Present: Dave Hochede, Vickey Bagley, William Burris, Christine O'Connor, Steve Whitney, Donald Ijams, Howard Ward, Larry Cassen, Dave Koss, Dan Falkner, Teri Schultz, Anna Sanchez, Linda Lopez, Jack Avis, Russell Riblett, Robert MacArthur and Fran LaSala

Adjustments of Pima County GIS Layers Using Orthophoto Data

Steve Whitney reported that things are moving again in the section by section base map clean up process. A comprehensive sweep of all sections has been made, rating them as good, bad, or ugly in their fit with orthophotos. There is no pattern to the ugly stuff (poor match with orthophotos), though the problems are basically in pockets of at least two sections. They are experimenting with different techniques to correct mismatch problems. In some cases they will need to redo the section. Of 578 sections only 25 are ugly.

In the bad category, most of the problems come from using too many points in the rubber sheeting. Staff is working to bring all unacceptable sections up to a "good" classification. Currently, Steve is looking at a late November target date for moving data. There is a meeting this afternoon to discuss approaches. Since rubber sheeting each layer gets better results, there will probably be two phases: 1) moving the data into the new coordinate system, and 2) rubber sheeting as many layers as they can get good results by the end of November.

Address Standards Implementation

Efforts to use the official address standards are ongoing. ADCounty and the subset ADParcel database and shape files are available. Don ran adparcel addresses against stnetall and found 4% that did not match. This was over 14,000 records out of a total of 305,000. This establishes a benchmark as of September 1. There will be a meeting to discuss these 14,000 and an effort will be made to isolate the reasons for the problem addresses. The goal is to make as nearly perfect a set of master addresses as possible - one that can be used anywhere.

Jack Avis reported that Permits Plus and addressing are now both managed in MS SQL database environments. Hopefully this will help in narrowing down the 4%. These anomalies are not unexpected, and we just need to gear up to resolve them. This percentage could simply be data errors, streets not recognized as official. A systematic narrowing down of these anomalies is in the works.

This topic will remain on the agenda for continuing attention.

GIS Intergovernmental Agreement - Draft

Steve Whitney has worked up the new Intergovernmental Agreement draft based on conversations with Ron Platt. Currently this work is under review within Pima and the City DOTS. By the next Co-op meeting, there will be a draft available for people to look at and give feedback on. If this is done before next Co-op meeting, Steve Whitney will get a copy to Don Ijams in order to ship a copy to all attendees.

In response to a question about Pinal County infrastructure and its communication with Pima County and other service providers (fire response requires maps of improvements and right now they are being done by hand by people in the field), regarding various infrastructure projects, it was suggested that ADOT (Arizona Department of Transportation) be contacted since they are working with most counties. The City Information Technology Department is in the process of finding out what IGA and/or contracts are in place between the City and other governmental entities in the technology areas. IT is trying to come up with a generic way to employ a resource-sharing technology approach as these issues present themselves. A statewide conference is scheduled in November for Maricopa County which may provide an opportunity for more dialog with Pinal County.

GIS Training Plan

There are several GIS training initiatives. The first initiative is to develop a basic GIS concepts course that is software independent. The proposal is for a half-day class. Steve Whitney and Vickey Bagley are reviewing existing materials as a starting point. Vickey and Steve had decided to sort through this material and remove what was software specific while they created a list of what additional topics needed to be covered. This is complete and the proposed topics include: maps and scaling, how measurements are done on maps, traditional use for maps, coordinate systems, map projection, public land survey system, control points and tying georeferenced data to the ground. The difference between a paper map and electronic image will be highlighted and the importance of topology and attributes in GIS will be stressed. The class will begin with a discussion of the benefits of GIS. Also under consideration for inclusion are a URISA video and resources at the University of Arizona. If anyone has any other thoughts on potential content, please contact Vickey, Steve, or Don.

The second initiative is for customized ArcView training. What is envisioned is a localized version of the existing two day hands-on class. This would use PCLIS (Pima County Land Information System) and customized local ArcView scripts as a base for training. This would be an analyst-oriented class for people with ArcView on their machines.

The third initiative will be specialized mini-courses after basic training has been received. For example, this training would offer such topics as spatial analysis and cartography. Don encouraged people with GIS training needs of any kind to contact him or Vickey, since they have been reviewing requests.

The University staff is currently concentrating on developing curriculum aimed at K-12 in this area. They are targeting different venues including: the Santa Rosa Learning Center, libraries and the Pima Prevention Partnership. They are looking for data sets that would be engaging for these age groups.

The group was reminded that November 15th is national GIS day. ESRI and National Geographic have a number of events planned.

The members also discussed the importance of widening training availability to community members over time. Clark Phillips will again be offering the PCLIS in four- hour sessions both in the morning and afternoon on October 17th. The morning session is full but there are seats available in the afternoon. In the future, getting relevant classes/ information to the public through the library systems and public access should be a major initiative.

CityScan - Update - First Round Data Sets

The goal is to use GIS to promote the city as an enterprise and not as a collection of departments. This is to be accomplished by building a end-user, location focused website that uses data sets from around the City in an easy and interesting way. Staff training in IT on new tools is ongoing. David Hochede is the IT Project Manager. Software has been purchased (MapObjects and ArcIMS).

It is time now to form the GIS Co-op advisory group to work with the IT team in selecting and prioritizing data sets for the project beginning with Phase I. Anyone interested in participating should let Don know. It will involve a minimum of one meeting every three weeks to meet with the team and discuss the project.

GIS Cooperative Business

No nominations for GIS Chair were received by election coordinator Vickey Bagley. With a nod of all heads present, Don Ijams agreed to continue as Co-op chair for another year.

Don would like to hear from members on how to improve the workings of the Co-op and whether any reorganization or different directions are needed. Don will follow up with Carl Drescher to see if a member's suggestion for a listserv can be accommodated.

Roundtable of Dept./Office GIS Activities

Police Department:

Water Department:

Comm. Operations:

City DOT:

Solid Waste:

Fire:

City Office of Economic Development:

Planning:

The next GIS Cooperative meeting will be held Friday, November 17, since November 10 is a holiday. Also, the location will change from the City IT Pueblo Rm, since remodeling is not expected to be complete until December.