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Electronic Real Estate Recording Task ForceMEETING MINUTES Minutes: 19 November 2001 As recorded by Bob Horton Present: (Members) David Arbeit, Carmen Bramante (via conference call), Angela Burrs, Jeff Carlson, Michael Cunniff, Marty Henschel, Bob Horton, Chuck Hoyum, Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, Cindy Koosman, Denny Kron, Gail Miller, Bill Mori, Mark Monacelli, Eileen Roberts, Steven Rohlik. (Guests) Bert Black, Luci Botzek, Joe Cashman, Greg Hubinger, Beth McInerny, Jim Mulder, Lance Staricha (via conference call). 1. Call to order Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer called the meeting to order at 9.10 A.M. 2. Approval of 8 November 2001 minutes The minutes for the 8 November meeting were approved as distributed. 3.Proposed RFP recommendation The executive committee met last week with Beth McInerny to draft the RFP for a business analyst. Secretary Kiffmeyer asked to revise section 2.1.2, by replacing "county recorders and registrars" with a reference to "public and private sectors"; and to revise "all government units" to say "all public and private users." She said that section 3.7 should note that all office space etc. should be supplied by the contractor. Chuck Hoyum asked to add in section 3.1 wording such as "ideal candidates should have some experience with current real estate lending practices." Michael Cunniff asked about section 3.4: why should the task force prohibit a consultant from further work on the project? This narrows the options available to us. McInerny responded that it was standard practice to separate the design and the development of an application in order to prevent any conflict of interest. The design should reflect the standards, not the vendor’s application. Bill Mori and Marty Henschel said there were valid points to both sides. It might be useful to allow the task force the option to make the decision about further involvement based on the work of the business analyst and not preclude any options. Cindy Koosman recommended keeping the two functions separate. Vendors will point to what they have available; we should control the design. McInerny suggested adding a bullet to section 3.2 to say that the business analyst should explore what applications are currently available. Eileen Roberts asked if anyone other than a vendor could identify the standards and design this? Cunniff said that some businesses could do both, develop standards and systems. Mark Monacelli noted that the goal of the task force is to develop standards, not build systems. Bert Black suggested calling the "whole enchilada" a process and reserving the term system for the actual application. David Arbeit said we could replace "design plan" in section 1.1 with "functional specifications." This would allow for the adoption of different applications that could each meet the standards. The functional specifications would be a core minimum for all counties to use. McInerny added this would be a template that allows us to compare the available applications to our needs. Arbeit revised his suggestion to "design functional, technical and process specifications reflecting the standards as a model for comparison to the applications on the market." Carmen Bramante said we should add something that takes into account the work on standards that private industry organizations are doing. Marty Henschel said section 3.4 should preserve the option for the task force: it could read "the task force may preclude the analyst from involvement in any further aspects of the project." Eileen Roberts said this would still raise, consciously or unconsciously, a possibility of a conflict of interest. Mark Monacelli said we should try to limit the role of vendors in the design because they are going to want us to buy their products. The project should be driven by the task force and there is a risk that it will be difficult to get out of a problem after we are in it – time is short. Michael Cunniff moved that we change section 3.4 to "the task force reserves the right to preclude the successful proposer from being involved in any other bids let as part of the project." Henschel seconded the motion. Jeff Carlson said either version would discourage a vendor from bidding; there is no reason to run the risk of not getting the later contracts if the business is primarily interested in selling or building systems. He asked if this meant the task force could forbid a vendor from working for a county. Bert Black said the task force has no such authority, that there are too many intervening steps between this bid and the implementation of an actual system and that the task force will have completed its work and gone out of business by the time legislation is passed in 2003. David Arbeit said there is a slippery slope here, if a vendor does both design and implementation. But whatever the task force decides, the 2nd sentence in the section should come first, with an emphasis on the need for disclosure and with a firm definition of "course of the project." On a voice vote, the motion failed. Michael Cunniff asked if there were a quorum present. Mark Monacelli said that decisions are made by a majority of the members present. Bert Black said that if we decide there is no quorum, the meeting has to adjourn. Cunniff said the executive committee should vote on this motion. Jeff Carlson said that would cut out the task force from the decision making process. Bill Mori said we should let the vote stand. Chuck Hoyum and Marty Henschel agreed as, otherwise, we would have to reconsider the size of the task force. The decision to preclude the business analyst from any involvement with vendors implementing the pilot projects was affirmed. Section 3.4 was revised to read: "the contractor must disclose to the ERERTF any relationships or affiliations with other consultants, members or vendors. The contractor cannot be involved with any other consultants or vendors." Section 3.6 was amended to say, "this contract will run for the duration of the task force and that the contract may be amended with the approval of the task force to allow for additional duties." Eileen Roberts said we should add to the list of the primary responsibilities in section 3.2that the business analysis would be completed in 18 weeks. Secretary Kiffmeyer said to change the first bullet in that section to include public and private and industry, rather than just the "counties and other jurisdictions" and to make other appropriate changes of like wording in the RFP as needed. Greg Hubinger said we should add dates to section 1.2. That section will note that questions from prospective contractors should be in by 30 November. Answers to all questions received will be made available on 3 December. The LCC attorneys will review this document expeditiously, so that the RFP can be published on Monday 26 November. The responses will be due on 10 December. Michael Cunniff moved and Bill Mori seconded to allow for the RFP to move forward on this schedule with LCC review and executive committee approval. The motion passed unanimously. McInerny will email the final version of the RFP to task force. 4. Potential need for legislation authorizing pilots Secretary Kiffmeyer asked if the task force needed any legislation to authorize the pilots. Michael Cunniff thought not, as we will be using dummy data. This would not be a substitute for actually and officially recording records, just a parallel process. Chuck Hoyum agreed but asked it the counties will need to do something. Denny Kron and Gail Miller said the county boards would have to give prior approval. Jeff Carlson asked if we could test electronic funds transfer. Secretary Kiffmeyer said that has been cleared in the last legislative session. Jim Mulder said AMC is working on a RFP to address electronic payments. Eileen Roberts asked if legislation is necessary to make clear that filing in a pilot does not constitute official notice. She thought there could be some problem if something is overlooked in a duplicate process. Hoyum said a recent case indicated there would be a cause of action against the county if that happened. Essentially, the situations are the same, as a county has the responsibility to manage what it receives. Bert Black said a pilot creates more opportunities for confusion. Miller said UETA was modified in MN and doesn’t allow for the use of electronic signatures for real estate recording, so an unofficial pilot won’t qualify as notice. Carmen Bramante said there should be some concern with MN’s version of UETA. Other states ran pilots "officially" so there aren’t any models for a parallel process. In addition, E-Sign could pre-empt MN’s UETA, so that there may be some legal risk to running two processes. Some legislation that says the pilots are definitely not official would be advisable. Marty Henschel said the tests should start with dummy data and move to duplicate data. After that, the task force could recommend changing the law to allow for official electronic recording. Bramante said there is still a cause for concern. Roberts suggested a short act that briefly states that in the duration of the pilots, no official notice results from filing electronically. Mark Monacelli asked if the private sector would participate in parallel processes. Bramante said that might put a burden on the private sector that won’t be welcome. Denny Kron said counties would be very reluctant to participate in a pilot unless it is a parallel or dummy process. Hoyum said it would be too complicated to change the laws in 2002 to make the electronic filings official. Monacelli said the legal subcommittee should examine this. Somebody could challenge the statutes now to determine which has precedence – UETA or E-Sign. Cindy Koosman asked what the private sector was willing to do. Carlson said a parallel process will entail extra work, but there has to be some unofficial testing. Roberts said then we would also need to find some companies willing to participate in the pilots. What circumstances would encourage involvement? Marty Henschel said the carrot is improvement later. The private sector will invest some resources now in return for electronic recording down the line. The questions were referred to the legal subcommittee for review. Mark Monacelli specifically urged an analysis of the language in UETA and E-sign. The subcommittee should report back on 13 December to the task force. 5. Proposed subcommittee needs Beth McInerny discussed the need to isolate some issues and form subcommittees to deal with them. The subcommittees would include both subject area experts and a cross section of members. Cindy Koosman and Denny Kron were concerned about the number of subcommittees and wondered if any could be combined. Bert Black said some will have specific tasks and responsibilities, but others will only serve as resources to provide further information, to flesh out, for example, the 37 concerns in the work plan. McInerny said subcommittees would work with the task force and the consultants. She will serve on all subcommittees to facilitate their work. David Arbeit said the Governor’s Council on GIS could be the GIS subcommittee and serve as a reference and resource. Cindy Koosman moved that the chairs of pilot and legal subcommittees should join the executive committee, which would serve also as the communications subcommittee. Bob Horton seconded. Denny Kron asked if the chair of the technology subcommittee should also be on the executive committee. Bill Mori said there were lots of ways to get input on technology. The motion passed unanimously. Michael Cunniff said the decision on which counties and which companies are selected for the pilots should not be exclusively the job of the subcommittee. Eileen Roberts said the subcommittee should determine the selection criteria, but not make the choice. Bill Mori suggested adding a bullet saying the subcommittee should narrow the scope of 87 counties to a representative sample for the interview/surveys. It should then develop a set of criteria or a methodology for the selection of counties and companies for the pilots. The revision would read "Recommend a representative profile of counties that is a cross section of MN recording practices," with similar language to address the concerns of the selection of private sector participants. Roberts said it should also develop a sort of RFP, a statement outlining the responsibilities and tasks that comprise the pilots, so that everyone understands what would be involved. This would be a request for participation developed on the basis of the representative profiles. The task force would select who actually would be a part of the pilots. Carmen Bramante volunteered himself for the pilot subcommittee and John Richards for the legal subcommittee. Chuck Parsons was recommended as chair of the legal subcommittee. 6. Discussion of interview needs for all 87 counties Jeff Carlson noted the task force does not have the time or the money to interview all 87 counties. It must reduce that number to a manageable sample and this should be the work of the pilot subcommittee. After discussion, the task force agreed that the subcommittee would address this as one of its tasks. 7. Use of web site for meeting materials and for information on other states Beth McInerny will post all documents and materials to the web site. She asked task force members to send her information on states and other projects. She will send the URL of the task force’s web site to the members. 8. Executive committee membership Mark Monacelli said there are currently three members of the executive committee. The chairs of the pilot and legal subcommittees will be included as decided earlier. The executive committee will meet every two weeks and the full task force once a month. 9. Reimbursement of expenses Beth McInerney has posted an updated reimbursement form on the web and she will bring forms to the meetings. Members should send completed forms to her. 10. Schedule of future meetings The executive committee will meet every two weeks, in person and/or by conference call. The next task force meeting is scheduled 9.30 on 13 December at the MCIT. The MCIT will be the likely site of meetings in the future. Mark Monacelli is scheduling vendor demos for the December meeting. He asked Beth McInerny to check on the members who have not been attending and to find out if they could send others in their place to represent their constituencies. 11. Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 11.50 A.M.
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