305 Admin TF Minutes 11-4-11

SECTION 305 Administrative Task Force NOVEMBER 4, 11:00 AM EST CONFERENCE CALL MINUTES 2011

Al Ware, Georgia DOT, Secretary of the S305 Committee Executive FACILITATOR Board and Chair of the Administrative Task Force Al Ware, Nico Lindenau, Jeff Gordon, Leo Penne, David Ewing, Steve Hewitt (Alan Ware ATTENDEES was given the proxies of Pat Simmons, Joe Kyle and Eric Curtit Pat Simmons, Chad Edison, Kevin Kesler, Whitney Phend, Ken Uznanski, Eric Curtit, Joe ABSENTEES Kyle, Johnson Bridgwater, Shayne Gill

DISCUSSIONS AND DECISIONS MADE Alan Ware opened the meeting and asked that Steve Hewitt take the roll.

After the taking of the roll and announcing the proxies provided to Alan Ware, it was agreed there was adequate representation to conduct the meeting and to approve the minutes of the last call (October 21, 2011).

The Chair determined that, with no objections or exceptions noted, consensus was achieved and the minutes were considered to be approved. Review of Action Items – Steve Hewitt:

Steve Hewitt reviewed the running list of Task Force Action Items that remain open and are not on today’s agenda for discussion:

Developing a “legal pool” of states lawyers involved with state passenger rail programs: Leo Penne reported that he has sent out a new request to states to provide contact information of attorneys in their departments who have experience with passenger rail legal issues. Once he has the responses, he will compile the results and submit a list with contact information to the task force.

Open Records: This is an open action item – the NGEC has maintained open records since its inception and continues to make every effort to continue to do so.

Developing a Disclaimer Statement protecting those who provide opinions as a part of a report: This item was to be an agenda item for today, but the action owner, Nancy Greene was unable to make the call, so it will be tabled until the next meeting of the task force – November 18, 2011.

Recruiting new State Members for the Administrative Task Force: Nothing new to report on this action item in regards to state membership. The task force has added Eric Curtit of Missouri and Joe Kyle of Oklahoma to its roster.

Steve also reported that the FRA (Kevin Kesler) has committed to assigning representation to this task force and to the Finance subcommittee and has “pledged” to be involved actively in the work of the task force and Finance subcommittee. On today’s call representing FRA was Jeff Gordon. Jeff confirmed Steve’s report in regards to FRA involvement. Proposed Work Plans and Budgets – Alan Ware: Alan reported that the work plan that he had previously submitted on behalf of the task force (prior to the October 25, 2011 Executive Board call) had not been revised and still represents the task force’s submission.

Alan noted that two additional items to be fleshed out were the proposed Scope of Work for Ken Uznanski’s NGEC activities; and the assignment of hours of service related to Railroading 101 for the proposed Rob Edgcumbe SOW.

The Scope of Work for Ken Uznanski’s NGEC efforts had been distributed to all in advance of this call. It was agreed that they are reflective of the work that Ken has been doing, and continues to do, on behalf of the NGEC.

In regards to the SOW for Rob Edgcumbe and the hours needed for railroading 101, David Ewing estimated that approximately 90 hours should be set aside for conducting the Railroading 101 webinar series. This includes the period of time remaining in the current budget and continuing through the period beginning 4-1-12 thru 3-31-13. This would accommodate the 5 webinars planned as a part of the Railroading 101 series.

Steve Hewitt reported that DJ Stadtler had submitted a proposed scope of work with hours estimated per task for both the remainder of the current work plan and into the 2012-13 period. Steve noted that DJ presented this to the Finance subcommittee on Wednesday, November 2, 2011.

DJ’s estimates for Railroading 101 were for 40 hours to the end of March 31, 2012 and 60 hours from April 1, 2012 thru March 31, 2013. This estimate is very close to that which David Ewing had suggested.

DJ’s estimates also included an additional 10 hours for other Administrative task force support for the period thru March 31, 2012 and 25 hours for the period from April 1, 2012 thru 3-31-2013.

Alan felt that these estimates were reasonable and he was willing to defer to DJ’s recommendations.

Steve Hewitt went on to summarize additional discussions that took place on the Finance subcommittee call.

Steve summarized the discussion as: FRA (Kevin Kesler) was on the call, as was Nico Lindenau, FRA contractor. The FRA asked for more time to review both the Scope of Work for Ken Uznanski’s NGEC activities and the SOW and proposed budget for the Rob Edgcumbe activities. It was agreed that it was better to get it right than to rush it through, so the Finance subcommittee had agreed to provide time to the FRA to review and comment on the proposed Scopes. The FRA was asked to provide their input by the next call of the Finance subcommittee, November 16, 2011.

As a result of this request, DJ Stadtler determined that he will not have a proposed budget and work plan to present to the Executive Board on November 8, 2011 as requested. He will, instead, provide a status report that states “the Finance subcommittee is not done with its estimated budget and work plan because we are assuring that we have FRA concurrence first.”

Steve also reported that Kevin Kesler had committed to more active and continued involvement by the FRA in the Finance subcommittee work and that of the Administrative task force, as well as the joint Structure and Finance Working Group (SFWG) from here on out.

Jeff Gordon reported that this is the message that Kevin had asked him to deliver to the task force today. Nico Lindenau confirmed that Steve’s summary was an accurate description of what had taken place on the Finance subcommittee call. Structure and Finance Working Group activities – David Ewing:

David Ewing reported on the status of SFWG related activities and provided a summary of the report he had given to the Finance subcommittee during its call on Wednesday, November 2, 2011.

David reported, “we have 2 efforts underway within the SFWG. We need to get input from leadership at FRA, States and Amtrak“ and we are revising the draft report to reflect comments provided by the FRA (Chad Edison) to the report in August.

David went on to state that he had begun the process of interviewing leadership – and had started with an interview of Paul Nissenbaum on October 26, 2011.

He went on to say that, “the report, itself, in many ways is out of sync with the development of events in the California-Mid-West states procurement, and provisions in the grant agreements they have signed, which include the development of a plan for things like operation and maintenance, intellectual property, and Fleet Management, etc.”

David stated that it was important to “avoid duplication of efforts in S305 working groups and their own efforts” He understood from his discussion with Paul Nissenbaum that FRA would like to see if a “boiler plate can be created that reflects the national situation on the ground”. This, David believes, “is essential to do –match the intent of 305.”

He said the FRA has some “perfecting language issues with the draft SFWG report” and that it is now time to “clean it up as a reference report and move on – starting clean.”

The next step will be to prepare a set of questions that FRA/305 need to address.

David said that the interview with Paul had been a “proof of concept that interviews should go forward with leadership” and that he has suggested that he next interview Bill Bronte for the state perspective. Both Alan Ware and DJ Stadtler have approved David’s proposal to travel to California to interview Bill, and have agreed that his travel will be paid for by the NGEC.

David is scheduled to meet with Bill in California on November 30, 2011 and has reached out to Stephen Gardner, Amtrak as his next potential interview. The fact that Stephen has just assumed a new position in Amtrak, and we are not sure whether the “305 portfolio goes with him”, or is organizationally placed elsewhere in Amtrak, means we may need to arrange for a different person to interview.

As an action item from the Finance subcommittee meeting – David Ewing and Steve Hewitt were tasked with revising the draft SFWG report to include the comments from FRA. They were then to provide it to the subcommittee, the task force, and the FRA for review before submitting it to the Executive Board. It is intended to ultimately be posted on the website (still stating that it is a draft) as a reference document.

The Finance subcommittee also tasked David with continuing his interviews as proposed. Steve Hewitt pointed out that DJ Stadtler had hoped to attend today’s Administrative task force call to get concurrence on these action items.

The task force agreed that these are the right actions, and supported the suggestions of the Finance subcommittee.

Nico Lindenau, who had attended the Finance subcommittee call, as well, said that he felt David had given a good summary of “where we stand.”

He noted that he had two points to add:

Kevin Kesler wants to be sure that “we figure out what the activities are to be along with the life cycle of rolling stock.” It is important to “define a standard for maintenance, and for operating in multiple states with multiple deployments.” We need to “define these things first and the role of 305 or whatever entity it may become, before the discussion of structure.” We need to “understand the scope of responsibilities of the entity before going into the structure. The scope will be a bit broader in order to understand the activities to be managed.”

Nico also suggested that the timelines given for review of the revised report, as agreed on the Finance subcommittee call, is “too tight”. Chad Edison will not be back from vacation until November 15 th and the timeline called for the review to be completed by November 18 th.

After some discussion, it was agreed to move the timeline for completion of the revision of the report until the end of November. At that time the report will be submitted to the FRA, and to the Administrative task force and Finance subcommittee members, for review and comment. The expectation is that the Board will receive the revised draft report for its consideration by early January, 2012.

Nico reiterated that point one is to use “the life cycle of the equipment to look at the institutional structure of the entity”.

The second point is that FRA wants to “give the states a frame or guidance on what to define for grants – following practices for maintenance and how to operate in multiple states and on multiple routes.” The SFWG “should develop ideas on how things can take place including; fleet management, a maintenance philosophy, a data base on defects of cars, reliability and availability of the fleet.” It is important to “make sure that equipment is used to a maximum with reduced life cycle costs”. The SFWG can help set a framework and guidance on this.

It was agreed that it is time to get started on this activity right away – and that the draft revised report and this activity are separate activities.

The idea, Nico agreed, “is to accelerate these activities in line with the SFWG.” Once this is done then the questions can be looked at as to the structure of an entity.

It was generally agreed that the questions in the draft SFWG report are early, but will come back into play later on.

On Tuesday, during the Executive Board call, Paul Nissenbaum will help the Board with this by providing the FRA’s thoughts on an NGEC work plan for 2012 and beyond. It is hoped that after this, “we will get a mandate to proceed” and to deliver a white paper on a 305 framework to build on” by somewhere around April, 2012.

It was agreed that it’s important to get states involved in the discussion to help determine how much time they need for the development of the paper. The April date is a target to shoot for, but is yet to be determined. Nico also stressed the importance of getting input from a technical standpoint as well, and it will be necessary to go back to the Technical subcommittee and talk to the Technical working groups.

David Ewing asked if it made sense to add Larry Salci to his list of interviews. Larry is a great source of information, and will add a great deal of value to the effort. Larry was also involved in the development of the first draft of the SFWG report. It was generally agreed that this would be a good next step. David will contact Larry about his availability.

Further discussions revolved around making sure that the SFWG has the right membership to do what needs to be done. A review of the current list is needed and a way to reach out for additional resources.

Other issues/questions – Alan Ware:

Alan reported that he has begun to develop a policy for how people or companies should address the Executive Board, either in person or through letters or emails. In Georgia, the there is a “10 day in advance “ time frame for similar requests.

Alan asked that Steve Hewitt add in the minutes a request for Administrative task force members to think about ideas for a process and policy to address what is expected to be an increasing number of letters for response and/or requests to meet with the Board.

David Ewing suggested that it would be a good idea to be sure that those who are writing to the Board understand that the Board has an open records policy, and their letter should be posted to the web site, along with the Board’s response. This suggests that those addressing the Board should not provide proprietary information if they do not want it public. Everyone on this call agreed this is a good suggestion.

Jeff Gordon suggested that it would make sense to have a page or section on the web site that “makes it clear what the responsibilities are that one assumes when asking a question(s) of the Board.” There should be an AASHTO page that has the questions and controls described, and a way to have a meeting or response scheduled. It would make it clear what the parameters are and would show that the such requests are “open, accepted and receptive.”

Alan asked that any additional comments or suggestions be sent to him and to Steve Hewitt in advance of the next task force call scheduled for November 18, 2011.

Next call of the Task Force will be: November 18, 2011 at 11:00am Eastern

Action Items Update (New and Carryovers) The “Reporting Requirements for NGEC PRIIA Section 305” will be held as an agenda item until the Technical subcommittee has had a chance to provide input or until it is determined that this has already occurred. (carryover item) Leo Penne to provide task force members with a list of Legal contacts provided to him by the responding states. (carry over item) Nancy Green will develop a proposed disclaimer statement or a template for consideration to the task force. (carryover item) Members of the task force are asked to submit comment/suggestions/ideas for a process and policy for handling requests for a meeting with the Board, and/or responding to letters to the Board. Suggestions go to Al Ware and Steve Hewitt prior to the November 18, 2011 conference call. David Ewing will continue the interview process with leadership as part of the SFWG effort and report on his results to the Finance subcommittee and the Administrative task force. Steve Hewitt and David Ewing will revise the SFWG draft report to include the FRA comments provided by Chad Edison in August. The report will be revised by November 30, 20911 and sent to task force members, Finance subcommittee members and the FRA for comments. The intent is to complete the report and submit it for Board consideration by early January, 2012.

Next Meeting/Conference Call: November 18, 2011 – 11:00am EASTERN

Call in number: 866 299-7945 passcode: 1601544#

ATTACHEMENTS

SECTION 305 ADMINISTRATIVE TASK FORCE Conference Call November 4, 2011 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time 866 299 7945 pass code 1601544#

1. Welcome/opening comments Alan Ware

2. Roll Call Steve Hewitt

3. Approval of prior minutes Alan Ware

4. Review of action items Steve Hewitt 5. Developing a Disclaimer Statement /finding a template Nancy Greene

6. Proposed work plans and budgets Alan Ware a. Work plan and budget 4-1 12 thru 3-31-13 b. Modifications to current work plan/budget thru 3-31-12

7. Proposed Scope of Work for Project Manager ( Ken Uznanski) Alan/David

8. Structure and Finance Working Group (SFWG)activities David Ewing a. Report on discussions with Paul Nissenbaum, FRA b. next steps

9. FRA engagement with the Administrative task force and SFWG Kevin Kesler

10. Rob Edgcumbe contract - SOW –estimate of hrs needed for Admn tf Alan Ware Tasks (ie RR 101)

11. Other issues/questions? All

Next Call: November 18, 2011 – 11:00am Eastern

Call in # 866 299 7945 passcode 1601544#