Jack Arrowsmith, Committee Chairman, opened the second meeting of the E-Business committee. The first order of business was a request by Jack that Marilyn Bullard, Douglas County Deputy Public Trustee, be appointed as the Secretary of the committee, as well as a suggestion that there be only one voting member per county on any issues that needed a vote, such as this one. There was a unanimous agreement on this appointment and the voting issue.

Jack welcomed everyone and thanked our host, Roxy Huber, Broomfield City and County Public Trustee. The guest presenters were introduced. Gene Barlow, Douglas County Sheriff’s Department Internal Security Specialist; Michael Guentzel, Hart Intercivic Project Manager; Jim Wills, Boulder County Deputy Public Trustee.

All members of the committee were present:

1. Jack Arrowsmith, Douglas County Public Trustee, Chairman
2. Marilyn Bullard, Douglas County Deputy Public Trustee, Secretary
3. Angela Dazlich, Larimer County Public Trustee
4. Roxy Huber, City and County of Broomfield Revenue Manager/Public Trustee
5. Alynn Huffman, Gilpin County Treasurer/Public Trustee
6. Sandy Hume, Boulder County Public Trustee
7. Michelle Miller, Park County Treasurer/Public Trustee
8. Jim Wills, Boulder County Deputy Public Trustee

Others present were:

1. Scott Doyle, Larimer County Clerk and Recorder
2. Tiffany Hall, Larimer County Recording Co-coordinator
3. Monda Kite, City and County of Broomfield Public Trustee Technician
4. Kim Pfeifer, City and County of Broomfield Public Trustee’s Office
5. Vicki Nemec, Gilpin County GIS/Telecommunications
6. Bob Sagel, Morgan County Treasurer / Public Trustee, President of the Public Trustee’s Association

Gene Barlow gave a presentation that he called "Internet Security 101". There is good and bad on the internet, and, you can find almost anything you want on the internet and you can download anything on the internet. Gene gave an example of an individual making up to 110,000 hits on internet sites during a 40-day period. Gene indicated that studies show the majority of these hits are during an 8 to 5 workday and sadly are mostly to adult internet sites. Gene spends 30 to 90 minutes a day on the internet and made 3900 hits during the 30-day period between August and September as part of his job.

With E-commerce, the most important issue is "Policy." Policy is the core of Security. Technology is not Security; it is only there to support your policies. Policy lets everyone know where your limits are. If policy is in place, you reduce your chances of being sued!

There is no such thing as 100% Security. E-commerce is also about convenience, it saves time. Security is an opposing force with convenience. The higher the security and lower the convenience level.

Gene touched on these security related issues: identity theft, spyware, broadband access, hacking, applying patches to software, passwords, digital signatures, and digital certificates.

Policy is the most important thing during this "Digital Age", second is trust, and money is important because security is not cheap. If you have a security person on your staff, Gene believes they should be an employee. A contract person is not vested and is motivated by time and money.

Gene can be contacted to answer questions: Gene Barlow, 303-784-7818, e-mail address: gbarlow@douglas.co.us

During lunch Mike Guentzel, Hart Intercivic Project Manager gave a PowerPoint presentation called "INFOCUS". He offered a lot of information about electronic recording versus paper transactions. In e-recording, the information is transported over the wire by an internet secure connection. XML or extensible markup language is the standard protocol for getting data from A to B. The image is also transmitted wrapped in the XML data. Anything can be recorded anywhere from one place to another using a wet signature (ink signature), digitized signature, digital signature, or PKI (Public Key Infrastructure.) He talked about UETA, Uniform Electronic Transaction Act; PRIA (Property Records Industry Association) standards.

Mike said that Hart is operating in 4 states, Colorado, California, Washington, and North Carolina. Hart supports a standard vendor independent gateway of multiple submitters as well as all levels of e-recording levels 1, 2, 3, and 4.

E-recording has come to the forefront because of the dramatic increase in the volume of recorded documents with no increase in staff. The secondary market, such as Title Companies and Mortgage companies, desire a quick turn around of documents. With e-recording the turn around time could be as quick as 30 seconds in some instances!

There must be standards set, some are written by national organizations such as MISMO; submitters are the software companies, not the title companies. The originator/submitter can be the same or there can be the originator and then a submitter. There are brokers and clearing houses as well.

Hart deals only with government and not the private sector.

There was discussion as to how this could work for the Public Trustees. PT’s could receive the e-recording on the internet and submit it to the Clerk and Recorder via the intranet. They would need the recording vendor or software, participating originators and submitters, a willing IT Department, and the technology necessary: E-Recording Server; a trusted Secure connection, such as SSL, which is secure and flexible, or, VPN, which is limited; software that supports E-Recording; Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) of all the players to make sure all are on the same page and what the specific procedure is in individual P.T. offices.

Jim Wills gave us an update on what is happening with the Secretary of State E-filing Advisory Panel. The Secretary of State is the facilitator to help the smaller counties get into e-recording. There is $1.1 million in the State fund created after the House Bill was passed where 50 cents of the $1.00 surcharge is given to the county and 50 cents goes to the state. The Secretary of State will go to the Legislature for spending authorization up to $1.1 million.

The Secretary of State has the authority to establish rules allowing electronic notarization. The legal community is being asked for input. These rules will probably be in place to allow electronic notarization in Colorado by the end of this year.

The Secretary of State meetings are open to all. There will be a meeting November 20, 2003 at 2 p.m. in the Secretary of State Office. Additional information is available of the SOS web site.

The minutes of the last meeting were accepted. All members asked to have the minutes forwarded to them electronically except Michelle Miller in Park County at this time. These minutes will be forwarded to Bob Sagel to post on the PT Website.

There was discussion about what we would present to the CPTA in Fort Collins at the seminar on October 23, 2003. It was decided that for the 1 hour plus time frame allotted, we would have a panel consisting of these E-Business committee members: Alynn will cover all the fears and resistance from the smaller counties, which will be first on the agenda; Jim Wills will give an update of the Secretary of State Advisory Panel; Roxy Huber will provide information on the Level 1, 2, & 3 Technology; Angela Dazlich will address the security issues; Jack Arrowsmith will show what this process looks like. There will be a presentation by the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder which Sandy Hume and Jim Wills will arrange.

Our concern for the smaller counties was addressed in many ways. Angela brought to our attention the statute that states that we can contract together with other counties to use our excess funds. Angela is willing to do this as far as is legally possible. Suggestions were made on working with the Clerk and Recorders’ Office such as a fee split or have the Clerk and Recorder give you an employee to process the possible extra work load. A suggestion was given to the possibility of a common server for all counties to use for e-recording and also establishing a fund to allocate to other sources.

Sandy Hume gave Jack credit for moving forward with this committee and e-recording. He also asked if anyone had a problem with Boulder County moving forward with E-recording. The committee endorsed his decision to move ahead.

There was a decision made that we needed different entities represented on this committee. Roxy Huber will call the Castle, Meinhold, & Stawiarski Law Firm to ask if someone on their staff would be willing to serve on this committee. Roxy will also contact the Broomfield IT person, Russ, to see if he would serve also. Michelle Miller will contact Security Title in Bailey, CO to see if they have a person that would be willing to serve on the committee.

There will be a meeting in Fort Collins at approximately 3 p.m., Thursday, October 23, 2003, at a location to be determined at the conference hotel. We will have feedback from our presentation at that time and will know where we can go from there. The next official meeting will be scheduled after November 20, when we will have more information from the Secretary of State.

All members were asked for feedback on all the speakers we have had so far. It was agreed that we have learned from them all and are willing to have more informative speakers to learn from in the future. Guests are always welcome at the meetings, we welcome other input. All agreed that we must be ready, because E-Recording is coming!

Jack Arrowsmith has forms for anyone that would be interested in becoming a member of PRIA.