COLUMBIA COMMUNICATIONS DISTRICT Minutes of the Board of Directors Regular Meeting June 28, Tyler Miller, citizen

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1 COLUMBIA COMMUNICATIONS DISTRICT Minutes of the Board of Directors Regular Meeting June 28, 2018 MEETING CALLED TO ORDER: MEMBERS PRESENT: Board President Clark called the Board of Directors Regular Meeting to order on Thursday, June 28, 2018, at 9:00am at the C911CD Meeting Room, St. Helens, Oregon. Henry Heimuller, Dee Wooley, Dave Crawford, Sean Clark and Rob Anderson Staff Present: Mike Fletcher, Nancy Edwards, Maryjo Beck, Jason McClafferty, Chandra Egan GUESTS PRESENT: Tyler Miller, citizen Roll call was done. PUBLIC COMMENT: There were no public comments. ADDITIONS TO AGENDA: No additions were made. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: May 24, 2018 Regular Meeting & Budget Hearing Minutes: Heimuller moved and Crawford seconded to approve the 5/24/18 Regular Meeting and Budget Hearing minutes as presented. Motion carried unanimously. FINANCIAL REPORTS: Acceptance of Budget Variance Reports April and May: Wooley moved and Crawford seconded to accept the Budget Variance Reports for the months of April and May as presented. Motion carried unanimously. 9:02am Anderson arrived Approval of Expenditures: Crawford moved and Heimuller seconded to approve the expenditures starting with check #28335 through #28380 including the electronic payments in the amount of $195, Discussion followed. Motion carried unanimously. Spending Authority for Staff Members: Edwards referred the Board to her report. She noted that Chapter Four of the Board rules was also included in member s packets where she added a small paragraph addressing this topic. Edwards explained that we ve been running into problems when staff members (outside of management) are sent to training or on District business out of town. US Bank s Visa card would allow Edwards to create an account, limit the amount per purchase and limit the total balance to the card. Edwards can terminate the account at anytime and it happens instantly. She asked the Board to consider allowing herself or the 1

2 Executive Director the authority to issue these cards with a $500 limit for incidentals. This change to our current policy will require Board approval. Discussion followed. It was noted that receipts will be required for all purchases. Heimuller moved and Wooley seconded to modify administrative staff spending authority, which is located in the Chapter 4 Board Member Duties and Responsibilities policy, to authorize the Chief Financial Officer or Executive Director to issue credit cards with a limit of up to $500 to staff members for travel expenses. Discussion followed. Motion carried unanimously. Resolution 18-01, 18-02, Adopting the Budget, Making Appropriations, Declaring a Levy and Categorizing Taxes: Heimuller moved and Wooley seconded to approve resolutions 18-01, 18-02, and in the matter of adopting the budget, making appropriations, declaring a levy and categorizing the taxes provided for in the adopted budget; total requirements, all funds $7,341,367. Motion carried unanimously. OLD BUSINESS: Radio System: Fletcher reported that since last month s meeting he s received Pallans final report detailing the results of the radio site visits that took place on April 25 th. With this report, Fletcher is in the process of developing an action plan with Day Wireless for implementing changes and/or requests for improvements at the sites. Fletcher noted that this coincides with the preventative maintenance part of the agenda. Request for Information (RFI): Fletcher stated that he s been having face-to-face meetings with all three vendors who submitted proposals to the District s RFI; Motorola, the representatives for Tate/Harris at Communications Northwest and Codan. Fletcher will be meeting with additional staff from Codan again tomorrow who are coming down from Canada. Each vendor is basically suggesting the same four options, which are: Replace VHF simul cast system (exact same technology we currently use, just a newer version with new equipment) Abandon VHF, go to a 700 or 800 trunk system that the District will own, operate and build Abandon VHF, go to a 700 or 800 trunk system by partnering with CRESA Abandon VHF, go to a 700 or 800 trunk system by partnering with WCCCA Fletcher stated that before a decision can be made the Board and users need to be educated. Fletcher is looking into scheduling an all-day session in the St. Helens Library auditorium, where the vendors are sitting in the audience with one another along with the Board and as many end users as possible. He s going to ask that each of the vendors run through their individual proposals, giving the Board and users the opportunity to ask any questions they may have. Fletcher feels this might be the most efficient way to become educated on what our options are without any perceived vendor preference. The goal is for staff to have an agreed upon decision and direction from the Board by the end of this calendar year. Lengthy discussion followed. Heimuller expressed his concern of being educated by vendors who are trying to sell their product. Fletcher agreed and suggested that we have Pallans present to advocate for the District and/or a couple of other local engineer/radio consultant experts who could provide the Board with a nonpartisan education and help the Board make a more informed decision. Anderson suggested contacting Ron Pulluconi and reaching out to CRESA and WCCCA to see if their interested in participating, considering the interoperability possibilities. Fletcher stated that he s spoken to both CRESA and WCCCA about this concept and they re very receptive. Discussion continued. Members 2

3 agreed that Fletcher move forward with the concept of having the all-day session. Heimuller noted that he would like to see some charting so the Board can visually see a cost per value and life span between VHF versus UHF. Radio Failure Update/Clatskanie Mountain: Fletcher stated that the batteries for the Clatskanie site were received and have been installed. Dixie Mountain: Fletcher stated that he received an from the attorney saying that they re in the final stages of completing the out-grant license on the land owner s behalf. The land owner has given their approval and once all of the paperwork is finalized it will be sent to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) legal department. Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) Replacement: Invoices: WCCCA Fletcher stated there is one invoice from WCCCA for $13, which is C911CD s portion of the monitoring software for the CAD stacks at WCCCA and Clackamas, redundant fiber pathway, Basecamp software and CAD Manager hours for April and May. Heimuller moved and Wooley seconded to approve the invoice from WCCCA as presented. Discussion followed. Motion carried unanimously. Fletcher noted that the MAJCS CAD Manager position has been filled. Tony Sexton will be starting July 1 st and will work with Fletcher over the next 3-4 weeks transferring files and getting up to speed on the processes. Staffing and Personnel Update: Fletcher stated that our three new hires are all in training and doing well. He noted that we will be starting a process to develop a hiring list. Technical Manager Report: CAD: McClafferty reported that the CAD system went down on June 20 th at about 9pm due to a networking issue on the MAJCS firewall and switch located in our server room. While it was only down for about 40 seconds, it impacted staff for about 20 minutes as we tried to determine the issue and restore the connection to the terminals. McClafferty is currently working with Clackamas to identify the cause so we can mitigate any further interruptions to the system. Mapping & Geographic Information System (GIS): McClafferty reported that we ve been adding fire hydrants to the system for Warren and McNulty. Turula has reached out to Washington County to get software to allow her to administer all of our own mapping updates internally that are specific to Columbia County. Turula has also been working on building footprints to better support users. Generators and Batteries: McClafferty stated that he was on site when the Clatskanie batteries were replaced. Our next generator maintenance has been scheduled for July 5 th ; McClafferty will be accompanying the technician to at 3

4 least one site to go over their procedures. He s reached out to vendors for quotes on remote monitoring for the generators. So far he s received one quote for hardware and connection, and he s waiting for installation costs. Our current vendor is EC Power. TriTech/Mobile: McClafferty stated that Egan has been working with fire end users on the verbiage for the Fire Task Force in anticipation for fire season. The Fire Defense Board approved the verbiage as well as the response plans and Egan is working on building those out in the system. Mobile users have had consistent connection to the system, with the exception of the Comcast outages. Staff continues to assist users with configuration and troubleshooting when connection issues arise. HVAC: McClafferty reported that last night he received responses to the Board s questions regarding our HVAC system from Columbia NW; a copy was distributed to members this morning. Discussion followed. Members agreed that it would be helpful if Phil Alvarez from Columbia NW could attend next month s meeting to better explain his responses and answer any of the Board s additional questions. Members would also like to see a spreadsheet comparing the two systems. Internet/Fiber: McClafferty reported that the only trouble mobile users have connecting to the system is when our internet goes out. This has happened multiple times when Comcast is doing maintenance to the cable internet. McClafferty has been looking into ways to get on Comcast s fiber service to eliminate this issue. He and Holly Miller from Columbia County IT met with Comcast s Metro-E fiber team to discuss options to implement a fiber replacement for both the District and the EOC. Miller inquired if there was a possibility that the District could host the County s equipment on site if she was unable to located it at the EOC; the District has the space if necessary. So far he s received one quote for ethernet replacement to fiber and is waiting on a couple more. It will be about a 3-6 month process to cut over all services to fiber because of all the static IP addresses connected to our system. District Policy Updates: Fletcher stated that a list is being created of existing policies that are in need of being updated internally due to technology changes. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR S UPDATES: Fletcher reported on the following: Additional APCO EMD training began last week. Inaugural all staff meeting was held on May 30 th. It went well; meetings will continue on a quarterly basis with the days and times of day being flexible to help accommodate the different shifts. The secondary fiber connection path for CAD from Clackamas County to WCCCA was completed on June 17 th. Phase I of the FatPot project has been completed; it went over budget by about $30,000 this amount was applied to the current grant cycle so it has been paid for. We re now going forward with Phase II, this is where Fletcher s replacement, Tony Sexton, will take over. The goal for completion for Phase II is this time next year. 4

5 Fletcher attended the OSP/ODOT team meeting. The State has $145,000-$150,000 that they didn t spend on other projects so they re trying to collect those funds on ODOT s behalf to put towards Phase II of FatPot. The District has compiled all of the data that Oregon APCO has requested in preparation for the next legislative session with regard to the Excise tax increase. The survey collected information from 2011 to current for every PSAP in Oregon. The information was placed into a spreadsheet to be sent off to Hasina Squires, our APCO lobbyist. A copy of the report is available if members are interested in reviewing it. Clark inquired about monthly stats. Fletcher stated that he is building a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) report for the District; the challenge is extracting the type of reports that he needs. He will show the Board the template he s built at next month s meeting. Fletcher stated that along with MAJCS winning a national award for our CAD project, Oregon APCO /NENA announced that MAJCS will also be receiving two state wide awards for Technology and Commitment to Excellence. The awards will be presented at the annual APCO/NENA Training Conference in Bend this September. NEW BUSINESS: Administrative Wage Adjustment: Edwards referred members to her report. It has been past practice of the Board to extend to the Administrative staff the same wage increase that was bargained in the Association s contract. This year the wage scale adjustment for the Association is 2%. Edwards noted that the Salem-Portland CPI-W was 3.9% for The wage scale also reflects her new title; Chief Financial Officer. In addition, she has budgeted an amount of $100/month for the technology stipend; currently the stipend is $60/month. Anderson moved and Wooley seconded to approve the administrative wage scale adjustment as presented. Motion carried unanimously. 10:23am Break EXECUTIVE SESSION ORS (2)(a) Employment of Public Officers, Employees and Agents and ORS (2)(b) Discipline of Public Officers and Employees: 10:32am Into Executive Session: 11:22am Out of Executive Session Heimuller moved and Wooley seconded to approve the personnel services contract with WCCCA for an Interim Operations Manager and the APCO Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) Instructors as presented. Motion carried unanimously. Agenda Items July 26, 2018: Heimuller stated that he won t be at the meeting due to a medical procedure the day before. OTHER BUSINESS AND MEMBERS COMMENTS: Crawford: Pleased with the way Fletcher has handled the last few situations. Appreciates the heads up. 5

6 Anderson: Clark: Heimuller: Wooley: Agreed with Crawford. Although we re experiencing growing pains, we re still moving forward as an agency. Nice to hear about the cohesion on the floor. Wished everyone a great fourth of July! Agreed with previous comments; thanked Fletcher. Noted that he and Fletcher met for breakfast to go over today s agenda; would like to continue doing it about a week prior to each meeting. Invited others, but if more than two it will need to be published. Thanks to staff during this tough time; appreciate everybody s work. Agreed with previous comments. Appreciate receiving the individual call. There were no further comments. Next meeting will take place July 26 th at C911CD at 9am. 11:28am Board Adjourned. Respectfully submitted, Maryjo E. Beck Date Approved 6