Dear Council Member,

I would like to call your attention to a time-sensitive matter that may be of interest to the City Council.

There is a bill in the State Assembly that would close public access to GIS basemap data. AB1978, sponsored by Assemblymember Solorio, is a response to a lawsuit in Santa Clara County, where the judge ruled that GIS basemap data is covered by the California Public Records Act.

Hearings are scheduled in the Committee on Governmental Organization on April 16, and the Committee on Local Government on April 30.

Why is public geodata good?

In the age of the internet, having public access to government map data is valuable for democracy, and provides new opportunities for citizen engagement. This bill goes in the opposite direction, closing off a critical source of data from public access.

At the El Camino Visioning session last Thursday, citizens were invited to comment on maps that represented the current state and alternative futures for the El Camino Corridor. Having this type of information be available in digital form for public comment would be a powerful use of digital technology for civic participation.

Citizens are using public mapping data for many valuable purposes today:

• The Oakland police department makes its crime data available so that citizens can see what's happening in their neighborhoods and help solve crimes
  <http://oakland.crimespotting.org/#types=AA,Mu,Ro,SA,DP,Na,Al,Pr,Th,VT,Va,Bu,Ar&dtend=2008-04-06T23:57:00-07:00&zoom=14&lat=37.806&dtstart=2008-03-30T23:57:49-07:00&lon=-122.270>
  
• A group in New Orleans is using public data to publish information about planned demolitions
  <http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/wholesale-demolition-new-orleans-neighborhoods>
  to provide residents the opportunity to speak up regarding the fate of their homes.
• San Francisco publishes excavation information. An online service combines this with public mapping data to show residents where and

      why their streets are being excavated.
<http://sf.everyblock.com/excavation-permits/>

What local governments in California already provide public GIS data?

A recent survey of California's 58 counties found that:

         21 Provide Parcel Data at No Cost

         21 Sell Parcel Data at the Cost of Reproduction

         13 Sell Parcel Data for More Than the Cost of Reproduction

         3 Are Not Releasing Parcel Data (claim it is not ready yet)

(numbers revised April 2007)
See: http://www.opendataconsortium.org/ for details

What is the justification for the bill?

Rep. Solorio filed the bill on behalf of Orange County which attempts to make money selling GIS data. However, according to a USGS-funded survey GIS professionals, representing city, county, metropolitan, and regional governments, "most government agencies that sell public data have not realized significant revenues; in many cases, they have actually lost revenues." A study by KPMG Consulting, Inc in March, 2001, reported that "US agencies reporting data income had revenues equal to 2% of their expenses." The study describes 10 different economic models that can be more effective than selling data.

Another argument in favor of the bill, that Santa Clara also used in the lawsuit, is that GIS data is actually the same as proprietary GIS software, and should therefore be covered under the exemption in the Public Records Act. The judge in the Santa Clara case ruled, and common sense holds that a computer program is different from the data it manipulates. A city council agenda contains public data, even if it is composed with Microsoft Word, which is proprietary software.

The text of the study about financial support for GIS data is here: http://www.opendataconsortium.org/documents/10Ways_SupportGIS_Article.pdf

The judges ruling in the Santa Clara court case can be found here: http://www.cfac.org/content/cfac_v_santaclara.PDF

For a detailed analysis of the bill, see this article: http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=2701

What can local government officials do?

According to Tom Newton of the California Newspaper Publishers' Association, which opposes the bill and has been in contact with the relevant Committees, the opinions that would be most influential to the Committees would be the voices of local governments that are in favor of keeping public geodata open to the public.

Therefore, it would be valuable for the City Council to present and pass a resolution opposing AB1978.

I understand that the time frame is short, but it is driven by the state legislative calendar. The bill was scheduled for hearings only this past week.

Making public map data available to the public is good public policy. Closing public map data to the public is not even good financial policy.

If you have additional questions, please let me know. I will be happy to share additional resources if needed to help consider this item.

Thank you very much for your consideration,

Adina Levin
Menlo Park
alevin@alevin.com
512-632-6829 (mobile) Received on Sun Apr 6 22:05:33 2008