10/11/2000 Quarterly Meeting Minutes

Iowa Geographic Information Council Meeting Minutes October 11th, 2000 10:00 am – 2:00 pm ICN – Multiple locations across Iowa

Members Attending: Bill Schuman, Joe Artz, Harry Bottorff, Terry Brase, Gary Brown, Thomas Buman, Jeff Corns Senior, Michael Emch, Kevin Kane, Bill Kapp, Herb Kuehne, Jon Lubke, Brian Miller, Stehpen Newman, Roger Patocka, Deanne Popp, Jason Siebrecht, Mitch Tollerud, Stu Turner, Steve Williams, Ray Willis, Jerry Lawson

Alternate Representative: Jim Giglierano, Gregg Hadish

ITD GIS Staff Attending: Michelle Lantermans

Other Attendees: Mica Cutler; Brad Cutler, Deb Roeder, Dawn, Mary Rump, Robin, Don, Karl, Ron Cook, Mary Craig, Jake Freier, Barb Berquam, Lawrence Hartpence, Don Henderson, Jeff Miller, Todd Noah, Dave Pahlas, Leanne Satterthwaite, Teri Schoenfelder, Karen Strawn, Kristen Tuttle, Wayne Chizek

IGIC Business Matters

1. Call to Order

Meeting called to order over the ICN with multiple sites present across the state. Bill Schuman, chair-elect, assumed chair responsibilities and conducted meeting.

1. Review of Minutes for April 5, 2000 meeting

Stu Turner moved to accept minutes. Brian Miller seconded the motion.

1. Review of Minutes for July 12, 2000 meeting 

Herb Kuehne moved to accept the minutes Roger Patocka seconded the motion.

1. IGIC Chair committee update

Bill Schuman presented an update on the status of several of the IGIC committees. We should encourage cross-pollination of committee members. We are trying to start an E-911 committee. Mahala Cox will help chair that committee. Gary Brown offered to chair the GPS committee. Kevin Kane offered to help with the Membership committee. Education committee does not have a specific plan, but is developing. The cadastral mapping committee needs chair. The Organization committee needs to deal with the question of non-profit vs. executive committee. Bill Schuman will chair the Organization committee.

Bill Schuman commented that as an all-volunteer organization, it is hard to get and keep involvement. Committees can help by spreading the workload evenly. The goals of the strategic plan should help the committees establish their goals. He also encouraged the committees to look for quick and attainable tasks to show accomplishment.

Ray requested status for Cadastral committee. Michelle says they met a year ago. They were creating standards. Polk County was organizing then. Michelle hasn’t heard from them in a while. She still gets calls from county people with related questions. Jason Seibrecht supported a statewide cadastral effort. Des Moines is starting a Central Iowa GIS group to deal with their issues. They will meet on the 16th for the first time. The City of Des Moines master street centerline file will be a central issue. While this group will focus on Central Iowa issues, it could cross over to cadastral mapping committee as well.

1. ORTHOSERVER  

The orthoserver already makes state wide imagery available. A proposal to fully fund ortherserver has been written in ITD. The money will pay for a new server, consultant staff, miscellaneous hardware and software. (Refer to budget page of proposal.) Total proposal of $136,000.Michelle says it will be funded all or none. No partial funding. Coming from tech pool fund. Additional funds were added to the pool.Steve asked about FTE staff. Bill said figured for 1.5 years of staff. May be agreement with ISU. Imagery are at currently at 2 meter pixel resolution. It will be upgraded to 1m. In the future will be the opportunity to put county aerials on the web server. Helps to show worth of site. May add volume in the future. Kevin reports tens of thousands of hits per month. S.D. serving soils data with the same MIT data. Steve asked where to go to get 1m imagery. Kevin says get off CD right now. Server is set at limit 10 MB limit for download to keep traffic flowing. 

1. Committee Reports & Goal Setting

Remote sensing committee: Michelle reported they had meeting with SPOT Imaging. The cost of imagery has dropped significantly. The goal is to acquire state-wide imagery that can be distributed freely through internet. The imagery specifications will be 10m pixel for the entire state, in black and white. The imagery will be from 1997 and newer. Barb Berquam requested a timeframe: funding will decide this issue. The website may help getting imagery purchased. 

Newsletter Committee: Teri Schoenfelderdisplayed a copy on the overhead for final proofing. She thanked Mitch for his advertising ideas. More articles are needed of real-world GIS uses. Bill hopes to have the next issue in January. Teri said November 30th was a deadline for submitting articles for the next issue. This issue should be delivered by the end of October. 

Conference committee: Bill Kapp read the schedule of the proposed itinerary. An announcement postcard will be mailed in late November. Several people would like to include poster session. Bill Schuman said the DOT has offered to do the printing, which will help reduce the cost. The conference will need 60 papers so people are encourage to start finding speakers now. Bill Kapp said we can post all of these items (papers, posters, presentations) to the web after the conference. 

Strategic planning committee – no report 

Clearinghouse committee  The GIS Resource Guide is under development. It is State-based to help agencies incorporate a GIS in their offices. Its purpose it to give ideas to agencies so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel. GeoAnalytics was selected as the vendor to develop the guide. Joe Artz was awarded a grant to develop an interactive mapping application for archaeology that will be served from the GIS clearinghouse. Michelle participates in the redistricting committee. She has encouraged the committee use GIS, but many districts will probably use the traditional paper and calculator method. There is a free redistricting extension that runs on Arcview. People interested in it should contact her. ITD received a floodplain grant through FEMA to derive floodplain boundaries for 3 counties in Iowa. These boundaries, when approved, will be used to generate FIRM maps.

1. IGIC coordinator position 

The state GIS Coordinator position remains vacant. The IGIC will assume minimal support or resources exist within ITD to fill this position as it was originally filled. Kevin Kane explained an alternative option. He has contacted the vice-provost of Extension at ISU and asked if the coordinator could be part that program. A meeting with Kevin Kane, Dave Plazak, Bill Schuman and the provost will take place in the net 2 weeks. The biggest perceived issue at this point will be funding. ITD still wants two GIS positions. However, the former Coordinator position will become more of a consultant to state agencies for GIS projects.  Kris Tuttle asked how the IGIC could help. Kevin recommended sending email or calling ITD Director, Rich Varn. Bill says we could do our own coordination or potentially get funding from ITD. Maybe co-fund a position from extension and money from the ITD for state work. 

1. Closing of Business Meeting Lunch break 11:55 – 12:05 
2. Census Presentation Topic TIGER 2000 

Craig discussed updates to the TIGER/Line files that have occurred since the 1990 Census and the schedule of the release of Census 2000 geographic and demographic products.  

To view his presentation, make a new directory and unzip the contents of the zip file into it.  You will have census.htm, iagis.ppt, and a directory in your unzipped data.  If you do not have PowerPoint, just double-click the "census.htm" file and you can view the entire presentation. Download Census Presentation.zip

1. Wrap up & Other Business 

Bill Schuman was asked to address the rumor that DOT is building GPS stations in central Iowa. Trimble has requested the DOT help fund GPS correction antennae. The final number is yet to be determined. Some of the numerous benefits of the stations include the construction on I-235. Each station will need to have a networked computer on site. It is too soon to promote this widely. The DOT is looking for joint funding. 

Jim Giglierano Tuesday, Oct 24, Western Iowa GIS day – day-long get together DNR GIS day on March 6th, 2001 of Wallace building U of Iowa is having GIS day events Blackhawk County is co-sponsoring a GIS day with a morning program, presentations and vendors. ISU will have its GIS day on the 15th. It will be an all day presentation of papers in the Memorial Union. Iowa Lakes Community College is also having an open house. Teri will put GIS announcements into newsletter 

Bill Kapp requested to send MAGIC thanks for funding his trip to the NSGIC conference. He also placed a  request for someone to represent Iowa at MAGIC… attending online meetings. Also announced was the Metadata training initiative; a train the trainer for program for 5 days. 

It has been requested that we move the quarterly meetings to Tuesdays from Wednesdays to accommodate professors’ schedules. 

1. Adjournment 

3rd Quarter IGIC Meeting: January 9, 2001, ICN, 10:00 – 2:00 PM (tentative) 

 4th Quarter IGIC Meeting: April 10, 2001, ICN, 10:00 – 2:00 PM (tentative) 

FY02, 1st Quarter IGIC Meeting: July 10, 2001, ICN, 10:00 – 2:00 PM (tentative)