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The meeting began at 8:30 AM in at the Land Management Information Center (LMIC) in the Centennial Building.
Members Present:; Chris Cialek, LMIC; Scott Hovet, Washington County; Jay Krafthefer, Washington County; Paul
Leegard, Anoka County; Jim Maxwell, The Lawrence Group; Ron Wencl, U.S. Geological Survey; Jay Wittstock, Dakota
County.
Members Absent: David Windle, City of Roseville; Dick Carlstrom, TIES; Jim Hentges, Scott County; Bob Moulder,
Hennepin County; Ernie Petersen, St. Louis Park; James Piegat, Hennepin Conservation District; Scott Renne, City of
Minneapolis
Support Staff: Mark Kotz, Metropolitan Council
1, 2, 3. Introductions and Modifications to Agenda and Meeting Notes
Team members made introductions. There were no modifications to the notes from the previous meeting. Agenda
item 4a was added "New Chair for Standards Advisory Team"
4. Information Sharing & News from Other Committees and Teams
Ron Wencl reported that the Coordinating Committee will be meeting tomorrow. Among other things they will be
discussing the role of team chairs and liaisons.
Jay Wittstock noted that the Dakota County web site for real estate queries may be modified slightly due to
concerns by law enforcement officials that the homes of police officers can be located so easily.
4a. New Chair for Standards Advisory Team
Kotz reported that David Windle has stepped down as the Chair of the Standards Advisory Team due to his
increasing number of time commitments. David has served as chair of the team since September of 1996. Thank you, David.
Jay Wittstock was elected the new chair of the Team.
5.Action Items from Previous Meeting (Response to Fed. Government Unit Boundary Standard Proposal)
Kotz and Cialek crafted a letter to the FGDC in regards to the proposal. The letter confirmed the importance
of such a standard and stressed the importance of local government involvement with its creation.
6. Six jurisdictional boundary issues from Data Content Team
Below is a summary of the teams response to each of these questions.
1. What, if any, accuracy rating should be used? (p. 11)
Team members agreed that accuracy information is highly valuable. After considerable discussion the team
agreed that a rating system of, for example, 1 to 10 is not a practical solution due to the many components of accuracy
and quality. A description of what is know about accuracy and quality of a dataset is far more useful and practical.
This can be accomplished by completing the MetroGIS endorsed Minnesota Geographic Metadata Guidelines. In addition to
this, the nearly completed "positioning accuracy" portion of the National Standard for Spatial Data Accuracy will be a
highly useful reference for describing the positional accuracy of any geographic dataset. It is worth noting that the
GIS Standards Committee of the Governor's Council on Geographic Information is currently developing a user handbook to
help implement this standard.
2. How should unique polygon issues be handled? (p. 12)
When developing a county and minor civil division (MCD) boundary layer, the developing organization may
choose to include multiple polygons for each municipality to handle things like annexations and water bodies. The
developing organization should include as many polygons as are required to meet their needs. For purposes of a county
and municipal boundary to distribute for MetroGIS purposes, however, the layer should include one polygon for each MCD
within each county. Thus, if an MCD is in 2 counties, ultimately 2 polygons will be needed (although a county may
choose to only define that polygon within their county).
3. What should the polygon link/label code be? (p. 13)
Two key link/label codes will be needed for a county & MCD boundary layer. One to identify the county
and the other to identify the MCD.
Two county codes have been used in Minnesota. The 2 digit code has been used heavily by the state in the
past but has been replaced by the 3 digit Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code, which has become a
formal state standard. Thus, we recommend using the 3 digit state standard county code.
Several different codes are used to identify MCDs in the metro area. The three most prominent are the 5
digit FIPS "place" code, the 3 digit Census code and the 4 digit MN Dept. of Revenue code. Of these three codes, only
the FIPS is unique within the state. The other two codes are unique within a county, but not unique within the state.
For this reason, it is not possible to put together a metro wide MCDs-only layer using the Census or Revenue codes.
Therefor, the FIPS place code is the MCD code of choice.
The Team recommends that any organization should use whatever codes it pleases for it's internal work, but
if GIS data containing county and/or MCD polygons are shared, those datasets should contain, at a minimum, the FIPS
county and place codes. The datasets may contain other codes as well.
All team members agreed that a lookup table that matches all of these codes as well as county and MCD names
will be very useful. Kotz noted that the Metropolitan Council has developed such a table and will distribute it freely.
4. Which polygon attribute fields are important? (p. 13)
Again the team agreed that for MetroGIS data sharing purposes, the FIPS county and place codes are
necessary at a minimum. Other attributes are very useful too, for example, a city name. However, since city names and
other similar types of attributes may be spelled differently by different organization, these fields should not be used
as key relate fields (e.g. EDINA, Edina, City of Edina, May Township, May Twp., MAY TWP.)
Again, a freely distributed lookup table will be very useful.
5. Which arc/line attribute fields should be used? (p 15)
The team did not have time to address this issue. Kotz, Wittstock and Krafthefer will address this subject
as a working group.
6. How should project boundary issues be dealt with? (p. 17)
The team agreed that the project boundary issues describe in the draft Washington County municipal boundary
pilot project report are not really GIS standards issues, but are predominantly legal issues. One avenue for addressing
some of these issues would be to describe the unique circumstances in the metadata.
7. Other items: None
8. Next Team Meeting
The next meeting will be scheduled at a future date after sufficient team tasks have been defined to
constitute a meeting.
9. The meeting was adjourned at 10:30 AM.
Action Items: Kotz will write a draft response to the Data Content Team regarding the six jurisdictional
boundary issues. Wittstock and Krafthefer will provide review and comment on this response.
Prepared by Mark Kotz, GIS Specialist, Metropolitan Council
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