MINUTES Maryland Society of Surveyors Board of Directors Meeting February 16, 2010 Offices of Dewberry, Lanham, MD

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1 MINUTES Maryland Society of Surveyors Board of Directors Meeting February 16, 2010 Offices of Dewberry, Lanham, MD 1. CALL TO ORDER: President Steve Jones called the meeting to order 4:05 PM. Those in attendance were Steve Jones, President Tim Quinn, President-elect& Government Affairs Chair John Campbell, Vice President Cynthia Baxter, Secretary Don Remmers, Treasurer Barry Hoyle (Appalachian) Terry Hastings (Baltimore) Doug Williams (Lower Eastern Shore) Jonathan Russell (Potomac) Wayne Hunt (Southern) Tim Granger (Susquehanna) Jeff Hubbard (Upper Eastern Shore) Robert L Banzhoff, Area 1 Director, Public Relations & Publications Chair James Whitehead, Area 3 Director George Wigfield, Education Chair Mark Husik, Executive Director Rona Goldberg, Associate Director 2. APPROVAL OF AGENDA: The following items were added to the Agenda under New Business: Arbitration Resolution; Machine Grading; and Article 15. The agenda was approved 3. ANNOUNCEMENTS: 4. MINUTES: Minutes of the January 2010 meeting were approved. 5. CORRESPONDENCE: President Jones received an invitation to the West Virginia Conference. 6. PRESIDENTS REPORT (Jones): Attended several area state conferences: Virginia, Pennsylvania and NJ. a. LICENSING OF PHOTOGRAMMETRISTS (Bailey): President Jones had the opportunity to speak with members from the neighboring states on this topic. Virginia has created a whole licensing category for photogrammetrists. 7. PRESIDENT-ELECT S REPORT (Quinn): Attended the February 3, 2009 Board of Registration meeting, chaired by Don Ocker. Tom Orisich discussed the NCEES plan for committee leadership succession. NCEES has term limits on committee leadership, and there is a lack of individuals willing to lead committees.

2 New Business - MSS Ethics course Vince Burke questioned the board about material he should include in his proposed course on ethics; specifically what responsibility land surveyors have to report inappropriate conduct by others. Vince mentioned that he has noticed that required monumentation is not being set on new subdivisions. Milena Trust clarified the regulation, which states a land surveyor must report inappropriate conduct when questioned by the board. Don Ocker recommended calling the offending surveyor to discuss the circumstances prior to filing a complaint. Tom Orisich brought up the issue of responsible charge. There was brief discussion about the vague definition of responsible charge in the regulation. New Business Overlapping Practice Tom Orisich discussed the Anne Arundel County design manual that indicates professional engineers can sign stormwater easement plats. Milena Trust indicated that by including the word stormwater in stormwater easement plats professional engineers are permitted to sign the plats. Don Ocker mentioned that the government can empower anyone to sign and seal survey drawings. New Business - MSS discussion with the board. Tim Quinn brought to the Board s attention the Montgomery County regulation that permits engineers as well as land surveyors to prepare plats establishing front building lines. This furthered the discussion Tom Orisich started regarding the Anne Arundel County stormwater easement plats. Although establishing front building lines involved setting control and making surveying measurements, it was not unlike the situation in Anne Arundel County that Tom described. Milena did not offer an opinion on the front building lines establishment. She was given a copy of the Montgomery County regulation to review. MSS is planning a tribute to Dr. Maloy. Quinn asked the board for their position on HB459 which will require state agencies that charge licensing fees to submit justification statements to the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative review when fee increases or decreases are adopted by regulation. Milena Trust stated that if passed, the new law would create additional administrative work for the board. 8. VICE PRESIDENT S REPORT (Campbell): Will report under his various committees. 9. EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS REPORT (Husik): Will report as needed. 10. TREASURER S REPORT (Remmers): The YTD budget was presented and discussed.

3 11. MEMBERSHIP: Applications for membership in MSS were approved. GENERAL SESSION: 1. CHAPTER REPORTS & AREA DIRECTOR REPORTS: APPALACHIAN: At the February meeting in Frederick, the Michael Hough candidate for the District 3- B seat discussed his platform. March meeting will be on Minimum Standards in Hagerstown. BALTIMORE: 1/13 business meeting; February meeting canceled; next meeting March 11 CARROLL: Snowed out CHESAPEAKE: HOWARD: LOWER EASTERN SHORE: Joint meeting with Upper Eastern Shore chapter on 2/1. Dave Doyle was the speaker on the 10-year plan at NGS. POTOMAC: January 26 th, Dave Weber spoke on Storm water Management regs affecting land surveyors. February meeting will be on Minimum Standards. In March speaker from MD SHA on Turnpikes in the county. SOUTHERN: Meeting on March 9 in Calvert County with program by Harry Alexander of SmartVent. SUSQUEHANNA: January meeting on Mentoring with Vince Burke. Hosting General Membership meeting in March in Charlestown. UPPER EASTERN SHORE: See Lower Eastern Shore report. Also discussion on metadata on plats. WESTERN: 2. AREA DIRECTORS: a. Bob Banzhoff has sent s out to chapter chairs in his respective areas and has not heard from the Western Chapter. b. James Shaw (reported via ) As everyone knows, we had a guest, Joe Thompson at our last BOD meeting. Joe left the meeting commenting on how dedicated everyone was to be there so late on our own time. He asked if we do this every month. I admitted that this particular meeting went a bit late, but yes, each month we travel great distances and put in hours of volunteer time for the Society. I asked if this gave him a better perspective on all the goals the MSS is trying to achieve and why the members of the Board get offended when someone is claiming that we are doing nothing? He did understand and seemed very interested in renewing his commitment to the MSS. Aside from that being part of the reason the meeting ran late...sorry...i would say that the invite was a success. On January 25th I attended the Susquehanna Chapter meeting with the Mentee Training presented by Vince Burke. I also met my mentee and spent some time getting to know her and her background. We will be meeting shortly to officially begin her mentorship. I have received no word of pending meetings from the Baltimore Chapter or the Howard Chapter. I did send an to the Baltimore Chapter this morning and I will be sending an to the Howard Chapter in a bit. If I hear anything prior to the meeting I will try to let you know. The March General Membership Meeting, on March 24th, is scheduled and everything is arranged. If anyone has a large projection screen they could bring for the evening that would be greatly appreciated. The facilities can only offer us a "small screen." James Shaw attended the Howard Chapter meeting

4 on Mentoring with Bob Banzhoff and Vince Burke. He would like to see a list of approved mentors on the website. John Mettee IV is a new licensee from Susquehanna Chapter. c. Jim Whitehead would like to see MSS take a more active role in SWM regs. d. Lee Gillis not in attendance 3. NSPS GOVERNOR S REPORT (Dragoo): No report 4. PUBLICATIONS (Banzhoff): Proof will be ready tomorrow. 5. WEBSITE (Jones): Updates to officers and chapters has been completed and posted on the website. 6. EDUCATION (Wigfield): Two more sessions are currently planned for the Red Book Prince George s CC and Allegany College. March 6 One Day Storm Drain Review Class 4/15-4/16 MSS Spring Conference Sediment Control Class starts in June 6/11/10 Annual St. Michael s Crab Feast and seminar at Chesapeake College CST Testing will be held at Spring Conference 7. TRIGSTAR (Whitehead): Testing will begin no earlier than 4/26 and must be completed by 5/7. NSPS has asked for Federal funding for the TrigStar program. Discussion on the amount requested. 8. EDUCATION FOUNDATION (Burke): Tuition at CCBC can be considered at in-county rates if you declare a Surveying major, regardless if you live in or out of the county. Survey major automatically puts you in-county rates SPRING CONFERENCE: Scheduled for April Jeff Lucas will be a featured presenter FALL CONFERENCE: Committee met earlier today to review details and ideas for courses. 11. SUSTAINING MEMBERS (Smith): No report. Goal of the committee should be to increase the number of Sustaining Members. 12. GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS (Quinn): The following report was presented by Tim Quinn at the meeting: Statute of Repose Bills: Senate Bill 531 First reading was February 4, The hearing in Judicial Proceedings is on February 23, Our Senate sponsor is Jennie Forehand, co-sponsors are Larry Haines, Susan Klausmeier, and Anthony Muse.

5 House Bill 907 First reading was February 10, The Hearing in House Judiciary has not been scheduled. Our House Sponsor is Kris Valderrama, cosponsors are Galen Clagget, Bill Frank, J.B. Jennings, Ben Kramer, Victor Ramirez, Todd Schuler and Jeff Waldstreicher. John Campbell, Tim Quinn and Bill Kress are working on testimony. State Board for Professional Land Surveyors Sunset Extension. HB130 and SB147 propose extension of the Professional Land Surveyors Board until On January 28, 2010, Tim Quinn and Bill Kress testified in support of HB130. On February 3, 2010, Tim Quinn and Bill Kress testified in support of SB147. Bill Kress and John Campbell are monitoring the marine contractors bill. Language related to design that appeared in the 2009 bill (SB1017) has been removed from the 2010 bill (SB382). Bill Kress is monitoring the licensing fee justification bill. HB459 requires agencies that charge licensing fees to submit justification statements to the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative review when fee increases or decreases are adopted by regulation. Bill Kress is monitoring the contractor s indemnification bill. HB168 nullifies indemnifications that protect a contractor from action if the damage or bodily injury is the result of the sole negligence of the indemnity. Bill Kress is monitoring these additional bills. MSS needs to weigh in on these. HB268 Minority Business Enterprises. HB348 Public Institutions of Higher Learning Notification for New design and Substantial Exterior Modification. SB229 - Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation Funding. SHA General Powers and Duties Process for Permit Applicants. Tolling Bill Permit Extensions Bill Kress and Tim Quinn are monitoring implementation of the 2007 SWM Act. Katie Maloney of HBAM has put together a stakeholders group that includes The Maryland Association of Counties, The Maryland Municipal League, all Maryland Homebuilder s Associations, Maryland s Realtor Associations and MSS. The purpose of the group is to push for legislation to delay implementation, and amend several provisions of the 2007 SWM Act. Tim Quinn attended the first stakeholders meeting on January 29, Senator Colburn, et al., have introduced SB420 that will delay implementation of the SWM Act until Marvin Holmes will be introducing a bill in the next few days to amend portions of the act relating to the impervious area requirements for redevelopment projects. Marvin Holmes has asked MSS to join the HBAM stakeholders group. He wants us to focus on the potential loss of jobs if the 2007 Act were implemented in its current state. Attended the Maryland Council of Design Professionals meeting on February 1, 2010.

6 Discussed our statute of repose bill with the design professionals. Discussed the Governor s budget bill and budget reconciliation bill. The governor to offset the budget deficit has appropriated several special funds. The Professional Design Boards special fund has not been touched, yet! AIA is monitoring a proposal from the governor s office that will require school architecture to be re-used from site to site as a cost cutting measure. The landscape architects are still having overlapping practice issues with agencies. The HB80 has been introduced. The bill directs the Board for Professional Engineers to establish a CPC requirement. The bill also establishes a retired license status for engineers. The engineers are discussing pursuing funding for education to address the shortage of engineers. Discussed the implementation issues involving the 2007 SWM Act. Discussed professional services taxation. The lobbyists in attendance don t believe this will be an issue since we are entering an election year. 13. PAC (Campbell): No action until session is over. 14. ETHICS & PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE (Campbell): Preparing a list of circumstances to be addressed. 15. SURVEY STANDARDS AND PRACTICE (Campbell): Several chapters are offering minisessions at their meetings on the Minimum Standards. This should be done at all the chapters. 16. PUBLIC RELATIONS (Banzhoff): a. ACSM Bulletin article on TrigStar b. National Surveyors Week is the 3 rd week in March. 17. STRATEGIC PLANNING COMMITTEE (Campbell): A Planning meeting will be scheduled on how and when items are to be acted upon and also to add to our arsenal of what we do for our members. 18. NEW TECHNOLOGIES COMMITTEE: James Shaw reported via I have researched a possible solution for the idea about online collaboration for our committees. Right now TikiWiki seems to be a strong possibility. I still wish to do some testing and I am in the process of installing a virtual server on my home computer to give the software a more thorough test. I hope to give a more expansive report on this at the March meeting. The software is open-source, meaning that if we decide it is a solution we wish to implement there will be no cost for using the software. Hosting space and throughput fees would be our only real concern. I also spoke at length with Seafloor Systems, the creators of the HydroLite TM, and was given a rather thorough understanding of their GPS-enabled echo-sounding technology and the type of accuracies that could be expected. Unfortunately, because of their location and small profit margins they will not be able to provide us with a demonstration. I have not had a chance to present this information to the New Technologies committee as of yet. 19. OLD BUSINESS: a. Mentoring Ongoing program b. Construction Stakeout- Tabled for this meeting

7 20. NEW BUSINESS: a. Arbitration Resolution John Campbell would like to have this placed on the agenda for next meeting. b. Article 15 (Responsible Charge) needs to be looked at business practices and law. Suggestion to create a small group to look into this and report to Survey Standards and Practice Committee. c. Automated Machine Guidance Wayne Hunt passed around an online survey he received on this topic. He noted that land surveyors are not even listed in this survey. We need to communicate with NCHRP to find out who they are and what they are doing. This will be an agenda item for the next meeting. The agenda having been met, the meeting was adjourned at 5:55 PM. Respectfully submitted by Rona Goldberg, Associate Director