Okay, so it looks like it's nine o'clock on all the devices at least. And so I will
call this november 28th 2022 meeting of the jefferson County Board of Commissioners
to order? Good morning, everyone? I hope everyone had a great long weekend and I
know I saw a picture of kate ice skating and was jealous. So um anyway, nice to be
back with you all and as we do every monday morning, we start off with public comments
and so if there's anyone who's joined us this morning online who wishes to make a
public comment, please use the raise hand button at the bottom of the zoom screen.
We'll leave public comment up until 9 30 look for those hands going up. Um,
had a few written specific written comments this morning and um,
we are noticing comments on the forestry work we've been doing and taking those into
consideration and we will be having our workshop on Wednesday um, keeping our eyes
on the weather forecast for Wednesday, there was some concern of snow, but we will
move forward with our hybrid workshop on Wednesday and um, did notice a couple of
nick's alerts this morning for car accidents on 101 and 104, so be careful out there
people, um, some some icy spots on the roads, um, anything for the good of the
order from the team this morning,
not know nothing prepared.
Well while we wait for any hands to go up, we can consider um consent
agenda. It's a short one this morning. We Mark and I actually predicted meeting might
go quite quickly today. Um but we have a short consent to Jenna. Were there any items
that anyone wanted to pull out from consent agenda? Not pull out a couple
comments if I can remember what I was gonna ask about.
Um Oh, I was curious just considered the one kind of brought up the blake decision.
Again, I just would be great especially before our clerk departs at the end of the
month to get an update on. This is not about LFO is this just is about increasing
um public defense? It looked like entirely for blake uh, defendants basically blake
qualified defendants and just wondering if we could get an update on how the L. F.
O. S and the other blake issues are going, it's hard to look at this and wonder I
guess or I, I look at this and I wonder what's the big picture about how this is
coming up matching up against our budget. Yeah, that would be great. Actually. Um
take a little while you still can't hear us kate know you're back. Just came back.
I am fixed it. Okay, so just I've just been notified my
computer is going to restart. So you're going to lose me and Greg will take over
running the meeting. I'll be here on on the alley. Right, okay. Um okay,
restarting. Um okay, so consent. We were talking about consent. Did you hear any
of that on consents? Talking about kate asking if we could get ruth to come and talk
about the blake decision kind of in regards to consent agenda one about some of the
additional funds for blake defenses and hearing about the L. A. Phones, Yep, sounds
good. Maybe just call out that we're canceling the December 27 meeting which we often
do between Christmas and new year's because there's often not a lot of business to
conduct and a lot of folks out on vacation. And I would just note on number five
consent agenda agenda, number five, there's a dollar sign missing in front of the
amount, so that's just a typo In the amount of
$6,344. Oh I'm the one I have. So that got fixed between the time I
printed this and. Okay, great. Um anything else on
consent?
You know, I just, it was a thought provoking consent agenda, you know, good good
work on here. But seeing the navigator moving from, you know, 51% of uh F.
F. T. E. In mental health uh professional oversight to one hour a week I think is
more in line with what we expected. So I guess um maybe I'm just signaling my my
interest in, I feel like I want to go out and do a ride along with a sheriff's deputy
and also with the navigator, it's been a long time since I've done that. So eager
for that. So I just thought provoking but I am not no no notes or anything that needs
to get pulled glad to see um steps moving forward with the heart headlock wastewater
project. Um environmental permitting consent agenda number four.
Okay. Um
mr tears we will bring you over for public comment. I'm assuming that's why your
hand is up. I'm I'm still unable to look at my computer so um
Caroline will bring you over.
Yes thank you. Yes it was raised for public comment. I wanted to comment on the consent
agenda. The $270,000 contract. No bid contract. Uh
I I find that concerning seems like an awfully routine sort of thing putting in
electrical panels and generators and such like that. And you know for the count for
the commissioners to declare that that computer room as a special facility which
is an undefined legal term by the way. I know it's in the R. C. W. But that means
you could declare just about anything that you wanted as a special facility. That
that just is troubling. I mean there are there are many electrical contractors in
the county and to put out a no bid $270,000 expense like that with no input.
That it just seems I'm not going to say suspicious but it just is concerning that
that it just wasn't done through the regular bidding process. Sure the computer facilities
are sensitive and need to be secured and so forth. But that doesn't have anything
to do with running a wire to it or putting a generator outside. So like I said, I'm
just disappointed to see that this was done in the way that it was done. I know you're
not going to change anything but I just want to let you know. Thanks. Thank you.
Mr tears. I believe we talked about this a bit last week on the agenda. Mark, do
you want to add anything here? Uh if you want to know how expensive electrical work
is these days called Kevin Street at the P. D. There's a super high demand for components
that are going into that project and I knew we were gonna hear somebody complain
about it. But um I was prepared for that and I think Mr is right. I don't think anything's
going to change. And and my hope is that you approve that contract? Um it's been
evaluated and it's not running a wire. There's much, much more to it than that.
Yeah. Just a reminder that we when we're talking we need to talk right into the microphone.
People are having a hard time hearing
chris you come in and in response to that? No, you just walked in. Okay. Anything
else? Um I consent agenda. You know, I'll just add to respond to Mr Pierce's comment.
I mean we did have a conversation about this and you know, designated a special facility
last week. it's uh we've I've there's so many electrical companies that will bid
and I think that we had a good bid in hand for for something that is a critical critical
um piece of our our resilience. Um So I don't know the analysis I heard last week
and and I guess boys my confidence that this was the right the right choice to make
and I agree with that. Um Do you want to make a motion? Yeah a move that we approve
the consent agenda as presented Our 2nd all in favour. I
okay consent agenda is adopted and um any other
comments From the public. More people have joined us. Anyone with the public comment
they brought this morning. We uh public comment is still open until 9:30 and we look
forward to hearing from you each week. Um seeing some new names on the list on the
attendee list and no phone numbers. So I know it's all zoom. If anyone wants to make
a public comment you can use the raise hand button at the bottom of your zoom screen.
Um Other than that but we want to do a little bit of briefing from last week and
I'll keep my eyes on the hands and the zoom room. Okay?
You want me to go first? Do you want to go first kate?
Uh Let's upgrade go first. Okay.
Uh let's see last week a short week of course all we're here together on monday
and uh that's this week. Yesterday last week I went to the the,
the E. D. C. Has got this area sector analysis project that's kind of starting to
wrap up for the analysis is happening. So I participated in that Tuesday morning
and you know, still kind of giving input to the consultants about what would be valuable
talk about, you know, leakage incubating businesses. I mentioned glen cove a little
bit as you know, an area that would benefit from strategic planning and conversations
between both the county and the city. Um, so yeah, still more data to come after
that. We had a special meeting of Jeff calm where we had the sad duty of
letting Stacy Hugh bricks go. Our director at Jeff calm after a fairly short tenure.
It's getting pretty untenable at, at Jeff calm and um, we have a good interim solution
in which to pass the lead tech is, is going to kind of manage in the, in the short
term as we look for a new director. Really, really sad to see Stacy go. She brought
a lot of um positive things to the, to the role, but ultimately we were really afraid
that we're going to lose our ability to offer this um, critical 24 7 service. So
um, that was Tuesday morning uh, went to a uh holy capped thanksgiving
celebration. Apparently there's been a surplus of sweet potatoes and they've been
all been using sweet potatoes all the time. So it was who can make the best sweet
potato thing and I as someone who hates sweet potatoes ate them all and and judge
them and every single one of them was good, but they were all they were all good,
we're all good, you know, such a politician Greg, I still I still
I we don't have three potatoes in our thanksgiving celebration I think largely because
my antipathy for them, but lots of creative things, a little uh Lakas, we're good,
we're good. Oh yeah, there, you know, casserole covered in basically pecan pie. That
was pretty good, you know, that's that's usually how I have to eat them but but all
good but uh a lot because in the pita pockets would be kind of apple mixed in with,
it were just perfect and creative um met with a um some
residents that day as well and then on Wednesday met with some people about forest
issues. Um and then we had the Kaswell Brown is opening up for
for new folks on december 1st. So Robin pegboard and the shelter manager had a zoom
call for all you know, providers and advocates that could attend to kind of go over
the process is basically and uh The first step for anyone is to get into the coordinated
entry system and that has some criteria in there. And then other than that criteria
to be used to assign the 36 people that can get into Kaswell Brown. Um they're gonna
start I think on, let me see. Wait, I said the wrong date. Uh now I'm
forgetting the exact date. I think it's oh I'm gonna have to double check the date.
I didn't write it down the way they did write it down. I'm sure I did.
Oh yeah Today Sorry Monday 1228 and tomorrow 1229. So if you know anyone
that would benefit from applying they need to you know just go to ole cap and a person's
way and you can get into the coordinated entry just directly there. Other criteria
other than that coordinated entry which is 50 of the 100 points for any applicants.
There's a benefit given to families, there's a benefit given to those who have volunteered
at Kaswell Brown. A small benefit. Um but mostly it's first come, first serve as
we try to fill the remaining 16 spots for the you know, fully functioning phase two,
just like the death star from the original trilogy now. Um Then
I was off thursday and friday had a lovely thanksgiving with my family and you know
took care of all those last property chores before the winter weather really comes.
So it's a very relaxing weekend. That was my last week.
Okay so we're going to pause from briefing and take public comment because public
comment is open till 9 30. Patricia I see your hand raised on the zoom room and I'm
wondering if steven wants to make a comment this morning, Stephen since you made
the trip in the room with us, why don't you go first and then Patricia, you'll be
next?
Yeah. Thanks so much. Like I wanted to first start off to uh I just wanted to follow
up on some things from the november 7th meeting. Um there was this really interesting
workshop workshop about the identification of parcels in East jefferson County for
inclusion in D. N. R. Carbon phase two project. And there was a lot of public comment
and I'm just asking um if there's any follow ups on that, where that stands, what
the next steps are gonna be. It just seems to be something that raised a number of
issues that I'm just curious how that's all gonna turn out. Um Gosh, also following
up, um I I had uh had quoted a stanford had shown that there was
only uh three in a million uh infant uh below 20
CFR chance uh case fatality rate. And it's only 200.35% for
people under 60. And the public health officer had responded that That anyone can
just sort of say Stanford, who knows what that means. But anyway, that came from
Johnny and 80s, the one of the premier health authorities and epidemiologists and
they retrospectively studied all these things and so they were finding, you know
that that you just had this in particular for young kids practically very very practically
minimal, minimal and miniscule chance. And she responded that there was really one
or 2%. And I'm curious what her sources are for that because that seems like that
kind of comes from the early sort of fear stories until people were able to later,
like in eighties did sort of check things out and see what the real risks were. Also.
You know, the C. D. C. Is still showing that 5% that 95% of the covid deaths came
from people who had multiple comorbidities and an average of three additional serious
comorbidities. And so what had happened with the covid risks is that there was this
massive skew Where the people who were most sick or oldest were in quite a lot of
risk, but for the 95% of the rest of the public, the risks were, as in 80s found
much much less. And um so um carrying on along here, Gosh, I saw
this docudrama on hulu about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. And it was fascinating
seeing how she had fudged the studies that justified her product and likewise around
the same time coming out right now, F. T. X. Has been revealed to be to be a Ponzi
scheme. That's this big Cryptocurrency thing that's claimed to have $6 billion of
assets and now it only has $600,000 of assets. And the founders fleet has flown to
the Bahamas after transferring 1000. Excuse me a billion dollars to himself right
before declaring bankruptcy and they were the number two funder of one of the parties
in the most recent elections. And they also put hundreds and they put millions and
millions of dollars into covid preparedness and funded a lot of these studies and
stuff. So I was going somewhere with that but I've run out of time. Thank you very
much. Thank you Mr schumacher and we have Patricia jones with her hand raised. If
there's anyone else who has joined us this morning online who would like to make
a public comment. You can use the raise hand button at the bottom of the zoom screen
and we'll be bringing you over after we hear from Patricia jones. Good morning, Patricia.
Good morning. Commissioners dr Patricia jones Olympic force Coalition Quilty in Washington.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment this morning. I wanted to start with expressing
appreciation from our organization for the continuing effort to highlight and grapple
with the forestry issues for our county. Our members are looking forward to the workshop
this week and hearing about the report on our forest from chickadee. Forestry and
the options for next steps. Thank you so much for the investment of time and energy
and resources. We are a forest County and it's appropriate that we take a clear eyed
look at how our landscape is managed by the Department of Natural Resources. Also
very much appreciate the D. N. R. Quarterly meetings are held in public as this morning
and it's an important opportunity to learn from the agency t important questions
and engage with agency staff. And for the workshop you held that was mentioned earlier
on parcel selection for phase two of the carbon project. I wanted to share a few
comments that we've forwarded to D. N. R. About phase two selection this morning.
Organization is generally supportive of the project. What would like to see much
more information about how the parcels were selected? How the high conservation value
criteria applies to jefferson County stands from particularly two aspects endangered
species didn't seem to be highlighted as much as is important and older legacy forests.
I'm concerned that the stands D. N. R. Has included or younger stands following with
their view that younger stand sequester more carbon at a faster rate while they sequester
at a faster rate. It's relatively settled science that they don't sequester anywhere
near the volume that older forests do at the actual time. We need the for the sequestration
to take place. Also we've asked her to consider in their program a robust monitoring
project. That question was not adequately answered by staff at your workshop. Any
type of disturbance disease, extreme weather fire can turn these stands to emitter
stands so they do need to be monitored. Um And they could wrap around research, we
have early indication we're losing our species, the western red cedar. There's no
reason not to try and build into this project monitoring. That could also be important
for the scientific research. We will need going forward. I will forward our full
comment to you for your information. Thank you for the opportunity to tee up the
comment this morning. Thank you. Thank you Patricia. We appreciate you being here.
Is there anybody else with us online this morning Who would like to make a public
comment? If so you can use the raise hand button at the bottom of your zoom screen.
I'm not seeing anyone with us um on the phone, so and we have one member of the public
with us in the room and he already made a public comment. So I'm looking to you on
zoom if anyone wants to make a comment um got five more minutes in our open public
comment period and um I can start out responding to the next steps on carbon and
the forest issue. We have a workshop scheduled for Wednesday um with chickadee forestry
and also with our colleagues at D. N. R. Um and that's going to be at 4 30 it's going
to be a hybrid workshop unless the weather, the weather has other plans for us. But
we're planning for a hybrid workshop with in person participation at the jefferson
County Library in port Hadlock at 4 30. From 4 30 to 6 30 or on zoom. So if you're
interested in participating in person, of course you can just come. But I'm trying
to keep a track of how many people are planning to attend um just for logistics reasons,
so reach out to me Heidi at my email which is on the county website and let me know
if you have any questions um is Is there anything else we want to add about that?
I mean we've been receiving a number of comments just to Steven, you're in the room
with us and following up on the November seven workshop, we have gotten a few written
public comments, many in support of Jefferson County participating in the carbon
project, many with specific questions about things like Dr. Jones was just mentioning
parcels election. So um I think it's safe to say that the timing of the carbon project
Phase two parcel announcement has kind of reframed our conversation about forestry
and we're really looking at this opportunity and trying to understand if it's a,
how, how it would impact both the forest in jefferson county, the county and also
the all the junior taxing districts that rely on the revenue from the timber stands
in jefferson county. So all of these kind of considerations will be discussed in
much more detail at the workshop on Wednesday,
Anything else on, you know, we're, we're also meeting with D. N. R. To go our quarterly
report at 10 30 this morning, so we're worth catching in just to see our ongoing
communication with with D. N. R. Um But yeah you know we're still gathering information,
continuing the conversation and just trying to learn right now is where I would put
it you know um I think their deadline for responding they gave us a little more time
but it's coming it's past right. It was november 18th but we have still passed until
christmas to kind of um give feedback to D. N. R. About uh you know the parcel selection,
the quantity, the quality um and all that. So um yeah tune in on Wednesday I think
will be an interesting meeting and I did take the opportunity over the weekend to
go walk in a couple of this carbon um project parcel proposed parcels. And I know
you've been out to the Quimper last wilderness and wow what a stunning forest. I
was actually blown away by it. So um anyway and just to respond to MS jones about
the uh endangered species. You know there's been a lot of work with D. N. R. Already
with endangered species. The marbled murrelet of course encumbered many lands across
the landscape and D. N. R. You know manages these things and landscapes not along
county lines. And we were you know I would say fortunate I guess in that are encumbered
lands were much less than than many of our neighbors and most of the encumbered lands
for the habitat conservation plan which is a 20 year effort now um were in
uh school board and state state uh not the transfer lands but
what's the other class common common school lands. So that work has been ongoing.
You know the carbon project is different though. I also would love to see and my
plum R. R. D. N. R. Appears today a little bit more about the process they went through
but they used can remember exactly what it's called but it's not they didn't create
the criteria or the grading. The high conservation value is uh established. Um
uh List of criteria is that they just plug plug different places into and and talking
to Drew who's our D. N. R. District district planner. Um It sounds like they basically
just plugged all the lands into it. Um How much political uh receptivity factored
in is something that I'm curious about and that we probably won't get a real transparent
answer about. Yeah I'm really interested to have more conversations with D. N. R.
Um Anything else kate? Any any more response? No I think you guys covered it. Well
okay well it's 9 30 so I'm going to close public comments for this morning. Um And
I guess we can continue with briefing. We were we were to kate. Yeah I'll talk about
last week which was a short week for all of us. Um And especially short for me I'm
gonna be um in and out of fairmount with some family medical stuff, so it was last
week and will continue to be for the next couple of weeks, so bear with me. Um, last
week I was out monday medical appointments and Tuesday went to Port Angeles to meet
with DR Susie aims the new president of Peninsula College and um as everyone has
indicated she is just a breath of fresh air and brings a ton of energy and a lot
of yeses to the table, which is really exciting. Um including it looks like they
are willing to. Peninsula College is willing to host the um a pilot project that
we are proposing to the legislature for the electrical apprenticeships. Um, so that
would be a pilot whereby, you know, as a rural community, we demonstrate that we
can provide that um on classroom training to folks who are trying to reach their
journey level certification for electricians, which is really important for um for
our local economy Wednesday. I met with Jefferson healthcare to talk about climate
change, some of the work that we've been trying to embark on with the Board of Health,
you know, again, trying to delineate kind of who's doing what and how can we be more
strategic in that. So it's really great that they're coming to the table and want
to be um partners as we look at climate change and just trying to figure out who,
who should hold the kind of coordination role for that when so many organizations
are interested. We have our Climate action committee which is extremely helpful but
it's a volunteer committee. Um So you know, I think it's something we we will be
talking about more board of health and um want us to give some thought to maybe as
we think about work planning um as we move into 23 spend some more time
with the Association of Counties working on the planning for the newly elected commissioners
retreat which is next week. I'll be going down to Olympia to help with that. Um and
then uh some more legislative work with um Representative Fahringer as well as our
north olympic legislative alliance. So um maybe we could try to have a legislative
update on a upcoming agenda as as those come together. You know, our board has typically
not done our own legislative agenda and in part because that's we have nola, we have
lost sack um but you know curious if we think we want to try to define our priorities
or just be kind of in in responsive mode with those other issues. So but happy to
dive more into a legislative update later in or sometime in december. That's all
from me. Sounds good and I yeah we had a lot of short week last week um although
I would say the monday commissioner meeting was jam packed so it took a while to
shake out of that for me doing just doing follow up tasks on Tuesday and Wednesday
and I was grateful to have some time to do some follow up tasks. Um met with Mark
and Mallory chickadee, Forestry, Mallory and Catherine copies on Tuesday to do a
little planning for the workshop this week. Um and met with Chief
Black, he has some questions about DnR's allocation of surplus equipment, they've
said that we are not in a um we're not a priority for for um
allocating their surplus wildland fire equipment to and he has some reasons why they
might want to reconsider that. And so I am going to organize a meeting with he and
Senator van der wig um Senator Senator van Wyk is a firefighter, so I thought that
he would be the right person for Chief Black to meet and talk about his concerns
with. So um I think that we're maybe going to do that at the end of this week, um
and then a couple of meetings in preparation for next week or this tomorrow, Wednesday's
workshop on forestry last week and then planning for our agenda today, um albeit
it was a quick meeting for Mark and I because the agenda was not as packed for this
week as it was for last week, so um but I was so grateful for time on Tuesday and
Wednesday because I had a list, three pages long of tasks to do and didn't even get
to all of them. So um just grateful for some breathing time, which I'm finding as
the new commissioner still, there's a lot to do you guys and uh, I'm grateful
for our staff. I mean, thanksgiving is a time to reflect on what we're grateful for
and we have an amazing team in the commissioner's office and our, our HR team and
um, I spent quite a bit of time on Wednesday, just feeling grateful for our team
and, and expressing my gratitude. And then I mentioned earlier, I did go on a walk
of a couple of the carbon parcels that I've never been to. I think I've been to most
of them or quite at least in the vicinity of most of them now. Um, it's interesting
when you see things firsthand and on the ground, you know, you remember what house,
how striking and breathtaking stan double growth force can be and the diversity and
beauty of, of um, nature. So, um, yeah, that was
my last week.
Uh, you wanna look ahead. We have, the next thing we have in our agenda is not till
10 30 so we might get a little break here, but let's do calenda ring because this
week does look packed for me. I don't know about you guys more than last week. For
sure. Yeah, pretty pretty packed.
You wanna go first, Greg? Sure. Um, oh, and I forgot a couple of things last week.
I'll just briefly touch on. Um, we also had the initial meeting for the point in
time count. The annual homeless count is, is coming in january. We had our, our kickoff
meeting earlier even than uh, commerce itself did. So we're well ahead and have some,
some new stakeholders to participate. And then also had a northward canal Chamber
meeting monday night. It was a packed day monday for me. And then after that I had
a meeting with the uh, quilting Community about management of the quilting
Community center. The contract requires an advisory board that has kind of been fallow
for quite a few years. So it was an effort to bring interested members into that
fold and a lot of people signed up. So we have advisory boards for both the Brennan
and the quill scene community centers now, um, as the contract stipulates, but it's
just been, we've had long established leadership at both of those um, community centers.
So it really hasn't, it just hasn't happened. So trying to correct that. And then
looking at this week, um, meeting with some staff tomorrow from environmental, public
health and then I'm getting a probably not going to the Wasatch meeting, which is
about today, which is about the opioid uh, distributions. But I am meeting with the
director of the sailors B H A S. O tomorrow to talk about opioid settlement distributions
in our three county area and then going to a meeting with long live the kings about
Hood Canal bridge management. Um, and I'm not really sure what that is. Uh and then
we have all of the budget committee meeting on Wednesday at 8 30. And then we have
a special meeting of the housing fund board to review 15 90
RFP. We're trying to think as I think we said uh um support more of the projects
that were quite considerably over the funds that we had in the recording fees, the
1 48 and 1 49 funds. So we're um talking about issuing an RFP which is
essentially identical to the 1 48 1 49. our FPs to see
if we can't use more of those funds that we have projected for this year to for the
good work for the transitional supportive housing primarily. Um and there's a little
bit of a dance around with the recommendations we already made last week. We took
we briefly discussed how we weren't going to forward the recommendations until this
process was completed. So this is the process. And then as we've discussed already,
we're all meeting at the library or in virtual format at four p.m. for the forestry
workshop. Um on Thursday we have the uh 03 a the Olympic area
agency on aging meeting and then meeting with an engineer about the duck Bush
and Wilson um Floodplain project down in Cwilson thursday afternoon and we have a
virtual solid waste advisory committee meeting thursday afternoon. Then on friday,
I'm joining a meeting with D. C. D. Environmental, public health I think as well
and the P. L. A. Portfolio. Associates for as they're working on olympic terrorists
to and other topics and I'm just kind of sitting in on that and then how's America
is going on friday afternoon? Um And those are my high points this week
and I don't know if this would be, this is just a question about there's a Hood Canal
management committee meeting. Um Do you attend those or does that's the one I was
talking about? Okay. Yeah. Okay I was planning to but I don't have to someone else.
Okay. No it just it was on my calendar as a tentative but I I was assuming that that
was the same thing you were talking about. It is and I originally when I agreed to
it I thought it was with washed out not long live the king. So you know shows what
I know about it but I was planning to attend. Okay great.
I think we all get invited to it and we've we've kind of taken turns attending it.
Well I am more than happy to not attend it because I have three other things in that
time slot. So I will do it great. You know I do think it's um important that one
of us go um you know there's a pretty active effort. Uh calling
for basically the um couldn't out bridge to be replaced
which is uh you know would have major impacts here and just something I think we
need to keep our finger on the pulse of, so thanks for going Greg.
Yeah. Okay. Do you want me to go next or would you like to go next or what's going
on this week? I can go um see. Um so I'm still in
Washington D. C. So a bit of a light week. Although I am um attending a number of
meetings and spending a lot of time preparing for if I let you know, I'm doing a
fellowship this weekend. I'll be out friday saturday sunday um doing a fellowship
on bipartisan governance. Um So I've been doing reading Aristotle and Kant and
Locke and it's been a real flash back to undergrad um that interesting to
do some deep dive and feels good at this point. You know, I was asked to join
the Wasatch Training as a veteran commissioner and it makes me feel so old. I'm a
veteran commissioner. But anyway, so let's see. We
have um after, after our meeting today, unfortunately I have another meeting because
it's three hours later here as well that also preparing for the new commissioner
training um next week um tomorrow, largely out. Although I'll um I'll be at the US
capitol um and hope to at least run into some of our folks um while up on capitol
campus um Wednesday, I fly home. Um I'll go to budget committee meeting and then
fly home. Um so I'm I'm a little nervous about the housing fund board meeting and
um and also have some medical appointments that afternoon getting back to Seattle
for. So it's, I'm a little bit worried about both housing fund board and the workshop
on Wednesday afternoon, I'm sorry to say, but those appointments just have to take
priority right now. Uh thursday I have Economic Development council board meeting
and then a north olympic development council meeting in the afternoon. Um I'm on
the fence about going to an Admiral's reception over on whidbey Island. Um I'll see
see how that uh if I can manage to swing that and then like I said out friday. Um,
at a three day fellowship. So that's my week. I saw that Admiral's reception come
come across the wires and I thought maybe we could ask Mark to go if you couldn't
make it. I wasn't sure what your schedule was. It's more than one of us can go to.
Um That's, I don't think we have to, you know, as long as we're not discussing county
business there. And as it goes in my experience with the military, it tends to be
very one way information and this is really a holiday social. So um I don't think
there's any concern about numerous folks going. Um I think you have to ask if you
want to invite someone that's not on the list just that they're the invitations are
linked to the email address I believe but I don't think that would be a problem if
there's interest. Okay
well safe travels and all that traveling you're doing. Um I'm not going anywhere
other than between here and have buck this week. Um Let's see. So um
my week um doing some work in preparation for our work Wednesday afternoon evening
workshop tomorrow and including a meeting with D. N. R. With Mallory and Catherine
copas and brian and drew from D. N. R. Just to go over the agenda for the workshop.
Um pre election certification duties, middle of the day tomorrow with Quinn
and I'm assuming um Phil hunsecker upstairs and then in the afternoon tomorrow we
are conducting our interviews of our strategic planning consultant candidates. Um
and then Wednesday morning we have the budget committee meeting and we'll be working
on getting ready for the carbon conference and um or the yeah the carbon conference
which is next week not our forestry workshop but I've been asked to um participate
in Washington Environmental Council's carbon conference that they do. And so I'm
I'm gonna get ready for that if I did I would drive my electric
car. Um Anyway and then Wednesday afternoon, starting at 4 30 the forestry workshop
at the jefferson County Library and you know that's been interesting getting ready
for that. Mallory is really digging in on some of the, as I mentioned earlier the
the carbon project announcement of the phase two parcels kind of reframed the considerations
of what we were going to look at in preparation for this workshop and Mallory has
really been digging in on, you know what some alternatives to carbon are for some
of the parcels and and some of the parcels that she's long been kind of looking at
for co management of because that's the last letter we we assent to D. N. R. Officially
sent. A D. N. R. Was talking about some collaborative management with D. N. R. And
talking about different um uh age um, rotations in terms of
variable variable cut thinning and pre commercial thinning and doing some different
kinds of forestry. And then also a few of the parcels are kind of
thought sought after for recreational opportunities. One of them is just south of
Anderson Lake State Park and is a potential for extension of the olympic Discovery
Trail to the south of the park. So we may want to, you know, talk about multiple
uses on some of these parcels. So these are some of the things we've been talking
about in our meetings. Um, but I would say as I go out and look at some of the parcels,
a lot of them are already really kind of beloved recreational areas for the neighboring
residential communities. The parcels that are farther north and the carbon parcel
map in District two around Cape George and Anderson Lake. They're already really
kind of beloved passive recreation areas. So um that's something that we need to
consider. And there's been also folks reaching out asking us to ask D. N. R. To trade
parcels that swap out a one of the carbon parcels for potentially another D. N. R.
Parcel or two that you know they're already really love to do their equestrian
horse horseback riding on. And so you know a lot of different conversations going
on right now and it's it's a little bit of a a bowl of noodles to try and make
sense of it. But um we're I think we're I mean I feel like Mallory is really focused
on it and Catherine Cope is grateful for her and Denise Springer has been helping
with a lot of the carbon questions and um peter bales has been working a lot with
D. N. R. And you know of course on day bob a and the expansion of the day bob a natural
area and so there's just a lot of moving pieces and a lot of community priorities
mixed up in this conversation. And so it's gonna be a good um Good one Good
Conversation on Wednesday. So Let's see then on thursday meeting with
Brent and josh from D. C. D. Just to talk to them. I've been getting a lot of phone
calls about site development review and legal lot of record and how long things are
taking at D. C. D. So I'm just wanting to dig into that a little bit with our leaders
over there and find out how things are going and kind of what's what's on the front
burner and what's on the back burner. And then having a meeting with the land trust
about those three trust, land transfer lease parcels that we've been working on since
long before my time as a commissioner um with the land trust um We did get the appraisals
back from D. N. R. Late last week and um two of them were not surprising the emperor
wildlife corridor, the two east and west parcels those amounts the the residual value
after the least term was not um surprising. It was a pretty low number but
the thorndike parcel the number was really large. So we're having a conversation
on thursday to um kind of try and understand what the next steps are with those three
parcels. Mark. And I will do a gender prep for next week. Then I have the jefferson
county cohort of the olympic Discovery Trail meeting thursday evening friday morning
there's a carbon project hearing in the Senate Agriculture Committee which I hope
I can attend virtually because I absolutely have to be here friday afternoon for
the 1/10 of 1% behavioral health funding vendor interviews. So if I have to be in
person in Olympia I probably will not be attending that um That hearing but anyway
I by priority on friday is the behavioral health work and then um saturday is Richard
voice Memorial at the Quimper Unitarian church at two in the afternoon and I'll be
attending that. Um And I'm super grateful for our facilities team and all of us
um figuring out how we could lower the lower the flag for Richard. It was touching
not only to his members of his family who joined us for the reading of that proclamation
but also um to a number of the staff in the courthouse came up to me and thanked
me personally because they were also students of mr voight at back in the day so
um and also you know admired his work as a commissioner here so still having warm
fuzzies about mr voight around the courthouse and so that's that's my this week
um Any questions for each other, You know looking a little further ahead. I
had responded to a note we all got I think from Arlene at the chamber asking if someone
could give a state of the county on on January 20 at their chamber cafe. And I said
yes someone can so
that the city of Port Townsend was scheduled on february 3rd and mayor favor and
john morrow are not available on that date. So we have swapped with the city so the
city will do january 20th and the county will do february 3rd and I think Mark and
I are happy to do it.
Yeah, sure. Yeah that sounds great. Any other logistics we need to coordinate on
other than restating that we will be not having a meeting on december 27th, we'll
be taking a little bit of a holiday. It's so funny too. It's like december 26th
of the holiday and it's, you know, it's like all the holiday, there's quite a few
holidays over those two weeks official holidays and we just looked at him and it
was a little bit of a cluster trying to figure out how we would even pull a meeting
off. So, um, We are not going to have a meeting on the 27th and I'm going to
Canada just for a couple of days. Yeah. A and and there will
be some swearing ends to do, but do do we have any responsibility there?
Well, we have to.
Right, yeah, so I'm just curious if we need to be uh planning for a special meeting
for um for that. Well, when I, when I joined you guys, I was sworn in without you
being here and then the following meeting, we did a formal, you know, little ceremony.
Greg played his accordion for me if you'll remember,
so we can swear in at the B zero cc meeting. Okay. Isn't that a holiday? Oh, hmm,
yeah, Third. This would be the third, Yeah, Yeah. I just don't know if we,
if we typically try not to have there be a lapse in time, the first of the year.
We might also have a, I mean if we're lucky, we will have another governor will pick
a replacement for our Superior Court Judge. So just just that we might need to, we're
always prepared at the end of the year to have to pull together a special meeting
for stuff like this. And but we can do a hybrid now. So I think Judge harper has
always done like last time I did it with all the all the elected in one event and
january. So, right, so we have time in december. Okay.
Right. Yeah. And then of course we have to install the chair for next year. Oh yeah,
you can do that on the third right? Committee assignments and all that
housekeeping that occurs early in the year.
Think about what you want to fight for people. Okay.
Giveaway. Mm hmm. Um, Okay. Well, Looking at our
agenda, the next thing on our agenda is at 10:30. Is there anything non calendar
related that we need to check in with each other on? Oh yes, Caroline says yes.
Right. I don't, I don't have the paper so I can't, I can't
mm.
And trying to remember what Oh, um, yes, commissioners, there's um, there's some
debt payments that need to be made. And our treasurer, Stacey Parada, who, who was
out ill, um, has requested that the board, um, signed those vouchers
today. They weren't listed on the agenda. However, um, revenues associated with these
payments won't be received until the end of the week and the payments are due. And
so She is asking that the board approve warrants in the amount of
$258,725.32. Um and therefore separate payments that comprise
that total. So for the benefit of the public, can you just say in general what the
topic area is? It's for payment of 2016 um general obligation
bonds. Um principal and interest. Okay I'll move that. We approve payment of these
warrants.
I'll second that all in favor. Any public comment? Any public comment on these um
$260,000 worth of warrants that have been added to the agenda for today regarding
payment of past general general obligation bonds. Um Mark, can you speak to what
the general obligation bond is? Because the treasurer manages um debt for a number
of junior texting districts across the county. And that is not the the county's.
I'm quite sure we did not take on a bondage. 16. Yeah. The revenue that we have yet
to receive is the communications sales tax. So I believe these payments are on behalf
of Jeff con. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That's um all in favor.
Hi. Okay. Um Anything else?
Does everyone want a little recess? Get another cup of coffee? Okay so
we will recess let's recess until 1025. So we're all back here and ready to be joined
by our d. And our colleagues or and just letting folks know that this will be um
a longer quarterly update. The next few quarterly updates have time added to them
to give us some background on a number of issues. So um if you're interested in these
D. N. R. In forestry issues you might wanna come back at 10 25 and participate this
morning in this agenda item. Thank you everyone we are recessed.
Welcome back everyone. We are just coming back in a little early in case our colleagues
from D. And R. Show up and we can let them in. So there's no business until 10 30
but we're just always like to be early everywhere. And so here we are early mm.
No I think he's probably just here to listen. This is just our quarterly report.
Mhm.
Oh
you're cute my hair. Oh yeah it's got a little holiday look at that.
It's not their last looks whatever we can.
There we go.
Let's get back with us. Yeah she's there she's just not camera up
yet.
Yeah I'm here. I'm trying to find a light to turn on. It does look really dark where
you are. It's 1:30 but it is a little dark in the room that I'm in.
What did what did Ben make for? Thanksgiving? He did a real traditional um Yeah
like Turkey and all all the fixings impressive. He did buy a
pre made Turkey that we reheated. Um he didn't quite do all that but it was very
sweet. Yeah that's awesome at 18 years old. Not bad.
Yeah
and there's mona
Hello Mona. Hello jew.
Hello, how are you? How are you guys doing? Well
I have a funny little cowlick going on my head so if I'm fussing with it there fixed
it. Yes. Um Is anyone else joining you from D. N. R. Today? Drew and Mona. Yeah.
David. Hearn. Okay great. What's his title?
What's his title? Drew? What what's his what's his title? He's the management
forester.
Carolyn's taking the minutes. So she asked,
well this is um we're glad you guys are with us and we know we have a longer period
of time with you guys today, so we're excited to see what you have to share and um
we're glad you're here.
Yeah, we wanted to go into more detail. Um So we have a four part series planned
and so it will take you in depth and through all of the steps that we go through
when preparing timber sales awesome. So
who's gonna kick it off from your end? Um I'll get started with our usual report
and then when I'm done handed off to David. So um
We ended 3rd quarter at 679,000. And um jupiter
access moved a little bit of wood. Third quarter. They're moving the right away would
so we got a small payment on that one. Center Thinning is active now. So with that
one um as with the other sent earth innings, we'll start, we'll just see uh
like 20 30,000 month. Just start trickling in for probably the next year and a half,
two years. So it's slow but steady taylor downhill was the big
one. They made an early payment on that one, which was really helpful and it's actually
closed out now and um it hasn't gone into audit yet. I expect that one
to go through audit here in in a month or so and then the final payment will come
through on that one probably shortly after the first of the year. Um fourth quarter
um since we're a little bit late um I just put in what we've already got wired For
fourth quarter and so another another payment came in on center 12 And
then Bolton Rehab finished up. So we got a good size payment on that one. So so far
in fourth quarter I've got 387,000, which is about all I expect for the, for the
fourth quarter, we still got a month to go, but Bolton is closing out, it's finished
but it hasn't gone into the final paperwork, hasn't gone in, it hasn't gone into
audit. So the final 10% payment on that one. Well come in right after the
first of the year, another 41,000 coming in on that one. So, So right
now we're at about 1.11 million, 374,000, which is just about what I, that's kind
of where I expect to be for the year. And so on my list, we got penny alder wood
and city skitter, which are closed out. Those are done. We got payments first quarter
on those uh, jupiter closes out next um, next fall and
October of 23. So we'll get, get the final payments on that this year.
Um, Taylor and Bolton are done. Uh, so we'll get the final 10% on those,
probably first quarter and then that leaves Beaver Valley and Penny. So,
and I know I heard last week that they were starting to road build on Penny. Um,
so I don't, and I don't know whether that the weather is gonna condition whether
or not that keeps moving and road building or not, but I don't, I'm thinking they
probably won't start harvest until sometime this summer. Um, leaving us at the end
of moving into 23. Um, we've got about, so you've got 5.3 million under
contract. And of that jupiter will pay off. That's showing all the money
left on center 21. So you can expect maybe half that amount and then
final payment on taylor And Bolton and then maybe
50% on Beaver Valley and Pennywise. So Mike, I'll have a better better
run for you. Next time we meet For 23, but I'm thinking 2, 2.5 million would be
conservative And then the balance of that coming in in 24. So anywhere
between two and 3 million for those two years and I'll drill into that
deeper when I come in. So next meeting will be our final, which for the, for calendar
22 and, and I don't think it's gonna change very much and then I will have more detail
on what I think is coming in 23. Okay, great. Thank you.
Market wise. Um, we're still doing real well. We're, we're seeing competition, good
competition on our sales. Um, some of the companies have been hungry and starting
to compete. Um, so we're getting good prices are prices have pretty well held steady.
We're not seeing a decline yet, so hoping for the future. Hope it keeps
moving, but so far so good. We're doing well. Right.
Any questions about Drew's report, kate or Greg, You know, I feel like I've asked
you this before, but center 21 is just all over the place. How did that end up being
one sale? Can you don't know, can you unpack that for me a little bit? Yeah, so we
just don't have a whole lot of units typically that are ready. Um, coast is the opposite.
They've got lots of that. 20 to 30 year old lots of options. Um, streets doesn't
have that. Uh, so what, what we'll do is usually the center unit Forester Mark Benner
will go out and every two years or so and just start, he'll just gather all the units
up that are ready for thinning and then just put them into one big sale. And I think
his next one is center, He did every one of his names. Center No matter where it
falls in the district, but I think the next one will be center 27. And so he's just
basically saying, okay, I've got 15 units that adds up to about 1500 acres that are
ready to go right now. So I'm just gonna throw all those in and they, it, you end
up with a lot of units that are, are scattered all over the place and it's, it's
kind of a pain but it's the, it's the most economical and easiest way for us to put
it together and get it out there. But it's just a matter of the choices that are
there and what we can move ahead with great from at least for Jefferson County from
a tax district standpoint, it's like I I dread these things because there's usually
five or six different tax districts that it feeds to. And, and this time he also
got units in cloud and luckily they were all in one tax district, but it's a pain.
It really mixes up the trust and it mixes up the tax districts, but it's, it's the
most economical way for us to do it. It's the only way we can make sense of it and
make it happen so Great, thank you. And any other
questions I have. I guess I'd wait until after they're kind of deeper dive just to
make sure I'm not asking questions. They're already gonna talk about great kate.
Do you have any questions for these guys? Nope. Okay, I'm happy to wait.
Okey doke. There's no more than I'll turn it over to Dave that go into his presentation.
Thank you. All right, Good morning, mute
you guys together.
There you go. Yeah. Perfect. Kit.
Alright, now I'm gonna share my screen so if you have questions um feel free to interrupt
me. I won't be able to see the chat or anything while I'm sharing my screen.
Can you guys see my screen? Okay, perfect, okay, we'll get started. So as mona alluded
to, this is part one of four presentations that will be giving over the next four
meetings. Uh just go over the different parts um what these presentations um we'll
be regarding our timber sale program. So part one today we'll be talking about our
timber sale planning and um how do we come up with a state lands timber sale um
and sort of what directions that we are working under and sort of our targets and
deliverables and how those are set. Our next presentation. Part two will be regarding
the fieldwork for these timber sales That lead up to part three which would be Um
our our office work and field work and environmental reviews of these timber sales.
And then finally part four will be um the auction of the timber sales and the timber
sale compliance that follows post auction. So you know we sort of look at timber
sales as for sort of four different buckets and steps and that we work through and
we're gonna take the time to present on all four of those.
So the first step for us is um we need sort of side boards and guidelines on on
um what we our sort of our targets and our yearly targets are for
volume and where that is set is what I believe probably most of us heard is sustainable
harvest calculation. And um so what is the sustainable harvest calculation? It is
a sustainable volume of timber to be offered for a sale over a 10 year period which
is actually approved by the Board of Natural Resources and this is um driven and
directed through our C. W. S. Um There's a revised code of Washington that directs
the D. N. Artist set and recalculate these levels every 10 years. So currently we
are operating in the 2015 to 2024 planning decade And we are beginning the process
of working on our next decade. The 2025-2034 decade. There's a few
R. C. W. S. That are tied to the D. N. R. And us setting these sustainable levels.
Um Another one that's pretty common that we'll hear about is a rear edge which it
is. Any leftover volume from the decade will be added to the calculate sustainable
harvest level for that next decade.
So what guides the sustainable harvest? So we have our C. W. Set that directs us
to set these levels and targets of volume. Um So how they come up with this is a
is models. Um And these models are driven through policy and procedures. So our policies
are there's two main policies that really drive the sustainable harvest calculation.
Those are the policy of sustainable forestry and our HcPS are our habitat conservation
plans. So there's um I'll get into those a little bit more in the next couple of
slides and then on top of our policies we do have procedures that we follow on a
department level and um that these could be through uh our procedures or guidelines
or any kind of task related to force management. And these are more common. Um Ones
are riparian and wetland zones, any kind of potentially unstable slopes. Um northern
spotted owl martin roulette rules. Um All these different procedures that we have
to put into place when we do forest management activities and these are not just
on state lands but you know the same procedures are some of these same procedures
are used through forest practices that would be um you'll see on some private lands
as well too. So policies are the big level stuff. And then procedures are more on
the ground and how we go about doing forest management on state Timberlands. Can
I ask a granular question there, David. Okay. Um I guess kind of 21 is the
sustainable harvest calculation done on a statewide trust wide level. And I don't
know if you can go into how if that breaks up into different regions and then consider
also about the distinction between forest practice private forest practice applications
and and D. N. R. Work. Do the policies only influence D. N. R. S. Sustainable harvest
calculation or does it also do those policies touch the procedures that private forest
um practices must go through? Yeah. So the policies are uh the DNR's
um and the things that we've worked with uh to create with our, well for example
the Cp we worked with the Federal Wildlife Services W. F. W. To come up with um a
permit and I'll get to that in a little bit on allowing us to move forward and take
into account the impacts to threatened or endangered species um or sam annoyed um
within the you know Washington state. Um So these policies are d and our policies
that have been put in place for us to um sort of you know be able to manage our lands
and manage the lands with um taking account um In regards to the HCP threatening
endangered species and the impacts that we have on those through our management activities.
So the question regarding um sustainable harvest calculation. Yeah, we do break these
down into 20 on the west side, so west side the cascades 20 different sustainable
harvest units. And here in olympic region we have the county's um uh an olympic region.
We have com county, Grays Harbor County, um just the north part of Grays Harbor County
on the down by Aberdeen um ocean shore's at that area and then also Jefferson
County. Um In addition to the county, uh sustainable harvest units, we have the olympic
experimental state force as well. The OsF which is out on the west side of olympic
region which is West Jefferson County and western column county. And within each
of these units, harvest level is set. Um So it takes an account within that
that that unit of what operable land there is and what is sustainable level of harvest
for each of these units. So we do have set target levels for each county and then
we have an additional target level for the E. S. F. Great thank you.
So, David, the policy for sustainable forests um includes a number of
policies. Right, and how often is that set of policies updated? I mean I think I
have the current version and I'm not sure if it was published in brian Boyle days
or I mean it feels like it's a it's been on the books for a while. Yeah I believe
I believe the initial one was 90 uh 92. And but it
gets um I mean there's there's updates and um but those have to be driven I believe
at a higher level than just the D. N. R. Believe there's um legislation involved
with it and it's a it's a larger pol it's a larger process because it is policy where
the procedures um are more on the the operational level um that you know get a little
bit more um common where we see the updates which is you know tied to how we manage
our riparian zones, wetland management or even are unstable slopes and those are
done. Um I would say we we see impacts to those um fairly common. I don't want to
say yearly. But you know it's we we do get updated procedures pretty fairly common
in the D. N. R. Yeah it just came up for me because a number of folks are asking
me questions about um the old the old growth forest policy, you know. Well that will
that change. I think it says 18 55 right now or I don't know I don't remember exactly
what it says but it's 100 and 50 years or so anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah saying
that there's concerns, you know what if when when when when might that change but
I looked at the document that the policy resides with them and it's been on the long
standing so I don't I know where that concern comes from but um that's why I wanted
to ask that question.
Thank you. So the other the other large policy that we deal with is um the habitat
conservation plan which was adopted in 1997. It covers 1.8 million acres of D. N.
R. Trust lands. And this was a cheapie. Um You know
if you want to speak with the fish and wildlife service is you know it's really a
champion plan, not just for uh you know the state of Washington but for them in general
with working with state agencies uh is really the first of its kind in you know in
um with within state working with federal wildlife services. And what it does is
it provides the D. N. R. To uh continue their state management plan. Um And
what it does is mitigates for federally listed species um including um sam annoyed
species um within you know within our our state lands um in western Washington
and across the state in general. Um So within the HCP we have specific
um conservation strategies uh Most recently we've implemented the marvel roulette
long term conservation strategy that went into effect just a couple of years ago.
Um In the past we've had uh conservation strategy for the northern spotted owl, we
have it for salmon and steelhead. Um And those are the biggest impacts that we see
um here in our region um are related to that. And these are these two large
policies uh what are sort of what drives and allows us to continue our land management
and state lands. And then like I said, we get into um our our procedures. So if you
look at the D. N. R. Or the olympic region as a whole, we have, you know um all these
acreage, right? And then due to our policies and our management plans, uh whether
like in related marble rillettes. Um If we have occupied zones, we have the special
habitat areas um Within these strategies we have certain areas that are protected
for these species. And so that takes land out of our managed active management
base. Um And then after our policies are in place. Now we gotta look at on a smaller
level. Okay now how do we go look at these force management units? Um What are other
procedures that we have to follow? And we're now we got to start um finding are operable
land. And then so each each area, you know, we look at a timber, sell um It might
be 100 acres that we can go look at that doesn't fall within any calling it policy,
but then we're also gonna remove acres out of that 100 acres for protections for
unstable slopes. Um Any kind of riparian zones if it's a type to stream or Type three,
Type four, Type five, there's different management um procedures in place for dealing
with those streams, um any kind of watershed analysis, um and then obviously we have
operational constraints as well. So um the policy, you know, the large level set
in place and then we have these procedures that are more small um that really pertain
to each uh sort of area, generalized area than that um will guide us sort of or help
us create a model that we can sort of operate under. Um And give us sort of an idea
of what is actually out there for harvest over the next 10 years and that's where
our volumes get set.
Can I ask a question, maybe this is for drew regarding the parcels that were identified
for the carbon project, where all of these constraints considered when uh
defining which acres would be eligible for inclusion in the carbon project? Yeah,
to a point it is, yeah, I didn't use all of that, but I so they they had a whole
separate list of constraints, but those were part of it.
Yeah.
Alright, so once our target levels are set um for the decade, you know, then they
get break broken down by year, so we get sort of a target per year, volume, um that's
broken down to us by unit, um sustainable harvest unit. So for we have a jefferson
County target, we have a calm county target Grays harbor target um And then R. O.
E. S. F. Volume as well. We can break that down by uh per year basis of where we
need to be at that way at year one were operating under the assumption by year 10
that we're gonna meet our delivered target level um which is set for that decade.
So that sets us off with the ability to go set an action plan. Um And with a with
a target level to meet the forester's mostly at our district manager and our unit
forester level which are unit foresters are our supervisors. Um There are experienced
forester staff that oversee our the rest of our field staff. Um You know they got
a great knowledge, local knowledge of our land base and um they'll use our forestry
handbook, our G. I. S. Tools, inventory, um specifically lidar and just general
local knowledge of working the landscape. You know with um you know our D. M. S.
Have been around working these lands for a long time and R. N. R. S. Three S tend
to be our most experienced foresters so they have an idea of where to look for operable
land and our target um Units
so we build this we'd like to we try to have a five year action plan put in place
with our um that help meet us meet our yearly annual target levels. Um So
once a timber sale sort of identified, we place them into a fiscal year, and you
know, our fiscal year goes from june june july. Um And before we even place
them into um a month for auction, usually two years sometimes a little
bit earlier, we um we meet as a region staff. So these timber cells are
conceptual, they they've been identified through um you know, our field knowledge
through G. I. S. Um And you know this timber cells um sort of created with an idea
of it's going to be 300 acres. Um you know, to start, which, you know, we always
anticipate that dropping to about 152, you know about 50% of our of what were initially
looking at due to our procedures which are unstable slopes or riparian management
areas. Um we're gonna go look at these acreage. Um it make a good timber sale
and you know, what what do we do from here? Well what we do um is send it out to
all of our timber sales specialists. And these are regions staff. We have a region
biologists, we have license region geologists, we have uh forces trained and cultural
resource. Um We have a licensed land surveyor, region and district engineers. Rights
away staff. And then our region management staff. So two years before we even put
boots on the ground, we send these timber sells out for um a review and we do this
once a year. So coming up this spring will actually be looking at fiscal year 25
timber sales. And we do what we call remote reviews where we use all the database
that we have in place to take a look at these tumor cells and try to get an idea
if there's any issues um related to the biology. Um What kind of geology are we seeing
there? We use lidar and our our geologists are are able to get a good understanding
whether we're gonna be dealing with groundwater recharge areas or potential Class
four specials. Which are you know just timber sales with a little bit more um need
specialist needs um for geology. Is there any kind of cultural resource issues? Is
there G. L. L. Trail that has been mapped or marked on there? Um And then uh related
to engineering? What kind of roads are we gonna need to rebuild roads? Are we gonna
need order bridges? Are we going to send our land survey crew out and survey the
lines? Um D. N. R. In particular. We have rules in place that uh any boundary needs
to be looked at by um licensed uh surveyor. And then do we have access issues? Are
we going to require in particular? Our biggest issue that we've dealt with is are
we gonna need to require access permits across um the you know the Forest service?
Do we need to get a hold of private landowners and work with them on getting rights
way permits to access across their their ownership to our our state land blocks.
So you know we have a lot of work goes into these timber sales before we even put
boots, boots on the ground and get out there and look at them just to make sure that
we have a viable sale. Um And that we aren't missing something from, you know, from
our initial scope of these timber sales. David, can I ask how our tribes engaged
in this um planning effort? Yeah. The through our cultural resources, um You know
when we start looking at our cultural resource uh layers or special concerns layers,
um If there are things that we've noticed noticing right off the bat, that's when
we start engaging through our archaeologists and um setting on on site meetings.
So out here on Costar straits district um You know big one that we know is if there's
any cultural modified trees and we sort of generally know the idea of just of local
knowledge of where those might be located. So it's something we look for pretty earlier
on in the process. And um you know we we invite them out for um you know
on infield meetings that talk about how we're gonna manage some of those resources.
What's that? Oh yeah. Yeah. In in addition to um cultural resources when we have
um any kind of uh T. F. W. Related with timber, fish and wildlife, which is uh
you know where it comes up in timber sales is related fish passage or stream typing.
Um We always have our tribe tribal biologists involved as long uh along with W. F.
W. And forced practice foresters when we have those meetings as well. So they're
engaged in a couple different levels of timber sales, Right? And I also know from
my first job out of college working at D. N. R. I worked in the heritage program
and we would get I did the FDA review. So I know that that's another consultation
that you guys do around when there's a element occurrence of a rare plant or plant
community that is in the vicinity of a proposed forest practices application that
um that heritage is consulted. So I'm sure that's still going on.
Alright. I just provided some maps here, I actually forgot I had these on but these
are what we get um sort of submitted to us ahead of time. So water's edge is actually
a timber sale. I think we currently have it scheduled for fiscal year 25. It's out
here in the Coast District. Um You can see that uh you know we are Forrester made
a mapping exercise through using Ortho photos, um local knowledge. Uh
He probably used age class. Um And then G. I. S. To come up with a timber sale proposal.
Um We would send these maps and information to our our specialists are biologists
geologists. Um Everyone that we just talked about and then they would do using the
tools and resources that they have available to them. They would do our initial scoping
and review of these timber cells to see if there's any bigger picture issues that
we need to talk about before we actually go out on site and start doing field work.
Um in this case that, you know, there was, you know, I'm sure our geologists had
a nice little write up regarding some of the slopes and um the units to the west
and you know, there's obviously potential for um some RM Z wetland management areas
down there in the river bottoms. Um I know our rights away staff here probably would
have no issues because it was out on our block, but we'd be looking to make sure
that we have legal access to each of these units. Our engineers will be looking for
any kind of um new bridge crossings that might be required or new roads that might
need to be constructed. Um And yeah, so we get all anybody that can offer anything
to us, we make sure that they get a good review and before we um put these cells
into a schedule and begin working on them down the road, can I ask one quick question
about that, David, when we're out on the traveling around with, with Drew and brian
and such. We looked at, I forgot what that bridge was now Drew. But bridges, these
larger infrastructure projects. My question is um are figured out before the sale
and they are removed from the projection of the sale total right they're not from
the 25% admin of D. N. R. But there on before anyone gets paid. Is that correct?
Yeah and it depends on the project. So we have a timber sale for example um that's
going up for auction in two months and our engineering team is actually securing
the bridge ahead of time through their own capital funding. Um So the timber sale
is actually not paying for that bridge but the timber sell pays for the work or the
contractor for installing the bridge. So there's just it just depends on that timber
sale and the type of work that we're doing if the if the bridge is needed for that
timber sale in order to extract that volume. Um The timber sale really tends to pay
for that where if it's a it's a larger part that's gonna benefit you know more than
just one timber sale. Um Or if it benefits a trust. Um So it's sort of a case by
case situation there and most of that money is paid through through our our program
that we charge through every timber sale where um if you look at you know our notices
that the purchaser is required to pay through our removals of the sale. Um You know
it's our access. Well I think they changed the name of it but it's a it's a basically
our access fund um that helps maintain our roads and our regionally
our public works staff um for our our road systems out in olympic region.
Yeah but yeah roadwork road construction um Pre hall maintenance, post hall maintenance.
All that comes out of our initial um timber sale price or appraisal process.
It's a it's a buildable item I guess on our on our action.
Alright. Yeah. So after our specialist reviews um we look at you know one of my main
jobs here is to help create a schedule. We look at all of our workloads based off
of our our specialist reviews for us. Like our biggest constraints are surveys are
geology times and then our cultural resources. Um The survey work it's just you know
a lot if these lines haven't been surveyed before um And sort of in the country that
we work in um you know one project can take two or 3 months to
complete. We need to get our survey crew out.
Mhm. Oh
David Andrew
County. We also have another jeolla licensed geologist that works out in Western
um Jefferson County and Collin County. So we had to geologists within our region.
We want to make sure that their workloads are balanced as well. So we're not um having
too many geology, heavy work, you know timber sales going up in the same month. Um
These are just some things that we take in account when building our work schedule
and then finally, you know, 78 months before our timber sale is scheduled to be auction,
we can actually begin some field work. So even though we've been working on these
sales for probably about a year up to, you know, this time, um there we we've done
a really good scoping and review. We can start laying out fieldwork where um are
foresters go out and put boots on the ground and they're consulting our specialists
as they as they go about their their daily duties on on a timber sill.
And that sort of leads us into our next presentation, which will be that fieldwork
where our staff goes out and initially do initial recon, um if there was any notes
with our specialists in our pre harvest, what we call it, pre harvest review, we'll
make sure that we schedule field trips and visits without with them. Um they'll start
working on timber sale boundary marking, we'll talk about their lead tree retention
plans and how they come up with charlie trees, and then we'll talk about our our
road plans and a little bit more about how um you know, we decide whether to put
in a permanent crossing or temporary crossing and what goes into our work, our road
plans to make sure that we have access to our our timber sell units.
Great,
alright, you guys have any questions, I have a question about the sustainable harvest
calculation because I know we're getting to the end of our current decade and I've
heard concerns from colleagues in the forest products industry that um the sustainable
harvest calculation is going to go down significantly, what kinds of um
what kinds of programs or factors would cause the sustainable harvest calculation
that we're currently operating under go down for the next decade. Is it, is it things
like the carbon project, I mean, what are the, what are the things that will move
the calculation down school? Thinking about
county um carbon could affect it. Another one is
Lance going off base for things like plant community and um
anything without natural areas we try and inter grant out, but those are a couple
of the big ones that come to mind.
Okay, great. Initially looking at jefferson, we pull up a
spreadsheet
um so and this is based on last decade's work the current decade, you would
drop about a million feet a year just based on what they did at that time. And that
the change can come about because of things like um coil peninsula had a whole lot
of plant community in it that used to be on base. So there's, you know, there's,
there's like 15 million ft that we lost out there. And so and then if anything does
go into carbon that's operable, so that would change it to, but right now it's only
looking like maybe a million, but that is a decade old number. So whether it's um,
uh, so the plant community, whether it's proposed for protection in, in, for example,
a natural area boundary or not, it's still factored into the calculation. It would
be right now. Yeah, well, it would be last decade. If it's, if it's coming up this
current decade, then it will be taken out. So that's a lot. You just did you just
say 15 million for plant community? And that's just what I lost on Coyle.
So if it's already out of the calculation, see this is sustainable harvest calculation
feels like a big, big black mystery box to me in a way. Um Yeah, okay, so if
you lost 15 million board feet due to planned community on the coil in the last
sustainable harvest calculation, it wouldn't necessarily be going down in the next
sustainable harvest calculation or the next decade because that already went down
in the last one. Yeah, I think that's a fair assumption. Okay, I'm just trying to
understand what, what, what the, what goalposts are moving regarding the sustainable
harvest calculation in the future because because I've been hearing it and if you,
you know, meetings and forums like, oh, it's gonna go down to they gave you the statewide
number, but yes, the statewide number will definitely go down. Um
well, yeah, it kind of depends. I mean, I, I'm doing my best to not having arrearages
this decade and the counties are my main target to keep whole. But due to staffing
issues, I'm still, I think I got up to four people was my my
down and now I'm back to six, I've had a couple more people leave and promote and
so given that I think I'm gonna be short on RMC a volume or federal lands, so that'll
be an unknown impact coming into in the next decade.
And drew following up on that question. I mean right now it's proposed that almost,
you know, a third quarter of the east jefferson uh D. N. R. Forest land is put into
the carbon project with that bring the sustainable uh harvest calculation down 25%.
Is that what you would anticipate if that number is for for the state
force transfer trust. Right? Not the common school construction. Yeah,
so it wouldn't be the whole Um harvest calculation going down 25% because of those
3,030 900 acres, it would just because they're not all some of them are common school.
Well, some of the acres that are considered in the sustainable harvest calculation,
the majority of the acres are common school, there's what 70%. Common school, jefferson
County, 30% 28% you know, and then a couple acres of university, I mean there's little
little trust me trust. Right, so the majority of the acres in Jefferson County or
common school construction trust, which are the school construction funds. So the
Clearwater block affects that because that's almost pure common school. So that that
really swings it heavy to R M C. A. Mhm.
Thank you. I mean because because I ask these questions and I get now that I've asked
these questions, I'm gonna get questions. Can you explain a little bit more though?
Is the sustainable harvest set for common school also or is common school excluded?
What's, what's the relationship between common school and so each timber county is
its own sustainable harvest unit. So jefferson is one column is one and then um
OsF is unique and that its volume is set as a sustainable harvest unit, But it
contains so that um we were David and I were looking it up this morning. Class alums
target is 210 million for the decade. Well, that's not completely
true because there's a component within the Osf that is county land,
the clown and block the sol doc is all, you know, a large part of that is county.
So, but that's, that's treated within the Osf that like for instance, our lands
in Grays Harbor County, North Grays Harbor are all common school and so those are
part of the statewide cut. So for the most part R M C a volume is a statewide cut.
So if I'm coming in short, Pc cuts a little bit more pacific cascade region cuts
a little more were balanced. It doesn't have to be balanced by region. So it's, but
the counties are specific to the county, that's its own unit. So it's a little little
bit confusing because the counties are its own unit. OsF, which has a mix of federal
and county is its own unit and then the rest of it is a statewide unit.
Right? Any other questions for these guys?
We have you had more overarching?
Yeah, mostly about sustainable harvest. That's, you know, just trying to understand
that better. I think it's been mostly addressed 11 issue that Heidi brought up earlier.
That's interesting to me is, you know, the definition of old growth as, you know,
pre 18 50 pre statehood and that's going to, It sounds like stay right.
So, you know, we're not making new old growth if it's not before 1850 is not old
growth is that, can you breakdown I guess DNR's thought process about this as as
we move into the next planning decade. So that's that's the policy as it stands right
now, whether that changes or that date fluctuates I that's way above my
pay grade. I I don't know, but that today, that's the policy and the way they're
calculating the model right now, that's, that's the current policy.
So I went and walked in um, what's called the Quimper last wilderness. It's a, I
think on the carbon project Mac that's either called Quimper, Quimper, Quimper or
Cape George and it's got a lot of older forest in it and the part that's allocated
for carbon is principally the old the old growth forest section of that.
Um Because that is of an age that clearly defines it as part of falling under that
policy. DnR's policy around old old growth forests. And I'm not talking about legacy
forests and I'm not talking about older forests, I'm talking about DnR's old growth
forest policy. Um How is that? I mean obviously it sequesters carbon because those
big old trees do that. But how is that, where is the addition al Itty there
between the um old growth forest policy and then that polygon it feels like it's
already protected. Set aside so I just was wondering how that Included.
So I I'd have to go back and look but I don't think that stand makes the pre 1850
rule
Think it's later in the 1800s. So that would make it still available for harvest.
Okay well I'd have to go look to be sure the age class on it. But was Donato a forest
someone David someone with the last name Donato a Forester with D. N. R. He is a
natural resource scientist out of division that Donato person
who have not yet met. Um It was considered uh the old growth policy applied to at
least a big portion of it. So I I'm just trying to understand how this additional,
I'm trying trying to understand addition al Itty. So I was just trying to pull up
an example that I had seen with my own eyes the other day. Yeah, I I'd have to go
back and look at the age class on at the C. I know that they did a fairly thorough
walkthrough on it dan did as well as my local technician, so, but I'd have to go
back and look at the age class Okay, But on that, the Beaver Valley unit that was
pulled from the Beaver Valley sale is on the carbon project list and I guess I'm
my questions about addition al it er are similar to hides and just wondering how
if that was already pulled, how do we demonstrate addition al it's like you were
going to maybe go back and auction it again or I mean what's um so by, by the old
growth policy I could go in there and it's still operable land, a lot of that has
to do with going in and identifying uh parcels within the parcel. So a five acre
block because a lot of that unit was some of them I think was even older, there was
younger forest, you know, within that same block, so you'd have to go in
and do a real thorough job of identifying five acre parcels and connectivity and
all that to decide what's what's harvest table and what's not hey, and
that work will still have to be done as part of the carbon project if it's, if it's
chosen right? Yeah, I didn't, I didn't catch that, I said, And that work. If it's,
uh, if the Beaver Valley unit is eventually selected as part of the carbon project,
that work would still have to happen to demonstrate that addition allergy. Yeah.
Yeah I'm not sure we're so initial into all that that I'm not sure what what the
next move is gonna be okay. Um A general question.
You know one of the kind of um I guess baseline understandings that is not understood
by all is due older trees sequester more or less carbon than younger treats. You
know we've we've gotten a 2014 article forwarded to us where they established that
you know doug fir and others continue to sequester more as they get older and I was
wondering if D. N. R. Has a perspective on that? Not to my knowledge. I
that would be a *** a question.
Thanks.
I've got a question as we look to the new sustainable harvest yield. Um Is there
any any talk or models of of achieving that in a more selective harvest
management system. Is that something that's being talked about or being um demonstrated
anywhere with the D. N. R. Kind of relies on it works with um I know that thinning
and and partial cutting is part of that. Um how they put that in the model and figure
that out. I don't know sounds like it'd be a good good to bring um kate McNulty and
talk more about that or j Justin small E. J. Yeah I think it's Justin he's our modeler
so great okay thank you.
I do want to express my appreciation for this deeper dive. David thank you for joining
us. It's great to you know as we're trying to understand it. Feel more of the layers
of the onion to deepen our understanding so appreciate it.
Let's go out in the forest. Next one. I walk and talk. Yeah
they all right with me. Is there anything else you guys want to cover today?
So our next update from you will be in a few months right quarterly. And and we'll
see Drew tomorrow after tomorrow Drew and brian to talk about preparing for Wednesday
and then we'll see you on Wednesday. We're not taking public comment at this time.
I see hands going up but this is not. Oh there was okay sorry we are taking public
comment. So um if anyone would like to um make a comment or ask a question please
raise your hand using the raise hand button at the bottom of the zoom screen and
we'll bring you over for a question um tom you'll be first.
Thank you. Thanks for the update. TNR folks. I had a question for for you especially
regarding your policies and procedures. A month ago there was a case ruled on in
jefferson County Superior Court that halted activity from D. N. R. On a couple of
couple of parcels and you know pointing to violations of cepa. And I was wondering
if what D. N. R. Is doing in response to that with respect to all the other sales
that are that are pending ongoing and planned. So if you could explain a little more
detail what what D. N. R. Is doing about that including you know if you're appealing
or if you're re filing separate documents, you know any details that you can provide.
That would be helpful. Thank you. So so far we I I can't answer the appeal
question. That's that's an Olympia question. Uh What we've been directed to do is
they've rewritten the language. Um I don't think we've seen the judges um write up
on it yet. He made the ruling and then went on vacation. Is my understanding. So
what we've been doing right now is rewriting the Cepa's and submitting an addendum
to those and we have final language that's being reviewed by the A. G's office right
now and hoping to see that this week.
Great, thank you. We do have to wait on the judges um border, final written order
before we move forward completely. Okay, well I don't I don't know anything about
the status of judge harper right now. Um Anyone else has joined us online who would
like to ask a question of our colleagues at D. N. R. Or add something to the conversation,
please reuse the raise hand button at the bottom of the zoom screen. And otherwise
let's hear what Cindy has to say or ask, hello, can you hear me? Yeah we can hear
you. Great. I'm Cindy brats. Resident of Port Townsend, just commenting as a citizen
or asking a question as a citizen today and I think tom's question. He probably covered
it but I'll ask it in a different way just to clarify for me. Um I wondered if um
BnR is or the state is taking action in any way to resolve the the
conflict or differences between um W. A. C. Department of ecology is language
requiring that Cepa include greenhouse gas emissions as an air pollutant and that
air quality and climate be addressed as part of CEPA and also um are CW's Natural
Climate Solutions. I could give you the the number of that too. But the Natural Climate
Solutions account that was passed in 21 that says either preserve or increase or
both carbon sequestration and storage benefits in force. So it seems like D. N. R.
S. Um hasn't been uh well there's just a conflict between what D. N.
R. Does and what those two sources say. So could you comment on that please? I
that's above my pay grade. That's going to be an Olympia decision on how they're
handling that and what they're gonna do with it.
Hey well last call for questions or comments regarding this topic and all the discussion
we just had about as part of our quarterly report from D. N. R. Is there anyone else
with us um online today who would like to ask a question. Um please I'm sorry I have
this cough. Still please use the raise hand button at the bottom of your zoom screen
and I see there's one other hand up.
Mhm
jean. You'll need to un mute and you'll have three minutes for public comment. Good
morning everyone. Can you hear me? Fabulous. Thank you for the presentation and sharing
of information. Um Just one comment to add and that is about the presentation and
um just an observation that it alleviates a great deal of
backtracking if um the interested parties are engaged in open
dialogue as opposed to discovering things after the fact and then having to re take
steps we have previously undergone. So um and this is this has been sort of a persistent
plaguing problem that there is. Uh there could be greater transparency and engagement
of many voices who can alleviate these burdens. So I would
encourage D. N. R. When analyzing particular properties for harvest or other measures
that they are um diligent and engaging interested parties. Thank you.
Do you want to respond or I mean I was gonna say I think is there not a public notice
requirement for timber sales? Right. Sepa. And and the sale
itself. So um but I think that part of what David
outlined to us is the fairly extensive consultation you guys do with other subject
matter experts in developing timber sales. Um I don't know where Miss Ball
would suggest that we you know who do we add to that list I guess um is my question.
So maybe um Gene you can you can tell me and I can bringing the question back. Sorry.
Okay. It looks like we have one more question and I'm gonna do a last call for folks
wanting to make a comment or a question to our colleagues at D. N. R. C. One other
hand up. If anyone else would like to raise their hand, please do so now. Uh and
we'll bring you over after Patricia jones. Patricia. Thank you for the opportunity
to comment and thanks to the agency staff for the helpful presentation and also just
being willing to engage with stakeholders. Our organization has been able to talk
with the region over many years and really appreciate their patience and willingness
to continue to share information. Um My question is just looking at your spreadsheet.
Um I know you do work on these sales at various levels of details as
David explained um, over the period of many years, actually you do a five year
plan and you have the sustainable harvest calculation, a five year plan. And then
as you get closer to the sale gets more and more detailed, but I'm wondering if it
is at all possible to share in your quarterly reports, the five year plan, where
where, where those sales are at going forward and not just once they're under contract
and um when the funds are being distributed, one question and second question, I've
never understood the money flow, when the operator or the purchaser they have to
pay us, Is there a set amount of percentage they have to pay at the beginning, once
the sale goes into contract to hold the contract. And then do they not have to pay
until they're actually under operation? Can you explain the money flow just a little
bit more. Thank you all so much. Yes. So on, on day of sale they have to, we have,
we set a minimum bid And then they come in with their bid, they have to come into
the to the auction with 10 10% of their bid value. And then if the
successful bidder we take that 10 And hang on to that and that is actually the
final payment of the timber sale. So we get the 10%. They, a lot of times they don't
start operating until it, it kind of depends on when we sell it. If we're selling
a sale in November or december, they may not operate till june or july. So they don't
make any payments until they actually, other than the initial 10%. They don't make
any payments until they actually remove volume from the sale. So monthly, typically
it's monthly the contract administrator will say, okay, on a simple lump sum sale,
you know, they bid $2 million they put 200,000 down on as a 10% and then, you know,
a value per acre, 5, 25,000 whatever it is, You'll watch what they removed, they
took 1010 acres and we build on that every month. So they send in a bill, um,
David staff posts that bill to the company. Um, they have 14 days to make the payment.
And then generally speaking within 14 days, we distribute that to the trustee like
the county And then the final 10% is held as the final payment for the sale,
but it isn't released until the sale goes through audit. So if there's been any mistakes,
then we can catch that before it goes out. I've had to come back to jefferson County
and ask for money back because it was a mistake in the building. And the past treasurer
did not like me very much because I, I had to ask her for a fairly sizable sum of
money to come back. And because an overpayment had been made and she made darn sure
I knew every single trustee or every junior tax district I impacted in great detail.
So, so we wait till the final, that final 10% It goes through audit. They check all
the paperwork in Olympia, they go through the complete finance and it takes depending
on the complexity of the sale, two weeks to a month and they get that done and then
they'll notify me. They keep a spreadsheet and I can look at the spreadsheet and
say, okay bolton rehab. Final distribution went out to the county january
3rd and then I know it's, it's on its way or you, well, when, when you actually receive
it, I get noticed that way. I can track along with the treasure on, you know what's
going on. So, but they'll, I can go to that spreadsheet and find out when they distribute
and you know, when I'm building these months or these quarterly reports, I'll go
through and, and I know what I got distributions on and I tracked the final cost.
But if I know something's coming, then I can look and say, okay, it's an audit. Um,
they just closed out paperwork. They should be issuing a final payment within a week.
Then I can put that on the next quarter and I know it's coming. But but that's that's
a short course on how it distributes and if you get into scale sales, whether they
be scribner volume or, or tonnage. So they get a lot more complicated. David staff
has to reconcile all the tickets for the month. Um, Everything has to go through
an approved scale, We receive this scale reports and we have to reconcile the tickets
against that and then build a building. But it's a little more complicated. And basically
the same thing.
Thanks Drew. Was there a first part of Patricia's question?
I think you answered her whole question. But what's that? I was wondering if we answered
the first part of Patricia's question, but I was coughing in the midst of it. So
I trust that was concerning the five year plan. Okay, We could come up with a way
to do that. Um So I, when David said we did five year plans, I had to laugh. It is
very difficult to schedule five years and because we had a lot of plans that weren't
finalized like the Mirror let plan, I pushed my staff to do a five year plan for
me because we need it. I mean this allows David and some of his staff to do like
survey and rights of way and longer term workload planning. But it changes so fast
because of those plans not being finalized that I I pushed but I didn't push hard
when the mirror let got done. I pushed harder and said I need a five year plan. I
I've I've gone easy on you for five years now. I need a plan and we got one done
and then we ran into Covid and we ran into staffing issues. And so the way a five
year plan would work is you your years three through five are are an educated guess.
This is the best I can come up with. And then years year two is pretty much locked
into place. David starting to look at that and say, okay, I need to get scheduled
all my specialists, we need to talk to survey. We need to look at rights away And
you know, if we need an easement, we gotta start that at year two and then year one
is what we're actually working on. So I've got high confidence in one and two and
far less confidence in three through five, you know, it's gonna change, we're gonna
have to shuffle volume forward and backwards and you know, and, and then when you
reach the end of a decade, I told him, you know, you guys have to give me 25 6 and
seven, we gotta have those in. And here's the numbers that I'm gonna, I'm guessing.
Again, it's an educated guess, but it's a, here's what I think is gonna come based
on last decade. Give me those numbers as a minimum. And then as soon as we get a
final plan will adjust, You know, and I'm not holding anybody's feet to the fire
on years three through five. And especially as we go into, into fiscal 25 because
that's going to be the new decade and we're still still in the planning stage for
that. They haven't run the models yet. So, but I don't know if you'd want to do that
in these meetings or schedule something different. It might be a little cumbersome
to go through that in this meeting, but I think it could be done as part of this,
this meeting, you know, we could figure out how to keep it tight, but when do you
think they'll start the process for the next sustainable harvest calculation or they
already, it's already started. Yeah. So is that those things, I'm on the steering
committee for it and though they're huge, they're cumbersome. And so there, we've
done some of the initial public meetings and I don't know where we're at on
Cepa. I've lost track of that one, but, um, and they're still arguing over what's
going to go into the model and, and it's very cumbersome so far, they're on track.
But I've got nothing, I can point out, you know, and say, well, this is where I think
we're gonna land. So, and they, they're trying a kind of a different approach to
it this year for this decade and how we picked the, the actual on the ground units.
And so they've, they've led a contract, um, where we're having a contractor go out
on the ground with a set of criteria and locate the units on the ground for us and
actually walking in and looking which is way more robust than what we've done in
the past. So I'm kind of hopeful I'm gonna get a pretty good product out of it, but,
but we're, we're a long ways. I mean, I can give you 20 for, I know what I'm doing
there, but as far as 25 Well five year would be 25 through 29, And
I, I can give you numbers that I think are gonna come up. But, you know, it's as
many changes as we've been through. I don't have a lot to base my numbers on anymore.
I'm just looking at the last decades model,
not hearing you hiding
nope.
So we've had trouble with the Commissioner's chambers losing audio pretty regularly.
So that's probably what's happened because I hear you guys, Yeah, 10
seconds. I'm not sure if you're seeing the message that they're working on it. They
said give me 10 or 20 seconds. Okay, testing, testing your back.
So my question was so that I don't have to create extra work for anyone in the region.
Is there like um is it the B and R. That gets the updates on the sustainable harvest
calculation or where are those? Yeah. Okay. Because I've been going to most of those
meetings, but not all of them. So I'll look to those agendas for updates. I don't,
I don't need something more specific or detailed from you guys for sure. I'm just
trying to get educated on the sustainable harvest calculation myself. So,
okay, well if there's nothing else, I think we really, here comes my cough again.
We really appreciate you guys being here today, David. It was great to meet you and
we look forward to the next update from all of you guys. And um and the meetings
later this week that we'll be talking about um with chickadee forestry and the carbon
project questions that are cropping up in our community. Thank you
extra detail today. It was really appreciated. Okay.
Okay. So, um that was the only specific
agenda item we had this morning and we already did briefing and calenda ring. Is
there anything else we want to do this morning? Um before we have our, we have two
workshops starting at 1 30. So we'll come back together at 4 30 year time kate 1
30 our time. Um, Anything else? Okay, well then I will recess us
until 1:30.
Go buy skinny again.
So are you speaking to start? You gonna introduce us?
Alright. And it's actually 1 30. Wait until phone phone 1
30. Apple 1 30. Okay,
I will.
All right, welcome back everyone. I will call this meeting of the board of County
Commissioners back into order. Our chair Heidi Eisenhauer is dealing with a lot of
challenge signatures on the uh, the pre certification canvassing board. So she will
be a few moments late but we did not want to keep our guests waiting. So I know that
she will follow up and and and look at the tape but um, next up on our agenda is
is public health to here to talk about audio. I and maybe other accessibility features.
So I'll turn it over to you. Appleton, make introductions. Thanks Commissioner Brotherton,
I'm Apple martin. I'm the director of Jefferson County Public Health and I'm here
with our communications team with Bonnie Abramsky and Liz Anderson. We're here to
share with you all an accessibility platform that we have recently on boarded to
our Justin County public health website and all of its sub pages um, to help improve
the and update the ability for folks looking at our website and utilizing the content
to use it in ways that is most usable to them. So we're going to have some sort of
a detail of what the audio I is, how it functions, what capabilities it provides
is the users and then how we are interacting with it. Um, from a staffing standpoint
to enhance all the ways that we convey information to the public. So thanks for the
invitation to share this with you and um, we hope that it's something that uh, moves
forward and is applicable to all websites around the county eventually. Um, I'll
start with Liz, take it away.
All right. Good afternoon. Thanks for having us. Uh, as Apple said, we're here today
to present audio I and then our new J. C. P H mobile app. Um, in
2022, our communications team has brought in $250,000 in grants, uh, to
support the Health Department through building community equity, emergency preparedness
and support for our staff.
So a little bit of background about audio. I. Um, our team meets with Civic Plus,
which is the county's current software platform every quarter to optimize our website
and go over the previous quarter's performance in one of our meetings this year.
They mentioned that 97% of the web is inaccessible to people with disabilities. So
with a lot of our grants being largely focused on equity this year, we wanted to
find a way to optimize the user experience. So we contracted with Audio I to significantly
change our website's accessibility. I'd like to note that even this the slideshow
was intentionally created with colors and texts that is easier to read for a visually
impaired audience.
So we want to let you a little know a little bit more about what audio I is, how
it works and who it helps. So for the basics, audio I is a web accessibility platform
that ensures A D. A. And W. C. A. G compliance through a combination of automation
technology and certified professionals, they consistently monitor our website.
Can you tell us what W. C. And G. Stands for?
It's the World Wide Web consortium. Um And this includes web content accessibility
guidelines and it's a set of accessibility standards and instructions on making digital
content like websites, mobile apps. Um online PDFs more accessible to people with
disabilities.
Oh,
so with audio I we can offer barrier free access to our website promoting all of
our public health services.
And by implementing it. Our website is now optimized to be accessible.
Uh Two people with auditory cognitive neurological physical speech or visual impairments
who rely on assistive technologies such as screen readers and other devices to browse
the internet,
This supports accessibility. Oh sorry, I did this. Um If there's ever an issue where
the website is not optimally running audio is going to let us know of the issue and
either they go in and fix it right away or if it's something outside of their scope
um that only we have access to um they'll give us the opportunity to make changes.
Um behind the scenes, we have an issue reporting dashboard that
kind of lets us know where the problems are and then they do periodic manual audits
and so once they do those, they let us know how to fix it or they'll fix it for us
periodic, meaning
They monitor daily. Um I don't know when they do the audits in December is
actually going to be our first meeting with them after the implementation. And so
what they do is they take 90 day metrics and provide us with those and then we're
gonna learn more how to use the dashboard and whatnot. So we're still in training
with this.
So not only does it run behind the scenes, there's actually an interactive tool on
our website, I think that's what you were looking at over the weekend. Um that makes
available free assistive web personalization tools via the toolbar
and I will never see another serif on the public health website. There you go. So
the it's going to be in the bottom left corner and once you click this icon, a toolbar
will come up and this is integrated into our website to provide a suite of customizable
assistive features um to for users just to tailor the experience and so you can hover
over the difference. I can't do it on here but if you go to our website you can hover
over all the different icons and you can
change the colors, fix the color contrast in large text size or decrease the text
size. Um play with the fonts a little bit. Uh There's even a screen reader toolbar
and I wanted just to note that this is available on both our website and on the new
mobile app whereas I didn't see the screen reader toolbar. I think its guide.
If you click on guide.
No guide is just an actual line that goes across the screen. I don't know there should
be,
it might be window. I would check it's an actual window um panel that comes up, it's
grayed out and it'll yeah, trying them narrate what you click on. Yeah.
And once you click on something you have to unclip or click on it again for it to
go away, you cycle through it right? I did playing with it, you know? Yeah. And you
don't really see the options by hovering. Is that right? You just see that? Yeah,
they're all clickable, you have to click on them. Um But you can use this um Like
I said there are so many different ways you can use this um uh People can
um use the
they can use on switch devices and I didn't know what a switch device was but it's
actually like a blow and sip device that people can blow into and this is all compatible
with that as well if you don't have um like mobility in your hands. Um And with that
I'm gonna pass you to Bonnie Abramsky who's gonna tell us about our new app.
Thanks Liz that was a great presentation. It's good to know that we have these um
access measures in place. Okay so this is an announcement that we have a new product
in place by Civic Plus. They have a mobile app. This integrates directly with our
existing website and I encourage everyone who's tuning in including the people in
this room to go ahead and pick up their phones. If you feel like you want to work
along with me here and get ready to download the app.
Step one, get out your phones,
find the app, you use to download more apps. If you're using an iphone you're probably
looking for the icon of the a and the blue and if you're on an android phone you're
probably looking for the google play icon on the other side, then you're
gonna search jeffco public health and the icon is going to be our logo on a white
square.
And depending on the speed of your connection that may take some time to open
and video here just showing what you can expect
great good job mark. So as you may have quickly seen in the video, once you open
it, it takes you to a quick splash screen, which is the photo of happy
people and then it takes you to a menu um of options that are on buttons and then
if you go to the cog wheel in the top right hand corner, you get to notifications.
This is something I'm working on now with Civic class. Um, that will soon connect
you to all of the alerts that we have on our website, that you can sign up to alerts
including the public health newsletter and a wide array of other county county wide
alerts even beyond public health,
why do we need a mobile app? You might ask if you're a skeptical Persian cat, but
so there are a few reasons and this for me is one of the most standout reasons if
any one of you has tried to navigate our website on your phone, you may notice that
these side menus aren't there when you go to the sub pages and that is an
inherent unchangeable thing about Civic Plus websites. Where on the mobile
viewing, that side menu goes to the very bottom of the page and then makes it harder
to find what you're looking for. You know, For example, I was recently looking on
our septic page and all of the things that says, you know, information for homeowners
rebates, All of that is no longer accessible and visible at the top. Um And so we
hope to one day expand this mobile app so we can make all of our pages more easily
navigable. All right. Um and this is just a demonstration of how far you have to
scroll to get to those side menu options. We're scrolling, we're
scrolling
and then after all this information, we have great information about Covid. Then
we finally get to the area where it's like, okay, I can easily click to find vaccine
information testing, face coverings, so on the app that's easier to navigate and
for you to get more directly to where you need to go. And I kind of breezed over
this in the other video. But when you open the mobile app, this menu appears in clickable
buttons. So it, in my mind it visually it's easier to search and find what you're
looking for. When you then click on the button app, it takes you directly to our
website in a web browser. What if you don't wanna click on any of the buttons? Well
then you can let me know what you'd like to see there and we'll get it going. Like
if I wanted to I'm open the public health app and I want to go to Environmental,
public Health. All I see is Covid stuff and I can't make it uh twirl away. Well,
this app is paid for by Covid funding. And so we had to make
sure that that was a priority in terms of directing people to information that said
now that it's up and running, We can add as many buttons as we like and that's something
that I want to explore as we expand this tool. So the buttons are the buttons are
it? And those notification alerts once they get going um then you can easily turn
on and off um you know what you subscribe to?
Is that my last slide? It might be No, there's a couple more. Why is it not going
Liz Oh there we go, no
bam
Oh there there's a demonstration of the clickable buttons which you already discovered
Yeah, with the cat paw helping you along. Alright, download the jeffco public health
app and tell your friends to do the same right now and, and I promised I'd
give a shout out to my mom and dad who are tuning in from massachusetts to see my
presentation today. We really do see the expanding that ability
feature plus the way the websites are designed that we would expand from
covid as our sort of next?
Specifically for coded um to broaden them and to do it to all of our public culture.
Just a an overdue migration to making our services,
you know, amplification of what we have to do and what were available for more, more
accessible. That's great
time for questions or you still have a pitch right now kate, Do you have any questions
for our public health communication gurus? I don't know, but it's um, it's really
great to see um, you know, us take accessibility seriously and really embrace all
the technology has to offer. So appreciate you guys being at the cutting edge the
first department to really tackle this kind of technology and um, I think we're headed
in the right direction. It's, I'll play around more with it.
Cool. I'm sure Heidi would have some questions if she wasn't doing the canvassing,
but uh, I got a couple questions. I guess so. I mean this is paid for, this is an
annual subscription to audio. I so this, I mean I thought there was some interest
in spreading this program to other departments and I'm just wondering what's the
annual cost for audio I and for the app itself. And uh, what's like the, what's the
model going forward that you guys were looking at so I can speak to the cost? Um
I think it was back in august, we got a quote for implementation for the entire county
would be $8000 annually. Um I don't know what that's going to reflect in 2023 but
that was 2022 cost. Um but with our funding, um we were,
we paid for the jefferson county public health dot org domain. And so how much was
that? It was like one domain compared there. I think it was 5000. That doesn't mean
that it's going to be 5000 to add. Um, But it was 5000 press to get up and
running Okay. And this is uh, an ongoing renewable service. Yeah, I believe it was
general funds that were used for it. Yeah. And then the app is through Civic Plus.
The app is through Civic Plus. And the annual fee I believe is in the range of $5000.
There was an extra fee to just get it up and running and designed in order to get
all of the backdoor stuff taken care of to get it set up we had to use because we
are a county entity. They needed some information that is, even though it's
a public health app, it's using the county's whole um, you know, I don't know what
to call it, uh account identity. Online identity. So if for example, other departments
wanted to get in on the app, we might have to have it be a county app and have public
health be a part of it and redesign. Oh right. So you've got a jefferson county public
health app and maybe you have taken the ap capability for the county as far as Civic
Plus.
Um, and I guess going forward with the app, what do you, I mean, what are the next
steps? It's like, it's very covid focused right now, as you explained, I mean, do
you, do you think that this is gonna be like, can we tie it into inter gov for the
permit process? I mean I'm just, you know, there's like the possibilities are endless
of turning your phone into a viable way to navigate county website, so all those,
all of those things are important and potential future applications. I think at the
moment we wanted to just convey the process of the starting up of it in in tandem
with how we have functionality through Civic Plus. And I mentioned it to Mark and
he was excited for you all to hear that this innovation was happening in the county,
which kate spoke to eloquently. I think really the pitch for now is just for the
county as a whole to consider these um these enhancements that actually speak very
overtly to accessibility and as are the public is changing and needing to know information
in new ways and we're needing to keep up with how they want need to access this information.
That would be good for audio I to be a Countywide Service um for accessibility for
folks with disabilities. And then the mobile app feature is part of that sort of
accessibility continuum. Um I think, you know, as far as public health is concerned,
we have a combination of General Fund and a specific national grant we have through
nature to help us with with No, no, not this time, this is a grant
that Bonnie sought out specifically. Um and so that that will have its limit of course,
but I think as she mentioned, if the app is something that is advisable and or desirable
by all county departments to enhance how their viewers see their content on the county
website, it might be, it might behoove us to have a general county account and then
we be a participant of that right now, we're being the guinea pigs, so we're conveying
that to you all in terms of how helpful it's been and we do appreciate you serving
as the guinea pig for the county. And I think the commissioners all know that we
have advertised a halftime communications specialist a job or position and we have
six applications for that. Um, the application period first review is friday and
there are a couple of promising candidates in the pool and this will be one of the
missions of that person when they come on board. That's great. Does this connect
to social media at all or is it no, it doesn't connect to our social media at all
except for the fact that there's a lot of training that we can start doing with audio
I now training classes and you know, like I said, they do a lot of the behind the
scenes work um where they catch the, you know, mistakes or errors on our website
um too, so we can be more accessible however, with things changing so quickly in
the technology realm. Um, we still need to do a lot of training and we have been
for the past few years. So on social media we can implement the same tools, you
know, making, you know, for example, explaining what our images are for people who
can't see them, you know, just putting those accessibility features in place there.
You know, we use many so far um that we've just created so using high contrast colors,
typically blues and yellows are ones that are most visible to folks with impaired
vision. Um we've worked out a situation with a spanish translator so that all of
our translation into the spanish is done locally. We wanted to make sure that that
was sourced in the county rather than out of the county. So we're building sort of
a repertoire ways to make social media more accessible via these same types of strategies.
Um, but these particular instances today, the audio and the mobile app aren't specifically
for our social media feeds at this time. Great.
Any any questions come to you kate.
Okay, well it's exciting to branch into this, this new way of communicating and you
know, diversifying our reach. So, you know, all sorts of people with different accessibility
issues can can access a great. Um, so no ask now, yeah,
from folks in the community that employ this to see just how effective it is. Do
you have any way of scraping that data from the the end user to see how how effective
it is. We don't know yet, but as I said in december, we're going to have our 90 day
meeting and once we get to that we'll be able to see all the functions of the dashboard
and so but we didn't want to have that meeting too soon. We want to have some kind
of metrics to look at. And of course we'll be able to tell how many people download
the app. And it is Ray Doble, just as any other app is a double edged sword. Get
a bunch of wines. Yeah. Great. Okay, well thank you guys so much. Great
to see you in person. Thanks for your continued work. Yeah. We look forward to seeing
you back when the next phase develops.
Oh yeah, public comment period. Sorry, thank you. Does anyone in the public uh would
they like to make a comment? You can click the raise hand button or Star nine if
you're on your phone or you know, so you can raise your hand in person if you're
so moved. I think you're here for the next our next workshop. So anyone that would
like to make public comment would love to hear from you. I see your dad.
We should be very proud. Okay, great. We'll close public comment for this. Thank
you guys so much for coming. And it's it's great to see you. Thank you all. You can
you can just leave it there. I think for now we we'll invite our National park friends
up. Alright. We do have we're still waiting for our chair who's up with canvassing.
So we'll just uh we'll take a recess for five minutes and two at two o'clock and
we can get you guys set up here and you know, meet in person before we meet in the
open session. So we'll we'll take a five minute recess coming back at two o'clock
local. This is jefferson county and county auditor runs the elections. Are we back?
No, don't quite have a quorum yet, so. And uh
All right, well, I will call this meeting of the Board of County Commissioners back
into session and we're here with um friends from the olympic National Park or the
National Park Service, I should say Sula Jacobs and Gerald weaver and Megan huff.
Thank you so much for for coming by and you know, while we wait for high Heidi I
think you know, if you want to introduce yourself and talk about what's going on
with the park, we're really glad that you made the trip out here. Sure, thank you.
First Commissioners for inviting us. I'm sula Jacobs. I am gonna still say very new
Superintendent of olympic national Park. I think I met 3.5 months and so I occasionally
still point north when I mean south and vice versa. It is a really giant park and
so I appreciate everybody's grace with me as I'm learning it. This park has a lot
of complexities and a lot of amazingly important issues to locals as well as people
literally I got an email this morning from somebody from France and so yeah this
this park really means a lot to a lot of different people for a lot of different
reasons. Um We are just finished our summer season. It was as you expected um fairly
busy. I came at the very end so I only got to see a little bit of the business but
we we know we have a few spots that are getting um higher visitations than normal
that does happen and that's sort of what happens been happening with visitation throughout
the national park service. Um We are well into winter season. I was up at Hurricane
Ridge day of the week, monday saturday. Um And I was there and it was snowing and
I was wearing lots and lots of clothing and I was still freezing. Um People had chains
on their vehicle um it's definitely winter up there and certainly starting to get
up uh skiing up there. Um But the park service is always two seasons ahead. So we're
starting to look at hiring for the summer and what's happening in the spring and
summer already. That's sort of the way we cycle through is you kind of go whatever
season you're in you're like okay it's fall so I should be thinking spring it's winter,
I should be thinking summer. Um Just so that way we're thinking well well ahead.
Um, we're working on a bunch of issues honestly, since I've only been at the park
three months, a lot of those issues are me getting to know what the park is. Um,
I feel tremendously lucky. I work with an amazing group of people. I, I have two
of my team members with me here today. Uh, Megan. Would you mind introducing yourself?
So my name is Megan Megan. Really? You swallow the microphone? People won't be able
to hear you online. Okay. My name is Megan huff and I am on a temporary assignment
here at olympic National Park. Um, and normally I'm the museum curator at Fort Vancouver
National Historic Site. Um, but here I am the public information officer for just
a couple more weeks. Great, me too. Um, and we're gonna look for a camera right there.
There we are. We've got one of those. Yeah. Hey folks, I'm Gerald Beaver. I'm the
lead for cultural natural resources in olympic national Park. Um, I've been at the
park about 2.5 years, but like, so I'm gonna claim they were covid years. Right?
So it's taken me a while to figure out the park out myself, but I think I've finally
got a good handle on the resource and resource concerns that we have in the park.
So that's great. And you go into a little bit like how you came here. It's some,
some of that feels a little bit like the military. You know, we have a tendency to
everything like are you trying to keep everyone knew for us? Um No so I have been
in the park service since 2005 so I guess that makes it 17 oid years. Uh Mostly on
the east coast. Um I started out in Washington D. C. In the actual headquarters and
then on the G. W. Memorial Parkway as a consortium of so 17 different sites. The
sites that people are more familiar with our Great Falls and um the U. S. Marine
Corps War Memorial which is a statue of Iwo Jima being raised and absolutely one
of the most amazing places to watch. The fourth of july. I spent many, many summer
working the fourth of july there. Um I then after doing a few acting assignments,
went down to biscayne National Park which is south of Miami. It is a 95% marine park.
Um And uh a lot of similar coastal issues that we don't have bleaching here, but
a lot of fishing issues there reefs trying to figure out different uses. It's it's
a very interesting interesting park. Um After that I went up to Cumberland Gap National
Historical Park which is in Tennessee Kentucky and Virginia in Appalachia. People
shaking their head. It's an amazing, it's it's about 2 2.5 hours north of the smokies.
Um But way less visited. It's 900,000 visitors versus I don't know, 78 million visitors.
Um, and it's phenomenal. I love it. High recommend. Um, while I was there, um, I
was lucky enough to spend time at Yosemite on an acting assignment as the deputy
superintendent there, um, back to Cumberland Gap and then up to Delaware Water Gap,
which is actually where I'm originally from that exact area. Um, and then olympic
came open and I visited olympic park well before I started in the park service and
it was a special place to me And I, hey, this might be a literal once in a lifetime
opportunity. So I'm going to take the once in a lifetime opportunity. And so three
months in, I have been able to visit some of the places I first visited uh, several
decades ago say that. Um, and it's been wonderful. But yes, it's uh, we do move around
a little bit between acting assignments and things. But I should say my background,
this is a second career for me. So I started off doing strategic consulting economics
in east asian studies background and grad school and public policy. So great. So
I guess, you know, unless you have Cape feel free to interject, but I just love to
hear what, what kind of what, what games are afoot on in the olympic national park.
You know, we have interface, you know, often places that are in Jefferson County
as well as in Shannon Valley that I know we're going to talk about the the whole
river project, that large flat project, you know, access to the whole entrance to
the national park is a big thing and then you know the down the east jefferson we
have access, you know around the dossier wallops which is uh you know embroiled,
it's kind of got accessibility issues and I think that's probably just stuck with
the with the just different jurisdictions but I'd love to hear what's going on with
the oh and P. That was a lot. Um so I would say operationally, you know, we still
have many things that happened winter season may feel slower just visitation wise,
but there's a lot that happens a lot of it actually is starting to prep now for work
that happens in the summer. So clearly construction, you can do some amount of construction
in this kind of environment in the winter but it's it's not ideal and certainly something
like roads, you can't really do that much during the winter and so we do have a lot
of things like that. Prepping. We have a hugely significant project at Hurricane
Ridge with the great american outdoors act and so starting in april of 2023 March
april of 2023 the visitor center up there will be closed for um let's say two ish
years, it might be, you know plus or minus depending on everything. Um and there's
gonna be a lot of work done up there, That's really major. Um There are very few
parks in the entire nation that got great american outdoors act. Olympic is extremely
proud to be one of the first, I mean to have a project starting in 2023. It means
it was one of the first projects. So across the nation, right, there were 414 units,
113 units somewhere near there. Of all of those, there were only a handful, right?
It's like 50 or 60 that were even thought about for these projects in the first two
years. And olympic National Park is one of them. I can't emphasize what a big deal
that is and how crowd all of us who are associated with olympic national parks should
be. Um Did you have? Oh, sorry, no, sorry. Um And then there are a bunch of
projects. I'm gonna probably pump to Gerald on the whole one on enchanted Valley
Chalet. We continue to work with both the Washington State Historic Preservation
Office as well as consulting parties to come to a memorandum of agreement. Um and
we do hope to come to conclusions sometime in 2023. A determination of the course
at least. Yes. Okay, well and all the things that might come with, of course, I mean
it's a determination and all the other aspects but that potentially could be association
with that determination. What is I mean in a nutshell, the Hurricane Ridge project
is redoing the visitor center or is it? Yes. And you'll see. And um part of the reason
I, well, who doesn't want to go to hurricane ridge when it's snowing out? It is a
magical place. It was lots and lots of fun. Not a few snowball fights and sledding,
did I say? Um, but you can see on the outset that the soffits are definitely aged,
You know, it's an old building. It is fairly well exposed, especially to the, I guess
that would be
southeast side of it. Um, so it gets pretty windy up there. A lot of the stuff though
are things that people are not gonna see. So it's an underground storage tank. It's
piping in the walls, it's electric work. And so there are things that you definitely
will see on the outside. Sorry, I gotta remember to talk close to the microphone
on the outside, but a lot of the stuff is actually between the walls, we can add
something. I'm just gonna say it's more of the, the envelope and things you're not
gonna see last year. We did the septic, I don't know if you'll remember seeing the
big football field sized septic field that we did last year that I'm always there
in the winter. So I don't think that, but if you were at a distance, you would have
seen this big green spot, a hurricane ridge and that was the septic field that was
redone last year. So there's just this ongoing um improvements that we're going to
try to bring it up to standard and it's not a wilderness zone up there. Is it just
Okay? And can you just for my own edification talk a little bit about some of the
challenges and working in wilderness zones as we maybe ask a few questions about
Enchanted Valley, I just I'm always a little uncertain. It makes our bureaucracy
seem reasonable. Um So the opportunities that exist in wilderness is, you know,
really thinking through we it forces the park um and and the other four agencies
that have witness to think through decisions and what we do in a very thoughtful,
systematic way where we really consider, is this the best tool to be doing the job?
Is this the right um structure, this manmade structure? Is this the right thing to
have there? And sometimes the answer is yes. And there's a process to follow, and
sometime the answer is no and there's a process to follow. Um So it goes, it talks
about everything from potentially how many people could be on any given trail. The
point in time to should we have a trail here, where should the trail be? Should it
be marked is a really big discussion? Um How do we do search and rescue is a really
big discussion. Um so there's all these kind of interwoven things and it's relating
to the Wilderness Act of 19 6 64. So this is legislated olympic National Park. Clearly,
wilderness is one of the biggest wilderness in the lower 48 it's it's an impressive
wilderness, but it does mean that we really need to be even more thoughtful, were
thoughtful in all of our decisions. We follow the National Environmental Policy Act,
we follow section 106 in the National Historic Preservation Act and we interweave
that with the Wilderness Act as well when it's out in the wilderness. I mean, that's
a perfect segue to Enchanted Valley, which deals with both, you know, historic preservation
and wilderness at the same point. Right? So what's, I guess, what's the National
Park Service, what's the direction that you're looking at for the chalet? Well, I
would say that we're still in the we're in that consultation process right now, and
I think that that that's where we're at, but I would say overall, the Park Service
really does look right. I mean, so I was at Cumberland Gap National Historical Park
and one of the very unique things about Cumberland Gap is its historical park, which
means that it it has a heightened level of historic preservation. It is also one
of the places on the Eastern seaboard that actually has recommended Wilderness, which
the Park Service treats as Wilderness. So there are these two things and what we
really talked a lot about is how to be creative and thoughtful in our solutions and
it took a lot of work, it took a lot of talking to stakeholders, understanding the
needs, understanding both sides of an issue, right? They can conflict with each other
and there's not an easy answer when there's a conflict.
Okay. And then um you know, we jefferson County Board of County Commissioners has
not given any input in the Enchanted Valley process yet, and I think we'd probably
like to give, you know, our feedback and I, you know, I I think it's a great, I love,
you know, hiking for a day and then and then coming on, this old chalet is is pretty
magical. Um I guess are the Is it more bound by the Wilderness Act? I mean, I
know when they moved the building in 2014 you know, it was all, you know, I guess
they use helicopters to take out some of the wood and everything, but it was pretty
much uh no modern tools. Right? I definitely was not here to
understand, is that there was various equipment, I mean, I think it's all steel girders
or Yeah, it is. Um there were, there was a team of horses anyway, there were various
tools that they used to do that not only wilderness, but but there's also some avalanche
chutes fairly close, that kind of the and as well as the, obviously the
of the hill is as important as the, as the water. Exactly, is there room to move
it. Do you know? They've evaluated that. We have a few of morphology that, that looked
at moving in potential locations for it And to be honest with you, there's really
no feasible space that it would be safe for a long period of time.
That's a pretty declare its sentence there. It is. Okay. We have been, as I mentioned,
we have been working through a kind of planning process and we, we've we've been
working through an environmental assessment and I don't know if y'all were part of
that process, part of it, but I paid little attention to it. Yeah. So we have various
alternatives that we considered at that point from, you know, leave it where it was
to, to move it to various locations. Um, and ultimately, we still haven't come up
with a finding of no significant impact at this point, but where we're kind of like
in that area where we're trying to figure out what alternatives could be if we do
end up removing the structure and what mitigations there could be for. Okay.
I mean, is it is it getting worse? I thought the was moving away from it this last
couple of years, It's still undermining every, every year. We hear more about the
river and its migration. We expect to hear that potentially is the chalets phone
in the river just based on we have these large um, flow events that are occurring
to the timing record year, wasn't it? Yeah. So it would be surprised me that
the underneath the structure itself? So just if that happened and it fell into the
river, what would what would be I mean that would that would be an emergency. Right.
And that would be helicopters to pull it all out. I don't know what that would look
like,
right. Because then now we have potentially pieces of old painted wood and
nails and all kinds of stuff in a pristine river. That right? And that's and so we
would we would need to you still do a minimum requirement analysis. Um but it might
it might mean a different I mean at that point I don't know if it would mean helicopters,
I think that that jury might be out on that, but it would be a it would be a bad
thing for that stream quality which, you know, we always want to be concerned about
stream quality. Yeah, no, that's priority number one I would say really. I mean it
seems just being there that there's hundreds of feet of room that it could be moved
safely, but I mean so unstable slopes so there could be an avalanche upon it. Is
that correct? Or those those so there's not a an area where there's a long life
expectancy for that building to sit
and what would be the best way for for us to add our voices to the chorus for preservation
or whatever choice that we think is worth pursuing. Was it better?
Yeah, that's going to be. So the Environmental Assessment had a public comment period.
When was that? It was like a year and a half last november? Yeah, I think we did
the first, it was virtual change for all of us, Right. Yeah. But there was a public
comment period at that point where folks can provide their feedback. Um, at this
point I think just getting involved like we are with this advisory group with the
ship, those office trying to figure out what those mitigations looks like. It's kind
of the next kind of logical step. Um,
I have to circle back to you. I talked to my compliance folks about where we all
could.
Yeah. I mean what kind of stakeholders are on the advisory board? Um, Chabot's office.
Um, We have a CHP which advisory council on historic properties I believe.
Um concerned citizens are involved Who group, there's, there's like four or
5, it's a smaller group. Yeah. Kate any anything on
enchanted Valley that you wanted to throw in or ask. Um, No, I have some more general
comments and questions but not an enchanted Valley, which I also love and love the
chalet there and I'm sure that everyone is agonizing over a tough decision But
about the chalet. This is my own ignorance, but people can't use it as a campaign
anymore because it's a wilderness area. Is that right or why isn't? Why isn't it
open at this point? It's been closed at least since 2014 I think. And I think that,
you know, when I was there Rangers were, you know, stowing gear in it and such. But
I don't know, I'm just curious about these these old shelters that are out in in
in wilderness areas and and what their utility is in today's age. One of the
things that we talked about during kind of evaluating mitigations for china valley
was we were trying to figure out, you know, could this building could be reused or
repurposed or something? Can we take it apart? Put it back together back together
in some format that would be used for this trip for for the public. Um, That was
an option. We talked about, you know, taking components out that we could interpret
to the public later on cultural significant pieces like fireplace, the windows, et
cetera. Um, but but actually having some kind of safety shelter was mentioned um
as far as essential litigation up in that valley. So so structures are appropriate
in the is problematic and that was falling in the river and there's other issues
where it is at the site. What are the other issues? Okay. Gotcha. Okay.
Um great. We might have more public comment about it, but kate. Did you wanna ask
your your other questions? Sure. And I'm sorry, I'm not there in person with you
all. I'm in Washington D. C. Where of course the national park service has such a
big presence and it's um such a wonderful asset to all visitors and residents here.
Um so really appreciate you being here. And I'm sorry, I'm not there with you in
person. Um I've been commissioner for about six years now and have had almost no
contact with um with our colleagues there at the park and um so it with the new superintendent,
it seemed like a great opportunity to start a new um and the, you know, I always
like to say that the county with the greatest amount of olympic national park in
it is Jefferson County and yet we of course have some real access challenges. Um
and so um I guess I did, I would love to talk a little bit about the dossier wallops
area and just kind of access any any planning or efforts that that you're aware of.
Um I would love to put in a plug that um you know, I I happen to be a real multimodal
transportation um fan and um I think there's, there could potentially be an opportunity
to talk about kind of alternative methods of access there. Um I get that the road
there is a real challenge, you know, probably many of us benefit from that road being
washed out and that we have access to incredible wilderness that is not filled with
um with a ton of cars and you know, we've all seen a kind of loving to death of our
parks, which very much concerns me and imagine that that's a challenge for you as
it is for state parks and county parks and municipal parks. Um so just just curious
if if you see any potential for any kind of infrastructure um down on that side of
the county, um you know, otherwise the park ends up feeling really a lot less accessible
to Jefferson County residents. And um and I will say just with the kind of lack of
collaboration that our county has had with the park service, like it ends up feeling
like we we just don't, we're kind of crossing wires a lot. So just curious kind of
how you respond to that odd assortment of comments. So I'll uh pass the
question to Gerald, but I'll ask the, I'll answer the communication and if you don't
mind, I'm just gonna make it a little bit broader than just Jefferson County Commission.
No, it's just um I appreciate that. Um I think Commissioner Brotherton emailed and
said, hey, we'd like you to be here. Um It does take a little while when you're new
in a place to get out. And so I've slowly been going to, you know rotaries and Kiwanis
and two different things, both virtually and in person when I can um meeting with
our tribal nations is a huge priority for me. So we actually met with a tribal nation.
Um This week I met with a tribal nation gave a talk last week and the week before,
two weeks before that I gave three talks in a day. So it just takes a little coordination.
Um, and also a reminder that to myself sometimes that I can only, there's only so
many of those that I can do in a day, but we would welcome the opportunity and especially
if it doesn't have to be me, if it can be, I have brilliant team members. If one
of the brilliant team members can go and come to a meeting, answer questions. We
would welcome those invitations and as soon as we can kind of get more in the rhythm,
that will be also easier for us to say, hey, something's coming up and we want to
get on the agenda. Um, I clearly don't want to speak about what was previous to me,
but in the parks I previously worked at, I have community members that would email
me and say, hey sula, that thing that's coming up, the rotary sure would like to
hear about it. The else would like to hear about it. And we would just find a time
and a schedule and sometimes it took a few months, especially with the weather, we
were just talking about driving today. Um, you know, january february is a little
spicy with dr um, even though I come from new york and I'm used to driving in snow
and ice. So I welcome it. I am a public policy person, which means that to have public
policy means you have to consult with the public and I believe in it and so I would
welcome it. Um, so I would just, I'll throw that out and I'm sorry Commissioner Dean,
that's a little bit of a broader answer to that, but I think it's important because
I don't, I don't know who else is um, what other stakeholders are here and they're
thinking, hey, we have some questions, just, you know, email and we can get something
on the calendar, especially people can be a little bit flexible on the timing, but
you're gonna say something, could I, could I just respond that? Um, you know, I think
um, hearing from my colleagues in Callam County, how much um, how much overlap there
is with the park service, frankly, I just get a little bit jealous. So maybe if you
could just put in your mind uh, the idea that like if you're consulting with slalom,
it might be good to check in with jefferson as well or you know, think of us as kind
of parallel, I think it would be different if if say the does follow ups access was
still there, it would be different, like we would have more contact, but I think
we get kind of left out of conversations just because there isn't a lot of nexus,
the West end is a bit of an exception, but we feel very far from the west end and
um, so just if I could put in that little plug yep and every county. Right? So, so,
uh, Delaware water gap was in two different states, five different counties, each
county and 24 townships. Um, so each county had a different need had a different,
and certainly the counties had a very different, um, some places, one and more visitors
someplace it says, you know, maybe a little bit too much. And so it also was very
important to kind of a two and honestly it's reading a lot of newspapers is how I
kind of get attuned to what's happening, but the doxy wallops, I feel would I feel
that Gerald might be able to answer some of those questions a little bit more than
I would. Well, we'll see. So, so I guess one thing that you probably know is that
most of our infrastructure has been built in these river rain environments, right,
charlie Valley is a good one. This is another one, right? Um, olympic hot springs
road the whole, So, as you can imagine with climate change, we're seeing significant
issues and a lot of these areas, right? I'm not just saying this for the dosage,
but it's a big challenge for us to try to rethink what that looks like. Um, I don't
think we have a magic bullet on this at this point. And unfortunately I think that
it's a, it's a real struggle for us to figure out how to shift um manage for access
in some of these areas. Like does the wallops Hot springs road the whole um And and
rethink infrastructure. Right. Do we need to be providing campgrounds and ranger
stations up in these areas that are so remote that we can't maintain access over
the long term? Um So I don't have an answer for you about that. See, to be honest
with you, I I do think that I like the concept of um other types of access um into
the park. I I see people using olympic entrepreneurs robes similarly to how you're
talking about. Does the wallops, I see them walking, Their dogs have lots of dogs.
Um I think it's a nice shift from a structured
access and a typical what we used to do and what can we do in the future. Sorry,
that's a very broad answer to you, to follow up on the question. I mean, it's I really
appreciate your answer about communication and being there and that's, you know,
that's the biggest step I think for for all of us as public policy folks, I'm wondering
if you guys are are you talking to the Forest Service and other stakeholders in that
area because that is a complicated uh intersection down there. Um It is. And so I
have had the opportunity to meet with the supervisor um of the far service as well
as several other. I'm still getting to know all the different federal and state and
the local um and every place calls things stuff slightly differently. And so I'm
getting used to um a little bit of the nomenclature but we are, I have slowly been
able to do that. The Forest Service supervisor and I have actually talked about maybe
in the spring trying to drive around the entire forest. It's a very bad word. So
I'm sure half the half of the folks online are laughing at me every time I say that
word, the wooded area that the forest service runs. Um, so
there's nothing else about it. Um, but we want to kind of go around and look at things
and looking at very honestly about where we can coordinate efforts right? Where both
the federal government, we do work with two different departments, but that shouldn't,
that should be a positive right? We should be able to offer a greater diversity of
experience. So um in general we don't have a lot of areas where you can mountain
bike and national parks, but the first service actually does have quite a beautiful
set. So I think that there's actually some synergy there and since we're both relatively
new, I think that also right. We, we both are coming from it looking from an outside
perspective which is helpful, especially when we have a lot of very invested people,
especially in the park that have been here. So you get both that institutional knowledge
and the hey, why do we do this? Thank you. I'll take this moment to introduce our
chair, Heidi Eisenhauer back from canvassing board and I'll pass the punch back over
to you. We had more ballots than ever to review today. So it was the longest meeting
according to Phillip hunt sucker that he's ever sat through. So sorry, I wasn't here
quite excited about this agenda. I had the opportunity to talk with Mr Bowen about
it in a d in our field trip last summer and I think that's what percolated this getting
on the agenda because I came back and said Greg, so I don't know what you guys talked
about about the chalet, but I'll be excited to hear advisory group going missed the
opportunity to comment on the E. I. S. Um, They should have considering options this
year. Right? I think. Okay, so where are we at in the we're just
having an open conversation now, Kate had asked one question, I don't know kate,
if you have any other questions or comments that you wanted to go through.
Um No, I am. I'm curious how you're thinking about the question of or the issue of
kind of loving our parks to death. You know, it's a great um problem that so many
people are using the park and yet um infrastructure. Such a challenge and we share
that challenge with you. Um both the cost of it and the um so much of it being built
and probably not where we would choose to put it today. Um And yeah I just would
love to hear how you're kind of thinking about increase in use, increase in impacts.
Um and um you know it's it's tricky because you're in the in part in the
business of attracting visitors to the parks and yet you know we worry about the
ecological balance of it and then um you know, it's it's certainly good for our communities
to have a lot of visitors to the park. Um But it just begs a lot of those same questions
of how how do we accommodate them and mitigate the impacts when we don't have the
revenue to do so.
Um So I think that is I think that is like the grand question right now, the park
service overall. Um and not every park is being um has seen an increase in visitation.
Some it's it's been uneven. Um So according to our numbers, we are hovering olympic
National Park is hovering about the same amount of visitation. Um We kind of go up
and down a little bit. Um It seems pre actually consistent. What I think people are
actually seeing is a change in visitation patterns, right? That that's where you're
going to see something slightly different. So maybe there are more people day hiking
or more people doing overnight hiking for the first time. And so I think that the
visitation patterns are changing. Uh certainly social media has played a role. Um
So people see a beautiful waterfall, They take a picture and they mark the spot and
then everybody says, oh, I want to go to that waterfall. Um and and we want to also
be right and some of those resource concerns can be pretty easily mitigated, right?
So um I have hiked, I grew up in the middle of nowhere, so I have hiked in bear in
black bear country my entire life and I know that you don't throw food to bears,
right? That just that kind of gets them used to it. Um But maybe if I didn't grow
up in a place with a lot of blackberry, I wouldn't know that. And so some of that
is some education about how to, you know, clap your hands, make yourself bigger.
Don't feed the raccoon, right? Like that's another thing I used to um when I was
down in florida, people would feed the raccoons and I'd say no, don't feed the raccoons.
Um Not that they're not great animals, but don't feed them. Um And I think some of
that level of education, I think there's also going to need to be a look at um people
at one time is the metric that is used for visitor use management in the park service
and I think there will be some time where we'll have to look at people at one time
in spots, maybe in a camping spot maybe on a trail. Um and there are different ways
to do that. But it's a scientific field, it's not a su a says there's too many people
here. That is a very, very scientific field of study that we have an entire department
in the park service devoted to. Um and so I'm also going to pass this on to Megan
who might be able to offer a slightly different perspective. I came from a place
that before Covid in 2019 had 3.5 million visitors. So kind of close to olympic that
next year during Covid 2020 we had 4.1 ish million. And in 2021 we had 4.5 million.
So within two years we increased by a million. And what we did was we did walk in
there and say we're park service, we know best. What we did was we said, what are
people looking for? Why are they looking for and can we provide it and if we can't
provide it, maybe there's other places we can be working with. And so we were really
doing a lot of um adaptive management and talking to people talking to our township,
our county who had concerns because there was a lot of trash. Um and but also it
brought in a lot of revenue and you know, what did that mean? And how could the township
that you know was getting a lot of people, how could they benefit from that added
revenue? So I do see it as I'm a, I'm a very big fan. I mean these are public lands,
people should be able to use them and enjoy them. The really important the um, the
group before us with public health and right. I mean all I kept thinking is like
my being able to be outside this weekend for about at the l wow and hurricane for
about six hours or seven hours was really good for me right? Like it is, it was a
good healthy thing for me to do. But I'm gonna pass it over to Megan and see if she
wants to give a different perspective. Sure. Talk right into the mic. So that's the
only way the public can hear.
Um, So I come from a much less visited park of or Vancouver. It's not nearly as as
popular and busy. Um, but I am a lifelong washingtonian and so I'm really proud of
our parks and it's, it's great to see so many people coming in and experiencing olympic.
Um, but that issue as lisette of parks being loved to death is definitely, or you
know, kind of becoming what I call velveteen rabbits where they just are getting
a little worn down or certain facilities are getting used more than they had originally
been designed for um is an issue that a lot of parks are facing. Um, I think that
educating as was said educating visitors who are maybe new to parks or are getting
out for the first time because they were inspired during the pandemic, making sure
that they know what the rules are about going into wilderness areas is important.
Um And also, I mean I just I feel like I'm just echoing Sula really, but um working
with partners is absolutely really important and making sure that everybody is on
the same page and working towards a common goal of of people being able to appreciate
these places and preserving them long term. I mean on that note to preserving them
long term and back to Gerald, you talked a little bit about, you know, climate change
and you know, many national park sites are really impacted by climate change. You
know, we're losing our glaciers in the olympic national park. Right, right. The second.
Right. So is there a, what is I guess the national parks uh work top level work
plan on mitigation and adaptation? I mean, you know, we're working with you right
now on the upper ho road and a $2020 million federal lands access project that, you
know, it feels shortsighted to me honestly because I just like are we really gonna
be able to maintain that road in perpetuity? I don't know. So, I guess what what
is? Well, we had a we were part of a pilot study last year and it was evaluating
all of our river in infrastructure um for the long term and then they came back with
us on these, these kind of long, short term and long term kind of recommendations
for us and and that spanned everything from um basically abandoned the riverine environments,
rethink your infrastructure um For the next 50 years right to potentially just repairing
in place, but you know, planning the structures and so they were more economic or
environmentally friendly structures and let you know that would allow floods to pass
under them, et cetera. Um Again, the park service can be a little slow to react because
those are kind of longer-term planning goals for us. Um we we do have a lot of those
projects in our system now, but but again, we're looking 5, 10, 15 years out before
any of those can come to fruition. Um I would say that, you know, not only are we
experiencing those issues along these river environments, but the coastal bluffs
as well and they're yelling, remember if you extend all the way down the clay lock
or if you're just north. No, but we're seeing a lot of erosion issues there with,
with that large environment. We think there's probably a couple of cabins this year
that quite close. Yeah. And so that there can't be on this threatened as well. So
we're seeing impacts all around. Um from a resource perspective at this point, we're
just monitoring those impacts and change over time. And I think it it we don't really
have good answers for what the impacts of climate change is going to be because it's
happening happening so rapidly for us, um, whether it be, you know, species that
we need to move up in elevation, you know, from different plant species to animals.
Um, anyway, I think there's lots of unknown associated with climate change. I wish
I had more answers for you soon. I may have some better ones. I mean, I think about
darcy wallops too and the washouts out down there and some of the difficulties in
getting that road reopened were, you know, you have to go back to Congress to get
this wilderness land re designated as park land. And so the National Park Service
has to deal with the Forest Service and the legislature all at the same time to get
anything moving. And it seems like all of these nexus is are in that position. So
I guess my hope is that the bureaucracy of it is get some get some lubrication for
sure. So I don't think you guys have done public comment yet and we have that on
the agenda for the side. Um, and there are a number of folks with us online. So are
we ready for public comment? Everyone ready for public comment. Okay, so to the folks
who are with us, there's a few on the phone. So if you're on the phone and you're
interested in making a public comment, you can press star nine on your phone and
your hand will be raised and we'll bring you over and then um Star six to unmute.
If you're with us on zoom and you would like to make a public comment, please use
the raise hand button at the bottom of your zoom screen. Um and we'll bring you over
for public comment and if you are physically in the room with us, nice to see you.
Mr Bowen, I'm sure you have a comment. Um you get the first chance to make a public
comment. Okay? Okay, well, let's see if I'm seeing a hand, yep. Um Jeff
chapman was interested in making a comment again. If you're online. If you're on
the phone and want to make a public comment, you can press star nine and we'll bring
you over and if you're on zoom you can use the raise hand button, afternoon assessor,
chapman. Backcountry, Jeff, Good afternoon Commissioners. Uh, you know, I had to
make a comment on this. I've involved in Recreation on the olympic peninsula for
about 40 years, maybe 50 years. And that was involved in the chalet that we know
in the 2014 movement of the chalet, we both worked to get on the historic register
and then the mules that moved it were from members of our back country horsemen group
who are still using their mules and their actually maintaining the bogus shield river
corridor coming out to Andy Road, which is also the pacific Northwest Trail route
that will come out. Um and I was on the advisory council for the pacific Northwest
Trail and then it'll come out and then they still got to find a way when you get
out to 101 to get across the Goodman block of rain ear and out the oil city. So it
reconnects to the national park out at the ocean somewhere, whether they cut down
the Goodman Creek footpath or whether they go all the way down to Oil City one way
or the other and come back up. But we've also started a group this year called the
Olympic Peninsula Recreation collaborative. That was actually started by kelly Lawrence,
the Olympic National Forest Supervisor and her staff. And uh we, we did have a meeting,
in fact, I met the park Superintendent in Olympia at their headquarters and you know
that we're hoping that this gets funded and continues on into 2023. The collaborate
that tries to get all the agencies and all the nonprofits to sit down and work on
issues together. And we talked a lot about the dose of wallops and um, and you know,
as well as the Pacific Northwest Trail. So it'd be nice if the Olympic National Park
is involved in that and next year if this does get to continue. Um there are a lot
of issues to talk about. I mean, e bikes can you take an e bike up to the olympic
national park does waltz campground, I mean that road hasn't been vacated yet. So
in theory you could, so like all those kind of weird issues that come up and we've
also tried to plan re routes around the um the existing washout before Elkhorn, which
is not, it's good for hikers, it's actually good for horses, but it's terrible for
bicyclists. So you know those are the kinds of issues we talk about and we hope going
into the next year if this continues that the olympic national park stays involved.
Thanks Jeff, is there anyone else with us online this afternoon who would like to
make a comment on this item on our agenda about the Chalet and the Enchanted Valley
in Olympic National Park or the conversation we've been having for the last more
than 30 minutes um about olympic national park. If so, use the raise hand button
at the bottom of your zoom screen and if you're on the phone you can press star nine
and we'll bring you over to make a public comment. I'm not seeing any other hands
go up. So the microphone is all yours. Mr Bowen, can I take it back?
Thanks for driving all the way over Ed Bowen and I may and if you can talk right
into the so the people online can hear you, Ed Bowen and I'm a park citizen and yes,
the chalet is a very important thing to me because it's the culture of this peninsula.
And this chalet was a part of the reason this park was created for this chalet to
be lost is a lost to why this park was created. The chalet was actually a part of
the creation of this park. It's not just a cultural resource, it's not just a piece
of infrastructure, it's not just something threatened by the river or the avalanche
chutes, which is kind of news to me today. But it is the reason this park was created.
I am glad to hear today. What I haven't heard over the past quite a few months that
a even though a decision hasn't been made on what to do about the chalet, the decision
is going to be to remove the chalet. I didn't hear that today. So I hope the, my
site in all of this is a decision has not been made on what to do about the chalet
or what in in consultation how to mitigate that chalet. I hope that decision has
not been made and that the affected communities of this entire peninsula in mason
County and Grays Harbor County and collin County in jefferson County, all four counties
are represented by that piece of culture and then in last, I actually want to leave
a question greater more american outdoor act would be lovely if the part could share
with us, what is our next or thought of What might be a great american Outdoor Act
project in the park. Thank you.
And before we have an answer, I'll just remind people if they want to get in line
to make a comment, they can use the raise hand button at the bottom of the zoom screen
or press star nine if you're on the phone. Um it's a great question. We um don't
actually know, we've submitted quite a few projects for the great American Outdoors
Act. Um we, as I said, we did get one of the first um so there are, you know, quite
a few uh 400 odd other 370 odd other parks that are also in the queue. Um but we
remain ready but we're not only focus on the great american outdoors Act, we will
look for literally, I mean we, we go for a lot of different funding sources for both.
Um Gosh, we waste water systems is a big one. We have a wastewater system that just
got completed. That log cabin, we have one at um part of the hills, right, is the
next one coming up. Um we have another one that we're queuing up, We're looking at
housing issues. We uh we don't, we don't wait for the opportunity to pose, it's to
us. We are well prepared for in case there are questions about hey, if you um and
we have a lot of projects as Gerald said, our project timeline is usually about 5
to 10 years out um from idea. If we get lucky to have it funded, then it goes design
and that takes about a year to two years and then actually construction, which takes
about 2 to 3 years depending on uh, if we're in the economy of Covid where things
just take a little bit longer to opening. So it is actually pretty extended. But
you know, I would also always welcome if people have ideas about things that they're
seeing asset wise that could use some maintenance. We're interested in hearing what
those are because having, you know, we have at our peak about 300 people working
for the park, but we have three plus million people visiting, which means that somebody's
gonna see something that we haven't seen. So take a picture, send an email. So that
way we can say, oh, hey there, is that that we might need to be thinking about. So
that's a great question though. I love that question. Any other, no other hands went
up online, anybody out, anyone there, I'm giving him papa Z, I don't, I don't think
any other hands are gonna go up because I've said it now four times. So um any other
questions in the room kate or Greg, I guess, you know, great appreciation for coming
out and you know, opening this line of communication. You know, I think we've talked
about a lot of issues that are important to us to or us, but I'd love to know what
are the, what are the challenges. I don't really know about how you guys get funded.
I mean you're talking about, you know, going out for grants to, to get projects done
and what are the biggest challenges funding and staffing the olympic national park
is facing. And then I would throw in, what are you gonna do about all those cars
on the road? It's every time I drive out to the beach there's like hundreds of cars
on the highway that goes out to Rialto parked in the ditch on the side of the road.
I mean, what are we gonna do about the capacity and demand?
Yeah. Oh yeah, Yeah. I think there's no easy
answer to the visitor visitor use though. We did work um, with an unnamed
county. I don't want Commissioner Dean to uh, getting a shuttle up up to hurricane
bridge and that is a really good idea that we should be really thinking about. Is
it? There's probably some really neat hybrid way. We could do both the shuttle and
have people drive and and figure out how to, to make that work. I don't think anybody
knows the answer. And very honestly we're probably going to make mistakes on an answer
and you all are going to hear it and we're going to hear it. And it's going to just
take us a little while to figure out what the good answer is for that summer and
then I guarantee you the next summer totally different thing happening. Somebody,
you know, then it's the queen that is. And so we gotta be, we gotta be thoughtful
about that. Most of our, for those big projects other than things that are for federal
highways, which clearly comes from federal highways. Um, we have an internal funding
process. So this is the time right now that we're putting projects into a system
and I'll pause and say this is very complicated. So at some point talking about the
parks services budget or the parks budget or we can have a whole session and we would
probably want to actually do a power point. But since this is sort of my background,
I'm going to wait a little bit ankle deep in it. Um, so we put in projects, it competes
against other parks projects. Um, we do have some money that is mostly pretty typically
allocated for cyclic things. So things that we know trails is the thing that is coming
to my head, uh, roofs sometimes depending on how quickly, so we know that the roofs
life cycle is 15 years. If we're at year 10, we should be putting in because we know
five years from now a slate roof is gonna need to get replaced. So, um, and then
we have larger projects and those larger projects do take years and those competition
is really, really high. Right? So it's, it's not just olympic um is trying to get
the money, it's olympic versus every place. So it's again and Yellowstone and and
really weighing those those things and and that's really important and I don't envy
the people that have to make that decision in the Washington D. C. Level, but all
that to be said is that that all takes time contracting takes time doing proper design,
takes a lot of time, especially if you're being as genius as our project engineer
did the wastewater at log cabin, which is amazing. Instead of cutting down a bunch
of trees on the north side of crescent, the the piping goes around the trees and
it's just it's amazing, right? And and that took a lot of thought and took a lot
of creativity and giving the team the ability to do that. Um and so I would say the
greatest opportunity we have is we have an impassioned public who loves the park
and that is that is huge. Um As I already said, I mean, these are just two of the,
you know, 298 other amazing people that we get to work with who are experts and like
take the initiative and think creatively and care so much. Um so I just want, I appreciate
to look at the challenges what I'm looking at is I get to work with the community
and the team that are going to find the solutions and that's what I care about is
solutions and kate. Yeah, I wanna build a little bit on
what our assessor, Jeff chapman talked about uh and he mentioned the pacific Northwest
National Trail. Um we also have the Great American Rail Trail which we know will
be coming through the area. Something we've looked at for the, our portion of the
olympic Discovery Trail here in Jefferson is the Land and Water Conservation Fund,
which of course access to a national park is one of the um eligible uses. So just
curious for for some of these projects that the county is, wants to engage on but
frankly has limited capacity to do so. Um is you know, do you see opportunities for
partnership on some of those um, grants? Do you have staff who, who we could be partnering
with and if public works is listening, don't worry, I'm not committing you to anything.
Um, but is, do you are those kinds of projects of interest to you? And let me just
say, I forgot I was going to call out the new shuttle to Hurricane Ridge, which I
think is so awesome. So great job. Um, so the land water conservation fund is not
usually managed within a particular park. It's managed sort of by area and there's
also river and trail grants that are made to external organizations and counties
and that once again, the linkage is a river or trail that goes in or near a national
park. So, um, what we can do is um, the part team is probably not the right experts,
but we do have experts and we could certainly, if we know far enough in advance or
they could probably do it virtually since it seems like y'all are really good at
that. We could probably have an expert join and be able to answer very specific questions
about that. That is a different kind of funding than we normally work in. And so
it has particular rules that I'm not very familiar with and I would assume that that's
true. Yeah. Okay, so we had another member of the public raised their hand while
we were talking. So um Gene ball welcome and you'll have three minutes for questions
or comments about this topic. Good afternoon everyone. Thank you to the parks
for engaging in the conversation. Thank you for sharing the information. And I it
may go without saying that. I'm gonna say it anyway that you have found yourself
in a community which is very, very supportive of the olympic national park. And um
I think that you will find that if you have projects that need support, you will
find support here. I don't know what other community activism you have experienced
in your previous um, jobs with other parks. But this is a place that is very ripe
for collaboration. So I hope you will discover that uh I'm wondering if you could
give us an update on the status of the L will wash out and if or when a new bridge
will be available. Thank you.
Um well thank you very much and yes, um it is I very much from actually since the
announcement in I think it was late May that I got the job. I have felt um of the
very warm embrace of the entire peninsula area um including I can't even count the
number of emails, of jealousy that I have gotten of somebody saying, I can't believe
that is where and the long list of people that will be visiting me to stay at my
house, like um so I appreciate that. And I join you in that love um the
olympic Hot Springs Road, which is the road that kind of zigzags over the Elwha.
Um we are probably taking a step back right now. We're in internal conversations
about it. I don't have much more information than that, but um we understand people's
passion and care. Um, when we come out of those internal conversations in, I'm guessing
the number the within the next 12 or so months, we do expect there to be a public
period to comment and let us know what your thoughts are, but we're not there yet.
We're definitely in the discussion phase right now,
but thank you so much for the question and also thank you for reinforcing what I
already know which is olympic national park is the best. Absolutely. Um I'm gonna
make one last call, does anyone have a last question? Our last comment about um the
enchanted Valley chalet or olympic national park? Anyone excited to have met our
colleagues from olympic national park today and want to express their gratitude for
them? Um If not, I'm gonna close public comment on this topic and I
don't. Thanks for being here.
Thanks for making the trip.
Yeah, it was sleeping this morning.
Hey. Well, I think that was the last thing Arjun. It was, it was uh yeah, it
was a wild pre certification election certification meeting. Uh over 200
ballots to consider. Yeah. Yeah. So we um yeah, I was up there an hour longer than
I thought it would be. So sorry, I'm sorry but for my absence, but you should watch
the tape, great presentation by public health as well. 30 right?
The signature on the ballot sign you up for one of you know, you can.
Yeah, there were, there were a number of other issues with ballots, but there were,
I think almost 100 contested signatures and so we were able to resolve and accept
about 15 of them. Yeah. It's always uh it's always a little
daunting being on a committee with a committee of three with Phil hunt sucker who
it's like he's done it for so long that he's very he's like a student at it. And
it was like the first few, we were disagreeing. I'm like oh no and then I was like
okay so anyway it was a good process but it's definitely a really important part
of the elections process. Yeah. Um So boards and commissions. I am
off my sink here. Did we have anything attached to the agenda? Ok how are we doing
any more spots get filled? And I was thinking I gotta follow up with the
other Greg on on Snow Creek Road about the wheat board but I haven't done it yet.
Okay. Um the last thing I was able to do is find a pit board member for District
two. Now we need uh
like conservation futures is still working on a couple but the pit opening there's
still one pitch opening. Yeah. Um Public. Oh it's a district 3
3
Vacant since Mayor 21. Yeah there's still a vacancy there. Yeah and then
we'd board
Marine Resources District one Alternate. That was with Hoenig resigning. Hey
Heidi on that one. Do you know if you know some boards really like to do their own
recruitment and maybe don't want us um dabbling in that. Do you know where the M.
R. C. Is on that? Are they wanting help? Are they doing that recruitment internally?
Um When Liz was appointed? It was not unless did you recruit her because I my
understanding was it was internal to the the M. R. C. So I can ask. Um I'll ask Monica.
Yeah I don't think I don't think we have done recruitment for M. R. C. Before. Okay
so it looks like I have some work to do on conservation futures and anyway just review
the list and rattle your Rolodex. So the ferry advisory committee
any special qualifications needed for that Because there is you gotta have a business.
I think that uses the ferry right or or represent um ferry users
of commercial interest. Um And I thought we had an applicant. So I will I will double
check a couple of times they've said they were going to. So I'll double check that.
I did do some outreach with support on that. They sent that add up to their mailing
list too. So I've been doing some footwork but not successfully apparently.
Hey. Well um is there anything else for the good of the order today that we want
to talk about kate? When are you coming west again? I'll be back on Wednesday
tapping your tapping your heels together. Yes. Dorothy. Don't forget your basket
but I won't be there long. So Washington. Yeah. Much
rather well there's nothing else. I will adjourn this november 28th 2022 meeting
of the jefferson County board of commissioners. Thanks everybody. Thank you