Location: DIR Conference Room #4, W. P. Clements Building, 13th floor
Meeting Chair: Richard Wade, TWDB/TNRIS – Chair; Ed Kelly, DIR – Co-chair
Participants: Raj Nadkarni, TCEQ; Scot Friedman Cory Wilburn, GLO; Monica Watt, CSEC; Vonda Payne, CSEC; Felicia Retiz, TWDB/TNRIS; Gayla Mullins, TWDB/TNRIS; Chris Bardash, Travis Scruggs, Jeremy Rogers – TxDOT; by phone – Conrad Schaeffer, Jennifer Kirby - TCEQ
Other Attendees: Tere Shade, DIR
Charter not adopted. Questions were brought up regarding the Full and Associate Member definitions. Also, and/or semantics issue requires clarification. Group decision to review current charter language, make suggestions/recommendations, and revisit at the next meeting.
Status review of Tiers. GLO brings up the point that the spread between usage counts should be considered and an additional tier be added to help make up the difference in the shortfall.
Lower tiers would not change. The question was raised regarding the ability to lock in a rate for a full 2 year period for both Google and the agency consumers. DIR notes it is not possiblie because all invoicing must be based on usage.
Usage reports were distributed and discussed. The report reflected the last three months of usage to demonstrate stable trend in usage. Agencies would like to see usage reports for each month to assist with monitoring usage counts.
GLO had budgeted the original LAR estimate but will need to check with internal business customers to cover the unexpected usage increase. May not have it before January.
Tere suggests a “super” tier for TxDOT starting at 20 million annual requests for $500k etc., to help cover current year. GLO is out if they can’t remain in Tier 3. TxDOT will ask about convering the shortfall, change of the highest tier for them. Tere, Felicia, and Gayla will work with onboarding more agencies. Additional marketing methods are required.
TxDOT requests justification email from Tere/Felicia on how much is needed and the new tier proposition for Michael C. to go to FHWA.
Update: A motion was made via email by Raj Nadkarni to accept the 5 Tier cost model for state agency participants. Second motion came from Scot Friedman followed by a “vote” from Chris Bardash. Susan Seet, Raj Nadkarni, and Scot Friedman agreed with the vote to adopt. The tier structure is as follows:
For Hurricane Harvey - GIS support at SOC from GLO, CSEC, TWDB, TxDOT – probably, TCEQ – in house. RW gave update on the event
and GIS activities during that time. What the needs were. Issues with ad hoc experience – getting credentialed, not have correct
talent, etc. TNRIS talking with Mike O. on creating a more formalized interagency GIS support group for activations. Scot
suggests important to know who to contact for coordination. Ed suggests GIS business continuity plan to have coordinate better.
RW suggests more pre-product generation. Ex. Inundation maps based on flood gauges. How to do this: Get buy-in from TDEM/Mike O.
Start subcommittee identifying list of who is available with their skill sets listed. Whether they can go to SOC or work from
office.
Raj says TCEQ IR group well-versed in response to these situations. Scot identified the difficulty communicating GLO
with TNRIS at the SOC and suggests better interagency coordination Felicia suggests agencies should know what the different
agency missions are during an activation, what their roles are, etc. Get it documented. Travis asks any coordination with Texas
Emergency GIS Response Team (EGRT)? Getting them credentialed so they could help. Felicia suggests the National Incidence
Management System (NIMS) for emergency response credentials. Mike O. tracking down. Ed GIS Solutions Group needs coordinate a
test/exercises. What would you do next etc?.. Richard pledges more to come on this within the quarter regarding data needs and
an incident scenario.
Jennifer Sylvester from AppGeo presented on cloud-based approach for lidar serving, visualization, etc because similar to serving
imagery. Model is with HoBu (Howard Butler). No current OGC standard.
Prototyping for useful end-user tools. Index lidar >
web service > big jobs crunched > end-user viewers. Big big data. Lots to process. Used TNRIS Bexar County lidar to test
the visualization tools and showed this through the viewer. The viewer has tools, bookmarks, measuring tools, display layers,
etc. Tried to show image overlay for Bexar County with inundation. Jenn will email the link out. Richard comments general
inundation is what is needed most of the time from SOC. Felicia states this is an example of value-added information to entice
more users to participate in a data service.