Athens County
                 Cooperative Land Administration
                  and Information Mapping system

September 25, 2006

Athens County Commissioners
15 South Court Street
Athens, Ohio 45701
                       Re:  August/September GIS Progress Report
Commissioners:

ILGARD continues to work on the migration of our GIS system from
ArcInfo Coverage to SDE Enterprise Geodatabase format. Two
students are working a new pilot project fitting annotation
(both owner and dimension annotation) in order to re-create the
pdf plat maps using ArcGIS desktop and the MapBook extension.

We met with representatives of Woolpert about the enhancement
options of the State of Ohio Statewide Imagery Program (OSIP) and
have determined that unless a funding source is identified, we
will simply accept the free products offered under OSIP.

Our Technical User's Committee met.  Darren stated that the pdf
section maps were completed for Ames and Bern Townships.  Ken is
working part of each week doing Athens County parcel maintenance
at ILGARD.  We are moving toward the Auditor's office having more
of a direct role and responsibility in maintaining the digital
parcels.  As Ken has time, he will work on relocating annotation
on the remaining 12 Townships to continue updating the pdf
section maps.  We decided to bring an ESRI representative to
Athens to assist us in moving our GIS onto a recently developed
ESRI Template.  Both our present GIS and a new Tax Card Viewer
will then  be accessible on our Arc IMS Website.

Our Steering Committee met.  Jack Pepper reported that the Health
Department is moving from MapInfo to ESRI ArcView GIS software.
Darren offered ILGARD training as a way to speed the migration
process.  Ken is working 2 hours, three days a week doing splits
at ILGARD.  ArcINFO software will be installed on Ken's computer
at the Auditor's Office so that ultimately Ken can do the splits
there.  Jane said that other staff is helping with some of Ken's
duties at the Auditor's Office so that Ken can do the splits.
The Auditor's Office is printing out 16" x 16" GIS Plat maps.

Ron reported on the City of Athens/ILGARD contract and the City
GIS will begin to be served from our County server and ArcIMS
software in our most important move toward a true Enterprise GIS.
Bob reported on the Comprehensive Plan data and maps including
the Parks and Recreation map.  Ric reminded us that the new
census project will be coming up soon and that we have much
better GIS resources to call upon this time around.  The City is
working on a tree inventory update and is presently focusing on
identification of Ash trees as a result of the Emerald Ash Borer
problem.  Chuck spoke about efforts toward decentralized sewage
systems for small communities and how the GIS tools we have
developed will be the main method of presenting the case for
developing these systems in Athens County.

Our next GIS Technical User's Committee meeting will be held
October 19, 2006 at 10:00 A.M. in the ILGARD conference room.
Our next GIS Steering Committee meeting will be held
November 16, 2006 at 10:00 A.M. in the ILGARD conference room.

An interesting article appeared in the American Surveyor Magazine
this month regarding cooperation among the GIS and Surveying
communities.  
Article Link (PDF)

Sincerely,

Archie Stanley - GIS Coordinator
16000 Canaanville Road - Athens, Ohio 45701
Phone (740) 593-5514 - Fax (740) 592-4616
E-mail: 
astanley@AthensCountyGovernment.com