Recording in progress.
I know for the public we're going to wait until we get, uh, our, our kids here before
we call the meeting to order. So we'll be just a minute late recording stopped.
I'll keep us on video and audio until then, but I'll, I'll start recording that.
Ok.
We are recording on a right now. Copy.
No,
a sound check with Kate in the back of the room talking. It's not, but we concerned
with sound today. Yep. Sounds good.
Yeah,
I
never done that. Ok, cool. All right. Good to see you.
Yeah.
Smells good.
Yeah, it wasn't my lunch. My kimchi fried rice, I don't think. Yeah.
Yeah,
we wrote the, the words of this land is your land to be a Jefferson County, uh, song.
Oh, yeah. Last night. Yeah, it's fun. Chat bot is horrible at that kind of stuff.
I
string, yeah. Too reasonable.
Is Landon social with other kids or just grown ups? Ok.
Yeah, I was having a difficult time. Really small pool down there too. You know,
if you got says he's hanging out with the teachers did that when she was a quil scene
too. Yeah.
Commissioner. Kate. We're doing Commissioner first name.
What's that? Yeah,
Mr Brother.
Sure.
They sounded close for a while. They probably sound close to every floor. The den
of Children.
Yeah.
Mhm.
Welcome. Come on in.
There's plenty of cheers for everybody. You all can have a seat anywhere. Yes. Hey,
I mean, a chair would be good. Probably. Thank you. These are,
the camera is right behind your teacher here. It's the little, uh, it's the owl.
No. Oh, you'll be very close to the camera there. Yeah,
the sea was so a,
his head. It's a nice song. You guys name? Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, I know.
All right. Sure.
Ok. Everyone can settle down. Glad to have you all with us today. Uh, my name is
Greg Brotherton. I'm one of three commissioners and we commissioner Kate and I cannot
really speak to each other about most things unless we're in an open meeting. So,
the first thing I'm going to do today, uh, to work with our valued guests, you is
call this special meeting of the board of county commissioners to order. So we're
now in an open public meeting. People at home can see this so it, it'll be recorded.
Everyone is on camera when you talk and, uh, we're really glad to have you guys today
and I will pass it over to. Oh, yeah. Sure. I'll take your question first. What's
up?
Oh, yeah. Did you? Yes, you'll get your scissors when you leave we just need to make
sure the courthouse is safe for all the public. So, yes, you'll get your scissors
back and we want to apply the same rules to everybody who comes in. So everybody
has to have their scissors removed and, um, just try to remember to ask for them
when you leave today. Ok. All right. So, now I'll pass it over to, uh, Commissioner
Kate Dean here to, to lead our activity in conversation for today.
Oh, I'm sorry. First thing we have a public comment, period. So I'll, I'll ask anyone
online because we have people with us online. If you'd like to make public comment,
you can click raise hand or Star nine and we'll bring you over so you can address
the board about uh, any item on the agenda today.
No hand raised. Um I'll, I'll just close, but no, I'll ask you anyone in the room
here would like to make public comments. You can raise your hand. If you've got a
public comment you'd like to make. Yes, sir. This is, this place is amazing. Uh
Thank you. That is a great sentiment and I agree and it's a pretty amazing building
and a lot of good work happens here. Yes, I'm sorry. Team cheese
trees, trees, trees, trees, team trees. Ok. What are,
what are team trees? Oh, no, it's good. And you know, we're all gonna have a lot
of opportunity to talk in a little bit. So maybe we'll close public comment and have
lots of opportunity for discussion later. So we don't have a lot of time with you
here today. We want to use that time. Well, all right, I'll close public comment
and turn it over to Commissioner Kate Dean. So welcome everyone. I am the commissioner
from Jefferson County, but actually Port Townsend is my district, which we'll talk
about in a little bit. So how many of you live in Port Townsend? Almost everybody.
So, um I am your elected official. So is Greg but we do have districts. So um but
technically you are all district, one residents. Um And you'll see here in government,
we have a lot of formalities, things like we have to call a meeting to order which
Greg because he's our chair, Commissioner Brotherton called to order. We do things
like public comment because everybody has an equal right to participate in government.
So there's some formalities we have to do which you just saw a little bit of. Um
but we're gonna talk a little bit of just generally about what we do. We are what's
called one branch of government. I don't know if this is something you have studied
the three branches of government a little bit. Um and government at the federal level,
which is like the president and Congress, they have three branches of government
governments like the City of Port Townsend who I think you visited, you visited City
Hall they have the three branches of government and we have the three go, three branches
of government here too. And, um, those are the executives. So at the federal level,
we call that the president, right, who's our president? Exactly. President Biden.
And we have our members of Congress and then we have the judicial branch at the federal
level, the Supreme Court. So we have levels of that here. And you're going to hear
a little bit about that today. Right now. You're going to hear we have primarily
what's called the legislative branch. Although county commissioners are special,
we are the only elected position that actually has some of the other branches of
government in our jobs too. I think it gives us the coolest job, but who knows? But
the point is we try to balance out those three branches of government so that no
one branch can do anything too crazy, use too much power. We try to, it's really
important for our democracy and also that these are, most of these are elected positions
we are elected, you will meet with at least two other elected today. Um So I, I can
you see the crazy picture of my kids up there? So when I first ran for office, my
kids were close to your age, maybe a little, little younger, a little older or something
like that. And um, I, I show you this crazy picture of them. I was trying to get
them to behave really well for a fancy photo to so that I could run for office. But
they of course, were acting really silly and I love it. Um, but I showed you this
because one of my son's friends said to me, I didn't know just any old mom could
run for elected office. Like she was so surprised that just any old mom could run
for office. So I, I want you to know we're just your neighbors. We're totally normal
people. We're, we're, I'm probably friends with some of your parents. Like just totally
a normal person. Anybody can run for office. Anybody can hold a position like this.
Like I said, I was gonna show you, um, Jefferson County is the, the boldest colors
on the map there and it shows the three different districts. So the green up at the
top, that's Port Townsend. And we have the most people who live in the small amount
of area. So that's why that's the smallest of the three colors there. That's my district.
District. Two, the blue Chima, Port Hadlock Meriton Island, uh, the tri area. That's
Commissioner Eisenhower who couldn't join us today. And then Commissioner Brotherton
has that big orange area, which the largest area. Yes, by far. But we all have the
same number of people. So we're divided up equally and we all represent the whole
county. But you'll see that our, our districts are all quite different. Anything
you want to add Greg. No, I think you took care of it. Well, ok. So here's an idea
of the kinds of things that we do. Um, and we'll, we'll get into some more specifics
on some of these but pretty, you know, counties do a lot of really necessary services.
It's, you know, things like roads and courts and, you know, these aren't like the
most exciting things. People don't make like Hollywood movies about this stuff. But
it's really important just to keep our day to day lives going.
So I want to talk a little bit about the kinds of rules that we make because we are
responsible for making rules and laws for our county. And there are some really tough
issues that we have to deal with. And sometimes you think in, in, you might hear
your parents talk about like being, you know, a real staunch democrat or a loyal
republican. And it's easy to think that there's really easy answers in politics and
have strong feelings, but often it's actually really confusing. So I, I try to draw
out some examples here of things that um demonstrate how that it's difficult to make
decisions sometimes. So should we let people build homes on the waterfront even if
it might harm salmon? And orca somebody owns a beautiful waterfront parcel of land,
we know that it can, it can cause harm by uh damaging habitat for salmon which ultimately
feed orcas. Should we allow that? They have some property rights associated with
that. It's tough, should single use plastic bags be allowed in Jefferson County?
We know they cause a lot of harm, but it's also really convenient. They, they cause
harm by creating garbage by ending up in the marine environment. Um But it's cheap.
It's easy to use. It's a convenience. Should everyone who works at Jefferson County
be required to get a vaccination? That's a hard one. We heard a lot about that during
COVID. Should we spend taxpayer dollars on housing, the homeless? Some people would
say of course, we should, we have to take care of everybody. Some people would say
I work really hard and I don't want my tax dollars to go to support someone else.
Should dogs be allowed off leash in certain places? Some people are really afraid
of dogs. They don't want dogs running around. But others say my dog deserves the
right to run around. Not on a leash. Should we raise taxes on residents to build
a new pool? We know that taxes can be hard for some families to pay and yet we want
opportunities for our kids. So I just want to give you an idea that there's like
hard questions and you're gonna get to dive into some of these hard questions. Anything
you wanna add, Greg? I would, I would love to know if there's any, any of these questions
are easy. Does anyone? Yeah. Do you think any of these questions are easy. Which
one's easy.
And so I
make sure you vote when you get older. That's a, that's a great sentiment. I like
to hear that other people feel like there's an easy answer here. Yes. In the, in
the pink sweatshirt, think we should, um, raise taxes on residents because then everyone,
like, wants a pool and would rather pay to have more fun stuff than to make housing
because there's already a lot of housing everywhere. And we, we these.
Mhm. Ok. That's great. And I think one thing to really remember is that you're going
to disagree with some of the answers that you hear from other people. And that's
a really important part of the process and part of our most important job I think
is to make sure that we listen to everyone that we can when we're making these decisions
because we aren't making these decisions for ourselves. We're making these decisions
for you. So the more people and more opinions we can hear the, the better we can,
but everyone is not going to agree on any of these questions. You're going to get
different answers from people. And that, that is the difficult part about what we're
doing. I don't know if we wanna, we have how much activity we have if we want to.
I'd love to hear a couple more answers. Yeah, let a couple more. Let's do three more.
You are waiting over there in the black and white sweatshirt.
I,
I like to drink or
like spells
that I feel like they would feel like it's like they make money and then
they don't because no, you have to, like, pay to make a member. Mhm.
More money to even get, even though you spent money to build it. So, I think that
might make them. That's a great point. And all of these really come down to money
and that's gonna be the exercise because even if you think, oh, that's a great idea,
someone still has to pay for it and everyone can't pay for it to the same extent.
So you have to make that decision. Yeah. All right. So in the, in the green, so we
already have a lot of housing. So it doesn't make any sense when we want a bigger
city that equals more pollution. And you have to pay more money if you want fancier,
like buildings and stuff and you have to, it's kind of be more, probably expensive
than just either like making a new pool or. Thank you. Yeah,
I hear you. That's great. In the, in the black. We're gonna do one more after this
off leash because like, they need the exercise. What if, like the owner is like,
like, say they broke their leg and the dog stole the infection, but with the dog
should be,
feel like if it's ever Yeah,
that, that's a lot of the difficult questions. We have people think about, well,
I wouldn't do that bad thing. So we don't need this law, but we often end up having
to make laws and rules for those that aren't really being considered for other people.
So, while, you know, it's different than the way that your parents might make house
rules for creating a good society, we have to kind of create the floor. All right,
we're gonna do one more over here and then we're gonna move on. So, in, in the middle
there, I think you were next. Yes. Oh, well, we'll do both of you guys. Sorry, I
was, I was unclear.
Yes, we do have a lot of the housing that homeless people. Mhm. Yeah. No, that's
a good point. Thank you. And last word to you, sir, I was the first one with the
homes and the water from areas. I don't think we should because like you
somewhere else and plus it's more expensive to get it by or, and so I don't see
why you would really be considered.
Yeah, it's the irony is they're doing it usually because it's got a great view where
they like to be close to the water. So, yeah, sometimes people have impulses that
don't, uh, um, we're gonna move on now, but thank you guys for sharing your opinions.
I know. I think we only have 10 minutes left. So I'm gonna have to go through this
real quickly. Ok. In this picture here is our tax collector, the county treasurer
and I don't know about you, but, like I grew up, you know, playing monopoly and I
always think of the tax collector some, like, mean guy who was gonna come knock on
the door when actually our treasurer is great. She's lovely person, Stacey Prada.
Um, so, just real quick, property taxes are, um, that is the money that, that,
that citizens residents pay in for the services that we all need and use. So things
like we all need roads, right? We can't get by without roads. We need a hospital
or medical facilities. We need emergency services. There are many things that we
all want or need that. None of us on our own could afford to pay for. But if everybody
chips in it makes it affordable so that we all have them. Like I said, Treasurer
Prada collects those taxes and those primarily for the county come from two places,
property taxes. So anyone who owns property or a home pays a yearly tax and sales
tax every time we buy something at the store other than food, food is not taxed because
it's a basic necessity. But you get charged a sales tax and those are the, the most
of the money that we have to spend here at the county. That's where those come from.
We also have something called an income tax at the federal level which your parents
um, likely pay into. And that pays for other things for the federal government. But
here in Jefferson County and city of Port Townsend, it is through property taxes
and sales tax. Just another example of, of some of the kind of trade offs because
we end up with a pot of money and we sometimes have to decide what's the best way
to spend it. So, we get some dollars for transportation. We have to decide, should
we fix roads? Should we build trails? Should we build sidewalks? Should we build
bike lanes? That's tough. We all want all of those things, right. But there's a limited
amount of money. So we have to make some choices and make some trade offs. Um, and
just real quick, I'm, I'm sorry, I'm not getting the hands. I want to get through
this so we can start our activities soon. Taxes are really tricky. Generally, people
don't like to pay taxes. Almost everybody agrees. We don't like to pay taxes. There
are questions like, hey, there are people with really different amounts of money.
Should they pay the same amount of tax? Should people with more money pay more taxes?
People have different priorities about how those dollars should be spent and you're
gonna have a chance to, to work on your priorities here. And then people sometimes
don't trust government. They say we don't want Kate and Greg deciding where our tax
dollars go. So those are all things that make taxes hard to hard to kind of figure
out. So, because we have a hard job, we want your help today. You have all been given
some money and you, I'm gonna ask you to, um, to decide how you want your, how you
want to spend your money. That's, that's your income. Um, but you have to pay some
taxes for some basic services. So I'm gonna split you into groups and ask you to
decide in your groups. Well, first I want you to count your money. Figure out how
much you have. You'll, you'll learn, you don't all have the same amount of money,
just like in real life. Some of you are gonna have a lot more money than other people.
Then I want you to, um, break into groups and look at, um, there's four different
stations here. So we have four groups and ask parents maybe to help out with splitting
people into groups and you need to decide how you're going to cover these expenses
all together. Ok. And, um, again, you should decide if some people have three or
four times as much money. Should they pay the same amount? Maybe, maybe not. You
should decide how much you want to pay. And then see, is that going to be enough
to cover the basic services to run your little, your little community on your thing
here. If you don't have enough money, say you just let everybody put in as much as
they want and there's not enough money. What are you gonna do? You gonna ask everybody
to put in more money? If there's extra money? Are there other things you want to
do with that money? Um, and then I'm hoping, I don't know if we have time, we might
not have time to report back. So we might just have to do a little exercise and talk
about that within your groups. So, MS Kylie, are you comfortable helping me break
folks into groups? And so five in each group with two groups of work ready? Please
start one,
the
12325 here in the back
is my last name. You have the singers or five and 15 years. But
I,
I could take a group over here and then
as well.
Ok. Else.
All right. Well, let's have some of the stuff too that you have for your people,
right? You bring the stuff, you know, the back up.
Ok.
Ok. So how much we as a group we have to put in enough volunteering,
but you might want to come up with an idea and put in the same amount.
So
it might be easier to see. You wanna just. Ok. So how much did you put?
Everyone should put in?
I get there.
They
other things the government pays for or needs to pay for.
Yeah, because think about what would happen if you didn't have any of these things
tell you.
Um, so it's all of our parks and then also recreation programs like basketball and
soccer and all the, and community centers. It is. Exactly. Yeah.
Oh, thank you. Congratulations. And, like, imagine if we didn't have garbage, our
streets would fill up with garbage. Right.
Yeah. So it would be good if you would talk your money. Maybe. See how much each
of you have,
I think.
Oh, interesting. So, you have a lot more, do you know how much you have?
$500? So I give you a hint, you need $490 altogether to pay
for all of this. So you could say, ok, all three of us need to come up with an equal
amount.
Yes, all combined. And it's true. Schools actually cost the most money of anything.
Sure. That's what this is, what is here in the county. This is how we do too.
Like
that's great. Well, you guys are very hopeless minded in your, in your
I
Yeah, nice of you. You
thank you 160.
You can decide you all want to spend the same amount of 763 on or somebody could
say I don't care about school. So I, I,
I have it. Yeah, so he um I
that
people with money.
So I think
I hear what he I, and then
ok, and you guys are going to the first. You,
hey, everybody, hey,
hey, everyone. I'm sorry to say that we're out of time. I was afraid we've run out
of time and we did. But can we just do real quick? Anyone want to tell me anything
they learned or thought was interesting? And this exercise,
anyone find it different? Oh, yeah, please.
That's right. Yeah, we're always doing math. Anything else of interest? Yeah, schools
cost the most. Yeah, we spend a lot of money on schools. That's true.
All right. I'm sorry, we didn't have more time, but thank you for your time and great
questions and observations and no, I'm sorry to say I have to collect the money for
the next class to come through. So, um you are headed up to the first floor where
it is.
Really me.
Thank you guys. Very interesting. Come it again. I know, I think
is so funny.
Thank you. Yeah. Oh, it's a pleasure. I wish all the meetings were like this. I'll
take it. Thank you. Oh, that's ok. Thank you. Great. I, I can get the next groups.
When does the next group start right now? Ok. Do we want, how are you going to the
money?
Yes, everyone should get a 500.
Any, any um
No, we're still going but the public stick with us. Any recommendations faster? I
don't know. No, I don't know. I, I uh you didn't get through your whole slide show
either. It's like Stacey taking 17 slide deck to the radio show. I did actually,
I did get through it
you have.
No, the candy.
Thanks, Wendy.
I think it's cool.
Yeah.
75. Sure
county government.
I couldn't, they didn't quite understand. I don't think the taxes is just like, what
do we want to support? So, maybe talk about other things they can, you know, like
this is all you have for food and everything. I, I don't know,
you kept eating
better than us.
Uh, we could probably got some extra change. You can go in different ones if you
want.
I mean, you might say, you know, that $500 represents a big portion of your, of your
nest egg because, you know, I had many kids. Oh, I want, I put 500 in. I know it's,
it's hard to really get a course. Yes.
And just, you know, we're still recording. Ok.
Sign.
All right. Some clips here. They're random. How many tours are coming through.
So we're probably going to be here for two of them. I'm gonna be here for another
5 to 10 minutes. So I'm gonna maybe be able to welcome the next group and then have
to leave. But I think I could leave even after they're here gracefully, there's some
loose change if we need.
Thank you today. Keep recording it. I mean, ok, so we need to keep recording for
the third one. I mean, you probably seen great. Yeah. Yeah.
After that.
Hm.
It's gonna take him another five minutes. I think I will adjourn
right now. Well, they're coming down the hallway.
Right. You're here. Ok. Um, all right. Well, I need to go to the county radio show
at, on K P T Z at 12 30 county connections. Join me if, uh, because this meeting
is going to end. So, uh, with that, I will adjourn this special meeting of the board
of county commissioners. Have a good day, everyone.