Attendees: Scott Aycock, Elke Dortmund, Helen Mapp, Phil Blatt, Scott Melcher, Stephen Clarke, Kate Fitzpatrick, Geoff Babb, Bruce Berryhill, Karen Coulter, Marcus Kaufmann. FS attendees: Vickie Dunaway, Bob Flores, Rob Schantz, Dan Parazoo, Slater Turner, Dave Moyer, Bill Anthony, Cindy Glick (notetaker).

Flip chart notes: Monitoring Questions taken from what is required in the monitoring report combined with discussion items.

1) Characteristics of the Contract/ Contractor:

• Size of business
• Local business? Hire locals?
• Days worked?
• Criteria chosen and weights for best value criteria
• Volume of material removed, value of material to government

   

  Discussion:

• Put items in contract for the contractor to track
• Track past performance items from RFP
• Track bid price of contract itself/ did the contractor breakeven, etc?
• Solicit info on the # of employees/season
• Need to stratify kinds of work that the contractor does, especially hand labor- FTE/s(full time equivalents) yr/firm?, PFT's (permanent full time), PPT's (permanent part time), temporary employees, how many days/yr work for the contractor?
• Material removed- ask contractor to track. If material is not removed,document why not? For example, all that was planned to be removed should equal what was removed, if this did not happen, the reason needs to be documented in a narrative.

2) Government Administration

• Budget of administration needs to be documented- sale prep costs, admin, surveys, monitoring, reporting
• Cost to implement
• Citizen involvement (MPMT)
• Cost of admin vs. traditional methods

   

  Discussion:

Other costs?

• Include total cost of effort, ie stand exams cost
• Planning costs so far are $300,000.
• Opportunity causes contractor to invest in new equipment
• How accurate does the FS track these costs as defined in this section (ie. -Are there savings/cost increases from this method of contracting
• Does it include all externalized costs? Ie The FS reports annual compliance monitoring that includes riparian habitat, snags, roads?
• Need to include post harvest costs?

3) Biophysical Achievements-

• Did the project meet the objectives?
• Were the fuels reduced?
• Noxious weeds treatment?
• Use of rx fire

   

  Discussion:

• A qualitative as well as quantitative assessment is needed
• FS does compliance monitoring of whatever is required in the contract
• DXD would require ongoing compliance monitoring during the contract
• Contractor helps with quality control (self inspection processes)
• An assessment at the end of the contract is needed
• Soil compaction concerns(erosion and sedimentation of streams) need to be traced back to the projects that specifically contributed these negative effects.
• Were the goals met, did we achieve the outcomes described in the silv rx?
• Refer to teacher protocol from FY 02 for the plots taken
• Need before and after pictures, consider repeatable plots
• We need to know what we want to monitor so we can compare measurements, so two subcommittees were formed: Ecological team-Geoff, Karen, Elke, Phil, and Bob F(may appoint someone); Socio-economic team- Scott, Cal/Gregory, Cindy, Vickie. These committees will report back at the next meeting any progress they made on their monitoring topics, especially with information that they'd like the group to consider having the contractor collect.

4) Social Information

• MPMT members
• MPMT activities
• MPMT contributions
• Outreach efforts

   

  Discussion:

• Define to what extent "common ground" was found within the group; tie this back to the charter
• Are there any measures or standards to measure group diversity?
• What is the impact to the FS and the community folks?
• Is this process helpful or dread for the FS folks? After a few years,did the work on the ground get done better? Did we create the political currency to make changes? Did the public gain knowledge of the hoops the FS goes through? (It will be frustrating to both the public and the FS if the hoops prevent MPMT input from being utilized.)
  
• Document lessons learned/impacts to do the work. Did the process help the FS to get out of gridlock?

5) Usefulness of authorities:

• Were objectives accomplished that before were not possible?
• Being a pilot project, did it make the project more or less attractive to bidders?
• Is the agency better meeting the needs of the local community?
• How does the agency maintain accountability for treatments and the products removed?
• Did the process lead to enhancements or reductions in the agency's ability to implement ecosystem management?

   

  Discussion:

• There is a need to meet ecological goals in addition to implementation of ecosystem management
• In the monitoring report, the answers to the usefulness of authorities can be framed to reflect the different perspectives of the group
• A good point to go back to would be to dig out initial meeting notes where the group defined why we were at the table
• Who is audience for the MPMT report? The report goes from the MPMT to Watershed Center to the Regional Team then condensed from four regional teams into 1 report,which then goes to the National Team which condenses all the regional reports into 1 report that goes forward to Congress. However, the information reported is also used locally to improve stewardship contracting work.
• Several websites exist that have more information on the stewardship pilots: the Pinchot Institute for Conservation website, the Watershed Center.org website, and the Metolius website for this project.
• We need to think about the idea that the monitoring report form does not ask if this process meets the rural community needs.

6) Unexpected outcomes

• What were the lessons learned?
• What suggestions are there for future improvements?

   

  Discussion:

• There is a need to put in photo points
• How can we measure the level of community acceptance?- the socio-economic committee needs to work on this

General Meeting Notes:

Contracting Update: The projects to occur this summer, if the EIS is not appealed, include underburning, hand piling, mowing and small tree thinning. The FS noted that the contract that is being written now for thinning this summer will be given to the MPMT for review when the contract is advertised, in mid June. It was noted by one of the MPMT members that if a contractor knew the relative weightings for evaluation criteria for a best value contract a month in advance of the advertisement, that would be a huge advantage to that contractor. So the FS will continue to talk in generalities, not specifics about the contract, to avoid conflict of interest issues.

The FS Implementation Team is striving to design a goods for services contract, half of the site to be treated with an outcome based designation by prescription format, while the other half would be marked and cruised in traditional sale preparation methods. The FS noted that this is a small contract compared to future potential work and they were listening to the input that the MPMT is recommending, but they couldn't give guarantees to address all ideas raised by the MPMT with this small project. The FS has $50,000 to prepare and implement this 106 acre project. There was concern raised about the high costs of government work- $450/ac to hand pile slash, another $200/acre to burn it. The government is hoping that the total work cost for this project (including presale costs) will be a net of $500/acre. In addition, Bob noted that there is no money to support monitoring this summer other than the use of two teachers' services, who will be working for Cindy.

The FS Implementation Team clarified for the group, the provisions that are in timber sale contracts. "A" provisions note what trees are being cut and require payment; "B" Provisions are a general part of a contract that denotes special features of the contract as landings, etc.; "C" Provisions are written to protect the site (ie. noxious weed concerns); and "D" Provisions include the sale area maps.

BUDGET- Bob noted that he needs to know how much the MPMT needs to support their efforts in monitoring the Metolius EIS projects in the future, so he can begin to help to recruit finances. This recruitment would cover government contract costs, support funds for the MPMT, and government partnership assistance to obtain grant money. So to get at the budget needs, the monitoring work will be more fully defined by the forming of two subcommittees- the socio-economic sub-committee (Scott Aycock, Cal Mukumoto, Gregory McClarren, Vickie Dunaway, and Cindy Glick) and the ecology sub-committee (Geoff Babb, Karen Coulter, Elke Dortmund, Phil Blatt, (Bob Flores could appoint a FS person if needed)). The two subcommittees planned interim meetings and will report back accomplishments at the next scheduled MPMT meeting.

Suggested contacts and resources to help with the monitoring effort were identified:
Sue Stewart, COFMS fire ecologist, monitoring fuels reduction work
Youth Crew Assistance- Heart of Oregon Corps (HOC), Youth
Conservation Corps (YCC), Black Butte and Sisters School District youth.
Non-profit groups internship programs- possibly Blue Mtn.
Biodiversity(needs to be centered on a community timber sale);
possibly the Nature Conservancy from the Fire Learning Network program, and maybe the Deschutes Basin Land Trust.
Forest Service- has some equipment that could be available to use for the monitoring effort as a digital camera with GPS.

The next MPMT meeting will be on May 19th from 0900-1200 at the Sisters RD office. The agenda will include reports from the subcommittees on ecological and socio-economic needs to help define the monitoring questions, FS identifying what size the 04 program could be, and the group working together to develop
a budget.

At our meeting critique, the group noted that they were beginning to feel like the group is moving ahead and a common vision is becoming more clear. It was noted that we need to identify and clarify during the meetings when the group is making decisions.