Northwest Indiana
GIS Forum
Meeting Notes
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Meeting Location: Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission
Members in
Attendance:
Rex Burton, Highland
Sanitary Board; Joe Eberts, Lake County Parks;
Tricia Gleason, Elkhart County;
Shannan Lefever, NIRPC; Morton Marcus; Becky McKinley, Hammond
Sanitary District; Cele Morris, IUN/NWI Center for Data &
Analysis; Dan Niksch, City of Crown Point
Engineering;
George Olmsted, IUN; Lauren Rhein, NIRPC; Jim Sparks, Indiana
Geographic Information Officer, Indiana Office of Technology; Joyce
West, The Sidwell Company
Report by State of Indiana, Geographic Information Officer, Jim Sparks
On July 1, 2007, a state Geographic Information Office was
created by
Indiana Code 4-23-7.3 to coordinate geographic
information technology activities statewide, and
specifically, to:
- Facilitate GIS data cooperation among units of the
federal, state, and local governments;
- Integrate GIS data and framework data
developed and maintained by state agencies and political
subdivisions into the statewide base map;
- Acquire, publish, store, and distribute GIS data;
- Coordinate with state educational institutions to
promote formal GIS education opportunities and informal
GIS learning opportunities throughout Indiana.
Jim Sparks was hired in October 2007, as Indiana
Geographic Information Officer. Jim reports that
he has been meeting with various state departments that are
currently engaged in GIS. Infrastructure is being
developed by a number of departments and centralization of
activities is needed. In the past, each state agency
has had its own license agreement for GIS software.
Licensing to Indiana state agencies as a whole would be more
advantageous and a proposal is being considered. A multi-year
state orthophotograpy project is being investigated. In
conjunction with
IndianaMap, a pilot project is underway to
integrate and distribute county data via a web feature
service. Over 15 Indiana counties have volunteered to
participate in the project. Multiple partners will be
involved in the technicalities of the project. In early June, a Joint Data
Request Letter will be forwarded to local government
entities including county commissioners, economic
development and emergency management personnel encouraging
their participation in data sharing related to the IndianaMap
project. New educational materials outlining IndianaMap
will also be delivered to appropriate local government
levels. The 2008 National Agriculture Imagery Program
(NAIP) is under way. The entire state will be covered
this summer. Help locating ground control points will
be requested via letters to counties.
Local Implementation
Becky McKinley has completed the
City of Hammond
Master Address File in conjunction with the US Census Bureau Local Update of
Census Address (LUCA) program. She had time to go back over the
database to reflect multifamily status of housing units where appropriate. She
used the ESRI tool to help prepare the address data for this
program. The Sanitary District is now overseeing the Sanitation and
Recycling programs in the City. A study was undertaken to match the
number of garbage cans to each street segment. She is helping the
Police Department with a project correlating instances of crime to the
status of street light outages.
The Highland Sanitary Board is creating a sewer atlas and is
collecting locations of manholes using GPS equipment. Sanitary sewer smoke
testing will take place this summer.
Lake County Parks will have the help of three interns this
summer. They continue to create base data including location of park
trails.
Elkhart County also participated in the US Census LUCA program and
submitted an update recently. GIS work includes revision of a zoning
layer.
The Sidwell Company reports that parcel conversion for Lake and
Porter Counties is complete. Delivery was made to Porter County
last month and is currently underway at Lake County.
The City of Crown Point has determined that maps for their water
distribution model are somewhat inaccurate. They are in the process of
making corrections and additions to bring them up to date. Work
continues to match addresses to building footprints. The Fire
Department is looking into acquiring laptops equipped with GIS for use in
their trucks. An updated list of resident sex offenders is being used
to check proximity to schools and childcare centers.
The search is on for a one year visiting librarian position at Indiana University Northwest.
An interest in GIS is included as a desirable quality in the job
description.
NIRPC has been involved in the Census 2010, Local Update of Census
Addresses (LUCA) program. An accurate count is based on every
appropriate address receiving a census form. Address lists have been
resubmitted to the U.S. Census Bureau. Those participating in the LUCA
program will have the opportunity see how their updates were processed and
to appeal, if necessary. A Comprehensive regional plan is being
developed that includes transportation, environmental and economic
development components. GIS will be incorporated into each component
of the plan. Applications for land use and traffic analysis zone data
are currently being developed.
Training
Kevin Miller with IDEM has approved funding for future
GIS training. Becky will be conducting free ArcGIS 9.2 training sessions in the near
future. Ten trainees are currently on the waiting list. The IUN
lab has been reserved for training on Thurs./Fri., May 29-30 and June 26-27.
Becky will send out an announcement in the near future for the June training
session. An additional session will be scheduled this fall.
Contact
Becky
for more information about enrolling in training.
Other ArcGIS training is available periodically in
Indianapolis. Price of the training material is the only cost.
Visit the ESRI
website for any additional free webinars currently available.
Lake Rim GIS Update
Work to upgrade the Lake Rim GIS interactive mapping
website continues. The Indiana Geological Survey is coordinating
testing and development of an updated Arc IMS viewer. Finalization of
aquifer system maps is underway. Several years of Lake Michigan
coastal aerial photos have been scanned and georeferrenced. An
integrated DFIRM/Q3 floodplain data layer is being developed. All data on the
site will include metadata. The Army Corps of Engineers have made
comments on the site and those suggestions are being implemented. The addition of local datasets is highly
desired. Anyone interested in participating by providing datasets is
encouraged to contact
or
. IGS is on schedule for a public release of the revised site in July.
Administration - FGDC 2007 CAP Funding - Metadata Outreach and
Training
A half-day Introduction to Metadata workshop was held at IUN on April 23,
2007. Eleven attended the training that included basic metadata
information as well as help creating a personal metadata template in
ArcCatalog based on the Indiana metadata Profile. Contact Cele Morris
if you require assistance with metadata issues.
Meeting notes will continue to be posted to
the NWI GIS Forum website as soon as possible after meetings (click on
Minutes).
Resource links were recently checked and updated/removed where necessary.
Please contact with any comments or input on the website.
IGIC Report
A number of IGIC activities have already been addressed at the beginning
of these meeting notes by GIO, Jim Sparks.
Jill Saligoe-Simmel, Executive Director of IGIC will
not renew her contract this August. In light of this development,
review of IGIC organization, administration and staffing is proceeding by
the Executive and Finance Committees to plan for long term funding and
planning. Though Jill will step down as Executive Director, she
intends to continue her involvement with IGIC but plans to pursue other GIS
interests.
The 2009 Indiana GIS Conference will be held February
17 - 18 at the Bloomington Convention Center in Bloomington, IN.
A number of educational opportunities are available
through IGIC. See the
IGIC website for
information about a July 14th webinar:
Mashable Maps: An
introduction to Web-Based Mapping with Google and Microsoft.
Arrangements are being made to host an IGIC GIS Roadshow sometime later this
year. See the IGIC website for updates.
IGIC is restarting the Orthophotography workgroup.
Their mission is to establish an ongoing statewide program and to define the
specifications for the photo collection and products. If you are
interested in either being involved in the workgroup or being included in
the ortho ListServe, contact
IGIC Committees.
ESRI sponsored a State Government Day April 10, 2008,
in Indianapolis. A full day of activities was offered for free to
State employees and IGIC members. This is scheduled to be an annual
event that will be publicized better next year.
Next Meeting: Next meeting:
Thursday, July 17, 2008, at Indiana University Northwest
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