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Home > Meetings > 2007 Meetings > February 21, 2007

February 21, 2007 Meeting Minutes and Agenda

Agenda:

  1. Approval of the January 17th meeting minutes - Chair
  2. Subcommittee Reports
    •  Financial - Dan Walters
    •  Policy & Marketing - Marilyn Lutz
    •  Technical - Will Mitchell
    •  Status on the GEOPortal - Will
    •  Guidelines for Portal Administrator - Marilyn
    •  Orthoimagery Project / Purchased ortho products- Larry Harwood
    •  Parcel Grants - Larry
  3. GIS Stakeholders Group - Dan
  4. Grant Applications Report - Chair, Dan. Sean
  5. Report to the Legislature - Chair
  6. Status of GeoLibrary Board bond request to the Legislature - Chair

Meeting Minutes:

 

Present

Jim Page, Chair

Marilyn Lutz, Co-Chair

David Blocher

Nancy Armentrout

William Hanson

Elizabeth Hertz

Gretchen Heldmann

Christopher Kroot

William Hanson ( by phone )

Staff

Larry Harwood

Visitors

Ray Halperin former Board member

Mary Cloutier, OIT

Carl Nylen, ESRI

 

The Chair called the meeting to order at 10:03

 

1. Approval of the January 17 th meeting minutes

The Chair entertained a motion to approve the minutes. Elizabeth Hertz moved to approve the minutes as written with Marilyn Lutz seconding. The Board voted unanimously in favor. The motion carried. (note: unless otherwise indicated the Chair abstains from voting)

 

2. Subcommittee Reports

 

Financial

There is not much to report; $35,000 has been encumbered to provide match for the Cat 3 and Cat 5 grants applied for. On the other hand, $31,000 encumbered to pay for aerial photography is not needed, all bills for that being in, so it returns to the unallocated pool. This gives a total of about $72,000 still under discussion.

 

Policy & Marketing

A draft of the policy on fee setting and data dissemination will be sent to the Policy Committee today. The revised document will be available for discussion at the next meeting. There was a question about policy on state government's spatial data; this are has not been addressed formally yet. There was a question about who the members of the Policy Committee are; the permanent members are Marilyn Lutz, chair, Will Mitchell, Bill Hanson and Nancy Armentrout.

 

Technical

Status on the GEOPortal . Marilyn Lutz reported that the portal project was moving but slowly. The basic functions of the Portal have been verified but there are still issues with the Graphical User Interface. The third of 4 payments amounting to $15,000 has been made to the contractor Ionic. Sean Myers has submitted an updated schedule and plan for completeing the GUI. One comment was that it is difficult to expect a vendor to put up with changing wants and wishes not spelled out in the original contract. There was discussion of how the GeoPortal could be administered and funded in the future; the options seemed limited. The cost coule be As high as 50K a year by some estimates. There was some discussion of the relationship if any between INFORME and the GeoPortal with regard to GIS services, value added services and possible funding.

 

Guidelines for Portal Administrator . There was nothing new to report to the Board

 

Orthoimagery Project.& Photo Products . There was nothing new to report to the Board on orthoimagery. Photo Science has delivered the scanned air photos and control data for the current contract area in the east and north.

 

Parcel Grants. The towns of Islesboro and South Portland are still under extended contracts from the first round of grants. Data has been received from Bowdoinham , China , Lyman , Standish and Clifton in the second round of grants.

 

3. GIS Stakeholders Group

Dave Blocher explained the basics of the new charter for what has been until now the GIS Executive Council and what is now the GIS Stakeholders Group. The new group will represent the interests of the various agencies in state GIS operations. They are not a governing body but more of an advisory group. One member of MEGIS will serve as permanent staff. There was a discussion of who would represent the Stakeholders Group to the Geolibrary Board. There was a question on what the status now was of the Memorandum of Agreement between the former Executive Council. The answer seemed to be that the MOU was now more with MEGIS and OIT than the several agencies. The Chair agreed to work with MEGIS and OIT on a modified agreement.

 

4. Grant Application Report

Dan Walters not being present, Larry Harwood reported briefley that in both the Cat 3 and Cat 5 grant applications had gone in on time. There should be some word by early March on the applications.

.

5. Report to the Legislature

The Chair thanked Mary Cloutier and Marilyn Lutz for their work and support on the yearly report to the legislature and asked if there was general approval if certain statistics were changed. There ensued a wide ranging discussion also ranging into questions of future funding and legislative support and the problem of the long-term viability of the Geolibrary.

 

Some members felt that the report should be more of a marketing tool and as such was not yet sufficient to go before the legislature; it was proposed that some "dire warning" about the Geolibrary future should be in the report. Others felt that marketing and prospecting for funding were rather separate matters and that the report itself was more of a functional legislative requirement. In addition to these major points there were some suggestions on content such as stressing the value of the orthoimagery to 'small players' in business. Also suggested was the need for reports and testimonials from those that are served by the Geolibrary. It was decided to make some suggested changes and review the report at the next meeting.

 

6. Status of Geolibrary Bond Request

The Chair reported that the status was not promising. The overall bonding had been pared down from about 600M to 300M. The Geolibrary requests did survive this dimunition. The matter is now entirely in the Governor's office staffers; State Planning Office is no longer directly involved. It was also noted that the sole focus now is on economic development, the Brooking Institute study being relegated to a back seat. The next step depends on which way the final decision goes. If the bond request is ultimately successful then it must be supported. If not, then the Board must find a legislator willing to champion a legislative approach.

 

There was discussion on who could or should approach the Governor's office staff or the Governor himself on the bond request. The CIO and head of SPO were suggested as were towns, private industry or the Regional Planning Councils. Rep. Ted Kauffman was suggested as a possible legislative champion; he had sponsored a Geolibrary funding bill in the last legislature.

 

There was discussion of how economic development related to the bond request. One point was the idea of cost avoidance including the avoidance of cost to state government. Second was allowing for regional analysis and supporting regional decision makers. It was pointed out that Maine is not competitive with other states in using these components for economic development.

 

In summation it was decided that: 1) Liz Hertz will discuss this with the Director of SPO. 2) Dave Blocher will discuss this with Dick Thompson. 3) The Chair will draft a 1 page 'talking points' document with 2 or 3 main points stressing why this is important to economic development.

 

Returning to the Annual Report, the concensus now was that the report would not be part of the marketing effort. Liz Hertz moved to authorize the Chair to finish and submit the report. Gretchen Heldmann seconded. The Board voted unanimously in favor. The motion carried.

 

Adjourned 12:30 .

 

The next scheduled meeting: Wednesday April 18 th , 2007 10:00 to 12:30 , room 105 in the Burton Cross ( state office ) building.