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1. Call to Order
Jim Sydow called the meeting to order at 8:40 am. The meeting was held at the City of Richfield.
Members Present: Tom Bisch, Heritage Development; Lt. Gary Gary, Ramsey County Sheriff Department; Rick
Gelbmann, Metropolitan Council; Carol Kaszynski, Richfield; Susanne Maeder, LMIC; Jim Sydow, TIES; Jan Vanderwall,
Roseville Area Schools (ISD 623).
Members Absent: David Arbeit, LMIC and Chair of the MetroGIS Coordinating Committee; Gina Buss, BRW Inc.; Pat
Cook, North Suburban Cable Commission; Ben Ferguson, Coon Rapids; Lisa Freese, Eagan; Allen Hoffman, Anoka County; Tim
Morehead, USWest Communications, Inc.; Ben Verbick, LOGIS.
Support Staff: Tanya Mayer, Metropolitan Council
2. Acceptance of the Agenda
Tanya Mayer noted a change to the locations of the next meetings. The January meeting will be held at TIES. No
location has been selected for the February meeting. No further additions or modifications were made to the agenda.
3. November Meeting Summary
Lt. Gary Gary motioned and Rick Gelbmann seconded acceptance of the November 7, 1996 meeting summary. The
motion was unanimously approved.
4. System Model Proposal and Discussion
Rick Gelbmann handed out a page of recommendations to the Coordinating Committee for review and discussion by
Access Team members.
a. Proposed Model and approach of Data Index and Access
The first recommendation was to accept the proposed model and approach of Data Index and Access based on the
Internet and World Wide Web model. Gelbmann distributed a 2-page outline and illustration of the Web Index Proposal to
the Data Access Advisory Team members (see handout for details).
The team felt there may be significant discussion at the Coordinating Committee regarding the 'Views' portion
in the model. Susanne Maeder stated that most of what is currently available on the internet is 'views'; Minneapolis,
at this point, has views. Rick Gelbmann state that people like immediate information and there is a lot of information
already in that format.
An important part of this issue will be defining who will be responsible for the website; MetroGIS or the
individual organization. How important is it to the individual organization to have the data index website as a forum
for public policy discussions? Rick acknowledged that some data will have to be centrally managed, but that should be
kept to a minimum and that the model should be as distributive as possible. Jim Sydow recommended that the site for the
MetroGIS web index should be in the public sector. Vanderwall disagreed. Discussion focused on whether public or
private sector would stay on the leading edge of the technology. Jim Sydow stated that the model is a first step.
Issues that will need to be addressed in the future may include: relationships, data maintenance, developing tools, and
data transfer between server sites. The team agreed to send this recommendation to the Coordinating Committee at their
December 19, 1996 meeting.
b. Common File formats
The second recommendation was to accept 1 of 3 common file formats for summary data to be made accessible.
These might include ArcInfo, DBF, or ASCII. The team agreed that this issue should not be sent the Coordinating
Committee at this time.
c. Common Units of Geography for aggregation
The third recommendation was to accept 2 common units of geography for data producers with sensitive data. The
recommendation is for those producers of sensitive data to aggregate their data to one of these two geographic units,
so that their data is no longer individually identifiable. Gelbmann suggested use of U.S. Census Bureau Census Blocks
or U.S. Census Bureau Census Tracts. He noted that when data for a particular common unit of geography is individually
identifiable, the data record may be tagged as Data Not Available (DNA).
Jan Vanderwall stated that the Roseville Area School District has no census component to their dataset and
will have to identify how to summarize and store their data at a census level at some standard place. Rick noted that
this model allows flexibility for these types of decisions to be made. Jim Sydow added that a summary data base can be
created and populated from a variety of sources, and updated on a periodic schedule. Lt. Gary Gary noted that this
doesn't prohibit other transfers of information. He also recommends that we look at Pioneer Planet as a way to do
things in the future. They have developed public-private partnerships. Jim Sydow stated that this was worth pursuing.
Jan Vanderwall cautioned that they are interested in partnerships but at a cost. Gary Gary stated that it may be a way
to save money. The team agreed to send this recommendation to the Coordinating Committee at their December 18, 1996
meeting.
d. Web site access pilot project
The fourth recommendation was for the Access Team to act as an advisory board for a pilot project currently
planned by Metropolitan Council Transit Planning. Two goals he identified for this project are: 1) to build the
application for Metropolitan Council's need to make travel time maps available and 2) to develop a flexible web design
to which MetroGIS participants can index and link their metadata, information, products and data. The project framework
aims to demonstrate the index and interactions among cities, counties, and metropolitan agency can interact with it.
Participants will be able to link metadata, views, and data through flexible web design.
Rick Gelbmann stated that Anoka County and the City of Roseville had been talking about a partnership for web
access; he suggested the partnership additionally include Metropolitan Council. Jan Vanderwall voiced interest in
getting the Roseville School District involved, as they already have a web site. Lt. Gary Gary stated that this will be
a good opportunity to see how data transfers will operate. Susanne Maeder stated that Minneapolis has an application of
"canned" maps that could be linked to this index in the future. Gelbmann noted Minneapolis' interest. Gelbmann added
that the pilot project is an opportunity to test a different GIS software package on the web. At a minimum, there will
be data views transfer through this pilot project, although it is difficult to predict what other types of data
transfers may occur.
Rick Gelbmann stated that the Metropolitan Council estimates the interactive web site project to will be
function by June, 1997. This fits well with the Data Content Team tasks. He stated that the pilot project is a catalyst
to what we do and similar to the model the Content Team is developing. Jim Sydow stated that the proposal, in concept,
represents what was talked about at the last meeting and that the Team will need to take action to move forward. The
team agreed to send the recommendation to the Coordinating Committee at their December 18, 1996 meeting.
5. Coordinating Committee Update
The next Coordinating Committee meeting is scheduled for December 18, 1996.
6. Governor's Council on Geographic Information Clearinghouse and Data Access Committee Update
Susanne Maeder provided an update on the Clearinghouse and Data Access Committee. The last meeting was held
November 12. The meeting focused on 1997 committee objectives (by June 30, 1997) and a mission statement.
Mission Statement
- To develop and refine a statewide framework for data access; to set statewide goals for data access and
track progress towards these goals; to promote the development and growth of data access systems within this framework;
and to provide a forum for information exchange and technical support.
FY 1997 Objectives
- Publish a Home Page (12/96)
- Prepare an issue paper/report from all the Issue Templates that were researched in 1996 (1/97)
- Set statewide goals based on the issue paper, and determine a means to evaluate progress (3/97)
- Define a process to promote development of data access (5/97)
7. MetroGIS Business Object Modeling Session Update
Rick Gelbmann described the December 4, 1996 modeling session, the schedule for ASI to complete the products
and the expectation from the product. Rick displayed the model that was developed at the October 30-31 meetings and
provided to participants at the December 4th meeting. Many model fragments were added to this model at the last
meeting. ASI will be providing a final model that will be able to answer the 200+ generalized business questions (from
the 750+ business needs) collected at the focus group meetings in September. ASI will complete a data needs survey and
compose a prioritized list of data needs for the region.
8. Action
Item 1: a proposal for a MetroGIS Web Index model: APPROVED to recommend to the Coordinating Committee
Item 2: a recommendation for few standard data formats: NOT Approved at this time, it was decided that it was
not appropriate to move forward with this recommendation.
Item 3, a recommendation for using one of 2 census units to summarize sensitive data: APPROVED to recommend to
the Coordinating Committee
Item 4, recommend that the Access Team function as an Advisory Board to the web page pilot project: APPROVED
to recommend to the Coordinating Committee.
Recommendations will be made at the December 18, 1996 Coordinating Committee meeting.
9. Next Meeting
The next meeting date is: January 9, 1997 Metropolitan Council, Downtown St. Paul. Future meetings scheduled:
February 6, 1997
10. The meeting was adjourned at 10:30 AM
Prepared by Tanya Mayer, GIS Specialist
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