Agenda

AGENDA

MEETING: Maine Library of Geographic Information Board
DATE: Wednesday, July 20, 2005
TIME: 10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
LOCATION: Burton M. Cross Building, Conference Room 105

1. Approval of the June 15 minutes

2. Updates

Appointments to the Board (Liz Hertz, Judy Mathiau)
Contact with SPO Director & GeoLibrary Board Chairs
Meeting w/ Dick Thompson & GeoLibrary Board Chairs
Meeting w/ GIS Executive Council & GeoLibrary Board Chairs

3. Meeting with GIS Executive Council Reps (tentative)

4. Subcommittee Reports

Finance
Policy
GeoLibrary Board Marketing
Technical

a. GEO Portal proposals

b. Orthoimagery Project (Larry)

c. Parcel Grants (Larry)

d. Consultant Services/County Commissioners (Dan)

4. Term Expiration of Board Members

5. Other Business

NEXT SCHEDULED MEETING
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
10:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Burton M. Cross Building, Conference Room 105

MINUTES

GeoLibrary Board Meeting
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
COB – Conference Room 105

Members Present
Jim Page, Chair
Marilyn Lutz, Vice Chair
Barbara Charry, Representing Environmental Interests
Robert Faunce, Representing Statewide Association of Counties
Will Mitchell, Representing GIS Vendors (Conference In)
Jon Giles, Representing Municipal Government
Tom Howker, Designee for Dick Thompson, CIO
Ken Murchison, Representing Statewide Association of Regional Councils (Conference In)
Members Not Present
Dennis Boston, Representing Utility Interests
Dick Thompson, Representing State Government
William Hanson, Representing Real Estate and Development Interest
Paul Mateosian, Representing Municipal Government
Sean Myers, Representing the Public
Staff
Larry Harwood, Maine Office of GIS
Dan Walters, Maine Office of GIS

Next GeoLibrary Board meeting is August 17, 2005

Waiting for members to arrive to reach a quorum, Jim opened the meeting with discussions on

Agenda Item #2. Updates - Appointments to the Board.

Jim noted that Elizabeth (Liz) Hertz’s appointment has been certified and she will be on the Board representing GIS activities from a state agency. The nominated representative (designee) for the Commissioner of Administrative & Financial Services (Judy Mathiau) is waiting appointment by the Commissioner. Robert Faunce announced he would not be seeking re-appointment (term expiring September 2005) to the Board and will be recommending Ken Honey, Lincoln County Commissioner to replace him on the Board. Jim Page and Will Mitchell will be seeking re-appointment as their term expires in September 2005. Also expiring September 2005 are the Chair and Vice Chair positions to the Board.

Marilyn, and other Board members, commented on their regret that Bob Faunce was leaving the Board as he had contributed so much to the Board’s efforts.

CONCLUSION: In moving re-appointments forward, Larry will be letting members, whose term is expiring this year, know who the staff person is they should be sending their letter of re-appointment to. Board members will need to elect a new Chair and Vice Chair at the September meeting.

It was noted that the bond is still alive and has been carried over to the next session.

Jim shared with the Board his and Marilyn’s meeting with Martha Freemen (Executive Director for the State Planning Office (SPO)) and Liz Hertz. The meeting included the following items:

Reviewed the history of the SPO and GeoLibrary Board and that SPO was instrumental in getting the Board moving forward in its efforts.
Jim re-introduced the Board and asked for the Board to be included on the SPO agenda.
Executive Director Freeman was attentive and interested in listening to Jim’s discussion regarding the GeoLibrary Board and the State Planning Office endeavor. At this time, Executive Director Freeman was not able to make any commitments.
A major focus of the meeting was the next round of bonds. Jim noted the lessons learned by the Board from the last round of bonds and the Board would like to get in the game very early on in its efforts to request bond money for the GeoLibrary Board. The Board is looking for allies and needs support from SPO to represent the Board to the Legislature/Governor’s Office. Martha was interested and supportive of the Board getting involved in the process and did give a couple of political pointers.
Jim and Marilyn were introduced to Tim Glidden who works on bond issues for the SPO. It was noted that the Board does need to “get its ducks in a row early November”. The Board and SPO staff will start working together next month and look at being included in the Governor’s bond. Liz will serve as liaison for SPO and the Board and was asked to give a briefing of SPO’s GIS activities to the Board at a future meeting. With this, Marilyn noted that SPO had recently hired a GIS Coordinator. We will also look at integrating GeoLibrary Board bond funding with other agency bond(s).

Jim’s next presentation was about the meeting held with Dick Thompson and GeoLibrary Board Chairs. Jim drew a diagram hoping to clearly identify his interpretation of this meeting.

MEGIS would be center stage. The GEO Portal would be public access into MEGIS with the Board running the Portal. InforME would control the access to the Portal. Other nodes from the Portal would be towns and nodes from MEGIS would be state agencies.

On the funding part, bond money (if acquired) would be for data development and the Board would be the primary vehicle. Funding for operations would come from the state or contributions from InforME (the percentage was not discussed at this time).

Conclusion: When the Portal becomes reality, the big difference is the role InforME will play, a possible revenue stream via InforME would flow to MEGIS and Board money would come from bond. Presuming revenue stream, staffing to the Board would continue with Dan, Larry, and Carmen. Housing of developed data would be MEGIS. Funding is dependent on the InforME RFP currently being developed. Marilyn, as Chair to the InforME Technical Subcommittee for the RFP, gives the effort to make this work.

The Board is the governing structure for the data and the data would be accessed and distributed through the portal via InforME. The Board would be responsible for data that comes from the towns to the Portal (setting standards/guidelines, etc.).

Conclusion: This process is not a “Done Deal”. It is still in the discussion stage and an interpretation of the Board Chairs from their meeting with the CIO Dick Thompson. The key point is a new InforME RFP is being developed and the developing process will include gathering GIS information.

Jim noted that InforME is making inquiries of the GeoLibrary Board for information and recommended the input come from the Technical Subcommittee to meet with Dick Hinkley joined by Marilyn and anyone else who would like to be involved. An immediate item for the Board is the working together of the GEO Portal and InforME. This could have an enormous impact on how the Board will proceed. If anyone is interested in being involved please let Will know via e-mail.

Jim proceeded to discuss the meeting with Seth Barker (Chair to the GIS Executive Council). The items agreed upon to keep an eye on were infrastructure, standards, policies, and actions around availability. A gray area was the influence from both the GIS Executive Council having responsibility for items within the state and the GeoLibrary Board having responsibility for items outside the state and interacting with the state. This gives a starting point for discussions. Both agreed on two focus items: 1) InforME RFP, and 2) Bond.

With the GeoLibrary Board taking the lead for developing GIS, we need to work in concert with the GIS Executive Council. The Board needs to start no later than September to be ready for November regarding bond funding for the Board. The Board will look for input from the GIS Executive Council and Liz Hertz will serve as the communication resource between the two groups.

Conclusion: Future GeoLibrary Board agenda will include a report from Liz regarding the GIS Executive Council and she would also update the GIS Executive Council members on the GeoLibrary Board activities.

Agenda Item #1: Approval of the June 15 minutes: With the Board having a quorum, a motion as made by Bob Faunce and seconded by Barbara Charry to approve the June 15 GeoLibrary Board minutes as written. So moved, Board members voted unanimously to approve the minutes as written.

Agenda Item #3: Meeting with GIS Executive Council Reps: Did not take place at this meeting.

Agenda Item #4: Subcommittee Reports:

Technical Subcommittee: Will reported three (3) proposals came in as a result of the GEO Portal RFP. The proposals are currently being reviewed and interviews will be held on July 21. Following these interviews, proposals will be scored and a decision will be made to bring before the Board at the August 17th meeting.

Finance Subcommittee: A current finance spreadsheet was distributed to Board members. It was noted that under Item #3 the amount of $3,708.18 would be disencumbered pending letter from USGS and this amount would than move to item #5 on the spreadsheet (Amount Under Discussion). Also, there would be some monies in Item #3 that will be moving to Item #2 Amount Expended by the next meeting.

Policy/Marketing Subcommittee: Marilyn, due to a heavy focus on the InforME RFP, did not have anything to report at this time. She hopes to make some headway the next two weeks on marketing and pull a policy together by September.

Orthoimagery Project: A map of “Scheduled Orthoimagery Delivery from USGS 2005” was handed out to the members showing orthos received, expected ortho delivery July 2005, and spring 2003 photography Larry reported all 2-foot orthos had been received accept for Franklin County. Additional 1-foot orthos are forth coming replacing previous orthos. Next orthos to be delivered (2004-2005 flights) will be in the fall. Dan noted a special request from the Dept. of Transportation and the State Planning Office has been made to accelerate the process for the DOT Gateway 1 study. The new graphic has been sent to USGS and waiting to hear if they will deliver. USGS has been told we need the data in a timely fashion (including a letter from DOT Commissioner Cole). Will report further at the August meeting.

It was noted this would be a good story of efficiency for the GeoLibrary Board and hopefully bring greater corporation in the future. Dan noted that if bond money does not become available we will have to go back to other agencies for funds.

Jim asked Larry to e-mail the financial sheet and ortho graphics report to Ken.

Parcel Grants: Larry reported out of the 48 Standard Grants, which expire August 8, 2005, only 15 have been received. Larry has talked on the phone with vendors and towns who have not submitted their data. They have committed to getting their data in before the deadline of August 8. The current 3 exceptions are Gorham, So. Portland and Islesboro. Ken noted that there maybe another 6 towns that will not get their data in by the August 8 deadline. If the data does not come in they will not receive payment.

At the last meeting, Larry was given authority to grant a contract extension provided the town(s) requested an extension via a formal letter and provided a timetable of when they would get their data in. If the towns do not get their data in should the Board be prepared to do something further? Can the Board put the unused money back on the table and issue contract extensions?

A motion was made, moved and seconded to have Larry work with Islesboro for a contract extension. Ken noted he will be working with his supervisor, Dan, and Larry to resolve the issue with 6 other towns. It was noted to have all this information (extension requests) documented before the August 8 deadline.

Ken commented it may not involve grant money. It was noted the contract was still with the towns. Ken needs to request an extension by formal letter for the towns and sign off on it. A motion was made to give Larry authority, with proper requests, to extend parcel grant contract extensions to towns. Motion moved by Bob Faunce and seconded by Barbara Charry, the Board voted unanimously to approve. Larry will report back to the GeoLibrary at the next meeting. This motion covers a request in general.

Parcel Grants Second Round: Changes to the parcel grants second round RFP Version 2.1 were noted and accepted by the Board. These changes were made to Appendix A of the RFP.

A question was raised as to the availability of the percentage of towns who have applied for rapid/standard grants and which towns had pre-existing data. This information was not currently available. Dan noted that the database with existing data from towns will be kept up to date by SPO and DOT.

There was a discussion regarding grants to fund annual updates. Response was who will pay and how will it be done. What is the range of cost to update annually? Depends on the amount of updates needed. If we can assist the towns it would guarantee the data is made available. The Board will have to revisit this for further discussion at future meetings. Can we revisit the orthos every five years? What is the policy for the Board to accept data from other towns? Need a policy to be put in place.

The Board agreed to approve the second round of parcel grants at its October meeting. Larry will work to get the RFP out on the street soon, once proposals come in work to evaluate them and bring recommendations to the Board in October.

Barbara moved and Bob seconded a motion to accept the RFP as written. The Board voted unanimously to approve.

Dan reported on the status of the Consultant Services/County Commissioners project. The next meeting is Thursday, July 28, 2005 at the Black Bear Inn from 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. If interested in attending please register with Dan. We are hoping to bring in the northern counties at this meeting. Dan is planning September meetings with MEMA, PUC, and County Registrars.

For all future GeoLibrary Board meetings: To make sure that there will be a quorum at each meeting, Carmen will be sending out a request prior to each meeting asking members to confirm their attendance at the meeting.

Agenda items for the August meeting will include InforME role, Portal, Bond, etc.

At 11:35 a motion was made/moved and seconded to adjourn the meeting, so done.