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2000 Accomplishments

Regional Information Need/Data Solutions

Census Geography

• Policy Board endorsed the Metropolitan Council as regional custodian and endorsed regional data specifications – 1/26/00
• Metropolitan Council, in its role as regional custodian and through a contract with The Lawrence Group, developed a regional 1990 dataset consistent with specifications endorsed by the Policy Board. (Delivery pending January 2001)

Planned Future Land Use

• Coordinating Committee endorsed a preliminary regional coding scheme for planned future land use (derived from a subregional coding scheme developed by the North Metro I-35W Corridor Coalition). 6/22/00
• The Metropolitan Council conducted a pilot project to test the proposed coding scheme – 6/00-12/00. The pilot involved a) building a planned future land use dataset comprised of the individually adopted planned future land use plans assembled into a single data structure and b) building a generalized regional dataset wherein the individual community designations have been "mapped" to the regional coding scheme.

Hydrography

• Technical Advisory Team, in conjunction with Hydrographic Committee of Governors Council on Geographic Information, defined elements of a desired regional data solution and completed an inventory of existing data. (Pending) 12/00

Jurisdictional Boundaries

• Washington County completed School District Jurisdictional Boundaries pilot project – 12/00
• MetroGIS held a Peer Review Forum to obtain comment from other MetroGIS stakeholders about the conclusions from the Washington County School District Pilot Project - 11/30/00

Land Cover

• Policy Board endorsed Metro MnDNR as regional custodian and endorsed regional data specifications– 1/26/00
• Metro Mn DNR and MetroGIS co-hosted workshops for implementation of land cover coding scheme – 4/00 & 6/00

Parcels (See II b & c)

Special Studies/Projects

• Business Plan: The Policy Board MetroGIS’ accepted its first Business Plan on April 26, 2000. Major topics addressed included (see 1999 accomplishments for the two studies and subsequent findings that laid the foundation for the Business Planning process):

Priority functions to support

• Finding that a subscription method of financing premature and recommendation that the Council continue in its role as primary sponsor
• Maintain informal organizational structure until demonstrated need for a more formal structure
• Regional parcel dataset pilot needed to address outstanding issues concerning public and private sectors

Regional Parcel Dataset Pilot Project – Assembly and Distribution to Public Sector Interests

• Agreements executed authorizing the Council to distribute Version 1 to government units serving the seven county, metropolitan area for pilot project – 10/00
• The pilot project officially underway 11/20. Over 100 organizations notified and invited to participate.
• Internet site modified to disseminate order forms, license, and general information.
• Coordinating Committee endorsed distribution to academic interests according to the same rules as government interests. 12/14 (Board endorsement pending 1/10/01)

Regional Parcel Dataset– Private Sector Access Policy

• Policy Board Subcommittee created in April to recommend policy for non-government access to a regional parcel dataset and to designate the Metropolitan Council as distributor of the dataset
• Special limited access without fee to regional parcel dataset granted to CB-Richard Ellis for presentation 8/00
• Special limited access, without fee, to regional parcel dataset granted to ESRI and Intergraph in conjunction with a Request for Demonstrations by Technical Advisory Team of Internet enabled data distribution technology. 9/00 – 12/00
• Policy Board endorsed for county board approval a non-government access policy of $0.01 to $0.05 per parcel for regional parcel dataset with two attributes. 10/18/00
• County Boards adopted individual policy consistent with Policy Board recommendation. 12/00
• Agreements executed for Metropolitan Council to assemble and distribute regional parcel dataset to non-profit and private-sector interests. 12/00

NSGIC Policy Maker Communication Initiative

• MetroGIS Staff Coordinator participated in a National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) initiative to develop a strategy and a message to communicate the importance of collaborative GIS to elected officials. The effort resulted in a presentation entitled "Geographic Information for Policy Makers – The power of Place to Support Decision Making". 6/00 - 9/00

Data Discovery and Acquisition

• Time extensions were executed for the Anoka and Washington County GIS Data and Cost Sharing Agreements, extending each agreement to December 31, 2001 and consistent with all others. 6/14/00

• MetroGIS DataFinder design enhanced to make compatible with Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Clearinghouse and Minnesota’s GeoGateway guidelines and registered as a node on the national clearinghouse. 7/00-12/00

• Regional Parcel Dataset Pilot Project (See IIb & c). The agreements required to implement the pilot involved development of commonly accepted licensing requirements, prototyping of procedures for centralized distribution and licensing for data not owned by the distributor, and agreement by all seven counties and Council on a variety of procedures and policy affiliated with data practices issues. 7/00-12/00

Outreach

• The 1999 Annual Report was mailed to over 1200 persons in February and handed out at several conferences and forums.
• Substantial information updated/added to the MetroGIS web site (www.metrogis.org) -- ongoing. MetroGIS and MetroGIS Data Finder sites awarded "TopTen" status by www.tenlinks.com site for professional in the fields of CAD, CAE, mapping/GIS and engineering technologies.

Presentations about MetroGIS were made at

Mn House of Representatives Local Government Affairs Committee hearing. Policy Board Chair Reinhardt testified about the importance to achieving MetroGIS’ vision of a bill to grant liability immunity for government when providing access to GIS data developed for internal purposes -- 2/07/00. The bill was approved 5/00

National NaCO Conference in Washington D.C. Policy Board Chair Reinhardt, MetroGIS Staff Coordinator and Coordinating Committee members Caswell, Craig, and O’Connor presented findings of the MetroGIS Fair-Share Financial Model Project and the accompanying MetroGIS Benefits Study. 3/5/00

National Spatial Data Infrastructure Staff Forum: Washington D.C. Policy Board Chair

Reinhardt, MetroGIS Staff Coordinator, and Coordinating Committee member Craig shared the findings of the MetroGIS Fair-Share Financial Model Project and the accompanying MetroGIS Benefits Study. 3/5/00

National GIS-Transportation Conference: Minneapolis. Coordinating Committee members Carlstrom, Charboneau, and Henry and Karl Olmstead with MnDOT presented a panel about MetroGIS’ data sharing activity and its street centerline public-private partnership. 3/29/00

National ACCRA Conference: In conjunction with a presentation about the activities of the North Metro I-35W Corridor Coalition, MetroGIS Staff Coordinator provided an overview of the objectives of MetroGIS and its relationship to the Coalition. 6/11/00

National URISA Conference: Orlando, Florida – "The MetroGIS Initiative: Development, Integration and Sharing of Geographic Information Through Regional Collaboration". 8/21/00.

Annual Minnesota GIS/LIS Conference: St. Cloud – "The MetroGIS Initiative: Development, Integration and Sharing of Geographic Information Through Regional Collaboration". Coordinating Committee members Arbeit, Craig, and Stevenson and the Staff Coordinator participated. Same participants as URISA. 10/5/00

• Memphis Area – InfoShare 2000 Forum: Memphis, Tennessee. Policy Board Chair Reinhardt and the MetroGIS Staff Coordinator presented an overview of MetroGIS’ objectives, how it is organized, how support was nurtured, benefits realized from collaboration, and methods used to achieve consensus on priority information needs and functions to support. 11/17/00

FGDC Cadastral Committee. Raleigh, North Carolina. David Claypool, Coordinating Committee Vice Chair and member of the FGDC Cadastral Committee, presented a summary of MetroGIS’ efforts to refine the concept of area integrator for cadastral data and to identify standards and responsibilities for a regional parcel dataset. 11/29/00

• MetroGIS staff attended as many of the county GIS user group meetings as possible (user groups are operational in each of the seven counties) to learn about matters of interest to each group and to apprise of MetroGIS activities. A quarterly User Group Update was initiated at the 9/28/00 Coordinating Committee meeting.

• Staff and committee members served as liaisons to Mn Governor’s Council on Geographic Information: Hydrographic, Data Standards, Jurisdictional Boundaries and Education Committees and Mn/DOT’s GIS Council.

Major documents produced (All available on MetroGIS Internet site www.metrogis.org.)

• MetroGIS Business Plan – Endorsed by Policy Board. 4/26/00.

• Business Information Needs Workgroup Turn-Around Documents: Planned Future Land Use Regional Coding Scheme, School District Jurisdictional Boundaries, and Hydrography existing data inventory

• Paper drafted by David Arbeit that accompanied MetroGIS’ presentation at the National URISA Conference on 8/21/00 in Orlando, Florida entitled "The MetroGIS Initiative: Development, Integration and Sharing of Geographic Information Through Regional Collaboration" (note: the PowerPoint presentation is also available)

MetroGIS major participant in National GeoData Alliance (www.GeoAll.net) Initiative

• Policy Board member and Hennepin Commissioner Randy Johnson and Steven Lehr, member of the Private Sector Parcel Data Access Subcommittee of the Policy Board and member of the Coordinating Committee, participated on a Drafting Team that met every other month to define a organizational structure for the National GeoData Alliance Initiative. 3/00 – 9/00.

• The MetroGIS Staff Coordinator served on the Drafting Team and on the core working group charged with preparing recommendations for the Drafting Team. 3/00 – 9/00.

• Kathy Covert, GeoData Alliance Project Manager; the MetroGIS Staff Coordinator, David Arbeit and Will Craig, the later both members of the Coordinating Committee, presented an overview of the GeoData Alliance Initiative and its relevance to Minnesotans at the Mn GIS/LIS Conference. 10/5/00

Project Management/Administration

• The Policy Board endorsed the first Business Plan for MetroGIS – 4/26/00
• The Metropolitan Council accepted the Policy Board’s request to continue to serve in the capacity as primary sponsor of MetroGIS through 2003 -- 6/14/00.
• A Work Program, through 2001, was endorsed by the Policy Board -- 7/19/00
• Staff met with representatives from each county periodically to monitor progress on projects assisted by funding received through the GIS Data and Cost Agreements.
• A consultant team was retained 3/00 to support a Policy Board subcommittee charged with recommending a course of action concerning fees for non-government access to a regional parcel dataset and to assist with the agreements necessary to implement the regional parcel dataset pilot project.
• A Request for Proposals was published seeking a Professional Services Consultant for 2001-2002 to assist MetroGIS staff.

11/20/00

Applications submitted to register "MetroGIS" and "MetroGIS DataFinder" with the Minnesota and federal governments.

12/00

Meetings supported by MetroGIS staff

• Policy Board- (4)

• Coordinating Committee- (4)
• Policy Advisory Team (includes meetings expanded to include reps from all counties) – (11)
• Technical Advisory Team- (4)
• Business Information Needs Workgroups, Training, Etc. meetings:
• Hydrography-(4)
• Land Cover (7)
• School District Jurisdictional Boundaries (6)
• Planned Future Land Use (3)
• Special Forums: None