August 15, 2007 Meeting Minutes and Agenda
AGENDA
• Approval of the July18 th meeting minutes - Chair
Subcommittee Reports
• Financial - Larry Harwood
• Policy & Marketing - Marilyn Lutz
• MOU - Dave Blocher
• Title Standards Committee Letter - Bill Hanson
• Technical
• Orthoimagery Project /Parcel grants - Larry Harwood
• Status on the GEOPortal - Christopher Kroot
• Guidelines for Portal Administrator - Marilyn Lutz
CAT 3 grant RFP - Group
Membership and September Elections - Chair
Geolibrary Funding - Group
MEETING MINUTES
Present
James Page, Chair
Marilyn Lutz, CoChair
Dan Coker
David Blocher
Greg Copeland ( by phone )
Gretchen Heldmann
Elizabeth Hertz ( by phone )
Christopher Kroot
Nancy Armentrout
Ken Murchison ( by phone)
William Hanson
Staff
Larry Harwood
Visitors
Dan Walters, US Geological Survey
Don Garrold, Town of Searsport
Carl Nylen, ESRI
The meeting was called to order at 10:06
1. Approval of the July 18th, 2007 meeting minutes
The Chair entertained a motion to approve the minutes. Nancy
Armentrout moved to approve the minutes as written. Christopher Kroot
seconded. The Board voted unanimously in favor. The motion carried.
2. Subcommittee Reports
Financial
There were two changes to the amount encumbered by contract based on
new information from the US Geological Survey. A new entry is
$23,629.94 for USGS QAQC of the 2004/2005 aerial photography. Contrary
to previous reports, there apparently remains a small amount yet to
do. The 2004/2005 orthoimagery production figure is revised from
$300,000 to $263,689.51. These adjustments, although preliminary at
this point, raises the bond funds remaining unencumbered to $98,164.00.
Of that $25,000.00 is still nominally applied to standards
conformity/data validation tools leaving $73,164.50 not under
consideration.
Sidebar
The Maine GIS Users Group ( MEGUG ) is meeting September 21 at USM in
Portland. It was suggested that the Board have their next meeting at
that venue and give a presentation on Geolibrary activities lasting
perhaps 30 minutes to an hour. An informal poll showed a majority was
in favor of this idea and discussion quickly proceeded to detail. It
was suggested that the Chair and CoChair could give a brief
introduction followed by a presentation on the 50 States Initiative and
land records by Nancy Armentrout. Additional topics suggested were
Geolibrary services provided, the legislative agenda, future priorities
and orthoimagery. Greg Copeland, Jim Page and Larry Harwood will handle
the logistics – parking, location, schedules, etc.
Policy & Marketing
Memorandum of Agreement ( MOU )
Discussion opened on the Memorandum Of Agreement between the Geolibrary
and the Office of Information Technology. The Chair reported that he
had independently discussed the issues addressed in the MOU with Chief
Information Officer ( CIO ) Dick Thompson. The CIO’s ideas on the
issues varied somewhat from current assumptions in their MOU. The Chair
recommended putting off action on the MOU pending clarification from
the CIO.
There was some additional discussion of the GIS Stakeholders role in
providing input to the Board. The consensus from the state agency side
was that the Stakeholders were fully engaged just advising the CIO. It
was decided to stress collaboration between the Stakeholders and the
Board rather than direct input. Language changes were discussed
for sections F 5 and C 1 thru 4. However it was noted that section C 1
thru 4 had been already voted on by the Geolibrary and should not be
changed in this MOU. The MOU was tabled to the next meeting.
Title Standards Committee Letter
William Hanson reported that he had an outline of a letter to
appropriate section of the Maine Bar Association inviting their
participation in the CAT3 Grant. The letter will be addressed to Samuel
C.V.D. Kilbourn, Esquire, Chair of the Real Estate and Title Section of
the Maine State Bar Association. The Bar’s most important contribution
would be in coordinating with the registries of deeds. There will be a
meeting of this section of the Bar on Sept. 19th in Augusta. Some
points on the letter brought up in discussion.
• The letter addresses the section of the Bar that is
interested in real estate issues.
• It attempts to interface with the RFP in the text
of the letter.
• It includes a brief paragraph on what the
Geolibrary is.
• The most important point form the Bar’s perspective
will be the integration of land records system. ( deeds and tax parcel
data ).
• The all-important matter of sustained funding
should be addressed in closing.
The technical aspects of integrating land records were discussed and
several examples of such systems already in existence were noted. The
discussion concluded with listing some action items. 1) Bill will
complete the letter, and then it will be reviewed by the Chair prior to
mailing. 2) Coordination with the RFP will be maintained by keeping
Nancy in the loop. 3) Bill will begin a list of stakeholders in this
matter which can added to over time.
3. CAT 3 Grant RFP Review
In the interest of maintaining a quorum, the Chair moved the agenda to
#3.
Nancy Armentrout described the updates to the RFP. The basic RFP
describes two tasks with a number of subtasks. 1) to update and enhance
the GeoLibrary Strategic Plan and bring it into alignment with the
goals of the National States’ Geographic Information Council (NSGIC)
Fifty States Initiative and 2) to recommend a framework and
specification for an Integrated Land Records Information System for the
State of Maine. Some minor modifications had been made to section 4 (
page 7 ) regarding research, codification options and promotion.
In the ensuing discussion several points were brought up summarized as
follows.
• How will the deliverables be determined; will the
contract cover that?
• Should the budget ( $60,000 ) be left in the RFP?
The consensus was that it should.
• Should the deliverables be prioritized?
• Will the deliverable(s) be ADA compliant? This is a
state regulation.
• Will there be any money in the budget for a program
manager? This could be contracted out.
The most contentious topic which generated considerable discussion was
the question of what constituted technical specifications. The issue
was how detailed the specifications needed to be. The matter apparently
not likely to be resolved on this occasion, the RFP ad hoc committee
agreed to a re-write to include suggestions to be forwarded to Nancy by
the 17th. A conference call to discuss the revisions was scheduled for
the 23rd at 4:00 PM.
The matter was tabled to the next meeting.
Technical
Orthoimagery Project-Parcel Grants
All the remaining 2 foot resolution orthoimagery for Aroostook County
has been delivered plus the 94% of the 2 foot imagery in the greater
Bangor-to-the-coast area of central Maine. The imagery has been
reviewed and found acceptable. There has been no further word from USGS
as to when the remaining orthoimagery may be expected. There was
nothing new to report on the parcel grants project.
Status on the GEOPortal
The Evaluation Committee’s report is that the portal as presently
configured is unfortunately a failure. The Technical Committee plus
additions reviewed the portal this morning from 8:00 to 9:30 at the DEP
building; attending were Christopher Kroot, Marilyn Lutz, Gretchen
Heldmann, Nancy Armentrout, Dan Walters and Larry Harwood. The notes of
this meeting are included as an addendum to the minutes. The report was
basically this:
• The searches were inconclusive and did not return
all know MEGIS data
• The WMS or WFS connections were not functional
• There was no metadata display or
• There was not adequate documentation
• There was no catalog interface
• Use of certain icons gave incorrect functions
• There was no help function
• Overall there was no ease of use or “user
friendliness”
The Technical Committee all concurred in this assessment. The
discussion that followed was both intensive and extensive and centered
mostly on what the Board’s options were. The Chair first revisited the
letter he sent to Mr. Bossung at Ionic. The main elements discussed in
the Board meeting are as follows in outline.
• Can the contract be canceled? Certainly yes, state
contracts have “exit clauses”.
• Is it possible to get any money back? The consensus
was probably not.
• Could this conceivably be fraud? Not
deliberate at any rate, this is a reputable company.
• The evaluation should go back to Ionic as agreed in
any case.
• Shouldn’t the Board attempt to get whatever they
can for the money already spent?
• How about a new Webinar with Ionic? No they have
seen enough of those.
• Is there any confidence that Ionic will make
substantive changes?
• Whatever happens there is a good paper trail –
e-mails, letters, documents, ect.
• Has OIT had configuration problems? Yes but hardly
the whole reason for the long term problems.
Summing up the discussion and opinions expressed, the Chair suggested
action items. First, assemble a “Board response” based on the Tech
Committee notes. Second, after the Committee has completed the review
send it to Ionic with a timeline for response.
4. Membership and September Elections
Will Mitchell is resigning from the Board. His last meeting will be
September 19th. Sean Myers has resigned from the Board and will
not be attending any more meeting. Sean is in fact moving out of state.
These seats will need to be filled as soon as possible.
Jon Giles, who formerly represented municipal interests on the Board is
actively seeking appointment again. The likely seat would be
representing GIS Vendors ( Will Mitchell’s seat ) appointed by the
Speaker of the House. Larry will facilitate the arrangements.
Next meeting there will be elections for Chair and Co-Chair. Jim Page
and Marilyn Lutz will not be seeking re-election although they will be
staying on the Board. Traditionally the Chair and Co-Chair are not
state government employees. There was some general discussion of
potential nominees of which there seemed to be a shortage.
5. Geolibrary Funding
Time did not permit discussion of this item. This is a recurring item
in every agenda.
The meeting was adjourned at 12:24.
