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Home > Meetings > 2006 Meetings > November 15, 2006

November 15, 2006 Meeting Minutes and Agenda

AGENDA

1. Approval of the October 18th meeting minutes
2. Updates on Board Membership - Chair
3. Subcommittee Reports
• Financial – Chair & Dan Walters
• Policy & Marketing – Marilyn Lutz
• Technical – Will Mitchell
o Status on the GEOPortal – Will
o Guidelines for Portal Administrator – Marilyn
o Orthoimagery Project – Larry Harwood
o Parcel Grants - Larry
Town release form – Bill Hanson
o Purchase intermediate ortho products– Larry
4. Status of MOU- Dan
5. GeoLibrary Board bond request to the Legislature; review of funding priorities

MEETING MINUTES

Present
Jim Page, Chair
Marilyn Lutz, Co-Chair
David Blocher
Will Mitchell ( by phone)
Nancy Armentrout
William Hanson
Elizabeth Hertz
Gretchen Heldmann
Ken Murchison (by phone)

Staff
Dan Walters
Larry Harwood

Visitors
Don Garrold, Searsport

The Chair called the meeting to order at 10:06 and read the agenda.

1. Approval of the September 20th meeting minutes
After a pause for review, the Chair entertained a motion to approve. Elizabeth Hertz moved to approve the minutes as written with Marilyn Lutz seconding. The Board voted 7 in favor with 1 abstention, the motion carrying. (note: unless otherwise indicated the Chair abstains from voting)

2. Update on Board Membership
The Chair read out the current membership roster:
1. Representing GIS Vendors, Jim Page, Chair
2. Representing University of Maine, Marilyn Lutz, Vice Chair
3. Representing Utility Interests, Gary Duplisea (waiting for appointment)
4. Representing Environmental Interests, Dan Coker (waiting for appointment)
5. Representing State Government/CIO’s Office, David Blocher
6. Representing Municipal Government, Vacant
7. Representing Municipal Government, Gretchen Heldmann
8. Representing State GIS Functions, Elizabeth Hertz
9. Representing State GIS Functions, Christopher Kroot
10. Representing GIS Vendors, Will Mitchell
11. Representing Statewide Assoc. of Counties, Ken Honey
12. Representing Commissioner of Administrative & Financial Services, Nancy Armentrout
13. Representing the Public, Sean Myers
14. Representing Statewide Association of Regional Councils, Kenneth G. Murchison
15. Representing Real Estate & Development , William H. Hanson

Gary Duplisea, waiting for appointment as Representing Utility Interests and Dan Coker waiting for appointment as Representing Environmental Interests will both be invited to the next Board meeting. Larry Harwood will check on the status of nominations for the vacant seat Representing Municipal Government. Elizabeth Hertz suggested the name of Dennis Ketchl formerly in state government and now town manager of Belgrade. The nominating authority is the Maine Municipal Association.

3. Subcommittee Reports

Financial
There was no substantive update to give. A payment of $1,000 had been authorized for digital parcel data from the town of Clifton under the parcel grants program. The standard one page financial sheet was distributed but not reviewed.

Policy & Marketing
Work on any unfinished policy documents has been on hold until the bonding requests have been worked out.

Technical
Status on the GEOPortal. The portal project is moving ahead in a more positive manner. The portal is now running on a state server with an external port so it can be viewed from outside the state system. There was a two part review Oct. 20th and 24th by conference call and webex ( internet viewing ) at which the functionality requirements were demonstrated by Ionic for Will, Marilyn and Sean Myers of the Technical Subcommittee and Larry from MEGIS. The consensus was that the basic required functionality as set out in the Checklist for Ionic GeoPortal Build 2B had been demonstrated.

The graphical user interface (GUI), the presentation to the user, however is seen as requiring substantial redesign. The Subcommittee has been reviewing the portal and making comments and suggested changes on Will’s website. A conference call on the portal with the Subcommittee and MEGIS staff is scheduled for Monday the 20th. A definitive list of required changes will be subsequently compiled and sent to Ionic with a deadline for completion.

In discussion it was asked if contact with the Attorney General’s office would still need to be made. Dave Blocher reported that he had already talked in general terms about the matter to one of the AG’s staff and CIO Dick Thompson. If problems develop with completing the contract with Ionic, Dave suggested involving Mary Silva (OIT Project Management Director) due to her experience in contracts. A number of potential portal nodes were discussed including Hampden and other municipalities, Aroostook County and various conservation websites. The consensus was that these links should be demonstrable to the legislature in two months or so.

Guidelines for Portal Administrator. No progress has been made on this item. Dan Walters and Marilyn agreed to look at what needs to be on the list of duties for a portal administrator.

Orthoimagery Project. There has been no change in status since the last report.

Parcel Grants. Parcel data for the town of Clifton has been received and approved. No contracts are behind schedule including the extensions.

Town Release Forms Due to possible time constraints, the Chair moved this item to the bottom of the agenda.

Purchase of intermediate ortho products. The contract with Photo Science was signed by Dick Thompson about a week ago. They have 2 months to supply the specified photographic products. The Chair said that he did not expect this delay to be a deal breaker with the private sector firms paying for the materials.

Additional Item- Grant Application
Dan noted that the “50 States” grant applications were due early in the next calendar but he has no resources in house to do an application. Rich Sutton formerly of Applied Geographics which did the County project had agreed to do a limited amount of free work on an application. He suggested a $1200 contract Rich or someone to finish off the application. In discussion it was thought best to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest with whoever the grant writer may be and up to $2500 can be contracted without delay for a contract writer.

Ken Murchison moved to encumber $2500 to be expended in support of writing a general Fifty States grant application under the auspices of the GeoLibrary. Seconded by Marilyn. The board voted unanimously in favor. The motion carried.

The Finance Subcommittee with attachments from the full Board will have a conference call on this matter Friday 17th at 2:00 PM.

4. Status of Memorandum of Agreement
The Memorandum Of Agreement between the Board and the GIS Executive Council was not ready to bring before the Board. At its last meeting, Executive Council was not able to review the MOA due to time constraints. It should be ready by the next Board meeting. Dan noted that the initial MOA is not designed to be exhaustive. The next iteration of the MOA would probably be in the nature of a matrix of areas of operation between the organizations.

5. GeoLibrary Board bond request
Jim Page reported that Martha Freeman, Director of the State Planning Office, has agreed at this stage of the process to include the Geolibrary request as part of the SPO bonding initiative. This will put the bonding request “on the table” although there is no guarantee that all or some of it will make it into the Governor’s package. In addition the Board is being asked for its “fallback positions” on the amount of the request. The preferred categories on bonding this year are likely to be 1) jobs and economic development or 2) relating to the Brookings Institute Study findings. The bond package may be decided for a June vote but more likely November.

After discussion it was the consensus that the initial fallback positions were already reflected in the ordering of priorities done by the Board at the last meeting. The Board should ask for some flexibility to re-order requests when crunch time arrives; in particular smaller amounts of money could still make an impact on some of the projects like parcel grants.
Town Release Forms Bill Hanson, a practicing attorney, had drawn up two documents for consideration. One was a sample town meeting warrant for addressing the data release issue. The second was a sample Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Municipal Submission of Parcel Data. The specific consensus was that the MOU was rather complex and perhaps intimidating to the town officials. Bill agreed to rewrite the MOU with that in mind.

The larger, overall issue of privacy vs public record provoked much discussion. The discussion was lengthy and replicated many concerns voiced of late in state and national forums about security, privacy, matters of public record and the role of internet in society. The Digital Parcel Standards and the legislation creating the GeoLibrary were brought out and examined with respect to privacy and the Board’s liability.

The Chair asked the Policy & Marketing Subcommittee to prepare a privacy vs public recorded policy for review by the Board as soon as possible. This should specifically address whether or not the Parcel Standards need to be changed, and whether or not an MOU is required.

The meeting adjoined at 11:58