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From:         Duncan Aldrich <duncan@equinox.unr.edu>
Subject:      State and Local Government Information

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From LISTSERV@PSUVM.PSU.EDU  Fri Jul 24 08:55:35 1992
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Date:         Fri, 24 Jul 92 11:50:15 EDT
From: James P Love <LOVE@pucc.BITNET>
Subject:      State and Local Government Information
To: Discussion of Government Documents Issues <govdoc-l@psuvm.bitnet>


From: bill@essential.org (Bill Day)
Subject: summary of URISA session on access to gov't info.
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 92 20:00:52 EDT


Summary--"Legal, Economic and Policy Issues in Access to Public
Information," Urban & Regional Information Systems Association,
1992 Conference Proceedings

July 15, 1992


     The opinions of the three speakers on "Legal, Economic and
Policy Issues in Access to Public Information" at the URISA
conference reflected the diversity of their backgrounds.

     The speakers--a Canadian official, a small town mayor, and a
university professor--agreed that geographic information in
digital form had significant commercial value, but they agreed on
little else.

     Mary Ogilvie works for the Geographic Information
Corporation (GIC), a New Brunswick crown corporation. Crown
corporations are profit-making monopolies of the provincial
government, such as Canada's provincial liquor stores.  Ogilvie
argued that the ability of the GIC to make a profit and reinvest
that profit in mapping services allowed the government to provide
mapping services it could not otherwise provide, increased inter-
agency cooperation in data collection, and produced a standard
set of maps and data.

     Elliot Newman, a Seattle businessman and the mayor of a
small town near Seattle, was not as concerned with making a
profit as he was with recovering the high costs of creating and
maintaining a geographic information system.

       He approached the problem from the perspective of modest-
sized municipalities, which are increasingly finding uses for
geographic information systems.  Newman argued that in an era
when citizens demand a consistent level of services without an
increase in taxes, municipalities must find creative ways of
financing new services such as geographic information systems.

     Newman advocated a system of differential pricing for
information.   He  suggested preferential treatment for local
taxpayers, academics doing research in the public interest, and
the media.  He suggested that public agencies that did not
contribute to the system, such as the governments of other
jurisdictions, should pay slightly more.  Finally, Newman
proposed "maximum cost recovery" from the private sector.

     Harlan J. Onsrud, a lawyer, engineer, and editor of the
newsletter "GIS Law," posited a different set of priorities from
the other two speakers.  The primary issue, he maintained, was
not funding geographic information systems but public access to
information collected at taxpayer expense and used as the basis
of governmental decisions.

     "Do we want government officials to be able to restrict
access to records because the information is commercially
valuable to the government?" Onsrud asked. "A democracy can't
function unless the people know what the government is up to."

     Onsrud maintained that a restriction on the flow of
information, unlike a restriction on the flow of water or
electricity, was only detectable by the citizenry if the
citizenry had access to the full body of information.

     Not only did Onsrud maintain that demanding more than
marginal charges for geographic data was wrong in principle, but
he also argued that it would be difficult in practice.  Charging
for data would require contracts or licenses, which would (a)
increase bureaucracy, (b) discourage widespread sharing of
information, and (c) put a substantial burden on the state to
enforce the licenses or contracts.

     Moreover, he argued, efforts to restrict the flow of
information would ultimately be doomed to failure.  It would just
be too difficult to prevent people from copying and distributing
the information.

     Finally, Onsrud argued that while the government might
collect basic data, the private sector could distribute "value
added" products--e.g. analyses of the data--more efficiently than
the government.  In response to a question from the audience,
however, Onsrud did concede that the life and health insurance
industry might be an example in which the private sector did not
function more effectively than the public sector.

     In contrast to Onsrud, who devoted himself to legal
principles governing the use of geographical information systems,
Ogilvie spent most of her time describing the actual working of
the Geographic Information Corporation.

     Over the past 9 to 10 years, the GIC has been developing a
data base from aerial photographs.  The data are stored in some
2,000 files at a scale of 1:10,000.  These in turn have been
merged into some 100 files at a scale of 1:50,000.  To date, the
data collection has cost $9 to $10 million Canadian and is nearly
complete.

     The GIC's first project will be to issue map books of the
province, at a scale of 1:50,000. The GIC expects the map books
to be of use to hunters and fishermen, who comprise some 40
percent of the adult population of New Brunswick, and to the fire
protection branch of the Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR).  The
DNR, which contributed data at no cost to the GIC, will receive
map books for $10 Canadian, the cost of printing.  The books will
sell to others for $25 Canadian.

     The GIC also intends to create "structured files" at a scale
of 1:50,000.  These structured files permit the combination and
analysis of different sets of geographical data.  For example, a
map of fire damage could be overlaid upon a map of forested area
to determine the amount of forest destroyed by fire. In the
future, the GIC also expects to produce a variety of specialized
atlases, such as geological, coastal, and environmental atlases.

     Ogilvie outlined a number of advantages to the use of a
crown corporation to produce and maintain the geographical
information system.  First, the GIC is able to charge for its
products and retain the proceeds, rather than turning them over
to the general fund.  As a result, it can partially fund the high
initial costs and the high maintenance costs of the system and
thereby reduce the strain on provincial budgets.  Ogilvie said
she expects the GIC, which has existed for 2 years in its current
form, to be self-sufficient within 5 years.

     Secondly, because the map series come from a single source,
they will be easy to use together.  They all share the same data,
so they are equally up-to-date. Data sharing among government
departments will also be easier, since the data will all come
from the same base.

     Ogilvie said that the province of New Brunswick retains the
copyright to the data files, and anybody in the private sector
who wished to purchase copies would have to indicate how the data
would be used.  Ogilvie discounted the idea that the GIC might be
in unfair competition with the private sector; she said that
there has been no private sector interest in producing comparable
products.

     Newman was primarily concerned with differentiating
geographical information systems from either purely private or
purely public ventures.  He suggested that these systems were
comparable to such governmental assets as toll bridges and toll
roads, public golf courses, libraries, and parks.

     He argued that it was appropriate for a municipality to
charge a fee that would at the very least partially support the
system.  In support of a fee, Newman asked whether the taxpayer
should subsidize non-governmental use of the system.  In such a
case, would the taxpayers be getting a fair return on their
investment?

     Newman made it clear, however, that geographical information
systems could not exist without government support; in fact, a
municipality's decision to create such a system should be made
primarily upon the basis of community need.

     Newman admitted that charging more than marginal costs for
access to a geographical information system could cause a number
of problems for a municipality.  Because the data could be used
for governmental decision making, it could be subject to Freedom
of Information and Open Records Laws.  The municipality could be
liable for errors and outdated information.  And the creation of
"value added" products might create unfair competition with the
private sector.
--
Bill Day

Taxpayer Assets Project
P.O. Box 19367
Washington, DC 20036

internet:  bill@essential.org
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