Athens County
                    Cooperative Land Administration and
                         Information Mapping system
 
January 31, 2000
 
Athens County Commissioners
15 South Court Street, 2nd Floor
Athens, Ohio 45701
                                   RE: Monthly GIS Progress Report
 
Commissioners:
 
I made a GIS presentation to the Downtown Kiwanis Service Club late last
month.  About 30 members attended.  They seemed enthusiastic about our
project.
 
We received one copy of the new ESRI software ArcInfo 8.  We will receive
a second copy under our ESRI Local Governments Grant.  ESRI has a new web
page system for registering licenses.  I found the new system to be
excellent and quite an improvement over the previous setup.  The web site
has an individual account in our name and lists all registered ESRI
software that we have.
 
EmergiTech and Digital Information Systems, Inc. are working to finalize
our E-911 Dispatch Mapping and House Numbering systems.  A few changes
were necessary to the equipment configuration originally contracted,
because of new PCs recently installed at our E-911 Office as part of a
different program.  Doug Bentley is coordinating the installation with
EmergiTech.
 
We have finalized a contract with ILGARD for 2000 to continue our parcel
data conversion work.  We anticipate completion of the initial conversion
process and a good portion of updating the initial data with the split
information that has occurred over the two-year conversion process.
 
ILGARD obtained parcel identification numbers for Nelsonville, from the
Auditor's Office.  They are working to have the PINs linked to the parcels
and the data to Digital Information Systems, (DIS) so that it may be
incorporated into our E-911 dispatcher mapping system.  Data for Coolville
and The Plains has been corrected and sent to DIS.  Doug Bentley has
advised that we should wait until all data is ready and the equipment
installed before implementing the project.
 
We are planning an ESRI staff visit again this spring.  Planned projects
for the visit are an ArcInfo 8 class, systems design, database design, and
Internet access.  We hope to set up and test some sample parcel data on an
Internet server through Map Objects software.
 
Doug Bentley and J.B. Hoy will attend a Southeastern Ohio GIS Users meeting
in Jackson late this month.  I will be briefed by Doug and J.B. and will
report on the meeting in next months report.  Jackson County is about 75%
complete on parcel conversion and has several applications in use at the
Engineer's office.  Kris Irwin is the Jackson County GIS Coordinator.
 
ESRI has announced an ArcView application for Emergency Management
Agencies.  ESRI is now offering the Consequences Assessment Tool Set (CATS)
to federal, state, and local government emergency response organizations in
the United States. CATS is an ArcView GIS-based disaster analysis system
that lets you plan your response before disaster strikes.
 
Attached is an article titled GIS Based Permitting Application discussing
an Indianapolis consolidated approach to improving service to the public
through an automated permitting process.
 
Our GIS Steering Committee met:
 
J.B. Hoy reported that our parcel digitizing is 65% complete.  Parcel
identification numbers and line attributes are 50% complete.  They are on
schedule to complete our conversion project and much of the parcel split
work by the end of this year.  Currently they are working on the City of
Athens parcels.  Scott Miller will make a presentation of ILGARD watershed
work at our next meeting.
 
John Branner is experiencing a lot of walk-in traffic at the County
Engineer Office to get orthophoto and contour data.  A CD duplicator has
been purchased.  We were able to provide data to Alexander Schools saving
them several dollars on a bus route project that they are doing.
Softdesk landscape/Civil 2000 software is due out soon.
 
Ken Highland has been assisting ILGARD with parcel conversion questions
and studying ArcView software.
 
Howard Fokes continues to work on floodplain modeling and location of
utilities.  We visited their workstation and viewed several layers of
their data.
 
Bob Eichenberg reports that the County Planning Office is using GIS daily.
Their most recent work is on a firelands study in which they will link the
CAMA CAUV notations to parcels.  Bob is also planning to collect data on
utility locations inside of the three-mile limit planning area.  This will
be the first phase of work followed by work in the Villages and ultimately
County-wide.  Bob will contact AEP and Columbia Gas to determine any data
they may have, and invite them to attend our next Steering Committee
meeting.  Bob will also make a presentation about this work at our next
meeting.
 
I will invite Doug Bentley, E-911 Chief and Bill Arnott, Emergency
Management Director to attend our Steering Committee meetings.  I would
like to hold a future Steering Committee meeting at their facility and view
the E-911 dispatch mapping and automated house numbering systems which are
due to be on line soon.
 
I have begun discussions with a local business regarding the structure they
are establishing for several local businesses that will soon be made part
of the nation-wide "MyLocal.com" network.  This could possibly become a
structure that we may wish to consider for GIS.  I will visit their
facility early next month.
 
Our next GIS Steering Committee meeting will be held at ILGARD on March
16th at 10:00 a.m.  For anyone not familiar with the ILGARD facility:
Go to the Ridges and park in the lower parking lot in front of the large
main building with the two large towers.  Walk up to the street, go left
and follow the street to a smaller entrance road/parking area to the right
which circles around and back to the street again.  Almost to the far end
of the circle drive, make a right along a small sidewalk leading into a
double door entrance to the Technology and Enterprise Building 143.
Through the doors, follow the hallway angling to the left to its end, turn
right, and immediately right again into the elevators to the second floor.
Take the right door out of the elevator lobby, turn right and follow the
hallway until you come to the conference room door on the right.
 
Thank you for allowing me to coordinate this important aspect of Athens
County's future, and for your usual cooperation.
 
Archie Stanley
GIS Coordinator
astanley@frognet.net