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blanket approval or specification of who signs off
on it, we need to know what that is and who does
it,

DR. MELIUS: Also just speaking to the
immediate issue here with this task, I think --
the contractor has an opportunity tomorrow to ask
us questions about this, so hopefully those --
everything will get clarified tomorrow and then I
think we go to our next meeting and not -- ‘cause

otherwise [ think this delegation gets pretty

awkward -- do that. At the next meeting we can
then, you know, do a formal motion that -- say
there’s some minor changes that -- either

directing the contractor to do it with these minor
changes or, you know, contingent on those being
submitted and approved by -- you know, reviewed by

-- by Paul. f think that’s probably the most

direct way of -- of doing it, but I think we can
do -- make it a very specific delegation at the
time of that conference call, and we -- what we

have to do is remember to do that.

DR. ZIEMER: The question that was raised,
though, on clarification, who does clarification,
I don’t know that we've answered that, really, for

-- for this -- for the next four weeks or however

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know, pay attention to it so that we get a good --
have a good call, give good comments to them. If
changes are needed, those can be addressed, and so
that when we come to that second conference call
we’re saying oh, yeah, by the way, you know, that
-- and -- and I just think that trying to do
anything -- to sort anything else between -- in
terms of contact in that process I think is
potentially dangerous.

MR. ELLIOTT: No correction, I just would
support that, I’m very concerned about a working
group working with the contractor to try to come
up with the procedure, the process, because I can
envision that there are going to be questions
raised about well, how do you want to do this,
what's the approach you want to -- you know,
questions of clarification that then become weli,
the working group’s providing advice and
direction, essentially. Whatever they say in
response to those questions is on behalf of the
Board, and we can’t go there.

As far as the individual dose reconstruction
reviews and a member ef this body working with
your contractor, I think you've got to come to

grips with a very well-defined structure of that

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DR. ZIEMER: 1:00 o‘clock again, same thing?

MS. HOMER: 1:00 o'clock?

DR. ZIEMER: Okay.

MS. HOMER: Two hours?

DR. ZIEMER: Now I would hope that that
second call would not require two hours. We can
set it aside, but assuming that the -- if there
were significant changes and the contractor's
responsive to them, we should have a pretty
pretty sound document by then and just take a
formal approval.

DR. MELIUS: And we can hope that it’s not
needed at all.

DR. ZIEMER: Yes, but we'll set the time
aside in case we need it. Is that agreeable to
everyone? Okay, we will hope that Henry has those
times available, as well.

Okay, so that takes care of when and who
approves the task two kickoff. Do you want to now
-- let me ask if the Board is ready to discuss
some criteria related to selection of this first
group of sites that might be reviewed? And we
don’t necessarily have to identify, for example,
ten of them at this time, but we might want to

think about identifying the first batch. Roy?

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How many days do you want to allow? We need a
little time for transmission and distribution.
How about March 15th? It’s a Monday.

DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) the
contractor (Inaudible) they’re going to be
(Inaudible) time or maybe a little early or going
to push the deadline?

DR. ZIEMER: Probably not going to want to
say, but we're going to assume they’re going to be
on time. Right?

DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) (Inaudible)

DR. ZIEMER: 11th?

MR. PRESLEY: Is that going to give us time
to get it out? Got to allow two days to FedEx to
get it to us and a couple of days to read it.

DR. ZIEMER: Would it be electronic or...

MR. PRESLEY: Electronic?

MR. ELLIOTT: We will do both. We'll try to
make both happen. I am -- I’m -- we'll taik to
the contractor tomorrow, make sure we get it in
electronic format so we don’t have to try to
convert it, and we can produce it to you in both
formats.

DR. ZIEMER: Which means you would have it in

your hands presumably by the 8th, and you'd have

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process so that you avoid this situation. You're
not going to sit there as one member of this
advisory body working with two members of your
contracting staff and tell them we want to go off
in this direction, which has not been couched and
a consensus approval gained from the body.

DR. ZIEMER: The suggestion is to have a
conference call meeting in -- shortly after a
month from now, and set some time aside a couple
of weeks later, if needed, for a follow-up. Is --
is there any objection to proceeding on that
basis? Because if there's none, we want to look
at some dates right away. Are there any that
think that there should be some other path to
follow on this? Here’s your opportunity to
suggest an alternative.

(No responses)

If not, let's -- I'm going to take it by
consent that we agree that we should proceed on
that basis. Today is February 5 and the month for
the contractor basically ends or is over March 5
then ‘cause they just got their go-ahead one day
ago. So if you allow a little time for review,
you could look at the end of the week of the 8th

or the beginning of the week of the 15th of March.

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That would actually be three weeks later. That
would allow -- would allow two weeks for the
contractor plus a little time for us -- or the
week of the 29th of March.

DR. ROESSLER: (Off microphone) (Inaudible)

DR. ZIEMER: Gen Roessler has a question
first.

DR. ROESSLER: Did we decide the contractor
-= I guess it’s a public meeting, the contractor
can listen in on the --

DR. ZIEMER: That‘s correct --

DR. ROESSLER: So out of --

DR. ZIEMER: -- and members of the public
can, as well.

DR. ROESSLER: Out o

mh

courtesy, should we
check to see if they’re available on these dates,
or one of them are available on the dates, also,
when we have these calls? They’re working for us.
I think we should find out.

DR. ZIEMER: John wi

make somebody
available. Right?

DR. MAURO: We’ll be there.

DR. ZIEMER: They'll be there. March lst
okay -- April lst -- April lst.

MS. HOMER: What time?

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for advice here and for -- within the Board ‘cause
they’ve been -- talked a lot more about this than
some of the other -- others of us have, You know,
just -- you know, pay special attention and, you
know, we'll be looking to them during the
committee --

DR. ZIEMER: Well --

DR. MELIUS: -- or conference call to -- for
that, but -- but I think we just keep it to one
sub-- one meeting of the Board conference call,

with a follow-up one scheduled, if needed.

DR. ZIEMER: That makes a lot of sense and I
think is the direction we were heading. Whether
Or not a second meeting is needed, we need to look
at a timetable. For example, the -- the proposed
procedure from the contractor will be ready in one
month. That would get distributed -- as I see it,
would get distributed to the Board members. We
would have -- we would want a few days to look
that over, and so roughly five weeks from now you
would want to have a conference call meeting. And
then we would look at the calendar again and say
now does -- if we -- if we have another two weeks

after that or whatever -- I mean if we go back to

the contractor and say we want changes, you’ve got

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DR. ZIEMER: And in connection with that,
does there need to be an Agency person also
available or present at that time?

MR. ELLIOTT: Yes -- yes, there would, and I
think what we’re talking about here is delegation
of authority, if you will. And we would also like
to know what the Board's pleasure would be with
regard to payment cof vouchers that come in. Do
you want to delegate that to -=- to like, you know,
Martha to do without having to come back to the
Board and get a Board approval on, you know,
paying out on a voucher. So these are delegations
of authority that -- that you do need to
establish.

DR. ZIEMER: I wonder if I could ask -- and
perhaps staff can help us with this at some point,
Martha or others -- am I making all that noise?

UNIDENTIFIED: Yes.

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. And that is, on things
like payment of vouchers, perhaps -- perhaps you
could identify those kind of sort of mechanical
things for which we are responsible -- not
necessarily today, but -- and for which the Board
could clearly say we will delegate this on our

behalf and require some kind of reporting back on

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DR. DEHART: Before we leave this specific
topic, would it be wise to get a consensus as to
who can represent the Board for clarification on
part of the contractor?

DR. ZIEMER: That would probably be wise, and
I I guess when we say clarification, I'm not
sure -- could somebody clarify what we mean by
clarification?

DR. MELIUS: Cori will clarify the
clarification,

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you.

MS. HOMER: Well, no, I won't clarify that,
but I want to remind you that no group or Board
can take action for -- or no group or subcommittee
can take action for the Board under any
circumstances unless there’s very specific written
authority, even if it’s clarification.

DR. DEHART: That's why I brought this up.

MS. HOMER: Okay.

DR. DEHART: Clarification would be if the
contractor had a question on something within the
statement of work as they’ve started pursuing
trying to lay out the -- the work effort and they
need someone to talk to. Who do they call and who

would represent the Board in that conversation?

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several days to look at it. The 11th? Did you

say 11th was bad? We're on March 11th. Is that

bad? Any conflicts March 1ith?

MR. ESPINOSA: It’s not so much the day as

much as it

is the time for me, so...

DR. ZIEMER: 6:00 o’clock in the morning,

Eastern Standard Time.

MR. ESPINOSA: (Inaudible)

DR. ZIEMER: No, how about early afternoon on

the east coast? Or late morning east coast?

Okay. How about 1:00 p.m. on the 11th?

MS. HOMER: How much time? How much time?

UNIDENTIFIED: (Off microphone) Give it two

hours?

DR. ZIEMER: Two hours.

MS. HOMER: Okay.

DR. ZIEMER: (Off microphone) Okay, that’s

what we'll

task four -

shoot for. Then we want to (Inaudible)

- task --

DR. MELIUS: (Off microphone) I get to

(Inaudible)

FedEx (Inaudible).

DR. ZIEMER: -- task two proposal, task 2-A

or two whatever-it-is, site profile review

procedure,

the week of

And then how about a follow-up meeting

-- how about March -- or April lst?

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and address this first one. Jim?

DR. MELIUS: Go at it first, then you can
correct me. Yeah, I'd be a little leery, based on
what we heard now about the -- us -- possible
problems from a workgroup talking to the
contractor before the first meeting. I think the
onus is on us, though, as a committee --
individual members -- is to -- is to be ready with
good comments, you know, to do a good review and
really work hard to come up with a set of
consensus comments that the -- that, should we
want changes in the procedure, that the contractor
can work with and address, you know, that's
agreed. We can’t sort of say well, just change
this, we don’t like it. I think we have to -- and

I think we have the leeway to be able to do this.

4

It's -- it’s not what the other -- secret process
we've been -- been going through.
MR. ELLIOTT: Yeah, this --

DR. MELIUS: So there’s more --

MR. ELLIOTT: -- is not a procurement
process.
DR. MELIUS: -- room for interaction on that

conference call, and we just have to be sure that

we’re -- that we’re together with what -- you

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leng it is. I know that on the task order bidding
process, the Agency has a person on deck that is
available to respond to questions of clarification
because that arose. Right? The contractor says
what does this mean; I’m bidding on this, what
does this phrase ask me to do?

MR. ELLIOTT: And let me speak to that so
that everybody -- everybody understands what we
did there. Yes, there were some questions that
came back through the procurement office to us
about what does this particular piece mean or what
-- how can I better understand that, and we tried
to craft a response. But we didn’t give thar
response up until we had Dr. Ziemer’s approval on
it. So that -- we weren't working in a vacuum
without the Board -- some -- some insight from the
Board, so we used Dr. Ziemer as the Chair, and
these were things that we felt -- and I hope you
agree, Dr. Ziemer, were not issues that needed to
be brought before the whole body. They were
simple points cf clarification that we thought our
answer would enlighten the contractor and we had
your approval to provide that information back to
the contractor.

DR. MELIUS: I would think that for this

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envisioned this was -- was that the workgroup
could assist the contractor in triaging the
procedure before submittal to the full Board on
the conference call. I mean I was hoping that
that would -- could expedite the process because I
think there is some interpretation in this task --
not that we'd be making any -- the working group
wouldn’t be making any final decisions on behalf
of the Board, but it might -- I mean I can just
see a case where we can end up with two or three
conference calls just to get this methodology

through, and that’s my only concern.

Then -- then the other notion I guess to keep
in the back of our minds is that if we -- we had
the notion on the individual reviews -- I know

we're not talking about that right now, but we had
the notion of -- of Board members working with the
contractor, and I'm just wondering how that’s
going to fit into this -- these new -- these
procurement issues. If we're working on a group
of cases and there’s three Board members assigned
to work on those cases, we can’t speak on behalf
ef the entire Board, so -- I guess that’s
something I'm -- want to understand better.

DR. ZIEMER: Let's maybe come back to that

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to give them another couple of weeks, and then we
get it back and then we look at it again. And now
we're getting very close to our next meeting, so
we have to look at that, as well.

DR. MELIUS: But I think if that happened
within -- I think our meeting’s the middle -- end
of April?

UNIDENTIFIED: That’s correct.

DR. MELIUS: Correct? So if -- again,
beginning of March for the first meeting, two
weeks later would take us to the middle of March.
That‘d stili give a one-month lead time, so I -- I
think that’s -- it’s worth gaining the month, if
- if possible. It may be that when we talk to the
contractor more they may, you know, have -- give
us a better sense of the timetable. They've had a
whole day to think about it now and look at the
task, but -- but in sense then -- and make sure
that that‘s realistic for both the original -- and
then I think, you know, we'd be ready to go.

DR. ZIEMER: I don’t know if you’re making a
formal motion, but let’s get Mark's comment here
and then we'll come back.

MR. GRIFFON: I guess -- not to harp on this

workgroup notion, but I -- I mean the way I

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where the budget is and so on. If we could
identify what those things are and maybe at that
point we could approve some kind of process.
Clearly the Board does not want to get to -- have
a meeting every time we act on paying a -- an
invoice. I think that's the case. Jim.

DR. MELIUS: What I was going to say is yeah,
I think we ought to get a list of those
circumstances, but that -- I think the only times
it would be -- at least I can think of that
where would be questions is when it’s contingent
on receipt of a satisfactory product, when have we
approved it so therefore it's released to, you
know, NIOSH, I think -- I know -- I don't know
what the financial -- other financial things are
on the document -- in the contract, but to the
extent that they’re contingent on acceptance by
the Board, then I think that's where we need to
have a clear procedure to sign off --

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think that could be
spelled out in what I’m talking about here because
clearly there will be regular billing of time and
effort against the contract by the contractor, I
assume, on some basis -- monthly or as work

proceeds. And if that requires some kind of

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