California Surveyors Forums

Should public sector Land Surveyors be required to stamp their survey monuments as is required of private sector Land Surveyors?

I can't remember specifics but I know I have seen agency tags with the CEs registration number on it.

BLM land surveyors do not necessarily have stamps to do their legal surveys/resurveys for the Land Department.

I don't see why not. It would greatly help to determine a rough timeline when they were set, among other obvious reasons.

Sometimes you find a local agency street monument and you have no idea when it was set so you can pinpoint a basis of research. who at the agency was in responsible charge, etc.

I can't think of reason not to, and yes, I am in the public sector. I've never had an issue of stamping corner records in the past, as far as ROS and monumenting new R/W with a stamped tag, we'll conform. Seems like more of an internal issue than a law issue.

476. Code of Professional Conduct – Professional Land Surveying
To protect and safeguard the health, safety, welfare, and property of the public, every person who is licensed by the Board as a professional land surveyor or professional civil engineer legally authorized to practice land surveying, including licensees employed in any manner by a governmental entity or in private practice, shall comply with this Code of Professional Conduct.

(a) Compliance with Laws Applicable to a Project:
A licensee shall provide professional services for a project in a manner that is consistent with the laws, codes, ordinances, rules, and regulations applicable to that project.

So if the law requires the license number be part of the monument set by the professional,as in the PLSA for example, it would be the same requirement for the licensee without regard to the employment status of the professional.

There is an exception in the section for monuments set by public agencies...

8772. Marking of monuments
Any monument set by a licensed land surveyor or registered civil engineer to mark or reference a point on a property or land line shall be permanently and visibly marked or tagged with the certificate number of the surveyor or civil engineer setting it, each number to be preceded by the letters “L.S.â€￾ or “R.C.E.,â€￾ respectively, as the case may be or, if the monument is set by a public agency, it shall be marked with the name of the agency and the political subdivision it serves.
Nothing in this section shall prevent the inclusion of other information on the tag which will assist in the tracing or location of the survey records which relate to the tagged monument.


Personally I think they should all be marked by the LS or RCE number. However I don't see this passing, unless there is an overwhelming swell from the public to require doing so. PECG opposes it. There is a line in the sand between public and private surveyors (for the most part). I think pretty much all private surveyors are for it and probably 95% of public surveyors are against it. CLSA membership has both sides as members.

One thing to note is that there is no exemption from filing Records of Surveys or Corner Records by public agencies. 8773.4 (b) are the only exemptions from filing CRs that I can find. The exceptions for an RS by public employees is not an exception per say because technically they still have to send in a map, but it does not get recorded:

8765. Record of survey - exemptions
A record of survey is not required of any survey:
(a) When it has been made by a public officer in his or her official capacity and a reproducible copy thereof, showing all data required by Section 8764, except the recorder’s statement, has been filed with the county surveyor of the county in which the land is located. Any map so filed shall be indexed and kept available for public inspection.

How many Cities keep centerline ties, but don't require them to be filed as corner records? How many agencies file those unrecorded RS's at the end of their projects? I see the County's do as County Surveyor maps, or Filed Maps, or Monumentation Maps. And Caltrans does file RS's, at least in my area (Dist. 7, 8, 12).

I think if we cannot get the exemption from marking monuments removed, we should change the law to require the date plus agency name be stamped on the monument tag or washer or cap.

I cannot come up with a reason against it if they are marking boundary/centerlines with their points. Can there be a valid reason for this?

IMO, yes they (we) should.

So that should also include Cal Trans, DWR, etc. etc.?

The phrase, " . . .including licensees employed in any manner by a governmental entity. . ." would be for those private licensed surveyors who are employed by a government agency that does not have survey authority; such as the Forest Service.

BLM surveyors are not required to be licensed and are required to be qualified under Office of Personnel Management requirements.

It should be noted that being State licensed is one way to become qualified to be a Land Surveyor under the OPM requirements.

It is a Federal requirement.

Back in my younger days in the 60's, our boss encouraged us to become licensed with the State, and mainly to be able to tell those who criticized us for not being registered, that we too not only met the requirements of the Federal Government and was registered too.

I happen to be licensed in Montana in 1969,#3105S.

It seemed to satisfy those who criticized us, and apparently are still people who want to argue the case.

It ain't going to happen, to require land surveyors 1373 to be licensed, so why not talk about something that might happen and something that you may have voice in making it happen.

For instance, the bogus theory of subdividing sections. Those of you who post about State licensing, also have to know about the bogus theory.

Make yourselves active in an issue that you can do something about!

You can find out all you want to know about this issue on http://www.rpls.com under my posting.

I must have misunderstood, I did not see where this invovled BLM, but would impact surveys done by "local" and state agencies within Calif. We all know how far we would get trying to impose a requirement on the Federal government.

IMO, stamping the agency name, year and LS number should be required for public sector.

Ryan: Funny, four out of five public sector employees who polled or opined, voted yes.

I noticed that. Maybe that was an assumption on my part.

BTW - Here is the most recent text of the bill, AB 1063, amended May 6th...The rundown is that state employees under this version of AB 1063 would still be exempt. Local public agency employees would be required to use their tag number in addition to the name of the agency on monument tags.

http://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB1063

Contact CLSA Leg Comm and let them know what you think.

I am assuming that "public sector Land Surveyors" would include BLM surveyors?

Keith;

I think we are talking about any Land Surveyors who are affected by State law. That would exclude Federal employees.

If that is what it is, then it should be said that way!

The question does not involve BLM. It is about surveyors operating under state license authority. The issue has been/is being debated in one or more CLSA committees.


It would include all state and local agencies that under current law only need to include the agency name on monuments and are not required to include the LS in responsible charge.

At State Lands, we place the license # of the LS in responsible charge on the mons we set, as it should be. IMO, no reason for a (state or local) public agency to conceal (or not disclose) the LS in responsible charge.

Our caps have the dept name on them plus I stamp my LS number, year and other relevant information. Our monuments are better than 99% of private sector monuments.

Dave Karoly, PLS wrote:Our caps have the dept name on them plus I stamp my LS number, year and other relevant information. Our monuments are better than 99% of private sector monuments.

You mean aside from the c-nail set in miller lite bottle cap as shiner I found in Hayward of course...

My apologies for not clarifying this question. I was referring to state, county and city agencies and not federal.

Mea Culpa.

The beer cap shiner reminds me of a survey in Dulzura, rugged back country. I was involved in a boundary dispute and my client told me about a slew of pipes with shiny brass caps and lots of numbers and writing in them had been set. Turns out the neighbor had set his own pipes and placed inverted shotgun shells in the 3/4" pipes. They looked real neat from eye level looking down. They had a center punch and all. I told him there were no surveyors names "Remington."

I told him there were no surveyors named "Remington."

Except for LS 4471 and LS 8448, of course. :)

In the early 1980s I worked for a couple of weeks with a guy from Oregon named Remington. He was related to the arms manufacturing family, but I don't think he ever got licensed.

.

Evan- Thanks for clarifying what I was trying to say.

I, also, am now a State employee, Caltrans District 4 R/W Engineering. I am also "in responsible charge" of all monumentation records of surveys for the District. Our District is 9 counties, 4 field offices and approximately 12 field crews spread across that area. Having an assortment of caps and tags, with my number, for that kind of situation, could become a logistical challenge.

Having said that, I too, voted for requiring ALL public sector monuments be stamped with the responsible charge LS's number. Like land butcher, I have found numerous older R/W monuments, particularly in the north state, stamped with the in charge RCE number... and corresponding recorded ROS. It gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling about the pedigree for that monument.

Michael- Wanted to thank you for speaking at our Surveys Academy II a couple of months ago. I think we touched on this subject then. There is a definite division regarding this among my peers here.

RAM- Glad to Tioga is open... good for fishing... not so good for water supply. As you can see from above, I no longer live in God's country, but still have the property.