board minutes

The meeting was called to order by President Tim Riley at 1:10 pm at the Dutchess County Conservation District office located in Millbrook, New York.

Present were: Tim Riley - President, Rick Mickowski - Vice President, Marli Rupe - Vermont, Ernie Thurlow - New Jersey, and Ed Hoxsie - New York.

The June 2005 teleconference call meeting minutes were reviewed. It was motioned by Ernie Thurlow, seconded by Ed Hoxsie to approve the minutes. Motion carried.

The treasurer's report was faxed to the meeting for review. The balance in the account is $6740.41. There are two outstanding invoices totaling $774.00 which will leave a balance once paid in the amount of $5966.41. Our 2005 summary of earnings shows that NACDE made $755.00 on the bus tour last August, $466 on the raffle, and $1386.84 on the HydroCAD training workshops held so far.

It was motioned by Rick Mickowski, seconded by Marli Rupe to approve the Treasurer's report as presented. Motion carried.

The NACDE Strategic Plan was reviewed and a draft will be attached to the minutes of the meeting. Some ideas discussed under this section included how to improve and increase the amount and type of training workshops held during NACD regional meetings or to hold seperate employee training workshops at the regional level. A leadership conference would be the way to go.

The current NACDE Awards Program was reviewed and changes were made for the 2006 awards cycle. The issue was the requirement that the award nominees have experience and leadership at the regional and national level. This results in only a "few" being eligible for the award since not every outstanding employee is able to participate in a regional or national context.

NACDE is creating a "local" award that will recognize outstanding contributions at the local level. This will be in addition to the current format. There may be a requirement that the award recipient will be required to share their experience at the NACD regional meeting or via NACD in some way to promote technology transfer and program ideas. The overall program will be entitled "NACDE Conservation Awards". There will be awards given for the outstanding District Employee and District Board Supervisor at the regional level and the outstanding District Employee Award at the local level. The NACDE President still has the option of presenting the "President's Award" to a deserving Conservation Partner.

Kerry Rickrode, Ed Hoxsie and Ernie Thurlow will serve on the awards committee.

Delaware hosted a workshop Fall 2005. Workshops are planned for June 2006 in Massachusetts and July in Millbrook, New York. The details are on the NACDE website. An MOU is being worked on between NACDE and HydroCAD to hold these workshops. This will be a primary fundraiser for the Association. Other states and Districts will be encouraged to hold workshops in the future. An article will appear in the June NACDE newsletter.

Ed Hoxsie continues to take the lead on this endeavor. Brian Skoralick from Ed's office has talked to the IECA regional representative and they would like to partner with NACDE on this event. EPA has not jumped in with any funding as of yet, but there are possibilities. A recent survey was done about urban programming and holding an urban conference was second from the bottom on the list. An urban conference was held in the Great Lakes region but it was not well attended - about 40-50 attendees. Ed Hoxsie attended and thought it was an outstanding program. However, it was only a one day meeting which made it difficult for urban districts outside that region to justify the costs to attend. Some of the sessions that Ed Hoxsie attended was one presentation from a District in Wilmington, NC that is using NRCS-WHIP funding to do rain gardens in one watershed. One District in the Great Lakes region had a sand collection program to reduce the amount of road sand getting into the Great Lakes. You collect debris and sand and get a free rake. There were many presentations from District personnel on their programs. It would be good to have more incentives for the urban population.

The stormwater conference should showcase District programs. The audience would be stormwater professionals, engineers, planners, municipal officials and employees. NEMO educates on the issues but requires technical assistance workshops and follow-up.

The Extension/Sea Grant program is not connected to Districts but could be a good match.

Tim Riley is serving on several sub-committiees for NCDEA. He is on the funding subcommittee and another NCDEA association Review Taskforce looking at funding issues. They are exploring all avenues of potential funding support for NCDEA whether it is through dues, grants or other means . The big issue is how do you fund a CEO for NCDEA. One idea is through a national grant. Tim Riley is submitting a grant to put together a national Urban Conservation Toolkit for Districts. It would have a 4-year time frame to bet accomplished. The toolkit would then be implemented at 2-3 test Districts. The deadline for the grant submission is April 11th. It is a USDA-Cooperative Extension System grant going through review at Delaware Cooperative Extension with NCDEA approval. It was also reviewed by the NACD Urban and Costal Committee which Ed Hoxsie sits on as the NCDEA representative. The toolkit will compile a listing of all the urban programs and innovative ideas being done and generated by Districts in the country.

NCDEA has a full complement of representatives from each region except from the Pacific Region. This position is vacant due to Jason Drew leaving his District for another job position. Tim Riley distributed a report that was given out at the NCDEA luncheon in Houston. It compiles reports from each of the regions and from each of the employees representatives on the NACD committees.

The mid-year meeting for NCDEA will be held in Phoenix, AZ in early June 2006.

The NACDE sponsored tour to Liberty State Park was outstanding. There were logistical problems with the luncheon arrangements at the hotel. Employee attendance was low.

Tim Riley distributed a draft agenda/working program for the meeting in July. The NACDE sponsored tour on Sunday afternoon will be a pre-cursor to the Sunday evening presentation. The bus company has been contacted. The cost will be $300 for one bus or $500 for two buses. PACD is handling the exhibit area for this meeting. NACDE will have an exhibit table in the area and it will include an exhibit, handouts about the HydroCAD workshops, newsletters, an NACDE brochure, etc.

Some additional ideas for the tour included an historic mill dam and the Penn State Creamery. Tim will have a better handle on potential tour sites once he hears back from the evening presenters on where the historic sediment locations are at.

The State of the States Report will be sponsored by NACDE and there is no other competition on the schedule during this event. These reports will be posted on the NACDE website and should be sent as a MS WORD document or PDF file.

Communications Committee - Rick Mickowski reported that he needs to prepare the pricing information for the newsletter that was discussed and approved at the June 2005 meeting. The website has been updated but more work needs to be done. The strategic plan will be sent out for review. The November issue of the newsletter was not completed due to a lack of information and time constraints. Some of the current information will be used and an email will be sent out for more information. This issue will focus on the summer meeting, the HydroCAD workshops, and news from the state and employees associations.

Fundraising - NACDE will not hold a raffle at the Pennsylvania meeting. We will focus on the HydroCAD workshops as a source of fundraising and potential sponsors for the newsletter.

Pat Sueck sent her regards that she would not be able to attend due to the NACD legislative conference in Washington D.C.

New York - New York has legislation going through the process that would keep base funding for Districts and raise the amount of funding but tie it to program delivery. NYACD is requesting $4.4 million in reimbursement funds.

The Water Quality Symposium held in mid-March was well attended. Legislative days were held to visit public officials. A stormwater program survey was done of Districts in the state to get a summary of what Districts are already doing in this area of work. In the fall of 2005, a stormwater vision was released. It outlines where NYACD thinks Districts should be heading in regards to stormwater programs versus DEC's vision. District's want to assist in SWM Program implementation not be the regulating authority.

Ed Hoxsie has been the New York representative since last summer. This will be changed on the NACDE master list.

Delaware - Rick passed out copies of the December 2005 DCDEA newsletter. The DCDEA president gave a presentation at the DACD annual meeting in January. A joint SWCS - Pocomoke Chapter/DCDEA spring meeting is being held in April. Mike Brown, District's Operation Manager at DNREC will give an overview about Districts in Delaware and the partnership connections. A second golf outing fundraiser is scheduled for June. A logo was adopted at the summer 2005 meeting.

New Jersey - The New Jersey Employees Association is focusing on dues collection and updating its bylaws. Their new President is Angelo Caruso. The by-laws were revised to include the past president position. They are working to get training back as a priority. NRCS has revitalized their training committee. New Jersey use to have a two-day training workshop for District and NRCS employees. New Jersey has endorsed CPEC for training. SWCS chapter sponsored testing for CPEC in April. New Jersey has a new Governor but this has not impacted Districts too much. The E and S rules were clarified and adopted in January 2006. Guidelines are being set to better utilize State e-based permits. Some Phase II stormwater permits are being issued through District offices. They need to coordinate site inspections citations with DEP inspectors.

Vermont - Districts in Vermont focus on nutrient management. The state focuses on stormwater management. There are 14 Districts in Vermont and one District has the Burlington and Montpelier areas so they do some stormwater education in those regions. Farmers get nutrient management plans done in full for free. They are planned to NRCS/State guidelines. Marli has two planners working on this. The State Association received a grant to hire 2 employees to do state basin planning for watersheds. They are doing complete watershed plans with issues and solutions. It was mandated by the EPA. The state association is growing but they need to formalize it. Marli is looking for employee association bylaws. In Vermont, an employee representative is on two committees under the State Conservation Council and VACD. Marli serves as a legislative liaison, sharing information with all the Districts. Judy Doerner is the new State Conservationist for Vermont, coming over from Rhode Island.

The meeting adjourned at 6:00 p.m. A June 2006 teleconference call will be scheduled.