[urisa] Recent URISA Advocacy Activity
- From: "Babinski, Greg" <Greg.Babinski@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "urisa@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <urisa@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:41:55 +0000
Greetings URISA members....
The Board is very happy to provide the new URISA Connect Listserv as a member
benefit.
I want to use the Listserv to let everyone know about some recent URISA
advocacy activity. Sometimes the work that the URISA Board and URISA's
committees do might not be readily apparent to members.
First in March we received a request from a URISA member to provide a letter
from URISA stating our postion regarding a bill (PS2422) in the Puerto Rican
Legislature which would include most GIS-related activity within the realm of
licensed survey practice. URISA responded to this request on March 23 with a
letter urging the Legislature to follow the guidelines developed in the 'Model
Law for Surveying' and the 'Model Rules for Surveying' that were developed
collaboratively between URISA and the National Council of Examiners for
Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) in 2003.
Shortly thereafter URISA was notified that a protest had been filed by a firm
with the USDA regarding the 2012 National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP)
solicitation. The protest claimed that the USDA should have used a
'qualifications based solicitation' (QBS). If this protest had been allowed to
stand, it would have likely resulted in the cancelation of the 2012 NAIP
solicitation. The NAIP program is an important source of imagery for many
state and local GIS programs across the US.
URISA wrote a letter to the USDA on March 28 providing relevant information
regarding the protest based on URISA's long standing position regarding QBS.
URISA worked in parallel on this issue with NSGIC, which also wrote the USDA
challenging the protest. By the middle of this month we learned that the
protest had been withdrawn, allowing the 2012 NAIP program to go forward.
Advocacy is an important part of the value that URISA provides to its members
and the community that we serve.
Let me know what you think....
-Greg Babinski, GISP, URISA President
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