Chair’s Report: Dave Hunstad welcomed the Board and observed that the Board would probably continue to meet virtually for a while. Suggestion of shorter meetings with greater frequency.
Election of Secretary and Appointment to Executive Committee: Ward Westphal elected Secretary and appointed to the Executive Committee to replace Jodi Corrow.
Legislative Report: Dean Parker reports that there will be no cahnges to the leadership of the committee that oversees changes to Minnesota Statutes Chapter 216D. Bonding bill passed in October with $700 million for road and bridge construction and $300 million for wastewater treatment and is expected to directly impact excavation in Minnesota.
Chief Operations Officer Report: Barbara Cederberg reviewed 2020 ticket volumes. Through October tickets are up 8.8% YTD with online submission up to 82.9%. The new user interface has been widely accepted with few still using the legacy interface. ITIC created polygons are now able to be accurately viewed by Korterra and iRTH.
Notification Buffer Size Change: Beginning Jan 1, 2021 the buffer for ITIC submitted tickets will change from 500 ft or the nearest right-of-way to 300ft or the nearest right-of-way, whichever is less. There will be no change to the buffers for tickets called in by phone.
Process Change for Start Time/Date of tickets: Web submitted tickets must be reviewed by the notification center before they are accepted. Beginning December 1, 2020, acceptance time will be adjusted such that the work start time/date requested by the ticket submitter is at least 48 hours, excluding weekends and holidays. This is only expected to effect tickets submitted during peak times where review times may be longer.
One Calll Process Review Team:
Team had prioritized several efforts that could have a positive impact on reasonable use of llocator resources and/or improving safety.
Limit tickets on busy days – request that users push out start times if they are able to do so.
Limit multiple updates of normal tickets – provide strong encouragement for use of meet tickets instead.
Force new marking instructions when a ticket is updated for the third or fourth time – theory is that some of the work has already been done, so the marking instructions should be revised to reflect only what excavation remains.
Require an excavator state the reason why “no” white marks on ticket requests and insert the reason in remarks section.
Request more precise marking instructions when a ticket is submitted with “mark entire lot”.
GSOC is participating in the utility mapping pilot project to explore potential offered by advacing technologies and to encourage implementation where appropriate.
GSOC is working on a metrics project to provide data to facililty operators and excavators in the field.
MnOPS Update: Working on alert notices to excavators and utilities regarding white markings, communications between locator and excavator, and complaints. Intended change to complaints process - no more form, all complaints to be taken by phone. Final 216D Stakeholder meeting to review these changes.
PR/Awareness Report: Star Tribune campaigns were overall successful and the third largest source of traffic to the GSOC website. St. Paul Saints initiatives have been pushed to 2021 due to the pandemic. GSOC will experiemnt with a virtual booth for the Norther Green Lanscaping Show, which will be entirely virtual this year.
OCC Report: Post pandemic OCC is planning on a hybrid office model with personel such as database or training coordinators wokring from the office and allowing CSRs to continue working at home if desired. MN is experiencing significantly larger increases in ticket volume as compared to other OCC notification centers. GSOC is on pace for a record year finally beating out the 2004 record. Review times are up slightly and will become a key performance indicator next year.
