AZSITE CONSORTIUM

Quarterly Meeting, ASM

Tuesday, April 18, 2000

Minutes

  1. The meeting was called to order at 9:30 a.m. Grindell and Wilcox moved and seconded the approval of the minutes of the October, 1999, and January, 2000, minutes. The minutes were approved.
  2. Database Committee report: Barton noted that the MapObjects 2 upgrade had a bug that plotted all the sites in the same location and the issue was being resolved. Griffith noted that the SHPO still had problems connecting to the master database and that Arizona State Parks’ refusal to support MSAccess would be a problem. Wilcox reported that the connection from MNA was slow and that they were working with McCartney and Brett Hill to ameliorate the problem. McCartney reported the following:
  1. Tribal Concerns Committee report: Wilcox reported on the consulting process with tribes; he, Barton, Griffith and Grindell met with the Tohono O’odham Legislative Council. Grindell noted that she had met with the Tohono O’odham Cultural Committee, also. Wilcox continued reporting that we are setting up meetings with the Hope Cultural Preservation Office and the Navajo Nation. In the meantime, we are adhering to the default policy of not including an tribal lands data in the AZSITE web database. Barton commented that we have not yet received any comments stating that the policy of not including tribal data is bad. Griffith reported that she and Garrison attended an Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona meeting on April 14, 2000. The ICTA Cultural Resources Working Group is planning a meeting soon, to be held at the Heard, and would like an AZSITE demonstration if there is web access available there. Chad Smith noted that the ITCA issued proposed updates to the draft Tribal Lands Data policy. In general, he continued, tribal feelings about AZSITE are negative and tribes are continuing with preparation of their own GIS databases. McCartney noted that if agencies adhere to the metadata standards that the Federal Geographic Data Committee has put together, then all these disparate databases should be accessible later, if necessary. The report on metadata standards may be viewed at http://colby.uwyo.edu/fgdcncptthome.html by following the link for the Final Report for "Creating a Cultural Resources Metadata Standard for the Western United States" Project funded by the U.S.G.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee.
  2. Management Committee report: Barton noted that it is apparent that AZSITE will have to support two levels of access, one for access to small quantities of data for individual projects and one for large scale data management functions by land managers with legal responsibilities for cultural resources on the land under their jurisdiction. The User Agreement that has been developed covers the former usage. In the latter case, we need to develop agreements with land managing agencies under which AZSITE manages their data and they agree to support AZSITE. Griffith suggests that we start with two federal agencies, BLM and DOD, as models. Agreements would probably be run through the SHPO of behalf of the Consortium and it would be necessary to do separate agreements for state agencies like ADOT, ASLD, ASP, and AGF. Rozen commented that the existing user agreement causes the SLD attorney general concern because it imposes broad responsibilities for data confidentiality on agencies, even for land not under their jurisdiction. Direct Access guidelines have been formulated and it was moved (Wilcox), seconded (Grindell) and approved to adopt the existing Direct Access Guidelines as a guideline on structuring agency participation (attached).
  3. The committee reviewed a proposed list of AZSITE user categories Barton drafted and recommended some modifications. The revised version is attached. Gary Stumpf expressed great concern about an annual fee of $3,000 per BLM field office because such a high fee would preclude BLM participation. Kurt Dongoske expressed similar concern for tribal participation. Barton pointed out that paying for ongoing maintenance of the system in the absence of state funding will require large fees. If the system is valuable, then all interested parties will have to participate in funding it to re-coup costs. Stumpf thought that BLM might be able to provide ongoing funding of $5,000 per year.

  4. Announcements

6. Next meeting: August 14, Flagstaff.

Participants:

 

Michael Barton, ASU, presiding

Beth Grindell, ASM, recording

Peter McCartney, ASU

Steve Erdmann, MNA

Carol Griffith, SHPO, Chair

David R. Wilcox, Museum of Northern Arizona

Marcy Mattson, Ft McDowell Indian Community

Chad Smith, Ft Mohave Tribe/San Carlos Apache Tribe

Brett Hill, ASU

Cathy Johnson, Arizona State Parks

Ken Rozen, ASLD
Kurt Dongoske, Hopi Tribe

Gary Stumpf, BLM

Dave Gifford, Bureau of Reclamation