USGS Postones Rolla Shutdown

[10/26] Update: More insider news from the Rolla Daily Times includes what went on in Denver when Karen Sideralis and Gale Norton prepared to meet with Rolla officials regarding the decision. According to a letter from a Denver employee, the staff was asked to document partners associated with the Denver office. That didn’t bother the writer. Instead he asks, rightly, I believe: “‘Shouldn’t Ms. Siderelis and her staff have all this information already?’ Supposedly, she should have had this at her disposal when she made her decision.” This whole situation is looking bad for Interior and USGS.

[10/25] Update: The article from FCW notes that the new Denver “union” is pushing for splitting resonsibilities between Denver and Rolla. Union leader Sandra Hoyle, a USGS cartographic technician, also suggests that Karen Siderelis selected Denver since it’d be easier for private business to “win” the work. In Rolla, it’d have been harder.

While the memo from USGS Director Patrick Leahy announcing this “hold” is widely quoted it is not available on the Web.  It was send as an e-mail to USGS employees and was apparently also shared outside USGS. USGS decided not to put out a press release. I requested it from USGS and reprint it below.

MEMORANDUM

October 21, 2005

To:          All National Geospatial Technical Operations Center Employees

From:          P. Patrick Leahy (signed Pat Leahy)
          Acting Director

Subject:      The National Geospatial Technical Operations Center

Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Mark Limbaugh has requested that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) put a hold on the implementation to locate the National Geospatial Technical Operations Center (NGTOC) at the Denver Federal Center in Lakewood, Colorado.  Assistant Secretary Limbaugh directed a review of the decision process in light of questions raised about that process.  Therefore, I am directing that no further actions be taken to implement the location decision and the A-76 competitive sourcing study pending the outcome of this review. 

All of us at USGS remain committed to developing the most efficient, effective workforce and organizational structure to fulfill our mission.

I thank you for your patience while this issue is reviewed.

[10/21] Via the Associated Press: “The U.S. Interior Department said today it is postponing plans to move its federal mapping agency office out of Rolla, pending a review of the decision.” Missouri Congresspeople have been all over this since the decision was made locate the NGTOC in Denver. Clearly, Interior is listening.

Even as this annoucement was made, local Rollans were asked to sign a petition to reverse the Devner decision by the publisher of the Rolla Daily News.

Geo-Targeted RSS Ads Surprise Advertisers

Kevin Newcomb at ClickZ writes about how Google has been running “geo-targeted contextual ads in RSS feeds for several months” though many didn’t know about it.

“The targeting came to the attention of a New York City-based ClickZ editor when an ad for a nearby single-location spa showed up on an RSS feed for a blog about Apple Computers. The same ad was targeted to other editors in New York, but not to others outside the city. The ad did not seem to be contextually targeted, but entirely targeted by location.”

Mashup: MSN VE and MapPoint Web Service

There’s currently a hack to get driving directions in Virtual Earth using the MapPoint Web Service. Apparently this feature will be in the next release of MSN Virtual Earth. Pretty sad someone actually had to write this, really.

Via Search Engine Watch

“Swarm of rampaging geographers heads for the Sault”

I like to think that the person who wrote the above headline for Sootoday.com had the best of intentions. So does the person at who put the title “No Need for Directions” on the same text.

Alas, the press release that follows, which touts that the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre (SSMIC) will host the 2006 ESRI Canada Regional User Conference for Northern Ontario next May, fails to expand the acronym GIS, nor explain what exactly it is. I believe the release is from the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre. Hey, ESRI Canada, help these folks out!

Daytime Population Estimates from Census

A press release from the Census reveals some details of its first ever estimates of daytime population for all counties and more than 6,400 places based on year 2000 data. Washington, D.C.; Irvine, Calif.; Salt Lake City, Utah; or Orlando, Fla. gain the largest percentage of people during the day of large cities. Small places have significant gains, too: “Lake Buena Vista, Fla., which has almost no permanent residents but swells to an employment center of more than 30,000 people during the day.” These numbers will give a new perspective on the time dependence of population maps.