Meeting called to order at 11:04 am

Attending: Ray Fox-USGS, Jeff Schloss-DNR, Mark Duewell-MSDIS, David Drum-MOREnet, Stan Balsam-SE RPC, Tony Spicci-MO GIO, Elizabeth Cook-NRCS, Greg Reitz-Jefferson City, Nathan Mattox-MU Extension, Arnold Williams-DOT, Brian Parr-MARC(phone), Eric Foster-DOT(phone), Tim Donze (Surdex), Tim Bohn (Surdex)

Agenda: There was no formal agenda, meeting called to discuss the Missouri Imagery Project and specifically how to involve local communities for the western half of the state which will be flown in 2008. Ray Fox opened the meeting by listing what we need to accomplish, and other issues that were brought up by other members. Tony Spicci would like to initiate discussions on how to address a state centerline project, Jeff Schloss mentioned a need to revisit the committee’s priority list on data layers. Due to time constraints these other issues were not discussed but will be at a later date.

Ray Fox began with a brief summary on what happened to date, the eastern part of the state is being flown using an existing contract with Surdex. Due to time constraints, the State did not have time to issue a Request for Proposal but utilized an exiting contract with Surdex. As this happened very quickly in January, local government was not notified in time to participate. Also it was not possible to keep the committee informed as to what was going on as we would have liked to do. Mark Duewell explained the necessity of developing a white paper which includes hard concrete specifics: cost, who to contact, etc. Also explanation of the value. The white paper should also explain what has transpired as many locals were hoping to utilize the buy-up option for this year. Brian Parr added that the paper needs to include the specifications on what the state project will deliver, and what the locals can receive as part of the buy-up.

Stan Balsam reported on a fly-over project for the South East RPC, they first had to gauge interest, then go back to vendor for pricing. Tony Spicci said that the RFP should be preceded with another RFI with as much information as possible for the contracting community. We need to limit the variables to make the information received useful. Mark Duewell reported on conversations he had with several locals, they did not see any value in the buy-up option. We need to clearly list the advantages of participating in this contract at the local level. Costs, good specifications, validation by state and federal partners, distribution by MSDIS or USGS, and administration of the contract were all cited as examples.

The discussion then centered on how to handle the buy-ups. Jeff Schloss suggested having the vendor enter into separate contracts with the locals, why should the State and Federal partners do all this work? The vendor can give a price estimate on what the buy-ups would cost, and if a local community is interested the vendor will contract with them and handle the complexities of financing. Others thought that it was worth the partners time to do this, reasons include getting local government involved in a partnership which will serve us well in the future. If this is simply a State project we have not fulfilled our mission to involve all levels of government and lose an opportunity to establish partnering as a way to accomplish business. David Drum followed with the thought that Imagery acquisition should not be thought of as a one time project but rather a continuing program. We will build from our experiences and evolve a program that does meet the needs of all levels of government. Tony thought that the contract could be set up to allow individual billing and the State would not have to collect the money from everyone. The current project does this, USGS, and several state agencies will be billed separately, although all are under the one contract.

Ray mentioned his experience in Nebraska where the Omaha COG serves as the money handler, this has worked so well that the program has grown each time (this is the third iteration), to where this year outlying cities and counties have joined in. MARC has also been successful in the Kansas City region. MARC decided who would be involved at the beginning, issued on contract between MARC and the vendor. We should strive to identify those communities that are interested as this will help the vendors propose the best cost estimates. The buy-up options will require a separate flight from the State acquisition, the proximity of local communities in the project allows for more efficient flight planning and reduces costs.

Discussion then centered around whether the local data would be public domain. This was not resolved, however if State funds are used with the local funds then the consensus was that it would be public domain. Ray Fox said that USGS has used the one year sunset on some partnerships, the imagery is distributed solely by the local government for one year, following that it becomes public domain. The State CIO has said that he would like to acquire the highest resolution imagery possible, and there may be some State funding available to help in the buy-up.

Issues concerning the white paper included having a worst case pricing for the local buy-up included. Elizabeth Cook worried that this would scare off locals, however this may be the only price available to share. This issue reinforced the idea that as many local communities as possible be identified prior to any RFI or RFP, as the more information the contractors have the better pricing they can do. How to identify those communities is an issue. The committee spent considerable time (especially Nathan, thanks again) on the survey last year, do not want to replicate this effort and bother locals again.

Finally we discussed whether or not locals in the eastern side of the state can participate in the buy-ups. We did not see any reason why they can’t, the issue still being proximity to other buy-ups realize the cost savings.

The next meeting will be held in April. Ray will send out several possible dates to the committee. We will want to use the phone bridge again as it was successful. Whomever made that possible this time please do so once the meeting time and date is scheduled.

• Ray Fox will draft the white paper, Mark Duewell and Tony Spicci offered to edit.
• Mark Duewell and David Drum will develop a web site once we have information to populate it.
• All should be thinking of whom to contact.

Meeting adjourned at 12:15 pm