Today there was a GIS Policy Committee. First question: what is this? Also: FAQ. Previous GIS Meeting agendas, information packets, and minutes can be found here.
If regular old County Board meetings and other county government offices weren't interesting enough, let's talk orthophotography, sewage systems, water permeability of soil and drainage and the intricate systems that allow a consortium of city and county governments, as well as private companies needing data.
Over your head? A bit too wonky even for you? Well maybe. The fine folks who do this extremely cool digital work has infrared scans of your neighborhoods and creates correcting scripts to accurately make the data for all the folks who build the systems that keep this whole crazy corner of civilization running with fewer floods, better and more informed policies in your local government. It's certainly on the nerdier side of how the sausage is made. It's also an amazing functioning cooperation between various local governments towards common goals with tangible and good outcomes. So, less depressing than your average government news on c-span.
Speaking of national news though. Russians and ransomware and the attack on your county government a couple weeks back. Yeah, I hadn't heard about it either. Apparently a clicked link opened up the door to a possible new ransomware attack that got through recently updated/patched firewalls and security and began encrypting data, but fortunately was caught before it began deleting the originals (if I understood this correctly). With some quick shutdowns and a couple days of being off-line, a server restore, etc... the damage appeared limited. The County Administrator, who represents the county in the consortium explained that the county government as a whole staved off most of the possible damage.
The issue highlighted how dangerous it is for even for a local government group you may never have heard of and the data precautions that are required... and how quickly those feeling out for vulnerabilities adapt their attacks, from phishing with obscure vendor formats and logos in e-mails to ransomeware attacks, and constant poking around by possible malicious sources, including notably from Russian IPs.
The meeting:
I took a lot of notes, much like you'd do if you were taking notes for a friend in a class you aren't in or understand, but a quick summary seems sufficient.
They couldn't recall having a member of the public sitting in before. The Open Meetings Act makes all sorts of government meetings mandatory open to the public, but it sounded like this was a first to all members' recollection. If you're used to parliamentary rules/Robert's Rules from other meetings, the format will be familiar and if you're thinking about being nerdy and wonky and attending they discussed adding public participation on the agenda just in case any one else wants to check out this little meeting that covers big things.
Before ending on the, "wow, ransomware and Russians?" part they discussed many of the typical needs of a government entity, finances and who is getting what done. The finances sounded pretty non-controversial and appears their budget is doing fine. If you already read the links at the top about what the GIS is and FAQ you can see their contractual services and that the data is also essentially a product for private sale.
There was a discussion about leasing space at the county building and added to things you might not know about county government. The Brookens building leases out space to parts of the government that aren't "general fund entities," so like renting space it requires a lease agreement and some of the meeting was devoted towards the age old question of paying the rent and looking into a longer lease than two years as some other bodies have done in the past. Changes to the lease beyond an editorial level would require County Board approval.
They discussed some changes to the digital data policy for all data and not just derived products being covered. Examples of customers like TomTom and First American were mentioned as data customers, which you might find interesting too. The changes were approved unanimously.
The director's report had the meat and potatoes on new aerial photography coming in with CIR images, or color infra-red that will help determine areas that can't percolate water. This affects issues where people might face higher rates for drainage services if say 80% of the land is impervious to rain absorption. All that rain's gotta go somewhere. There was some brief discussion about shadow issues, spot shots that can be used without additional photography because they've already been taken and just have to be included.
A U of I geography major is volunteering with cleaning up the drainage district data. This a multi-year project that staff works on as well, but it is big help right now. Members discussed opportunities for future student volunteers through the University, specifically with the iSchool, which is the information sciences school at UIUC. A lot of the work is data and computing and QC scripts for error reporting and data consistencies and making sure the data can be migrated and inputted. So that might be right up some experience internship desiring student's alley.
There was some discussion of "the Parcel Fabric" and the difficulties with implementing it. If you're interested in an overview that link seems to explain it. Or at least explains it well enough that you might find some better search terms for more information via google. Long story short, it has many impressive advantages, but it's "a completely different world" and "a lot to get used to." So they're evaluating as they go if they need to delay the transition for a year while they try to get the work done.
There's apparently a genealogy project in the works that may be close to completion later this year or earlier next year due to a programmer having been able to put extra time into it. So that's something to look forward to. I don't know if it's anything similar to what this article discusses, but if you're curious, this may or may not be related: GIS and Genealogy
After that there was a bit of talk about mailers and Piatt County getting a full time assessor in the future before ransomware and Russian pings discussed above. Which ended the meeting on a bit of an ominous note. I had joked about "consortium" eliciting images of the X-Files conspirators, but by the end I actually did have a smidge of paranoia. We live in interesting times.
So should you attend a meeting? If you're curious about how county government operates, this is one fascinating aspect in understanding it. If you're a bit nerdy like me you might find it more interesting than others, but it's not a requirement. I certainly learned a few new things and didn't understand everything, so I consider it a small victory towards understanding how county government all fits together, so maybe visit at least once. It seems sad that they may have never had a visitor from the public to make use of the Open Meetings Act before.
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