Your August CLSA eNews is here!

e-NEWS AUGUST 2021

IN THIS ISSUE...

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
IN THE NEWS
CLSA LOSES FRIEND WILLIAM VOGE, PLS 3362
COFFMAN LAND SURVEYORS RACE TO 2ND PLACE FINISH
H.R. 4664 – THE FIRESHEDS ACT
NGS GPS ON BENCH MARKS JULY 2021 UPDATE
LAND SURVEYING COURSES, PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND MORE AT CALIFORNIA'S FRESNO STATE
BPELSG SUMMER 2021 BULLETIN
NSPS ADVOCACY ALERT

Summer is nearly over with -- vacations, road trips, family visits and our first in-person Board of Directors meeting since February of 2020 now firmly in the rear-view mirror. The Board meeting was actually a hybrid, with about 24 people attending in Oakland. As can be expected, there were some technological challenges with the hybrid meeting. Thank you to all who weathered the storm, particularly David Kendall who took the hybrid meeting concept to a new level, attending part of the meeting on-line and then arriving at the in-person site after lunch to finish out the day. Our November 6, 2021 meeting will be back to the on-line format, and hopefully we will all be together again in February of 2022.

Additional highlights from the meeting included:

The Public Awareness Committee leading the effort to develop pathways to help military personnel transition from military service to a career in civilian land surveying. The first candidate to send us his resume has already begun work at a Sacramento firm.
A team was formed to analyze the results from the Annual CLSA Survey and help identify areas where CLSA can improve how we serve the professional land surveyors of California.
The announcement of the signing of CLSA sponsored legislation Senate Bill 414.
The MOU for the 2022 Conference was signed and ratified.
CLSA funds were transferred to a new bank offering a better return on our investment, as well as diversifying the location of our funds to maintain FDIC coverage.
Executive Director Kim Oreno called 174 non-renewed corporate members of whom 30 renewed their CLSA memberships immediately.
The Board of Directors voted to reinstate CRTN Consortium membership in the 2022 budget.
A California student won 3^rd place in the National Trig-Star competition.
CLSA continues to hold webinars (free to CLSA members). The next is September 10^th, 2021.
The Federal RETAIN Act (S. 2166) and a call for CLSA member action was discussed.
Many Chapters are getting back to in-person meetings, while obiding with COVID rules.

Directors, Committee Chairs, and Liaisons received an email reminder about email scams today. Several of our Committee Chairs got a weird email yesterday appearing to be from me. While a weird email from me might not be a shock to most of them, this email asked them to purchase gift cards. This is a common scam, and we do not operate this way, so don’t fall for it… Our Central Office Staff, Executive Committee and Directors, Chairs and Liaisons take our fiduciary responsibilities seriously, and exercise extreme care of CLSA funds. If you suspect an email is a scam, verify the email address is known to you and call or text the supposed sender to discuss it.

While we are on the subject of crimes, I have heard of two separate survey equipment thefts in the last week. Details on one are below. Keep an eye on your gear.

August 5 - Trimble S5 total station (Serial number 37010967) was stolen from the back of a Morton & Pitalo truck in the Fresno area. Please contact Michael Chiara MChiara@MPEngr.com or Sandra Miller SMiller@MPEngr.com with any information.

If you attended the Western Regional Virtual Conference 2021, you have until August 31 to watch the recorded sessions. To access the recordings, log into the conference app from plseducation.org and click on agenda. We are not able to provide continuing education certificates for watching these recordings. If you plan to track and report the recordings for renewal of your license, we recommend that you take a screen shot of the video and save, along with any handouts, as backup in case of audit. If you were unable to attend, you will soon be able to purchase recordings from CLSA.

The IN-PERSON 2022 Conference will be held in Las Vegas, NV. Rich Maher is our Conference Committee Chair, and President-Elect Warren Smith is our other committee member on the joint conference committee. The theme is Mapping the Path for the Next Generation. Plans are being drawn up now, so contact them with any suggestions for sponsorships, speakers, etc.

Chapters, please continue recruiting new CLSA members. Licensees, LSITs, Technicians and others are all welcome. Individuals, companies, or corporations who, by their interest in the land surveying profession, are desirous of supporting the purposes and objectives of CLSA may also join as Sustaining Members.

If you are not a CLSA member, please recognize all the good that CLSA is doing to benefit you in your day-to-day work and improve the profession as a whole. Give back to the profession by joining CLSA and participating.

Members, please reach out to others who are not currently CLSA members and invite them to join or re-join us. I challenge every member to bring in at least one new member. Every membership helps improve our situation adding additional funding, brainpower and enthusiasm. Increasing membership is critical to the success of our organization, and the well-being of our profession. Thank you for all your efforts.

Keep yourselves and your people safe.

Robert M. McMillan, PLS, EiT

RobPLSCA@gmail.com

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

CLSA Sponsored Bill SB 414 (Jones)

CLSA is pleased to report that Governor Newsom has signed SB 414 (Jones), relating to land surveying. The bill was sponsored by CLSA in response to suggestions from members and chapters. The bill includes the following elements:

Amends Business and Professions Code Section 8726 to create a definition of “cadastral” surveying. Current law limits to licensed land surveyors the practice of both geodetic and cadastral surveying, but fails to include a definition of cadastral. The bill incorporates the definition established by the Bureau of Land Management;
Amends Section 8764 to clarify that surveyors may include in records of survey, data in both graphic and narrative form, necessary for the intelligent interpretation of the information contained in the surveys;
Amends Section 8780, relating to disciplinary actions against surveyors, to separate accusations based upon negligence from those based upon incompetence, so that surveyors may be better informed of alleged violations of the two different standards;
Amends Section 66452.5 of the Government Code, to extend the timeline for conducting appeals of Subdivision Map Act decisions, from 30 to 45 days from request. CLSA members have reported that the 30-day limit made it difficult to conduct appeals within the requisite timeframe.

CLSA extended appreciation to Senator Jones for agreeing to carry SB 414, and for the hard work he and his staff put in to secure passage of the bill. All of the changes are effective on January 1, 2022.

CLSA STORE - 2021 PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE

2021 PE Act and PLS Act with Board Rules
2021 Complete Package with DVD
2021 Subdivision Map Act & Index

CLICK HERE

ARTICLE & PHOTO SUBMISSIONS FOR CALIFORNIA SURVEYOR MAGAZINE

Do you have a photo from your field work that would make a great magazine cover? Do you have an idea for an article or have you written an article that you'd like us to consider including in the next issue? Please send your submissions and ideas to California Surveyor Editor, Joseph Waltz.

NSPS - STOLEN EQUIPMENT REGISTRY

Reminder - NSPS provides a registry of stolen equipment.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE

COURTHOUSEDIRECT.COM

Offers a $.07 per page discount and will automatically donate $.10 per page to CLSA when members download courthouse documents through this website. These instruments include Deeds, Easements, Rights-of-Way, Releases, Liens, etc.

OFFICE DEPOT DISCOUNT PROGRAM

Save up to 60% on your office supplies. Click on the Office Depot Logo to begin utilizing the CLSA-Office Depot Discount Program. If you do not know your username and password, or for more information, contact the CLSA Central Office.

The CLSA Education Foundation was established in 1993 and is committed to supporting land surveying students and programs. Last year over $50,000 in scholarship aid was provided to land surveying students.

Donating to the Education Foundation is easy! Click HERE to donate via PayPal.

Thank you to everyone who clicks through to Amazon through the CLSA's Education Foundation Amazon Smile account! If you're not doing so already, please shop on Amazon with this link.

IN THE NEWS...

Liberty Ranch High School Student Takes 3rd Place In National Trig-Star Competition

Kendall Sutton won first place in the 2021 California Trig-Star competition administered through the California Land Surveyors Association (CLSA). Sutton followed that up with a third-place finish in the 2021 National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS) National Trig-Star Examination. The Trig-Star committee met on July 23, 2021 to determine the three top high school students from the national examinations submitted by state winners. This year there were twenty state winners submitted. This info has been submitted to the Galt Herald and Sacramento Bee newspapers and KCRA-3 TV news for publication.

Australian mathematician reveals world’s oldest example of applied geometry

A clay tablet kept in an Istanbul museum is the oldest example of applied geometry. The tablet, cataloged as Si 427, “dates from the Old Babylonian (OB) period – 1900 to 1600 BCE,” says lead researcher Dr. Daniel Mansfield from UNSW Science’s School of Mathematics and Statistics.

Si 427 is “the only known example of a cadastral document from the OB period, which is a plan used by surveyors to define land boundaries. In this case, it tells us legal and geometric details about a field that’s split after some of it was sold off.”

An OB surveyor made it with a stylus on clay. A diagram of a field appears on the front. The field is being divided and some of it sold. The lines are there to demarcate the boundaries of the various fields. The boundaries were constructed at right angles using 3, 4, 5 triangles.

“The discovery and analysis of the tablet have important implications for the history of mathematics,” Dr. Mansfield says. “For instance, this is over a thousand years before Pythagoras was born.”

Dehydrated Workers Prompt Emergency Rescue Operation In Winston-Salem

Two surveyors working in a hard-to-reach area in southeast Winston-Salem got dehydrated Monday, and emergency crews mounted a rescue operation to bring them to safety.

The surveyors were in an area off Cole Road covered with trees and brush, and it was initially difficult for emergency crews to find them. The call came in initially around 1 p.m. as affecting only one surveyor, but it turned out that both people on the two-man crew had become dehydrated and needed help, reports showed.

Multiple firefighters and emergency medical services workers converged at the property on Cole Road, but there was initial confusion about where the men were and how to get onto the property to bring them out. “They couldn’t even access (the area) with an ATV,” said Capt. S.P. Harber of the Winston-Salem Fire Department, during the early stages of the rescue effort.

The surveyors were out of the woods and out of trouble by 2:30pm.

Maryland Says Land Surveyor Was Using an Expired License

St. Mary's County Government put out the following statement regarding a land surveyor:

"It has come to the County’s attention that the license of a Property Line Surveyor… …has been expired since January 5, 2019.”

St. Mary’s County Government is conducting a thorough review of all projects that may have been impacted. A source who asked to remain anonymous but is close to the incident has confirmed to TheBayNet.com that approximately 50 projects have been impacted by this issue. An estimated 30 projects will likely need to be redone and approximately 15 or more projects are currently still pending that are expected to fail.

CLSA LOSES FRIEND WILLIAM VOGE, PLS 3362

READ OBITUARY HERE

COFFMAN LAND SURVEYORS RACE TO 2ND PLACE FINISH

The website for the firm says “Coffman Land has a track record of successfully delivering top-quality performance” and now Rick Coffman has a trophy to prove it.

Rick (PLS 9312) and his unidentified co-driver participated in their first SXS (side by side) UTV (Utility Terrain Vehicle) race. Their debut was in Ridgecrest California, on Saturday, July 10, 2021. Those familiar with that location will not be surprised to hear the temperature that mid-summer day was 116° but cooled to a balmy 108° by the 7:00 PM green flag starting the race. This was the fourth in a series of six scheduled races organized by Desert Productions 4 (DP4 Racing). The Ridgecrest course was a 30-mile loop, requiring five laps to finish. Future races in the series are scheduled for August 28, 2021 in Ridgecrest California, and October 16, 2021 in Johnson Valley, California.

According to Coffman “We have been preparing the car to race the past six months in which we had to be patient because most products we needed were on back order or delayed by shipping. After the hard work and months of prep, my very good friend and I were able to battle through the race with a total of 3 flat tires and ended up getting a 2nd in our class.”

Coffman continued, “My goal was to simply finish the race and put the car back onto the trailer under its own power. Going home after standing on the podium makes it much more worthwhile.” That sounds like the patience, determination, and perseverance that goes into studying for and passing the California Professional Land Surveyor exam.

Rick’s racing adventure started as an outlet to his “everyday grind” of owning and operating his land surveying business. “As a young kid, and into my teens, my brother and I raced BMX at a few different local Southern California tracks. It was always something to look forward to on the weekends. So this new level of racing brings back that excitement and joy that I felt as a kid. Whatever I can do to stay young at heart….”

Coffman Land is a certified Disabled Veteran Owned Business Enterprise providing land surveying services from their Julian, California office.

H.R. 4664 – THE FIRESHEDS ACT

By Warren Smith

On July 26, Michael Quartaroli and I were invited to meet via Teams with Curtis Sumner, Executive Director of NSPS, John Byrd, Federal Lobbyist, and Paul Johnson, Legislative Director for Representative Blake Moore (UT, 1^st District) to present our case for an amendment to H.R. 4664 – the FIRESHEDS Act.

Mike and I, along with Curt Sumner, advocated for language to preserve existing survey monuments within the proposed fuel reduction and firebreak areas. This would consist of inventorying, tying out, and replacing if necessary those monuments within the impacted areas.

The Congressman’s aide was receptive to our proposal, and was pleased with our description of the value of physical monuments in defining not just Federal boundaries, but in controlling those of private landowners. He indicated that it stood a good chance of being inserted in the proper portion of the Bill in committee.

He also raised the potential for the use of a trained labor pool from the proposed new Civilian Conservation Corp project which, if passed, would constitute a valuable workforce for transition to land surveying.

NGS GPS ON BENCH MARKS

AUGUST 2021 UPDATE

The CLSA is once again supporting NGS’s crowd-sourced data collection program called GPS on BenchMarks (GPSonBM). The program takes full advantage of modern technology and dramatically improves the accuracy of height measurements and tools provided by NGS that are utilized by private firms and public agencies. The push is on to support the program with less than 5 months remaining til the deadline of December 31, 2021. That is the cutoff to submit GPS data that NGS can guarantee will be analyzed to compute the initial set of 2020.0 Reference Epoch Coordinates (RECs) to be released with the Modernized NSRS. This initial set of RECs is currently the only set that NGS can guarantee will be used to build the 2022 Transformation Tool. Additional sets of RECs will be computed on a regular basis as new data is submitted.

These observations will go into NADCON and VERTCON grids which transform into the modernized NSRS at 2020.00. Observations turned in after the deadline will continue to be used by NGS for improvement of the NSRS, including (a) adding to the pool of 2020.0 RECs (b) creating SECs (c) being used in 2025.0 (or 2030.0) REC computations and thus in later NADCON/VERTCON grids.

Some additional reasons GPS on Benchmarks are needed include:

The Geoid18 campaign back in 2018 had a 30 km spacing goal to constrain the hybrid geoid model.
The Transformation Tool Campaign has a 10km spacing goal to better resolve the geographic variations in the differences between the NAVD 88 and NAPGD2022 surfaces
Because these differences change more quickly in areas of high topographic relief (hills or mountains), there are 2km spacing targets set in populated areas to further improve the transformations in those areas.
The Modernized NSRS will be accessed through GNSS observations, and the time dependent features of the new system will be realized through crowd-sourced GPS data submitted to NGS over time.
Users are encouraged to collect and submit data on marks that are important to their work and get used to doing this on a regular basis to derive the most benefit from the Modernized NSRS

To participate and contribute your part – you will need a dual frequency GPS receiver, a fixed height GPS rod (recommended), a camera and the ability to record 4 hours of static GPS data.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

And check out the GPS on BM Transformation Tool Dashboard (arcgis.com)

For additional questions please email CLSA GPS on Benchmark Chair, John Tosto at GPSonBMs@californiasurveyors.org

LAND SURVEYING COURSES, PHOTOGRAMMETRY AND MORE AT CALIFORNIA'S FRESNO STATE

Each year, students in the Geomatics Engineering program at Lyles College of Engineering at California’s Fresno State host a conference at the end of January, which allows them to network with geospatial professionals, national vendors and area experts. It’s a big deal for students who take the driver’s seat in preparing this annual event, which has been around for six decades.

NSPS ADVOCACY ALERT:

Promote the RETAIN GPS & SatCom Act

NSPS has endorsed the RETAIN Act (S. 2166) introduced last month by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK). Current cosponsors include Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Mike Rounds (R-SD), and Jack Reed (D-RI). Please contact both of your U.S. Senators to request co-sponsorship of this legislation which tackles the issue of GPS interference by Ligado (formerly Lightsquared).

For more information, CLICK HERE to watch the training webinar recorded July 13 featuring NSPS Executive Curtis Sumner and Registered Lobbyist John “JB” Byrd.

CLICK HERE for bullet points for use when you call your U.S. Senators or when sending letters or emails to their offices. Remember to ask for action by your U.S. Senators! “Will you cosponsor S. 2166?” If needed, you may contact John “JB” Byrd with any questions as you prepare and conduct outreach to U.S. Senators via his email: jbyrd@mwcapitol.com.