GISAC 12-3-08
Attendance:

Salt Lake - DNR Room 314

Jerry Sempek,          BLM  
Richard Emerson,     NDR/UGS 
Buch Ehler,               UGS  
Rodney Johnson,     USDA  
Cindy Sessions,        USDA  
Lee Eschler,              DNR  
Joe Wade,                OLRGC 
Emery Polelonem,     Six Co AOG 
David Davis,             USDA  
Lina Haggard,           SITLA  
Barbara Perry,         Water Resources 
Jessica Kirby,            SITLA  
BertGranberg,          AGRC  
Cindy Clark,              AGRC  
Dave Vincent,           USGS  
Rick Kelson,              AGRC  
Dan White,               USFS  
Chris Glazier,            UDOT  
Kristen Jensen,        State History 
Kevin Sato,              Cottonwood Heights    
Mark Miller,               Salt Lake Co. Surveyor's    
Debra Ames,             Rich County   
Corey Unger,            UGS    
Jeannie Watanabe,  AGRC
Dennis Goreham,      AGRC

Remote Sites

Cedar City
Arlene Heape,           Dixie Forest Service

Heber
Don Wood,                Wasatch County 
Ivan Spenser,            Wasatch County

Logan (USU)
John Lowry                USU
 
Moab
Doug Wight,               BLM
Gery Wakefield,         NPS 
Aneth Wight,              NPS
David Olsen,               Moab City

Price 
Ben Clement,              Carbon County
Jeff Guymon,              Emery County 
David Horsley,            DWR

Provo 
Dave Henrie,              Utah County 
Darin Sleight,             Utah County 
Brandon Plewe,          BYU
 
Richfield
Jennica Knight,           Fishlake Forest Service 
Russ Reading,            Fishlake Forest Service

St. George
Nancy Lucchetti,        Washington County

Vernal
Ron Dejarlais,             BIA
Kyle Smith,                  BIA

Agenda:
1 2009 High Resolution Imagery and NAIP planning

2. Utah Geospatial Infrastructure Strategic Plan Discussion

3. Geographic Names coordination

4. Other Topics

1.2009 High Resolution Imagery and NAIP Planning: (Click to see Proposed High Res. Imagery Aquisition)

 NAIP - Cindy Sessions, APFO (Aerial Photo Field Office, Farm Service)
1 meter NAIP will be flown for only the agricultural areas in 2009 (see map) 
Map shows the basic representation of what is proposed NAIP to be flown it shows 2000+ DOQQs. (Note: As of Friday December 5, it looked like the federal agencies at the national level will cover the full cost of having the rest of the state flown. So, there will be statewide 3 band 1 meter imagery.)   NAIP will be flown during the summer with leaf one.  Cindy Sessions mentioned the cost of the 4th band (CIR) would be per DOQQ.  Any agency interested in acquiring the CIR from the NAIP flight should contact Jeannie Watanabe at AGRC. If the 4th band is not purchased, there is no guarantee that the imagery will be acquired with a digital camera.

Dave Davis, APFO:
The Utah 2006 NAIP project was the first in the nation that used new ground control points to ortho-rectify the imagery instead of old DOQQs. The APFO is again going to use absolute ground control, but would like to have more control for QA/QC. They are looking for counties that would like to collect more survey grade control points to be used for the QA/QC of the 2009 NAIP imagery.

Jeannie Watanabe, AGRC
High Resolution Imagery --25 centimeter pixel resolution (equivalent to 9.8 inches): 
The foot print for this original area is from Brigham City to Payson and Dugway Proving Grounds. (See map.) This is being funded by the USGS and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) as part of the Homeland Security Metropolitan Imagery Program.

At the last GISAC, the Imagery Steering Committee was formed to prepare the invitation to bid and to review the vendor responses. The AGRC is coordinating state, local, private, or federal agencies that would like to expand the coverage or acquire higher resolution imagery. If you are interested, contact Jeannie.  See the Imagery power point for more details. December 10th is the final day to add areas outside of the footprint. December 31st is the target date to have a final contract with the vendors. All imagery is to be flown in the spring of 2009 and delivered no later than September 2009.

Click on map to enlarge:

2.Utah Geospatial Infrastructure Strategic Plan Discussion:

The Strategic Plan has been approved, and now it is time to figure out the coordination and
governance roles and responsibilities. (See Strategic Plan power point.)
 
Vision of the Plan: all data and technology will be available to the public.

Looking at Strategic Goal #3: Operational efficiencies are achieved through effective organization and communication.
At the last GISAC, there was another committee formed to work on goal #3. Those on the committee are list on slide 3 of the Strategic Plan Power Point. They have had one conference call where they discussed:
Optimize organizational structure
Clarification of current roles of GISAC, UGIC, regional GIS groups, AGRC and trade and sector based organizations
What should their roles be? (e.g. approve standards and polices, build consensus on priorities, lobby to gain support)
Formalize representation for governance
Make facility available and process where staff can come together in times of emergency (Utah GIS Corps)
Identify roles of stakeholders in UGI (role for public too)
Utilize GIS portal to facilitate communication and strengthen communities of interest - Outreach
Policy and oversight

Dennis also went over the coordination and governances of the Strategic Plan. These covered:
 Data Coordination
 Shared technical infrastructure
 Strategic planning
 Geospatial outreach, communication, and promotion
 Conference & education
 GIS policy
 Intergovernmental GIS coordination

Issue life cycle: A subcommittee is formed to identify issues, determine if they are ongoing UGIC issues and works on them before bringing them to GISAC. GISAC would then review and advise on the issue.

Questions were asked about how formal these committees should be and how to keep them accountable. Considerations should be made about who the responsibilities fall to.

GISAC has been around for 20 years, started as an advisory group for the Information Technology Planning and Strategy Committee. The ITPSC is no longer around but GISAC has kept going. Should this change?  Most in attendance thought that GISAC was working just like it should.
  
What is the responsibility of UGIC and how should it proceed?  It has been looking at its responsibilities lately. It is ready to make adjustments to better suit the Strategic plan.

In the power point on slide 8, there is a list of the activities and sub-activities that were determined by the steering committee and the group that should probably hold the responsibility for the activity.

Next Steps:
 Finalize list of responsibilities
 Clearly identify the authority that enables these organizations to take on these activities.
  The Administrative Rule that created GISAC may require revision
  The UGIC Board needs to determine how its charter and mission may be broadened.

Dennis then opened the floor for discussion.

Some felt there were differences in UGIC and GISAC, but that they could pull together. There may be a chance to cast a "big net" to capture people outside the geospatial community. Today we are using technology to share ideas and information. GISAC is involved in everything.

Don Wood would like to see more structure and/or an administrative body with more teeth in it.

There may need to rewrite the Administrative Rule with governs GISAC. Other options include an executive order or legislation. If that were to happen, GISAC would need to get on the interim study list and then be assigned to a committee for study. This would take time, and there wouldn't be an assurance as to what would come out of the committee. Joe Wade stated that the Legislature would do whatever would work the best.

 Kevin Sato wanted to present the plan to UGIC for their input.
 
Debbie Ames - for UAC- what may be good for one county may not work for another county. It could be brought before UAC assessors and recorders groups.

 Dave Vincent mentioned that in some states there are organizations like UGIC and GISAC but the membership is a paying membership but they have poor organization, but here in Utah, even with a loose format, GISAC gets things accomplished.
 
 Jerry Sempeck of the BLM felt this is a political situation. Looking at the geospatial governance, management has to be involved to get things done. The geospatial people can't speak for management.

Dan White thought that more formal -less informal would be good.

David Davis - try to use existing standards- would need a steering or technical committee.

Joe Wade - if informal works, then use that.

Kevin Sato - levels below state governance - how to represent the counties or cities needs to be determined.

Bert - Many things depend on the kind of standards that are adopted.
 
Michael Turner - Need to develop kinds of decisions and authorities
 
It was decided to turn the issue back to the subcommittee with more discussion to follow.

3.Geographic Names Coordination Dan White, chair of Utah Committee on Geographic Names.

There is a project now beginning to improve the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). The Utah Committee on Geographic Names controls all the federally controlled names or renaming of any named geographic feature in a state. It is a committee of 13. If an agency and/or a person would like to submit, correct, or change a name of a feature in a state, they submit that name to the Utah Committee on Geographic Names.

The USGS and AGRC have began a project to correct the GNIS names for schools, hospitals and other cultural points and to open a discussion of many other geographic features in Utah. Administrative features can be submitted from any government level and are easy to approve. Geographic feature names must be submitted to the Utah Committee on Geographic Names for approval and advancement to the National Geographic Names Committee.

Bert - there should be colloquial names associated with GNIS names. He also wanted historical names of sites to be associated with the currently used name.
Nancy Lucchette asked if non-addressed features could be included.

There could be a names list in the SGID with all of these kinds of names, separate from GNIS but it would have various issues that still need to be resolved.

4.Other Topics.
Dennis is retiring as of December 31, 2008
Jeannie Watanabe to take over AGRC
Debbie Ames read a thank you letter from the Rich Counties commissioners thanking Dennis for all his help with their county. Jeannie presented Dennis with a very special Life Elevated memento.

There was a general discussion about how well the remote sites worked. Consensus seemed to be that everyone liked it, but there needs to be a set schedule for GISAC once again.

Next meeting Feb. 12, 1:30 - 4:00 Place TBA