California Surveyors Forums

so about signs, here is the other side of the coin, i live in a remote area at the end of a dirt road, and with the current times, the number of random white trucks that appear in my yard are boggling, most are shady looking to say the least, dont speak, turn around and leave, the neighbors who are not home in the daytime, have had stuff disappear, I have a german shepard and ask, "can you run 1200 fps". It is a big problem! Alot of them have an orange cone in the back and say "Im with PGE", ya right, how many times does a PGE rep need to check my single pole?

If you show up in my yard or neighborhood you had better have a reason why and I what to know who you are! If you cant do that, you dont have the right to be there.

I have never worked anywhere that did not label the truck, it was free advertising. Talking to the land owner and neighbors is part of the job.

Back in the cannabis heydays, I would put a sticker on my truck so I wouldn't get shot at. Then I would take the sticker off so I wouldn't get shot at.

These days, for my forensic assignments, I just go around like Fletch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjJYNZirQCU

ekparian wrote:What are the percieved benefits of the proposed statement (why was it proposed)?
Just curious.

I could write a book on the needs for land surveying to be defined as a profession and the profession to be redefined. For many reasons, not exclusive to land surveying, the bonafide professions are under pressure due to advances in technology, think LegalZoom replacing the bread and butter of transactional attorneys. There is additional pressure for professions in name only, like hairdressers, tree trimmers and land surveyors, to be deregulated. This is not a far away or esoteric threat. The California Little Hoover Commission has made recommendations to examine and remove occupational licensure – the prevailing thought is licensure serves as a barrier to entry for underrepresented groups.

Those reading this post and shaking their fist proclaiming the professional status of land surveyors, well, it simply is not true. The federal governments classified land surveyors as laborers at the request of OE Local 12 (California). In the state of California, land surveyors, although licensed, are, for the most part, recognized as tradesman. For example, land surveyors are subject to Project Labor Agreements (“PLA”) (union contracts for public works) that exempt “professionals” – by federal law – “management” and “supervisors”, but state, very specifically, the PLA includes “land surveyors” amongst the trades. Do the engineers or architects have mandatory apprenticeship requirements legislated? No. For the uninitiated, try to find a prevailing wage for an engineer or architect (both specifically exempted by the PLAs by name and as professionals). The only legal counterweight to being a profession is the Little Brooks Act aka Qualification Based Selection (QBS”) includes land surveying as a profession. However, many firms that would benefit from QBS are signatory and the principles/owners of the firm are not land surveyors and oftentimes, do not recognize their own land surveyors as professionals. Many of these same principles see their land surveying services as a lost leader to get their engineering work. Many of these same principles do not raise an eyebrow when the work is advertised and awarded, illegally, as low bid work – they simply pressure the surveyors to work outside of the law, especially filing requirements, monument preservation, complete boundary retracement etc. For further land surveying ailments read my posts the Pallamary thread “On the Cheap” dated August 10, 2020 (“the Cheap”).

In approximately 400 words the preceding paragraphs set the stage for the need to further regulate the profession by raising the level of sophistication and more so, highlight the need for licensure. Also, at the same time, interject our expertise into the measurement community i.e. UAV (drones), construction layout/as built surveying/underground utility location (mostly completed today by unlicensed folks), and show value to the community and the Legislature. Frankly, it is a big ask to say land surveyors, in their current form, need to be licensed and once licensed the public is protected – it simply is not true from my perspective. The land surveying community, viewed as whole, screams for deregulation - reference The Cheap thread. The community needs to raise their level of competency and practice accordingly.

Not convinced? I recently performed a boundary survey with design topography for approximately 45 hours of labor. We then took our $2,000 drone and sent two team members out for four hours to fly and control the sight. The images were given to a third-party firm to process the topography and planimetrics (similar to an aerial company). The results far exceeded the standards for accuracy and the work cost $267.00. Yes, you read it correctly, two hundred sixty-seven dollars. Considering most land surveyors would establish the boundary with any two monuments in the county (we had about 8) there is no place for a land surveyor in that model. The only thing separating my skills from the $267 work product is a phone number.

ekparian wrote:What are the percieved benefits of the proposed statement (why was it proposed)?
Just curious.

The benefit is making ourselves, land surveyors, useful and part of the measurement process by creating a market that legislatively incorporates the land surveying expertise i.e. measurement analysis into work product - construction layout/as built surveying/underground utility location - as a public safety issue that distinguishes the knowledge and licensure of land surveyors. Business and Professions Code 8726 (n) creates the authority to provide the certifications. However, as it stands today, to few of the land surveyors understand measurement. Hence, the requirement creates the need to learn and understand that which they have neglected. As a litmus test, ask any surveyor you may know how accurate their GPS RTN results are and it is not uncommon to hear 0.02-0.03 of a foot. Those in the know, please refrain from bashing in their head with a river stone – the law does not recognize the end of Lenny in Of Mice and Men as mercy. There is a real need to quantify the quality of data – the land surveying community, with training and advocacy, could position themselves to fill the needs and protect the public.

In closing, if you are over 55-60 years of age, worry not, continue to grumble by any perceived impositions, you will likely be fine. If you are under 45 years of age, enjoy the last of the salad years and think about where your experience and education will take you outside of land surveying. For most of those under 45 folks, well, speaking candidly, they will be driving an Amazon truck or changing oil at Jiffy Lube as a best-case scenario – learn to code. Think Kodak staying in the film business rather than embracing digital photography - no more Kodak.

Recommended reading “The Future of the Professions” by Susskind.

I am open to any better ideas and will support most anything that places value on a land surveyors’ knowledge and integrates that knowledge into the technology that is available to anyone at a low cost.

Does that answer your question Mr. Drexyl? Highly regulated/over-regulated, coupled with technical expertise, is the sword to fight deregulation.

DWoolley

ekparian wrote:How would one account for multiple accuracies on a single survey?
~Drexyl

I am not ignoring this question. Before I write it out, check out the outdated National Map Accuracy Standards (one-half the contour interval) and the 1990 (guess) ASPRS map accuracy standards. The accuracy of topography is determined as a function of a fraction/percentage of the map scale and determining and stating the root mean squared error for a "defined features".

The OC Chapter's proposed statement does not prescribe the standard applied.

DWoolley

ekparian wrote:...i am not opposed to the proposed signage legislation necessarily, i am just curious as to why the feel the need for this? Why was this proposed? what are the perceived benefits?

Is it to help stop unlicensed surveyors? What good will it do and why was it proposed?
if it is to help prevent unlicensed surveyors, then i can be all for it, just trying to understand the need.

~Drexyl

There are a couple of primary reasons for the proposed signage legislation.

Before I begin, have you ever approached a land surveying field crew in a safe situation as they worked in public? Then you understand, often as not, they are as shifty as a jackdaw. Although they often share the same dress code, I have come to expect better professional pleasantries from the homeless folks. Now take these same characters and put them in someone’s background without permission digging holes (most folks do not know or understand a land surveyor’s right of entry). The public certainly will not know to look under the vehicles undercarriage for signs with contact information.

Approximately 2015-16 there was a bill that originated in the Central Valley that limited the access to property – I believe access was contingent upon permission. The bill was submitted in an effort to slow the High-Speed Rail and to prevent appraisers, soil testers, and other folks from wondering onto private property without permission. The bill did not recognize an exemption for land surveyors. The bill made it through the Assembly and the Senate and was stopped by a Governor Brown veto – HSR was his pet project. He also vetoed a couple of UAV (drone) bills that year. The takeaway is the bills made it through the Legislature and Governor Brown is no longer the Governor. Will Governor Newsom veto the same bills if presented again? Why leave it to chance? Several of Governor Brown's vetoed bills have been reintroduced under Governor Newsom.

The land surveyors work would be delayed weeks, sometimes months, and the cost would go up exponentially to perform a survey contingent upon permission to access property. For those counties that accept and file two monument tangos, imagine surveyors having to search for the back corners in a subdivision until there was a monument on either side of the property being established or in the event of no monumentation having to locate the improvements on two or three lots and date the same or having to locate the standard corners to breakdown a section according to the rules. Know that world does exist outside of those particular counties.

Besides being good practice, it may prove useful to show the Legislature the land surveying community, being “professionals” (wink), recognized the importance of being easily identifiable when using our right of entry and therefore, the right should be protected and not subject to any legislation that would limit the right of entry.

Reminder: The Legislature has passed two privacy laws recently.

Also, having a licensee’s name and number on the vehicles does put pressure on unlicensed practice. Years ago, we had an agency surveyor designated as the surveyor of record for 3 or 4 unlicensed firms. Three firms, two engineering firms and one land surveying firm, fielded multiple field crews during the week under his license. The firms avoided having to pay to have their own licensee. In my opinion, there is no way he was acting in responsible charge while working for the agency full time. Knowing him personally, a mild-mannered fellow, he would not have liked his name on these company trucks running all over the southland. Apparently, God changed his mind about these types of land surveying practices and called him home early, about 40 years early, in a T-bone accident on an early Sunday morning.

I have several other similar stories about unlicensed practice.

Also, side benefit, I occasionally run into a homeowner that says there was a surveyor in the neighborhood recently. Oftentimes a land surveyor will not complete their work and file a map for several months. I may find evidence, but no tags to follow up. If we can find each other before there is a problem and coordinate, bonus.

I welcome any better ideas on protecting our right of entry (besides the usual, "feet don't fail now!" approach) and helping the public identify the shifty homeless looking folks in their backyard with a shovel digging (for counties that require the surveyors to recognize senior lines and go around the block).

DWoolley

LS_8750 wrote:Back in the cannabis heydays, I would put a sticker on my truck so I wouldn't get shot at. Then I would take the sticker off so I wouldn't get shot at.

These days, for my forensic assignments, I just go around like Fletch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjJYNZirQCU

back in the day (early 1980's), up in the Emerald Triangle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Triangle) the Camp boys (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_ ... a_Planting) were known to pose as Surveyors.

when we were working on and around croplands we had to keep our heads down.
The growers where said to be "proactive". Hearing rapid-fire was not uncommon.

Today from NSPS
Labor Department Rescinds AAM 212; Reverses Rule on Davis-Bacon for Survey Crews
NSPS today announced it won a major victory in its efforts to enhance and promote professionalism in
surveying as the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor has rescinded All Agency
Memorandum (AAM) 212.
The Trump Administration released a new document, AAM 235 on December 14. It notes “AAM 212 is
rescinded effective immediately.”
AAM 212 was issued by the Obama Administration in 2013. It reversed more than 50 years of accepted
policy, dating back to the administration of President John F. Kennedy, that the prevailing wage
mandate of the Davis-Bacon Act only applied to members of survey crews as “laborers and mechanics”
to the extent they perform activities on a Federally-funded construction project site “such as clearing
brush and sharpening stakes”.
Since the issuance of AAM 212, NSPS has been on a nearly 7-year campaign to seek rescission of the
policy. It included testimony before Congress, meetings with individual Congressmen and Senators,
letters by design and construction trade associations and professional societies and taxpayer groups,
earning the assistance of the Small Business Administration (SBA), and longstanding negotiations with
the Department of Labor and the Wage and Hour Division.
NSPS argued that application of the controversial Depression-era Davis-Bacon Act was unnecessary and
imposed a considerable burden on surveying firms, many of which are small businesses. The Obama
Administration’s policy was implemented with no public notice, no opportunity for public comment, no
consultation with NSPS, no analysis of its economic impact or effect on small business, and no
demonstration of the need.
“Members of survey crews are critical to professional surveyors. They exercise judgment, make
decisions in the field, collect data, make calculations, and perform other tasks that are technical and
cognitive in nature and anything but ‘laborer and mechanic’ duties,” said NSPS Executive Director Curt
Sumner, LS. “AAM 235 recognizes modern surveying and the important role survey crew personnel
play. We commend and deeply appreciate the efforts of the Wage and Hour Division, Secretary of Labor
Eugene Scalia, and Deputy Secretary Patrick Pizzella for righting this wrong.”
Sumner added, “This important change in policy reaffirms that surveying is a profession and that
members of survey crews who support licensed surveyors are an important part of the professional
services our members provide. I want to commend our Government Affairs Committee, led by Pat
Smith, RPLS, of Texas, and our Government Affairs team of John Palatiello and John “JB” Byrd of John M.
Palatiello & Associates, Inc./Miller-Wenhold Capitol Strategies, LLC for their hard work getting us to this
victory.

In the early 90s there were discussions and concerns in the professional circles that land surveyors would become “button pushers” as the technology replaced the need to know or understand land surveying concepts. Now, 30 years later, we can clearly see the concerns were not misplaced. For context, at that time, if a person could make party chief before being 28-30 years old, presuming 6-8 years of experience, that person was considered a prodigy. At that time, land surveying was procedurally sophisticated, and the knowledge base was centered around identifying potential errors – the knowledge was based on a thorough understanding of equipment, specifications, and measurement analysis. In my own experience, I was always surrounded by knowledgeable professionals that spent a tremendous amount of time teaching me and those around me. The agency surveyors were typically the cream of the crop – well trained smart people that were smart when measured by any yardstick. The City of Los Angeles, Riverside County Flood, Caltrans, the County Surveyors all spoke to each other, minimally, on a monthly basis through LCSO and/or the Southern Chapter of ACSM. There were many private land surveyors that had the same knowledge.

As a single example, Ira Alexander, a land surveyor from the City of Los Angeles, wrote Special Publication 252, that provided the zone constants to hand calculate – the only way to determine state plane coordinates at the time – state plane coordinates. There were several people of this caliber around and their protégés were in the communities – there was a deep bench.

As with everything, all good things must end. We, as a community, have a rich history of knowledge and skills. This knowledge, although not practiced daily out of necessity, has a place in our community if we are to continue to exist. Land surveyors over 60 years old grew up learning different valuable skillsets. These folks have done their time and have largely moved away from the professional community – some of these well-trained knowledgeable folks reside within the public agencies and in private practice. We need them, their knowledge, to save this profession (again).

The technology will continue to replace the need to understand many concepts. The commoditizing of land surveying services, selling hours and running sweatshop conditions, where billable time determines the quality of the work product is the road to hades. A professional has obligations that are not contingent on a budget. Also, the profession needs to be emancipated from engineering - another article for another day.

I firmly believe land surveying needs to be recognized as a bonafide profession. A profession that is beyond reproach as to professional status - we are not there. To be a profession we must have a defined skillset that goes beyond “button pushing” - anyone with a GPS unit should not be considered a land surveyor. We need licensees from top to bottom, left to right, to perform all functions of land surveying. There is no room for anything less. No LSIT, no job - simple. It is not a bastion for the uninclined. We need to be strictly regulated and jackleg surveyors need to be brought into the fold.

Lastly, if we do not find a path to distinguish the profession, to move into a place of value in the oversight of data and the trades, we will be deregulated. I firmly believe this is the path we are traveling. The community needs to step up while we still have folks with the technical expertise available to guide us.

The forces organized to deregulate the profession have the momentum. I have attached the Little Hoover Report I have been referencing.

To the naysayers, come up with your own ideas and I will gladly support anything that restores our status as professionals. Be clear, it has to happen now. If you think the Little Hoover Commission report will be negated by your mad rants you are sorely mistaken. Drink the Orange Kool-aid or offer up your own plan without the bitterness. For those that find reading 50 pages to bothersome, read the two page Letter From The Chair.

DWoolley
.

John Proud:

Thank you for posting the NSPS announcement. This is a significant development, absolutely incredible.

I have reached out to John Palatiello and Curt Sumner for their continued work on this reclassification from laborers to professionals. These two gentlemen have worked tirelessly for over seven years to get this reclassification done. We owe them a debt of gratitude.

It is embarrassing that California is one of two states that has not joined NSPS through the professional association. CLSA members will note that the raising of CLSA dues each year in recent years by Orange County has been to create a financial delta to pay the NSPS dues. Yes, we have heard naysayers each time we suggest a raise in the dues.

I am ecstatic over this development.

DWoolley

Thanks for posting the NSPS announcement.
Maybe we are turning a corner?