New Mexico Geographic Information System Advisory Committee

New Mexico Geographic Information Systems Advisory Committee GISAC MINUTES New Mexico Geographic Information Systems Advisory Committee March 9, 2004 State Records & Archives Center Santa Fe, New Mexico

Chair: Glenn Condon Recorder: Amy Budge Called to Order: 9:30am

Agencies and Private Companies Represented: NM Office of State Engineer, NM State Land Office, New Mexico Environment Department, New Mexico Energy, Minerals & Natural Resources, State Game & Fish, New Mexico DOT, NMGIC, New Mexico Taxation & Revenue (Property Tax Division), National Geodetic Survey, NM Bureau of Mines, Division of Government Research, City of Santa Fe, Bernalillo, City of Albuquerque, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Office of the Chief Information Officer, Bohannon & Huston, Qwest, One-Step Airborne.

The minutes from the February meeting and the agenda were approved.

Highlight Corner – John Peterson, representing One-Stop Airborne Solutions gave a presentation on a product called EarthWhere™, a spatial data provisioning system for storing, managing, processing, and delivering customized imagery to users. It has a tiered architecture that allows for rapid delivery of raster data and preprocesses data for ingest into ArcSDE. It accesses data from distributed sources. Some of the tools include: Map Blends, Histogram Conformance, Elevation Data Visualization, and Multi-band Visualization. A Hyperspectral Visualization tool is under development. Users define an area onscreen, select data sources, and specify output formats using a friendly interface. Once the data are assembled per the user’s requirements, it is delivered electronically, all in a matter of minutes. More information is available from John at [email protected]. o

Old Business

 Statewide GIS Data Acquisition and Distribution Working Group – Mike Inglis reported that the “Geographic Data Acquisition Coordinating Committee (GDACC)” met for the first time. The Committee was formed by Executive Order (EO) and has eight members as required by the EO. The membership roster still needs to be approved by the Governor. One of the first tasks of the Committee is to assemble an information packet that describes the process for acquiring new statewide data, beginning with the digital DOQQs. This packet includes briefs from state agencies on how these data will be used. Most of this packet already is collected. The packet will be taken first to the CIO and then passed on to the Governor. Gar recapped recent history on the attempt to acquire the digital DOQQs and secure funding support through Representative Heather Wilson. More recently, Senator Domenici’s office has contacted the State Engineer requesting a plan for water-related projects in the State. It seems as though some funding could be made available via the Senator for these projects, which could include acquiring the digital DOQQs.

1  ESRI Enterprise Deployment License – Glenn Condon – Glenn reported that he has been in contact with Silver Oaks, who has been retained to develop a statewide contract for ESRI products. Silver Oaks is examining the cost of licenses and maintenance, as well as looking at what the state has paid ESRI for their products. A vendor-wide comparative cost analysis also is being conducted. One of the goals of this exercise is to identify “targets of opportunity” for combining purchases to reduce overall costs. The idea is to know how much agencies are paying for current products and to identify what products offered by other vendors could satisfy the State’s needs. This knowledge would be useful in making intelligent decisions concerning license and maintenance purchases. The discussion turned to the administration’s mood for centralization. In terms of software license purchases, centralization would be beneficial to state agencies. Currently some agencies are paying more than others for the same package.

Announcements:

 Information Technology Commission (ITC) – Neil Meoni reported that the next meeting of the ITC is March 16, 2004. One of the topics for the meeting is the “certification rule” that will be presented for approval and formal adoption by the ITC. This rule stems from a law that requires all IT projects greater than $1 million to be certified before any funds are released for the project. The rule is an amendment to a previous “project oversight” rule. The certification rule must be approved before April 15th. The second topic for discussion is the “IT consolidation” effort. The Governor is anxious to implement IT consolidation. A subcommittee of the ITC met with various entities to develop a set of recommendations for implementing IT consolidation. Under this consolidation plan, no project can move forward without a project plan and an architectural plan. The goal of consolidation is to save money in IT by 2007 (as much as $30 million). An FY05 IT project funding comparison was recommended by the IT subcommittee, but it has not been approved yet by the Governor. It is perceived that the plan will provide opportunities for the State to move toward enterprise services. Email services will be the first to be implemented under the consolidation program. Next will be SHARE. Discussion turned toward the implications of a consolidation program for GIS and caution was expressed that GIS should not be part of the consolidation effort because the applications of GIS are so variable. But, consolidating data would be a good idea and should be done via RGIS (not GSD). The argument is that the State already has invested in RGIS and that the RGIS clearinghouse currently has a consolidation role of sorts. The concept of a “central mapping center” such as the one in Utah was introduced. Neil assured the GISAC membership that GIS is not being considered for the consolidation program.

 National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) – Amy Budge reported on two primary topics, E-911 and Homeland Security.  E-911: o The National Emergency Number Association (NENA) reports that several studies they have conducted indicate that “only half of the call center (public safety answering points) will have the ability to locate wireless callers with any level of precision by the end of 2005.” The federal deadline for meeting the requirement was 2001. Congress is moving to assist call centers. The House

2 approved a bill to provide grants for infrastructure and equipment upgrades, as well as for training. The Senate is preparing to vote on a companion bill. o Caution for states that are including reverse 911 callout capability in homeland security plans. Apparently a vendor (Digital Communications Corp) provided equipment to counties in Arkansas they claimed would give emergency response agencies the capability to draw a radius on a digitized map provided by DCC and the alert system would automatically contact every operational phone number within that radius to deliver a recorded message. During tests, this failed. Beware of using off-the-shelf commercial road centerline data. They may not work.  Homeland Security: o DHS pilot projects – the present plan is for the pilot projects to be announced at the end of February by Secretary Ridge as part of the Department’s anniversary. There will be a teleconference on this topic with state CIOs and HS directors. The pilot project opportunity was reported at an earlier GISAC meeting. o Homeland security CIOs issue list of priorities – Eight areas were identified by DHS as priorities. These are: . sharing information . mission rationalization (or determining the most cost-effective way to meet objectives) . information and technology security . developing a single information and technology infrastructure . developing a better enterprise architecture . using portfolio management techniques . good governance . managing the employees who support information and technology programs o Homeland security to bolster intergovernmental communications – DHS plans to deploy better technologies to strengthen communications among federal, state, and local officials. They plan to refine technology used in its current operations center and to implement an integrated communications system to share information with state and local officials. This includes hardware and software upgrades. States are encouraged to develop their own “information fusion centers” that can communicate with the federal office. o Homeland security network – the Homeland Security Information Network was launched on February 24th. This network expands the Joint Regional Information Exchange System that many states have been developing with the Defense Intelligence Agency for the past several years. By the end of 2004, all 50 states, the top urban areas, and the DHS will be connected through this secure network.

 Western Governor’s Association (WGA) – No report was given. Rick did not attend the meeting.

 Resource Geographic Information System (RGIS) – Mike Ingles reported that version 1.3 of the “new” RGIS clearinghouse is available for review and comment. Glenn will distribute the URL to the GISAC membership. The new design for the clearinghouse is based on open source technology. The web site URL ishttp://philostrate.unm.edu/cgi- bin/bber/rgis_1_3.php.

3  New Mexico Geographic Information Council ( NMGIC) – Bart Matthews reports plans are underway for the 20th anniversary of NMGIC, which will be celebrated at the spring meeting on April 15th. The theme of the meeting is “GIT: Then and Now.” Vendor exhibits will be included. Information on the program can be found on the NMGIC website at http://nmgic.unm.edu.

 Geodetic News – Bill Stone reported that he has relocated his office to UNM. He shares space in Bandelier West with EDAC and the Geography Department

 Agency Reports –None.

The meeting was adjourned by Chair Glenn Condon at 12:00 pm.

Next Meeting The next meeting will be April 13 at 9:30 am – New Mexico State Records and Archive Center Room 2022 (Yucca Room) Adjourned: 12:00 noon.