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Tucson GIS Co-op

March Meeting Minutes – 3/18/2008

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

COT IT - Pueblo Room

481 W. Paseo Redondo

Attendees: Craig Erlandson - DMAFB, Jennifer Psillas - PCNRPR, Angie Quiroz – COT-IT, Johanna Kraus, John Burross, Bill Marum – COT-DSD, Mark Babbbit – Bourn Partners, Linda Coon – PC-DSD, Bill Petroutson – PDEQ, Cody Cohn, Steve Whitney – PCDOT, Jesse Reyes, Anna Sanchez, Josh Pope – TUPD, Peter Johnson, Michael Hicks, Blanca Espino – TDOT, Dave Koss – Real Estate, Bryn Enright, Scott Sheuberger - Tucson Water, Larry Cassen – Environmental Services, Kenneth Maits – PC Flood Control

Agenda

1. Attendees introduced themselves and briefly described some of what they are working on now. Peter Johnson introduced Emily Sanschagrin, the new GIS coop intern.

2. Presentation: Zoning Change Management System (ZCMS) Geodatabase

    Johanna Kraus, City of Tucson Development Services Department.

    Johanna explained the rezoning process as it is done by the City of Tucson. She showed the maps currently on the City’s web site which show rezoning history and explained what they show and what they are missing. ZCMS is a geodatabase developed by DSD to show the history of zoning on parcels in the City as well as critical information on conditions, status and dates related to the zoning. In the near future, the data in ZCMS will be available in the PRO (property research online) application and PRO data will be accessible from ZCMS.

3. Business

  • Training Request Procedure – Steve Whitney: The Training Budget Policy, Training Funds Request Policy and City of Tucson Employee Training Request Form documents were all approved by the membership without much discussion. The documents had been discussed at the last meeting.
  • PCDOT and TDOT Mars databases - Steve Whitney: The old Mars database will be moved to a new server at PCDOT. This database will also be replicated on a new server at TDOT. In addition to the shared GIS layers that will be on both copies of the Mars server, the county will continue to have some layers which are either targeted to specific audiences or contain sensitive data only available on its copy of the Mars server. Steve encouraged the City to also think about using their copy of the Mars server as a repository for sensitive or narrowly focused City layers. Common layers on Mars will continue to go to the County ‘depot’ before they are put on Mars for the first time so they can be vetted for complete metadata, etc. The move to this new structure is scheduled for Monday, April 7th. Updates to the schedule will be posted to geowiz.
  • ESRI Enterprise License Agreement – Bryn Enright: ESRI sent a proposal for what it would cost the City to get an Enterprise License Agreement. They also sent a list of City users and what they are currently spending. Tucson Water, TDOT and TPD purchase the bulk of the ESRI software used in the City. Naturally, the license agreement is more expensive and it would be a stretch to pay for it. The added expense could be worth it, especially if some City departments who currently don’t do much with GIS would be able to take on new projects with more easily available software. No action is expected in the near future, but the offer will continue to be on the table in some form.
  • Citywide GIS Study Group Meeting – Bryn Enright and Peter Johnson: The IT managers who are studying GIS usage across City departments have tasked a group of GIS professionals to develop a series of inventories related to GIS. These will include data, skills(both on-hand and needed), machines and software. They are also to document GIS processes, to show where they work and where they break down. This may lead to some suggestions for reorganization of the processes. The City GIS study group focuses on city GIS issues and will not replace the regional focus of the Tucson Area GIS Coop.
  • Ratify next year’s Coop co-chairs –Dave Koss: The co-chairs for next year are Peter Johnson, Bryn Enright, Josh Pope, Johanna Kraus, Jennifer Psillas and Steve Whitney. Each will host two of next year’s meetings, starting in July. After the meeting, Dave sent the following suggestion:

The 6 new Co-chairs should elect one of their fellow co-chairs to be the "head" co-chair for the year. The main purpose of this would be for

the head co-chair to call one or two informal meetings of the co-chairs to co-ordinate the agenda for the next year. Such things as who will

chair which months, what direction do you all what to take the co-op in this coming year, and to make sure certain items get on the agenda (new co-chairs to be elected for following year etc) to remind the chairs to bring sign in sheets. Basically, taking care of the little detail stuff so that it doesn't get missed.
  • Next year’s Executive Committee –Dave Koss: The members of the Executive Committee for next year are Dave Koss, Blanca Espino and Anna Sanchez.
  • Next month’s meeting: Peter Johnson will chair the meeting and Cody Cohn will give a presentation on work he is doing with linear referencing.

    4. Open Floor

  • Steve Whitney spoke about the work PCDOT is doing with street network data. Currently two street network layers are maintained, the single line layer and the double line (carriageway) layer. Steve asked how many Coop members used the carriageway layer. Larry Cassen said he uses it a lot for route mapping. Steve pointed out that linear referencing does not work on carriageways. The PCDOT plan is to model everything with linear referencing. They would like to get out of the business of maintaining both layers because it really means that their techs have to tag three segments for street segment, two for the carriageway layer and one for the single line layer. Peter asked how difficult it would be to recreate the carriageway layer if it were dropped now. Steve said it would be difficult. The suggestion was made to investigate how other jurisdictions handle this problem.
  • There was some discussion about how to involve more organizations in the Coop. Mike Hicks pointed out that there is grant money available for projects related to Homeland Security at the State and Federal level. The grant applications are more powerful if they include multiple agencies and/or jusridictions.
  • There was more discussion of how to broaden the membership of the coop. Here are some points that Larry Cassen put together in an email sent out after the meeting. They are included here because they repeat some of the points made at the meeting and expand on them:

1) Yesterday, we were briefly discussing (off the trail as it may have been) the ability to reach a wider audience. Josh Pope suggested using webcasting to accomplish this objective. I think this is a great idea. In addition, maybe it would be worth considering the GIS Coop to purchase of software/hardware (cameras, software, etc.) for member organizations at remote locations that do not have the time/means to attend meetings to link to virtually link to these meetings. If we extend this type of "hand", we may be able to double our member participation. Hardware/software could be "checked out" by GIS Coop members through contract, "library list", or some other means. All this is tentatively based on the GIS Coop not getting it's hand smacked when reaching for it's checkbook...

2) Dovetailing on the wider audiences concept, the GIS Coop may find some benefit in having it's webpage and/or other materials in Spanish. Although GIS Coop business is presently conducted in English, we may be able to attract a geospatial audience from Mexico that would provide a mutually beneficial professional connection. I haven't heard of any US-Mexico local government GIS consortium being formed (although I may be wrong on this one) and this may be our chance to start something to that effect. I see a huge potential to develop a large experience base, a professional network, the sharing of vital information, regional conferencing opportunities, and, last, but not least, goodwill.

3) It may worth considering having the GIS Coop produce a series of GIS technology classes on DVD, .wmv, or whatever audio-visual format works. Different GIS Coop members from different organizations could perhaps develop classes (i.e., "Introduction to Model Building" or "Modern Problems in Linear Referencing") that are 30 minutes to one hour long (or whatever time period is acceptable). Whole series could be developed for certain topics. These classes wouldn't be replacements for paid GIS education/training classes, but rather complimentary; maybe with a local touch to the lessons. I think this idea may have the potential to educate people on necessary basic, intermediate, and advanced concepts without scrambling to find out how much money is left in the training budget or deciding who can and cannot receive training. Maybe developing one of these classes could be an alternative way for someone to be considered for paid training... maybe podcasts of classes would work as well...

4) Would podcasts of the monthly GIS Coop meetings posted on the GIS Coop website be a benefit to Coop members?