2008-12

MEETING NOTES – FINAL
CSRC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE (EC) TELECONFERENCE
December 17, 2008
Location:
Telephone
Scheduled Time: 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM
Members Present: Ross Carlson (Treasurer), Dick Davis (Chairperson), Marti Ikehara, Greg Helmer,
Steve Martin, Chris Walls – 6 (Quorum = 7 members present)
Members Absent: Art Andrew, Yehuda Bock (Director), Gigi Cardoza, Cathy Constable (IGPP
Director), Kevin Kelly, John Orcutt, Cecilia Whitaker (Secretary) – 7
Others Present:
John Canas (Executive Manager) and Maria Turingan (Coordinator) – 2
Meeting Leader: Dick Davis
Agenda:
See last page
1.
Welcome – Chairman Dick Davis:
a. Roll Call to Determine Quorum: A quorum was not present.
b. Approval of Previous Minutes: The November 19th meeting notes will be approved by email.
2.
Director’s Report
a. CRTN: Though Yehuda was not present, there was some discussion about the latest CRTN
proposal. Overall, the CRTN proposal has been received positively. Tom Taylor from
Caltrans suggested that CSRC follow the Washington State Reference Center model, presented
by Gavin Sharock at the CLSA/CSRC Real Time Symposium. In this model, the Center is
underwritten by user fees. Members of the EC underscored the need to fine tune the CRTN
budget and business plan. John reiterated that we were still waiting for feedback from PBO
regarding a CRTN subcontract. Caltrans held a Real Time Network Operators meeting on
December 4th. Dick will circulate the minutes once it is approved for distribution. Some
comments disclosed at this meeting emphasized that CRTN is seen as a threat to RTN
providers. The CRTN proposal was also presented at the CEAC and NCGPSUG meetings; see
Recent Meetings below.
3.
Financial Reports – Maria Turingan
a. Latest Report: The Financial Reports to October 31, 2008 were emailed to the EC on
December 16th. The November report will be finalized after the EC teleconference and
Yehuda’s review.
b. Balance: At the end of October, there was a balance of $117K with only $6K for staff salary
direct costs. $71K is projected in direct costs for the final payment to Towill and for the
Northern San Joaquin Height Modernization Project. Follow-up after the meeting: over the
past five months from July to November 2008, CSRC staff salary direct costs have averaged
about $25K per month.
c. Funding Shortage: EC members expressed concerns about the shortage of funding for salaries
and whether staff could continue to support CSRC tasks. They asked whether the staff salaries
could be leveraged by other projects.
d. Sources of Revenue: In partnership with JPL, Yehuda has existing and new NASA grants;
however, the lack of CSRC revenue still leaves a shortfall. We are investigating other sources
of revenue such as CRTN, Department of Homeland Security, DWR, and Office of Emergency
Services.
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4.
Executive Manager’s Report – John Canas
a. NGS Director: Dave Zilkoski will be retiring in January and the new Director of NGS, Juliana
Blackwell, was announced. The EC would like to get a retirement gift for Dave; Marti will
think of a gift and email information to Maria. The retirement party is planned on January 16th
near the NOAA Silver Spring office. There were also ideas about giving Dave an engraved
plaque or CSRC marker.
b. Central Coast Height Modernization Project: John began a discussion about the Central
Coast Height Modernization Project with Towill. The last invoice for Towill of $37.7K has
not been approved for payment. There are still pending issues with Towill, including the final
report and other CSRC requests. The adjustments and submittal to NGS were part of Towill’s
contract. While Towill has completed the adjustments, they will not do the submittal. No one
has been tasked with submitting the adjustments to NGS. Marti volunteered to complete it.
The EC members stated that it was a priority to publish the data and metadata on the CSRC
webpage.
c. The North San Joaquin Valley Orthometric Height Adjustment Project with Penfield and
Smith cannot move forward until the Central Coast project is complete.
5.
Education and Outreach – Maria
a. CSU Fresno Geomatics Conference: An exhibit booth has been confirmed. Cecilia and
Dick will be representing the CSRC at the 48th Annual Geomatics Engineering Conference on
January 22-24, 2009. For more information, visit
http://www.csufresno.edu/geomatics/conference/.
b. CLSA Conference 2009: An exhibit booth has been confirmed. Cecilia and Dick will be
representing the CSRC at the San Diego Conference (Hilton San Diego Resort, Mission Bay)
from March 28th to April 1st, 2009. Steve will confirm that CSRC has a 1.5 hour CRTN
presentation slot. Either Yehuda or another EC member will conduct the presentation. For
more conference information, visit http://www.californiasurveyors.org/files/Conf09.html.
Follow-up after the meeting: Steve confirmed that CSRC has a presentation slot at the CLSA
Conference 2009.
c. 3-Day Precise Digital Leveling Workshop: Marti plans to attend a leveling workshop in
Arizona, January 27-29th. Follow-up after the meeting: The workshop flyer was later emailed
to the EC as an idea for CSRC to host a similar workshop (also attached).
6.
NGS Report – Marti Ikehara
a. Geoid09 has not been published, but a beta model was released. NGS is waiting to publish
Geoid09, because they want feedback on bugs with the beta version and want the opportunity
to incorporate additional projects; see http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/GEOID/GEOID09/. This
underscores the importance of completing the Central Coast and Northern San Joaquin Valley
Projects. There is still a window to incorporate these projects into the database. The
importance of this data was underscored; data from this area is often requested from surveyors
and is necessary to filling in the gaps in Central California.
7.
Recent Meetings
a. County Engineers Association of California (CEAC, http://www.ceaccounties.org/): John
presented an executive summary of CRTN from Yehuda’s PowerPoint slides. Twenty-five
individuals attended.
b. League of California Surveying Organizations (www.lcso.com): The CSRC hosted the
December League meting at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Yehuda gave a technical
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presentation and a summary of the Great Southern California ShakeOut. The presentation was
well received. About 25 League members and guests attended.
c. At the Northern California GPS Users Group (NCGPSUG) meeting, Patrick J. Tami,
P.L.S., Western Zone Vice President of the National Council of Examiners for Engineering
and Surveying (NCEES) and President of the California Board for Professional Engineers and
Land Surveyors, advocated that real time network operators need to have a licensed land
surveyor on board. John expressed that, as the largest surveying organization in California,
Caltrans should not contract with organizations that do not have licensed land surveyor on their
staff. Dick responded that he has discussed this issue with Mark; however, they feel that it is
CLSA’s and ACSM’s responsibility to take leadership on this issue.
8.
New Business
a. U.S. National Grid (USNG): Ken Hudnut from USGS recently asked for comments from the
CSRC regarding the adoption of the USNG as the standard format. USNG is currently used by
the California Army National Guard and other military units. Dick asked the EC to provide
feedback regarding this issue.
9.
Other Topics Discussed
a. Quality Control: Greg agreed with Cecilia’s previous comment that the subcontractor’s
Licensed Land Surveyor, who signs and seals the report to NGS, is the responsible charge for
the quality control of published data and metadata. However, with regards to data published
on the CSRC webpage, Greg stated that a CSRC Licensed Land Surveyor (Cecilia, Art, or
himself) should complete a quality control review before it is posted.
10. Adjourn: The meeting adjourned at 3:00 PM.
Prepared by Maria Turingan, CSRC Coordinator
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Attachment A
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Attachment B
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