Minutes for meeting of the Iowa Counties Information Technology (ICIT) Interim Executive Board on Friday, January 11th, at the Polk County Assessor’s Office in Des Moines.
In attendance:
Pete Buckingham, GIS Support Specialist (Washington)
Wayne Chizek, GIS Director (Marshall)
Micah Cutler, GIS Administrator (Harrison)
Jim Rice, MIS Director (Cerro Gordo)
Jason Siebrecht, GIS Coordinator (Linn)
Randy Snyder, Director of Data Processing (Warren)
Scott Williams, IS Director (Marshall)
Ray Willis, Mapping Specialist (Polk)
This is our first meeting after the ISAC Fall School of Instruction. Initial discussion was about the successful ICIT portion of the program. Jim visited with Kay Mocha at the COZO booth and found that COZO had not gone to other affiliate meetings to introduce the COZO efforts in getting ISAC Affiliate status. Jim expressed his feeling that this is a good idea and volunteered to attend the Recorders’ and Treasurers’ association meetings.
Wayne has sent a copy of the revised bylaws to ISAC but hasn’t gotten any comments back yet. He suggested that we send a letter to the other ISAC affiliates offering to speak at their annual meetings this summer.
Discussion about an ICIT newsletter was that we all thought that it was a good idea. We decided that a bi-annual effort to start would be best. The initial newsletters would be sent out just prior to the bi-annual ISAC Schools. Randy volunteered to put the newsletter together with help from Micah on formatting and typing. Micah will put together a map of the districts and the list of representatives. Scott will clean up the contact list and Wayne will break it down into a regional list. The purpose of the regional list is to make it easier for each board member to contact county representatives in their district.
For the upcoming spring school, Jim suggested that we should look into getting some promotional items made up to hand out to attendees. He suggested pens, pencils, shirt pins or something else that could have our groups name. Micah suggested that we could include our web address. Wayne will check with Jerri Noboa on any cost associated with having a booth at the Spring School promoting ICIT as an ISAC Affiliate.
Wayne suggested voting on dues as the Spring School so that we could get a budget established for operational and promotional expenses. There was general agreement that the current board members would be willing to pay dues in advance with the expectation that the general membership will agree on dues. The pre-paid dues would give us a budget to work with for expenses incurred for the first newsletter and ISAC booth and promotional expenses.
Wayne said that he is hoping to get invited to the ISAC board’s February meeting to discuss the affiliate status.
Conference call with Kay Mocha, Pottawattamie County Planning & Zoning to discuss COZO’s experiences in getting ISAC Affiliate designation: COZO did pay for their booth at the fall school but she didn’t know the actual fees. She thought that Kim Johnson, past COZO treasurer would know the cost. She said that Doug Woods, Humboldt County (515-332-4809) and Doug Bird, Brehmer County (319-352-0332) had given the original presentation to ISAC. Carl Wilburn, President and Tim Huey, past President gave a presentation at the Supervisors’ affiliate meeting at Spring School 2001. ISAC then decided to put the issue on the ballot for the fall school. COZO members didn’t do any other presentations or lobbying other than at their home counties.
Kay thought that the controversy over land use (hog lots) being so fresh in the minds of the Supervisors may have helped to gather support for COZO’s efforts to get affiliate designation. She suggested that in our presentations to ISAC, ICIT should focus on how our group interrelates to so many other county offices. She said that she had received some negative feedback at the COZO booth, but most of the responses were positive. A big difference between ICIT and COZO is that COZO has been an independent group for several years, holding its’ own fall and spring conference. They charge $20 per person for annual membership with a separate fee of $65 – $75 per person at their conference. The conference fees cover the rooms, breaks, conference rooms, and lunches. They have 60+ members and between 30 and 45 people attend their conferences.
Discussion about our programs lead to a suggestion from Randy that we have a “high tech” format in the fall and a “low tech” format in the spring. After further discussion, Wayne recommended that our group concentrate our efforts on the ISAC Fall and Spring schools rather than trying to start an independent conference.
We discussed the issue of county budget problems leading to travel constraints such as Bob Canney’s. Wayne made a motion to allow the board to have on-line discussions and board meetings rather than requiring face-to-face meetings, Jim seconded the motion, and there was unanimous agreement. It was suggested that we require 48 hours for members to discuss issues before calling for a final vote and that one of the chairs be required to call for the vote. The 48 hour period would start at the time of the second to the motion. Jason moved to amend the time to 24 “business” hours and the amendment passes unanimously.
Ray will investigate the process for establishing our group as a not-for-profit organization and establishing a business checking account. The suggestion was to have two names on the account, president and secretary/treasurer. Since Wayne is closer to Des Moines than Jim, he thought that we should start off with Wayne and Ray as the two names on the account.
Discussion of dues of $25 per person: Jim liked the idea of $75 max per county. Micah made a motion to set the fee at $25 per person per year starting on July 1, 2002. We discussed the issue to whether to allow prorating of fees if a new member wanted to join mid-year or giving refunds if a person left the county mid-year. Unanimous agreement was that the $25 fee would not be prorated. Wayne made a motion that we start accepting fees immediately and have those fees apply to the July 1st, 2002 through June 30th, 2003 year;
there was unanimous agreement.
For the upcoming spring school, Wayne suggested that fill the Wednesday sessions with educational topics and use the Thursday session for business and possibly a shorter educational topic. Micah volunteered to do a “How to” session on converting CAD files to use in GIS. Jim offered to use a presentation he had already developed for “County Disaster Recovery “. Ray suggested a presentation on grant applications and GIS funding sources. Wayne said that he was impressed with a presentation that was given at last falls’ ITECH conference on viruses.
Meeting adjourned at 12:00.