November
18th, 2001
Dear
WAGIC Colleague,
Well
here it is -- the end of 2001.
(Personally, I liked Kubrick's version better.) And it is time once again to start preparing
for the upcoming Washington State Legislative Session in early 2002. If you
remember last spring's "Ellensburg Strategic Planning Meeting" it was
the consensus of most of the participants that if WAGIC is to achieve many of
its strategic plan objectives, the organization needs to strengthen executive
leadership, commitment and, develop a more formal connection with our
authorizing environment (legislature, budget and policy bodies). As you will recall, members of the ad hoc
Strategic Planning committee have been working on a discussion draft that
proposes an enhanced governance model for the Council. This group has been meeting weekly since
mid-September wrestling with the details of the approach. I have a new
appreciation for how easy it is to say, 'we should make WAGIC more effective' -
it is entirely another matter to work through the details of how we might
accomplish that. Members of this group
will provide an overview of the discussion document at the meeting on December
13th with some additional time set aside for discussion.
Thanks
to all of you who attended and participated in October's theme-based WAGIC
meeting on GIS and the Cadastre. I
would especially like to thank the presenters, Carrie Wolfe of DNR, Greg Tudor
of the BLM, Gavin Schrock and Glenn Brooks of the City of Seattle, and Bob
Folsom of Spokane County. All of you
did a great job!
That
cadastral mapping and GIS can be a passionate topic was certainly evident from
some of the email that I and others received.
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that we still have a bit of
a communication gap between parts of the GIS and Survey Communities. Thanks to Dave Steele, our resident WAGIC
DNR survey expert, who personally took the time to help bridge this gap with a
very thoughtful response. Thanks
Dave!
This
month's WAGIC meeting on December 13th, which is a week earlier than usual,
will be split into two parts. First,
the theme-based portion will be focused on GIS and Remote Sensing, which will
be followed by a WAGIC business meeting.
On GIS and the Remote Sensing you will see three presentations. To start things off, Jeff Holm of the
Washington State Department of Information Services will give us an in-depth
report on the LandSat 7 Data Consortium. Next, Veena Tabbutt of the Thurston Regional Planning Council will talk about how Remote Sensing data was used in their Land
Cover Mapping of Thurston County. Our
last presentation will be by members of yet another data consortium in the
Inland Northwest headed up by Avista Utilities that has been in existence since
1992. The focus of this presentation
will be on the consortium itself, some their recent LIDAR mapping efforts, and
finally a new technology called 2nd generation Digital Ortho
Photography. These presentations should
be lively and informative, so please remember to invite interested individuals
from within your organizations. Thanks in advance to all of those presenting
during this special remote-sensing related session.
During
our business portion of the meeting, Jeff Holm, will provide us an overview of
the new GIS Model Law Legislation. In
addition, Jeff, Carrie Wolfe, and I will update you on a variety of other
topics including WAGIC’s new presence on the GeoData Alliance Board of
Trustees, our recent three state Framework meetings in Portland, and the
beginnings of our own I-Team Planning efforts.
Thanks
again to each of you for your support of the WAGIC. Your attendance and support is appreciated. If you have any questions, or would like
additional information about this meeting or WAGIC in general, please call
either Jeff Holm at (360) 902-3447 or me at (509) 477-6344.
We
look forward to seeing you at the next meeting.
Ian
Von Essen
WAGIC
Chair