How true, that even with state organizations, surveyors, generally have allowed things like this to happen.
Imagine ... one day a GIS person might be telling your doctor what to do about your gall-bladder ... well ... probably not.
It comes down to a silly little stamp that says "Approved", and allows a surveyor to collect his fees, while the land-owner who has been needing jingles in his pocket, to get paid for the acreage he's been trying to sell the past year.
After all is said and done, what everyone(except maybe the GIS person), wants is a relatively smooth process, so everyone can do their jobs and put food on the table.
Situation is complicated E.O.L. sickness(C.E.), GIS-guy who only half listens to the C.E., two employees(C.E. & GIS-guy), who appear to want out "bad", and maybe the C.A.(boss of the GIS).
Makes for a real mucky soup. There have been complaints evidently
Personally I would make any other changes you feel you can bring yourself to do, but leave the detail as mapped and re-submit without any mention of the issue.
Make this guy actually reject the map for the sole issue of the detail. Then decide if you want to re-submit. Since you do not have to maintain a professional working relationship with this guy, educate him a little, then move on.
That should give you some satisfaction. It just might make the guy pause and consider how he goes about things in the future.
That's interesting, cause that's EXACTLY what I did.
I sent the map back to the surveyor and told him the detail, technically was the only way to show a second pin about 2 feet from the other.
I did move the pin on the 1"=100', but I swallowed hard at doing it.
I find it hard to purposely misplace a pin by over 20 feet ...
Stop wasting your time with "technicians"! Start working your way up the ladder of bureaucracy until you get to someone with power or common since. Always get the tech name and get their supervisor namei. If this is a problem with a lot of Surveyor's then the more the better. If you don't have any luck with the bureaucracy, YOUR elected REPRESENTATIVE are there to rain in these bureaucracies. Working for the feds. when a SENATOR called you snapped to attention and if it was legal you did it, NOW.
GOOD LUCK.
oh yes ... the county engineer(surveyor) ...
John, I'm beginning to believe you and I are the only people that understand the following:
>Ohio Revised Code 315.08 Duties of county engineer.
>The county engineer shall perform for the county all duties authorized or declared by law to be done by a registered professional engineer or registered surveyor, except those duties described in sections 307.37 and 307.38 and Chapters 343., 6103., and 6117. of the Revised Code. . . .
I still believe that if some taxpayer gets a burr under their saddle and hires a smart attorney this section will be interpreted by the Ohio Attorney General as it is written. Only the County Engineer is permitted to perform professional surveying duties for the county. Any other office attempting to perform those duties is violating the law. Hence they are spending tax dollars in violation of the law. That also means the tax documents of the county are not in conformance with the law and may be considered fraudulent. As a result any decisions made based on them are open to challenge.
EDIT: Those of you that were not around the old board are likely not aware that John and I have been fighting this battle since 2001. The OBOR opinion I cited earlier was the result of John's efforts. In 2001 I was teaching and no longer in private practice. While I could support John's efforts I was not a directly interested party at that point.
Be careful what you wish for. It is nearly impossible to write a standard that anticipates all situations. If you have a standard and encounter an unconsidered complication you are screwed.
oh yes ... the county engineer(surveyor) ...
Well....I find it strange that the GIS people are checking plats. Is that actually happening? where I am the GIS people work for computer services and are support for assessing, platting, zoning, transportation planning and the like. Why would anyone put a computer professional in charge of reviewing plats?
A licensed surveyor may be the only one authorized to make the determination if minimum survey standards have been met, but there are many other standards local governments impose on maps that are not the sole domain of surveyors.
I'll tell you why GIS personnel are checking plats ...
It's natural that someone who works with maps ... checks maps ...
Sorry ... I'm going to ramble a little ... and might get lost ...
To the auditor(except those few politicians who made a valid attempt to understand and follow laws), it's more power ... more employees ... more prestige.
To the county engineer, it's one less worry about something that doesn't involve bridges, salt and asphalt. The tax map department is out of character with bulldozers, dump-trucks and road graders.
And since the tax map department is almost ALWAYS(in Ohio), in the offices provided by the county auditor, for the benefit of the county auditor and almost ALWAYS, "physically" un-associated with the the county engineer, it appears to the average person, that the county engineer has virtually nothing to do with the tax map department. AND hey! even to the average title company employees ... and maybe most surveys ... it's a system, that on the surface appears to work. Almost everybody's happy regardless of the incidental legalities or conflicts of interest(the tax man making the tax maps to collect taxes)
When's is the last time(in Ohio), a surveyor has ever gone to the "county engineer's office" to look at tax maps ... or for that matter ... to look up surveys? In most counties, the tax map department is in "down-town", near the auditor, recorder and treasurer, while the county engineer's office is way out, in some long extended annexed portion of the city ... miles away.
Day to day, contact between the auditor's office and the tax map department is almost constant(as it should be). Day to day contact with the county engineer's office doesn't take place often.
In a poll, made by CEAO(I think), years back, a question of a sort was asked as to does the county engineer of a particular county have any control, or input or something of the sort with the tax map department.
Now, I could be wrong(memory), but I think over half, or about half of the respondents, indicated they were not involved with the operation of the county tax map department. I don't think the poll was valid, but I'm sure the perception is what the poll result was ... no, I'm not involved in the day-to-day operations of the tax department.
The county engineer doesn't physically fund the office(employees are paid out of general), the don't work out of the room 2 doors down from his(the C.E.), office, the tax map people don't clock it at the county engineer's office and the county engineer rarely acts like their boss(although the auditor does).
What I'd like to see is the state of Ohio reduce the salary of the county engineer for not performing this mandated portion of their required duties .... AND to make county engineers, PAY BACK(with interest), to the general fund for all the past years they haven't been actively performing their mandated duties(tax maps).
THEN take that same poll and see what changes.....
They(the tax map people) do, in fact, sign the plat and description(or deed).
They sign the plat and description with a stamp they apply to the plat and description, to say that the auditor may now accept the deed for transfer. I venture to say that probably all county regulations actually indicate a requirement for the stamp to indicate the "County Engineer's" approval(not the county auditor's approval)
So the auditor checks the maps and descriptions, then has the map and description stamped(likely stating the county engineer has checked and approved same and signed/or initialed) indicating that now the auditor can legally accept the deed. The auditor then maps the description, on his(?) "official" taxing maps to enumerate the acreage for which he will proceed to tax the citizens for monies to the county.
If nothing else, the county engineer, who is, by law, paid out of a different source of funding(technically), separate from all the other offices involved with taxing the citizenry, becomes a check & balance.
The county engineer is the only county official who is LEGALLY required to understand/comprehend surveyor's maps and descriptions ... the ONLY one ... and, if nothing else, should be acting as, at the least, the ONLY check and balance between the taxers and the taxed, since his funding is not directly tied to land taxes.
I'll tell you why GIS personnel are checking plats ...
John,
This may be what you remember, Ohio Geographically Referenced Information Program (OGRIP) County Profiles. Note the description:
>The GIS County Survey is an inventory of county spatial data assets and GIS activities for the State of Ohio. Responses to the survey are voluntarily provided to OGRIP from local government GIS contacts representing the counties.
>
The project was initiated in 2002 and the counties are encouraged to update the information regularly. I was an active member of OGRIP from the early 1990s through the first release of data from this project. I saw what was beginning to happen across the stae during that period.
As a result I presented a paper addressing the Role of Ohio Professional Surveyors in GIS (pdf) at two conferences in Ohio. The first was the County Engineers Association of Ohio Conference, Ohio GIS, September 26, 2001. This conference was cosponsored by OGRIP and the Professional Land Surveyors of Ohio. The second was the Professional Land Surveyors of Ohio Annual Conference, February 8, 2002. Although a few of the laws cited have been revised the context of the paper is still correct. I had a few questions and positive responses from county GIS personnel. However, the information had little impact on what was happening.
The current data is presented as a series of GIS maps. The maps are linked from the list at the right of the County Profile Results page. The specific data that John is referring to is the "Parcel Line Work" map. As you can see much of the map is blue indicating that the auditors are maintaining the parcel mapping. As John noted there are a number Ohio Attorney General opinions issued over a number of years. All of these are consistent with what John has already posted.
> Stop wasting your time with "technicians"! Start working your way up the ladder of bureaucracy until you get to someone with power or common since. Always get the tech name and get their supervisor namei. If this is a problem with a lot of Surveyor's then the more the better. If you don't have any luck with the bureaucracy, YOUR elected REPRESENTATIVE are there to rain in these bureaucracies. Working for the feds. when a SENATOR called you snapped to attention and if it was legal you did it, NOW.
> GOOD LUCK.
Both John (RETIRED69) and I started from the top many years ago. Read [msg=312140]my post[/msg] to this thread above. I presented a paper, summarizing Ohio laws, to state level GIS and professional surveying organizations. About the same time John was requesting that Professional Land Surveyors of Ohio take action. Repeated complaints from John and surveyors in other counties resulted in the 2012 Ohio Board of Registration opinion [msg=311845]cited in another of my posts[/msg]. Remember County Auditors and County Engineers are frequently the local fund raisers for the "elected representatives" you want to get involved. I have been told "surveyors simply don't understand the laws" and should quit complaining about things that are working just fine. This was from a state level bureaucrat that would be advising the elected legislators.
In Arkansas the State Surveyor works in the Arkansas Geographic Information Office (AGIO). The new law says that the AGIO may hire a Professional Surveyor to serve as the State Surveyor. This is the office that prepares our Minimum Technical Standards of Practice. I suspect that within a few years we will be required to file all of our surveys as a Geo Referenced Shape File.
I am glad that I am near retirement. I think I have signed my last plat in Arkansas. I don't sign plats at my current job. I get to deal with boundary problems every day but don't have to sign plats.
Steve Corley, post: 322741, member: 23 wrote: In Arkansas the State Surveyor works in the Arkansas Geographic Information Office (AGIO). The new law says that the AGIO may hire a Professional Surveyor to serve as the State Surveyor. This is the office that prepares our Minimum Technical Standards of Practice. I suspect that within a few years we will be required to file all of our surveys as a Geo Referenced Shape File.
I am glad that I am near retirement. I think I have signed my last plat in Arkansas. I don't sign plats at my current job. I get to deal with boundary problems every day but don't have to sign plats.
Don't worry, Steve...ASPS has formed a COMMITTEE!!!
DDSM:music::beer:
Dan B. Robison, post: 322750, member: 34 wrote: Don't worry, Steve...ASPS has formed a COMMITTEE!!!
DDSM:music::beer:
Oh ye of little faith...
As quoted from the Washington County Public Map System: " Washington County Public Map System County Disclaimer: These maps were created by Washington County using data created or acquired by its Assessor’s office, Dept. of Emergency Management, and Road Department and in accordance with Arkansas Code 15-21-502 (2) (B), which states “The digital cadastre manages and provides access to cadastral information. Digital cadastre does not represent legal property boundary descriptions, nor is it suitable for boundary determination of the individual parcels included in the cadastre.” and Arkansas Code 15-21-502 (6) which indicates that “Digital cadastre’ means the storage and manipulation of computerized representations of parcel maps and linked databases.” These maps have been developed from the best available sources. No guarantee of accuracy is granted, nor is any responsibility for reliance thereon assumed. In no event shall said Washington County be liable for direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or special damages of any kind, including, but not limited to, loss of anticipated profits or benefits arising out of use of or reliance on the maps. The parcel lines shown are considered a graphical representation of the actual boundaries. Washington County is in no way responsible for or liable for any misrepresentation or re-use of these maps. Distribution of these maps are intended for informational purposes and should not be considered authoritative for engineering, legal and other site-specific uses." These old law quotes were from the definitions section which now simply reads: "(5) "Digital cadastre" means the storage and manipulation of computerized representations of parcel maps and linked parcel databases;" and contains no such restrictions. I suppose that this has been taken out of the law completely. I can't find it anywhere. Let me know if you find it. Without this critical piece of the law, everything unravels. In the past, digital cadastre could not be used in place of a boundary survey by a professional surveyor. Now teams of technicians with no sacred trust have been propelled to a status ABOVE the professional surveyor. If the accuracy couldn't be proven last year, what has changed? This above all other considerations breaks the public land system. As of July first, all of Arkansas is in serious trouble. Anyone practicing surveying after July first has NO ABILITY TO PROTECT THE LIFE, HEALTH, AND PROPERTY OF THE CITIZENS OF ARKANSAS! I once spoke at an ASPS meeting during a comment session about these very issues and was shouted at by the then ASPS president Tom Webb for the duration of my time. "you can't say that" he shouted repeatedly for as long as I spoke. This occurred during the meeting where our precious minimum standards were voted by ASPS members to be decimated. The meeting in which I received my Professional Surveyor certificate. One of the worst days of my life. Only surveyors seem to know that land boundaries are a product of law and equity, not math and mapping. We now are facing the terrors that I foresaw so many years ago. God help us!
J. Scott Graber PS, Unemployed bum.
P.S. The emergency status of this legislation probably has to do with the smattering of city annexations which used parcel numbers and creative language in the legal description as was done with the City of Huntsville, Arkansas annexation. Tasked to put this boundary on the ground for a private citizen, my former company was unable to do so. The last job of a now defunct company, this situation destroyed my livelihood. Parcel numbers are a dynamic system subject to change. Deed and Survey records are a static system used since the founding of the United States of America. This legislation allows for coordinates to be used in lieu of metes and bounds. The latter holds over the former, but it opens the door to simply staking parcel data on the ground. This is NOT surveying, and surveyors should NEVER do this.
I have one project that I am trying to finish. It is a tract split in which the boundary was performed by Precision Land Surveying, Inc. It will be the last plat that I sign. I plan on keeping my license as I have invested so much time and effort in gaining and maintaining it. I will be a technician or pursue other career paths. It's just not in anyone's best interest to perform surveying under these new laws. It will be impossible to create what they believe that they can create. I have been working on a grid system of Madison County. I know very well the nature of what they are trying. I have worked with GIS, abstractors, and others that will take you to task over one arc second, or one hundredth of rounding difference. This is a fool's errand, and I'm no fool. It would be impossible to charge a client who simply needs to sell their land for a geo-referenced plat. Especially since the derivation of coordinates must be from a type 1 or type 2 monument that you may have to tie as much as 15 miles to (with 15 feet of acceptable error I may add). I have not found any acceptance of OPUS positions in this new law. In rural areas, these monuments are few and far between. I expect that land survey prices have now doubled. Anyone thinking about how we are going to get people to pay? People hate paying what we charge now. In fact, people may decide that they don't need surveys at all. All they need to do is get the GIS map, get coordinates from the courthouse (which gladly gives them away in Madison County) and put the pins in the ground with their handheld GPS. This has happened on a 1/10 acre lot. I have seen pins set at absurd positions in the areas where Sourcegas brought their pipelines. Pins with no caps and pinflags twisted around them. I have also seen a surveyor tie and yield to one of these pins and put a line through someone's house. Imagine the chaos!
Un-freaking-believable! Let's hope some of your feller Arkysawyers speak up on this post.
https://surveyorconnect.com/threads/gis-over-surveys-in-arkansas.319121/
Mr. Graber,
I remember the ASPS meeting where you spoke of your fears of GIS. I remember there were quite a few of us telling Mr. Webb to let you continue. Good luck with your new profession(s).
DDSM:beer:
I remember that back in 2011 there was an Arkansas Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Professional Surveyors hearing (Case #2011-19) pertaining to a copyright mark on a land survey. From the hearing exhibit book:
Brandon Robinson, ESQ, Office of the Attorney General’s office, direct examination of Shelby Johnson, Arkansas Geographic Information Officer
Q -- but let me just ask you, I think there may be some concern on the part of some land surveyors that GIS will somehow take the place of surveying. Can you talk about that?
I mean --
A I can. It's kind of a -- I really don't see that being the case.
Q Uh-huh.
A I don't think that GIS practitioners could do their job without the work of surveyors. A good example would be the geodetic control that's established by surveyors. Without that work GIS couldn't exist.
Q Uh-huh.
A Because we need coordinates systems and projections and datums to base our -- our information on. And then the other thing that I think is really important to understand is that most GIS practitioners never get out from behind their computer screen. I mean, our daily grind is looking at the -- at what's on the screen. And I think that's a really important distinction between GIS and surveying is that we seldom, if ever, get to the field and look at what's on the ground or put something on the ground. And -- and that's the important work of a surveyor, is to measure something and establish where that is on the ground. We don't really do that.
Read the Letter from the AGIO...
DDSM:beer: