August 23, 2000
Attendees
Mr. Bill Bush, Arkansas Geological Commission
Ms. Susan Cromwell, Department of Information Systems
Mr. Randy Jones, First Electric Cooperative Corporation
Mr. Fred Limp, CAST
Ms. Shirley Sandlin, Benton County Assessor
Ms. Phyllis Smith, UALR
Mr. Jubal Smith, Entergy Corporation, Inc.
Mr. Phil Schoettlin, Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce
Mr. Jim Wells, Wellsco Graphics Solutions
Ms. Suzanne Wiley, UAM
Not Attending
Mr. Cecil Davis, Department of Arkansas Heritage
Special Representatives
Mr. Shelby Johnson, State Land Information Coordinator
Mr. Learon Dalby, GIS Specialist
Mr. Mike Mitchell, GIS Users Forum
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The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. in the 17th Floor Conference Room, Union Building, in Little Rock. Minutes from the last meeting of the July 19, 2000, meeting were unanimously approved.
Report from the State Land Information Coordinator
Project Main
Shelby Johnson explained that the data has all been quality checked and recompiled. It will be now be separated by contributors and the data will be sent to each special interest group. Learon Dalby will work on that project.
GIS Audit
Learon Dalby is finalizing a report of the first 15 questions on the Audit. Some of the material will be used for the upcoming Stakeholder Meeting.
Arkansas Economic Development Conference
Shelby Johnson explained that he and Learon had a booth at the Economic Development Conference with quite a bit of traffic. He and Jubal Smith gave workshops on economic development and GIS, and also presented information about the Board and the Geostor project. On the last morning of the conference, Barbara Pardue, Director of the Department of Economic Development, gave a presentation and in that presentation, she mentioned GeoStor as an important project to assist economic development. Jubal Smith added that both sessions they gave were well attended.
Old Business
NAPP and DOQQs
Shelby Johnson said that there had been a major planning meeting with the vendor. He explained that 28 rolls of film have been exposed; one roll has been rejected, two rolls were deemed to be dark, four rolls of film were light, and 20 rolls film are at HAS in Dayton, Ohio. He reminded the the members that there had been some flights after March 31, which was the spec date by USGS. There were flights on April 4, 5, 6, and 11 in an attempt to finish the project and which was not successful. USGS was made aware of that issue and they said that they had never done a hybrid project with both leaf-on and leaf-off. Shelby explained that he will be going to Dayton, Ohio, to review every roll of film with the vendor before anything is sent to the USGS. The reasons for this is to know what is being sent in and so that he can see the film in advance of any potential rejections for any circumstances. He explained that possible circumstances for rejection will be the leaf-on issue, the darkness, the lightness, and standing water in fields.
Shelby went on to describe that for the next year's flights, there are ten full rolls and two half rolls in the freezer at the vendor's office, and 20 rolls in the same batch reserved at Kodak. He said hat should be adequate to complete the entire state when photography is resumed. Shelby explained that they tried to move the flight window up with the NAPP program office to mid-December to end in March. After discussions, it was decided to resume flight on January 15 and to stop on March 31, 2001.
Shelby went over the proposed innovative partnership with the USGS to cover a portion of the NAPP processing cost. He said that he has not received any notice that the proposal has been accepted and furthermore, the USGS has responded through Ray Fox that they would not advance that proposal until they see some film. Additionally, there was a second arrangement in place that would be a workshare agreement with USGS where they would provide the existing DOQQs and the existing DEMs as a part of the processing and that was to have been taken care of in the first part of August. Shelby explained that the USGS has also withheld any action on that part of the project until they see some film.
Shelby said that the trip to Ohio will guide what film will be sent and that the issue is that once any film is sent to the USGS, it could take six months or twelve months to approve it and that delays the processing. The vendor is going to create diapositives of every piece of film and send that in so that the state is not constrained by the USGS QA/QC turnaround time. Doing this will put no limit on processing. DOQQs and DEMs still must be acquired, and Shelby explained that he has worked with Pam Smith of the NRCS and obtained copies of all the data they had for DOQQs, which has facilitated some processing. He said that the vendor still needs DOQQs outside the state borders.
Shelby explained that some DEM data has been acquired from Dr. Weih, but it still does not include enough outside the state borders. The USGS workshare agreement and their requirements to review film before releasing DEM data is a delay. Shelby said that he will try to get this resolved by going to Ohio where the film will be examined and choices will be made to send to the USGS. He said that probably the film of Lafayette County will be the first to be sent to the USGS. As soon as the DOQQ and DEM data is in place, the vendor then will have enough to process about 30 percent of what was flown last year.
Shelby commented that he is considering traveling to Reston with the vendor to give a very detailed and hands-on presentation about the status of the project to Jay Story, who is the NAPP program coordinator, so that when he presents the update to NAPP about the project, he will have everything he needs to know. Hopefully this will sway Mr. Story's support for the full amount of the funding that the Board has proposed. Shelby added that this all hinges on the film review in Ohio.
Shelby went on to say that later in August is the state mapping workshop and that is where all the states come in and interface with the National Mapping Division to talk about programs. One of the things that needs to be listened to is how they are dealing with other states to compare to Arkansas. One of the other opportunities is for the states to give feedback and Shelby, Learon and Bill Bush will gather facts and issues to give to Susan Lambert, the president of NSGIC. She will then take all the states' issues and present them to the USGS. Fred Limp commented that the National Mapping Division is undergoing a major reorganization that this might be part of the problem. Suzanne Wiley pointed out that the USGS at the top is pushing the new idea that states should take more responsibility in outsourcing and in using innovative technology, but on the bottom end they haven't figured out how to carry out this mandate.
Shelby explained that the vendor is very sensitive to the coordination between the state and USGS and feel it is very critical. He feels that they are going the extra mile to make sure to take care of Arkansas and that he is pleased with their efforts.
Corps of Engineers Project
Shelby Johnson explained that the delivery schedule has been delayed for the high resolution photography data of the Arkansas River corridor for the Corps of Engineers. The final delivery should be by October 15. He has seen a sample of the data and said that the color photography is very good and the LIDAR data is excellent.
Arkansas Highway Department Data Coordination
Shelby Johnson explained that there have been some phone calls and three meetings. There seems to be progress but no responses. He commented that the AHTD had authorized the bridge database. Shelby said that in his last meeting with the chief of the mapping section, Paul Edwards, they talked about the data that AHTD could contribute and that Mr. Edwards would coordinate that through their computer systems division.
Advisory Panel
There was discussion on the letters that have been sent, the RSVPs that have been returned for the scheduled Stakeholders Meeting on September 7, 2000, and the mailing of a followup letter for those who have not responded.
Suzanne Wiley discussed the new brochure and asked the members to check for any corrections before printing for the meeting.
New Business
Stakeholders Meeting
Suzanne Wiley said that the LIB Stakeholder Committee had met and worked out a draft agenda for the upcoming meeting. She asked the members to look at it and give their comments. She mentioned that Susan Cromwell was able to get John Lewis from the Bank of Fayetteville to give the visionary kickoff speech for the Stakeholders Meeting. Discussion followed regarding the agenda items and order of presentation. The members also discussed the presentation that is scheduled to be given before the GIS Users Forum on August 30.
Further discussion ensued regarding the logistics planning for the Stakeholders Meeting on September 7.
Technology Summit
Susan Cromwell announced that on November 8th there will be another Technology Summit to be held in Little Rock and Governor Huckabee will be giving the keynote address. She explained that this will be a follow-up to the Summit held last year in November in Fayetteville where important technology issues were identified.
Future Meetings
A meeting has been scheduled for September 20, depending on progress on legislative issues. The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department has invited the Board to visit their agency, and the members discussed the possibility of doing this in October.
The meeting was then adjourned.
Following the business meeting and lunch, the members met to work on the Board legislative draft.
(NOTE: The September 20 meeting was subsequently cancelled)
