On behalf of the National Alliance, NCSBCS Executive Director, Robert Wible opened the organizational meeting of the Alliance’s Planning and Coordinating Task Force by thanking The Council for Excellence in Government for hosting the meeting. Task Force members were asked to introduce themselves. The following were present:

Paul Mendelsohn, American Institute of Architects
Robert Wible, National Conference of States on Building Codes
    and Standards
David Harris, National Institute of Building Sciences
Jaye English, Prepared Response, Inc.
Tom Ryznar, Prepared Response, Inc.
Brent Bomkamp, Prepared Response, Inc
Joiwind Ronen, The Council for Excellence in Government
Keith Suerdieck, U. S. Department of Agriculture-Rural
    Development
Carlos Martin, U. S. Department of Housing and Urban
    Development
David Weems, U. S. General Services Administration

Mr. Wible noted that representatives from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, National Association of Counties, and National Governors Association all sent their regrets that they were unable to attend today’s organizational meeting but noted that they would participate in future task force meetings.

The agenda and objectives of the day’s meeting were reviewed.

Mr. Wible updated the attendees on the progress made by the Alliance since its establishment last summer. He reviewed the work products which had been developed by the Alliance’s Technology Task Force and the Alliance’s decision to postpone the organizational meeting of the Planning and Coordinating Task Force until such time as there were work products from the Technology Task Force to disseminate to state and local jurisdictions.

During this update, several Alliance members described work their organizations were doing to support the implementation of the Alliance’s Action Agenda. Mr. David Harris from NIBS updated attendees on the status of the pending merger of the International Alliance for Interoperability-North America (IAI-NA) within the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) and on the importance of interoperability to the success of streamlining the building regulatory process through the use of information technology.

Carlos Martin from HUD described the important inter-relationship between the work of the National Alliance and the Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing (PATH).

Copies of background materials regarding the work of the Alliance and the first work products of the Technology Task Force were distributed and reviewed. The task force specifically reviewed a list of proposed work items sent to them by the Technology Task Force, as follows:

Work Items for the Steering Committee/Planning Committee
from National Alliance Technology Task Force Meeting December 11 & 12, 2001

• Advocating the products of Technology Task Force to jurisdictions.
• Code group involvement and ownership of rule set applicable to the building code.
• Architecture Association involvement in establishing guidelines and policy for use of IFCs.
• Provide proper funding and scheduling.
• Sponsor technology demonstration.

Drawing from the Alliance’s Action Agenda, the task force reviewed the draft statement on the Planning and Coordinating Task Force’s composition, scope, work products and proposed timetable. The need for changes to this document to reflect the work that had been accomplished by the Alliance thus far and the later date of the Planning and Coordinating Task Force’s organization were extensively discussed. Following that discussion, the task force members agreed to amend the above items. One of the major amendments to that document was the addition to the task force’s list of work products -- the development of criteria for the awarding of streamlining implementation grants to states and localities and a second set of possible grants to bring together work groups to address specific barriers to streamlining using information technology.

NCSBCS was directed to type up and circulate to all Alliance members the new composition, scope, work products and timetable and forward that document onto the Alliance’s Steering Committee for their review and approval. (See Attachment A.)

A draft mission statement was discussed and tentatively agreed to as follows:

"To enable the nation’s construction industry to build, faster, better, safer and at less cost the Planning and Coordinating Task Force will:

Lead the dissemination to states, localities, and industry the set of tools developed by the Alliance and successful model streamlining processes that increase the effective use of information technology in the nation’s building regulatory process."

Review of Draft Funding Proposal to Office of Science and Technology Policy:

Having established the above items, the task force addressed their second major objective for the day -- the review and comment on a draft proposal from the Alliance to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for federal funding support for the National Alliance and implementation grants to states and localities.

Mr. Wible reviewed the structure and content of the proposal and went over the background on OSTP’s, February 26, 2002, request for the Alliance’s submission of this document.

In the discussion that followed a recommendation was formally made for the proposal to be amended to include the previously discussed concept of grants going not only to jurisdictions to implement streamlining programs but also to groups working on projects that remove major barriers to the use of information technology to streamline the building regulatory process.

Several other recommended changes to the draft OSTP proposal were noted and will be incorporated in the next draft. Mr. Wible requested that anyone with any additional recommended changes please forward to them to him as soon as possible. The target date for forwarding the final document to OSTP was moved from April 6 to April 10 to accommodate other Alliance members not present at today’s meeting getting their comments in as well.

Mr. Wible noted that the next meeting of the Planning and Coordinating Task Force would be dependant upon the receipt of additional funding for the Alliance’s work from Alliance members and other funding sources including federal agencies.

It was agreed that over the coming weeks, task force members would review and comment on the above proposed draft mission statement and submit their recommendations to NCSBCS as Alliance secretariat as to what criteria should be used in the awarding of streamlining grants. It was noted that at the next task force meeting work on grant criteria and the prioritization of task force work products for the remainder of calendar 2002 would be their major agenda items.

Review of Draft Outline of Secure Nationwide State-Managed Database of Building Designs and Evacuation Plans and Demonstration of an Example of Existing I.T. Service:

Prior to adjournment, the above work product from the Technology Task Force’s March 27 meeting (see Database Outline) was reviewed with attendees. Mr. Wible requested task force members to forward to him any additional comments that they might have on the structure and contents of the proposed nationwide system. It was noted that the draft outline would be finalized at the end of next week and included within the grant proposal submission to the Office of Science and Technology Policy. A copy of the outline also will be provided to the newly formed The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP) of which a number of National Alliance members are partners.

Following this update, Mr. Wible introduced representatives from Prepared Response, Inc., who had just joined the meeting for the purpose of providing a demonstration of their product, Rapid Responder, as an example of an existing first responder database system which might be used within a nationwide secure database.

The presentation was made and the presenters fielded questions about the Rapid Responder system. The task force members thanked the firm for their presentation.

Mr. Wible circulated handout materials from other known providers of first responder information services.

Their being no further business to come before the Planning and Coordinating Task Force, at 12:40 p.m. the meeting was adjourned.