COUNTY AUDITOR TOM SLOCKETT, DEPUTY AUDITOR MARK KISTLER AND DEPUTY AUDITOR ALICIA JACKSON: GRANT APPLICATION FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT START-UP GRANT FOR GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS SOFTWARE FROM ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, INC.
Jordahl: OK. Mark, is Mark still here? Sorry to put you off like that again. We've had quite a wait for GIS this morning perhaps we can have this discussion now.
Kistler: This is a good place to break because I was going to turn it over to Alicia right now. We're going to share information with you. We'll try to move this along.
Jordahl: Well, it's not your fault yet.
Kistler: This is from our mapping project. We created AutoCAD maps at 100 scale and 400 scale. This is a representation, a reproduction, it's actually color on the computer.
Slockett: Please show the other people here, too.
Kistler: These photos were provided by the Assessors.
Slockett: Everyone else has seen this, except for maybe people in the audience who haven't seen it.
Kistler: Then we are required to provide plat maps by Code, that are available to the public, and the information that we have, and we have quite a bit of information on the Hewlett-Packard mini-computer, that if tied it to these maps, we could present it as a plat map. The plat maps that we have are what we call hand-drawn plat maps and they look like this.
Jordahl: That information that's in the computer there Mark is plat information.
Kistler: Yes, and this is what's available to the public when they come in. Their names are all written in pencil.
Thompson: They're dog eared.
Duffy: They're pretty old.
Jordahl: What do you have there? An unidentifiable piece of paper. Public record are in good hands here.
Lehman: So, if they change ownership, you go in there with a pencil and eraser and change it.
Kistler: Exactly.
Jordahl: And the public has access to these materials here? So that a malign person with an eraser might be able to come into our documents.
Kistler: Well, they're monitored at all times; we have staff there working all the time.
Lehman: They're frisked for pencils.
Kistler: And we have pretty heavy traffic to use these.
Deputy Auditor Alicia Jackson: Actually, they are to be open for public inspection, so we have abstractors, attorneys, surveyors, real estate professionals coming in at an hourly basis opening and closing these books and getting the information that they need, because what they need is a representation with the name on the plat.
Slockett: The owner's name.
Jackson: Right.
Jordahl: And this is an essential function of your office to produce these materials, and it's a matter of law that you do this. It's not an option that we could without some sort of chartered commission or other voter-mandated restructuring of County Government, give this function to another office, it simply is the Auditor's duty, is that correct?
Kistler: That's correct.
Jackson: The plat books were worn out 5 years ago, and we've held off all this time because to reproduce them would mean drawing all these plats and then writing about 40,000 entries on them and then QC'ing it to make sure it's correct.
Kistler: With multiple names on quite a number of those.
Jordahl: And how would you like to be the person to own the piece of property right over here. This one here, they have their names written on that and well, if you look at this closely, it's kind of smudgy and torn and stuff.
Slockett: And why didn't we, Alicia? I want you to complete your sentence.
Jackson: We've held off because of the approach of GIS.
Kistler: The mapping project was completed 3 years ago, and our assumption was that at the completion of the mapping project, we would be starting into a GIS phase where we could take the information that's in the database and in the HP Minicomputer, link it to these maps, which are much easier to produce and already in the system, and produce maps that function as a plat map. We have names tied to...
Slockett: The essential point is we couldn't justify the expense of doing this, all of this manual labor, plus the cost of all of the paper, and the plotter pens it would required to reproduce these, when it would all be obviated if we got the GIS software and could do it through the computer.
Kistler: The added side benefit to this would be that County staff also would have this information. If it was on the computer in a GIS format they could access this plat information over the wide area network, and I would hope it would save County staff time in their work. It also could be put over the internet, so that the public could have access to it, or County offices that did not want to invest in the ArcView GIS viewer, with a cheap internet viewing package.
Jordahl: I was talking to a real estate agent on Saturday that wanted to do that, a and I said well, I don't think that we can do that yet, but there are certainly counties that do.
Kistler: This software would allow us that capability.
Thompson: What sorts of uses in addition to yours could it be used for?
Kistler: Do you want to talk about the notifications, when people...
Jackson: In so far as internal or County administrative purposes, one of the big uses would be in the establishment of TIF districts, for instance, the Coral Ridge Mall. What we had to do was manually draw the boundaries of the mall and then quite honestly list all of the parcels that were within the mall, which were multiple parcels. We have road vacations where we must notify adjacent property owners and property owners within a mile and at this time we must do that manually.
Kistler: The public also comes in when they have a rezoning or variance and they have to find out the names and addresses of owners within a given radius of their property and that information has to be acquired basically manually by writing this information down or we can look it up on a computer and write down each record as we find it. But a GIS would allow us the capability to pull it up on a GIS, create that query within a given radius, pull those records out, and create a file for us that we can print or put on a floppy disc for a mailing.
Slockett: It'll turn it a different color on the screen, if you want to just look at it. We could make all those parcels blue or red or striped or whatever you want. It's very convenient.
Jordahl: I think the last time that Jerry Musser was in here, he was talking about this notification question within a radius, or something like that, having to do with his business. I don't know if he's in the building, but maybe we should give him a call, too.
Peters: I'll see if Dan is, too.
Jordahl: Yes.
Jackson: Another application would be reprecincting.
Kistler: For Elections after the census the cities will need to draw new precinct boundaries, more balanced and GIS would give them the capability to do the types of querying they need to draw these new boundaries. It would also help us election day when a voter needs to know where his precinct is. We have it in the GIS we can access that information a lot more quickly.
Slockett: Or they could access it on the internet.
Kistler: Right, on the internet. Also, you may notice the photography that we have here has quite a number of houses on these lots. But you'll notice areas where there's a number of lots and there's a hayfield or cornfield, something like that. This photography was done in 1991, some of it in ‘92. It's getting quite dated and it's not getting any fresher. At some point when we acquire new photographs when the prices come down... We got this on a hard copy Mylar film, each photo. But we could it in a digital format which could be put into the GIS. That's an expensive part of the GIS, if you acquire that. In the interim there are orthoquads that are already available. Rick has them on CD, that could be pulled up with the maps for viewing property.
Slockett: But the problem with that is a lack of accuracy.
Kistler: Quite a bit of lack of accuracy. That would not...
Jordahl: Rick, your orthoquads are mentioned here. What's your thought on this?
Planning and Zoning Administrator Rick Dvorak: As you're aware and most of the people in are aware, I've been using ArcView for about a year now. Most of the things that Mark's talking about I do. But the reality of it is I can't catch anything that's not there. And right now these maps that they're talking about creating they're not in the GIS format, nor do they have anything linked to those maps. So it's nice, it's OK, but without ARC/INFO closing those polygons, it will never be a GIS system, nor will it be able to do the things that they're discussing this morning. The orthoquads that I use are of a scale that they're not very good quality, because they're satellite imagery that was done about 1988 or 89. In and of itself for what I do on a daily basis is fine. But it's not GIS acceptable.
Jordahl: I think what needs to be done is to draw some kind of distinction if possible between what the GIS Subcommittee and the Computer Committee have more than once recommended as holding this project in abeyance until we have the needs assessment done. Some distinction between GIS, which this inexorably creeps into, I mean we're talking about getting GIS software and doing preparation for GIS and doing things that make GIS possible and ultimately GIS is a sort of vague term. But actually we would be starting GIS with this, as you Rick have in some sense started GIS by using the software in your office. This would be another step in process of GIS. The question that I'm trying to find an answer to here is, where is there a request here that is a reasonable Auditor's Office request for software for the Auditor's Office to perform its statutory functions in an efficient way and serve the public better and where does that impinge on the decision that we've heard from the Computer Committee that we should wait with this grant application until we have the needs assessment done. The point of decision for me there seems to be whether steps would or might be taken in the Auditor's Office progress that would prejudice future decisions, might make us need to back track later. Where in an analogous way to redoing these books by hand, we might be spending money doing something that we're going to have turn around and spend money undoing and redoing. I don't feel qualified to make that distinction but that's the answer I'm looking for. How can we be assured as a County that we're talking about just letting the Auditor's Office use some technology to do its work and not making a decision that's going to make the rest of the County's work more expensive later?
Kistler: That's what this grant application will do. It'll give us the tools do our job. We'll be able to convert those CAD lines and arcs and text into a GIS format, create the link that will be needed to link to the database. That's all we propose to do with it. Anything else beyond that, that would be under the domain of the GIS Committee. We just need the tools to do our job and link the data that's in the database to the map.
Jordahl: That seems like a very reasonable position. I'd like to hear some discussion of why that is or is not a reasonable decision from others who may have other opinions.
Dvorak: I took it upon my self last week because of the confusion in the GIS Committee recommendation, but the other committee not following along with that. I took it upon myself to make a recommendation to the Board for myself. I then sent copies to all of the department heads and elected officials. I then took their responses because of that confusion and attached that and left copies on your desk on Friday to review before this meeting. That kind of maybe answers some of the questions you're asking. I think to follow that up- and people may want to expound on that recommendation, there are some people here that would I think answer that question- I did take it upon myself to basically notify everybody with my recommendation. They responded and you have copies of those.
Jordahl: I don't have that copy nor have I read it yet. Let me retrieve that.
Dvorak: It was on the seat of your chair.
Lehman: I guess the question I have along that is I know your saying is you've got a window here to get this grant in or you lose it. What is the committee's... I hear some of those comments are about a coordinator. Were we looking to get someone in place for that to manage this whole system or are you going to submanage yours or do you need somebody to overview the whole thing. I guess I'm kind of confused. Putting this thing out ahead of us before we're ready to work on it. But I also realize the importance of $27,000 is not something to sneeze at.
Kistler: Basically what we're going to do is the basic conversion work to get our data into a GIS format. Beyond that we're not going to do anything with it. That would, if you hire a GIS Coordinator to do that, that's something that would certainly be under those duties.
Slockett: We're going to have to spend some money on something else if we don't move ahead.
Information Services Network Support Technician Fred Brown: Excuse me. I've heard 2 different statements from Mark and from Tom. Mark said that what we want to do is take the existing AutoCAD maps, close them up, and get them ready for a GIS. I'm the Chair, Fred Brown, I'm the Chair of the GIS Committee. The statement that came out of us was that that would be OK if they want to do that. But Tom's earlier statement is that there are a great deal of other things that his office wants to do with this. The confusion seems to be that, as Jonathan stated, something that is specific to the Auditor's Office may cause later problems for other parts of the County that want to use this because the Auditor's Office may make decisions to go forward and do certain things a certain way that may not utilize all of the capabilities that other people might need. This is where the conflict seems to be coming into it. Basically the people who expressed a comment don't have a problem with the Auditor closing the polygons and attaching a permanent parcel number to the data base that is created when you close the polygons. This sets it up so that from that point we could have a proposal for a GIS Coordinator, was that that person would then help us lay out something that everyone can use, completely, thoroughly, and something where we won't need to backtrack to review something because Department X has a large use for it, but they don't have the right information.
Lehman: It's not compatible with future uses, which is hard to say. You may not know what the future uses all are yet, I think is what I'm hearing you say.
Brown: The concern as I said is that it will be incompatible with future uses.
Slockett: Well, since you referred to me, I think we made it clear what other purposes we have in mind for it. An immediate need is there's going to be a census in the year 2000 and we've to have precinct information. For example, I'm meeting in the next couple weeks with the Iowa City School District about the way precincts are combined for their elections and it would be very useful if we had a GIS to apply these kinds of things. As Fred well knows, the way GIS system works is you have a base, which is the polygons, and then anyone is able to do overlays on top of that base, that in no way affect that base. They simply have no affect on it. But you can use it for Zoning, you can use it for utilities, for Secondary Roads. I mean it gets almost sci-fi, the uses that can be used. You can have videotapes of river banks before and after a flood that the Supervisors could click on and could play it, that sort of thing. You can actually do x-rays of road surfaces and have information in your base about how the surfaces, the concrete and the asphalt are adhering to each other. So we're just talking about the base. We create a base map for both the City Assessor and the County Assessor. We want to now change that base into polygons that could be used by everyone and it would be for the purposes of everyone to use it. Our office is very much working for public participation. We want to help the other departments. We want to help the public use it. We developed this base map to exacting specifications and we will make sure that the polygons are made according to that same criteria. I don't know what Fred's concerns are but I'd certainly be happy to discuss it with him. I've never discussed it with him but Mark would be happy to discuss it. I'd be happy to discuss it. We would do nothing to the base map that would preclude any other use. We've talked to the people from ESRI and they agree that they would help us proceed in that way. So that's the way we would proceed. I can guarantee you that we would not do anything to it that would preclude another use.
Jordahl: Jerry?
County Assessor Jerry Musser: Just one question then. If this grant application were sent in tomorrow, when could we start doing all these wonderful things that we just heard that we can do with GIS or GIS ready? First of July we're on board then and done...
Kistler: It's going to take a lot of time to do conversions.
Musser: When?
Slockett: Well...
Musser: He's talking about the year 2000 census. Would it even be available? If we hired this out to somebody, we're talking 3 or 4 years to get it done, are we not?
Slockett: No, no.
Musser: When?
Slockett: Well if we had a person...
Musser: Give the Board a date that it's ready to go.
Slockett: OK, well, I'd be prepared to do that if we had personnel to do it, Jerry. As you know...
Musser: Well all we're asking for is the grant today. So when will it be done?
Slockett: The County budget is very tight. We requested personnel that I think would have allowed us to complete it in 3 to 4 months. That was turned down and I understand why. What that means is we can't predict how long it will take. But what we can do is send people to get the training and begin the learning curve on this very important software that the County is going to use. Many different offices are going to use this. The critical piece that has to be done first is converting this base map from lines into polygons. So we feel that we can do that in a fairly reasonable period of time. What I would actually like to see us do is apply for the grant and then see what we can do in the next year, before next year's budget, and then hopefully the GIS Committee, the Technology Committee and the Board of Supervisors will have decided on additional funding for personnel or hiring a coordinator or whatever else is required at that point in time. Perhaps we'll have money in next year's budget to provide the personnel to be able to predict how long it will take to do the things Jerry is asking.
Lehman: When you're talking about we, you're speaking for the Auditor's Department.
Slockett: I'm taking about the County, the overall County. The Board, the Auditor...
Lehman: One of the concerns I hear is we've got a time limit here for this grant. But I also hear some members of the Committee kind of saying are we going to spend more later on. Is this thing going to be compatible with what we're going to do later on. I don't know where the Committee is on trying to decide. What's the whole package here. I don't think anybody has that answer yet of how's this going to fit in completely. I hear you saying it's going to improve your situation in the instances you cited.
Slockett: We have to do something about these plans.
Lehman: Right. I can see that.
Kistler: It wouldn't be any different than how we're currently working with the CAD maps. Our maps are out there on the network, available for anyone who wishes to use them. Planning and Zoning draws their maps right on top of our maps.
Lehman: OK.
Kistler: They don't have to duplicate the information. Coralville copies our information and has put it into a GIS format. All we'd be doing is maintaining a base map in the GIS format that anyone else working with a coordinator, for example, could access and create any applications they wish with it.
Lehman: OK.
Jordahl: The nub of this, if I can point to Rick's memo, now that I've been so kindly handed it by Supervisor Lehman and Carol, is the idea that it is possible to run a knife down here and say thus far, no farther. This is what we would approve and that would be to do only those things which are in some way universally applicable, like laying down concrete streets. Yes, OK, we need concrete streets. We don't want you to run out and put up street lights and Christmas tree decorations and so forth. Again, I'm sensitive here to Pat White's comment that we're talking about an independent elected official and that once this software is in your office, you have a great deal of autonomy to decide how you operate with things. It's more of a question, a gentleman's agreement here, that, I assume, you would respect the desires of the County Computer Committee and that the Board and so forth has expressed in these multiple meetings that we limit our expenses in the GIS realm by proceeding cautiously so that we can retain the ability to most efficiently link these layers. I think we all want that same thing.
Slockett: Jonathan, since you mentioned Pat White's comments, would you also mention the part regarding the Auditor's Office in his comments? I interpreted...
Jordahl: At this point, this is primarily the Auditor's function. I'd be more supportive of the Auditor proceeding.
Slockett: Thank you.
Jordahl: That's probably the part you were talking about.
Slockett: I want that on record too.
Jordahl: Yes.
Lehman: Jean Schultz has a comment.
Jordahl: Jean, yes.
Information Services Director Jean Schultz: I just have a couple comments. I just want to make sure you understand that the grant has to be applied for by the end of February. If the County so chose, they could wait to send someone to training and not use it for up to a year, which if the County chose to do the needs assessment first and do some planning first, that would give time to do that. I think what the Auditor's Office is talking... another clarification I'm going to make is I know the Committee talked about maybe just closing polygons and linking parcel numbers. I think what the Auditor's Office is talking about is more of actually setting up a GIS and linking the different pieces of data and that kind if thing. I think what they're wanting to do is more than just those first 2 steps. Isn't that right?
Slockett: Well it's doing the first 2 steps and then linking the database so we can pull the owner's names, so that we can do something about this plat book situation. But that's all. Can you envision a GIS system where the real estate system is not linked to it?
Schultz: No, but...
Slockett: That's the only thing we would do in addition. What you do is you close the polygons, you establish an attachment points in each parcel and then that point can be used to pull in different databases. After doing that, it's just a matter of what databases you hook it up to. It does not in any way alter the map, depending upon which database you access through the use of this tool. One thing is there's an awful lot of lack of knowledge about this. Most of these questions, in my mind, are due to lack of knowledge. This is something that Mark and people in my office have been studying for a number of years. We've been learning about it. We actually do have quite a bit of knowledge and there really is no legs on this theory that the base map will be damaged by using it. That's not accurate. We can definitely get information to you on that. We've had presentations from an engineer from ESRI who has agreed to that. It's hard to disprove something that isn't true. It really is very difficult.
Thompson: Could I ask how long it would take to finish the needs assessment? Does someone from the GIS Committee...
Schultz: There's a subcommittee that's going to be meeting next Friday to try to write up the specs for a needs assessment.
Thompson: Would County staff do that or does someone have to be hired to do it? How does it get done?
Jordahl: The needs assessment itself would be hired.
Stutsman entered at 10:36 a.m.
Kistler: We're still looking at previous needs assessments. There was a Computer Committee report to the Board of Supervisors 3 years ago that included a GIS Study Committee. It was a volunteer committee of about 5 very learned people in the area here and so we're going to look at their recommendations and then the needs assessments that were done by PMC, ProMap and Sidwell... 2 needs assessments were solicited at no cost to the County and those were presented. We're going to examine those and then the Committee is going to meet again at the end of the week and discuss do we have enough information. What information are we lacking and if so, how do we structure an RFP for a new needs assessment. There's no time line on that at this point, as far as I know. We haven't discussed that.
Slockett: Anything additional would have expense involved with it. That's my opinion because we've gone as far we can go with free needs assessments. If these aren't adequate, I think we're going to have to get serious about it. It's not going to be inexpensive.
Jordahl: We have put money in the budget to pay for a GIS needs assessment.
Slockett: I believe it's been reduced to $15,000. Is that correct? That's my recollection.
Thompson: I have another question about the training. If you got this and you got the training to do what the Auditor needs now and proceeded with that... Is the company paying for this training?
Kistler: No.
Thompson: We have to pay for the training.
Kistler: We have to pay for the training. It's $1,750 per person for 5 days.
Jordahl: Is that money you can find in your budget?
Thompson: For 5 days?
Kistler: 5 days.
Thompson: Do they have to be in order, like in one week?
Kistler: Yes.
Brown: There is one thing needs to be added to that. The mandatory training to get this to get this software is $1,750, plus expenses. But the ESRI engineer who was here told us that in order to get it to do what the Auditor's Office wants to do as far as adding to the map and closing polygons and so on and so forth would require a minimum of 2 more training sessions, which would run $5,000 each.
Kistler: That's if the...
Brown: That's what Eric told us.
Kistler: That's if you wrote the programming to do an automated system. This training will give us the capability to go in and work one map at a time on closing the polygons. But they will give you this additional training that will automate it that you can actually run a macro that will go through file after file that you put in a directory and automate these procedures for you, closing the polygons and creating these links.
Thompson: So you could get the basic training, go ahead with completing the work that you need to do the plats and then if the needs assessment shows some other need that you haven't been trained on, there would still be the option to go back and get training on that particular item.
Kistler: If the needs assessment said you're going too slow, let's automate this and let's train someone to do this process of creating these macros, then if they said do that, we could certainly look at getting that additional training.
Thompson: It seems to me that since our budget for this year has the money for the needs assessment, but no other money for this... Right?
Jordahl: Yes, generally that's accurate. We aren't necessarily going to spend every dime of the needs assessment money for the needs assessment. We have to still get bids on that. That's what the RFP is going to go out for.
Thompson: Right.
Jordahl: They could come in under what we budgeted.
Thompson: But we didn't budget for a staff or a director or any of those other things.
Jordahl: No, definitely not.
Thompson: OK.
Brown: One point, Carol, I think I should say that the RFP we're going to put out is going to look at what does the whole County need from this Geographic Information System. It's not do we need additional training for a specific office, more or less, it's what is the whole County going to be using and how should the County put this together. So it's looking at the very broad picture, not a specific office or a specific (inaudible) director or something like that. We want to have a plan laid out so we can get quantifiable steps showing where we need to be at a certain point and what we need to add to it on an incremental basis. So we don't have to try to spend all the money all at once and get something handed to us or spend all the money to try to do it in a rush. We want to be able to add to it as we increase our skills and such, we're able to do more and add more in. That's what we're looking at for this RFP is to get a needs assessment to give us quantifiable points. We're also looking at it, hopefully, so that you, the Board of Supervisors, will have dollar amounts that you can weigh, a cost for what we want to do and a benefit that the County will receive from this, or that the public will receive or that can be made available. That's what this needs assessment is hopefully going to look at.
Jordahl: Yes, Rick.
Dvorak: The main reason I submitted my recommendation was if we don't do this now, we'll lose $27,000 and the program software.
Jordahl: That we're going to have to spend anyway, probably.
Dvorak: My opinion is anyway, just mine, if we don't do this now, we're going to lose a minimum of a year and one half.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Dvorak: Even if we went outside to an outside consultant, regardless of what the needs assessment says, someday you still have to close the polygons and attach the parcel numbers. It's either we apply for a grant to help pay for it or we wait a minimum of a year and one half before we even think about it again. There's nothing in next year's budget that I'm aware of, except the needs assessment, which actually isn't effective until July 1st. Right now until July 1st, all we're going to do is a little bit of planning. Why not apply for the grant now and limit what their abilities are going to be doing, or what they can do, which I totally support. They've acknowledged to me that they agree to that. I guess I don't understand why... The other point of this is recently the University of Iowa is having classes on ArcView. I think recently, through the Planning Department, they're looking at a class on ARC/INFO. So within the next year or 2 I see that there maybe more classes available locally to do a lot of things we won't have to pay the ESRI people to teach us to do. The base things I definitely support at least one or 2 people going to the classes within the first next months. But I think beyond that, my staff... I think we're going to go to the University. It's not expensive. The class, the one that Fred took, was 25 bucks, or something like that.
Brown: 40.
Dvorak: 40 bucks...
Brown: 40 for each of them.
Dvorak: ...for ArcView. That's home. The costs, I see, are coming down in training at the local level.
Slockett: Actually, ArcView could be taught in-house with a trainer.
Dvorak: (Inaudible) have a licensed trainer.
Slockett: Yes. You can have someone train to teach everyone else. ARC/INFO you can't.
Jordahl: But that type of thing is what I'm looking for from the needs assessment, that we, to the maximum extent possible, develop in-house expertise so that we can multiply our understanding without going to Kansas City, or wherever it is to get it done. I'm heartened to know that the University's got that stuff available too. There's been a lot of emotion around this issue, a lot of good points raised and a lot of good caution. We've heard from a number of different counties around the country that they've gone down a wrong piece of road and they had to spend a lot of time and money doing backfill. I want to make sure those objections are adequately heard before the Board runs off and says oh OK, let's do the same thing they did. Are those who have objected to this satisfied that we can do something reasonable in getting the polygons closed if the Auditor goes ahead with this application or do those concerns persist?
Brown: I believe the Auditor's Office can close the polygons and link the permanent parcel numbering to those polygons. That's the perfect first step and it's going to take a while to do it. That's something I can agree with. Getting that grant will allow us to do that. The rest of it, I think we need to have a plan laid out as to where the County wants to go with that.
Jordahl: Well I certainly agree with that but I'm not the only one in this conversation. Anybody else want to talk?
Lehman: Is the $27,000 grant going to do everything that you want to do or is that just the tip of the iceberg? Are there going to be more funds needed?
Slockett: There's never going to be an end...
Lehman: OK, but is the 27 going to do the first 2 steps that were recommended?
Slockett: Yes. Yes.
Lehman: OK.
Slockett: Plus the training.
Lehman: OK.
Slockett: I highly recommend that we train 2 people in the County. It doesn't have to be 2 people in my office. But...
Jordahl: So what's your training dollar, Tom, including an estimate of housing expenses and so forth for what you anticipate doing in the next Fiscal Year? Can you get it out of your own budget?
Slockett: I can't predict next year because if I had turnover, or something like that, it might be possible to come up with it, if I worked with the Board of Supervisors on changing our line items or something. But it's possible we could get some of the training out of this year's budget for example.
Jordahl: Can you give a dollar estimate of the total?
Slockett: Well somewhere between $3,500 and $4,000 for 2 people, I would guess.
Jordahl: And that includes all that you think you would need...
Slockett: I think so.
Jordahl: ...until we go through another budget process?
Slockett: That's just a rough guesstimate. Yes.
Schultz: The $27,000... I think the sales rep said that was the list price where the cost actually encountered is only 18. Isn't that what Eric said when he was here?
Slockett: I think something like that. There's another software that comes with it.
Kistler: They're currently negotiating the government price with the State. If that goes through, we would have the opportunity to get the cut rate for the government agencies.
Jordahl: And for possible additional items of the software as well for the County so that some of this utilization in other offices that you're talking about could begin to take place, people that have sites for ArcView, for example.
Dvorak: Actually, Fred's been downloading some software programs (inaudible) free.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Brown: The software I downloaded allows you to view...
Jordahl: But not manipulate.
Brown: Well you can attach databases. You can pull in images. You can pull in the shape files that ArcView creates or the coverages but basically you look at it. You can't...
Jordahl: You can't create it.
Brown: The ArcView that Rick has allows you to create new things then let other people use them.
Jordahl: Rick's got power.
Brown: The ARC/INFO would allow you to create things on a very large scale.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Slockett: We get another ArcView package if we get this grant. Someone else could...
Kistler: And the Map Objects, which gives us the Internet capability.
Jordahl: Well I hear a consensus developing which I differs from what I recollect from the various Committee meetings that I've attended about this. I'm not ill at ease with the consensus that seems to be developing but, on the other hand, I don't want to come out of this meeting and hear that this is nuts. So if somebody thinks this is nuts now, I'd like to hear from them now.
Stutsman: When do we have to apply for this grant? When is the deadline for this?
Kistler: The 28th of this month.
Stutsman: OK.
Thompson: I feel comfortable with the grant and taking advantage of the free software but it seems to me even more important that the needs assessment proceed expeditiously.
Jordahl: Yes. I agree. I think the idea that the money is not in until 2000 doesn't mean that we can't contract for the needs assessment to occur presently and pay it in 2000 when the needs assessment will be done. I don't suppose that'll be done in a week. But I don't know exactly how to bracket that time frame. In any case, it's something we need to get doing, I agree, expeditiously.
Kistler: There is an additional cost that I should cover and that is there's a license fee for all of these software packages. Added up together it's 4,595. 4,595. That covers the ARC/INFO, the ArcView, the Map Objects...
Slockett: That's after the first year though, isn't it?
Kistler: That would be in a year.
Jordahl: After we start using it or after we receive the grant?
Kistler: After we've had it a year.
Slockett: After we've received it.
Kistler: Actually there are places that don't pay the license fee but you don't get upgrades. Your upgrades are in that cost.
Jordahl: Well this is...
Kistler: If people want an upgrade after 3 years of not paying it, then they pay 3 years of license fees.
Jordahl: Jean, this is something we're accustomed to, isn't it?
Schultz: License agreements, yes. If you're going to develop a GIS, you should keep the software up to date, just like AutoCAD. You update AutoCAD. If you're going to do a GIS, you should keep it up to date.
Jordahl: Is this the type of expense that would come out of a central technology fund or here again there's the question of where the software would reside. Would the ARC/INFO, for example, belong to the Auditor's Office or would it belong to Johnson County?
Slockett: It belongs to the County.
Kistler: Actually, Planning and Zoning would probably learn how to use it too to convert their mapping.
Jordahl: Uh-huh. I would hope so.
Kistler: It would be available to both offices.
Schultz: This is not something we put in the technology budget. That's because we were thinking of the GIS costs coming out of the GIS line item.
Jordahl: Right and there may be room for that. If the needs assessment comes in at say 10,000 and we had 15,000 budgeted then there's 5,000 here. It's conceivable this could all fit and maybe we should hope to see that and keep that in mind as we're looking at the GIS RFP responses. We've gone on a long time talking about this. Sally, you haven't been here for the whole discussion. Would you like to chip in?
Stutsman: No.
Jordahl: OK. Good.
Stutsman: I don't think I need to.
Jordahl: That's very good. You're wise. I'm ready to end the discussion but if I do, then I'm presuming that there's sufficient agreement among representatives of various departments of the County that we authorize the Auditor's Office to go ahead with this.
Schultz: You're talking about applying for the grant?
Jordahl: Applying for...
Schultz: Or are you talking about doing the GIS part also?
Jordahl: See now there's not sufficient agreement.
Slockett: (Inaudible). Yes.
Jordahl: What we need is to agree on exactly what we're authorizing.
Stutsman: Yes.
Jordahl: What has been specified here is some limitation. I further recommend, as Rick has stated, that the ESRI software be only used for these 2 steps, meaning the closing the polygons and attaching the 10 digit parcel number. It says that these 2 are prerequisite for development of any GIS system in Johnson County. Tom, you've talked about names and information relative to the plat books. That seems to be beyond the 2 steps that Rick's talking about. Rick, how does that affect your recommendation?
Dvorak: No, I don't think that that's beyond my recommendation. I think that's part of it, but again, to me, it's a logical progression. It's illogical, to me anyway, to go in and close this square and make this polygon, attach the parcel number and then go back the following 2 years and write the guy's name in.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Dvorak: And attach the file to that. To me, that doesn't make much sense. When you're there, at least do that much.
Kistler: You don't want to redo work, you want to test it.
Slockett: We can save money.
Kistler: You test it by linking.
Slockett: We can save money by being able to do that and get to his name. (Inaudible).
Jordahl: Jerry, I saw your hand up again.
Musser: Oh, I've just been frustrated. You're asking for a consensus. You've been asked to make a decision.
Jordahl: Yes.
Musser: Make a decision. The sun's going to come up tomorrow. We may not all agree with that decision.
Jordahl: Sure, that's happened before.
Musser: So be it.
Duffy: We've got to do it.
Musser: I seconded a motion to put it into your laps. Make the decision. I don't...
Jordahl: Yes. Well we ultimately we will. And very rare is it a case where everybody agrees with what we do. Thank you.
Dvorak: How about if we... I don't know how to do this but could the Auditor's Office limit themselves to do a project. Can we have them do and show us in a year or 6 months and limit them to a specific area. Say, here, you guys do this in this area, a pilot project in this area. Limit it to that area. If we're collectively against continuing on, then we slow down, stop, look at the needs assessment, say OK, time out. But at least allow them to go forward and pick a segment from (inaudible) a segment and a quarter, five sections.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Dvorak: Limit it to that and come back to it.
Jordahl: That's not a bad idea. I think we're butting up here against what Pat White said about the authority of an independent elected official to manage the operations of his office though as well. What I would like to ask from my part, and I'd like to hear others' comments on this, is that we approve this but indicate that it's our strong desire that the County continue to work together on the implementation of technology and that the Auditor's Office work in close concert with the GIS Subcommittee to make sure that we don't get ahead of ourselves. To wait until... As Jean has suggested some limitation on this to get the needs assessment done before, she states before sending people to training and using the software. Carol's point that we should get the needs assessment done as expeditiously as possible... I think we apply for the grant. When do we hear about the grant?
Kistler: Well originally, their deadline was February 1st.
Jordahl: Yes.
Kistler: And they would award it February 28th. Now that...
Jordahl: Looks like another month...
Kistler: ...they're using basically their announcement date as their deadline, I'm not sure. I would guess a month since that was the previous plan.
Slockett: For myself, we'd really like to move ahead if we get it and not wait for the needs assessment. I just wonder how long it would take. Are we going to take bids? How long will that take? Believe me, the training is needed and what these elementary steps we're talking about... There seems to be a consensus for it. I hate to see that slip away.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Slockett: That we limit ourselves to closing the polygons and attaching the parcel numbers will enable us to access the database to get the names so we can eliminate the expenditures for doing it manually.
Jordahl: There's a point of linkage here, Tom, excuse me, that I think is important that we keep in mind. Jean says it well and that is this is a County-wide project.
Slockett: Yes.
Jordahl: It is not an Auditor's project. Although it has an immediate application in the Auditor's Office that will have county-wide benefit, we have had a really good process of giving all departments the opportunity to sit at the table and talk about these things, put their heads together and guide us. I think that's had good results so far. Maybe a little slower that some people like, but it's at least got many heads at the table asking all the right questions. I don't want to see this go forward as if this were an independent thing with the Auditor's Office saying well we'll just go do this for a year and a half and then later we'll see what the needs assessment... I don't think you're proposing that.
Slockett: No.
Jordahl: What I'm proposing is that you agree that you will work closely with the GIS Committee. Jean says here I think it's important that before any polygons are closed, the GIS Committee meet and agree on acceptable tolerances to use in closing polygons. This is part of the question of keeping this applicable to the County as it goes forward, that we get these same heads to sit around the table. Although you wear the hat of Auditor that says I have the authority to act within my own realm, in the spirit of cooperation in which we fund things in which we try to make these decisions, that I'd like to see you guys work with the GIS Committee.
Slockett: Sure. We would be happy to do that. We will conscientiously do it. Just to point out, this originally was unanimously agreed to by the GIS Committee. That's when we were authorized to create the grant. It's afterwards that many of these questions have arisen. I think they can be cleared out. But these meetings are... a lot of the people that are part of the meeting don't attend all of them. It's very difficult to answer all questions under those kind of circumstances. There is a problem in that most of the people in the meetings know very little about it. It's going to be quite an educational experience for those people to understand and to transfer the knowledge gained by the people who have taken the training and so forth to them and make detailed decisions like where are the tolerances and so forth.
Jordahl: Yes.
Slockett: No, we'll work fully with them. We'd just like to be authorized to proceed either with a pilot, which I thought Rick made a good suggestion, we go back to them, show them the pilot, and then get there if in fact (inaudible) that's the way we would proceed.
Jordahl: I think that would be kind of up to you, as I would see it. That's within your discretion as a department head...
Slockett: That's the way we'll do it. Then if they have any objections or any questions, we'll answer them. We're always open. I don't think anyone can say... mistakes occur in every part of our County function. I don't think anyone can say that any mistake has been pointed out to us that we have refused to address. We make it a priority. We will continue to seek input and work with the Committee and be as responsive to them as we possibly can.
Jordahl: I guess I would hope that would include due caution relative to the needs assessment and its completion...
Slockett: Sure.
Jordahl: ...so we get the information we need before we make decisions that could have lasting consequences.
Slockett: I agree with you.
Jordahl: Well...
Duffy: In the first place, I think we better wait until Thursday to vote on it.
Jordahl: Yes.
Stutsman: Oh, we have to.
Jordahl: I'm just looking for a little straw poll here.
Duffy: A consensus... things might change by Thursday and it would give us a couple more days to...
Jordahl: Yes, well we can't make a decision today. We're just listening to input and we're getting good thoughts for our minds. Who knows, someone who's shy about talking in the meeting might grab us out in the hall, slam us up against the wall and say hey what are you fools thinking about. That can happen so we may vote on Thursday... this is a terrible idea but as of today, it sounds like there is some consensus to go ahead. Am I right?
Stutsman: When's the... can we put this off until the 25th to vote on this? Is the grant ready to go?
Kistler: The grant's ready to go.
Stutsman: OK, so if it's due by the 28th, we could conceivably have another week to discuss this again next Tuesday, on the 23rd. Does anyone have any interest in doing that or are you ready to make a decision?
Kistler: It's going to make it close.
Stutsman: It won't work to do that?
Kistler: No, we could do it, it's just cutting it close to get it to them by the weekend.
Jordahl: I would suggest that we put this on for Thursday so that we could vote on it. Then if you have a chance to review the tape before that and still have questions that you want to have answered and yet further public discussion, then we can postpone that vote on Thursday and put it back on for informal discussion on the 23rd. Would that be all right?
Stutsman: That would be fine. I just need to do some more checking. I haven't had the time to put towards this that I wanted to so I'm just looking to have some extra time.
Jordahl: I don't mean to rush you on that either.
Stutsman: I don't want to hold things up either.
Jordahl: As long as we have it in on time, by the 28th, that's the important piece of this.
Brown: Excuse me, Jonathan, the 28th is a Sunday. You need to have... this thing needs to be Fed Exed out on the 25th, if it's going to be in their hands on the 26th. That's your drop deadline.
Jordahl: I see.
Brown: If you haven't decided by the 25th...
Stutsman: Yes, right.
Brown: ...we're probably not going to get it done.
Jordahl: OK, thank you for apprising me of the weekend approaching there. That's a significant 2 days missing out of our timetable. So are you OK with that? We'll leave it on for the 18th.
Stutsman: Uh-huh. Right.
Jordahl: You can listen to the tape and if we need more time, we'll take it.
Dvorak: What I'd like to do for Mike and Carol, and anybody else that would like, I'd like to sit down and show you, before Thursday, what I do.
Lehman: Uh-huh.
Stutsman: Great.
Dvorak: Because it is very, very close to a GIS system, without the accuracy that a GIS would require.
Lehman: Uh-huh.
Jordahl: I'd be happy to do that. I don't know if we'd want to schedule that as part of an informal...
Stutsman: Could we just do a work session and then all of us could be in there at the same time?
Jordahl: Yes.
Dvorak: I would like to. (Inaudible).
Stutsman: Carol, would that be possible to do that maybe tomorrow afternoon or something, tomorrow morning? I don't know how everybody else's...
Duffy: I'm...
Welsh: It takes 10 minutes if you want to do it today.
Duffy: Tomorrow morning I have physicals.
Dvorak: It takes about 10 minutes for (inaudible) to set it up.
Stutsman: Could we do it today?
Jordahl: We could do it as part of this discussion, if we wanted to take a break.
Stutsman: Yes, OK.
Jordahl: Do you want to take a 10 minute break and come back and have a dog and pony show?
Dvorak: I can wing it.
Jordahl: Or would it be a lot less efficient? If we take another day would you be able to...
Dvorak: (Inaudible) and see how it works. If it takes...
Welsh: Jonathan?
Jordahl: Yes, Bob?
Welsh: What I heard him say is it takes him 10 minutes to set it up.
Jordahl: Uh-huh.
Welsh: You could go ahead with the rest of your agenda and then you could go...
Jordahl: Or we could also take a break.
Thompson: We need a break.
Jordahl: Which I think I, for one, want to do. It's 11 o'clock, it's a good time to take a break. Let's take a...
Stutsman: Well wait. Are there any other questions that we need to get resolved first before we take a break and...
Jordahl: Well I'm asking. Any other questions?
Dvorak: 10 to 15 minutes. Fred?
Jordahl: Should we go for 15?
Dvorak: 10 to 15 minutes?
Stutsman: For a break?
Brown: We'll bring it in, get it set up and then tell you.
Jordahl: Yes. 15 minute break. 11:15 back here. OK.
Recessed at 11:00 a.m.; reconvened at 11:20 a.m.