Minutes for August 6th, 1998
(approved September 14, 1998)

Saline County Study Steering Committee in conjunction with the Saline County Study Management Team

Thursday, August 6, 1998 7:00 PM CDT
Spainhower Building Board Room, Habilitation Center, Marshall

Kathy Borgman, LeAnn Haling, Richard Clemens, Mark Belwood, Wayne McReynolds, Marc Harris

Patti Carr, Corey Lyon, David Perkins, Vince Buck (NOTE: Tim Simmons, having completed his agreed-to year of service, has given notice that he is ending his involvement with the Study. Tim is thus not considered absent for this meeting.)

Chris Fulcher, Cynthia Crawford, Russell Dehn, Richard Pemberton, Darin Starr

Gerry Snapp, Tom Johnson, Dennis DiPietre, Mike Dillon

John Lory, Vincent Burke, Mubarak Hamed

Mark Belwood, recorder, served as chair for this meeting.

Everyone had received a printed copy of the minutes prior to the meeting, but one paragraph was not readable. This paragraph was read as it should have appeared. There being no objections, the minutes were approved.

A report on the hard copy report on the first year of the study was presented by Chris Fulcher and Vincent Burke. The hard copy report is essentially a snap shot of the interactive web site, and each chapter of the report represents one of the sections of the web site. The current version has black and white sample maps; the final version will have colored maps. It was emphasized that the current version of the report is only a draft and is open to modification. A copy of the draft document will be available at the Saline County Extension Office for review. Everyone on the Study Team is encouraged to review the document and to make suggestions. Additionally, an official review committee was appointed consisting of Marc Harris, LeAnn Haling, Russell Dehn and Richard Pemberton. The final document is to be ready by September 3—which is the date of the orientation meeting for new members of the Steering Committee.

John Lory presented an analysis he had done in regard to nutrient assimilative capacity of Saline County. John had originally planned to have paper maps available for the meeting, but a major power outage at the University today forced him to scrap those plans and to use projected maps. John emphasized that his analysis was a county-wide analysis and was not field specific. In addition to its practical use as a screening tool, this particular analysis serves as an example of what can be done with GIS analysis in general. A 30-meter grid was used and only row crop land was considered as being available for assimilative purposes. The bottom line of the analysis was that assimilative capacity is not a limiting factor in regard to animal production in Saline County. As an example of other factors that could be incorporated into the analysis, John mentioned increasing the buffer size and changing the slope requirement.

Chris Fulcher reported on a new tool now available on the web site. It is the Livestock Production Decision Support System. This particular decision support system was not developed on the Internet, so CARES is currently in the beginning stages of converting it to Internet use. The LPDSS gives consideration to both relative and absolute suitability factors. Socio-economic factors are not yet addressed but can be incorporated. The LPDSS will eventually be integrated with John Lory's assimilative capacity analysis. The approach used by the LPDSS can be useful for addressing issues unrelated to livestock.

Mubarak Hamed reported that he now has data available on 104 land sales in the County.

A short break was taken.

It was reported that no meeting has yet occurred between the County Commissioners and Dr. Ronald Powers to finalize agreement on a second year for the Study. John Lory and Vincent Burke suggested that this meeting should be held soon. Cynthia Crawford suggested that the agreement be made available in the form of a written document—as it was for the first year of the Study. There was an informal consensus of agreement on Cynthia's suggestion.

Discussion then turned to the retreat to kick off the second year of the Study. The first matter discussed was the composition of the Steering Committee. All of the Steering Committee members present at tonight's meeting agreed to serve for another year. Tim Simmons has terminated his involvement with the Study after serving for the one year period to which he had committed. The County Commission will ascertain which of those Steering Committee members not present tonight wish to continue for another year. Richard Pemberton motioned and Richard Clemens seconded that vacant seats on the Steering Committee be filled by the County Commission. In the discussion that followed it was suggested that new members needed to be strong in communication abilities as community involvement will be a vital aspect of year two. It was also suggested to appoint people who would be likely potential users of the data. Several persons were suggested to the County Commission as potential new members. The motion passed with no audible dissent.

The Communication Subcommittee (authorized at the November 1997 meeting) was appointed. The first order of business for the committee will be to plan for the retreat. After planning for the retreat and after new members are appointed to the Steering Committee by the County Commission, the composition of the committee may be changed. The initial membership of the Communication Subcommittee consists of Richard Clemens, LeAnn Haling, Kathy Borgman, Dennis DiPietre and ex officio members Cynthia Crawford and Mark Belwood. The committee will meet at 7 PM CDT on Thursday, August 27 at the Extension Office in the Saline County Courthouse to plan for the retreat.

John Lory made the following suggestions for the retreat:

• Have summary session overviewing the first year,
• develop a road map of what we want to happen for the second year (as part of the road map choose three issues on which to focus), and
• don't use the retreat to struggle with the issues.

The matter of a facilitator for the retreat was brought up. It was suggested that it would be nice to have Mel Zelinski back again. Richard Clemens commented that we might just need the facilitator for the first day and not for the entire retreat.

It was suggested that it would be good to have an orientation meeting for the new Steering Committee members prior to the retreat so we don't have to start from scratch at the retreat. An orientation meeting was scheduled for 7-9 PM CDT on Thursday, September 3 at the board room of the Marshall Habilitation Center (such room being available). At least one researcher, one commissioner and one of the present Steering Committee members are to be present. To ensure that one Steering Committee member would be present, Mark Belwood was designated as the official attendee. If he cannot attend he is to make sure that some other member of the Steering Committee will be present.

The retreat was tentatively scheduled for Sunday and Monday, September 13 and 14 in Arrow Rock.

Chris Fulcher announced that Chris and Yan Barnett are now the proud parents of Annie Kathryn born Thursday, July 30.

The meeting adjourned at about 9:40 PM.