GIS Cooperative Meeting
City of Tucson - Information Technology
Friday December 14, 2001
9:00 - 11:30 AM

Present: Donald Ijams, James Schneden, Liz Wallendorf, Joe Jokoby, L.A. Buczynski, Mike Honomichl, Steve Whitney, Jenefer Carlin, Cheryl Van De Beuken, Kristi Jenkins, Blanca Espino, Dave Koss, Ron Platt, Teri Schultz, Eric Richards, Sam Camacho, Dave Hochede, Jessie Sanders, and Daniel Casey

Open Discussion: Homeland Security and Risks from Easy Access to Information

The first hour of the meeting focused on risks of unintended consequences from easy(ier) access to City information from such web-based efforts as CityScan and other web mapping applications. Several in attendance questioned whether the GIS Cooperative had any special position or expertise to offer in this discussion, since much of what is done with web based applications is of a technical and not policy orientation. A number of others in the group thought, however, that frequent interaction with spatial data and with those who use (or want to use) it provides worthwhile perspective that may help inform policy makers.
Much of the discussion centered around the many electronic sources of information now pervading our society and that additional web access was probably of little marginal value to someone intending to do harm. Many in the group agreed that it was of value for GIS workers to remain sensitized to the issue of possible harm caused by web access to information, and to stay in tune with national policy considerations coming from the federal Office of Homeland Security and other similar bodies. Liz Wallendorf made a number of notes during the meeting, which she said would form part of her input to the City's Chief Information Officer, Todd Sander.

CityScan/Master Address Database Project Update - David Hochede

Various efforts related to CityScan and the Master Address Database Project were described. A new production map server is being set up, to replace the one that was used for a high priority City project. This work will likely slow down attempts to roll out CityScan to the internet. Also, testing will begin this December by using the City's intranet as a test bed, possibly focusing on GIS Cooperative members as the first group to provide feedback.
Address cleaning efforts for the Business Privilege/Occupational License database are continuing. A plan is being perfected for an automated replacement of current addresses with cleaned ones.
The next City department to receive the focus of the CityScan development team is Police. Crime incidents will be shown matched to the street segment, rather than exact addresses, so as to blur the actual location of the crime, and thus protect victims from intrusion. Crime information will also be presented in a thematic way, to provide a basis for showing relative crime levels throughout the City. Thematic layers will likely be presented for violent, property, burglary, auto theft, domestic violence, narcotics and criminal damage crimes. Collision data will also be processed for inclusion in CityScan.

GIS Training

GIS Concepts Course: The second round of this course was delivered on Monday, November 19, 2001 to about 20 City employees. The revised format focused both on more elementary concepts and local resources, as well as having more hands on demonstrations of GIS in action.
ArcIMS: The GIS Cooperative sponsored the attendance of five members at a three day training course on ArcIMS. The course was held at City I.T. on December 11-13, 2001. Many attendees thought the ESRI instructor and course materials did a good job of demonstrating the functions and processes of this core GIS technology.

Current Events and Accomplishments

The Tucson Police Department is pursuing an expansion of its production geocoding process, to take advantage of the Cooperative sponsored master address database development efforts. The Police Department hopes to make good use of the various types of information being linked to official addresses in the database project.
The plan is to first clean police addresses, probably using a commercial address cleaning engine (ZP4), to be followed next by matching against exact addresses and then matching the remainder to the Pima County street centerline file.
After finding that some packages were not being used, the GIS Cooperative has reallocated several of the 10 copies of ArcView 3.2 that it purchased last fiscal year. The Cooperative invites members and other City employees to inform the chairman (D. Ijams) of interest in obtaining a copy of the program. As unused copies are identified, interested parties will be notified of the chance to apply.

Other Business

The next GIS Cooperative meeting is scheduled for 10:00 - 11:30 AM, Friday, January 11, 2002.