The Land Information Board last met on April 14 in Madison, which was the Board’s second meeting this year. The Board’s next meeting will be held in June in Madison. The date has not yet been set.
Board tours Dane County LIO
The April 14 meeting provided new Board members the opportunity to see first hand the workings of a county Land Information Office. The meeting which was held at Dane County Executive’s Conference room, gave the Board the chance to tour the county’s Register of Deeds Office (ROD) and the Land Information Office (LIO).
LIO Director Diann Danielsen and staff demonstrated procedures for maintaining parcel maps and associated data, and the wide variety of uses of digital orthophotos acquired through the 2000 Fly Dane Project. Dane County plans to acquire new orthos in 2005. Jane Licht, Dane County Register of Deeds and Board member, gave a demonstration in her office on one of the public computer terminals for accessing document searching and retrieval, property information, and online GIS mapping via the web.
Process to update county plans approved
Board member Michael Romportl, the Oneida County Land Information Officer, has offered to head a committee to revise the instructions for preparing County Land Records Modernization Plans. These plans, which are formally revised and reviewed by the Board, are the blueprints for guiding counties in data acquisitions, systems development, and organizational agreements.
The planning instructions will be revised to reflect current applications of the program’s Foundational Element data categories, and expand the scope of the instructions to include wireless 911 requirements, data maintenance, and Web delivery of mapping services. At the April 14 meeting, the Board approved formation of the Romportl Committee, asking Mike to proceed with drafting revisions to the planning instructions, and to develop a time-line for all counties to prepare revised plans once the instructions are approved by the Board.
Report to Legislature on horizonLast year as part of the 2003-05 state budget, the Legislature and Governor agreed to extend the sunset of the WLIB to September 1, 2005. As a provision to the extension the WLIB, along with the Wisconsin Land Council, both are required to evaluate their functions and activities, submitting this information in a report to the Legislature and Governor.
With a due date of September 1, the WLIB adopted a time-line for the research, writing, public comment and approval of the final document. The WLIB’s Executive Committee will begin work on the report’s content at its May 18 meeting. This report will build on the structure of a similar effort completed and delivered to the Legislature in September 2002.