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Tucson GIS Co-op

February Meeting Agenda - 02/21/2006

3:00 P.M. - 4:30 P.M.

COT IT - Pueblo Room

481 W Paseo Redondo

Attendees: Peter Johnson - TDOT, Bill Marum - COT DSD, Autumn Figueroa - TPD, Laura Pinnas - TEP, Dave Koss - TDOT, Jeff McConnell - PC DOT, Steve Smith - TDOT, Linda Coon - PC DSD, Andreas Molin - Town of Oro Valley, Jim Robinson - TDOT, Christine O' Connor - COT IT, Jennifer Psillas - Town of Marana, Jennifer Sborov - SAIAT, Manny Rosas - PAG, Sandy White - Tucson-Pima Public Library (TPPL), Leticia Bermudez - COT DNR, Jeff McConnell - PC DOT, Steve Whitney - PC DOT, Rob MacArthur - U of A, Mike Schrade - Town of Sahaurita, Laura Pinnas - TEP, Jessie Sanders - COT DSD, Darren Douglas - COT IT, Gary Christopherson - U of A

Agenda

1. Presentation: "Community Mapping with Adult Education Students (with ArcIMS site showing community asset map) - Jodi Perrin - U of A Ph.D. student

2. Geodatabase Subcommittee - Ron Platt and Jessie Sanders

    - Concerns gathering all information that impacts a parcel

    - A geodatabase format is being considered for this project for its inherent flexibility

    - Property research currently online utilizes a DB and joins to connect data

    - ArcIMS was viewed as not being quick enough to display data

    - Intent of this project is to share and view data

    - Anybody wishing to volunteer for the Geodatabase Subcommittee can contact Steve Whitney (steve.whitney@dot.pima.gov or Jeff.mcconnell@dot.pima.gov, head coordinator and technical coordinator, respectively) or email Larry at Lawrence.Cassen@tucsonaz.gov and it will be forwarded to Steve and Jeff

    - It was brought up that the U of A and TEP may be maintaining different data in this respect

    - Automatic triggers were brought up

    - A presentation by Jessie Sanders relating to setting up a flexible data collection and management system (not necessarily related to a geodatabase setup, but would benefit from one) will be posted on the GIS Coop website as well as sent with these minutes

      Thanks to Ron Platt, Jessie Sanders, Jeff McConnell, and Steve Whitney (another committee!) for their participation in this matter!

3. GIS User Forum website development - Larry

    - This topic brought up as a concern that not all GIS Coop members may be able to speak at or attend the GIS Coop meetings. The intention of this idea was to have a web-based forum where GIS Coop members could discuss or submit their ideas, concerns, opinions, arguments, criticisms, etc. in an environment that can be anonymous or not, whatever the preference of each individual is. The forum would be based in the GIS Coop homepage. This forum would not be live, but rather as simple as going in, typing in the issue(s) that is(are) important, and leaving the webpage. The individual would also be able to say whether or not he or she would want this topic brought up at a Coop meeting, if so desired (perhaps a simple radio button signifying "Yes" or "No")

    - GIS Coop members, your ideas on this matter are appreciated. Is this something that you would be interested in participating in? What are your thoughts on this?

4. Proposed FY 06/07 budget - Larry

    - An analysis was done on our past fund disbursement history (FY99/00 to the present), and recommendations were made by Larry to Selma Sandate at COT IT. Out of the eight major object number areas that the GIS Coop budget covers, three have been recommended higher allocations this year (Training, Software - <100K, and Other Professional Services - i.e., interns) Five have been recommended lower allocations (Travel - Training, Consultants, Books, Computer Equipment, and Other Supplies)

    - For further details or to voice opinions on this matter, email Larry

5. "Half and half" intern program - Larry

    - The idea behind this program is to equitably distribute the benefit of GIS intern experience and support amongst organizations that could use such support (even organizations outside of the COT)

    - The program would be based on this premise: The GIS Coop would fund 50% of an intern's salary/wage/cost, and the receiving organization would fund the other 50% of the intern's salary/wage/cost

    - The intern could be full time or part time

    - If an intern is utilized in this respect, the work that he or she would participate in would have to be of value to the whole GIS community, not just that particular organization. An example of this would work like so: Pima County DSD utilizes a GIS Coop funded intern to work on addresses that ultimately benefit all users in the community through such layers as adparcel, adcounty, etc. These layers are used by just about every organization, with the greatest benefit being an improvement in address quality (for all)

    - For organizations outside of COT, an IGA may be required

    - For further details or to voice opinions on this matter, email Larry

6. Ortho Technical Workshop and ESRI Enterprise Program - Manny Rosas - PAG

    - There is an Ortho '05 workshop on March 28th, 9:00 A.M. to 3:30 P.M., and it is limited to 75 people

    - There will be two vendors at this workshop:

        - Sanborn - discussing Phase technology and LIDAR w/ elevation data/DTMs

        - Merrick and Co. - discussing MARS (not the server) and utilization of LIDAR

        - Howard Ward from TerraSystems Southwest will also be speaking

    - Participants are encouraged to submit a poster on how he or she uses ortho data for their particular job

- The Sells data set will not be released due to cultural concerns expressed by the Tohono O'odham nation

    - The ESRI Enterprise Program is a software application distribution program (main software, extensions, etc.)

      - The premise of this proposal is that PAG would act as buyer (not buy) and distributor for an ESRI Enterprise license for the Tucson /Pima County Region, on behalf of all participating organizations. This would allow organizations to buy software at a much lower price and use software that would normally not be available due to prohibitive costs or limited funds. The understanding is that each interested organization would remit their portion of funding (probably measured by how many licenses they would use) to PAG, who would then coordinate in obtaining and distributing licenses/software

      - This would allow the use of all ESRI software (with some reasonable exceptions, I assume)

    - Any questions or concerns with these topics should be addressed to Manny Rosas at mrosas@pagnet.org

7. Open Floor

    - Jennifer Sborov announced ArcGIS I and II classes go on all year at SAIAT

        - SAIAT also needs to put on a third course that is not ArcGIS I or II at least once a year

        - Just about any ESRI course can be taught at SAIAT such as VB programming, Advanced SDE topics, etc

        - GIS Coop members get 25% off the cost of the class

    - Steve Whitney announced the following:

        - Commercial Data Requests are now focused on one document (go to

    http://www.dot.co.pima.az.us/gis/using/ for more details)

      - A preliminary cost plan for commercial data is being formulated

      - Materials concerning this matter are under review at the Pima County Attorney's

      office

        - New layer additions in MARS:

        - COMMNAME - Community Names

        - OPPAG05I - PAG 2005 Orthophoto Project Area Index

    - Manny Rosas announced the following:

    - Christine O'Connor voiced concerns on the restrictions of such commercial data

    - Bill Marum mentioned that GIS Coop web portal is about ready to utilize (some last

minute tweaking needs to be done)

    If someone has been misquoted or information has been left out, please inform Larry Cassen at Lawrence.Cassen@tucsonaz.gov as soon as possible to reconcile the error(s). Please accept my apologies ahead of time