Local Government Initiative (LGI) Subcommittee Meeting

Members Present:

Gary Mook, EWGCC
Steve Marsh, Jackson Co.
Tim Haithcoat, MSDIS
Mark Duewell, MSDIS
Jim LaScala, City of Liberty
Ryan Lanclos, MDA

Not present (excused):

Greg Dorge, City of Jefferson

Discussions at this meeting centered on how this subcommittee can help local governments, both immediately and long-term.

  1. Grant monies are available through HAVA (Help America Vote Act) and others. Tim is looking into these.
  2. The ideas of having our own booth at the MAGIC convention or setting up LGI information AT the MGISAC booth were discussed. Preference was for space at the MGISAC booth.
  3. Surveying local governments GIS status – have/have not GIS, needs, where are they/where do they want to be, etc. . . was discussed.
    One surveying idea, for MAGIC, was a prototype application on a laptop computer – Hickory County – and in return for submitting a completed GIS questionaire, at a later date we would furnish them with a CD-ROM of data with Arc Explorer, for their county.
    Other surveying ideas discussed were to do something through MMA (Missouri Mappers Association) and the EWGCC/UMSL St. Louis region GIS survey which is in the early discussion stage.
  4. Pilot projects for aiding counties with GIS implementation was discussed. Possible counties mentioned for these pilots were Audrain, Randolph, Hickory and St. Clair. Jim noted that John Christianson was the point of contact for St. Clair County.
  5. Tim floated an idea for setting up a meeting with Missouri State Senator Doyle Childers for his input into local government initiatives. Group supported this.
  6. Getting out information about this subcommittee was discussed. Web site with our meeting times, point(s) of contact, and listserve creation were mentioned. Mark and Tim indicated that MSDIS could set these up.

We agreed that our meeting date/time would be the same day as monthly MGISAC meetings, begining at 11:30 AM.