ESRI founder Jack Dangermond recently made it for the first time to the Forbes 400 – he is worth approximately $2 billion. That’s a lot of ArcGIS licenses!! The conference next year should be fanastic!
As requested at the last EGIS technical session, click HERE to download the application’s source code. Please reserve any technical questions for the next EGIS tech meeting. Thanks!
DESCRIPTION/WORKFLOW: The Road Closures application is a public facing site that displays information about county maintained closed roads. The information is displayed in both a detailed list and thru an interactive map. The previous version did not have an interactive map; maps were static/pdf based. It was developed to help minimize/streamline the update process for our Mapping section. The workflow consists of the following:
Note: The sidebar road closure list is updated automatically thru a script that creates the XML file. The XML file consists of data from the road closures layer in our GIS database.
CLICK to navigate to the application!
(http://dpwgis.co.la.ca.us/website/roadClosures/)
Kenneth Bennett of RRCC passed a very interesting (though dense), thorough, and relevant article along, considering that redistricting will start in earnest next year. As he states:
This is a well-written and balanced article on redistricting and GIS technology that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in 2005. If you have the time, I encourage you to read it if you have not already done so.
Kenneth
PNAS Article (2005) by Benjamin Forest on Redistricting and GIS
Time for another GIS Day update. Planning is going well for our event on the Civic Center Mall on November 18. If the weather cooperates again, this will be even more fun than last year’s. First, my requests for help, then the planning status.
I’m looking for donations! Does your department have any goodies in the range of a $10-$15 value that it gives out at community events? Could it donate one or two as prizes for our contest? I’d like to have a drawing every half hour, so I need 11 or 12 items to give away. Please send me an email if you can contribute.
I will be asking our non-County exhibitors as well; last year, they were very generous. This year, however, there are far fewer of them and I’m hoping they will donate refreshments for the folks staffing the booths. Of course, if your department can help supply water, coffee and/or a simple snack, I’d be interested in hearing about that, too.
I’m looking for help with publicity! Please help get the word out, both within your department and to the public. Blog it, email the flyer to your friends or send it in to your local paper’s events listing. Contact me if you need more information on what to say.
Links to materials:
I’m looking for event day volunteers! Please send me an email if you can help:
We will have 30 booths, 3 or 4 emergency response vehicles, a larger map gallery than last year, a “Where in the County?” GIS game that uses our new oblique and ortho imagery and a raft of short presentations with headliners Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and CEO Bill Fujioka. Our list of confirmed exhibitors:
| County | Schools | Others |
| Assessor | Cal Poly Pomona | Census Bureau |
| BH | Rio Hondo | USGS |
| CEOOEM | UCLA | City of LA |
| CIO | USC | LA Rec & Parks |
| DHS | HealthyCity | |
| DMH | ESRI | |
| DPH | ||
| DPSS | Manley Solutions | |
| DPW | Thomas Brothers | |
| DRP | ||
| FIRE | ||
| ISD | ||
| LAR-IAC | ||
| Parks | ||
| RRCC |
We are still awaiting answers from one or two others but we are completely sold out. My thanks to Alma Vazquez, David Kwan and Vijay Manghirmalani for ongoing coordination with these groups.
In addition to the Supervisor and CEO, we have 6-8 presentations taking shape for the Speakers’ tent. I will publish the schedule as soon as we firm that up. Presentations will be no more than 15 minutes and should target a lay audience. DRP will provide audio and video support for the tent.
Last year’s map gallery had 30 panels and we ran out of space. This year, we will have 36.
The “Where in the County?” game will feature photos of nine County landmarks, chosen both for easy recognition and the quality of the views we have available. Contestants must correctly identify at least six to be entered into the next drawing. They won’t have to be present to win, but they do have to have attended the event (last year, some folks put in entries for their friends and co-workers, who were clueless when I called). We will empty the hopper after each drawing.
DWP is donating photographers and a videographer for the event. That should provide great material for us.
That’s it for now. Still plenty to do but I think it’s shaping up nicely. Thanks for participating.
Martha Selig
Thanks to all who attended the EGIS Committee meeting on Tuesday 09/22/09.
Click HERE to view the powerpoint presentation in .pdf format (http://dpwgis.co.la.ca.us/website/egis/ladpwGoogleMapsApps.pdf)!
(Road Closures Application)
This is a fairly major resolution of this case – it concerns GIS practitioners and governments maintaining GIS data across California.
Santa Clara County Releases Its Geodata
September 16, 2009
After a three year legal battle, Santa Clara County finally provided a copy of its GIS parcel basemap data to the California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC) in compliance with California’s Public Record Act (PRA). Decisions from both the California Superior Court and the California Court of Appeal clearly affirmed that public agencies must provide their geodata in accordance with the PRA (California Government Codes §6250-6259). Generally, agencies can not charge a requestor of their geodata more than the direct cost of duplication, and they can not restrict how a requestor can use or redistribute the data. Santa Clara County had been selling its geodata for $ 158,000; the cost CFAC finally paid was $ 3.10 per disk, plus shipping.
More »
Many thanks to Dr. Wilson for presenting the status of the USC GIS program. I am looking forward to opportunities to collaborate!
Here is a link to California’s “Unofficial” Stimulus Map…but it does sit on one of their websites, with this disclaimer:
This representation does not satisfy federal reporting requirements and is not the state’s official, comprehensive reporting mechanism for Recovery Act funding. It has been created and displayed as a service to the citizens of California.
It’s pretty straightforward and easy to use…so that is good.
Click here or go to: http://www.recovery.ca.gov/HTML/RecoveryImpact/map.shtml
I have downloaded and projected all current fire perimeters from August 28 – September 2nd – they are in Zone V in a single directory.
All Station Fire Perimiters (as of September 2, 07:02) – zip file
Hello – here is a recent fire perimeter from this morning.
Also wanted to pass along a description of the process on how they are created from Tim Smith of LA County Fire.
Thanks Tim – I also wanted to pass along my appreciation for all of the hard work your team is doing.
Fire Perimeter updating …
I am sending this email to let you know that fire perimeters are obtained in 12 hour operational periods. They must be proofed by the situation leaders at the incident for accuracy before anything is published. Even if we could obtain them via satellite or other means the information still must be approved by the appropriate staff on the incident. The perimeters that we get from the GIS Professionals on the incident are final approved versions. It is very important that we use the perimeters that these people have approved. On the Station Fire the GIS team is composed of Federal, State and Local professionals, with the Federal Government in the lead role. The Federal Government also takes the lead role on information gathering that is why everything is published to the Federal site first.
