High Priority Application Phase
Departmental Application Phase
Low Priority Application Phase
Hanson: OK, the implementation plan that we’re recommending for the County. We’ve set this up as a 4-year implementation plan. We’ve broken it into 5 general implementation phases, and these phases are not mutually exclusive. There’s overlap in the phases. We call the first phase the database development phase. That’s the information we sent on January 4 to do the translation and conversion of the AutoCAD drawing files and build an SDE database. That’s the first 12 months.
Campbell: Yes, a quick note. The 0 was just the time that you begin. (Inaudible). The beginning of the project.
Hanson: It doesn’t happen like that.
Jordahl: (Inaudible).
Hanson: Then there’s the high priority application phase, which is the first 2 years. Some of that might be started in month 6, some of it might wait until month 18. There’s a County-wide application phase which starts months 12 to 36. That’s really dependent on the first phase getting done. Some of the high priority applications can be developed while the first phase is still in process. Departmental application phase is 24 to 48 months, and low priority is to be decided. At what point in the implementation do you want to stick these lower priorities in. The priorities might change. You might decide this is a high priority, we want to do this in year 2. A lot of that will be dependent on departments, how the departmental budgets are established, how to support that application. That database development phase, some of the activity within that phase, and this is a much more detailed in the report, was develop the GIS parcel database. That’s a 12-month project. Procedures and documentation need to be established. We need to start documenting GIS and establishing procedures.
Campbell: Take a break?
Hanson: You want to take a break?
?: Probably should take a break.
Hanson: Yes.
Campbell: Yes. Fred was mentioning taking a quick break and it might be a good time to (inaudible). 10 minutes?
Hanson: Sure.
Recessed at 2:41 p.m.; reconvened at 2:56 p.m.
Hanson: In the plan, the implementation phases detail database development activities, training activities, software accruement activities, and application development. The database development phase is develop the GIS parcel database, which is a one year project, set in place procedures and documentation, acquire GIS software, address network capacity issues, provide ArcInfo and database development training with specialists, and then provide SDE database administration training. We have time frames in the report.
Campbell: A quick note. On procedures and documentation, I’m wondering if we can get them a copy of what we did for the City of Thornton. There’s a bunch of things that you are going to go through when you develop the SDE Database, (inaudible) decide on who can access the data, where is it available to, whose got read access, what kind of file permission, (inaudible) procedures. All kinds of stuff like that, that are related. We’re working with the City of Thornton, which is suburb of Denver, right now, putting together a plan for them for that. I’m not sure that we can’t… to get an example of what goes into one, what you want to consider. I think we might be able to provide you a copy of that. I’d have to check when we get back. If nothing else, we can certainly provide you with some guidelines of what you guys ought to be looking at.
Hanson: The high priority application phase, which is the first 2 years that overlaps with the database development, that’s when you set in place your parcel maintenance application, your parcel mapping application, acquire and configure the Web server, develop the internal Web map, and then maybe 2 years out, develop the public information Web map. Again, these phases are overlapping. They’re not mutually exclusive. The County-wide application phase, this is where you start employing the County-wide applications. You need to acquire GIS software for the different departments. That’s your ArcView, and provide ArcView training. Maybe acquire MapObjects software. Maybe even an additional ArcInfo license and so forth. You start providing application development training to your identified application developers. That’s making sure they’re familiar with Visual Basic, MapObjects, and familiar with the ArcInfo geodatabase format. That’s probably the IS Department. We maybe provide customization training skills for some departments. They have people that want to do some customizing. Develop the data maintenance interface. That’s the more generic maintenance interface that’s distributed County-wide. Develop the GIS address database. This is years 1 to 3, I believe. Within that timeframe, start developing that GIS address database. You might want to begin that with the pilot project, evaluate costs and determine how you’re going to approach that project, and what departments are going to be responsible. Probably would be a coordinated project, I would imagine, between Auditor, Zoning, and maybe the County and City Assessor’s Office. What specialist would be doing what part of it will have to be worked out. Develop the mapping application and develop the mailing label application.
Campbell: Tom, before I forget, there’s something you want to take note of when you start talking anything about developing ArcView applications. There’s something that you need to be aware of, is that ArcView, over the next couple years, will undergo a fairly major transition. As a product, in a couple years, it’ll look very very different from what it looks like. The idea is when ESRI will roll out, they’re rolling out a bunch of new software products this year that includes Arc 8,that includes the ArcIMS product, and includes Arc SDE, so you’ve got some pretty big development efforts underway. As soon as they have those things done and finally wrapped up, they’re going to turn their focus to ArcView. That means the ArcView product, as we now know it, is probably going to go away. Their time frame side, where they are about 2 years away, but right now it’s almost impossible to guess. It certainly isn’t going to be before, I don’t think it’s going to be before 2 years. But they’re going to redesign the entire product so it’s component based, similar to what MapObjects is, and similar to what the new, current version of the ArcInfo is. What that means is that the applications that are written today for ArcView may cease to work in about another 2 to 3 years on the new ArcView platform. Doesn’t say that doesn’t make it a useful tool, but you’re just going to have to keep that in the back of your mind. They’re going to go over to a com-based model where you do all your customization of ArcView through Visual Basic rather than through the old Avenue programming language. You want to kind of keep that in the back of your mind. It says don’t make a huge investment in ArcView now. You don’t want to make it as a cornerstone and have the thing disappear in 2 years. You have to kind of think about 2 things, number one, it’s a tactical solution, useful over the next 2 to 3 years. It’s not necessarily a strategic solution. You also want to keep up with what ESRI is doing, because ESRI does have a couple major initiatives underway to try to look at migration strategies from (Inaudible) code from Avenue over to Visual Basic. Not admitting at this point that anything is going to work.
Hanson: It’s being fought by the Avenue.
Campbell: They have a couple of fairly major initiatives to try to provide migration strategies, or maybe even migration route to get from Avenue apps over to VB. You want to keep your eyes on ESRI, keep your eyes on what’s happening with ArcView and what’s happening with Avenue.
Hanson: It’ll be interesting. It’s safe to say that there are more Avenue-based applications out there…
Campbell: …Than anything else.
Hanson: …than anything else. Generally, a County might have… say Johnson County, Kansas has maybe 10 to 15 ArcInfo licenses and they’ve been running for 10 years. Last I knew they had 70 ArcView licenses. That’s sort of mirrors the user classes. Your advanced specialized general users are much larger classes than your specialists. How ArcView evolves is going to be very important.
Slockett: Do you think it’s worth going to Visual Basic, or what’s your personal opinion about it?
Campbell: It’s becoming… it’s like everything to do with Microsoft. It’s hard to bet against. It’s becoming a standard, it’s rapidly becoming a standard in the GIS industry. It’s not just by ESRI, Autodesk is moving over in that direction.
Hanson: The Autodesk world, you’re debating when do we… we’re doing an Autodesk map application for Coralville that starts soon. There’s a lot of LISP code, which is like Avenue. It’s their programming environment, customization. All the new applications we write will be VB, but we’re going to try and keep the LISP around to save cost. But it’s the same parallel for the ESRI model.
Campbell: Right. It’s going to be there. Microsoft is pulling their whole weight behind it. It’s rapidly becoming a standard and ESRI had bought off on it, lock, stock, and barrel. They’re going to be customizing via VB. You can do it with other Microsoft development products. You can use C++ or something like that. The problem that you run into, and we always make sure that people realize this, it’s a lot harder to find C++ skills than it is VB skills. If you’re trying to maintain the application in-house, you can train your own folks and you can hire folks who know VB up one side and down the other. It’s a lot harder (inaudible) Visual C++, to find somebody who can support (inaudible) data. That’s always the concern.
Jordahl: Harder translates into money.
Campbell: Yes, you bet. Try to find another good C++ programmer, and you’ll soon find out.
Hanson: Get him trained up to speed and he’ll jump for more money somewhere.
Campbell: Where VB programmers are all over the place right now. A lot of people are ramping up, a lot of people are getting new technology. It’s a fairly easy thing to get.
Jordahl: Sorry, I probably missed something. I happened to be gone for a few minutes here. Is there some decision needing to be discussed here about going to… is there a relationship between the fact that they’re going to come out with a new version of ArcView and this discussion of Visual Basic? What’s the connection?
Campbell: Because there’s a migration of ArcView toward a new version, within probably 2 years, a minimum of 2 years, they’re going to move the current version of ArcView over to a new com-based version. What that basically means is ArcView as it now exists, and the Avenue programming language, which is used to customize it, will both go away. That means the new version of ArcView will be component-based, and you would customize it with VB. When that exactly occurs we don’t know, because ESRI is… that’s in our strategic plan, but they’re so wrapped up right now with other software development efforts, they haven’t even touched it. But as soon as they get their current software development out of the way, at least get ArcInfo 8 out, get Arc SDE out, ArcIMS out, then they’re going to turn their attention over to ArcView.
Jordahl: What implication does that have for us beyond that we don’t want to overextend ourselves in adapting to the existing version of ArcView?
Campbell: That’s part of it, and also is to make sure that everybody kind of keeps their eyes on what’s happening with ESRI. Keep your eye on the ball on ESRI, because ESRI also has a couple initiatives ongoing.
Jordahl: But when I say us, I mean in terms of where we’re at in development of this (inaudible).
Hanson: County-wide application is years one to 3. By another year and half now, you’re going to need to evaluate that ArcView world.
Slockett: I think what he means is…
Hanson: Also, (inaudible) ArcView product you might be developing in Visual Basic as opposed to the language called Avenue now.
Slockett: ArcInfo 8.0 is a good, a really strong area to concentrate on, plus Visual Basic, sounds to me like that’s what you’re saying.
Hanson: Yes. Yes.
Jordahl: Could we do what we are proposing to do in ArcView in ArcInfo instead, since this new version is (inaudible).
Slockett: It’s a lot more costly.
Campbell: It’s a lot more costly. The difference is, ArcInfo, it doesn’t matter how much you customize it and how small a footprint you make an application. It still costs you about $10,000 per seat to deploy. With ArcView, it costs you about $1,200 per seat to deploy.
Jordahl: But it also costs you, you’re talking here thousands of dollars, quite a bit to have a programmer work on making something available to ArcView that’s going to have to be redone in 18 months anyway.
Campbell: Right.
Hanson: That’s why, when these County-wide applications roll out, probably a lot of them we see as being ArcView based. They’re desktop based instead of ArcInfo based. You’re going to need to really evaluate what language you’ll be developing.
Campbell: If you’re developing…
Hanson: The nice thing is that VB…
Campbell: A couple quick things. It doesn’t mean in 24 months that your application, which you write in ArcView 3.2 with Avenue, will cease to run. They’ll continue to run, but you won’t be able to take advantage of the new ArcView 4 functionality. At some point you may want to convert those applications over. They would still run in an 18 to 20 month time frame.
Jordahl: I’ve understood that we have kind of a hierarchy. Here’s ArcInfo and here’s ArcView and then here’s… what’s the other, just viewing only thing?
Hanson: MapObjects, IMS.
Jordahl: They were working in… it was like more access to the same information, basically.
Campbell: Different types of access to the same information.
Jordahl: Granted that we’re speaking kind of metaphorically here. Is it not true that ArcInfo and ArcView are sort of the same program, but one doesn’t have air-conditioning, you know, doesn’t have the options?
Hanson: The big difference right now is that ArcView, for doing database maintenance, you’re more likely not going to choose ArcView to do parcel splits, combinations. I don’t know if you guys do very much editing in Zoning in ArcView? You go back to AutoCAD, right?
Dvorak: For CAD, yes, that’s mostly…
Hanson: It’s not really… the type of activities the GIS specialists will be doing, that core maintenance management. ArcView is not really suited for that. That might change. It’s more suited towards the query and maybe making a map on the fly, linking up to an Access database.
Jordahl: I don’t think I’m making myself clear, here. You’ve talked about Visual Basic as being the language in which you would write, what, applications or things on top of ArcView, when the new version comes out. Is Visual Basic not the language where the same thing would be done in ArcInfo 8.0?
Campbell: Yes.
Jordahl: OK. Since it is, what I’m asking there is would an application written for ArcInfo 8.0 then not turn around and be usable by ArcView?
Campbell: Could you port it easily over to ArcView?
Jordahl: When the new version comes out.
Slockett: Yes, that’s true, but the whole problem is it’s still going to be a lot more. All other things being equal, it would be better to do everything in ArcInfo, but you’ve got a huge learning curve for the people who use it and a huge additional cost for the software. You have to weigh that.
Jordahl: But that huge learning curve we’ve heard today may diminish significantly with the new version.
Slockett: Somewhat, but it’s still a much more sophisticated software.
Hanson: They’ll be a learning curve for the specialists. With the way we’re setting up your application deployment, a lot of your huge learning curve will be GIS specialists and the Information Services Department. We’re putting a little bit of, we’re putting a lot of responsibility on the IS Department in this planning, in terms of administration and programming. But then those are your smallest user classes. Your advanced, specialized, and general public, they’re going to interact through customized tools that are going to take a lot less training.
Slockett: Like MapObjects.
Hanson: Right.
Jordahl: But we’re not going to probably have a lot of public interaction with this until, with ArcView…
Slockett: You missed that part, too. Actually, what they’re saying is that it’s a high priority to develop those applications first, so that people can see something.
Jordahl: Right, but first is still 12 months out, minimum.
Slockett: Well, no, that’s their plan within 12 months.
Hanson: Zero to 2 years.
Slockett: Yes.
Jordahl: Meaning you would begin working on them, but not get them…
Slockett: No, they should be available. I think what they were saying…
Hanson: We think 2 years, we’re saying, depending on budget constraints and that type of thing.
Slockett: Within 2 years that you should be able to log on at your home and call up an address and have a map of it.
Jordahl: Right, but that budget consideration, that process, it won’t even start at the Board until December of this year. Think about budgeting that for July of 2001. So, I’m thinking, you know, within that, we’re talking about 18 months then, almost about 2 years from now really, before we would be, 18 months? I’m losing track of my calendar here. But I’m wondering if we’re not going to be quite a bit farther down the road towards actually seeing this…
Campbell: In ArcView (inaudible)…
Jordahl: …before we would even realistically be developing Web-based stuff.
Campbell: That might be true because the first, it makes a good point. Because under the high priority applications right now there is the Web map application that’s either going to be ArcIMS or like Map Guide application, not ArcView based. There’s going to be the public Web application and there’s going to be a couple, a mapping app and there’s going to be a parcel maintenance application. Out of all those applications, the only one right in there that’s a potential ArcView application is the parcel mapping application. It could potentially be done in ArcView. It could potentially be done in ArcInfo. It’s hard to say, but one of those development environments.
Hanson: More than likely those are ArcInfo applications, the specialists.
Campbell: But the other ones, you’re right in that the big ArcView applications as we’ve designed them don’t come out until the County-wide applications or the departmental applications and those are all pushed off at least 12 months. Maybe even up to 44 months if you look at department applications.
Jordahl: Something you just had up on the screen, that could be done in ArcInfo, that’s what I’m hearing.
Campbell: Those are, the high priority here, these are the ArcInfo. These applications are targeting the GIS specialists, which is your smallest user class. You’re going to have a higher licensing cost and training cost.
Jordahl: But they’re going to exist anyway. We’re not going to not have specialists because it costs a lot to license them. I mean, you’re recommending that we have these specialists.
Hanson: Right.
Jordahl: So, that’s a given.
Campbell: Right. The other phase of this, these, the internal Web map and public information target the largest class of users.
Hanson: Your general County users.
Campbell: Even your advanced GIS users from your specialized users would probably be using that browser interface until their department has specific app stuff.
Slockett: But I hope we recognize the soundness of having quickly information available to the general public who is going to be paying for this. To help generate support for what we’re doing, which is going to be very costly, and I like that.
Hanson: As soon as you start investing, people want to see results.
Jordahl: Well, I’m not disputing that. I’m just suggesting that what we have on the screen here now talks about having that public access. It says here Web server. It says public information, and that’s all ArcInfo stuff, so it could be done…
Slockett: No. That would be MapObjects, wouldn’t it? The last one?
Hanson: The Web apps, the ArcIMS, or…
Campbell: Or Map Guide.
Jordahl: But, let me rephrase this, would not be things that we have to develop with ArcView.
Campbell: Correct.
Hanson: Correct.
Jordahl: All Right, so we don’t need to kind of duplicate effort, is all I’m trying to avoid here. So we can get, there’s no hostility between the notion of having these things available to the public as soon as possible and avoiding doing application development in ArcView until we have the new version of it out. Why do it twice? That’s what I’m thinking.
Hanson: It’s in that second and third phases that…
Campbell: Now a quick note, you mentioned something. You actually hit it pretty well. The relationship between ArcView, MapObjects, and ArcInfo 8, with the newest version, is, you can think of all the new versions, that include the ArcView that’s going to come out in another 24 months as all being component based. So you get a bunch of GIS components that you stick together in an interface, and you tie them together with VB, and that’s their model. You talk to the folks at ESRI and that’s how they see the world. They use VB and grab the components and stick them all together. With the new version of ArcView, then what you have is you have different numbers of components that are available to the develop an application. So if you look at Arc 8, it has the biggest toolbox out there, and you can grab all these components and put them together in a nice package. It also comes out of the shelf already tied together, with things like ArcMaps, so it’s already tied together. If you’re developing a smaller application, then you can go to ArcView and that’s got less components. If you want a smaller application, you go down to MapObjects and that has a smaller number of components. So they’re basically how many tools or how many toys that you have and start sticking together applications. But their model in the next 2 years is that they’re all going to be component based and they’re all going to be tied together via VB.
Slockett: OK, I’d like to have you discuss this a little bit more, because what I’m hearing Jonathan say, I want to make sure there’s no misinterpretation of what you’re saying by anybody and I’m not certain myself. What I’m sort of hearing Jonathan say is we should avoid ArcView like the plague and I’m not sure you’re saying that. I think, are you saying that ArcView…
Campbell: No, right there I was talking about the new version of Arc, not the current, not the existing version.
Slockett: But in the next 2 years, is it going to be reasonable to use ArcView for certain functions?
Campbell: Yes, but you have to be aware…
Slockett: Yes, you just keep in mind what’s happening, but it still may be rational to use that tool because it’s a lot less expensive than ArcInfo, is my, I’m not trying to put words in your mouth.
Campbell: It’s just something you have to keep in your mind, just because it’s going away in 2 to 3 years doesn’t mean that you can’t find an application that you could use it in. (Inaudible).
Slockett: Just evaluate carefully what you do and what you don’t use it for.
Jordahl: Right. What I’m trying to assert is that there seems to be a real value in minimizing the use of ArcView given that we can put things out on the Web without it.
Slockett: Yes. Would you discuss that? Do you agree with that?
Hanson: That’s why we’re targeting the internal Web map and the public information Web map, is to get it out to the largest number of users.
Jordahl: Right, and that does not require ArcView.
Hanson: No.
Slockett: So do you agree there’s a high value in, that’s exactly the point I was trying to have discussed. There’s a high value in avoiding the use of ArcView. Is that what you said, Jonathan? I think that’s what you said.
Jordahl: I’m trying to figure out what is the most rational way to spend our money.
Slockett: Exactly.
Jordahl: (Inaudible).
Slockett: I want to make sure there’s no misunderstanding.
Jordahl: What you’re arguing for is maximum availability to the public as soon as possible to give people the sense that they’re getting what they’re paying for, and I agree with you on that.
Slockett: Yes, we agree on that.
Jordahl: But what I’ve been hearing is that we can get there and have good public availability while concentrating the effort on using ArcInfo, given that we’re going to have staff doing that anyway.
Slockett: And Map Guide and MapObjects.
Jordahl: And the new version of that is going to be out soon, so we can spend time not duplicating effort. So I guess the question that needs to be asked is what residue is there? What residual applicability of ArcView is it that justifies duplicating the effort of going out and doing it again as soon as the new version comes out?
Slockett: That’s a good phrasing of the issue.
Campbell: But the ArcView will give you the functionality that the Web applications aren’t going to give you. Through an ArcView interface, Elizabeth could update water well, wastewater system, the grading system. You can actually do database updates and do more sophisticated mapping. The Web applications, you’re not going to make maps for, you’re just maybe do a screen capture or something, but you’re not going to be making nice formatted, D landscape plots that she’s going to take to a public hearing, or take to, could stick in a report.
Jordahl: Why wouldn’t she be a specialist though?
E. Miller: No, that wouldn’t be appropriate.
Kramer: I think their point is, instead of buying more ArcInfo licenses, so that you don’t have the problem of people trying to use an unlimited number all at the same time, some of the work can be put on ArcView right now. But it doesn’t make sense to go out and buy an ArcView desk for everybody that’s going to want one 5 years away either. Not put all our money in either basket.
Campbell: The thing that you’re going to do by deploying the Web applications first is you’re going to take, the vast majority of users are going to migrate there. Whether that’s 60% or 80% I can’t say exactly, but those are the figures we’ve generally run. If you can deploy the Web-based applications, all of a sudden you’ve taken away the need for ArcView on a lot of desktops. That’s not to say that ArcView still doesn’t play a role. Because if somebody comes to you after they deploy the Web app and they want to do, instead of just looking at the data, I want to do a query and I want to do this and I want to do some buffers and I want to do a little bit of spatial analysis and that type of stuff, what can be used beyond that? The next logical step right now in the technology is for them to move up to ArcView because there’s not that much training involved and cost involved to get them ramped up into that new technology.
Jordahl: But there is in developing the link through the database and the ArcView technology.
Campbell: Well, that’s what I want to talk about because there’s, let me step back a little bit. Because the issue of the longevity of ArcView depends on, is not ArcView itself. If you use ArcView and you use ArcView to display and make your maps and query your database and all that type of stuff, that’s not going to go away. That migration will be there. The new ArcView product will look real similar, and you’ll be able to migrate all those, they call them project files, over. So you will not notice a difference, except you’ll load this new version of ArcView up and you’ll continue to run what you’re doing.
Hanson: Your Avenue (inaudible)…
Campbell: Now, key thing, that’s with a non-customized version of ArcView. If you grab ArcView out of the box and you put it onto your machine, you’re just going to jump for joy when ArcView 4 comes out. You’re not going to notice a difference, because out of the shelf it’s still going to work the same, it’s still going to look the same. Relatively so. It’s going to be slicker, it’s going to have more toys, it’s going to have a little bit nicer user interface, but there’s not going to be a migration. Where the migration occurs is not with the standard outlook box ArcView. Where it’s going to occur is going to be on the customized application. So when you take ArcView right now, when you customize it, let’s say you create some menus to automatically create a map, that’s…
Jordahl: With the well information that you were talking about in Health, we’ll use that as an example, because I think that’s the question here is whether we need a specialist there, and whether you need an ArcInfo station there, or whether this can all be done on ArcView.
Hanson: We see that application, to use that example, is for the advanced GIS user and the specialized GIS user, not for GIS specialist, OK. Right now that would be developed in Avenue, that’s the programming language for ArcView. That would be developed. It would probably allow, the way I would envision it, it would allow you to actually put in locations of the water wells and wastewater systems, link to the database, Microsoft Access database probably, maybe it’s going to be SQL Server, link to the database, view attributes, maybe update attributes, create a map, maybe use Crystal Reports to create a report that Elizabeth can take a map into court, to a meeting, or public hearing or something. Now in 2 years that Avenue code, I think, on the ArcView list, they’re going to keep Avenue around. There’s so much kicking and screaming.
Campbell: No, I’ve heard different things (inaudible).
Hanson: If I were to develop that today I would use Avenue, and a year and a half from now, if you’re IS Department, they’re probably going to use Visual Basic. But they already going to be writing stuff in Visual Basic.
Jordahl: This is my…
Slockett: So why not write it in Visual Basic in the first place?
Jordahl: That’s my question.
Slockett: I agree.
Hanson: It doesn’t support Visual Basic right now.
Jordahl: Well, but we have plenty of things to spend our time on short of what you’re talking about here and developing things (inaudible).
Campbell: Yes.
Hanson: We see this as an advantage. Because those type of applications, a year, we’re saying, after database development ends in a year, say that starts in July, a year from July, from that time to the next 2 years. So 3 years from today or 3 and a half years from today, those should be in place. They should be in place by that time.
Jordahl: When you say those, what do you mean?
Campbell: The County-wide applications. Integrated (inaudible) management, building permit, the emergency response system, the water well system.
Jordahl: Speak, if you will, in terms of Visual Basic, as Tom suggested. Are we going to be… or Bill.
Horning: We won’t be writing apps in Visual, until 2 years from now, so you won’t have to…
Jordahl: Well, but that’s the question I was trying to ask. That was my point. Why worry about ArcView since we’re not going to writing apps that will be appropriate to it until we have the new one anyway?
Horning: We may use ArcView in some areas, but it will be limited. We’re not just going to go out and develop all of these applications.
Dvorak: It’s not like we have to take all our ArcViews and just throw them away. I thought that was where you were going.
Jordahl: No, I’m not talking about that. That’s not my concern. I’m talking about Bill and company spending a whole bunch of time writing stuff that is then going to be obsolete.
Hanson: No, and that’s why we’re recommending ArcInfo 8. You want to get into that environment, the component object model, Visual Basic, C++. Those tools are going to be around. I’m not sure if you were here, but it’s not even the ESRI world, even the AutoDesk products, AutoCAD, AutoCAD Map, it’s the same thing. Like AutoLISP, ADS, that their languages now, going to Visual Basic.
Jordahl: Which I think goes back to the point I was trying to make earlier, Tom, that you were questioning. Is it true to say that we want to avoid ArcView like the plague in terms of developing software for it and I think the answer to that is still yes. Are you hearing the same thing?
Slockett: Well, I’d like to have them, that’s exactly what I want them to address. I hear you concluding things, I haven’t heard them reaffirm it and I would like to have that.
Campbell: No, you don’t avoid it like the plague, but you consider it. I would have a different answer. If you’re going to spend a week putting together an Avenue application that you’re going to be able to use for the next 3 years, that’s an entirely different answer than if you’re going to go away and put a year of development into an Avenue application. It depends on how tactical the application is and how much time it’s going to take.
Slockett: That’s what I wanted to hear.
Campbell: When you start an application you have to think, is it worth it? Am I going to get the benefits for deploying this application, knowing that I’m going to have to rewrite it in another 2 to 3 years? If the answer is yes, it will make sense to develop it, even with Avenue. If it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense. If it’s too big of an effort, we’re going to go off and spend 4 months on something, on Avenue, where you’re going to toss it out later on, then I wouldn’t develop. It’s something you have to keep in the back of your mind, but I wouldn’t necessarily say I’d avoid it like the plague (inaudible).
Slockett: Yes, so you still have to view each situation individually to see what is the rational thing to do.
Jordahl: I’m very heartened to hear that with ArcInfo 8 and with some of these other applications that can get stuff out on the Web before we have to worry about this stuff, we can do this without worrying about this, that’s great. I very much doubt that Information Services is going to need us to micromanage, you know, whether they spend 18 months programming something or not. You know they’re going to make a reasonable decision in that regard and I trust them with that, so we don’t really need to debate this probably.
Schultz: Well, there’s different definitions, too, because even when you talk about database, what they’re talking about a lot with the database is the lines, where you used to hearing the database and you notice a difference. Likewise application, we’re going to develop applications in Visual Basic, but they’re not necessarily dealing with the lines, so I guess what I’m trying to say is you have to be careful and not assume that application means the same every time you hear it. Likewise database.
Jordahl: You have to be careful and not assume that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Brown: Just one other point about the ArcView (inaudible). If Elizabeth has a map out of her SDE database out there, and she’s using ArcView 3.2, for example. She can open up those files and look at them. Then she has her own database which has well locations and those are in State Plane coordinates or some other thing. She can use 3.0 to open that database and link the 2 together and have an overlay. So suddenly she has a parcel map and then on top of that she can slap the wells, and it’s not going to change. The thing that these guys are saying to be careful about is, you know, you can continue using 3.0 forever, until they change the method. But to make it so you push a button and a bunch of things happen, that’s where you want to avoid the Avenue stuff.
Hanson: How you design that button.
Jordahl: Right, (inaudible) we do, doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason to avoid that.
Brown: Right, there is a reason to avoid that.
E. Miller: Yes, but what I’d hate to see, Jonathan, is if said well, ArcView’s going change, so we shouldn’t buy very many copies of ArcView, and for a department like Health, that’s going to be how we link into this.
Slockett: That’s how you access it.
E. Miller: We’re not going to be able to use it until we have ArcView there running. Just for a…
Hanson: Health might, you might decide, this database development project is done next July, you might say I want this health risk in place, or water well system in place by Christmas. So I’ve got to get the data, develop it, and get IS, make it clear this is the priority I need this application put on. The other nice thing about ArcView is you can develop things as extensions. So a user could actually sit down and from these County wide applications, if they’re developed as extensions, I could sit down and say I’m going to add the water well application, I want to add the building permit application, and all those applications are added within one session. You might use building permits for… we can’t foresee everything, but you might be looking at the building permits in conjunction with some of that, and then you might say, OK, I got what I want, I’m going to turn the building permits off and you go out and you release it and all the icons and functionality goes away, but you still have your modules.
Campbell: Now I, I’m sorry, go ahead.
Jordahl: I’m still yearning for my layman’s dream of this things which is that you could write something in ArcInfo and ArcView could go up and look at it and still be functional. That’s not true.
Campbell: Yes. Because of licensing, right?
Campbell: Well no, in terms of how portable you can encode it, for instance from ArcInfo 8 to the new ArcView 4 to MapObjects 2, I guess remains to be seen. I don’t know, in theory you’re using VB to tie it all together.
Jordahl: Well, we were talking about having a view only package for the public. I mean, I thought they were going to be, you know sort of able to go to the database and say OK, let me see what’s there, and it’s the same database that you’re dealing with, that ArcView is looking at, or that ArcInfo is looking at. It’s just that ArcInfo has sort of like the permission to manipulate it, and the ability to manipulate it. Apparently I’m misunderstanding the way these things work. They’re like 3 totally separate things that have to have their own…
Brown: Jeff, basically, you can look at all the data. You can see all the data. That’s not going to change no matter which package you use. It’s just the, what Bill was saying, when you use the ArcInfo, you got more toys you can play with and manipulate it. What you do is how fast it works. You can make an application where you click on an icon and it does 500 things for you. Well, if you write the same type of thing in ArcView, you click on that button, it does 200 things for you because you can’t do the other 300. They’re just not in the toolbox. So yes, a lot of the code may carry over, but we don’t know that yet.
Hanson: But what you’re asking, Jonathan, is, there’s a lot of this discussion you know, there are a couple of mailing lists for ArcView users and ArcInfo users, and a lot of the points you’re raising are being discussed, and it gets kind of nasty, people are saying what you just asked, why can’t we just develop an app and deploy it? But I think it gets down to what licensing you’re using, right?
Campbell: Which licensing you are using.
Hanson: Maybe (inaudible) is going to change all that, you know, but right now, if I wrote something for ArcInfo, Elizabeth’s not going to use it unless she spends $10,000 for an ArcInfo license. If I write it for ArcView, she needs to spend $900 for an ArcView license, software to read it.
Campbell: To get back to Fred’s point, you can, you can see the data from any one of the systems. It all reads and supports SDE. That’s not the issue.
Dvorak: Right. You can look up the Auditor’s maps, you can look up my zoning maps, you can look up the well maps, you can look up the soil mapping, all those things if you have a version of ArcView. That won’t change.
Jordahl: So, what’s your question, Elizabeth, in terms of…
E. Miller: Well, the Health Department is not going to end up with ArcInfo. We’re going to end up using ArcView. It will allow us to see all of the information, and if we’re able to use it in a year, if there’s a good application for us, it makes sense for us to do, I just wouldn’t want to be in the position where we couldn’t buy ArcView.
Hanson: Right:
E. Miller: I would want to be able to go ahead and even to buy the old version of ArcView because it would allow us to use things.
Slockett: Realizing that if you had some sophisticated applications that you wrote for that ArcView, you might have to rewrite them under the new one. But you know that’s not unheard of in software.
Kramer: How much you can do with it without having to modify it a lot and maybe the answer is a lot.
E. Miller: I would imagine for us the answer would be a lot.
Jordahl: Bill, how’s it look from where you sit.
Horning: That sounds right to me. I think, what they said earlier, basically you just have to base what you’re doing, how much time it’s going to take to do it. You have to call it, whether you do it in Avenue or what. But I fully believe the product is functional enough out of the box that we will be able to do in the time frame weu’re talking about (inaudible). You’re see more things you want to do and we can develop apps (inaudible) better.
Hanson: We see in 4 years a minimum of 18 ArcView licenses. That’s $18,000, probably less. If that was ArcInfo it’s $180,000.
Dvotrak: Even if the new stuff comes out, you’re still going to be able to do (inaudible). You’re not losing anything.
Jordahl: I think we’ve gotten this conversation to the level of simplicity where I understand it.
Campbell: You clear? Did I answer it for you?
E. Miller: We think we’re clear.
Campbell: In other words, I answered you in a way that says…
Slockett: Well, I think Jonathan no longer thinks we should avoid ArcView like the plague, and that was my goal.
Greazel: You have to bring me up to speed. I’m sorry if I’m behind, but when you start talking about writing apps, are we doing something that no one else is doing that are going to be specific to us? Or is there a way of borrowing someone else’s apps that they’ve written and attaching them onto ours so that we don’t have to…
Campbell: For a lot of the apps, not a lot, but for at least some level of the apps that we’re proposing, there are things commercially off the shelf, and that’s obviously the first thing to look for. Parcel maintenance is a perfect example. We could write you a parcel maintenance app, but $30,000 down the road you could get one a heck of a lot cheaper by going to NovaLIS. $3,000 for a maintenance license per year and plug that in. So no, you always go through that when you start designing apps. You look at what’s out there, and if we can patch things together and integrate them, then it’s a heck of a lot cheaper for you guys to do it that way, then try to think about developing everything from scratch.
Hanson: the other thing is the extensions I mentioned earlier in ArcView. You can go out to certain Web sites and get help (inaudible).
Kramer: There’s Avenue code available free on the Web.
Hansonl: Yes. It’s pretty good stuff, and if it’s not, if it doesn’t really address, fully address your application, we could use the base code (inaudible).
Kramer: It’d be a good place to start.
Campbell: That was a good discussion.
Hanson: Yes. The departmental application phase, I guess we pretty much talked about this, this is years one to 3, and these are water well and wastewater, emergency medical service, integrated GIS. Again the departments might, one to 3 year time frame we’re saying. So you might push that up closer to year one or push it back, depending on the budget and departmental budgets. Then the low priority application phase and this first one was a huge debate. We were actually debating this this morning, and for the Auditor’s Office, when are you going to develop a new parcel management process. When are you going to reengineer your workflow. We spent a lot of time in the interviews looking at that. It’s a very, very important process within the County. I think it affects the Assessor, it affects Zoning, that whole parcel maintenance, real estate update, the new subdivisions, the transfers, all that, the recording of that, the mapping of that, the posting of that database, when do you want to target that?
Campbell: We had a spirited discussion about that one.
Hanson: I believe it begins after you get the database developed and started. Bill thought maybe you should do that up-front. It depends. It will be a big process.
Campbell: It’s a big process to do. I guess my thought is, and I’ll let Jeff speak for himself, but my thought is you guys are bringing in new software. You’re bringing in a whole new way to do things. Why not as one of the first steps, go back in there and redesign how you guys are doing things in terms of parcel maintenance. Look at it…
Slockett: Yes, we would really like that.
Jordahl: There’s already a discussion of that going on in document management, and Kim and Rick, is Kim here?
Hanson: It touches a lot of departments, the scanning, the document, the Recorder’s Office. My thought was, get the database development started, because this could hold up database development.
Campbell: Because it’s too complex (inaudible).
Hanson: You want to start getting things into GIS format before you start, or maybe do this in conjunction.
Kramer: (Inaudible) database development is our real estate system?
Hanson: I think you need that data translating and learning GIS and then, maybe reengineering during that phase. But you start taking that on while you’re learning GIS and doing database development might be…
?: It’s going to be huge.
Hanson: And it all does tie together. I can actually see Bill’s point as well as mine.
Campbell: To see…
Hanson: We’re not comfortable calling this low priority, that has to be…
Campbell: It’s a different task. To show you the complexity of the way we were approaching this is, Jeff had this as a middle of the road task. He had this, like, as a high priority task, you do it after you develop your parcel maintenance. You have your parcel maintenance (inaudible), then you go back in there and relook at this from a workflow issue and try to readdress how you’re doing things. The point I made is that, listen, you’re getting a brand new software, you have a chance to start with a clean slate, go back in there and redesign this thing first. OK, but the trouble is, it’s so complex, that potentially you bog yourself down with parcel maintenance (inaudible) right away. In that case, that’s why I asked Jeff, I said listen, if you can’t do it right off the bat, if you’re not going to do within the first year, therefor move it on down to a lower priority. So my choices were either as a person you attack, or as a last thing then. Again, once you have everything in place (inaudible).
Hanson: All that pen and ink recording you do now, that could all be done automated. Your transfer maps, everything could be done automated.
Jordahl: But there’s one aspect of this that maybe could be improved in isolation from an entire remapping of the workflow process is just that one piece of assigning a permanent parcel number, right. If something comes into the Auditor’s Office and they want to record it, then they record it, then they have to kick it down to the Auditor’s Office to get the permanent parcel number assigned, and then it’s got to come back up. I don’t understand the details of this, but…
Hanson: It’s in here. It’s in the report.
Kramer: (Inaudible) these three offices.
Jordahl: But I’m suggesting that that particular aspect of the workflow, the assignment of the permanent parcel number. That could be the one thing that could be integrated with the computer in such a way that it doesn’t have to be a piece of paper with ink stains tracking back and forth.
Hanson: It might be that you could break it into several phases too. Reengineering, (inaudible). It’s a huge… I know it’s important, we were just…
Slockett: It’s something way overdue too.
Campbell: It was my thought that if you stick it in the center you’re not going to get anywhere.
Hanson: I might agree with that.
?: Break it out in to little incremental steps. That might, at least not bog everything down, but that's a whole other issue of getting those steps broken out (inaudible)
Slockett: But, you know, if you break it out into incremental steps, then what happens when you run the taxes and what if there are problems, and it’s a huge…
Hanson: That includes incorporating the TIF districts, your data sets…
Slockett: Yes, it’s not small.
Hanson: The TIF districts, the addressing, ownership.
Jordahl: Do it as like, I mean, Web page development, you’re quite familiar with that. You tinker around ad infinitum with sort of a what-if Web page and then you put it out when you’re ready. I mean, maybe we could do a sort of what if…
Slockett: I don’t think you’re getting the magnitude of this.
Hanson: It’s the heart of a lot of the business processes, it’s the heart of the County. At least with GIS.
Slockett: It’s the heart of the whole tax and real estate system.
Hanson: Parcels are the heart of the GIS.
Kramer: (Inaudible)
Jordahl: Granted that I don’t understand this, parcel management surely is far more complex a workflow issue than simply getting the permanent parcel number assigned. So, can’t we just do that little piece of it?
Kramer: No. You can’t separate it out from the whole rest of the process.
Slockett: I don’t know about that. I’m not so sure about that.
Hanson: Is the workflow in the Auditor’s, is that in the report or is that in the…?
Campbell: The workflow is part of the attachment. It’s in the attachment.
Hanson: There’s a whole attachment on this workflow in the Auditor’s Office.
Kramer: But we’re talking about splits and combines and new subdivisions and all that, and you cannot separate out the permanent parcel numbers from that whole process.
Slockett: No, but we already do currently. I mean, we have the process, and the splits and the combines in the current system, and it seems to me the permanent parcel number is something that could be… I mean we’re basically deciding is at what point do we get the permanent parcel number in relation to the deeds, is essentially what we’re talking about here. Seems like we ought to be able to resolve that. The State Code says it starts with us, and in I think in about 99 counties it starts in the Recorder’s Office. I think that’s the issue you were referring to.
Kramer: Well, that and, I’m talking about not just associating a deed with a permanent parcel number when it comes in if it’s an existing parcel. But stuff like splits and combines, all that stuff, that number doesn’t exist until it goes through this merry go round through our office and the Recorder’s and the Assessor’s. There’s no way to get that number in the database until it goes through that process until we reengineer the process.
Hanson: I think it’s Delta County in Colorado has assigned a committee and they’re starting to meet regularly on that. That might be something maybe, you know a task force or something to address that, start it during the first phase.
Slockett: Another committee? My first priority.
Kramer: (Inaudible) process, but it corrupts the process of the database.
Brown: I think we ought to let this one sit for a while and come back to it.
Slockett: Yes, I think we should go on to another subject.
Brown: I think these guys should get their presentation done today.
Hanso: We went on for an hour.
Brown: I can understand that.
Hanson: But it does, when you implement GIS you hear it’s going to change the way you work. This is one of the main things it’s going to change.
Campbell: This is big. I mean this is big. There’s a whole conference, a whole GIS and CAMA conference that’s being sponsored by URISA every year, is dealing with this type of stuff. People are coming in from all over the place who are dealing with the exact same issues. Every county that you walk into is dealing with this. From the smallest ones, like Delta, who are not up in the 4,000 parcels or whatever the heck they have, to Dallas. I mean, the Dallas appraisal district, dealing with the exact same stuff, how to simplify the work flow process. It’s convoluted. No matter what city we go into or county we go into, it’s a convoluted process.
Slockett: It may not be worth fixing now when we’re going to have a lot better tools later on to fix it, that particular problem.
Hanson: I think we put it in low priority because it has those dependencies. I mean a key component of it would be integrated GIS and Real Estate/CAMA. Having the database developed, having the specialists. After the database development project, the people in the Auditor’s Office are going to have a lot more ideas on how we can redesign this. Because they’re going to understand this.
Jordahl: (Inaudible) duties represented by the stages in the process, but maybe there’s a different way of responsibly discharging the duties. (Inaudible).
Hanson: These are the low priority years 2 to 4. Again they have dependencies. It might be that, say for Health, that at the end of year one they roll up, end of year 2, they roll out the water well and then you go right into the health risk. So, it could be 2 and a half years from now the Health Department feels they got the specialized applications they wanted. We’re just putting them out over a 2 year time frame.
Campbell: But we didn’t even assign time frames to them either, not specific time frames.
Hanson: Not specifically for 2 to 4, one to 4, yes. It might change. Once the address database is developed, the E911 mapping might come out later. Secondary Roads might want that SignView.
Jordahl: I’ve got to jump on board with the Health Department here and just express a certain amount of being appalled or something that we think health risk is a low priority. Maybe you’d want to add flesh to those bones.
E. Miller: Well, I was just ignoring it entirely, because I know what I (inaudible).
Hanson: We’re not saying that.
E. Miller: I know. This is not priority in terms of importance either. This is priority in terms of what year can you get it done. Really, for the Health Department, that was our decision, where we said it’s the water and wastewater. We put that as more important because part of the health risk application step we already have computerized. We already have databases that we use for communicable disease cases, animal bites, things like that. So to some extent we are already able to use this electronically, whereas the water and wastewater program is much further back on that. So we are actually the ones who said that should be sooner to get started because this one’s already started as far as we’re concerned.
Hanson: It might change. You might be able to roll that out in a year.
E. Miller: Yes. If we get something that allows us to link it by addresses, we can do it sooner.
Slockett: That’s what I was thinking. That might be one we can show results on really quickly.
E. Miller: Well, because we’re always stuck with what we can show and what we can’t show.
Slockett: Yes, because of privacy?
E. Miller: We can’t get too detailed on what we can show, yes.
Slockett: But for at least use by your department.
E. Miller: Yes.
Organizational Responsibilities
Centralized GIS Organization
Distributed GIS Organization
Organizational Recommendations
GIS Coordinator
Departmental Responsibilities
Information Services Department
Hanson: This is the section that we put in, and I’ll just cover it. It could lead to discussion, but the organizational responsibilities. The major changes that are going to happen in the County is that you’re going to create and you’re going to manage a shared and centralized GIS database. Right now Zoning has data, Auditor has data, Secondary Roads has data, and it’s mostly coordinated between departments. You’re going to share that data in a centralized database, and the advantages of that is the data is going to be current. You’re going to know when you go look at zoning, it’s the same zoning everybody else is looking at. You’re going to be able to apply database administration and security techniques procedures to it, so it’s going to be better managed. You’ll be able to apply quality assurance controls, document the database and you’re application development is going to be much easier and more efficient with a centralized database. All of the applications are going to be rolling out of that SDE database, OK.
Campbell: Is everybody here familiar enough with SDE, (inaudible) understanding implications?
Hanson: We talked about it a lot in the interviews.
Slockett: I think you better explain it.
Hanson: The organizational responsibilities are going to change with the implementation of GIS. You’re going to need to structure the organization and assign staff commitments to support the following tasks. These are some of the tasks associated with managing the GIS. There are the database development maintenance tasks, data administration, application development, hardware procurement, network administration, software management, workflow management, reengineering, systems integration, staff training. There are a lot of different tasks associated. Traditionally, municipalities have implemented one of 2 organization strategies. They have a centralized GIS department or they have a distributed GIS department. When I was working at Johnson County we had a centralized department, which means the planning department hired staff, brought people in, did all the training, and basically did all of their GIS functionality for the county.
Jordahl: Did you misspeak yourself, or were you working for a different Johnson County?
Hanson: Johnson County, Kansas, 10 years ago. That centralized structure, 8 years later, is now distributed. They built up a core GIS department and then within 10 years, it’s about the last year and half they’ve distributed it out, and I don’t even know if they have a core department anymore, though they do have a coordinator. The advantage of the centralized is that skills are quickly established. You’ve got 3 or 4 people and they get all the training and they do all the work and they handle requests and they set priorities. It’s pretty efficient to manage that, and there’s a lower initial training cost. You’re not training a lot of people at once. The disadvantage is that GIS can become a black box, and I actually think that’s a huge disadvantage. A lot of people are like what are you guys doing? We made a request and 2 weeks later we get a map and we’re not getting to learn this and we don’t really understand what’s going on. Department needs are not fully addressed. A lot of departments felt like they were being put at a lower priority, and they feel like their needs are important too, and GIS skills are not developed throughout the organization. If the GIS department is really busy, you can’t really go out and get someone to help out. The other strategy is distributed, and that’s where each department takes on a role, takes on a responsibility for the information that they’re mandated to provide, and manage data sets that are central to their business processes. An advantage is that the departmental subject expertise is leveraged. People doing health care applications are in the Department of Public Health. People who are dong parcel maintenance are in the Auditor’s or Assessor’s Office. The Zoning people are actually doing zoning work. In Johnson County’s case, the IS guys are doing IS platforms. The autonomy is retained and quite often you feel like your needs are being met because you’re responsible for them, and your priorities are more reasonably addressed because you’re setting them in cooperation with the GIS coordinator. If the IS is doing application development, you’ve got to set those priorities. But I think the County is used to working that way, trying, you know, can we get IS resources to do this, are they working on this project, that type of stuff. If it’s just the custom utility, you can probably develop that in your own department, especially departments that are going to have a GIS specialist. The disadvantage is the training and staffing costs can be higher. It’s not concentrated in one place. So there might be more training across-the-board. Coordination can be hampered without active leadership, because there are going to have to be priorities, in database, in budgeting priorities and application development priorities, that kind of thing. Application development can be more costly if not coordinated. Again, once you get into the application roll out process, if you keep that coordinator you’re going to be able to find, develop applications quicker. As you start deploying them you’re going to be able to build on those applications, and that’s part of our implementation plan, in the priority applications is that as you set the base applications in place, you can keep developing off of those and spiraling in your development. So what we recommend, I’m calling it distributed, but Bill pointed out this morning, it’s a little bit of a hybrid, because we’re recommending that you distribute the skills throughout the departments, and there is a strong set of skills in Johnson County right now. A lot of it is maybe AutoCAD, but there’s a really high GIS awareness and there are GIS skills. It was indicated in the interviews that there’s a strong preference for having a GIS coordinator. There’s an active GIS Committee here, and that’s very important in terms of coordinating and managing and keeping people aware of what’s going on. I think existing political and organizational concerns indicate that sticking it in one department is not quite what we want to do because we all have skills, we all want to be active. I mean, there’s a real drive here to be participating in it. Existing skill sets, and then you have an IS department that you can leverage that has a lot of skills that where the technology is moving fits right into what they’ve been trained to do, with the SQL Server, the Visual Basic programming and the network administration. So it is a distributed model, but with a strong coordination. We’re just listing some of the tasks, the roles, the GIS coordinator. This is a 2 page list, but this is just the type of things he would be doing. Manage the database development. That’s project management. The contracts are things meeting benchmarks and deadlines, that type of stuff. Is our data getting out to the 3rd parties coming in, that kind of stuff. Constantly working to identify data needs, data sources, and data development projects. As departmental projects start rolling out, are we getting the data develop support for water well systems, support the Zoning system, coordinate GIS database design and documentation. Maybe that’s just purely coordination, it’s assigning you guys to be responsible for designing the parcel database, that type of thing. Assign data maintenance responsibilities to the County departments. What we envision is each department’s going to be maintaining a set of data in coordination with another department. There will be some assistance. Coordinate the application development and establish priorities, oversee administration, that’s just to make sure that the database administration’s being developed. It’s going to be a liaison, he or she will get involved with the workflow, reengineering projects, manage contracts and projects, 3rd party GIS firms, coordinate data sharing and GIS relationships with local government. That’s very important, and it’s also important for the GIS staff to get out in the local, attend meetings and conferences and that type of thing. Represent GIS to the public, schedule and chair the regular meetings of the GIS Committee, and represent the GIS to the County Board of Supervisors. Departmental responsibilities include the database maintenance and mapping, and the application rollouts should give the tools to do that. Identify the priorities. Work with the applications developers and set requirements, so when the water well and wastewater system is set, we’re going to commence this project, the Health Department works with the application developers to set the requirements and specifications and functionality, all this. Start incorporating the GIS applications in the daily processes, assign staff and provide training opportunities, and work on the reengineering workflow. That stays within the departments. Again, the coordinator and the committee are overseeing. Then the Information Services Department in charge of the SDE database administration, Web server administration, application development. If some applications are contracted out to 3rd parties, then they’re going to work with 3rd parties and the departments to identify requirement specs and to do testing and benchmarking delivered applications. You might find that you want to contract some out because you’re busy the way it is. But they’re going to do their traditional role but start adding the GIS component. It doesn’t mean the GIS specialists don’t do, again, the customization and maybe start learning VB, start customizing and maybe be able to roll into the IS departments. We’re not trying to shut the door on other people to gain skills. That’s it.
Campbell: (Inaudible).
Hanson: We don’t want to show that slide.
Brown: Departmental folks, if there are no questions at this point, any changes and stuff that we want to make, to reemphasize, any changes that you’re thinking to be made in this final document, meeting 8:30 Wednesday in this room. You’ll have from 8:30 to 11:00, so bring changes that you want to get made, anything that you’re thinking should be clarified more, let us know. We want to get this so these folks can give us a final document in final form.
Slockett: Well, one problem that the Auditor’s Office has is that we didn’t get this until Friday. This is Monday. Tomorrow we’re going to be gone all day to an ESRI seminar, and then 8:30 in the morning we’re going to be here. I would like the opportunity to make changes not only before Friday but maybe even next week, too.
Campbell: Sure.
Hanson: Maybe move it back a week. It’s up to Fred, really, when you want the final.
Brown: The final document, I’m going to have to defer to the Board of Supervisors, they’re the ones that are (inaudible), if you don’t mind waiting an extra week for (inaudible).
Jordahl: We’ve already got the budget published.
Slockett: The budget is set, so I don’t see why there’s any all fired rush at this point.
Brown: That’s fine.
Jordahl: If we did this a month ago, we could talk.
Slockett: Yes.
A. Miller: Are there any more copies of this?
Brown: The only things missing are the last 4 papers, the end of GIS information.
Campbell: I did bring a master for this.
Hanson: There are electronic documents too.
Adjourned at 4:00 p.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Mark Kistler and Martin Jones, Recording Secretaries