SCCOOS Board of Governors Meeting Notes November 23, 2004

TELE-MEETING MINUTES

NOVEMBER 23, 2003, 1:00 PDT

SCCOOS Board of Governors Meeting

Attendees:

Diane Evans/David Tralli - JPL

Tony Michaels/Burt Jones - USC

Mary Nichols - UCLA

John Orcutt - SIO

Mark Moline - CalPoly

Libe Washburn- UCSB

Steve Weisberg – SCCWRP

Carlos Robles/Tony Garce - CSLA

Debbie Duckworth (note taker)

1. John Orcutt welcomed everyone to the meeting and reported on the status of the SCCOOS NOAA Organizational Proposal which had just been completed and sent. The proposal adheres to the work plan for this past year and added several items:

·  Targeted economics analysis by Pendleton (UCLA) for evaluating market sectors within Southern California.

·  Engagement of the marine safety community by Michael Bateman

·  Continue support for Steve Aceti/CalCoast for facilitating the cration of relationships with regional governing bodies

·  Budget for hosting SCCOOS meetings

·  Support for a product/data management person to work with users to define needs and provide capacity for bringing outside data gatherers’ information into the SCCOOS data system.

The SCCOOS Board of Governors was involved in planning the proposal this year via e-mail and a few members replied and several suggestions were adopted.

2. John Orcutt reported on the status of the COCMP. The State is waiting on obtaining a signature from someone within the Water Board, which will authorize them to spend their $7M. Sheila anticipates this will be completed before Thanksgiving. Once signed, she will send us an e-mail that will authorize spending. An Annual Work Plan coordinated with COCMP in central/northern CA must be completed.

3. The committee addressed Motion A made at the last Board meeting in Dana Point, to form an Executive Steering Committee (ESC):

The SCCOOS Governing Board shall appoint an Executive Steering Committee of 3 to 5 persons, each of whom shall be a senior scientist or manager within a member institution. The ESC shall carry out its activities under the policy guidance of the Governing Board, and any decision of the ESC shall be subject to review by the Board.

The responsibilities of the ESC shall include, but not be limited to, the following:

1. Appoint an operating staff to manage the day-to-day functions of SCCOOS.

2. Convene an advisory group of users and funders.

3. Coordinate government relations and mobilize support for appropriations.

4. Plan and carry out a retreat to develop a 10-year vision for SCCOOS.

5. Establish formal and informal mechanisms to assure the greatest possible communication among members and to encourage and facilitate participation by members in SCCOOS activities.

Votes which had been collected to formulate the Executive Steering Committee (ESC) were tallied. The results were:

Libe Washburn (4 nominations)

Eric Terrill (2 nominations)

Steve Weisberg (2 nominations)

Burt Jones (2 nominations)

Russ Davis (2 nominations)

Paul DiGiacomo (1 nomination)

Mark Moline (1 nomination)

Mary Nichols (1 nomination)

Keith Stolzenbach (1 nomination)

After certain considerations were made, e.g., avoiding any conflict of interest of having a member of the Advisory Board in a principle position for conducting business (e.g. Eric Terrill who is responsible for day-to-day operations); and secondly, avoiding overlap between the Board of Governors and the ESC (e.g. Mary Nichols, and Steve Weisberg), a consensus was arrived at and five members of the ESC were selected. They are:

Libe Washburn

Burt Jones

Russ Davis

Paul DiGiacomo

Keith Stolzenbach

Mary Nichols moved to form the ESC; Steve Weisberg seconded the motion.

Notably, the role of the ESC will be to meet on a more frequent basis than the Board of Governors. While the Board of Governors shall be responsible for making policy decisions, the ESC’s role will be broad and will include communicating often to resolve issues that would not necessarily require action by the Board of Governors. The ESC will facilitate operations and shield the Board from issues that can be resolved at the operations level. Minutes of all ESC meetings will be made available to the Board as soon as possible and minutes will be posted on the SCCOOS web site.

David Tralli inquired whether the ESC will overlap with the Operating Divisions and suggested that the members of the ESC could serve as Chairpersons of the Operating Divisions. The Board decided to leave the choice of Chair to the committee. The Board would like the ESC to work out a recommended rotation schedule (e.g. rotation every 2-3 years) with a staggered rotation to get this started. The ESC reports to the Board and/or its Executive Committee.

4. In addition to the Executive Steering Committee, it was agreed that the Board would appoint an Executive Committee. The members are:

Mary Nichols

John Orcutt, Chair

Tony Michaels

Steve Weisberg

Adding Steve Gaines, from UCSB, to the Executive Committee was discussed. Steve Gaines was not present, however, and some inquiry by Libe Washburn will be made as to whether Steve Gaines is willing and available to serve on the Executive Committee.

5. John Orcutt reported on the results of support for HR5100 from SCCOOS. Congressman Weldon acknowledged the helpful support of SCCOOS for the Bill establishing an Integrated Ocean Observing System. There are several California sponsors for the Bill although this issue is now pretty much sidelined until the new Congress begins to meeting in 2005.

6. There will be a solicitation for proposals to the ORION program during the next several weeks. The title of the solicitation is “Ocean Research Interactive Ocean Networks: Infrastructure for the Establishment of Community Experiments for Ocean Science Research.” The request for proposals is likely to be delayed until the report from this year’s ORION Workshop in San Juan, Puerto Rico is published. However, SCCOOS needs to consider how it will respond to the coastal portion of this solicitation. No funds are involved at this stage, but concepts for observatories will be important. Proposers may be asked to submit full proposals later in 2005. Part of the solicitation will read:

“Detailed conceptual proposals should focus on scientific advances that cannot be achieved solely with traditional expeditionary approaches. The goal of this request is to determine the nature and cost of ocean observatory science and enabling infrastructure to be constructed though the OOI as required by the ocean research community to advance high priority science. Infrastructure requirements for executing these projects will strongly guide implementation plans for the OOI. Proposed experiments should take advantage of the real-time, continuous data stream, high bandwidth, ample power provided by platforms of the OOI and should be identified as having high relevance to implementation plans for the OOI. These plans have been outlined in reports such as the ORION workshop report as well as other OOI reports to be found on the ORION Project Office website.”

7. The upcoming RFP for the SCCOOS Pilot Grant was discussed. John Orcutt will be dispersing a copy of the Draft RFP to the Board of Governors. A final RFP is expected in early December in the Federal Register. This RFP is anticipated to be an electronic submission only.

8. The Board of Governors agrees that “Education and Outreach” would be better managed as its own Operating Division within SCCOOS. This would better serve education and outreach and may provide the attention and support that these tasks will require.

9. John Orcutt noted that the ORION newsletter recently published an article about the Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory. Yi Chao has suggested that SCCOOS should submit an article for the ORION newsletter for publication early next year. Yi Chao and Eric Terrill will take the lead in writing and submitting an article to ORION.

10. Tony Michaels said that California Edison is undergoing a review process for installing a power and communications cable across the Southern California Bight from the mainland to Avalon on Catalina Island to mitigate pollution problems associated with diesel power generation on the island. The California Coastal Commission is currently involved in the analysis of trenching and risk mitigation at the coasts and the seafloor. The cable may have junction boxes attached, designed to mitigate the cable’s impact through careful ocean observations. This may be useful to SCCOOS and aid in enhancing research efforts in the Bight. John Orcutt agreed fully and noted that this might also play a large role in a potential proposal to ORION for coastal observations. A considerable amount of literature exists on the use of cables for scientific purposes.

The tele-meeting adjourned approximately 2:00 pm.

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