Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Looking at the Trees, the Forest and Property Tax on a Map

Xxxxxx,

Your name emerged as a result my search for an expert in forestry that is also an expert in tax and other matters relating to Oregon forestry.  You are an especially rare and valued tree in the Oregon forest. 

My purpose is to use mapping technology to create a better conceptual relationship structure in the revision and formation of OAR and ORS that are fundamentally geographic based in nature.  As an email editing after-thought maybe I need some slogan to express it simply.  The truth is on the ground.  Truth starts at the ground level. The Earth beneath our feet is land from which real and conceptual things grow environmentally. 

Forests have great importance in Oregon.   How Important? To whom and why?   The answer to this broad question is somewhere in the results of this search term ‘Oregon forest important”.  If all the results could be parsed for frequency of word occurrence they create some information.  Artificial Intelligence  looks deeper into frequency of related concept occurrences and gives that intelligence to us..  What we can deep learn from reducing complexity to simplicity in the Information Age can be overlaid on a Gis Map. 

It is most likely that we have both been to countless meetings that begin with framing something this way:  Let’s all start on the same page.  What follows is a conceptually ambiguous framing of what the ‘same page” is but soon to be judged by attendees as a subjective/objective view from the head of the table in relation to personal view.  Maybe not on the same page from the start when the playing field is chosen for attendees, not entirely neutral, perhaps tilted.

What follows begins with getting not on the same page but the same map then overlaying information on it.  

Gis overlays look to me like the Google Search of the physical world.  Visual search results can be anywhere from universal to specific and can be drilled down from aggregate top view to the lowest level of precise resolution. Forests have always been explored with a map and compass and boots on the ground.  That ground is now digital representation traversed by direct visual interaction with the map itself.


The conceptual relationship between Oregon forest and our tax system is complex.  It is bewildering as an unknown wilderness in the dark and only less challenging with a compass in the light of day.   I live in Bend.  Fremont Meadow in Shevlin Park is where he camped in his explorations.  Fremont would probably have been happy to see the first search return on that link to be a map.  He would not understand any search results that followed.  When I get to that obstacle point in exploring the forest tax system I go out to Fremont Meadow, touch the ground, then come back to the keyboard and continue like he did.

Oregon property tax relating to our forests is what I am exploring   My principal map guide is Deschutes County Dial Interactive Map. It is a tax oriented map originating in the Deschutes County Assessor Office prior to ArcGis.  It feeds some spatial and other data to the city of Bend and Deschutes County Gis mapping systems.  I started a computer related career at the punch card level when information was overlaid on a piece of tree by making holes in the paper .  State of the art has come a long way since then for us all.  You probably may have started with paper mapping.  

Looking forward to the stars and beyond……

It looks to me like the Oregon forest related property tax system structure was conceptually structured and mapped in the language of  ORS, OAR and local government rules and regulation.  That structure has progressively been applied to mapping technology.  It seems like there is a tipping point where a restructure is required.  

A restructure shift
 from:
OAR, ORS driving the creation of maps to express narrow specific geographical ares of intent and application
 to:
Gis maps driving geographically  examination, integration, formation, representation and monitoring of OAR, ORS and local rules and regs.  Gis maps then become the management information system to monitor and create feedback.

The forest tax system is what I would call speghitti coded English.  It is full of concepts and implementation that are dysfunctional and ambiguous introduced by special interest legislation or seizure of opportunity unintentionally presented by law for exploitation of private gain at public expense.

I would appreciate your comment on the emerging role and importance of mapping systems and overlays to become not only a tool to identify problems related to forest property tax but a basis for structuring tax system application equally across the many stakeholder areas of interest it relates to.









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