GIS Cooperative Meeting Notes

City Information Technology Dept. Pueblo Room

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Present:

Present: Steve Whitney, PC DOT; Laura Pinnas, TEP; Jack Avis, Marana; Bill Marum, COT DSD; Diane Tentscher, COT IT; Christine O'Connor, COT IT; Anita Velasco COT GSD/Comm.; Dee Korick, COT ES; Larry Cassen, COT ES; John Crosby, COT IT/ECDS; Michael Liberti, COT Water; Tyler Jones, Marana; Steve Smith, TDOT; Francisco Leyva, COT Traffic; Melisa Hadinger, COT Water; Terri Schultz, Tucson Fire; Jesse Reyes, COT UPD; Blanca Espino, COT DSD; Linda Coon, PC DSD; Heather Wolfe, COT Water; Clint Chiavarini, COT UPD.

GIS Cooperative Chairman Steve Whitney presiding.

ArcPublisher Demo - Town of Marana

Tyler Jones demonstrated how the Town of Marana is utilizing the ArcPublisher extension to ArcGIS. ArcPublisher works within ArcMap, and has built-in security and customization capabilities. A connection to the source data layers is required, i.e. it is similar to an ArcMap.mxd in that the ArcPublisher .pmf does not actually contain layer data. ArcPublisher does have a data packager that will assemble the source data layers into a single directory, which is then distributed with the .pmf. Tyler also talked about an ArcReader control that provides customization for ArcReader.

E911 Presentation

Anita Velasco gave a presentation on how the Emergency 911 system operates and how GIS is being integrated. She ran through the processes that are used to route 911 calls and what data is used. Emergency Service Numbers (ESN) are used to identify geographic areas which determines who (jurisdiction, fire station, etc.) gets dispatched to the call. A GIS layer for ESN areas is currently under development for Pima County.

For cell phones, there are two phases to the advancement of the technology. Phase 1 provides data that identifies which cell tower is picking up the call, and what face of the tower the call hit, which provides a general area from which the call is being made.

Phase 2 provides data down to the location of the cell phone itself, but this requires that the cell phone is equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) capabilities. Most cell phone service providers are on board for Phase 2. A fee is tacked on the cell phone bills, and helps fund all this. It was strongly suggested that whenever possible, use a land line to call 911, as the system for locating land line calls is well established.

GIS Cooperative Funding Requests

The present participants agreed to expend Co-op budget funds in the following areas:

Up to $10,000 for the Environmental Services Department to purchase a large-format plotter, which will also be shared out to other users at the Price Center.

$10,000 to PAG in support of a Pictometry pilot project.

What's new in the GIS Library: 10 meter Digital Elevation Model for Western Pima County

This is the portion of the 10-meter National Elevation Dataset (NED) (located at \\mars\mars1\az\counties\pima\grids\elned1pw) that covers the Western portion of Pima County. A 10-meter NED layer for the entire county is not possible due to software data limitations for an ESRI Grid.

Pima Association of Governments Orthophoto Project of 2005

The RFP is on the streets and responses are due back by 11/22. New areas of coverage to note include Sells, Ajo, and the I-10 corridor to State Highway 90 in Cochise County.

Electronic Plans Submission Subcommittee Report

TEP is working with Integrated Digital Technologies (IDT) to set up a pilot web portal for testing the transfer of AutoCAD drawings. They are also setting up meetings with individual subdivision coordinators from the various jurisdictions to discuss what the subcommittee is trying to accomplish and get a feel for jurisdictional buy-in.

Emergency Response Subcommittee // TCTEN - City High Collaboration

The City Information Technology group has upgraded the priority of their programming support to the Tucson Fire Department, and will be taking a field trip to the Phoenix Fire Department to discuss technical details of the system that Phoenix has implemented.

The City High School project continues to move forward, and has mapped 10 buildings. The students will begin to input the data to ArcView for each building in the coming weeks.

Arizona Professional Land Surveyors Geospatial Organization Initiative Report

Two Geospatial Professional members have been added to the APLS board of directors. Geospatial Professional membership applications have been rolling in from attendees of the Arizona Geographic Information Council conference in October.

Nominees for 2005 GIS Cooperative Chair

Larry Cassen (City Environmental Services) continues to be the sole nominee for the 2005 chair of the Co-op, and we decided that further nominees would be taken until the December meeting, at which we will formally designate the 2005 chair.

Open Floor

GIS Day - It was mentioned that a GIS Fair would be held for GIS Day.

Digital city - It was mentioned that Tucson ranked #2 in terms of using information technology to operate and deliver services to their customers and citizens.

Next Meeting:

Tuesday, December 21, 2004 / 3:00 P.M / City I.T. Pueblo Room