[OKGIS] City Boundaries

[Troy Frazier]

Katy,

Good morning. I am Troy Frazier of the Ad Valorem Division of the Oklahoma 
Tax Commission. I was out of the office the later part of last week.

The municipal boundary layer that you downloaded from OSU has not been 
updated since 2003. I have contacted OSU a few times and requested that they 
regularly update most their mapping layers from the www.geo.ou.edu website 
(no, do not believe OSU's metadata). As you are aware of, they have chosen 
not to. I guess that it is an OU - OSU thing.

Geo Information Systems maps municipal boundaries under contract with us. 
They also map school district boundaries for us, the Oklahoma Department of 
Education, and the Oklahoma Department of Vocational-Technical Education. 
They map the precincts for the Election Board. They mapped the State senate 
and house districts for the State Legislature, etc.

As for whether these city boundaries are "official" or not. Since 2000, the 
cities have been required to file any boundary changes with my division as 
well as with the local county clerk's office. We have sent flyers, maps, and 
letters to the cities during this six year period asking them for 
information, confirming boundaries, and reminding them of the statutes. In 
general, we get a good response. However, it is not uncommon for a city to 
complain that an ordinance was passed several years ago and was not 
included. Of course, we can only work changes that we actually receive.

We use this mapping for sales tax collection, the election board uses this 
mapping for voter registration, the department of transportation tells me 
that they use this mapping to help determine road maintenance 
responsibility, and this mapping is forwarded to USGS to be included on the 
"National Map".

Is this mapping layer truly "official"? Probably not. It is accurate? It is 
as accurate as the cities let it be (and as they follow through on the 
statutes).

If you have any further questions, please let me know.


Sincerely,

Troy Frazier
Cartographer
Ad Valorem Division - Oklahoma Tax Commission
(405) 521-3178  or  tfrazier at tax.ok.gov


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rich, Katy M" <KatyR at health.ok.gov>
To: "OK GIS Listserve (E-mail)" <okgis at gis.gis.ou.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 3:50 PM
Subject: [OKGIS] City Boundaries


>I have the municipal boundaries file from the OSU Center for Geospatial 
>Information (tax commission data) but it appears not to have been updated 
>since 2003.  Does anyone know of a current city boundaries shapefile for 
>the state?  We are especially interested in Tulsa and Oklahoma City 
>boundaries.
>
> Thanks,
> Katy Rich
>
> __________________________________________________
> Katy Rich, M.A.
> GIS Coordinator
> Oklahoma State Department of Health
> Health Care Information, Suite 807
> 1000 N.E. 10th Street
> Oklahoma City, OK 73117-1299
> katyr at health.ok.gov
> phone: (405) 271-9444 ext. 56472
> fax: (405) 271-9061
> http://www.health.state.ok.us/
>
>
>