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1. CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order at 8:35 a.m. by Chairperson Erdahl. It was held at the
Roseville City Hall.
Members Present: David Arbeit (LMIC), Gary Caswell for Partick O’Connor (Hennepin County), Virginia
Erdahl (Washington County), Eli Cooper (Metropolitan Council) Brad Henry (AMM-Minneapolis), Jerome Johnson (Anoka
County), and Dennis Welsch (AMM-Roseville).
Members Absent: David Claypool (Ramsey County) and Cliff Aichinger (Ramsey-Washington–Metro Watershed
District)
Consultant Team---MetroGIS Business Plan: Trudy Richter and Kathie Doty
Visitors: Rick Gelbmann, (Project Manager, MetroGIS Data Finder and Metropolitan Council representative to the
Coordinating Committee), Gary Stevenson (Dakota County and member of the Coordinating Committee) John Connolly, Capitol
Region Watershed and Co-chair Technical Advisory Team, Dave Drealan, (Carver County and member of the Coordinating
Committee), and Jim Hentges (Scott County and member of the Coordinating Committee)
Support Staff: Randall Johnson and Theresa Foster
2. ACCEPT AGENDA
The agenda was accepted as submitted, except the order of Items 4b and 4c was reversed.
3. ACCEPT MEETING SUMMARY
The summary of the January 7, 2000 meeting was accepted as submitted.
4. DISCUSSION ITEMS
4a. Detailed Budget Assumptions – Supported Functions and Associated Costs
Ms. Doty stated that the budget projections developed for the Business Plan assume continued support for the
priority functions previously agreed upon. She then shared the projected expenses needed to accomplish these functions
for 2000-2003. They did not include expenses, such as costs to host the MetroGIS staff or the Council’s investment
in additional server capacity and software to support data distribution for MetroGIS, that are not proposed to be
included in the basis for the proposed subscription fees.
The members agreed that all costs should be accounted for in the budget, otherwise a false picture of the true
costs will result. It was agreed that the budget should be modified to include costs assumed to be "picked up" through
in-kind contributions.
Several members questioned the necessity for the proposed 4 FTE’s. The group was particularly concerned
about the FTE’s proposed for technical support and the proposed outsourcing of services. After substantial
discussion, the group unanimously concurred that: 1) support of the proposed coordination activities is necessary to
continue to move MetroGIS forward 2) and that it can support 2.75 FTE for these coordination activities, provided the
2.75 FTE is the minimum necessary to achieve them, 3) it could not support the 1.25 FTE proposed for technical support.
Most agreed with Member Henry that someone needs to be responsible for insuring that the various regional
datasets and the map and attribute data lineup. All agreed this is a fundamental data "stewardship" responsibility to
insure trust in the data. However, most also believed that the counties and the Metropolitan Council have at least a
partial business need for many of these tasks, they have skilled GIS technical staff capable of accomplishing these
tasks, and, therefore, these tasks should be accomplished as in-kind contributions (not included in the basis for the
proposed subscription fees) in the spirit of cooperation. The group raised the concern that using MetroGIS subscription
revenue to pay any one organization for these tasks could create an undesirable situation that could undermine the
creditability of MetroGIS.
After discussion of several of the tasks included in 1.25 FTE technical support budget, a question was raised
whether some of the .75 FTE for non Data Finder related tasks whether the Council has a business need for them. Cooper
commented that the Metropolitan Council is not looking for help to compile or manipulate data it needs to carry out its
responsibilities and wants to see MetroGIS succeed. If the tasks that comprise the 1.25 FTE technical support elements
of the budget are judged to fall within the Council’s internal business needs, he would be willing to recommend
that the Council assume responsibility for them.
It was agreed that any tasks for which the Council or any other partner(s) has a business need should be
removed from the MetroGIS budget and designated as an in-kind contribution along with assignment of
responsibility/credit to insure that the subscription fee includes only those tasks that clearly exceed internal
business needs and which are priorities to accomplish MetroGIS’ vision. .
Henry raised a concern about the $75,000 proposed to be distributed to the counties for access to their parcel
data. Ms. Richter asked to defer response to this concern until discussion of the following agenda item.
It was agreed that more information is needed about the proposed elements of the technical support budget and
for the proposed contract services to determine whether to include as a component of the proposed subscription fee.
Welsch also commented that technical support needs beyond the capacity of I-35W members have frequently arisen and
option exist for them as well as MetroGIS to contract with a partner who might elect to gear up for the task or to
outsource to the private sector.
4b and 4c. Proposed Pilot Project for County Parcel Data Distribution
Ms. Richter summarized a proposed pilot project designed to test the private sector market demand for parcel
data and to promote the benefits of MetroGIS to the public sector before a subscription fee is enacted. All agreed that
a pilot would provide a valuable opportunity to educate prospective public sector users as well as evaluate interest
among private sector entities.
Stevenson suggested a simpler approach to accomplish the same objectives, which was unanimously supported by
the other county representatives. The agreed upon components are as follows:
- Distribute the regional parcel dataset complied by the "stitch committee" Fall 1999 (possibly an updated
version) for six months, free of charge to government and non-government entities, with understanding at the end of the
pilot the data must be destroyed.
- The counties would not receive any compensation for providing access under the terms of the pilot.
- The regional parcel dataset would comprise of the parcel boundaries married with only those attributes
common to each county, estimated to be between seven and eleven.
- The pilot would not include access to the individual county parcel datasets.
- Stevenson offered to coordinate the preparation of a license agreement acceptable to each county, assuming
acceptable to other Dakota County officials.
- A condition of access to this dataset will be a statement from the recipient that they agree to
participate in a data users forum, hosted by MetroGIS, at the end of the 6-month pilot. The purpose or the forum will
be among other things evaluate access fee options acceptable to non-government interests for on-going access to parcel
data, provide feedback on desirable data content enhancements, and provide feedback on desired enhancements to the
CD-ROM method of distribution.
- Stevenson offered to coordinate securing authorization for each county to release the regional parcel
dataset.
- Distribution will be supported by Dakota County. Dakota County may charge a modest fee to recover the cost
of producing and handling the CD-ROM distribution.
No definitive start date was set for the pilot and there was no discussion of how the pilot existence of the
pilot would be marketed. Staff offered to assist with the support of the marketing of the pilot and other matters
deemed appropriate by the Team.
Since no funds would be change hands and since the counties believe they can handle the licensing without a
joint powers agreement, as had not been assumed in the Richter’s proposal, all agreed that work should begin
immediately on the pilot. Stevenson stated that he will oversee the drafting of the necessary documents and send them
to the other counties for comment. He also agreed to keep MetroGIS informed of the progress.
4d. Issues for a Joint Powers Agreement
Ms. Richter noted that the urgency of this matter for this matter has removed given the countys’
willingness to pursue a regional parcel data pilot without need for centralizing the licensing function with MetroGIS.
She noted that the Business Plan will propose the elements for Joint Powers Agreement but that actual preparation of
the agreement is beyond the scope of the current contract. The members were comfortable with the topics outlined in the
staff report but stressed a need to keep it as simple and flexible as possible.
Stevenson and Caswell commented that the provision "right to distribute data on behalf of producers" is
acceptable as a board statement but cautioned that the specifics may differ from dataset to dataset. Staff commented
that the Policy Board direction received on January 26th to pursue a JPA organization was with the
understanding that agreement must be approved form each member of organization or modifications will be necessary.
5. INFORMATION SHARING
5a. Government Board of Innovation and Cooperation Grant
Johnson noted that when the preliminary application was submitted in December 1999, he had assumed that
MetroGIS would eventually conclude that automated assembly, error checking, anomaly reporting and distribution of
multiple county parcel data would be found in the public interest and pursued. Consequently, the preliminary
application requested funding consistent with the 1999 consultant team’s estimate of cost to implement these
capabilities. Since that time, the concept of a regional parcel data pilot project has come into being, a component of
which is a data users forum to formally evaluate the needs and desires of users of parcel data. As such, Johnson
suggested that MetroGIS should not submit a final application for the 1999 Board of Innovation and Cooperation Grant
program. Rather, if the results of the data user forum at the conclusion of the pilot reveal a need common to many
which requires grant funding to achieve, a grant would be sought at that time. The members agreed.
b-e) Other Information Items No discussion
6. NEXT MEETING
7 ADJOURN
The meeting concluded at 11 a.m.
Prepared by Randall Johnson, AICP, MetroGIS Staff Coordinator
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