10/03/2004 Quarterly Meeting Minutes

October 3, 2004, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm First annual “Face-to-Face” meeting

Called to Order 10:05a.m.

Roll call. A quorum was present.

Board Members Present Scott Ermer, Micah Cutler, Ron Koch, Gregg Hadish, Mark Coppersmith, Chad Olson, Herb Kuehne, Kris Tuttle, Dan Corbin, Joe Eckmann, Kevin Dicks (alt. for Shane McDermott), Gail Brown, Brad Cutler, Mark Warren, Todd Bishop, Jon Paoli, Mike Blank (alt. for Teresa Taylor), Bill Schuman, Sunday Tim, Kevin Kane, Anya Butt (via telephone), Marc Peterson (alt. for Ramanathan Sugumaran).

Others Present Alan Jensen, State GIS Coordinator, Paula Lemke, Barb Berquam, Jim Giglierano

Meeting started by Chair Kris Tuttle asking each member of the Executive Committee to introduce themselves.

OFFICER REPORTS

Chair - Kris Tuttle mentioned she had no official update. Much of her time has been spent trying to set a date for upcoming 2005 IGIC Conference. Best dates appear to be Aug 29 – Sept. 1 or last week in September. Other priorities needed include changes to By-Laws, budget and work plan.

Vice-Chair – Brad Cutler asked that dates for conference be determined by the end of today’s meeting. Possible theme for conference: “Iowa’s GIS Road Map: Work Zones, Speed Limits and Destination”. Conference committee is still looking for keynote speakers and would like to have a short list of candidates by end of 1st quarter 2005.

Treasurer - State GIS Coordinator Alan Jensen filled in for the absent Treasurer, Terry Brase. IGIC has finally been able to combine its two separate checking accounts (CTRE and the University of Iowa) into a single one. Some concerns over the fact that there is a discrepancy in the balance of this quarter vs. last quarter. CTRE amount is in question since there is no copy of their records. IGIC has asked CTRE for a detailed account record plus will have an informal audit done by the Treasurer’s wife.

Current balance is $23,386.50. There was no income for the 3rd quarter of FY 2003-04. Expenses included $1,554 for wages, $250 for NSGIC dues, $1,054 for ICN services and $150 for a booth at Sioux City’s SLUGFEST conference.

A question arose as to whether or not the State GIS Coordinator should have his own checkbook. Kris Tuttle proposed that someone initiate a motion to approve providing the GIS Coordinator with a checkbook. Barb Berquam asked if it wouldn’t be more fitting to discuss this topic during the review of By-Laws and budget matters. Board members agreed and no motion was made.

Secretary – Secretary Mark Warren reminded several members that they still needed to designate an alternate to serve in their absence. Mark mentioned that the current By-Laws were not completely clear regarding whether or not the alternate had to come from the same membership sector. The assumption was that they should. Kris Tuttle also reminded members that they can only miss one meeting per year, and that’s why alternates are so important.

Past Chair – Past-Chair Andy Kula was not present due to the fact he had taken a job in Alabama.

State GIS Coordinator – State Coordinator Alan Jensen announced that IGIC had received a $30,000 NSDI CAP grant for metadata education. Kevin Kane added that IGIC plans to hold metadata education sessions throughout the state. This will include teaching people how to upload data onto the State’s metadata server.

Alan mentioned he had attended the National State’s Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) conference in Austin, TX. This group has been influential at the national level in getting GIS resources down to the local level. 49 of the 50 states were represented. NSGIC has hired a liaison to lobby Congress for state and local issues. Also at the meeting, the USGS and FEMA approached Alan about completing the 10-meter DEMs for Iowa. FEMA also mentioned their map modernization program.

Alan also updated the Committee on the URISA addressing conference he attended in St. Louis in August. Future meetings include Sioux City’s SLUGFEST, GIS Day in Blackhawk County, and a meeting in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where they’ve asked Mr. Jensen to provide ideas on setting up a statewide GIS organization.

Comments following Mr. Jensen’s Update: Barb Berquam asked that the GIS Coordinator post an update on the IGIC Web page regarding his attendance at conferences. Micah Cutler asked Alan about the possibility of establishing a liaison between IGIC and ICIT. Kris Tuttle reminded IGIC members of the support IGIC receives from the Mid-America Geographic Information Consortium (MAGIC): not only does MAGIC help support IGIC’s biennial conference, but it also has a scholarship program to help pay for educational workshops at the IGIC conference. General comments on the accuracy of the membership listserve ensued. Micah mentioned that Patrick Brown at ISU is generating a new email list. Brad Cutler added that changes will soon be made that will enable members to edit their information on the listserve. Alan asked members to email him if they do not show up on the email list. He also reminded everyone that Jessica Clinton at ISU can answer basic IGIC administrative questions; her email address is clintonj@iastate.edu.

BOARD MEMBER PARTICIPATION CERTIFICATE

Alan Jensen passed out participation certificates and membership cards. This was in response to URISA’s certification program and for general professional development credit. Alan reminded everyone that the certification deadline had been established and that everyone needed to hurry up and apply.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Chair Kris Tuttle opened the summary of committee reports by stating that IGIC needs to review all its committees for meaningfulness. For example, the I-Team committee that has been in existence for several years was in response to a federal initiative that is now pretty well defunct.

1. Conference – Committee Chair Brad Cutler reminded members that the 2005 IGIC Biennial Conference will be held at the Scheman Center on the Iowa State campus. Micah Cutler followed up by mentioning that she had sent out a potential workshop survey to all IGIC members.
2. Cadastral – Committee Chair Micah Cutler reminded executive committee members that this committee had been abolished at the July, 2004 IGIC meeting. Its functions had been melded into a corresponding ICIT committee.
3. E-911 – Committee Chair Bill Schuman showed progress map of Iowa DOT’s Linear Referencing System (LRS) project. DOT is trying to achieve or exceed a spatial accuracy commensurate with 1:12,000-scale mapping. Work on fuller attribution of features is scheduled to begin by early November, 2004. The entire LRS project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2005. Kris Tuttle added that, to date, the LRS has been very handy for several counties throughout the state. Brad Cutler commented that the Resource Guide for the LRS on the IGIC Web site needs to be updated.
4. GPS – Committee Chair Dan Corbin admitted he’s not sure of who is even on this committee and that they have yet to meet. The only list IGIC has regarding membership for committees is Brad Cutler’s membership spreadsheet.
5. I-Team Committee- As mentioned earlier, no one on the Executive Committee knew what had become of this federal initiative. Membership was in general agreement that is was no longer meaningful. For this reason, Brad Cutler moved to abolish this committee, seconded by Micah Cutler. Motion approved unanimously.
6. Membership/Nominations – Committee Chair Kevin Kane mentioned that Alan Jensen has been working on membership issues over the last month. Alan had nothing additional to report at this time.
7. Natural Resources – Committee Chair Jim Giglierano noted that although this committee had not met in a while, a lot of things are starting to happen. Iowa DNR received a grant from FEMA for creating a flood mapping data inventory of local and state agencies throughout the state. Jim suggested this inventory be undertaken as a group project. Barb Berquam asked if a Web survey couldn’t be set up for this.
8. Weather/Climate/Environment – Committee Chair Andy Kula has taken a job out of state, so Jim Giglierano filled in for this meeting. Without Andy’s leadership in keeping this as a separate committee, it was suggested that this committee be merged back into the Natural Resoures Committee. Anya Butt moved to do so, seconded by Kevin Kane. The motion was unanimously approved.

Session adjourned for lunch at 12:30 pm.

The meeting resumed at 1:00 pm with a continuation of committee reports.

1. Newsletter – Discussion focused on the fact that there has been little to no interest in this committee for several years, and nothing was ever done to move things forward. For this reason, Micah Cutler moved that the Newsletter Committee be abolished. Joe Eckmann seconded the motion; members approved unanimously.
2. Remote Sensing – Committee Chair Todd Bishop provide a summary of a substantial number of projects either completed or underway. Todd mentioned that the statewide color infrared DOQ project was very successful. Coming up in the near future are three new projects:

1) 2-meter orthophoto updates through the USDA’s National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) for 2006. Cost to state is $275,000, of which $125,000 has been committed by DNR. Other state agencies or local governments will have to raise an additional $150,000.

2) The committee is looking into convincing the USGS to increase the frequency of 1-meter DOQ flights.

3) DNR has funded a project to scan and ortho-rectify historic photography first taken in the 1930’s for the 10 largest (population-wise) counties in the state. $160,000 has already been funded. The committee would like to eventually convert one flight for each decade.

Todd also brought up the fact that the State of Iowa has never helped to fund any of the National Aerial Photography Program (NAPP) flights used in creating digital orthophoto quarter-quad (DOQ) imagery, and therefore has never had any ownership in these products. Todd said he’d like to see the state participate in future funding, possibly through IGIC.

1. Education – Committee Chair Herb Kuehne offered that although not much had been done recently with the education committee, he still felt it should be maintained. In a related vein, Paula Lemke mentioned the ESRI/NACO software and training grant that will be provided to 37 Iowa counties and multiple departments. Eligibility requirements included: being a NACO member; not having a GIS system in place; and agreeing to attend a 3-hour overview of GIS as well as 3 hour’s worth of training (both at the ISAC conference). The recipients will receive full versions of ArcView with additional training consisting of 10 online ESRI courses in addition to on-site classes that will be taught at locations in the four corners of Iowa after they receive the software sometime this spring.

   In a related vein, Paula Lemke mentioned the ESRI/NACO software and training grant that was provided to 37 Iowa counties. These counties will receive full versions of ArcView with training consisting of an online course in addition to on-site classes that will be taught at locations in the four corners of Iowa and at the ISAC conference.

2. Strategic Plan – Discussion ensued on what to do with this committee. Kevin Kane pointed out that there has always been a strategic plan committee and that it is even mandated in the By-Laws. General consensus was to keep it but perhaps change to rules on how it is chaired. In the past, the past-chair of IGIC has always chaired this committee, but proposed changes (as would be discussed later in today’s meeting) may change that. Finally, Barb Berquam volunteered to chair the strategic plan committee, with Herb Kuehne offering to assist.

FUTURE PROJECTS AND PLANNING

Discussions for the remainder of the afternoon centered on proposed changes in some aspects of IGIC’s By-Laws. The discussion was initiated by Brad Cutler and Ron Koch. Main topics of discussion were as follows:

Consolidation of IGIC Sectors

Central question in this discussion was whether or not some sectors were better represented than others based on a sector member/sector representative ratio. Ron Koch provided a tabular summary of current representation. Ron made raised the possibility of reducing the current 8 sectors to 6 by merging the county/municipal sectors into one sector and the University-College/Community College into one sector. Barb Berquam and Kris Tuttle expressed their concerns that counties and municipalities have significantly different needs and mandates and should be kept separate. There seemed to be general consensus on this point. As for consolidating the education sector, it was pointed out there were good reasons for separating out universities and community colleges in the original By-Laws and that those reasons are still there. It was suggested that instead of consolidating the education sector, a new education sector should actually be created, one that encompasses K-12 levels and the Area Education Agency. Moreover, general consensus was to maintain executive board membership at the current level of 25.

Preliminary consensus was that the number of sectors should be expanded by one and that representatives be re-apportioned as follows:

Sector # of Reps K-12/AEA 1 Community College 1 University/College 4 Municipality 3 County 4 Regional Organization 2 State 4 Federal 2 Private 4 Total: 25

Compensation for Executive Board Members

Ron Koch also raised the possibility of IGIC Executive Board members being reimbursed for their time serving IGIC. Bill Schuman (state sector rep) said that time spent by state employees on advisory boards is considered a work assignment and part of state employment, and therefore cannot be compensated separately. He also stated that compensation for services rendered would probably fall under the umbrella of consulting services, for which the state requires a competitive bid. Mark Coppersmith (federal sector rep) stated federal rules allow travel and mileage costs to be reimbursed, but not labor. Chair Kris Tuttle mentioned that reimbursement for services would also be a problem with the City of Des Moines. Also, Kevin Kane felt that establishing separate reimbursement accounts for each representative would be unmanageable and that the best way to handle this would be to have an IGIC budget with a line item for reimbursement expenditures. Final consensus was that mileage and other travel expenses should be compensated and would be paid for through a single budgetary reimbursement line item.

Election of Executive Committee members and IGIC Sector Representatives

Another change in the By-Laws proposed by Brad Cutler would be that all Executive Committee officers, with the exception of the vice-chair, would be elected to two-year terms. The vice-chair position would still only be a one-year term. This change would affect the Treasurer and Secretary positions, which are currently both one-year terms.

While no discussion followed this proposal, a related topic surfaced on whether or not to allow general membership to vote for representatives from all sectors, not just the sector to which they belonged. This discussion was based on feedback from prior elections, which acknowledged the difficulty in tracking who should vote in which sector and in members not always knowing GIS people from their own sector. To this end, Bill Schuman moved that Brad Cutler revise the wording of the By-Laws to state that the general IGIC membership is allowed to vote for IGIC Board representatives from all sectors. Motion was seconded by Herb Kuehne and approved unanimously.

Also up for questioning was the exact time for elections. Brad Cutler suggested the voting date be changed to a day during the IGIC Conference. Barb Berquam offered that elections be held soon after the beginning of the budget year. Kevin Kane asked if the IGIC Web page could be set up to allow members to vote online; this was met with positive response, with members agreeing it should be pursued.

Conference Meeting Date

Because of conflicts with numerous other GIS conferences, the IGIC Board is still grappling with establishing a consistent time of year during which to hold the biennial conference. Some felt it would be best to hold it in the spring of the following year after the MAGIC conference. Others felt it was important to make sure it was held before the annual ESRI conference in the summer. Chair Kris Tuttle suggested that Ames should become the permanent site of the conference. No conclusion was reached.

MEETING ADJOURNMENT

Chad Olson moved to adjourn the first annual face-to-face meeting of the IGIC Board. Bill Schuman seconded the motion. Motion was unanimously approved and the meeting was adjourned at 3:03 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Mark Warren, Secretary