Minutes for first meeting of the Iowa County Information Technology (ICIT) group (proposed new ISAC Affiliate Group) on Tuesday, August 14th, in Des Moines.
In attendance:
Ken Agey, GIS Manager (Polk)
Robert Canney, MIS Director (Black Hawk)
Wayne Chizek, GIS Director (Marshall)
Micah Cutler, GIS Administrator (Harrison)
Dean Neal, Deputy Auditor/Recorder (Woodbury)
Jim Rice, MIS Director (Cerro Gordo)
Jason Siebrecht, GIS Coordinator (Linn)
Scott Williams, IS Director (Marshall)
Ray Willis, Mapping Specialist (Polk)
We opened the meeting by discussing our meeting of August 3rd Bill Peterson and David Vestal and agreed that we do want to proceed with efforts to become an ISAC Affiliate group. Wayne Chizek handed out copies of the bylaws from Iowa Association of Assessors, Iowa County Attorneys Association, Iowa State Association of County Community Services Directors, Iowa Association of County Conservation Boards, Iowa Emergency Management Director’s Association, Iowa County Engineer’s Association, Iowa Environmental Health Association, Government Management Information Sciences user’s group, State of Iowa County Recorder’s Association, Iowa State Sheriffs’ and Deputies’ Association, Iowa State Association of County Supervisors, and Iowa State County Treasurers Association. Wayne had taken the time to build a spread sheet breaking down the key elements of each associations bylaws.
Discussion centered around whether to being by defining our group’s mission statement, purpose or goals. We developed a list of statements, some taken from the sample bylaws and some from group suggestions:
Continuing education
Enactment and Revision of Iowa Laws
Promote orderly, efficient, uniform administration
Harmonious and cooperative effort
Perpetuate and improve the performance of County Government
Increasing the effectiveness of County Government
Promote better working relationships
Promote education
Micah suggested using some of the points as “goals” under objectives. Dean suggested presenting our proposed bylaws at the fall ISAC conference.
Further discussion lead to picking a name for our group. We decided to avoid using ISAC in the name since this might be viewed as presumptuous by the other ISAC affiliates when we are trying to get their support for affiliate status. The name Iowa County Information Technology (ICIT) group was the unanimous choice.
Advantages of incorporating the group were brought up; limiting liability of officers and members, and being able to get a federal ID for collecting fees. We decided to leave the issue of incorporating until we see how the ISAC affiliate process goes.
Bob brought up the question of whether our group should include city information technology and not just county. The concern raised over including cities was that we might actually be at odds with some of the cities’ goals, also that there probably wouldn’t be enough city representatives to be an issue.
List of goals/ objectives of ICIT in order of priority:
Education
Communication
Standards for sharing (both information and projects)
Addition potential goals/ objectives:
Influence/ advise the legislature on new laws impacting county IT
Increase effectiveness/ efficiency of county government
Provide assistance to other counties on IT/ GIS issues
Networking
Provide vision
Tentative statement of purpose for ICIT:
The purpose of this organization is to promote professionalism, cooperation, mutual assistance and sharing of experiences; committed to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, information and technology as they relate to county government activities and legislation; formed for the benefit of participating county technology representatives.
Break for lunch. Ken brought a copy of the bylaws for the Missouri Mappers Association. Wayne started the discussion after lunch with the issue of putting together presentations for the fall ISAC conference. The entire group agreed that we should put something together to begin letting the other affiliates and potential members know about our group. Initial discussion centered around a presentation by Wayne and Micah on “What is GIS” and a panel discussion by IT people.
Jerri Noboa indicated that there are four time slots available for our group to present; 9:00-12:00 & 1:00-4:30 Wednesday, November 14, 1:30-4:00 Thursday, November 15 and 9:00-12:00 Friday November 16. The whole group decided to not try to fill the Friday spot but concentrate on the three other times. Bob suggested getting a panel to discuss the current status of statewide services being provided by various state departments (DOT, DHS, other e-commerce). Bob and Scott felt they had enough contacts to get a good panel together. The tentative schedule for the three spots are:
Wed. 9-12 – ICIT panel discussion made up of Wayne, Ken, and Jason (moderator – Jim Rice) present bylaws and open IT issues
Wed. 1- 4 – GIS presentation by Wayne and Micah (moderator – Ray Willis)
Thur. 1:30 – 4 Panel discussion of statewide services by state departments, possibly e-commerce (panel to be identified by Bob & Scott)
Outlines of the programs need to be turned in to ISAC no later than September 7th in order to be included in the ISAC newsletter and conference announcement.
Scott volunteered to set up an ICIT list serve at www.co.marshall.ia.us/icit . Micah volunteered to put together the by-laws. Discussion about ICIT membership. Members should be county employees and a significant portion of their job duties are GIS/ IS. Ken suggested the idea of a student membership status.
Next meeting 10:00am, Monday August 27th in the Polk County Administrative Building, Assessor’s Office.
Wayne suggested using the Community Services bylaws for membership description and using the phrase “including, but not limited to”.
As a group we decided to defer the issue of membership dues until we see what develops with the ISAC affiliate status.
Wayne suggested that the list serve could possibly be broken into two groups; members and interest groups.
Action items:
Wayne – call ISAC to confirm that our group will be putting together presentations for the ISAC fall conference.
Jim – put together the format for the ICIT panel.
Bob & Scott – work on putting together a panel of state agency representatives.
Dean – get a representative for the County Recorders.
All – review ICIT purpose and objectives.