EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING Sept. 12, 2018 MINUTES

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1 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING Sept. 12, 2018 MINUTES In attendance: Kristin Asher, Jeannine Clancy, Dan Curley, Nick Egger, Lydia Ener, Heidi Hamilton, Monica Heil, Alex Jordan, Emily Lueth, Richard McCoy, Chris Petree, Tim Plath, and Chris Sagsveen Guests: Mitchell Hoeft, Membership & Events Committee, and Jon Haukaas, Audit Committee Pat Schutrop, Chapter Assistant and Recorder 1. CALL TO ORDER President Asher called the meeting to order at 12:12 p.m. Introductions were made. Mitchell Hoeft attended to introduce the Fall Conference Thursday evening activity and Jon Haukaas is the new member to the Audit Committee. 2. PRESIDENT S REPORT (Kristin Asher) A. Fall Conference Business Meeting Agenda President Asher asked if any of the committees wanted to bring initiatives update to share with the general membership to let her know. Potentially, the Government Affairs Committee will have an update and Asher is hopeful there will be an update regarding the advocacy communications initiative. B. Low Impact Development Operations and Maintenance Conference (LID O&M) ASCE has secured the LID O&M Conference for Stormwater Control Measures to be held in Minnesota in They are looking for participation by the Chapter and requested topic ideas for the conference be submitted by the end of September. Jeannine Clancy suggested ASCE consider partnering with the Water Resources Conference that occurs in September/October. President Asher will respond to ASCE and ask for more information. 3. SECRETARY/TREASURER S REPORT (Russ Matthys, Secretary/Treasurer; and Lee Gustafson, Deputy Treasurer) A. Minutes from Aug. 8, 2018 Executive Committee Meeting Officers Conference Call MOVED by Tim Plath and seconded by Heidi Hamilton to approve the minutes of the Aug. 8, 2018 Executive Committee as presented. Motion carried. B. Minutes from July 13 and Aug. 10, 2018 Officers Conference Calls The July 13 and Aug. 10, 2018 officers conference calls were presented for information. No comments were received. C. Financial Report (Gustafson) 1. Account Details No account details were received for discussion. 2. Financial Statements For months ending: Aug. 31, 2018 Financial Statements $23, Merrill Lynch $153, MOVED by Jeannine Clancy and seconded by Chris Petree to approve the financial statements for months ending Aug. 31, Motion carried. Page 1

2 4. VICE PRESIDENT S REPORT (Amy Grothaus) A. Thank you note from 2018 Young Professional PWX Stipend Recipient Alex Miller sent a note of appreciation to the Executive committee for awarding her the opportunity to attend the 2018 PWX. She was the recipient of the 2018 Young Professionals PWX Stipend. B. Accounting Subcommittee Update The Chapter s bank account is now open with US Bank. The PayPal account will be closed, and a new PayPal account linked to the US Bank account will be opened. It was learned at the recent PWX that APWA has abandoned its pilot accounting program with Microsoft and has now decided to use QuickBooks Online as its platform for the accounting system. APWA will purchase QuickBooks for the chapters and provide training. The pilot is scheduled to roll out later this fall in November and Minnesota will be included in the pilot program. 5. PAST PRESIDENT S REPORT (Chris Petree) A Election Process The 2018 election schedule will be as follows: Oct. 1 - an will be sent notifying member of the upcoming election. Oct. 8 - a second will be sent to members that will include the candidates bios and the proposed bylaws amendment. Oct. 9 - an will be sent to members from ElectionsOnline.com that will include members login information and will begin the voting. Voting will be open from Oct At the close of voting, Past President Petree, along with President Asher and Delegate Clancy will confirm the election results and notify the election winners. The new appointees will be set in at the Fall Conference. 6. COUNCIL OF CHAPTERS REPORT (Jeannine Clancy) A. Delegate s Report Recognition and recruitment of national committee members. At the PWX Council of Chapters Delegates meeting, Clancy attended a session on national committees. She learned that as large and vibrant a chapter as Minnesota is, National is surprised at the low-profile Minnesota has in participating on national committees and National would like the Chapter to consider increasing its involvement. The purpose of the national committees is to help develop technical information on APWA positions on work carried out as an organization. APWA staff are not technical people and they rely on the expertise of the public works community. APWA s technical committees are Asset Management, Emergency Management, Engineering & Technology, Facilities & Grounds, Fleet Services, Leadership & Management, Solid Waste Management, Transportation, Utilities & Public Rights-of-Way, and Water Resources Management. In addition, there are the Top Ten Selection Committee, the Center for Sustainability (C4S), Fleet Management Committee, and Diversity and Inclusion Committee. The commitment is attending monthly committee conference calls and attending one meeting annually in person. Clancy is intending to write an article for the website to encourage participation. Interested individuals can self-nominate or nominate someone else. B. History Committee (Dave Hutton, Chair; Jennifer Levitt, Vice Chair) No report 7. DIRECTOR/COMMITTEE CHAIR REPORTS a. Director of Public Works/City Engineer Director: Nick Egger i. Membership Committee (Jason Sprague, Chair; Nick Egger, Co-chair) Finalizing details for a tech tour of the Historic Stillwater bridge. Student Chapter The students are getting back into the school year. The Student Chapter will be coordinating a professional networking event sometime in the fall. Page 2

3 They will continue to host lunch and learns throughout the year with the Young Professionals group. b. Outstate Director: John Olson No report i. Outstate Committee (Reid Wronski, Chair) The Outstate Committee posted a committee update on the Chapter s website. ii. Awards Committee (Sarah Lloyd, Chair; Richard McCoy, Vice Chair) Minnesota award winners were recognized during the 2018 PWX awards ceremony in Kansas City. The Chapter held an awards reception at the Flying Saucer with about 80 people attending the celebration. A request for local award entries was sent out to chapter members. The deadline to submit nominations is Sept. 28. The committee will meet on Oct. 9 to review the nominations and is looking for more project nominations this year. c. Vendor/Contractor Director: Heidi Hamilton i. Communications Committee (Lydia Ener, Chair) The committee will meet in October and will focus mainly on outcomes of the upcoming advocacy communication planning meeting with Barsuhn. d. Manager/Engineer Director: Tim Plath i. Education & Training (E&T) Committee (Monica Heil, Chair; Tim Plath, Vice Chair) The Public Works Certificate Program has started and has a waitlist for the class. UUCIS has a waitlist. Bloomington Public Works is hosting the class. No web-based site is offered this year. Leadership Academy begins this week. Registration for the Advanced HR for Public Works is still open. e. Superintendent Director; Dan Curley i. Environment & Sustainability Committee (Michael Thompson, Chair, Sherri Buss, Vice Chair) Adopt-a-Highway cleanup event is on Oct. 3. f. Consultant Director: Monica Heil i. Diversity Committee (Alyson Fauske, Chair) The deadline to receive Diversity Grant applications is Sept. 14. The U of M and the University of St. Thomas have expressed an interest in submitting applications and the committee is expecting to receive them by the deadline. The committee will then review the applications and bring their recommendation to the Executive Committee at its October meeting for approval and invite the selected applicant to attend the scholarship recognition ceremony at the Fall Conference. g. State/County/Regional Director: Chris Sagsveen i. Public Awareness Committee (PAC) (Chuck Schwartz, Chair; April Crockett, Vice Chair) The committee is focusing on STEM initiatives. Chris Sagsveen addressed the topic of marketing the public works profession and how to introduce people to the different career paths within public works. He has a deputy working with him with an HR background and they have been talking about how to better recruit/market people into the public works profession. Hennepin County recently held a Little Operator event where children were introduced to public works. He said there may be some things going on the Chapter could partner with. In support of this idea, Sagsveen asked if it would be helpful to invite his coworker to an Executive Committee meeting to talk about what she is doing and explore partnership opportunities. Chris Petree suggested inviting her to the PAC first to consider if it is something to pursue. Clancy added she has been working with Jenn Zuchowski on the initiative she has been involved in with TwinWest Chamber and would like to invite her to discuss some examples of cooperative ventures she knows about. Lydia Ener said many schools have a senior workout program where the school invites speakers to address the student body. Asher added the future of the public works workforce is part of the advocacy in communications effort with Barsuhn and, if available, will ask the TwinWest representative to attend the advocacy communications plan meeting. Page 3

4 h. Young Professions Director: Emily Lueth i. Young Professionals (YPs) Committee (Chris LaBounty, Co-chair; Alex Jordan, Co-chair) Hosted a networking event at Surly on Aug. 23 with a good turnout with new people attending who have not previously attended an YP event. Jake Guzik and Alex Jordan will be speaking at a Construction Economics Engineering Class at the University of St. Thomas (UST) on Sept. 20. UST now has 41 incoming freshmen. ASCE career fair is Oct. 9 from 10 am to 4 pm at the U of M. The YPs would like to have an APWA booth at the fair. The cost is $350 for the day for booth space. They would like to make students aware of intern opportunities available in cities. President Asher said the Chapter supports the cost for the YPs to have a booth at the fair and not let the cost be a barrier to participating. If needed, Jordan will work with the Chapter Assistant to add a request for volunteers on the website. The YPs are working on setting up the mentoring program for the fall conference again this year. The group has rebranded the program and are calling it the Ambassador program to better fit the function or goal of the program. The purpose is to help new or 1- or 2-year attendees familiarize with the conference experience and meet new people. i. Conference Planning (Jupe Hale, Chair; Amy Grothaus, Co-chair) Fall Conference Thursday evening social activity. Mitch Hoeft attended the meeting to discuss offering the Thursday evening event at Topgolf. After researching the cost, the rates may be prohibitive to people attending and the committee is looking for input regarding a subsidy from the Executive Committee to encourage participation. The package quoted from Topgolf was $60 to $65/person for 2 hours of golf, light appetizers and room rental. The committee would like to get the cost down to $25 to $30 per person. Topgolf provided two options: o Book the entire floor for 250 golfers. The committee does not believe it could guarantee 250 golfers. o Rent a private room for 150 people. Based on a cost split of $30-$35 per person and the Chapter subsidizing $30 a person in the amount of $4,800 (based on 150 people). The Executive Committee discussed what options are available for nongolfers attending and what that cost would be. They discussed the Chapter pay for the rental fee and appetizers and people pay their own golf fee. Offer a cash bar in the room. Asher does not favor subsidizing the golf but would agree with the room rental and food. Mitch said if the Chapter can guarantee 100 people, Topgolf will reserve the room. To move forward, Mitch said the Chapter will need to make a down payment to Topgolf to reserve the space. Participants wanting to golf will register and pay online through the Chapter website. Topgolf uses Players Cards for the golfers to play golf and the golfers names will need to be collected before the event so they can populate the cards. The conference brochure will have limited information directing members to look for a separate about the offsite event. The will go to all the membership with more event details and include a link to the website for people to register by a certain date. MOVED by Chris Petree and seconded by Jeannine Clancy to authorize up to $3,000 for food and room rental ( with no beverages included) to host a reception at Topgolf as part of the Fall Conference Thursday evening event. Motion carried. j. Volunteer Coordinator Report (Beth Engum) No report k. MN2050 (Greg Stonehouse, Chair) No report 8. OLD BUSINESS No old business. 9. NEW BUSINESS No new business. Page 4

5 10. ADJOURNMENT President Asher adjourned the meeting at 1:21 p.m. APWA-MN Chapter s Mission: To advance the theory and practice of the design, construction, maintenance, administration, and operation of public works facilities and services. Dated: Oct. 10, 2018 Respectfully submitted, Russ Matthys APWA-MN Chapter Secretary/Treasurer Page 5