E-Business Committee Chairman, Jack Arrowsmith, opened the meeting by thanking our hosts, Wayne Vaden, City and County of Denver Clerk & Recorded/Public Trustee and Anita Dubas, Denver County Deputy Public Trustee. Introductions of the guests was made by Wayne Vaden. They were Anita Dubas; Sheila Palermo, Denver County Recording Supervisor; Tim Paran, Denver County Records Manager; Chelsey Shea, Consultant with Ciber, Inc.

Michelle Harper, Special Assistant to the Mayor of Denver also joined our meeting in progress.

Marilyn Bullard, E-Business Committee Secretary, called the roll. Those present were as follows:

Jack Arrowsmith, Douglas County Public Trustee
Marilyn Bullard, Douglas County Chief Public Trustee
Angela Dazlich, Larimer County Public Trustee
Roxy Huber, City and County of Broomfield Revenue Manaager/Public Trustee
Sandy Hume, Boulder County Public Trustee
Jim Wills, Boulder County Deputy Public Trustee
Larry Castle, Attorney with the Castle, Meinhold & Stawiarski law firm
Wayne Vaden, City and County of Denver Clerk & Recorded/Public Trustee

Those not present were as follows:

Alynn Huffman, Gilpin County Treasurer/Public Trustee
Michelle Miller, Park County Treasurer/Public Trustee
Ginger Dyer, Security Title, Bailey, CO

The minutes of the last meeting held on January 15, 2004 were corrected as to the spelling of Carol Mast’s last name from Mass to Mast, per Jim Wills. Jim then moved that the minutes be approved. They were unanimously approved.

Jim Wills gave an update on the Secretary of State E-filing Advisory Panel. They are trying to form a committee to set standards and have those standards as open as possible. Indexing standards will be discussed at the PRIA conference in Washington D.C. There is an education committee that is trying to identify the interest in E-recording and remove any fears. In regards to Senate Bill 04-047, the Secretary of State wants changes. There is $1.6 million in State funds and very little has been spent to date. There could be an assessment study of the counties to see their needs and maybe use some of this money for 04-047. There is a meeting at 9 a.m. on Friday, February 20, 2004 in the Secretary of State’s Office conference room. You can call in at 9 a.m. that morning and listen to the conference.

Jack told us that the paper world is reluctant to bring standards. Jack asked the clerk and recorder’s indexing committee for the Public Trustee’s Association to be a referral on this committee; and, that we ,as an association, make the recommendation to the indexing committee that the State Parcel # be part of the indexing. There was more discussion about setting standards for indexing and other ideas were presented about the readiness of the title companies and the reasons for their possible resistance. At the present time, they feel that the changes they need to make would be expensive and would add steps which would slow the processes down.

The e-business committee unanimously recommended that we contact CPTA president Bob Sagel and ask him to send a letter to the S.O.S.s Indexing committee asking that the State Parcel number be included in the indexing information on electronic documents.

There are some concerns with some of the wording for HB 04-1300, which is the electronic notarization bill.

1. The current wording in the statutes states that you must be a citizen of the U.S. and an electorate in order to become a notary in the state of Colorado. The "NEW" requirements to become a notary in Colorado state a person needs to be a resident and 18 years of age to be a notary. There was a 1984 Supreme Court ruling making it against the law to require a notary to be a citizen.
2. Who will determine the fitness to be a notary and how it could adversely affect your ability.
3. The issue of an electronic journal. The law now states that if the same firm has a permanent electronic record of the notarized document, it serves as the electronic journal.
4. There will be a number for every notarized document, to be issued by the Secretary of State’s office. A certain group of random numbers will be given to each notary in blocks. When these numbers are reduced, an additional group will be assigned. The Secretary of State will charge a fee for this electronic journal, but no fee has been set at this time.

Wayne Vaden thinks this is vendor driven. Larry Castle says that if there is no notarization on a real estate document, the title will be clouded for 10 years. It may be possible to replace the notarization with the Public Trustee seal. There was more discussion on this issue. Legislation is probably needed to replace notarization on Public Trustee documents.

There is a hearing today at 2 p.m. at the State Capitol. Jack and Larry both expect to attend this hearing. We would like to see the Public Trustee removed from the notarization process but will need to determine how Public Trustee will operate under the proposed legislation should we not opt out of the notarization process. If this bill is passed in the House, it will still take some time for the process to be completed and the bill to be signed. It was suggested that this process might take 6 months before we could receive our first releases electronically.

Jack still thinks that the Public Trustee should be exempted from the notary process and use the Public Trustee Seal as affirmation. The seal and signature can be authenticated through the Secretary of State for a minimal charge. If we can agree on this course of action, we can draft a bill specific to Public Trustees. It was suggested that Rich Krohn review any proposed legislation on behalf of the association. Douglas, Boulder, Denver, and Larimer County Public Trustees agreed to pick up any costs associated with Mr. Krohn’s involvement. A late bill request is hard to get through, so it was motioned by Wayne Vaden and seconded by Sandy Hume to recommend to the Executive Committee of the CPTA that we move ahead on this legislation. The committee voted unanimously to proceed.

e-business update: The fears about the cost of processing releases has been significantly reduced since the initial introduction to the Kuvera program. Some of the PT’s have been introduced to Go-Forms by Gary Drury. There is a company called Documental that is as large as ACS. Continued competition is driving the cost of doing e-business down.

Denver County has hired Ciber, Inc. as a consultant. Wayne Vaden indicated that PT’s could utilize Chelsea (their Ciber Consultant) on a limited bases at no charge. Denver is building their own foreclosure program. Volume from the lenders is generating this. The lenders and the government both need to be sold on these products. Wayne felt the ideal would be to have XML open formats for all submitters; one server for all; one vendor for all.

Jack told everyone that Douglas County has a contract with RTS for the foreclosure process. The pilot begins in March.

There was some discussion about how the legal descriptions and where we access the information is an issue that needs to be addressed. Because technology is different in each county, it may be more of an issue for some Public Trustees than others.

Jack told everyone that Colorado would be hosting a Hospitality Suite at the PRIA Conference. The Clerks and Public Trustees want to have national indexing standards and want Colorado to be the test case. PRIA has some willingness to go in that direction.

There was some discussion about having the legal publication notices for foreclosures published on the Internet instead of the newspapers. This would require a changed in legislation and the newspapers would probably lobby against us. Larry suggested that it would have to be a broad bill. There was also a question about eliminating the requirement of any publications. Wayne Vaden will e-mail his ideas on this issue to all on the committee.

It was decided that our next meeting will be in Larimer County on Thursday, March 11, 2004, at 11 a.m.

Respectfully Submitted

Marilyn Bullard

Secretary e-Business Committee