Athens County
                 Cooperative Land Administration
                  and Information Mapping system
 
April 30, 2003
 
Athens County Commissioners
15 South Court Street, 2nd Floor
Athens, Ohio 45701
                              RE: Monthly GIS Progress Report
Commissioners:
 
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has subcontracted our
Athens County Soils Layer Project to the U.S. Natural Resources
Conservation Service (NRCS).  They are digitizing our soils data
at a very rapid rate.  Our Project is part of the Statewide
Digital Soils Information (SDSI) Project being cooperatively
developed by ODNR and NRCS.
 
ILGARD is making copies of our new Elevation Contour data for
distribution at our next GIS Steering Committee meeting.
The dataset is very large and so we will place the data on
several CDs.  Students are continuing to update the lot
annotation countywide.
 
The last 3 townships (Athens, York and Waterloo) of unknown
parcel identification numbers have been printed and given to the
Auditor's Office for clarification.  Another packet of splits was
received by ILGARD from the Auditor's Office.  New splits will be
entered into the system only if there is a valid PIN.  ILGARD has
installed the PDF section map access system at the Auditor's
Office.
 
We will develop a new item on our GIS website to allow Internet
GIS users to obtain actual "streamed" data for use in their own
GIS software.  Presently, images of our data are downloaded and
viewed by users but no analysis ability exists.  This new
capability will allow actual on-site GIS analysis to be performed
and actual data requested and used.  For those users who do not
have GIS software, ESRI has "ArcExplorer" GIS software available
as a free download enabling the "streaming" data to be accessed.
 
The Auditor's Office has received their new plotter and will be
able to plot these maps soon  All city, village and subdivision
maps will also be available.
 
Please note that two new pull down lists are now on our GIS
parcel viewer webpage.  The two lists are for detailed parcel
maps for villages and subdivisions and cities.  These maps are
created "on-the-fly" from the most current data, and brings the
total of these types of PDF maps available to over twelve
hundred.  Soon we will add a site map for each set of maps for a
more logical selection method.
 
I met with Jill Harris, Athens County Emergency Management
Agency, to begin to design a strategy for GIS to be used in
Homeland Security work.  We placed ArcView software and our new
orthophotos on her computer to begin her familiarity with GIS
software.  Jill plans to take the ILGARD 2-day ArcView class in
June.  We anticipate that Homeland Security measures will really
come to the forefront over the next few years and Jill wants to
be ready for the increased emphasis and responsibilities this
will place on her office.  GIS is a great tool for use in a
Homeland Security strategy.
 
Our next GIS Steering Committee meeting will be
May 15th at 10:00 A.M., in the ILGARD conference room.
 
Thank you for allowing me to coordinate this important aspect of
Athens County's future.
 
Archie Stanley, GIS Coordinator
555 East State Street - Athens, Ohio 45701
Phone (740) 593-5514 -  Fax (740) 592-4616
E-mail: astanley@frognet.net