FROM THE PRESIDENT:

I was going to open with we’ve made it through the brunt of winter, but it’s snowing out and the wind chill is –25. We’ve a ways to go, but it won’t be long and the contractors will be back like robins and looking for stakes.

I recently attended the Minnesota Society of Professional Surveyors Annual Meeting in St. Cloud, their equivalent of our Annual Convention. It is interesting to see how other states function, both procedurally and the different legal issues encountered due to State law. Due to the number of attendees (as proud as they are about their lakes, there must still be enough land to survey), they have three concurrent sessions that can be attended. The sessions I attended covered CFedS, Mediating Boundary Disputes, Laser Scanning and Being an Expert Witness. One I did not attend was on Torrens Registration Process. In Minnesota and Iowa and a few other States where the Torrens process is available, if a property transfer uses the Torrens process, the State guarantees title on the land, and in my limited understanding, research of title and other issues with the property needs only go back to this Torrens transfer. This could reduce the amount of time required researching a property that has a lot of history. Minnesota has recently gone to a 22x34 inch plat format (and I believe only that size). I still haven't found out how South Dakota's unusual 15x26 inch format originated. I thought it interesting that property corners are allowed to be set within one year of the Plat date, as stated in their Plat certificates.

I'm not saying that these are all good things, or that our system is broke. These are just observations from across the border. The point made is that there is benefit from observing what occurs in other states. Observations could result in discovering something that could work in South Dakota.

Part of what your Society does is to consider ideas that can benefit our Profession and also the public we serve. If something is broke, we'll try to fix it. If something works better, we'll try to implement it. You can all improve our Society and Profession by contributing your observations and ideas of what might be broke and what might work better in South Dakota.

Gary Andersh
SDSPLS President 2008