07/21/2004 Quarterly Meeting Minutes

Meeting began at 10:02 am

Board Members present: Shane McDermott, Todd Bishop, Joe Eckmann, Chad Olson, Teresa Taylor, Micah Cutler, Brad Cutler, Rick Havel, Jim Phillips (alt. for Gregg Hadish), Mark Coppersmith, Kris Tuttle, Sunday Tim, Tom Sampson (alt. for Bill Schuman), Kevin Kane, Chris Seeger, Mark Warren, Gail Brown, Dan Corbin, Marc Peterson (alt. for Ramanathan Sugumaran), Herb Kuehne, and Ron Koch

Others Present Alan Jensen, Iowa GIS Coordinator, Paula Lemke, Barb Berquam, Ben McConville, Jim Giglierano, Gary Brown, Jill Hockenburg, Chris Ensminger, Rog Patocka, Chris Solberg

The submitted agenda for the current meeting was amended to include elections for the Executive Committee positions of Vice-Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer. According to the IGIC bylaws, these elections will be added as the last order of business during the business portion of the meeting. Amended agenda previous month’s committee meeting minutes were motioned for approval by Herb Kuehne, seconded by Ron Koch. Without objections they were accepted.

Executive Committee Reports

Chair Kris Tuttle performed roll call and welcomed participants with special acknowledgement going to new incoming members of the IGIC Board. Kris acknowledged Past-Chair Andy Kula and his service, input, and help to IGIC over the last several years and wished Andy well in his new position with the National Weather Service in Huntsville, Alabama. In giving her report, Kris reported that 15% of eligible members of IGIC voted in the recent Board elections. She also stated that the Community College sector had only one voter submit a ballot to determine the election. Kris also stated that she has worked with Alan in putting together certificates to give to Board representatives. This topic will be discussed further in the Future Projects section of the meeting.

In stating her goals for the upcoming Chair term, Kris looked towards the introduction of a new membership packet for members within the next 3 to 6 months, updating of the IGIC tri-fold pamphlet, placing a spot on the IGIC website to link to projects that members are participating in, meeting with the IGIC Board annually in a face to face manner in the form of an operational planning meeting, updating of bylaws, the increased need to have educational workshops, establishing how Iowa fits the framework standard for the National Map, and increasing Iowa participation in MAGIC as being priority areas to explore. It was also noted that Iowa received 2 out of the 4 distributed excellence awards presented by MAGIC. One of the awards went to Kevin Kane and the ISU GIS Facility and the other went to an educational program associated with the 4H Program.

Treasurer Terry Brase was unable to attend the meeting so Alan Jensen reported that the IGIC bank account balance as of July 15, 2004 was $35,390.16. Between 4/14/04 and 7/21/04 there was no IGIC income and disbursements were sent out totaling $1779.89 leaving the IGIC balance at $35,390.16 as of July 21, 2004. This total does include expenses for Jessica Clinton and NSGIC Annual dues but does not include deposits coming from CTRE. Funds from University of Iowa and Iowa State University IGIC conferences have been moved into a bank account with Commercial Federal. Terry has a checkbook and has been writing checks to pay IGIC bills since late May. Money that was being held by CTRE will be deposited pending Terry receiving last years expense records. When that occurs, all IGIC money will be combined in one account and a complete accounting of monies will be given.

Committee Reports

Reporting for the Conference Committee, Kris Tuttle said that she will be staying on the Conference Committee to help in preparations for the September 2005 Conference in Ames. No other activity reported pending elections of Vice-Chair position that will begin chairing this committee immediately.

Due to Cadastral Committee inactivity and overlap in function between this Committee and the Iowa Counties Information Technology Group, Micah Cutler made the motion to: “Drop the Cadastral Committee and let the Iowa Counties Information Technology (ICIT) organization handle those issues formally accomplished by the IGIC Cadastral Committee. It shall also be resolved to appoint Micah Cutler as the liaison between ICIT and IGIC to foster contacts between the two groups.” This motion was seconded by Rick Havel and without any further discussion or dissent the motion was passed unanimously.

The Clearinghouse Committee has largely consisted of Patrick Brown and Kevin Kane over the last several years as they have been putting together the Iowa GIS Clearinghouse at ISU. Now that this project has been underway for some time, Kevin will attempt to get input from other interested parties within IGIC.

For the last several years it was reported by Kris Tuttle that only she and Bill Schuman have been members of the E911 Databases Committee and they have not done a great deal of work in the recent past.

No report was given by a member of the GPS Committee. Upon hearing no activity from this Committee, Dan Corbin volunteered his services to Chair the GPS Committee.

Alan Jensen reported for the I-Team Committee that Ron Mazner is no longer with the I-Team Initiative at the Federal level. Since Mr. Mazner left the initiative, Alan has not had any contact with a federal representative in the project for the last 6-8 months. It is the recommendation from Alan that the I-Team Committee be placed on suspension until he can learn more information about the ongoing/current activities of the I-Team Initiative. The Board agreed and asked for a future update.

There was no report of current or recent activity by a member of the Membership Committee. Todd Bishop explained to the board his recent attempts to ascertain IGIC membership status of Iowa DNR personnel. He inquired into the possibility of getting a membership list of current IGIC members out to board members or placing a membership roster on the IGIC website. Several other board members brought up privacy issues that would need to be addressed or raised with placing a membership roster on the IGIC website. Chris Seeger proposed looking into the possibility of “rasterizing” the membership list and then placing it online so that it would make it more difficult for harvesting of membership info for spam purposes. Micah Cutler stated that the Iowa Counties Information Technology (ICIT) organization places their membership information on their website and do not have spam issues arise with this practice. She recommended that Patrick Brown contact Scott Williams in Marshall County about what practices he uses to get around spam issues. Rick Havel proposed the submission of semi-annual reports on issues being faced by membership by the Sectoral representatives. Alan Jensen stated for clarification that the official membership list used by IGIC business purposes including the latest Sectoral elections is the email distribution list. Kevin Kane volunteered his services to assist in Membership Committee activities. Kevin requests that any input on committee activities be sent to him and that he needs an updated membership list from Alan to move forward.

Discussion pertaining to the Natural Resources Committee was acknowledging that this Committee is still a valid and important Committee that should be kept even though its members have not met in some time.

Remote Sensing Chair Todd Bishop reported that his group has been extremely active and successful in its activities in the two years since he took over as chair. In his tenure, this Committee has been able to produce the cooperative venture to produce the Iowa CIR project that had 50 cooperating funding partners that raised $1.4 million to produce a set of statewide color-infrared imagery. This group was also able to raise enough money to provide $60,000 to the Iowa Geographic Image Map Server. The next meeting to discuss future activities of this Committee will be held on August 3rd, 2004 at Rathbun Regional Water. If anyone is interested in learning more about this committee or attending the next meeting, they are requested to contact Todd Bishop with the Iowa DNR so that proper arrangements can be made for their attendance.

Alan Jensen stated that he would like in the next month or month and a half to get ideas from board members so that a date can be set for a meeting of the Executive Committee can hold an operational planning meeting to discuss developing a budget and long-term initiatives. Barb Berquam stated that the bylaws of IGIC needed to be reviewed within the next month so that recommendations could be brought back to the IGIC Board. It was also reiterated that there is a large need for a strong membership committee so that IGIC members know who is who. Kris Tuttle recommended that the Executive Committee meet to discuss bylaws. Herb Kuehne stated that IGIC members have lost contact with one another and he recommends that the next IGIC quarterly meeting be a face-to-face meeting with arrangements and location be established by the IGIC Executive Committee. It is Herb’s recommendation that the meeting be held between the hours of 10 or 11 am until 2 or 3 pm to accommodate people’s drive times and that IGIC hopefully provide some sort of snack to attendees. It was the general consensus of the IGIC Board that the next meeting be held face-to-face sometime in October. At that meeting it was requested that bylaws, strategic planning, and membership committees will have corresponded ahead of time and bring recommendations/changes to the IGIC Executive Committee for further review.

The Weather, Climate & Environment Committee report was given by Jim Giglierano who expressed his best wishes to outgoing IGIC Chair Andy Kula in his new appointment out of state. It was reported that with the exit of Andy, Jim would be arranging the next meeting of this Committee. He hopes to have this Committee meet some time in the last week in August in Iowa City. For further details, look for an announcement via the IGIC list-serv or contact Jim directly.

Board member Herb Kuehne noted that there had been talk at the last several meetings about activity surrounding an Education Committee of IGIC. Herb volunteers his time to look into getting this committee moving forward.

The report from the Nominations Committee consisted of acknowledging new, incoming members of the IGIC Board. Those new members for the 2004-2006 term are as follow: Scott Ermer representing the Community Colleges sector; Gail Brown, Dan Corbin, and Shane McDermott in the Private Sector; Chad Olson in the Municipal Sector; Mark Coppersmith representing the Federal Agency; Ron Koch in the County Government; Mark Warren for Regional Organization; Anya Butt, Chris Seeger, and Sunday Tim in the University/College Sector; and Teresa Taylor from the State Agency Sector.

According to the IGIC bylaws, the last order of business for the first IGIC quarterly meeting of the year, elections for Executive Committee positions must be held. The Nominations Committee solicited the following IGIC Board Members for Executive Committee positions. For the upcoming term of Vice-Chair, Brad Cutler was nominated. Terry Brase was nominated for the Treasurer position and Mark Warren was nominated to fill the position of Secretary. No other nominations were received. Herb Kuehne made a motion to approve the IGIC Slate of Executive Committee nominees with Kevin Kane seconding that motion. Via a roll call vote of all present Executive Committee members, the election results were as follows: Cutler (Vice-Chair, 21 aye, 0 nay); Brase (Secretary, 21 aye, 0 nay); and Warren (Secretary, 21 aye, 0 nay). Elections completed.

Current Projects and Issues

As was reported during the Treasurer’s report, IGIC now has a functioning bank account and that Terry is awaiting transfer of further funding out of the CTRE account. At that time, Terry will prepare a detailed and complete accounting of monies to the Board.

In his Coordinator’s report, Alan Jensen said that IGIC is waiting on a USDA/NASA grant for funding a Geospatial Specialist position. He expects to hear details on that announcement before the end of July. The first round of GIS training at ISU had maximum capacity for all but one of the courses. Monica Haddad and the facility are looking at offering the courses again in late October or early November due to the heavy demand. Alan has also been working through Extension on helping a small Iowa community (Polk City) develop a city-wide GIS. Things are moving well on the project and the city even sent several of their staff to the GIS training sessions provided by ISU.

The issue of the State GIS Coordinator funding was discussed. IGIC made a contribution for the 2003 fiscal year in the amount of $5,000. Kevin Kane made the following motion: “IGIC shall put $5,000 towards the salary of the Iowa GIS Coordinator for fiscal year 2004-2005.” Chris Seeger seconded the motion and with no objections the resolution passed unanimously.

Alan gave an update on the state ESRI educational license that he and Terry Brase had been working on. Terry will need to continue to work to get the project passed by the Iowa Board of Regents. All Alan could elaborate was that there are issues with the proposal that need to be dealt with.

There has been a verbal request made to Alan for him to attend the URISA GIS in Addressing-Street Smart and Address Savvy Conference in St. Louis, MO by the Iowa DOT. Alan expected that housing, registration, and travel expenses for the conference to be $1,200 - $1,500. Kris said that she had been to several of these conferences and that they were extremely beneficial. Micah Cutler inquired as to whether or not IGIC could fund a portion of Kris’ registration and better use funds to send Alan to another conference to avoid duplication. Kevin Kane responded that IGIC had not sponsored travel in the past except to NSGIC and MAGIC which have been major conferences IGIC has had a role in sponsoring and did not feel as if it would be a good idea to fund a Board members expense, even partially. Since the request was made verbally by the IDOT, comment was solicited by the lone Iowa DOT representative at the meeting, Tom Sampson, alternate for Bill Schuman. Tom had no comment as he was unaware of the situation. Herb questioned if this was truly where IGIC’s mission and resources should be placed. Kevin Kane asked for a one-page justification from the Iowa DOT via email in the next week for a roll call vote to be conducted via email of Board members. Alan will get this info to the Board as quickly as possible as the conference begins the 29th of August.

It was requested by Alan for some sort of stipend or allowance is given to the IGIC Coordinator to cover expenses relating to the operation of a cell phone for IGIC business. As IGIC Coordinator, Alan reported that he travels out of the office approximately 80% of the time and during those times he can be difficult to reach. Since he pays for the cell phone out of his own pocket he has historically been reluctant to give the number out readily. His current plan costs $39.00 per month and allows for 1,000 minutes of airtime through U.S. Cellular. Micah Cutler motioned: “IGIC shall allow $468 per year ($39 monthly by 12 months) reimbursable allowance to the IGIC Coordinator to cover cellular phone expenses related to IGIC business.” The motion was seconded by Kevin Kane and without further discussion was approved unanimously by the IGIC Board.

After a half an hour recess for lunch, the IGIC Business meeting resumed with discussion centering on the topic of IGIC membership verification. Picking up on discussion from the last quarterly meeting, currently Alan is planning on providing certificates of membership to board members and those IGIC members who presented educational components at the IGIC conference or quarterly meetings. Ron Koch would like to see verification and documentation taken back for the history of IGIC since there is a record of IGIC Board member participation through the years. Kris would like to establish a link on the IGIC website to certification requirements and would like to see the IGIC Membership Committee determine and define membership within IGIC. There is also going to be a future need for IGIC to establish participation hours in IGIC sponsored educational workshops and this should be another issue addressed by the Membership Committee.

The next IGIC quarterly meeting has yet to be formally scheduled but should be held sometime in the middle week of October. Kris will also go ahead and schedule the other meeting dates for the upcoming year.

Following the Educational and Development Session presentation given by Carl Nestingen, the Database Administrator with the City of Des Moines on the topic “From Master Address List to GIS Enabled Data Warehouse”, the meeting was moved for adjournment by Herb Kuehne with a second by Mark Coppersmith. Meeting adjourned at 1:54 pm.

Respectfully submitted Brad Cutler, Secretary