PLSO The Oregon Surveyor May/June 2021

7 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org OrYSN Corner What do you think are good template inclusions for Young Surveyors? What are some style choices you think should be uniform? OrYSN Corner Leo Litowich, PLS (OR & AZ) OrYSN Chair Up for Debate: Surveying and the Quest for Perfection T here is more than one way to skin a cat. As surveyors, we have a lot of options on how to practice our pro- fessionwithin statutory and administrative rules. However, when recording a survey, not everything is uniform across Oregon. I once owned a t-shirt that said, “Nine out of ten dentists think the tenth dentist is an idiot,” and sometimes I feel like that tenth dentist when I forget local customs. One of my past instructors, Mitch Duryea, PLS, operates a land survey business that works across multiple states. He and his employees cannot be experts in the nu- ance of every individual jurisdiction, so his advice to us was to ask the locality for the “best” survey filed in thepast year. Fromthat survey, he could find out what the approv - er was looking for. In Oregon, we could all rattle off the list from ORS 209.250: Scale, North Arrow, Business Name and Phone Number, etc. to the tune of the Big Mac jingle, but each area’s nuances are hard- er to pin down. As an employee of a land development civ- il engineering firm in Salem, I work with a teamthat takes projects between the south- ern extreme of Portland and the northern extreme of Eugene. That has me regularly working in Clackamas, Marion, Polk, Ben- ton, and Linn counties, along with the city of Salem. Everyone I have worked with in these jurisdictions knows the ORS BigMac jingle with Township, Range, and Section on a sesame seed bun. But each jurisdic- tion has their own requirements regarding such features as hatching, grayscale, and dateofmonumentationversusdateofmap. As a new licensee, I am still perfecting my drawing template. For now, my template has a library of “received for filing” blocks or blank spaces, and I’m using a north ar- row that looks okay pointing to the left for the Tri-county Drafting Standards. I’ve made sure that all my bearings have lead- ing zeros, and I don’t mask any lot lines or property lines. It has been hard for me to go any further though. Many require- ments don’t overlap or are in contrast to each other. When I send review copies to Benton County, I place a “draft” stamp dig- itally or physically over my stamp. When I send review copies to other jurisdictions, anything that is not a mylar or vellum is presumed to be a draft. For you Old Surveyors, what do you think are good template inclusions for Young Surveyors? In addition, what are some style choices you think should be uniform? For instance, do you think we should se- quence our curve tags with lot numbering, or should we move concentrically across the street? Should we be using title blocks for our stamp, client, and PLSS location, or should we make the best use of the white space available on the page? There are a few old social maxims that Americansmay know even if they don’t fol- low them. Themost famousmay be not to wearwhite after LaborDay. For your consid- eration, I would put “open symbols for set, closed symbols for found, and something obviously different for a calculated point.” Every now and then I run into someone who thinks Ꙩ is a good symbol for “noth- ing found or set.” I get bummed out when I find that there is a lot less evidence in the field thanmy first glance at the survey would indicate. Everyyear at theconference,wehaveamap contest. When you consider your choice, is it by degree of difficulty, skill of presenta - tion, or the survey you agree with most? If land surveying was like Hollywood, we would have a lot more submissions and many more categories: • “Best Original Narrative” • “Most Outstanding Use of a Viewport” • Oscar winning short – “Found three, set one.” • “Best Leader in a Supporting Role” • And Best Foreign Filmwould, of course, be a Metric survey Apart from the statutory requirements, what nuance or technique are you most proud of? I’ll start. The text in my drawing template is German Road Sign Font, DIN 1451, whichMicrosoft has adapted as Bahn- schrift. If someone going Autobahn speed can read it, I think it makes for a reproduc- ible survey while being condensed enough for my subdivision plats. See what others around the office have to say—maybewe’ll end up as a community with some thrilling blocks and wipeouts! x