October 5th, 2023
Welcome – Vice President Jason Robinson called the meeting to order and welcomed all attendees.
Self-Introductions – 40 people were present.
Meeting Minutes –Meeting minutes were not approved at the opening of the meeting; correction to comment regarding Locating Inc’s work areas has been made. September minutes to be re-approved at November’s meeting.
Treasurers Report – Naomi Shirtcliff: Not Present
Publicity & Education– Jim Franklin: will be stepping down from LUCC P&E chair position for the remainder of the year.
SEHS Cheer sponsorship has been discussed, defer voting for November meeting when more officers are present.
Damage Report– Jason Williams: Last month had 6 damages, mostly expired tickets. Midvalley Gravel hit a line for the second time; will be offering education training.
Web Page– Amy Abramson: no update
OUCC Standards Review –Jason Robinson: Emergency Locates – there is no definition for a required response time. Accepted Best Practice for our area has been 2 hours for many years.
NWN noted that if the emergency is for the gas company, its recommended to check-in with the responding crew lead for directions. Its not always safe to entire a site right away during a gas emergency, so delaying response might be acceptable but should be confirmed with the crew.
Old Business: USIC (Tyler – Supervisor) knows their response time for emergency tickets has been an issue; he is working on improvements. He has 10 potential new hires; trying to get them onboarded by Oct 16th. Current on-call staff has a large coverage area due to low staff levels. That should improve soon.
New Business: contact info was provided for Tyler – USIC area supervisor.
Jason W. – is interested in co-sponsoring a golf tournament with NWN. Perhaps in lieu of the Contractors breakfast? We will discuss more in the next meeting.
Program: Kevin Bissel, Online Trainer – One Call Concepts (811 Call center)
The call center takes all in coming locate requests, online and by phone.
It has evolved from paper maps and exclusive phone operators, now with online ticket submissions.
Kevin is working on getting people to refine the work zone more specifically instead of “mark entire property”.
The system generated tickets will process out to the locators quicker because the “custom / hand written” ticket descriptions are manually reviewed by staff before it’s issued.
NWITIC@OCCINC.COM has a contact page to report issues such as “false emergency” tickets (i.e. fence installs, pools, etc.)
Updated mapping from utility operators is required to keep the 811 maps up to date. Each utility is responsible for sending changes and updates to their facility mapping.
Comment: The Radius tool isn’t capturing all of the utilities in the vicinity.
Response: This is typically due to outdated maps or changes in the utility operates name. That type of issue can be reported via the online chat.
Meeting Adjourned- 1pm