. Wiley was unable to accept the current chair elect so we are back to looking for a chair elect. Christopher Michael has been nominated for treasurer. Christopher of Taylor Geospatial has been nominated for secretary. Taylor is not currently a member. They will need to be voted a member before he can be officially nominated to the position.

 

*Motion made and seconded to invite Taylor Geospatial to be a member of MGISAC. Motion passes unanimously.

 

Zack has been nominated to stay on as current chair. Funding for Zack’s job does run out next year. Zack expects to still be on at DNR but there is risk that something could happen. Wiley will be able to assist while Zack is on paternity leave.

 

We are at the mid-point of the budget cycle. We do not need to vote on anything but we can review. If we had any major changes needed then we could vote on changes. We do not anticipate any major changes needed. It’s time to start membership renewals for the other half of the membership that is coming due. Will add new members. Have a vacant by-laws position available. Wiley will be taking this over.

 

In the past Dava Dev and NG911 have been merged. Some years it’s the same people and some years it’s not.

 

Will continue to call for nominations for positions.

 

Zack has been working on a Strategic Vision for the council. A rough draft has been put together. It is a list of goals that the council is aiming toward. Plan for it to be a one-page front/back that covers our initiatives.

 

1. Establish GIO
2. Reestablish collaborative engagement between local, State, and Federal agencies
3. Create and fund state-wide data acquisition and Lidar
4. Increased support for MSDIS
5. Support workforce development initiatives to meet the growing GIS demand in MO

 

There has been a lot of concern about how State focused we have been in the past. Some of these initiatives would hopefully further outreach into other sectors and bridge the gap between State and other entities that utilize GIS. Discussion about the role of a GIO helping to facilitate such coordination as well as whether to place a GIO in State or possibly more neutral location such as University setting.

 

Question about if the vision would be MGISAC having a fund for data acquisition. No, the intent would be more that we work toward there being a fund for data acquisition in some capacity and then MGISAC would serve in more of an advisory role as to who and how the funds would be best utilized through our cooperative effort.

 

Folks are definitely in favor of finding ways to further the workforce and get creative doing it. Many places have entry level positions and are used as a stepping stone which makes it difficult to retain employees. Need to explore a vocational approach. Entry work doesn’t need a bachelor’s or master’s degree, but those jobs can feed higher level jobs.

 

The plan is to present the final document to the council in May. Any additional thoughts, edits, etc please send to Zack.

 

Zack will be out in May and may or may not be working much in June. Wiley will not be able to help out in June.

 

Jennifer Bowden has been nominated to continue in the position of secretary.

 

Zack will be at the ESRI user conference. MoHIC might be giving a small presentation.

 

MAGIC is next week.

 

Next Meeting in Columbia Central Office

 

Adjourned – 11:41am