Athens County
                      Cooperative Land Administration
                       and Information Mapping system
 
                                                  November 30, 1999
 
Athens County Commissioners
15 South Court Street, 2nd Floor
Athens, Ohio 45701
                                       RE: Monthly GIS Progress Report
 
Commissioners:
 
EmergiTech and Digital Information Systems are progressing with our E-911
project.  They are incorporating initial attribution of building locations
(address database development) for the municipalities of Athens, Glouster,
Trimble, and Chauncey into the street centerline and structure databases.
Doug Bentley is gathering additional data for Amesville, Jacksonville,
Coolville, and The Plains from the Auditor's office.  Data for Nelsonville
will be completed by ILGARD and sent to Digital Information.    This
project is on schedule and is now 89% complete.  The completion date for
this project is January 31, 2000.
 
We have filled the 1 day Ames Township Pilot Project class for
December 10th at 9:00 a.m. at ILGARD.  We have scheduled a second class for
December 9th at 9:00 a.m. at ILGARD.  Anyone interested in participating in
this class should give me a call.  Seats will be filled on a first come -
first served basis.  This is not a certified ESRI ArcView Class!
A third class will be scheduled as needed.
 
I spoke with Keith Fournier, Senior GIS Analyst for the Lucus County
Auditor's Office regarding their method of "registering" Internet users
of GIS as a security measure.  This system uses normal Internet
registration methods available for web sites.  It is worth considering
when we implement a GIS web site.
 
ArcExplorer is a free data viewer available as an Internet download from
ESRI.  It can work on it's own with local data sets or as a client to
Internet data and map servers.  With ArcExplorer you can use industry
standard shapefiles, and ArcInfo coverages and SDE layers, view images,
pan and zoom through multiple layers, download vector and image data,
address match, label, and identify and query geographic and attribute data.
ArcExplorer also features legends, overview maps, multiple views, saving
and retrieving views, and map printing.  You can browse and query data on
an intranet or the Internet.
 
I attended a GIS conference in Columbus last month.
Notable sessions that I attended were:
 
Shoreh Elhami, of Delaware County, explained their Geo-referenced Parcel
Identification Numbering System.  They use a 14 digit PIN with:
 
  the first digit representing jurisdiction
  the next two digits representing Range
  the next two, Section
  the next two, Block
  the next three, Parcel
  the last three, Sub-Parcel
 
Jim Weaver formerly at Lucus County, went over the lessons they learned
through GIS development including:
 
  Hire good staff
  Document everything
  Use good quality control
  Develop and follow good standards
  Over-design the system - people will definitely use it a lot.
  Have a budget in place for staff, equipment and software upgrades,
     and data maintenance.
 
I attended an ArcInfo 8 seminar late in the month and will report on it
next month.
 
I first reported on ArcIMS in the August 1999 GIS progress report.
ArcIMS (Internet Map Server) is ESRI's new Web-based mapping and GIS
technology.  ArcIMS can access data distributed from multiple locations.
This eliminates the need to copy or send data because the information is
accessed directly from the web site.  ArcIMS Manager, a key component of
this software, includes a wizard-driven framework for handling web site
setup and administration, and is a suite of web pages that provides acc
ess to all ArcIMS functions and takes the user through the process of
creating and publishing maps.  I continue to feel that ArcIMS may fit with
our Athens County GIS very well.
 
I met with a Hocking College (Ralph Moran, Instructor) GIS class.
My presentation covered what I look for in an employee, what I like to see
in a resume, what is happening in Athens County and the region in GIS/GPS,
where I think GIS/GPS is going in the future, and my personal career
experience.
 
In the January 1999 GIS progress report I posed six legal questions.
I have repeated them here with answers as best I can determine:
 
Should we copyright our data (NO), and if so, how can we widely distribute
our information and still retain our copyright?  Also, how do we accomplish
a copyright?  (NOT NECESSARY)
 
Are we allowed by law to charge money for this data, and if so, how much?
(YES) (REASONABLE COPY AND MEDIA CHARGES ONLY- OPEN RECORDS LAWS)
 
If we are charging for our information, should we license it or sell it
outright?  (SELL IT OUTRIGHT)
 
Does the distribution of this data infringe on anyone's personal privacy
as protected by law?  (NO)
 
What are the ramifications of distributing this data internationally, due
to the global nature of the Internet?  (EACH PARTICIPATING OFFICE WILL HAVE
TO DECIDE WHAT TO PUBLISH ON THE INTERNET BASED UPON THEIR OWN RULES AND
EXPERIENCE)
 
Should we have liability disclaimers displayed on our data, and if so, what
should they say?  (YES) (THE SAME TYPE OF THINGS OUR PRESENT DISCLAIMERS
SAY)
 
Enclosed is a copy of a map of horizontal control points throughout Ohio
compiled by Ohio State University.  Note that Athens County is well covered
by control points, especially when compared to other rural counties.
 
J.B. Hoy, ILGARD and NovaLIS Technologies personnel are working on our
parcel data sets to ensure that NovaLIS Parcel Editor software will
perform splits flawlessly on our parcel maps.
 
I delivered a copy of ESRI ArcView 3.2 software to Chuck Hammer, and
ArcView 3.2 upgrades to Lenny Eliason, Mark Sullivan, Doug Bentley,
Tammi Goeglein, and Bob Eichenberg.  I installed ArcView 3.2, orthophotos,
and our Ames Township Pilot Project on Christy Mitchell's
(County Clerk of Courts) computer.
 
Our GIS Steering Committee met:
 
J.B. Hoy presented an update on our parcel data conversion project.
ILGARD has seven students working over break and plan to complete Athens
and York Townships by the end of the year.  The project is 50 % completed
and should be finished near the end of 2000.  At that time they will begin
to complete the past two years property splits which occurred during the
initial conversion project.
 
As a side project, J. B. will place all Athens County GIS and census data
onto one CD and make multiple copies for our GIS users.  He also will put
together an e-mail GIS list server so that our GIS users may more easily
communicate.
 
J.B. will invite representatives of the area watershed groups to address
our next Steering Committee meeting to explain the applications of GIS in
their projects.
 
John Kotwoski reported that Tom Reid has been working with AEP
Communications regarding AEP plans for installing "Brown Fiber" network
cabling throughout the County.  Lynette Crouse attended our meeting
and is the person in Facilities Planning designated to coordinate
with GIS technology.
 
Ron Lucus stated that the City of Athens now has three people working on
GIS projects.  They are working on snow route and salt usage analysis,
leaf pickup, garbage pickup, and crime analysis.  They plan to produce a
map of on-going City and University projects for 2000.  They have also been
working with developers interested in our area.
 
Howard Fokes reported that their utility work is progressing and the flood
plain map being developed by O.U. Cartography will be finished by the end
of the year.  They may provide a presentation of this work at our next
Steering Committee meeting.
 
Ken Highland stated that he and Matt Sayres have been getting familiar with
the Ames Pilot Project parcel data with ArcView software.
 
Chuck Hammer reported that the Health Department is doing a lot of work in
environmental health planning.  They are working with the O.U. Osteopathic
Medical Center to expand these efforts.  Chuck has been invited by OSU and
the State Health Department to present this work before the Mid-West
Workshop in Environmental Health.
 
Our next GIS Steering Committee meeting is scheduled for January 20, 2000
at 10:00 a.m. in the Facilities Management Conference Room.
 
We have resolved Y2K issues by upgrading computers at the County Engineer's
Office.  We are also looking into upgrading our Internet bandwidth to a GTE
"ADSL" line.  This upgrade would enable our Office for GIS class Internet
communications.
 
John Branner, Tammi Goeglein, Ken Highland, and I met with J.B. Hoy and
ILGARD students working on our parcel conversion project to work out a few
problems with the parcel fitting process.  We decided to flag any
unresolved problems for future additional work as necessary.
 
If anyone receiving this progress report by regular mail would rather
receive it by e-mail, please let me know.
 
Thank you for allowing me to coordinate this important aspect of Athens
County's future, and for your usual cooperation.
 
Archie Stanley
GIS Coordinator