GIS Steering Committee

“Where People Count” MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1000 Civic Center Drive, Niles, Illinois 60714 Telephone (847) 588-8000 Fax (847) 588-8050 GIS Steering Committee Meeting December 10, 2009 Co-Chairs: Andrew Przybylo – Trustee George Van Geem – Village Manager Persons in attendance: Steve Cusick MIS Dept. Mousa Nazzal Engineering Dept. Chuck Ostman Community Development Dept. Bob Pilat Public Services Bill Shaw MIS Dept. George VanGeem Village Manager Andrew Vitale MIS Dept. Rich Wlodarski Community Development Dept. The meeting was called to order at 8:05 a.m. G. Van Geem asked for approval of the minutes of the October 22 meeting; they were approved by consensus. He then turned the meeting over to A.Vitale. Agenda Item #1 – Old Business – Project Updates Atlas Availability A.Vitale reported that, for the last month, he, B. Shaw and S. Cusick have been testing the availability and performance of Atlas. He is happy to say that they have gotten favorable times; the response range is between 10 and 15 seconds. The first person to log on in the morning experiences the most significant delay. Other than that, there have been no other issues. They took the software down a couple of times for maintenance, but never for very long. As a result, Atlas has been much more responsive and stable over the past month. He asked to be notified of any problems. B.Shaw added that for the most part, the outages have been because they have been enhancing the software. In response to a question from G. VanGeem, B. Shaw noted that the monthly Managers’ Status Report publishes the statistics on the number of Atlas users. Planimetric Data A.Vitale reported that the planimetric data from Sanborn for the south half of the village was delivered yesterday (December 9). (Their progress was a bit slower than expected due to manpower reductions.) The rest of the village will probably be delivered in mid- to late January. He will have a more detailed update at the next meeting. Cook County Data Sharing A.Vitale is still waiting to hear from the Cook County GIS manager regarding sharing some of the additional data sets that we have received from them on our website. We were previously able to freely share data sets such as library, congressional, and Cook County commissioner districts because A. Vitale constructed them himself. But now that we are getting them from the County, he would like verification that we can share them without issue. G.Van Geem asked why this is an issue if it’s public data. S. Cusick responded that the reason organizations have sharing agreements like this when it comes to data is that the organization that maintains it is concerned that the person distributing it isn’t keeping it up-to-date. For example: We only get county updates once a year, while they are maintaining it daily. So if we share it against their will, we could be sharing data with their name on it that is stale. A. Vitale does not expect the county to turn down our request. He is hoping to hear from them by the holidays. Monument Re-calibration At the last meeting, A. Vitale and M. Nazzal were asked to contact Gewalt-Hamilton for recommendations regarding our monument re-calibration. M. Nazzal reported that Gewalt- Hamilton sent us a review of our monuments. They reported that, as a network, they are accurate. The main problem is horizontal elevation. They suggested running a conventional survey, which is running a level from a FEMA benchmark (FEMA uses all the benchmarks along the river for the floodplain, and they are very accurate); or to use two NGS monuments – one on the north and one on the south – and run the loop to see where the discrepancy is and then adjust it. It will probably take about ten working days to get this done. G. Van Geem noted that this must be “100% right.” M. Nazzal commented that if you want to get the vertical elevation 100% accurate, you have to run the level around, using the FEMA benchmarks. Because the project should cost less than $20,000, we do not have to go out to bid. Our next step is to acquire three quotes, each including both methods. M. Nazzal and A. Vitale will put together a proposal, and present three quotes at the next meeting. GPS Project Wrap-up A.Vitale has been put in contact with people at MWRD regarding their GPS data collections efforts and their sewer and hydraulic modeling efforts. He received an official request from them for our mapped information, but he did not get anything from them about us receiving their information. They are waiting for another data sharing agreement from us, which we will have to amend/reword to exchange the information the other way. B. Shaw suggested that we ask J. Annunzio to review the amended agreement. 2 Agenda Item #2 – Departmental Projects Sewer Mapping Update A.Vitale displayed sewer maps (tile 35), color-coded to show sanitary (orange), storm (green), and combined (purple). (Colors and symbols can change.) He has completed everything north of Main Street, and has compared the newly captured features to the features on our paper atlas to determine what is missing. He noted that it is important to classify the features correctly – sanitary, storm or combined - and he is trying to capture everything that is on the atlas, without losing any information. A.Vitale is hoping to be done with the first cut by March 1. M. Nazzal suggested that, when the project is finished, he and A.Vitale sit down with Public Services to review the information. B. Shaw suggested that we hand off what we have to Engineering as we go so they can get started, because they get quite busy in the spring and summer. M. Nazzal pointed out that field trips can be difficult in the winter, and winter is when the Engineering Department does its design work. But, he added, he will be available to help, so we can start now. C. Ostman asked who verifies the information on the maps. M. Nazzal answered that he does and, if he has any questions, he asks Public Services sewer personnel. C. Ostman also asked: What is the method for maintaining these maps, for example, for new developments? A.Vitale responded that we have not determined that yet. A.Vitale noted that there are several points throughout the system where water can flow either one of two ways. Generally, these are for overflow purposes. Our software cannot account for bi-directional flow through a single point so, typically, he will model dry weather flow, not storm flow. G. Van Geem commented that the Stormwater Committee would need to know the flow in a storm situation. How can these maps be of maximum value to them? How can we highlight these problem areas? A. Vitale responded that he can only set the points to change for dry weather or overflow storm situations. He is looking into ways to show both, and does not feel that additional software is needed. S. Cusick will share his ideas for a solution with A. Vitale after the meeting. Water Mapping Update A.Vitale has issued draft atlases to Engineering and Community Development, and has issued six final atlas sheets to the Public Works crews for comment and mark-up. He has received one back, and is waiting for the other five. When he gets them all back, he will put in the final mark- ups and will print final atlases. He hopes to have this done later in the winter. Maintenance Management System (MMS) B.Shaw reported that work has not yet begun on the MMS, as it was decided at the last meeting that we would try to get some Atlas updates in before moving on to Maintenance Management. He and his crew have been more aggressive in the changes to Atlas, so it has taken more time. We are one to one-and-a-half weeks away from an ending point to the Atlas enhancements 3 Agenda Item #3 – New Business Atlas Enhancements A.Vitale reported that a number of enhancements have come to fruition in the past two weeks. *Mark-up Tools – Phase II is complete, and includes the ability to mark-up the map with text, symbols, and leader lines. Phase III will include building our own enhancements to the enhancements already provided by Reukert-Mielke. *Measuring Tool – This tool now measures not only distance but area as well, and is fast and efficient. This previously could only be done in ArcView, which requires separate user licenses. Now it can be done in Atlas without a license, and on any computer. Dennis O’Donovan from Community Development has been testing it and prefers the Atlas tools to ArcView. M. Nazzal asked about the “arrowhead” and the “polygon dragging” enhancements. S.Cusick will look into building those after the Maintenance Management System is complete. *Export Selected Features – We can now draw buffers or select parcels or addresses and export them to a CSV file. In addition to parcels and addresses, we can now download the information from any selected features of any layer directly from GIS. *Print Mark-ups (coming soon) – We are working on the ability to print mark-ups. S. Cusick reported that Reukert-Mielke had a way built in to the software to do perfect, vector-based PDF printing. But ESRI never built the printing of the mark-up tools into that printing method. Reukert-Mielke has another way to print that uses the picture on the screen and builds the PDF manually from it. So we now have that tool from them, as part of our code exchange, and are in the process of putting it in. He has to finish building the template for it, and it will be perfect in a couple of days. We will be able to print any size we want and everything that’s on the screen, including selected features and the buffer area. It generates a PDF, but it does not have the ability to turn on and off the layers like our current printing method does. The plan is to leave both methods in, so you can choose which one you want to use. *Custom Layer List (coming soon) – We will be building a custom table of contents, a custom layer list. We envision a dropdown menu for your layer list to mimic the zoning map or the street map. We envision several work order maps once Maintenance Management is in place – open work orders, work orders of a certain age and type, main breaks over the past x-number of months, etc. We hope to have these ready in the next month or two. Census LUCA (Local Update of Census Addresses) Process A.Vitale finished the final comment and review of the LUCA process for the U.S. Census Bureau. We now have a finalized list of every residential address that is with or without inhabitants, and they will be receiving a mailing for the 2010 census. 4 Cook County Data Sharing (2009 Data) A.Vitale has the 2009 Cook County data, less the parcels and the new assessment table. He hopes to receive that information sometime in January 2010. We will have access to it when the Assessor’s Office releases it to the GIS office. He has possession of all the planimetrics– roads, taxing districts, photographs of house and address fronts, etc. (Assessment data is the ownership of the parcels, the tax assessment information of that parcel and the valuation.) He has not rolled any of the 2009 planimetric information in, but will wait until he gets the final parcels and the final assessment and put them all in at once. GIS Vision List As requested at the last meeting, A. Vitale put together a GIS Vision List, using an annual timeframe. He distributed copies of this list to the committee members. The list includes projects (Water, Sewer, Atlas), as indicated by a gray bar; and phases and individual steps of these projects, as indicated by a blue bar. Many steps can happen concurrently; some can happen only after certain other steps are completed, as indicated by the drop down arrows. Some don’t have a timeframe because we do not know if these projects are a priority to the committee. The list can change and evolve, and timeframes are not set in stone. We are open to striking or adding projects, as well as to changes to prioritization. He asked that members review the list and bring comments and questions to his attention during the month or at the next meeting. B.Shaw asked that a copy of the GIS Vision List be included with the email distribution of the meeting minutes. G. Van Geem asked if we could assign a monetary value to these projects so we can plan accordingly. A. Vitale said he would put in a column for that. *** G. Van Geem asked that, by the next meeting, the GIS committee review the proposed budget for GIS for the upcoming year and discuss it at the January 14th meeting. He also wants to discuss “bang for the buck.” This next budget will be a real challenge for the Village of Niles, and he wants to be able to explain the value of GIS to the man on the street, the Board members, or a reporter, if necessary. He is looking for every cost related to GIS, including Andrew. A.Vitale can make it available before the meeting so committee members will have time to review it and come prepared with comments or questions. G. Van Geem asked that “the value of GIS” be placed on next month’s agenda. *** C. Ostman requested that he receive copies of the Water data – atlas size. He would like copies of whatever the Engineering Department gets, including air photos, so he can be a part of the comment and review process. A. Vitale will comply. 5 Agenda Item #5 – Schedule the Next Meeting The next meeting will be Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 8:00 a.m. in the 2nd floor main conference room 218. The meeting was adjourned at 9:05 a.m. Steering Committee Members Andrew Przybylo Trustee atp@vniles.com George Van Geem Administration gvg@vniles.com 847-588-8002 Bill Shaw MIS wfs@vniles.com 847-588-8015 Andrew Vitale MIS ajv@vniles.com 847-588-8022 Steve Cusick MIS src@vniles.com 847-588-8018 Moses Nazzal Engineering mhn@vniles.com 847-588-7924 Scott Jochim Public Services snj@vniles.com 847-588-7901 Bob Pilat Public Services rmp@vniles.com 847-588-7926 Chuck Ostman Community Development cfo@vniles.com 847-588-8041 Rich Wlordarski Community Development rjw@vniles.com 847-588-8085 6