The A capture is not working. So Os P is not working Os P. 00, the the sound.
No, it's taking my super breath and
I
All right then.
Ok. Ok. This record, so
usually O Bs turn on the same time you catch those.
Oh, definitely record on Zoom. Please
take me nicely.
Nice. Maybe at lunchtime or it's got a screen for the day if it's and we definitely
are reporting on. All right, good morning, everyone. I will call this meeting of
the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners to order for November 20th. Um As a note
to the public, we are having some issues with our A V capture this morning so you
can join us on Zoom, but you will not be able to immediately see it upon uh on uh
A V capture. So we will get it up there af after we record today's meeting. And uh
let's see. Um We will start as we always do with public comment and like, uh I guess
prevaricate a little bit while we wait for Commissioner Dean who is in the building.
But uh I'm sure would want to listen to the uh public comments.
Uh,
so, uh, any big, uh, holiday plans study?
Really? Ok. I rearranged my entire house this weekend and now accommodate 18 people
around one table, 18 people. Yeah. Do you make all the food? Is? Every other people
have to bring the food as well. Make something. Everyone brings a dish. Yeah, we've
been doing this friends giving for probably 15 years and, yeah, it's great. Love
it. My daughter is doing a Friendsgiving today actually. She is, she is, she's having
friends over in their cooking and are they cooking everything together? Um, I don't
know, I have meetings until late in the night, so I'm not a participant but you get
to eat some of them. Oh, I think I forbidden from anything except uh, yeah. No friends,
just friends. No family, no family. Yeah. Ok. Well, we can continue. We were killing
time for you.
Hr uh It's ok. All right. Well, now that we're all assembled, we'll open this up
for, for public comment. We have people in the room. If anyone in the room would
like to make public comment, we'd love to hear from you, Mr Scarano. You have three
minutes to use as you wish. I think the proposed uh aquatic Center could be built
for maybe half the cost. That's according to initial assessment of sprung structures.
I was put in touch with them Friday. By the end of the day, they'd taken a first
look at the entire proposal submitted by sis and estimate they could do it uh for
about half the cost to maybe two thirds if there's a lo a lot of other stuff loaded
in sprung structures is the world leader in advanced membrane, high tension um buildings.
They built the space shuttle enclosure, Olympic pools and they recently completed
the central Idaho Aquatic Facility for one third. The cost of traditional construction
they could get this done in six months is what they said. Uh their products are pre
engineered. Uh They work with an entire crew of people that are also using disruptive
technologies that are just sort of blowing the socks of uh the traditional, you know,
architect design. Here's our pictures, here's your brick and mortar, bring everybody
in design this as you go along. Um The products are delivered on a truck. Uh They
go up very, very fast. Um, uh mclean sprung, who's their development director is
working on a side by side comparison of this, which I will share with you. I've been
sharing all of this with carry height of the city and rich Childers of the Aquatic
Coalition since I first was in touch with him Friday morning. The implications are
of this are that the city of Fort Townsend according to work that's been done, could
build this pool with the resources within their city limits without any need to tax
the county. Uh They, the Aquatic Coalition, these folks said they could raise 17.2
million. If this could be built for half the 37.2 there's not much more of a reach
left. The implications are that it's within reach of the county, just like the technology,
uh, made the sewer project project possible. The same thing as possible here, this
needs to be looked at, there's get, you're protected against price increases because
you're ordering the product. It's not like they show up and the, you know, that's
how it works. Um They also are disruptive of the traditional method of financing
public works because they know a lot of municipalities don't have the money to build
tools, they lease, they can eliminate the need for upfront cost. So it changes the
entire picture on uh seeking bond financing. This has to be looked at, this is enormous.
It's a game changer. I don't know why I could get these numbers in a day, but we
don't need to go there. Um But these folks need to be invited to come down here and
give a presentation. I think Mr Sprung is in Calgary. Uh they have offices all over
the world, but um they're looking at this and I don't know, they're not the only
ones that do this. They're the biggest and the best and they're incredibly responsive
and they're interested in this project. They understand um how this works where we
are. Um So I hope this happens. The other implication are that we learned at the
city council meeting the from their bond council that a bond of this size for a brand
new c creature like a public facilities district. It's likely gonna need the guarantee
of an existing government and the city doesn't have the council manic uh non voted
capacity left. It's gonna be the county that may be required to guarantee this to
get any kind of decent bond rate for a completely new thing, but no history. Thank
you very much. I hope uh you forward these suggestions and encourage these folks
to get in touch directly with uh mclean Sprung of sprung.com. Thank you. Thank you,
Mr Scar Andino. And as a reminder, we usually respond to public comment after we
get all the public comments. So uh stick around and we'll, we'll get back to your
comments. Anyone else in the room like to make comment m Show Walter. Let's start
with you and then we can go to Mr Schumacher.
Hello. Uh I'm Marilyn Showalter. I live at 1596 Shine Road on property I've owned
for 47 years. I'm here to urge you to hold a public hearing before you vote on the
Shoreline Master Program. Uh particularly with respect to gooey gut duck cultivation.
You may have heard there were two very close votes at the Planning Commission this
past Wednesday, 4 to 5 and 54. The 4 to 5 vote was to require a standard
conditional use permit for all future gooey duck cultivation. This was the
provision that had been in the draft for the past two years, more than two years
and also uh had been approved uh on a preliminary basis by the Department of Ecology
and also was identical to the provisions in Clallam County and Kitsap County which
have been finally approved by the Department of Ecology. The 54 vote
was up on a provision that appeared just a month ago and it prevailed. It pro
it provides for a standard conditional use permit for a quote new Gooey Duck application.
But for existing shellfish owners who either want to expand on brand new tide
lands or convert, uh, their oysters say to Gooey Duck. It only requires a
conditional, excuse me, a discretionary use permit. This by analogy, this would be
if my neighbor and I each wanted to build a building that required a conditional
use permit. Very similar building. I being a longtime owner would only be subject
to a discretionary conditional use permit. Whereas my neighbor would be subject to
a standard conditional use permit. It's irrational and it's arbitrary and it, it
uh favors existing shell fishers in the case. Uh but it really just
favors citizens. Uh What gets me is I as a Jefferson County citizen have greater
rights in Kitsap County. If uh, application is across the bay from me, uh, in say
Port Gamble, I've got a right to go to a, uh, a public hearing with a decision
made by a neutral hearing examiner on the record. That's what this is about. There
are at least 56 people who signed a letter to the uh planning Commission who would
like a voice at a hearing before you and I will provide you that letter. Thank you,
Walter,
anyone else? So you, you got something A L Yes. No, no, no. Ok.
All right, Jane, please come up.
Yeah, good morning. I'm Jane Armstrong and I live in Port Townsend Jefferson County
and I'm a member of the Jacks, the Jeffer Jeff Co Aquatic Coalition Board. Um I'm
here to speak to the need for um and request for the county to support moving forward
on addressing the need to make a public pool and aquatic center available in our
county. Our current pool is failing. There's over 30 years behind the work of community,
citizens, parties and groups to look at this need. And at 60 years, the clock isn't
going to go much longer and it's a critical need in our community and particularly
for the people who can't be in the room this morning. The people who can't access
this building, the people who can't get much beyond where they live, let alone outside
this county. The people without the financial needs and the people who need to learn
to swim starting at very young ages and people who want to stay in their homes all
the way through their life I can speak personally to what the pool did for me before
and after I had a knee replacement, it shortened the time that doctors and surgeons
thought I could go into and come out of that and resume my mobility and be in my
home. Um, we don't have all the answers today, but we do know that it's a short clock
for this window that's next spring to get matching funds and grants. And part of
that is to have the confidence that the county will allow this process to go forward
to continue to find answers, to bring together the financing mechanisms to make it
happen. And in a way that puts the least burden on the citizens in our county and
our town, the bond for this for 20 million puts 40% of the count. The
financing costs of the structure as estimated today on the county. The operations
is on the city for 400,000 a year and the rest by user fees, the 10 to $30 estimated
I've gone and looked to trying to verify um is realistic on taxable purchases. And
we know that people don't make all other taxable purchases in our county. But for
Children, for parents, we've been hearing strong and urgent needs to get Children
back into the pool to get adults into the pool when the pool came up before COVID.
And it was looking at a downtime of several years, the elders in our community were
in uproar because they knew they would lose quality of life and length of life. And
we saw that with the pandemic shutdown. People when they returned to the pool pool
were not swimming, were not moving well and some do not return for a variety of reasons.
So I look forward to the presentation this afternoon. I look forward to the seven
partners and engaging out further in the community and discussions. But I hope and
ask that you continue to support to move this process forward. Thank you. Thank you,
Mr Armstrong. All right, anyone else in the room like to make public comment this
morning, Schumacher.
Yes. Uh Steven Schumacher Poor Townsend. Um So this is relating to the uh credit
center which was originally a, a Port Townsend project and was designed to be in
Port Townsend by Port Townsend people, but then the funding wasn't available. So
it looked to the county for the funding, but it still kind of remains a Port Townsend,
you know, oriented thing to serve Port Townsend and not so much the county that would
now be asked to pay for it. Um You know, at the athletic Center of Show and tell
on Monday, Carrie, he was repeatedly asked why it couldn't be located more centralized
in the county. And her answers, I believe that she, she said that on the one hand
that the land was free at mountain view and you know, so it's a big cost savings
to locate it there and also infrastructure, sewers and things wouldn't be available
out in the county. However, I mean, as far as I know, there are a number of excellent
central places to put it in the county JK Carroll Park, I think, close to the sheriff
area. I don't know a number of locations that are already pre owned just like the
mountain view one is already also, there will be sewers should be done by mid 2025.
And that's pretty realistic. Guess when the aquatic center could best case be there.
So there really isn't any good reason not to put it in a more central area. Um, the
county, um, you know, Hadlock is being argued as being in the service area of a Port
Townsend pool. In other words, people in Hadlock could, you know, it's easy for them
to just go to Port Townsend to go to the pool if it were built there. But contrary
wise, that also means that Port Townsend is in the service area if you located at
the pool and have. Right. And frankly, it's a lot easier to get out into the county
even for more towns on it. Sometimes, especially given all the construction, road
repairs issues, there's a lot more land there. The land is, is cheaper. You wouldn't
have to de de demolish the mountain view pool. You'd be able, you know, that whole
area you could just build on a clean area. Uh, it would probably be cheaper in a
lot of different ways. Another factor is where is the new growth gonna be? And probably
there will be more growth over the next 1020 30 years out in that area. And also
what about growth for young people? Right. I mean, there's multiple uses for this
pool. One of the uses is for swimming teams and for things for young kids and the
young kids are out there. Not in Port Townsend. You know, there may well be therapeutic
needs for older people. But, you know, I don't know, there's various ways to envision
this. I mean, you could build this Taj Mahal Center that's gonna be all things for
all people. But if you do plant that in Port Townsend, it would be kind of hard to
access it parking wise and otherwise. Ok. But what if you build a less expensive,
not Taj Mahal facility that was out in Hadlock? That was more youth oriented? Right?
And then you've got the existing Mount View pool which isn't going anywhere any,
in any case anytime soon. I mean, you know, until it breaks or, you know, you could
be using that or build a smaller facility that's more, you know, older focused or
more health care focused in Port Townsend, there's a lot of things that could be
done, you know, and now given this new information that, uh James Tarantino is presenting
the affordability is another issue. Port Towns can do its own thing. In Port Townsend,
the county can do its own thing or not in the county. Thanks a lot. Thanks Mr Smacker,
any of us? Yes, Brandon
do do speak into the microphone though. Do speak into the microphone so people can
hear you a little bit. You sure people to hear me. Good morning. My name is Gordon
King and I live on Bell Street in Port Townsend. I attended the Wednesday evening
Planning Commission S MP update meeting online and was pleasantly surpri surprised
to see them make some changes and vote it through to the Port of county commissioners.
I attended various planning commission and port of county commission meetings over
10 years ago when the current SNP was written. Once again, I followed work on the
S MP for an extended period of time being on the update task force three years ago
and attempting to remotely follow planning commission meetings of what happened in
them through the COVID shutdown. Thankfully, we have persisted and after stops and
starts, we now have a draft S MP update coming for input and approval by the board
of county commissioners. I commend the Department of Community Development for initially
coming up with a reasonable draft document in 2020 that the task force worked on
and allowed go duc conversions and expansions without full cup. Si was sorry to see
the aquaculture section butchered in 2021 when Kitsap county aquaculture S MP language
was inserted into the Jefferson County draft a process process which was so cut and
paste in one section. It initially referred to a Kitsap County ordinance. I don't
assume Kitsap County language was used because they are such an environmental success
story as Kitsap has three times the acreage of waters closed for shellfish harvest
compared to Jefferson County and multiple superfund sites. It is clear to me this
was done to make it more difficult to farm shellfish in Jefferson County. As I think,
you know, Jefferson County is one of the oldest populations in the northwest with
many people moving to the area as they age. These people tend to be better off than
the average working age population already in the area. There are many problems.
This di dichotomy produces one of which is the increase in house prices that is not
matched by an increase in solid wage jobs and income aquaculture is now and has been
for a century, a source of reliable income, especially in the rural areas of the
county. It is an efficient environmentally sensitive way to produce county grown
food. We need to continue and to guard Jefferson County's ability to sha farm shellfish
and be a leader in this industry. I I'll just add the more restrictive um that I
would just add that Jefferson County's uh current draft S MP is more restrictive
than Ma Mason County which only a requires administrative cups for an expansion or
conversion. Shellfish growers are interested in how the update process process proceeds
from here. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you Mr King and sorry. I called
you Mr Ramsey. I was doing a little Gordon Ramsay the hell's kitchen. Do you get
that all, all the time? I'm sorry.
You're much nicer. You're much nicer with people. I know, I apologize. Ok. Um We'll
turn to folks online. I think everyone here has, has made public comment. Anyone
online with us that would like to make public comment. We'd love to hear from you.
You can hit, raise hand. Oh, I see one hand.
Ok. And if you're on the phone, you can hit star nine and uh to raise your hand and
we'll bring you over and then star six to unmute. Uh and Mr Tier. If you accept promotion,
we can bring you over and hear your public comment.
Morning, Mr T you have three minutes when you get, get yourself unmuted.
Uh, good morning commissioners. Good morning commissioners. Um So a couple of uh,
comments about the, uh the pool proposal. Uh, first I have a question for you. Uh,
it's on your agenda as for discussion, but will there be a decision made today by
the commissioners? And if so will you be allowing public comment at that time? Uh
That'd be nice. But if no decision today, just discussion. Ok, great. Thanks. Um
The, the discussion about the placement of this facility, I think, uh should, should
not be closed off yet. Uh Because I agree that, that placing it in the new UG A,
not the, not Port Townsend, but where all the growth is going to be in the county
in the future. Most of it, uh makes a lot of sense because, uh, well, it just makes
a lot of sense. Uh where could it be placed a long time ago? There was a proposal
that was quite reasonable to put the pool uh down near the community center, not
necessarily in HJ Carroll Park, but there is a county park right across the street.
It's got plenty of land. It's, that park has been closed unused for a long time because
the county can't afford to run it. Uh The county could contribute a portion of that
land because I think it's what 1314 acres uh could contribute a portion of that land
as a sort of in kind contribution to this project. Uh Yes, there's no sewer there
right now, obviously you need a sewer for a pool. But if you've just prioritize the
construction of the uh of the sewer to run a line up to that area, as is one of the
earlier uh portions of that sewer system, new sewer system that uh that could address
that concern and uh take care of it also would encourage growth along that, that,
uh you know, Roadie Drive Corridor. So, uh again, that discussion should not be closed
off, keep it open and keep considering it because, uh you know, a rush to judgment
just because there might be uh grant funds not available in a couple of years. Uh
uh That seems unwise. Um So that, that's my comment on that. Uh The other point about
uh is uh the funding of uh any ballot measure that that's gonna happen if this pool
is gonna be in Port Townsend, 90% of the users are gonna be from Port Townsend. That's
what history shows in terms of pool usage statistics. So, if that's the case, the
county shouldn't be paying half the cost of the election. Port Townsend should be
paying at least half the cost. Uh I'm sorry, should be paying 90% of the cost and,
you know, the county can, can contribute maybe the remaining 10%. But there, you
know, there's no rational reason why the county should be paying for, for uh Port
Townsend's election. Um You know, who, who, who benefits, uh you know, in terms of
who's going to vote for or against such a ballot proposition, just consider the fact
that you've got, uh, you know, pools that uh exist in Cal Point Cape George. Those
people are sure are not gonna support a, a tax to support a Port Townsend pool. Um
So iii I suspect that the 10,000 people in Port Townsend may uh
may carry the day, but Uh Then again, more than half the county is not gonna get
any benefit from, from this pool if it's placed in Port Townsend. So we shall see
how the, how the election goes if you choose to go that way. Thanks. Thank you, Mr
J.
Anyone else online with us today that would like to make public comment. We'd love
to hear from you.
All right. Well, I don't see any, anyone else will keep public comment open for the
next few minutes and Caroline keep an eye out of it. I'm sure our responses will
probably go past 930 is when we normally close public comment. So we will uh uh turn
to responses. Anyone wanna if the toes in the water, I'm happy to, I mean, I've in
the deep end later, right? I'm not gonna, I'm gonna wade into the lazy river right
now and say that a lot of the comments that we've heard today, most of them I agree
with and I spent most of the weekend reading comments. So, um as we've, I've said
a million times, you know, our work doesn't end at the end of the week, we spend
our weekends reading all the public comment. And there's been a lot about this issue
and I actually made a little, I like to make diagrams and cut, cut out pieces of
paper and compare property sizes. So I've looked at other alternative locations around
the county and I have you know some options. So, um, but it, it's, this, this is,
um, this is the most diverse set of input I've ever seen. I've as a commissioner
have seen so far and I really appreciate that. And, um, being someone who lived
most, has lived most of her life in the tri area, I would love to see a pole in the
tri area and I'm hearing that from a lot of people. So, um, I'm, but I'm not, I'm
gonna wait and hear the presentation this afternoon because there are a lot of questions
I have for Carrie. And um, I have a list of specific questions and look forward to
hearing it and that I'm interested in the information that Jim Jim Scar Andino presented
this morning. I've wondered, is there less expensive options out there? And it sounds
like there are, but, you know, I don't know if they'll work here. So I feel like
there's a lot of conversation and work yet to do on the aquatic center front, um,
on the S MP. And I appreciate the Planning Commission had came back to us and said
we really want to do this work and dig into this and bring a recommendation back.
So I look forward to that presentation from staff as well and I also appreciate both
pieces of input. We got this morning. So, again, complex issues. Um I'll be interested
to hear what the Planning Commission is bringing us do. We know when that is. Well,
they, they did make a recommendation on the 15th. So I think it'll probably be next
week or, or May or maybe the first, the fourth. Ok, December 4th. Yeah. Yeah.
Budget presentation that day. And I would just say to Mr Schumacher so much of what
you said. I was just like, why? Right on. Yeah, so yeah, I appreciate you being here
and bringing clear points to the conversation.
Um Let's see. Um Also look forward to digging into the S MP recommendation from the
Planning Commission. It sounds like the robust public process is happening as it's
supposed to with healthy agree, disagreement and uh uh dialogue. So, thank you both
for being here. And um it's, it's a really important um plan. I would, I think we
all take it very seriously. And uh so um we'll commit a lot of time to digging into
that when it comes before us. Um As for the aquatic center, I believe all the other
comments were about the Aquatic Center. Um Obviously, we will talk a lot more about
it this afternoon. Um And um also receiving just, you know, lots and lots of public
comment on it and uh look forward to digging in. I of course, have been the county's
rep on it um For many years actually, um not, not just this iteration. Um I would
say it's not been a Port Townsend project. It's, it has had um Countywide partners
for um many years. And um yeah, I will say we, we did
look, um Lopez Island is considering a similar structure to the one you mentioned,
Mr Scarin know. Um they have been working for about 10 years trying to get that built.
Um And they have run into a lot of challenges. Um certainly can't say whether it's
the same company or not. Um But the part of the issue with those kinds of structures
is that it is all uh what's called an auditorium space, pool space, it's all wet,
humid air, you cannot have other um other things added onto it. Um Even changing
rooms, it's very challenging to, to, to build much else into it because it is the,
the air is, is wet and moist. Um So you do get higher costs when you wanna have things
like um uh the uh child care room or a party room or those things that actually help
you produce more of more revenue for covering more of the operating costs. So, um
do you know that it's something that has been discussed? And we've been watching
Lopez's process and they have it, it's been challenging for them to make a Pro Formo
work on it as well. So lots more to talk about. Um on the aquatic center,
I could reply to 100 things, but we'll be doing it later today too. So I won't repeat
myself and hope that folks can join for the conversation this afternoon.
Ok. Uh Well, I will say to Mr Tier right now there's no action planned about the
aquatic center this afternoon. But if we do take any action, I will make a public
comment before that to make sure that we, we uh are fully informed. Um You know,
I, I agree with a lot what we've heard today too, Mr Scarin know's new option is
interesting. It's good to hear you guys have considered that technology. Um I think
new options are always uh it's good to just understand what you're building to explore
other options. So I appreciate you bringing uh another option forward that we can
consider. I, I tend to kind of agree with Mr Schumacher. I like your shirt too. Um
But uh I mean, to me, it comes down to the subsidy, you know, I mean, I think no
one's mentioned that this morning, but the, the fact that Port Townsend um subsidize
and will continue to subsidize this pool is something that makes it more challenging
to put in Jim or the tri area anyway. But it also really, to me means that it's a
Port Townsend pool. And I think that the prime service area of Port Townsend every
house, if we get a new aquatic center in Port Townsend is gonna be um if not an actual
increase of value, it has a substantial amenity that is uh a benefit. And I, I've
heard from a lot of constituents. A lot of people want the pool. A lot of people,
you know, down in Brennan and not just Cape George and, and Cala Point, but also
Port Ludlow, which has a couple pools. Really don't think that they should be the,
you know, pay, pay an equal share for a pool that, that primarily benefits a service
area that is uh Port Townsend. If we were like most counties and our biggest city
city was in the geographic center of the region. It would be a different, a different
um story, you know, really, but II I struggle with the PF the funding mechanism is
the thing I struggle with the most. And um but I, I think there's good reasons why
replacing the aging pool and I want a new pool. And I think even if we whatever the
decision we make in the next couple weeks, I, I hope that it's part of the path to
a pool. And that's, I mean, that's, that's my goal. I think that we really, uh it's
the kind of keystone that we need to make sure that we're a, a vibrant community
going in into the, the second half of this century. So I'm excited about that. Um
Appreciate the comments on the, the SNP as well, the Shoreline Master Program and,
you know, a lot of time has gone into this, you know, I was on the task force with
Mr King, you know, for two years before the changes were made. So we're talking four
years of history. Um I look forward to seeing the recommendations from the Planning
Commission. I have not dug into that meeting yet. I'm pretty familiar with the, the
changes and, you know, often the case is if everyone's a little bit unhappy, that's
the compromise that might be best for the um absolute public benefit. Um, but I have
not seen the reports yet, so I appreciate the input show, Walter, you know, meeting
with you and the other residents of the shine was very educational as well. Um So
it's, you know, that's, that's the sticking point. I think I don't even know what
the recommendation was on. The uh the high water marks, the setbacks was the other
issue that I think there was cha challenged by at the, at the Planning Commission.
So, um whether or not we'll have a hearing will depend on the recommendation we get
and I guess how we, how we go there, but there will be more comment opportunities
as we process that probably on the fourth of December, it sounds like. So really
do appreciate the uh robust comments today. Uh It, it's really helpful as we go through
our, our work to, to uh have the barometer of the public with us. So I appreciate
it. Can I just add that I'm also super appreciative of the work that the Marine Resources
Committee did on the Shoreline Master Program updating process and it was not an
easy conversation there either. So I think that um that means they were good, good
meaningful con conversations that contributed to this planning Commission recommendation.
Great. Ok, 934. Um so I will
close public comments and thank you, you guys don't want to stay with us all day.
Yeah, yeah, we're only we're just starting.
Ok, see you there tomorrow tomorrow evening.
Ok, thank you. So we will take a look at the consent agenda. Any thoughts,
questions concerns about items on the consent agenda? I will just say I'm excited
to see the items three and four. It's just more of the process with DNR to move Quimper
East and Quimper West out of lease arrangements with DNR to the ownership of, of
the county. And this is, I think we mentioned that the two lease agreements from
WSU um the documents are documents that have track changes in
them. And so when um you approve the consent agenda, we're gonna accept those changes
so that they don't appear in the document that you approve. Right? Ok, great. And
I I think often people kind of leave their tracks on track changes on and we can
always turn that off when we get them as well, right? We should have accepted them.
Yeah, I I think Amit uploaded them into contract review and then they migrated over
to the agenda directly and maybe someone, if someone doesn't have review changes
on it you won't see it and then someone else comes and they do have review changes
on and then all of a sudden, so it's easy to miss and then another thing on item
12, the letter to DNR. Yeah, I'm nicely done. I sent the draft letter to Caroline
just with Commissioner Franz's name. But I thought that the address block would get
inserted in that letter. You wanted that email to her? No, I want a letter. So, yeah,
I just, I didn't include the address block. I just thought that you guys would insert
that. So would like that update to that letter. Um
Yeah, great. Ok.
Um I just see a house, um, you know, continued funding for that. It's AAA really
unique um alternative to um detention for our youth, which I'm really proud that
we have and a lot of other counties look longingly at the, the model that we use.
So I'm happy to see that get refunded. And number 13 is Darryl
Gillette losing Darryl Gillette from the board of Equalization. That's gonna impact
all of us. I have a feeling that he was a huge asset for the county and we're gonna
have to, we might have to dig in. That's the alternative if there's not enough people
seated to the board of Equalization is that it comes to the board of county commissioners.
So we have two of those is a forum and we have put an ad out for um, the two vacancies.
We have, we have a vacancy for an alternate and a position and I have heard that
we might be past. The oe measures are interested in. Great. Awesome. But we did have
two applicants the last time we had a vacancy. So there was interest, fingers crossed.
It's definitely a real, there's a lot of teeth in that, in that role.
Um I was pleased to see both Cheryl Low and Tom Ehrlichman getting appointed to conservation
futures. Awesome. The first, I'm happy to move to
approve the consent agenda for uh November 20th, 2023. A second. Ok. I've got a little
comment or two myself and then we'll get to it. Um, if anyone else has any additional
comment, I don't have any issues or anything, but I always like to lament how little
we get for indigent defense. I mean, as we put a million dollars in and we get $30,000
it is truly an unfunded mandate and one, you know, the mandate we take seriously
and we want to make sure that, that everyone is, uh, um gets legal defense but it
is, uh, it's less than 3%. Yeah, it is. Yeah. And also improving the quality of,
we'll buy the paper for the, uh, the lawyers. I don't know. Um And then great to
see public works. Get that Naylor's Creek 100% funded. So this is a small fee to
uh, take away that 15% match and great that uh that dust and continue to on the HJ
Carroll Park caretaker. I think that's one of the things that we've maybe I believe
sacrificed in the budget is kind of making those, those roles more robust. So it
makes it all the more important to uh to keep our our tenured caretakers going.
Ok. Um Any other comments all in favor of approving and adopting the consent
agenda as presented with correcting scrims errors indicate by saying I I and he opposed.
All right, that is unanimous.
Okey doke. So we have our first timed item is a 1030 update from DNR with the, the
in the quarterly income. So, should we take a look back and look at our last week
and then we might even have time for calendar? You would like to go first.
Yeah. So, um I'm gonna let Kate go first. I pick up some work. I wanted to report
on. Make sure I get the right.
Oh,
bunch of different calendars to look at here. Precertification on certification hearings
are canceled. That means nobody there weren't any ballot issues, right? It's the
first time I've seen that. Ok. Thanks for covering for me anyways. Yeah, that's surprising.
Um All right, last week it was a
busy week. Um, Tuesday and Wednesday. It was in Spokane with the Association of Counties
uh conference. Um The uh really most of the,
the oxygen in the room was taken up by the um decision of how to um
give, give weight to the participation and um involvement of large
counties who have, you know, structured a little bit like the senate where each county
has had mostly equal representation, very, very disproportionate to their population
and to the, the news that they've been paying in. So, um, that was, um, definitely
hanging over the whole conference I would say and um, certainly was a, put a bit
of a pall on things at the legislative steering committee as well. We had a three
hour meeting on Tuesday, um, just really unable to, to, to reach agreements with
the King County in particular. So, um, as you probably know, the, the organization
voted to do the, um, uh, wait, what was the, how did
the weighted factors factor? Did they, they, I voted for that and I thought it didn't
know, I don't know, I had to leave before it find the final ending so they could
have come back around. It went two hours over. So I think we, yeah, we'll get, you
know, have to find out how that ended. Um, but it ended with basically King County
is very unhappy and, um, we'll be considering pulling out of the organization in
some way. So, uh, big changes ahead. It was likely, um,
attended, uh, wait, did it, did the multi factor not, I, I guess, yeah, I don't know
the answer. We both had to leave because the the meeting when I couldn't go because
I was on an airplane. Yeah, it went, so it was supposed to be 2.5 hours and at, what,
4.5 hours or something end at 11. I had to leave at 12. And, uh, I think you left
about that time. I was just there for a couple votes after you. So, I think, and
it did not seem like it was anywhere near, they were breaking for 15 minutes so people
could check out of their hotel rooms and then coming back for more. Yeah. Yeah. So
uh I will, I'm sure we'll be hearing lots more about this. Um But some, you know,
some good workshops otherwise um really the networking is the most valuable part
of that um of that event. But um uh had to hurry
to get back to have a, a celebration of life for a beloved county staff person we
lost last month. Um Really appreciate working with central services on that service.
I think it was, it was lovely. Um So jumped back in
um to board of Health Thursday afternoon. Um
Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. No, no action, no significant action really. But um
yeah, great presentation on uh disaster kind of how to engage communities after disasters.
Um and the kind of mental health impacts that that disasters create how to plan for
those. I really wish that we had the psychological response first aid, psychological
first aid. To emergency response. That was the new, the new bit for me. I wish Willie
had been there. I didn't think to, by him, I didn't realize the focus was quite so,
uh, natural disaster focused, um, IC G meeting that evening and interesting
presentation and discussion with the Department of Commerce. Really strong presentation.
Actually I learned a lot. It's compelling and informative and, and, yeah, that was
great. Oh, I'm so glad that the first time I saw that, I thought we need to get IC
G to see it and I, I'm glad that it was interesting to others. Not just to me, you
know, I thought it was great and obviously good discussion about how we continue
to be effective as a group. The IC G um, kick that can down the road a little bit,
but that's ok. The goodwill is there to keep working together and to use the comp
plans to the end. Kenny's periodic updates. The comp plan is a, um, uh, you know,
kind of give us some purpose and kind of the work plan for I CD is, is really how
it came out for me, you know, and still with some decisions to be made about what
that looks like. Exactly. But, uh, yeah, I think it was good to see how inspired
the pud and poor commissioners were by it too. Yeah, it feels like a great use of
that table, you know, to get some real work. Done together. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of
just abstract um Friday, it was uh at an in person Olympic Consortium
Board and Olympic Workforce Development Council meeting. So we often meet separate
but trying to meet together more often and in person. Um And some interesting uh
outcomes from that. Um For the first time Jefferson County is meeting our uh the
goals for reaching job seekers. Um And like, so we, we use a kind of
stoplight, a green, green, yellow red for how we're doing and meeting metrics. And
across the board, it was all green for Jefferson County, which I've never seen in
seven years on that board. Um The reason for that might not surprise you is cash
incentives. So the state funded cash incentives for job seekers. Um and it is getting
people to sign up that is being um expanded. Uh There will be incentive payments
of up to $1000 a month for job seekers for up to 12 months and they can be in retraining,
they can uh be or, or just in training in a new job. Um And so I think we
can continue to see those, those high numbers. Um Yeah, really interesting to, you
know, and it was that regionally the same impacts of the cash incentives. Um Yes,
yeah, but typically you get much better performance in. Exactly. Yeah. So this was
the first time that Jefferson really, really jumped up. Um Yeah, so it's, it's interesting
to see um to see the government dipping in and if they're considered very experimental
to see, you know, what are the long term effects. So there's a lot of data collection
um and evaluation of the programs. Um Yeah. Um see the
um um uh Olympic workforce is doing a strategic plan right now and they have
chosen for our county. I believe we might overlap with Callum on this to the three
sectors that will be focused on for our county or health care, timber and forestry
and maritime and fisheries. Yeah, they, yeah, Cindy um from E DC was involved in
helping pick those. Um So they will pick particular jobs within those sectors and
really and map out what are the entry points, what are the trading opportunities?
What's the advancement? Um All with the goal of getting to a, a good job, good
job initiative is a something being talked about across the state right now where
there's a livable wage, their benefits and there's an opportunity for advancement.
So um we're looking forward to seeing that work. And uh uh
Commissioner Johnson from Clallam County was saying, you know, just have to be sure
to keep this work enmeshed with the um recompete work too. And um it seems to be
aligning so far, but we got to keep ensuring that those working hand in glove. Yep.
Um And after that, did the um radio show on KPTZ with
John Bozena from Washington State Fairies. And, um, yeah, actually a couple of people
said they listened to it. So it's always nice to hear it. Right.
The, we talked a lot about the, you know, the perfect storm that is Washington State
ferries right now. It was interesting to hear that in, uh, we have five new electric,
hybrid, electric, um, boats that have been funded by the legislature. They're generally
built one at a time. The first one will come online in 2027. Wow, slower than buses.
Yeah. So um a little bit, a little bit discouraging. Um but they have made it more
flexible about where those can be built. Yeah, they can be built anywhere now. So
they will go out to bed. They still expect that. Oh, it was just good call. Um probably
nationally. Um And the other uh change is that the state can own the design
so you could take that design and bid it out to other um to other shipbuilders.
And, you know, just might be a little more consistency instead of kind of getting
the the tweaks of different shipbuilders that, you know, we could ask for consistent
um design standards. And then, you know, hopefully that would help contain the cost
a little bit and build docks to accommodate that specific design. And so um good,
good conversation. Um And that was, oh, then had a um North Olympic Legislative
Alliance steering committee meeting and robust participation there. Um Sounds like
the group is gonna take on one main priority, which is a bill that was uh mentioned
in our, our packet. Um this data sharing bill. So yeah. Uh yeah, and
state agencies requiring state agencies to report in a certain consistent way to
ad os there was a bill um drafted last year, uh with Chapman was the sponsor on that.
Um didn't get a lot of traction last year, but this is a good, a good year for advancing
that. Um, and then have a long list of other priorities and none of them are things
that I think we're in a really good, no, in a good position to take a lead on but
would be supporting as so, for example, if the State Hospital Association takes on
a uh uh uh Medicare um supplement for uh births,
ob and rural hospitals, we would support that if the, if we decide to advance the
Brennan sewer nola could support that. So there'll be a list of about six or eight
things that we are prepared to engage with as they arise. Um So that summary will
be coming to me shortly and I'll be sure and get it to you. But there was general
agreement on that um, strategy. Yeah. And that's, that's it. And we paid, we paid
our share today. Yes, they were, they were very grateful and I was, I was sure to
make a point that we are paying half now. And so we'll be using that uh that,
that time and resource. Yeah, so I got an update from wack. None of
the voting options were approved. So there's no change to the voting system for was
a, um, I don't know what that, what you think that harbors for membership and has
paid this year yet. Yeah, exactly means they won't pay. And did they, another thing
that needed to be clarified that came out of that meeting was, uh, um, if you don't
pay, what happens is, uh, the, uh, although they did make changes to the bylaws,
make those changes, you know, if you didn't pay by June 30th, right, then you and
they haven't paid in full for years. So that means essentially, I think, you know,
I mean, there were commissioners that were talking about, let's keep this conversation
going, but I don't know, felt, felt pretty final, I think at least from King County.
And then as, as people were trying to let King County pay less, that's when I had
to leave, you know, oh, we'll just make King County pay 25%. And then Pierce County
and Snohomish County stood up and said, oh, so you're gonna make us pay more than
King County. Uh And, you know, we don't have that capacity either. Yeah. And um,
although now, so I think that the budget that passed was the King County paying half,
um, half their dues. So, um, and then losing all those, I guess. Right. And increasing
everybody else's dues. Um, so, or it will be in for a bit of a wild ride. The, you
know, if King County pulls out that, I don't know, they didn't pass the budget where
King County pays or was that the one that they had worked out through the week they
passed, the one that was worked on during the week that I wasn't really privy to
and they tried someone made a motion to uh adjust it and make King County so King
County could pay less. And that's when the conversation started coming up from the
other larger counties. That, well, this isn't quite right that it just say this large
county doesn't have to pay, but we still have to pay full freight. Well, and so it
sounds like they didn't pass any of those proposals. So it's the original budget.
But I think that's the, the was a board that passes the budget, the membership does
the bylaws, I believe. Um Do you think it was a recommendation that the budget came
back up talking about the budget that had been passed and making changes to it after
we didn't, after the was a membership, didn't. Ok. Yeah, I think it's still though
is in the authority of the wack board. So, so they will have to change it if, yeah,
if it's um uh yeah, either either with something pulling out or if the bylaws are
then in disagreement with the budget in some way. I mean, that is the only real cost
of was a, I assume it means this would mean less staffing capacity. Yeah. Yeah. Which
is terrible timing while they're hiring a new executive director that as well. Yeah.
And, and, you know, it's, I, I have, I have felt ambivalent about this because I
understand King County's frustration. You know, why would they want the same voting
power or a little bit more? Um, you know, they've had 22 votes basically. Um, whereas
Kenny like us has one, I get their frustration and they're floating the whole organization
and not getting any of the uh projects. You know, they, they have less input than
we do because we have, you know, a cohort of, of a lot of rural counties that we
can find alignment with and, and sometimes I also heard at the, was a meeting that
a number of the smallest counties would not get a vote without this, less than one,
less than one vote. So that was, that was a big concern. I was hearing from lots
of tiny counties. Did you notice the poll hanging over the whole proceedings as well?
And maybe it's because of my LSC role, you know, just feeling a sense of care for
trying to carry this organization, you know, along and not have it fall apart entirely.
I mean, I, but I, I did that was the chatter around the edges for sure though, but
I was more focused on the sessions. I was going to. So. All right. Well, how, how
did your week go? Were you, what else happened on Monday? Anything, let's see.
Um, ok, I flew to Spokane on Monday. Ok. So Tuesday morning, first
thing was the Timber County caucus, um, which is a large table of some very small
counties of wack and, um, the three main pieces of kind of
presentation content. There was the DNR State Forester came and gave kind of an after
action on the wildfire season at DNR. And um you know, said that there were still
a lot of ignitions across the state. Um But it wasn't a huge uptick in the volume
of acres burned this year. So, um but the conditions like we heard here, things are
drier everywhere and staying drier longer. So it was similar to what we've been hearing
here in uh the Olympic region and there was a couple of interesting presentations
from counties that have their own forestry programs. Uh King County and Skamania
County and I have some detailed notes about both of those. But it was interesting
to learn that there are quite a number of counties that actually have their own forestry
programs probably over the course of the conference. By the end of the conference,
I'd heard of about six including us. Um So there's interest within the Timber
County's caucus of forming a counties with forestry program so we can, it would be
a subcomittee. Yeah, share, but share knowledge. And how, how did you get a sense
for how they were similar or different, these other forestry programs? Well, the
King County one has been in place, I think since the late eighties or early nineties.
So, um and this, I have notes, I can't remember it all right now, but it's all parks
and I mean, basically for parks and sustainable uh not necessarily parks, just a
lot of it is just open lands, open space, passive recreation and forests.
And um not a lot of conversation about those programs generating revenue for the
county, which is one thing I was listening for. So it felt like where we've been
kind of piloting our forestry program is along the lines of what other counties are
doing. And, and in my presentation on Wednesday, I got a sense that other counties
are very interested in what we've been doing here in terms of doing forest health
bings and actually generating revenue from some of the forests that we own. So, um
and then there was a Northwest Forest management plan, a federal, you know, Northwest
Forest plan update and I have notes from that, but I did not retain all that information
you guys, I think are much better at. Well, Kate is better at retaining the details.
I feel like so many things come through my head that I get like lost in the snowstorm.
Sometimes but um really good information and I take tons of notes so I can always
go back to them. So, let's see. Um Then I immediately went upstairs in the
hotel and participated in a community foundation board meeting. Um And then our
behavioral health advisory committee meeting was not gonna have a quorum. So I skipped
most of wack that day and also participated in behavioral health virtually. So, yeah.
So um yeah, that was, it was a big day of sitting in my hotel room in
Spokane. Is it a long meeting? Behavioral health? No, it was um, two hours, two hours.
Hm JCF was two hours baby health was two hours. So, um and
then Wednesday corners bar, there was no corners bar, but there was a hospitality
suite did find that it didn't stay too long heard that other people stayed. So all,
all hours of the morning. Not, not either of your Jefferson Jefferson contingent.
Uh I went to the Coastal Caucus meeting the next morning and Kate was there as well
and just to listen to see what that table is like. And there was a presentation on
funding programs and a lot of it was reviewed for me, but I felt like it was a good
refresher. Um And then the afternoon on Wednesday, myself and Sarah Ogden from DNR
gave a presentation on all of the work that we've been doing with DNR over the last
couple of years here in Jefferson County and Sarah led with kind of all the context
setting. And so then I led with the examples of projects that fit into these different
programs that DNR has so trust and transfer and that, and then the new $83 million
proviso from the last legislative session and the whole encumbered lands issue and
replacement lands. So we ended up talking about all of the various DNR County interactions
um through the lens of Jefferson counties kind of conversation with them. And it,
the room was by the end of it, the room was pretty full and there were a lot of questions
at the end. We, we tried to keep our presentation to half the time and then leave
half the time for questions and we had people staying beyond. Yeah, the turner of
the questions, how would you characterize? Um, I don't know. It was, there was some
counties that had forest more counties that had forestry programs or were doing forest
hill thinning on their forests even if they didn't have forestry programs. So there
was some back and forth about that. Um, Ponder County was one in northeast Washington
and then Pierce County, uh, had a lot of questions about all the strategies that
we've been working on with DNR and how they can get shuffled into that deck and are
very interested in, in kind of firing up the forestry program for Pierce County.
Oh, wow. Yeah. So those were kind of the two biggest kind of, um, side conversations
that happened as a result of that. But there were other kind of popcorn questions.
And then let's see,
Wednesday and then I flew back so I couldn't listen to the hack do
conversation, but I was very interested in what was going on, um, and drove straight
back to the Olympic Peninsula and I think I shared, but I at least shared with Kate.
I'm not sure I shared with you. I felt like I was sucking fumes as I coasted down
the hill on my little electric car, I made it into uh a charging station and then
got a ride from the charging station to the memorial for Chris and I was glad to
make it in time, but it was, um, it was definitely my first real range anxiety that
I've had I've had. Yes, I've now had my own experience. Um Then that afternoon, we
had the Board of Health meeting, as you mentioned and then the IC G meeting in the
evening. And I also felt like it was a great conversation and I feel a lot of hope
for um, the ability to dig into some work around our comprehensive plan updates together,
periodic reviews. So excited about that Friday, I attended a
event at Sunfield Farm school for my goddaughters. It was, they have a family's day
every year and a very wonderful, inspiring and just, you know, there's a lot of education
going on in our community that often doesn't get counted because we just count the
number of kids in public schools. And I think it would be interesting to figure out
how many kids are getting educated in alternative settings. To know actually how
many schools are, how many schools are active in Jefferson County. And you guys as
parents might have a better sense than me. But, I mean, yeah, but alternative public
school programs and then there's the
church related schools and I mean, because Sunfield has larger classes than they've
had in the past. So there's quite a few kids there. So uh then there was the county
co ordination meeting. Thanks for covering that. Mhm What, what you guys talk about
there? Um Oh County coordination's see. Do I have notes? Ok.
What do we talk about at county coordinations? I'll look at the agenda. No, it's
just it was really around mostly around the round table. We talked about strategic
plan implementation. Um and uh kind of a need to set kind of a process for strategic
plan imp implementation and, and have some kind of a maybe a work group that makes
sure that we're tracking our strategic plan as we move forward. And then there was
also an item around just the budget process and where we're at in the budget process
that mark reviewed the budget and some conversation and past meetings about the um
strategic plan implementation being kind of reported out at every county coordinating
meeting. Some people are like, ah, I'm not as interested in that. Is there a consensus
reached? I think I felt like there was more of a consensus to have a separate subcomittee
tackle that. And then maybe a short report on strategic plan implementation at the
coordinations. And then, um I'm just reporting on co ordination and I said we talked
about switching to planning implementation, the budget process and the upcoming budget
hearing and then did a round table. And you know, as, as always, that's the bulk
of the agenda. And I feel like people still value that time as just sharing out and
asking each other questions. I've got a small group that only I think 11. Yeah.
Um And then in the afternoon, I worked on the letter and the agenda request for the
day, Bob expansion as we promised um Bob Winslow that we did would do on the sixth.
So that's in our packet today. And then all weekend I was trying to post a derelict
boat for DNR, but the tides, the low tides were in the middle of the night. So I
finally got it posted at 8 a.m. this morning or just before like 745 this morning.
Um As the tide was coming in and I was, I was funny commissioner this morning, I
was jumping over logs and climbing over things and I put a physical tag on it. Yeah.
Yeah. With Yeah, very kind of challenging. But, yeah. Well, um, that's not gonna,
as we go through our yearly assignment of duties that's not gonna, gonna be one of
the duties that we have to choose who goes and, uh, tags derelict boats. Is it? I
mean, I'm, you have to rest that one from my hands. I love doing it. Any excuse to
hang out on a beach in the morning. And, you know, anyway, I had to go three times
to the beach to try and tag this boat work, work, work. Yeah. No fun. Fun, fun. So
anyway, I mean, it's, it's pretty um over the course of the last week, I would say
I was getting a lot of input about boats. There was a boat that sank in Discovery
Bay. You probably saw that on Facebook and there have been a num number threatening
and then that one, the 83 ft Coast Guard boat that sank right near where I was tagging
a boat this morning is still the, the ball is still out there. So it's still there
under the water and I know DNR is trying to grapple with it, but um super challenging
and there's just more boats in the bay so more potential derelict vessels. Yeah.
Yeah. Ok. Uh Let's see. Does that conclude last week? Well, and I spent, I, I
literally spent, I think nine hours yesterday reading public comment and all about
researching, you know, digging back into research and looking at all, all the public
comment there was. Um anyway, I felt like I felt like I want my Sunday back. But
anyway, there I was, you get to hear it again today. Yep. Yep. Yep. Just the beginning.
All right. Well, my week with you, of course, on Monday and on, on Tuesday I met
with Mark and Amanda Christofferson out of PUD offices to talk about the Brennan
Wastewater system. Um There was some, there was talk about the consolidated
water uh survey that we did with EPH in partnership with them of being a real critical
piece to that, that the, you know, getting consolidated water system going. There's
a lot of failing wells due to, you know, failing septics as well as saltwater intrusion.
So that's a kind of a critical piece of developing the infrastructure they were.
Um and tell me if you think I'm mischaracterizing Mark. But II, I think they were
looking for other alternatives or, or looking for options where maybe if we were
managing Port Hadlock Sh or something, which is not something I'd heard before that
we could manage the Britain wastewater system. And I think we learned that's not
really in the cards, right? You know, I met with Monie after that, uh meeting with
Kevin and to Tuber. Um and Monty said that his, his intent is to have the Pud manage
the sewer and the Port Hadlock sewage, the Port Hadlock. Yeah, that's what I always
do the billing and so on. And, um, um, the staff member that Monte has that, um,
has operational experience. Monte said that that kind of experience is useful when
you're building a sewer because they can question things and recommend things, um,
as they move along with construction. So, um, so I'm scheduling a meeting with Kevin,
I think on Wednesday of this week and Monie to sort of cement that notion and that
would make things much more possible for the pud because they could do water and
sewer both. Um, in Brennan, that's great. And they are definitely, I mean, they're
interested in helping and they, um, you know, department of Ecology is kind of ok,
commerce and G ma those, those hurdles are cleared now. And the big thing that we,
our takeaways, our action items after that were, you know, talking to Monty and,
uh, kind of waiting for the, the F MA report to come out, which has I think, been
pushed to January. Is that right? Well, uh, their visit is mid December, but, um,
Brent asked for a delay and I don't know whether the delay has been granted. Ok.
So that F MA work is kind of, you know, it's just the floodway work and whether that's
gonna be a, uh, what kind of barrier that's gonna be. But we're talking right now
and I'll share, we're almost done with the white paper like the grin and, you know,
ad hoc Sewer Group has asked for this as well and we're just about done with that.
Amanda's been doing, Will Yeoman's work there and we'll share it with you guys too.
We probably have a presentation here in a couple weeks after, well, maybe after the
fe a visit happens to, to bring everyone up to speed. But the, the game is definitely
a foot down there and, um, skipping ahead to my Friday, you know, we met with uh
uh director Mike Fong from Department of Commerce, came out, he toured Mason Street
with Habitat and looked at Landis, came into City Hall and Josh Peters and I were
there representing the county, Emma Boen and John Morrow. Uh Jamie Macis from Habitat
and, and Gary from Bayside was kind of the, the group. Um Plus Dave Pringle who is,
I think the critical liaison in that congress, he's like the, the legislative liaison.
Um He was there as well as a couple other staffers from Commerce, really good conversation.
Um And, and of course, uh Rep Farringer and that's new vernacular. Do you, do you
guys say that? Rep? Yeah. Ok. I think that's, that's what Congress would always re
uh refer to Steve as Rep Thring. I'm, I'm gonna adopt it now. So Rep Chapman, rep
Thring. That's what the kids in the no say. Is that what you think just widely in
Olympia? Ok. Yeah. So it was new to me. I, you know, it always felt like, well, I'm
dirt off my knees. Um But really good conversation, some of the things that we talked
about a lot and kept coming back to were and all the people at that table were really
focused on was how Ami is such a bad metric for, for um commerce's work, you know,
and we talked about our, you know, the affordable affordability compared to our Ami
you know, our AMI being lower than Seattle and our affordability actually being less
than Seattle, you know, is, uh really creates challenges. So good conversation, talked
a lot about the Brennan sewer too and rep thring was, you know, had kind of preloaded
that he was really interested in that project. And so we brought the consolidated
water project as well as the sewer up as real critical infrastructure and I think
made a lot of headway, but the commerce was really listening about the AMI issue
and I think in like your, your briefing for our legislative conversation later today,
um, it seems like commerce, I think they identified, I think he said in that in that
kind of briefing that uh he identified the implementation commerce as being that
maybe where that actually needs to change more than legislatively. But
I think they are but, you know, hitting, you know, both the ledge and the uh and
the administrators is good. I don't know. Do we lobby commerce? No, but um and they
would probably want funding to do that work because they would need to pull together
a work group. So, legislatively, it could be asking for a proviso to create a work
group to come up with better uh metrics or standards for uh housing dollar allocation.
Ok, great. Um I'm sure I'll come back and hit other things as I, as I that we talked
about there. Can I ask though? Is um is the timeline for the F MA report? Is that
what you're calling it? Well, it's the, the customer assistance visit. Yeah, to kind
of figure out rates and all sorts of different things, you know, insurance, rate,
flood insurance. But yeah, would we, I mean, if we're considering a, a legislative
ask for the sewer, would, um, would that timing not align or do you think we could
still put together a request? Um, without that information, what's the timing for
the request if we were going to do some legislatively on Brian? That would be, we'd
want to be starting that right away. Um, I don't think it gets in the way it just
could put a Kibosh on it, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't really, I don't have
a good answer and it's a supplement if it's funding t it's supplemental this year,
right? So be in the supplemental budget. Ok. Um, but of the capital budget committee.
So a project for, for rep and um,
yeah, I'll try to get some answers and when we get the white paper to you guys in
the next couple of weeks. We'll address that issue too and what the barriers are,
but I'm not sure how much we can rush that. So we might not know the answer of January.
And then, um, would we be looking for, like, funding for design or for
outreach or for construction? Like how, II, I have no idea. Construction. I mean,
there's a lot of pipes in the ground that need to be, you know, updated and added,
right? There's like the, the MBR itself, it's, you know, a similar membrane bio reactor
that we're building in ack, that's good and that has lots of capacity. But the uh
the piping infrastructure is what needs to be um updated. So would that be actually
in the supplemental session or would we be looking at the next Biennium 25 for the
actual full budget? Probably would be, I guess it would. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm thinking
through this feels like planning 24 and, and, and, and how can you rely on the consolidated
water system work and that work too? So you're done, you know, dig in once when,
when possible. I Yeah, I don't know. Probably planning first. Ok. In 24. Yeah, I
think 25. Ok. Thank you. That's, that's me responding to the good sense that Heidi
was saying. Well, I mean, we don't have worked out about timing. Yeah. Mhm. Ok.
Um Then let's see, most of Tuesday, I was Commissioner France's Wingman basically
went down to, I was, I was, I was in Spokane. Like, can somebody go down there? Yeah,
I was already meeting fish and wildlife down at the, the clam beach in Quills. So
they, they were late. So I went over to Rock Point and talked to the PDN with Hillary
and, and, and Peter Bales and then went to my WDFW appointment and went back for
Q 13. There was something. Um, but I, I didn't realize I was so grateful you could
go because I was like, well, for not, that would just feel awful to me if we weren't
there. Yeah. And so later in the evening Mark and, and Mallory both joined at the
Maritime Center for the, uh, kind of the celebratory announcement of the 671 acres
and, you know, spoke there too as well as I was glad that Peter spoke after Commissioner
France. He is a hard act to follow
Dynamo. But, uh, I think it went, well, it was like, that's an understood 75 people
there, I think or something. Yeah, it was packed. So they sent it out to the Atlanta
email list. I got a, I got the email. I was like, oh, that's how they're gonna sell
the right. That's definitely a happy event. Yeah. No. Yeah, totally. Um, yeah, I
don't.
Yeah. Um, so, and then I went to the quill scene and Brennan Empowered Teens Coalition
on Tuesday and didn't go to the BH AC but I'm sorry, I would have, I would have done
that instead if I had done. You really had gorm. So I'm sorry about that. Um Also
stopped briefly by the Housing Solutions Networks five year anniversary, Fin River
before I, I couldn't really stay for too long. They um you know, doubled their staff,
you know, they're, they're doing good stuff and, and uh yeah, I think ready to take
the next leap, definitely focused on the city or in multifamily housing. Um And that
was Tuesday um on Wednesday at a meeting with uh some BHC folks, Jim Novelli
and Junior from Jefferson Health Care and Laurie talking about grant strategies.
Then we had our Jefferson County uh uh general uh county exit interview and uh clean,
clean bill, no findings. It's great. So also included in that was the uh uh multiple
ethical complaints about me sitting on the only cat board was dismissed with uh uh
essentially. And then, uh also there was the at the accounting office. Uh they, they
looked at citizen issues and said no, I mean, lots of commissioners sit on lots of
nonprofits that they end up giving money to. If that wasn't allowed, then we'd have
to redo the system basically. So, um we also, there was a complaint that uh uh I
think it was 10 or $20,000 to KPTZ for news programming that, that was, uh, unethical,
but that was also cleared as just fine. Um, and yeah, who is that from? I don't
know who made the complaint? They, they, they, so the account Sao goes back and,
and reaches out and closes the loop with the citizen complainers
that we were supporting. It was covered in the free press, but I don't know. Yeah,
I think it was, I think the complaint was that we were buying favorable coverage,
right. Um, and it could have been someone that read the article. I mean, I have no
idea who made the complaint but they, the office closes the loop with the person
uh, via letter and phone calls. Yeah, they actually shared the letters with us. Ok.
Oh, I somehow missed that. That's good. I, I told them they could make the only cap
one snarky but they probably didn't.
Um, and then class Wednesday afternoon, Jeff K was actually canceled and we're doing
it in December instead. Um, met with some a citizen including, uh, Marilyn
Showalter who was here. Um, it was a lovely memorial from Mr Goy. Um, and, yeah,
I was at board of Health, of course, with you and IC G, met with the city councilor
Mc Hager on Friday morning. Um, a couple citizen contacts as well,
phone calls and then I missed actually the North Olympic, uh, recompute coalitions
meeting. We're gonna start meeting every couple weeks just to, you know, not be caught
flat footed, kind of like we were last time. If we do get the award, some of the
reports indicate, uh, a good chance. I don't know. I mean, we have, I think there
were 20 Washington ones. So if you assume there's gonna be at least one or two Washington
ones and, and probably one in the sixth district. So that's sort of how we're looking
at the other six Grays. Harbor County, put one in, uh Mason County, put one in. I
think those are the only other two. Um, and very few were kind of multi county, multi
county coalition. So I think that's a big strength. Yeah, it's a, it's a challenging
conversation to, yeah, to parse that. Um, I thought the IC G meeting was great and
I thought Dave Anderson from Commerce was just AAA fountain of even uh education
and strategical uh thinking. I, I thought it was really, really strong and that is,
that'll be, that's only to capture that one. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Ok. So I would add,
that's one that for the public to go watch. I think I, I learned a lot and I think
both Josh and Emma, you know, when I saw him on Friday after, uh they both learned
a lot. Yeah. Um, and those are the high points
of my week mark. Can you think seven minutes? Can you, we've talked about a lot of
things that you, you did already usually? Um,
so uh, Monday with the board on Tuesday the 14th, um, attended that meeting that
Greg mentioned about the Brennan Wastewater question. Uh, I thought it was a very
constructive meeting. Um, and then later that morning, met with Wendy housekeeper.
Now, this was, uh, prior to making an employment of her to her and you can tell that
that meeting was successful. I, I walked in, I couldn't believe she was here already.
Ok, I'm gonna go introduce myself. So I, I think she'll be a great addition to the
team. And then two o'clock uh that afternoon I met with the A team and then had a
quick um budget call with uh Judy Shepherd. And then I attended that wonderful event
uh announcing the 671 acres and um actually got to meet Miss Friends. Um
didn't expect that, but, but that was nice. Uh Then on the 15th, uh we did have the
uh audit out brief um a number of comments made by the auditor that will pay attention
to recommendations for how we can tighten up the ship. Um And I was really happy
to see those citizen complaints put the bed. Um and then um I met with um Ben
Bauermeister, Cindy Brooks, uh John Morrow, Ain Berg and Kevin Street. Uh public
sector cabinet spent a great deal of time talking about the recompete grant and um
strategies for how we might uh tweak that going forward to accommodate the the needs
and wants of um, Clallam and whoever else. Um And then, um, so that was a good meeting
and then on the 16th, um weekly with uh Josh Peters, um, they are
remarkably close to being fully staffed. Uh morale in the department is very,
very strong and the backlog is shrinking. Um And I think, uh when you heard uh
Assessor Chapman talk about this being a very good year for new construction. I'm
expecting next year to be even better based on how that department is functioning
at the moment and it will continue to improve. Then the IC G meeting in the evening.
And um then, let's see, I had coffee with Mallory Weinheimer to talk about the contract
for um next year. Um Her current contract expires at the end of December. Um I met
with um Sarah Mellinson to talk about organizational health. Um I think, you know,
that's one of our six strategic priorities and I think we have a really good program
um that um when we have the larger meeting to talk about implementation and we'll
share um the steps that, that we have come up with uh to help improve or organizational
health and then county co-ordination meeting. Uh even though only 11 members, it
was a robust conversation and Heidi already pretty much covered the topics um that
were on the agenda. So, um that was it for me. Great. Thank you, Mark. Um So we
have a scheduled 1030 meeting to get our, our quarterly update from, from DNR. Um,
yeah, let's do a quick little break. We'll come back at 1030 so take four minutes.
The coffee. Yeah.
Pause it and, yeah.
All right, welcome back. I'll call this 1120 meeting of the Bocc back into session.
Sorry, we're a little a minute late getting back. Um, we're, we're joined now by
Dr Rosenbaum and not sure anyone else today. I know there's no Jill. Right. Yeah,
Jill's Jill's in Europe right now. So good for her. Yeah. All right. Well, we're
here for the, the quarterly, uh, DNR uh, county income report and, um, they
appreciate the, the documents in the, in the packet and we, we'll turn it over to
you Drew. How are we doing? Great. Um, so 2nd and 3rd quarters have both been really
good to Jefferson. Um, as, as I reported last time, 1.5 million in second quarter
and then 1.8 million in third quarter. Um, I wasn't sure that Taylor when Taylor
downhill sorts was gonna pay out, but that came in in third quarter. So that helped
us finish out really well. Um, and so, yeah, 1.8 million looking at a
total so far of 4.3 million. So that's really good. Um, and
then fourth quarter projected and it just, well, 445,000 is what I'm still hoping
to get, um, Mount Jupiter extended, um, tough logging, cable logging
right now. They're, the purchasers are having trouble finding cable loggers so they
had to extend a year. Um, and that's, that's some really difficult yarding up there.
So I was hoping to see that payoff in fourth quarter with the initial deposit paying
off after the first of the year. But it looks like that's gonna be on hold till probably
late spring, early summer now. And then penny wise, I thought it, it was moving for
a while. We got 300,000, 3rd quarter from them, hoping to get another just short
of 400 but that we still got a month to go, but that hasn't come through yet. So
my prediction for 2024 under contract ending the year was 300,000, but that potentially
could go up to five between four and 500,000. Um So they
just, they just don't seem to be moving right now with a few of them. Um Center 21
is just still moving kind of slow and steady, which is typical for a for uh thinning.
So, uh and then last Crocker sorts has been through SEPA through the
board and is on track to sell in December, um, appraised
value 1 million, 389,000, uh should do better than that, should do quite a bit better
than that. We're still uh our November auction. We only had one sale, uh, but real
strong bidding. We got five bidders and I think it went almost 50% over bid. So,
wow. Is that something you're seeing elsewhere as well? Yeah, we're doing fairly
well still, even, even out in the Clearwater block where, you know, we, we've sold
the last of our T three research sales last in, I guess October still getting good
bids. Um, still, you know, three plus bidders per se. So I'm, I'm pretty pleased
with what I'm seeing. The market is trending downward right now, uh which isn't too
unusual for this time of year. But, mhm. But we're still doing well. I'm still getting
a lot of competition, so I'm feeling pretty good about things. Um, and then last
Crocker, of course, selling in December, it won't deliver till 2024. And what was
the amount the estimated amount for that? I can't, the numbers are so small. A million.
Yeah. Uh, 1 million, 389,000 is the appraised value and it's 100%
Jefferson. So just the, you know, this minus the 25% is just over a million.
And I, again, I would expect to get much more than that and we've been getting input
about that one. But right, have you guys all been getting, I mean, comments about
last Cracker sorts. So I think we've been pretty firm about, uh, sorry, this meets
the metrics of the conditions that we get, we laid out for DNR I just wanted to say
that again, out loud for folks watching or reviewing this later, is that the only
sale for 24? So I have not put um put in anything. Th this is our
fiscal 24. So that's all you'll see until July and I haven't put in the 25 sales
yet. We're still a little bit fluid on that one. So 24 ends our sustainable harvest
decade. So, and then we're gonna start over fresh uh, in 25. So we just haven't gotten
there yet. There's at least one sale. I think there's one sale on there for, for
Jefferson. That's County Woods. So, but we'll, I'll know more next time at the next
quarterly when we finish up. 24. Sounds good. And I think, uh, Stacy Pre our treasurer
had a question or a comment. We brought her over Stacy, anything that you'd like
to add. Um, I just had a question about one of the recent distributions. I think
it was DNR interest, but it has an agreement number that I wasn't lining up. But
again, I can't really see it because the numbers are so small, but there's some
17,400 or 500 or so and the agreement ended in 602. Is
it, is it on this page here? Can I, I can zoom in? I'm not seeing it. There is my,
my question. I just have that we received money. Um, in November
and I think this one once rung up as DNR interest. So I was just curious if Drew
could explain that a little bit. Yeah, I'm pulling up my spreadsheet. That number
rings a bell.
Mhm.
Um, I've got an 18,000 that came in on 11. Yeah, that's 18 5.
And that's, um, ending in 662. But then the other one, was, uh,
tax code 324 and the agreement ends in 602 and that was for
17,000. I will look that up there. That's kind of odd. So there's, there's,
that's a big price for,
so I don't track, I haven't been tracking the direct sales on this sheet because
there's so few and far between and they're usually just a few $1000. I will look
that number up and see because I should have gotten a, should have gotten a report
on that. So I will look it up and get back to you. Ok. Thank you. Could it have been
the Mount Jupiter payout. There's like a, I don't think so with quarter 1719
that didn't list as wired, but
uh Mount Jupiter paid out uh 1617
and that was on 11 9.
So I'm not sure I'm gonna have to dig into that. Ok, thanks. Um I guess too if you
could just send me the original cause once I see it scanned because I don't get it
directly. I can't really read it very well. Ok. Yes, I'll do that. Thank you. Yup.
And I'll just start doing that every month. I'll get a, uh, just a copy of the actual
spreadsheet in Excel that works. That should work better. That's fantastic. Thanks
Drew. Yeah, anytime Stacy gets another Excel spreadsheet, it's good.
Um, maybe while, um, we have a number of pertinent folks in one place, um, just to
follow up on Greg's question about 2024. So it looks like right now anticipated revenue
would be about 1.6 million. Is that right? The 1.3 from last Crocker and it relates
to the 25% obviously taken off the top of that and then the 300,000 on, on previous
already under contract sales. Um Is that, is that a accurate drew or are you saying
you think there, there will be additional revenues? They'll be, uh there's, we, I,
I'm sure we have another sale on the, on the books for 2025. Our fiscal 25. I don't
think you'll see the income from that one in calendar 24. So I think we're probably
close to, well, I'm showing 1.34 for 24
but I think it'll since penny didn't pay out uh while I still have, I
still have income for center 21 and Jupiter will have another payment, at least one
more payment coming. I'm thinking it'll with overbid I think it'll be closer to 1.6.
Ok.
Um And did we, did we budget for lower revenues um for these timber dollars
mark given, given that, you know, we're gonna see a pretty significant decrease in,
in timber revenues in 24. Did we budget accordingly? Uh The budget? Hm
I could look the number up, Kate. I'm sorry, I had you do this last week too. I don't
remember the number but I do know that um we were over budget this year.
So um
by the way, we don't need to take up Drew's time with that. But yeah, it's such volatile
revenue if I could just remind everyone um that the distribution will be based on
the levies in the year that it's distributed.
Thank you.
Uh uh Drew, did we finish the timber school that you guys have been uh providing
or is there, can we expect any more of those presentations? Ok, great. No, those
were the four. But if you have further questions or want something else that we haven't
covered, let me know and we'll get that put together. Ok. Well, I, I really appreciate
the, the effort you guys put into those four classes. They were really educational
for me. Yeah, they were, they were really good. It was a, it was a really good idea
and I think hopefully it helped. Absolutely. Ok. Um Yeah, we've only budgeted
um 372. So I think we've accounted for a reduction.
Um, so I think, you know, year to date with the total of what was
distributed this year of 4.3 the general fund amount was 633,000 plus
3000. So it could be low, but we'll see. Right. Not just, uh, general fund. Yeah,
there's Road fund and all sorts of things. Mhm.
Ok. Any other questions for Drew? No. All right. Well, thank you so much, Drew. I
hope you have a, a great holiday week and uh we'll, we'll see you next quarter. All
righty, thanks. All right, thanks. Take care. You too.
Ok. Well, we're moving through our agenda this morning. Um Next up with no set time
is to talk about the uh contract we pulled from consent agenda last week with our
um Ron consulting group and I see Sarah is here. So come on up and take a seat by
the microphone, Sarah. And um I guess, I don't know. Uh You wanna,
I don't know, we, we all, we all know what we're here to talk about. Really? It's
just this contract in lieu of our, of our changing strategic direction and we just
wanted to have a little bit more conversation. So why don't we let you kind of walk
us through this contract and what your vision is for for hr and, and you know, the,
the work with this consulting? Yes, good morning. Um So just to summarize this
contract. Um uh Bob Braun has provided uh support,
um advice, um actual work and uh labor relations, uh
contracts, investigations, special projects to the county for a number of years.
And um his work has been instrumental in um
in how the contracts have been um administered in Jefferson County during this time.
And he, so he has a lot of history. Um and as well, there is a desire for a change
and I understand that in the way that the county um completes its collective bargaining
and what happens at the table. So in the last year, uh mark and I have sat at the
table and then the lead uh negotiate negotiators with uh our labor unions.
And during this time, um Bob Braun has been kind of in the background if we uh have
questions about steps taken language, uh et cetera. And so, uh his current contract
ends at the end of this year, um the contract on the table before you would be to
extend that uh another 18 months. Uh knowing that in the future, the county would
like to change direction a bit and um find other uh providers of this
type of um work to the county. And that's the proposal we have before you. It
um it is one that can be um ended at any time. Uh I think it's at an important
time right now to have this in the background as um we're currently negotiating uh
two contracts with another one to begin soon and next year we'll be negotiating our
uh uniformed employees, right? Yeah. Thank you, Sarah questions comments. I would
just say that, you know, I checked in with Sarah offline about this last week and
um I understand the the the need and the desire for some continuity in terms of a
resource. It's like having a, a phone, a friend in negotiations um for our team taking
this role on, it's new to Sarah and Mark, taking this role on. So this is a resource
for them to provide some continuity and some support as they go through the next
negotiation. So it makes sense to me. Um Yeah, I think you all know, I've, I've had,
I've had concerns and wanted to go a different direction and um you know, II I feel
like we've built some goodwill with staff this year um through the most recent negotiations
and I, I worry a little bit about um kind of sending a mixed message and have heard
some concern from a staff member about uh you know, updating this contract. So I,
I still have those concerns. Um But I also, you know, need to have faith in our staff
to um do what um they need in order to be able to fulfill time sensitive functions.
So I, I don't wanna um to, to throw a wrench in the works unnecessarily, but
really want staff to know that we are still committed to continuing down this path
of, um, of reform in our collective bargaining. Yeah, I agree with that. And I, I
think we've made, you know, great inroads into that this year. You know, and I think
my, in talking with, with folks a little bit about this, my perception is that kind
of having the, you know, the, the, the professional hired gun be the face of the
county in the negotiations was the biggest part of the uh tension um that I, I think
we've ameliorated pretty effectively this year. So I, yeah, I, I'm supportive of
this contract just supporting the, the plan of staff, basically, you know, mo moving
forward. But I do take your, your point that, you know, iterative improvement and,
and we need to make sure that the, the uh goals and values that we, the
Bocc expects on the, on the bargaining table, make it to the bargaining table. And
I, I feel like we've gotten there with, with this arrangement. So I wonder too if
um if we could kind of commit to once this round of collective bargaining is done
um in 2024 if at that point, we then start preparing for a new RFP. Um I, if indeed,
the contract is um you know, can be terminated before the 18 months. Yes, I can commit
to that. Uh I think that um we are moving toward this direction um of collaboration
with our um employees in the bargaining process. And that's the, I think primarily
that is uh what we're, where we are, what we're doing now and where we're headed.
And um yeah, I'm happy to commit to that change. I just wanna say, I'm, I just wanna
express gratitude for you Sarah and Mark for going this direction and um doing it
with such grace and care for our team. I think it's super um it, it shows a
sign of compassionate leadership and I'm really grateful for your leadership on moving
this direction. I think it's a big shift for the county. I mean, having lived here
for so long, I mean, I've heard for years about kind of the good old boys club of
the county and um concerns from residents of the county, you know, the county doesn't
reflect their citizenry of Jeff, whatever. It's all, it's all the scuttle butt. Right.
But I feel like I totally agree with Kate. We took, we made the intention of moving
in a different direction and I feel like this is part of that move. It's like when
you turn a ship, it takes a while for the ship to turn and to get on a new course.
And I feel like this is part of that turn and we're mid channel. Right. Right. Right.
So that's why, you know, but I'm in the midst of that, super grateful that you guys
are at that wheel navigating that and, and I just wanna not pass this moment without
saying that. Well, thank you. But you know it's all about respect. Mhm. Nice. Thank
you. So, if you're gonna consider approving this, um I would ask that you approve
it striking paragraph 15.15 which is a ratification clause since we're, if you adopt
this today, we do not need a ratification clause. And so, um, if you approve it today,
I would ask that you approve it subject to striking that and then we would renumber
every subsequent paragraph. OK. Excising 1515. Um and, and well said,
uh Heidi, you know, I, I think honoring the progress that, that you guys have made
in this path is really important and that's, that's why I'm supporting it. So, um
any other conversation questions, I'm happy to make a motion to approve uh
labor relations and human resources consulting service in the amount of 50,000 between
the county administrator and Ron Consulting group striking paragraph 15.15. Um the
ratification clause and renumbering all the um, paragraphs following that one, a
second. Ok. It has been moved and seconded to approve the professional services agreement
with Bob Brown consulting striking paragraph 1515. Uh all in favor indicate by saying
II I, he opposed. OK. That is unanimous. Thank you guys so much for taking the extra
time to walk us through this. Thank you.
OK. So, um we've got a big briefing this afternoon. Ledge updates and a workshop.
On, uh, um, some big work happening up at the hospital. So I guess let's take a look
at Haering calendaring for the short Thanksgiving week first and, and see if there's
any other topics that, uh, that, that need addressing. And I'd love to get out of
here before noon to, uh, for lunch. If possible. I have a noon meeting. I need to
be ok. I'm sure we can do that. It says that we have calendar is all we have to before
the unless there's some other burning topic folks need to talk about. Yep. I'm happy
to go first and it's gonna be quick. I'm here with you all today. Um And I did notice
I have mentioned this earlier that the audit, the election pre canvassing board meeting
was canceled. So that must mean does anyone know was there no challenge ballots this
time? I don't know. I'll follow up with Quinn at lunch. So, um and then let's see.
So tomorrow I have a very light day. I'm having lunch with Al Cairns, our solid waste
manager just to talk to him about a number of solid waste issues. And I would also
say um in the spirit of gratitude since we're in Thanksgiving weekend or week, I
would um say I'm super grateful for al he's been leading on a number of fronts and
they've all been heavy lifts lately. And so, um just wanted to have lunch with him
and catch up and hear, hear where things are at. So doing that tomorrow. Um And then
in the evening, I'm going down to the aquatic Center community event and Brennan
to hear from the community about what their thoughts are on the aquatic center. I'm
having lunch with council member MC, I mean coffee with council member Mick Hager
tomorrow. Um And then I think, I think I'm just getting my hair cut and so then I
have a lot more work to do at my house for Thanksgiving. And then I'm going to be,
I'm think I'm KPTZ this week, but maybe we should review the calendar at some point,
but we can, we can take a look at that this morning. I will be on there with superintendent
mock talking about the upcoming show I school levy and other issues going on at um
Cheam school district. When, when is the le gonna be on the ballot? February, February.
Oh, wow. Yeah, Levy Capital. Yeah,
something we'll, we'll be need to be aware of and um maybe ask for a briefing from
Hunsucker on too as we as things move on to ballots just how, how we are able to
talk about them and support them or not. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I, I need a refresher
on that if we um as we move forward. Great. Ok. Light week and uh you reviewed your
Thanksgiving plans already. You have 18 people over to your house for Thanksgiving.
Not, not a required, uh, update but not Stacy Brotherton. I invited her but she's
gonna stay home while you guys, you just hunker down and work. I don't think she's
gonna leave the property. She went shopping yesterday so she could just, she never
has the drive. I relish these times. So, um, let's see. Um,
um, call over the lunch hour. Um, I think, is there actually a wack meeting? I can't
imagine they don't usually have one after. Um, I don't know, I showed up and it's
on the calendar but I, I'm guessing that might not. Oh, it looks like an automatic
thing. Yeah. So Carolyn, sorry. Um Sorry, one sec today, I believe there's no oe
meeting there usually isn't one right after the conference. Um, but my, um, well,
I can't attend because I have another, another meeting. Um Anyway, so, um
somehow get ripped into leading a federal leadership task force meeting tomorrow
for the Puget Sound Partnership. Um So head of regional EPA No, uh um others
coordinating some of the uh large scale salmon and habitat restoration projects in
the northwest. I think it's a quarterly meeting or annual meeting, something like
that. Um So that planning meeting today to um then chair that meeting tomorrow. Um
There's an E DC finance committee meeting tomorrow morning on Wednesday. Um be planning
with Paul Jewel. He and I are presenting to the house local government committee
um in a couple of weeks. Um Their committee days. Um So talking about, you know,
presenting how uh the needs of county and um how we will, we will be working with
that committee in the upcoming session. Um, have a meeting with Mark and Amanda and
Judy on Wednesday to discuss the, um how we wanna work with overhead charges on some
of the work that Amanda is doing. Um So that might be something that comes back to
us to discuss as well. This is
like, exactly, yeah, that's what's really driving. Yeah, exactly. That's driving
this conversation. But I, you know, I think it is a policy question too which we
talked a little bit about here, which is, you know, should that position be generating
additional revenue covering the cost of the position, you know, um and not sure if
we have a a childcare center team meeting on Wednesday or not before the holiday.
But then obviously off the rest of the week after that, you're going to the Housing
Fund board meeting on Wednesday. Um That is not on my calendar
on a we do. Yeah, we I can work at lunch. I'm sorry, I've been ok. What time is that
meeting? From 230 to 430 Wednesday? Ok. And I will be on a plane so I'm able to attend
myself. Ok, so I think will be at Judy will be attending. Yeah, so we're at that
meeting. Um there's some uh modifications to the recommendations. You'll notice that
we haven't gotten the recommendations here. You know, it was a delayed a couple weeks
to talk about with Judy about uh the changes that she would, she would like. So I
made some uh adjustments to some of our funds. So whenever possible, without changing
the award amounts, if it could just be paid from 148 or just from 149 so I just kind
of consolidated them as much as possible. So only one of them pays out from both
148 and 149. And then we got a subsequent budget from Owl 360 about how much of their
budget could be used for new projects to qualify under that 60%. And it was not quite
as much as the total. We just put the whole 186 but it was more like uh 150 or 140
or something like that. So less from the 60% would be coming out. So that's the critical
work and then in committee updates. And um, I mean, if it's not on my calendar, presumably
it's not on other people's calendar, which worries me right before the holiday. Do
we know if we have a quorum? Um I don't know, it's on my calendar but it's weird
uh um twice on my calendar actually. So, yeah, I know, I, I just added it myself.
Um but we'll get that out today. I I've been uh
I am, I have a conflicting meeting, but that's more important. I'm tardy in getting,
uh, completing the agenda, so we'll get that out of today. Ok. I just worry end of
day before holiday, the day before a holiday that if other folks don't have it, it's,
we might have a court issue. Yeah. Yeah, we'll figure that out the November meeting.
But, oh, so we have to. Yeah. Ok. So that's
your week, Kate? Yes. Ok. My week, let's see, today is the never ending day is after
this. I'll run down for a 430 to 630 North Hood Canal Chamber meeting as well as
the, uh, annual in the annual meeting. It's also, uh, we'll have, uh, Will o'donnell
from the Pud coming to talk about the, uh, the state of, uh, uh, the PE D fiber project.
I've heard great things about the Brennan one too. Supposedly they're gonna start
turning people on here soon. The canal communication went down in Brennan. So, um,
get that update and then I'll be, uh, joining Bob Winslow at the Wilson Fire Department.
Uh, for more talk about the, uh, 671 acres. Is that all today? That's all today?
Yeah. So 430 to 630 then seven o'clock we packing it in. You're not gonna have a
full week these two days. Actually, tomorrow is very light though. I was also planning
to go to the, uh, Brennan, um, school editorial meeting. So, I don't know, could
we notice that that's tomorrow at six pm at the Brian Community Center from 6 to
8. Other than don't you have to do a hybrid? No, as long as you're in person, you
think we'll just, uh, just an in person. Yeah. So, yeah, both Heidi and I will be
there just so we can both actually respond to questions. It would be great or, yeah,
a community, community generated pool meeting. Um, we can work on that at lunch too.
Yeah, that, that'll be really basic agenda. We don't have any items that uh other
items to add. Right.
And then I'm getting on a uh playing early early morning on the 22nd and uh taking
just one of my nuclear family to, to for AAA daddy daughter Thanksgiving and I will
be back on Tuesday in time for the transit authority budget meeting. I will
be remote just Monday morning for the hearing and any other critical stuff in the
morning. So probably on the morning of the 27th. I don't know. Um II I won't be with
us. We'll be with you for the afternoon of the 27th. Ok. We could have a small agenda
then. Yeah. Any um there is a executive session item. Um I'd like to add it for
next Monday. So if, if there's room in the morning, it'd be great. So I'd like to
have Greg there. So it possible exemption. Um I will have to look it up. Ok. Yeah,
I think our hearings at 1030 work out. We'll work out the agenda by tomorrow. Ok.
Oh, the 30th, I haven't. The MRSC understanding A I, is this, this Thursday as well?
I thought of you. Yeah. No, I, I think I signed up for it so I'll probably do that
from, yeah, they do it on Thanksgiving. Oh, no, that's the following week. Um, um,
I'm going to Kawaii.
Yeah, I need to go somewhere. Yeah, you should go somewhere. We signed up for the
canal Alaska credit card. Yeah, you flew just last week. What are you complaining
about? Fun, fun, fun. Um, but, uh, yeah,
gonna borrow a dog from the Humane Society for a day. Some of the things you can
do there, take it out to the beach. No, that's fine. Yeah. Going to a luau. Probably
not humane meat. But, uh, one of my daughter's requests. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah.
Looking forward to it. Hm. Ok. Uh, wait, there was one other thing that we just now
need to talk about. Oh, well, maybe the KPTZ schedule real quick. Bring that up.
Who were you planning this Friday with? Oh, you're right
because I was thinking, you know, who's going to be around the day after Thanksgiving?
And I knew that superintendent Mock because I checked with them. Uh, and so, um,
there's just a lot going on there and I went to that, um, PT a sponsored volunteer
fair. For kids to do their volunteer hours. And I thought this would be a good thing
for the community to know. You know? So then no campaigning can't say past the level
you can just talk about the, yeah, he's got the same constraints what's included
in the needs because it's already on the ballot. I, once it's officially on the ballot.
Right. That's when he's not. I, I think so. Is a ballot for February, isn't it?
Yeah. I don't know when that I'll find out. Yeah. And you know, and like, can you
as an individual commissioner speak in favor of something but not the Bocc. Like,
I just need a refresher. It's been a while. Yeah, I need a refresher. I mean, I need
a, uh, fresh, not a big, fresh, just the first, fresh information. Uh, Excel is going
slow but I'm bringing up the calendar here.
Any, any other agenda topics that folks need to add this morning? Oh, you
just, I'm, I'm still trying to bring up the KPTZ, uh, schedule. Ok. I need to get
someone for the eight.
We can look at that while we're slowly waiting for Excel.
Mm. But the Baaso meeting until 11 on the eighth. But I could, uh, oh, no, I'm sorry,
I, I have it. Oh, you mean you need a guest? Yes. Figure out who to invite. Gotcha.
Too worried about it. I,
how's it going with KPTZ? Are you guys still having fun doing this. I am, I think
it's great but I, I, I'm not sure but the impact is it's hard for me to do to get
feedback somehow, you know, or like requests from the community as to what they would
like updates on. I mean, should we be doing a pool segment? Aquatic center segment?
That'd be a great, uh great opportunity for my cage match segment that I haven't
done yet. Cage match community and government exchange. Ok. I don't think I totally
get it, but it's just, uh, you know, fighting on the radio, arguing on the radio.
Hot takes count, counter, countervailing, hot takes. Well, do you have a week coming
up? I have December 1st that some scheduled for that. I do not. So, um is the, the
plan is not to consider of about whether to put this on the ballot today, correct?
Ok. That's what I mean, when I, when we're doing agenda, they just want to do a briefing
though. I think we could add. I mean, we could have that conversation. I, I mean,
I, I'm not sure how much more information we, we need. II, I feel like I'm getting
new information every minute right now. So I don't, I don't know, I don't know what
we would be asked to vote on today. Having a conversation about what, what strategy.
Yeah, I mean, I, I think it's, it's tropical. I don't know. I'm, I'm open either
way. Um,
still struggling with this. Ok. Seems like if we were going to vote to whether to
put it on the ballot, we might want to publish that on the agenda. So Heidi over
Thanksgiving is gonna have and maybe the PT A president
only two people. What song are you gonna do? Not the L it's like schools. Uh, he
just suggested a song. It's Child Five stair steps. I don't know. I have to find
out what I never, I've never, is it that, I don't
know? Oh, ok. Nice. Ok. So I am December 1st and I don't
have a guest yet. Kate is December 8th. I am Chris Mack right now. Oh, that's a good,
I had uh Amanda Christopherson last week and kind of like just having a, a staff
member without like a specific thing to talk about was actually pretty great to just
talk about the job and the path and that people's role in the accounting. I, I enjoyed
that. I think on December 1st would be great to do Aquatic Center Aquatic. Oh, all
right. Let's see. Who should I invite for the cage match then? Um
Dane Armstrong and Jim Scarano.
Uh hm, I mean, who would be the countervailing to Jim Scarran? Now,
we would have enough John Morrow. John Marrow. Um, or carry? All
right, I'll, I'll think on it. That's good. It would be a great cage match. Uh subject
for sure. You want to be constructive though. Of course. I don't really want just
chaos and I mean, I, I kind of want screaming, you know, middle crossing the desk
at the K, I do kind of want that but that's not really very constructive goal.
And it would be nice if it was like, vetted information being shared. Which of course
is
information. What kind of cage match is this high standards? Cage match? Yeah. All
right. I'll, I'll, I'll think on that but it would be, it would be good to have a,
a aquatic center. Maybe we, yeah, I mean, car, he would be the logical person. Um,
but it's,
yeah, I, I almost think like a community member both in favor of the plan on the
table and not, it's, I don't know. Rich shelters. Yeah, he's, I mean, he's chair
of the Jack Jack, right. Jefferson Aquatic Coalitions and also on the Y MC A board
would be the Diane mcdade logical leader for that. I don't know. All right, I'll
think on it. It's, it's intriguing. Chris Macklin. I've got the 15th as well and
then Christmas Evv on the 22nd is Kate. Yeah. And, uh, Jeff Chapman. Jeff Chapman.
What are you guys gonna talk about? Uh, Texas? Is that Christmas Eve 22nd? Hm.
Fun stuff you find under the, all right. I'm obviously slow in, in developing who
I'm bringing. Um,
I did the 17th though, didn't I?
With Amanda?
This is this, I'll share, I'm gonna share a personal anecdote but, and I think I
might have shared this with Kate when we're getting coffee, but we're going to Kawai.
My, my daughter and I, and usually my wife plans all the, uh, trips, like down to
the detail. Not quite as much as Carolyn. I've seen Carolyn's itinerary for Hawaii
and it's like we don't need the minute by minute plan either, but lots of good, good
stuff on that. Yeah. No, that's good. That's very, uh, lots of, very defined options.
But my daughter is afraid of traveling with me. So she's building her first itinerary
ever. She's afraid of traveling. Well, I think, afraid that we're just, what are
we gonna do all day long? That's not gonna plan anything. Sit around and talk about
a, I sit around and talk about a, I, well, she doesn't know this but she needs, she's
not doing great on her at home reading. So we're gonna be reading much ado about
nothing as a, as a, as a pair. But, uh, um, yes. Well, it's also reflected in how
I plan for the radio. Apparently. I was like, oh, who should I invite? Feels like
it would be good to do a Humane Society one soon. They don't have a director still.
Do they hang out?
You're gonna sit up. I see. I'm like, doing one of the other things I'm curious about.
Right. Well, you're gonna have to wait till the New Year because, yeah, that's fine.
I can wait, you can bring Smiley with the, uh, on the 24th. You've got, uh, only
two people with you right now. It's like to fill up the, the studio. Oh, it's ok.
Ok. All right. Well, Kate's better plan than
me. You, you rescheduled Chris Macklin just when we were sitting here, didn't you?
I just emailed him. Yeah. Sounds good. All right. Um, well, we're, we're trying to
get out early. Any other things we're gonna have to take this afternoon. I know,
I love, I mean, I've got a half an hour drive to Brian for my 430 meeting. Like I'm
usually late, so it's ok, but uh be great to get out of here at four. So, um the
ledge update at 330 I don't know, we'll see how it goes. It's they, they know to
speculate. Um and oh, and we did, um I believe other
elected and department directors were invited to that Caroline. Is that correct?
Yes. So it could be a longer conversation. You can just leave it to me and Kate watch
out play geeks over here. I don't think anything is too like controversial or do
we really want to drill down on a couple of things? You know, it's not everybody's
saying it's not the session for anything ambitious. So um accept capacity, you know,
it's my gold star issue this session and you're just looking for the proviso or
proviso proviso. I heard a lot of proviso this last week too. So I had, I mean, it
sounds like an Italian word which might be pronounced that way,
you know, Mark, is it proviso or is it uh proviso is what I might have a,
you just hang out with more sophisticated people, Greg. I'm just Yeah. Well, that's
what we'll talk about my time on community connections. So, are we about to recess?
Yeah. Is there anything else? Um Could I ask for board approval for uh Greg and I
to collaborate on a message to go to our employees prior to Thanksgiving? That'd
be ok. Yep. All right. We'll work over the lunch hour. Yeah, sure. We can, we can
jump into it any time. Ok, great. Um Well, with uh nothing else going on and some
meetings over the noon hour, I will recess until 130 this afternoon have, have a
good and productive lunch.
I wiped out the other night the other day, my first name.
So.
Ok, good afternoon, everyone. I see it's 130 now. So I'll call this, this board of
county commissioners meeting back into session. It's great to have a full house interested
in. Um Let's see which agenda item is it probably the next one about the aquatic
center. So we're gonna have a briefing today. And as I, I said before we started,
we don't have any action on the agenda in front of us. But um uh since so many people
are here and interested. We'll try to accommodate uh people that want to uh give
public input as well after the conclusion of the briefing and questions. So um I
don't know if anyone has any preamble but uh no, I'm just gonna close the windows
a little bit. Oh, ok. A little bit. I had to go get my sweater. It's, yeah, it's
brisk but I just got lots of people in here, get our down jackets. Ok. So uh
Carrie, thank you so much for being here as well as John and then Linda and, and
other members of, of the team. So uh we'll, we'll turn it over to you and, and great.
Thank you Commission, Brotherton. Um Good afternoon county commissioners. My name
is Kerry Height and I work for the City of Port Townsend. I'm the Parks and Recreation
strategy director. You were provided a briefing on this project healthier together,
which really is to rebuild the pool in town about a month ago. And so what I would
like to do is bring you up to date with some recent revisions of the facility and
also talk about the public facilities just district Mark Greeno, one of our bond
councils on the phone, I believe with us today to answer any questions about the
PFD that you might have. So with that, go ahead. Um we have um we had a few
council meetings over the past few weeks that um talked, we talked to council a lot
about some additional revisions to the facility because they were concerned about
it being uh more of a suburban area, but they wanted an entrance from the street
but also from the parking lot so that it accommodates a a and it also accommodates
people driving in from Jefferson County. We looked at the entrance, we looked at
putting a window along Blaine Street. So it's not just a wall facade. They um, voted
to support public showers and it's, and I put the numbers in there. It's additionally
100,000 to construct and 50,000 to operate. And then they reduced the parking lot
by maybe about five spots, 10 spots. And so it's not significant, but you'll see
the, the renditions of it. Go ahead.
Here's the original plan where we had one big parking lot in front and there was
some concerns about, oh, that's just an incredible huge parking lot. It's bigger
than the actual facility itself. And, um, so our architect, um, rolled up his sleeves
and he designed it to the contours of the land. There's like three tables on the
land. And so he's made a couple of parking zones and a building. Go ahead and I'll
show you what that looks like there it is right there. So you can see parking lot,
parking lot two and parking lot one are broken up with civic space outside and then
the middle table that's on the mountain view site hosts the actual pool and facility.
You can see the, the orange, the dark, darker orange spot where it says entry court.
That's what you'll see revised a little bit when we move it out, the entrance out
to the lane with one vestibule from the parking lot and from Blane. Ok. Go ahead.
There's, there's the entrance where you see the, the arrows going in where people
enter into the parking lot, there's a big bike rack out and they enter in from blame.
But there's also an entry from the parking lot to support ad parking.
Go ahead.
So the steering committee's recommendation and let me remind you, the steering committee
is made up of the county and of the city and of the school district and the Port
and of Jefferson Aquatic Coalition and the Y MC A and the hospital commission or
the hospital CEO, excuse me. Um, and they've been meeting for about a year and we
came up with this recommendation, the group did that. They would like to, um, propose
a public facility district at 5.5% which is the current rates right now for a 30
year bond. It's 2/10 of 1% sales tax for every $10. Somebody spends, they would spend
two cents more. Um And the Countywide performers are in your packet. I also have
a slide to talk to talk about that today and the projected cost per person is 10
to $30 a year. The other thing I didn't put on the slide I wanted to mention is that
the sales tax right now, we have some tourism reports out of the state that are reporting
that 20 to 25% of our sales taxes from tourism.
Ok. Go ahead. Here's the performance a little small to read, but you can read it
from top to bottom, from left to right. It's one through five years, six through
1516 through 26 and 27 through 30. Um And you can see that at the end of 30 years,
there's about $14 million of surplus in the bank for operations and replacement parts
for pool. Keep going.
So the public facilities district, um, the, the steering committee is recommending
that it be Countywide because our service delivery area shows um, the Y MC A reports
and from 2014, the reports show that um, 40% of the pool users are from out of town
or from out of the city of Port Townsend. Um They voted the proposing that, um, the
board of commissioners, uh, that's actually incorrect. It's not the board of commissioners
don't vote to put it on the ballot, vote of commissioners vote to um, create the
PFD and the PFD board then that's ceded by the county commission votes on the ballot
language. Um The governing board is appointed by the board of commissioners. There's,
there has to be an independent review and there has to be an independent financial
review from the state before the board of commissioners votes to create the PFD.
And so that's why we're not asking for action today because we really do need to
figure to finalize that independent financial review with a proforma um and public
facilities districts are municipal corporations with independent taxing authority.
And that's what we're proposing that pay for some of the pool. The other piece of
the pool um finances is $17 million of a private philanthropy within the city. So
20 million to bond and 17 million through grants and state and federal appropriations
in Jefferson Aquatic Coalition leading a charge on private philanthropy here in town.
Ok. Next, here's the operational cost summary. I think that's something that um we
need to pay attention to as well. The expenses to operate this pool. Um There is
a complete operational plan in your packet. It's 1.27 million and the revenue that
is projected is 0.84 million with a subsidy of 0.43. I think it's important to note
that the city of Port Townsend is currently subsidizing the pool at $400,000 a year
and um will continue to do so. And so that's a pretty big lift by Port Townsend taxpayers
to subsidize the operations of the pool. But it makes it that this pool is able to
operate with a $30,000 subsidy which can be taken out of the operations and replacement
fund that collects over time over the 30 year time. OK. Next,
this is what I just said, the $30,000 per year, it still considers the city's $400,000
subsidy. Um There's a market analysis in your, in your uh packet. There's some questions
about that market analysis but the projections that are made by Kim Ballard and Associates
were vetted by um Wendy Bart from the Y just to make sure she's comparing them to
the quim MP A numbers from the Y.
And then um it should be noted that if the showers are supported, the additional
$50,000 per year will be needed to operate those showers. OK. Next, so the next steps
um are that we, we um go through an independent financial review and I spoke to the
state today that is at the cost of $15,000 and it takes a month or two to do it expedited
uh three months on a slow route, which is really um doesn't fit with our timeline
to try to get a ballot measure on the ballot in April. And so we're, we'll probably
do the expedited um method. The board of county commissioners adopts a resolution
to form the PFD. The BOCC appoints people to the PFD and the PFD adopts a ballot
language for sales tax by February 20th for an April special election. This is a
pretty tight timeline. So we just need to make sure we line things up and we hit
our targets on those. And so I just wanted to mention that, I wonder if it would
be worthwhile to point out why the April deadline. I think that's that, that's a
great, thank you. Um We have picked the April special election so that there is um
some evidence of community support in order to leverage grants in June for about
$10 million from the nonprofit Y MC A. And so if she goes, uh Wendy Bark can apply
for those grants in June without a public vote. But they're just not that competitive
when they don't show some community support and leverage for that are those annual
grants or they're biannual or every two years next. So with that, I'd like to answer
any questions and we can have some discussion and Mark Greeno who's on the phone
is also can also answer. We brought Mark over. Oh, great. OK. I'll, I'll give you
a chance Mark before we ask questions. If there's anything that you'd like to add,
we'd love to hear from you.
Uh No, I think um the, the, the presentation is quite comprehensive um in, in your
packets, you'll see the, the uh proforma which I think is also um shows a lot of
work has been created. So I expect that the, if this were to be turned in to be blessed
by a financial feasibility review, that's something that the Department of Commerce
could uh perform quite um quite thoroughly and responsibly in the time frame indicated.
But I'm available for any types of questions that you have on this. We've been working
on this for, for quite a while. Thanks, Mark. Thank you, Margaret. Ok. Um You mentioning
packets. What packets are you referring to? Just our, our, our online packet had
the performer in it, our agenda. You mean the agenda? I don't see the documents that
people are was, was the, was the border of county commissioners provided with the
full on that full on study that we, I don't think we have the full on now. Just the
power, the power point you just went through is it might be in your packet from a
month ago, but I'll, I'll email it again if that's where it is. I can find it. I
just, yeah, it is in that one. It's a full report. Ok. The perform is not in there
but I can email it separately to refer to it. So I was wondering where it was. So,
thanks, my apologies.
And um can we clarify whether we are trying to get to um the action, the first action
step today of um is that approving the PFD? Is that you're not going to approve the
PFD today because we need an independent financial review. But what would be really
helpful is to have a vote of support for the steering committee's recommendations
Ok, that's the actual, we're hoping to get to today. So we'll, we'll deliberate and
talk amongst ourselves for a bit and then we will open up for public comment just
before we take any final action today on or even a recommendation. Um, I don't know,
you wanna kick it off, Kate. You've been kind of a representative on this, on the
steering committee. Yes, I have and, um, was involved in previous iterations of this
process as well. Um Even before sitting in this chair, um that I've been sitting
in this chair for seven years. So we know that this represents decades of work. Um
The um I mean, you know, there's been so many questions brought to us and I, we're
not gonna cover all of them today. Um But I, I think my, my overwhelming feeling
about this project is that um is that this community has lost a lot of
resources for families. Um It has lost a lot of families as a result of not having
a lot of resources for families. And I, I say that knowing a number of families who
have left this community because they feel like the lack of services demonstrates
a lack of support for and care for families. Um And so I'm, I am deeply concerned
that we, if we continue not to invest, which is actually divesting in uh the, the,
the services and infrastructure we have um that, that, that trend will continue.
Um you know, in, in many ways, II, I think an MP D would be a better mechanism for
this facility. Uh uh Metropolitan Park District, which is one of the other tools
that local governments have to finance uh projects like this. But um it, it didn't
seem feasible. I mean, the impact to taxpayers by making it a property tax was going
to be hundreds of dollars per residence. Uh of course, depending on the value of
the property. Um, and, and concentrated among fewer people. And we know that the
cost of housing is already a massive burden, um, that gets passed on to renters.
Um I mean, both sales tax and property tax are regressive. We understand that concentrating
it among fewer people, um that it, it, it, that is, is extremely challenging. Um
And, and hits people, you know, they both, both text configurations hit people, but
that felt, um, that felt like a heavier lift and AAA bigger and more detrimental
impact to me than a public facilities district which is spread across a wider, a
wider number of people. But again, is that, that comes in it kind of 10 to $30 per
person per year that seems much more reasonable to me than hundreds of dollars being,
you know, either just given to a smaller number of homeowners or passed on to renters.
Um And that's, that's where I landed on agreeing to the, the PFD as the appropriate
model more, um, more folks paying in a smaller amount. Um And the
reason why this makes sense to me, even on a county wide scale is because this is
a regional facility. Um There are many, many facilities that we all pay into that
are not in our Hamlet that are in a centralized location and that, you know, we can
talk about hospitals, we can talk about community colleges. Um These are things that
we all pay for as taxpayers, but only makes sense, only operate at scale on a regional
scope. Um And so, you know, I just think we, we need to think about this regionally.
Um This is not abstract to me, by the way, I was a, a mother in Quilcene with a,
with a small child and drove all over the place to, to teach him how to swim. Um
I sometimes came to Port Townsend, sometimes went to Bainbridge some because the
pool was better in Bainbridge, went to swim pool was better in swim. Um So, you know,
I, I have lived this but, you know, I wasn't just coming to the pool. I would do
my errands, I would do a doctor's appointment, you know, I would do the things that
people in the county do in Port Townsend anyway because we live regional lives. Um
So, yeah, I mean, I just think this, this is how infrastructure gets built, this
is how our country has always built infrastructure. It is how every single public
facility that you use, not necessarily a PFD but taxpayers sharing the cost of building
infrastructure. This is nothing new. This is, I mean, the fact that this is like
so unusual to this community, I think actually represents the, the the lack of investment
in the community that we have not even considered this kind of um effort before.
As the problem, we haven't done that investment. This is how it's done. These facilities
are built all over the country all the time. This is not like something radical and
crazy. Um So I am in support of this. I have been for a long time. I think we have
done our best to try to get the cost down. I think 10 to $30 per person per year
is a very small amount to pay for massive uh uh improvement of facilities available
to all in our community. Um I talked about families because I raised my kids here
who of course will be long gone by the time this is built. But um but it has benefits
for so many people for mobility impaired, for the elderly. Um There's, there's just
a ton of benefit um for I think a really pretty small investment and just like, I
don't go to the community college. I'm happy to pay for the community college. That's
the kind of world I want to live in. Um So I am in favor of uh uh supporting the
steering committee recommendations. Thank you, Kate.
I have more questions than statements. Not because I've been involved in this. Yeah,
pretty deeply on the steering committee. I have fewer questions. Yeah, I'm not gonna
get on my soapbox. I'm just gonna say one thing that strikes me is that the proponents
of this effort have committed to raising $17 million. I've been part of a number
of massive capital campaigns. Those are nothing to sneeze at. That's a huge effort.
So I'm curious about that plan to raise the 17 million. You've mentioned multiple
sources of funding, but I would like to see more some, some flesh on those bones,
um which we can speak to if you're, if you want us to today. And then, you know,
I, I understand that this is a massive capital investment for the community, but
2/10 of 1% is twice as much as we invest in housing or behavioral health in our community
currently of sales tax. So it's, you know, is we have to make our choices. So
that's, that's striking to me. Um We give 1/10 of 1% for homelessness and affordable
housing and we give 1/10 of 1% for mental health services in our community. Those
are state um authorized.
I've heard a lot of input most of the input I've gotten because I represent district
two is about a district two location somewhere in the middle of the county, the HJ
Carroll Park and I spent three hours last night on the map viewer, the county map
viewer and identified a number of parcels now that I know that this is about 2.5
acres of the mountain view campus that are both publicly and privately owned in the
phase one sewer boundary. So I've heard a lot of people saying we can't sewer it,
we can't, we don't have the infrastructure. I don't, I don't buy that subsidy. That's,
that's not nothing. No. But I mean, I'm just saying that the arguments that have
been coming at me pro for and against the pool. A number of them don't hold a lot
of water for me. So I'm trying to get to the bottom of like having a basis of information.
We haven't had a chance to read all of the comments we've received. So I'm not gonna
vote for any motion today because I haven't had the opportunity. This is all going
very fast, too fast, in my opinion. And, um, I haven't had an opportunity to hear
from everybody and I've said a number of times as a commissioner, that's my number
one priority.
Is to hear what folks have to say. And I last night, spent a three hours, another
three hours making a little table for myself of all the people who were pro and why
and con and why. And I, so I'm a little bit more, I need to like, dig into the weeds
a little bit. So it's, it's not something I'm ready to vote on today and I haven't
been on a committee, um, with you all. Um, some people and some something got under
my cry last night of why haven't you been at these meetings? There's been all these
public meetings and they were scheduled when the commissioners had other meetings
and it's not city meetings that we haven't been at. So if there are people in the
room here who are organizing meetings, it's not because we don't want to be there
and hear what's, what's being said because have you looked at our calendars? They're
crazy. And all three of the first meetings were scheduled when we had standing important
meetings. So we just can't make everything work for everybody all at the same time.
Um, I am really glad to hear that the public showers got shuffled into the deck in
the last iteration. That was something I said at the first time I heard about this
project is I spent my life on the, the western coast of the United States on a commercial
fishing boat with my family. And every time we pulled into port, we'd look for the
public shower or the, I mean, the port has them so we wouldn't have to come to your
pool. But, you know, if people are here in their rvs or they're here camping in the
summer, having amenities for folks that aren't just pool users is really important
to me and having public showers is important. So I'm glad that we've moved in that
direction. Um, let's see. I had my own little list.
Yeah, I have a lot of questions about the $17 million. Well, I think it's a good
time to ask it. This is, that's what we're here for. So, why don't you take a moment
and dig into that? So, how long are you anticipating that it will take to raise $17
million? Well, if, if um, when April comes and goes for an election, it takes about
a year to design a facility. Actually, we don't have a design. We have schematics,
right? So it takes about a year and between now and that year, complete year 24 to
25 is the $70 million window. So that would be raised from Jefferson Aquatic Coalition.
It would also be raised. Hopefully we'll here in June or July. If the Y is successful
with the $10 million there, it's two different $5 million grants from the state.
Um, that, that, that is driving the timeline showing a match for that. And then there's
also, um, some efforts that the city can do to go after some state and federal appropriations.
Are you going in for that, uh, that new RCO grant, the facilities grant? The 1.2.
0, we are gonna go for that for the skate park lights. Ok. The one with no match,
right? Yeah,
that answer your question, Heidi. Yeah, I mean, I could talk about a capital campaign
for hours, but I'm not gonna waste everybody's time. Can I also provide a clarification?
Um We, I have talked to Wendy at the Y and the steering committee is recommending
that the Y operate the facility and she has um budgeted some numbers to provide swim
lessons for quilting chimica and Brennan as well as Port Townsend to for kids. She
has not contacted the school districts yet. So we don't know if they're interested
at all, but she does did figure it out in part of her budget.
And so it's been said to me that we looked at locations outside of Port Townsend
in the very beginning. I don't remember reviewing those. We looked at HJ Carroll,
ok. You looked at es Vista and HJ Carroll Ok.
I think that's the end of my questions. Um, well, I appreciate the, the, the project
that, you know, I, I think that the, the pool is something that we should invest
in. I think it could be a real keystone for our, our community. I'm, I mean, I've
heard a lot from my constituency as well. You know, I've heard some people that are
really invested in the infrastructure that the pool would represent. And I've heard
from 10 times that many that feel that it isn't equitable that everyone gets taxed.
The same for an amenity in Port Townsend. I have to say, I agree with them. I think
that it is the PFD and, and I think, you know, at our first meeting, I said, I don't
think that's gonna fly down south where, you know, um, and as I said, this morning,
if we were at county with a different geography where Port Townsend was in the center
of the county, it would, it would be a really different calculation than when I consider,
um, putting a ap sales tax on, on folks in Brennan or the west end. I have heard
someone suggest Quiets Clearwater would be a great location for a pool. But, um,
I, you know, that didn't, I don't think they were entirely serious. Um So, I mean,
I believe that the closer you are to the pool, the more the pool increases the value
of your place. I think an MP D as Kate, you know, referenced earlier. I know it's
a more challenging lift to get to that 60% but it's uh it gives a direct benefit
to the property values of the houses in Port Townsend. That 40% number that you said
40% of the, the clients who come from outside of Port Townsend. I'd be curious seeing
a more granular examination. I mean, I, I don't think that means that, you know,
people from Port Ludlow who have a pool or Cala Point who have a pool or Cape George,
who have a pool are coming out. So, um I want to find a way to get to a pool, but
I'm really, um I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm not in favor of the PFD as the, as the uh funding
mechanism. I mean, the, the design, we had another, you know, alternatives pushed
forward, you know, suggested uh public comment this morning that are a much less
substantial kind of infrastructure. And I think if we want to build the kind of uh
facility that's gonna last for decades, that where you're on the right path, design
wise, you know, for my, you know, limited knowledge of this, but I'm, I'm, I'm supportive
of a collaborative design that, that, that sort of process seems like the right path
but the funding mechanism. Um I just, I feel like the, the, the prime service area
is Port Townsend and they should take the first bite of the apple. So that's kind
of where I am right now. Um Any other thoughts before we take public comment questions
or Carrie or John L to anyone else from the team that wants to, to make a comment,
we'd love to hear from you. I'll just um remind you that. Um I, I know that when
you and I talked, we talked about, you know, Port Townsend lifting a heavier lift
than the rest of the county. And I think that Port Townsend is with that $400,000
subsidy for operations of the facility. That's that equates to at least $4 million.05
million dollars of construction costs. And um that's the, the payment that would
be due every year for $5 million. And so that I just wanted to remind you that I
think that that represents some taxes from Port Townsend. Yeah, I, I think that's
true. I think it also reifies the idea that it is a Port Townsend pool. I mean to
me, but I, I do, I, I do hear you and I know that's, that's real and I, I, that's
why I don't take very seriously the idea of, of, you know, putting it Jima Park.
That's another suggestion. It would be a great location for a pool. We're gonna have
more density there. We don't have budget capacity built in to uh to take over that
subsidy. So I, I acknowledge that the best place for it right now is Port Townsend,
but also recognize that it's a Port Townsend pool. Right. Right. Yeah, I, it, it's
interesting. I, I, I'm not dug this up for a while but a couple of iterations ago,
um, there was a market analysis done that showed pretty clearly you need to be in
a population center for these facilities to pencil and there needs to be enough action
people coming in neighborhoods density in order to support a facility like this.
At that time, the county was deemed uh uh you know, inappropriate for
operationally covering the cost of a facility like this. And um I, I can't believe
that has changed. Um And you know, there have been a number of large retailers who
over the years have talked about moving into the tri area region and have deemed
it also, you know, just simply not enough commercial activity to, to warrant. Um
So I, you know, while I get that, it makes sense to think about a more central location,
I think getting that performer to work would be even trickier. And you know, these
are, these are we are working on best available information. Uh But this is tools
that the private sector uses as well to determine where they're gonna make investments.
And I think we have to take very seriously that this is the hub of our county currently.
Is that gonna change with the sewer, maybe there will be another hub um which is
great. Um, obviously I'm committed to that, but I wasn't suggesting, I mean, I don't,
I don't, I don't take it, I don't think that, I think you're right, but it would
be much more challenging. It, it, it does belong here. And I, I think that it also,
to your point earlier, I think it, a pool, a new pool would be a public benefit for
all around the county. It wouldn't only benefit poor Townsend. I hope I'm not saying
that I'm just saying that it primarily, you know, I mean that if that same population
that is required to make a pencil is also the primary beneficiary of the infrastructure,
which is why people in the city pay city taxes and county taxes too. I mean, you
know, there are more services you pay for them in the city. But I mean, this is a,
this is how regional services work. Um and Port Townsend is the second most expensive
place to own a house in the entire state. I mean, Port Townsend is expensive to live
in and has an incredibly tight real estate market because it's incredibly desirable
to live in. Creating new services adds to both of those things. It adds to expense
and it also adds to the desirability of living in the city. Putting a pool in Port
Townsend adds, I would say zero to property values in Brenham. I mean, you know,
some people you could go to a pool it would be closer to drive to the Bainbridge
Island pool or, you know? Aw. So, yeah, I, I don't, I'm not sure the connection between
property value increases. I think that the, the value is in, um, it's in health,
it's in safety, it's in, um, other things, not typically. I mean, MP DS. Yes, you
can make that more rational connection to property values. But, um, yeah, that's,
that, I don't, I don't think that PF DS pretend to increase property values. No,
I'm saying that the pool would increase at least the, the, the buff on it, the amenities
and uh for a community, the property, it would be a buff on the property values in
Port Towns and it wouldn't be a buff on the property values and Brennan. So I think
it just looking at through an equitable lens. I feel like it helps the people of
Port Townsend more than it helps people of Brennan or the West End certainly. Or
even even Chemica, though there will be people that come from all, all over the county,
you know, smaller proportions from other areas. But so talk to Heidi. Um
she's joking, um
all public comments to Commissioner Eisenhower from now on. Um, so I guess just to
get feedback from the public today, should we focus on the, the question that's for
us, which is the PFD less than design of the place? I mean, we've chosen location,
I think we're or do you want, do you want it all? I'm very interested in
whether there's still a conversation about location. I mean, that's,
that's the principal batch of input. I've gotten probably a couple 100 pieces of
input without putting in the dry area. So I haven't. Can you tease that out? What,
what would I mean to you? What would that look like? I don't know. That's why I'm
still digesting. I mean, you, you've seen how much input we got in the last 24 hours
and I haven't had a chance because I've been sitting here with you guys to read it
all. So, you know, I do really feel I need to digest the input that I've received
and I'm sorry if I'm slow and I did stay up, I did read all day yesterday. But um
you know, I, I have to think um we're still talking about this, right? That's why
you guys are all here.
Absolutely. I do have one more question, clarifying question. Um Some of the comments
that I've heard have talked about like the capacity to staff a larger facility and
I am wondering if you can speak to your experiences with that. We know that the Y
is offering fewer services at mountain view than they did pre panem. There's a lot,
I mean, we, we have the same challenge in child care and health care and a lot of
other industries. Um And what's, what's what? Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about
that. Yeah, I can. Um, Wendy was unable to be here today. So, um, I'll, I'll address
it. Um, Wendy has, um, has hope that this is the post pandemic levels of staffing
and that, that it's gonna plateau and, and pick up a little bit. She's seeing more
high school kids interested in jobs these days. And so that's helpful. It's been
mostly high school kids. It's first jobs that they come, they do daycare or they
do childcare, lifeguarding or something. And so she's seen that tick up a little
bit over the past six months. And so she's hopeful that she'll get back to that pre
panem level of service. And that's their goal. The wise goal at mountain view. 01
other thing that has been raised a couple of times is uh uh reconstruction costs.
And um, can you speak to that? I don't, I don't know if you guys were doing a little
bit more study on that. Yeah, we, it's been an iterative process. We started with
a pretty large facility and we narrowed it down just to an aquatic facility only.
There's been some interest in the community of um, the sprung.com. The, the sprung
facilities which are um membranes, they're fabric membranes that I talked to a person
this morning from sprung.com and, and they actually have 25 year lifelines. And so
you'd have to replace it a couple times over the course of a 50 year facility that
we're building. So, um I've also talked to another agency out of Oregon that um can
did a detailed analysis between a custom, you know, stick, build a stick and mortar
built facility to a membrane facility. And it's about the same cost because you have
more costs to replace the membrane a couple times within the life of the facility.
And so it's not, it, the benefit of a sprung.com is that the, the building time is
expedited, but not necessarily the cost. It just depends on, you know, if you decide
to build a bricks and mortar for family changing rooms and binary locker rooms and
staffing and, and lifeguards and parking lots. And I mean, you have a lot that goes
into that facility. It's just a roof membrane that goes a shell that goes over the
pool, you can make the shell go over the internal um construction as well and the
locker rooms, but it still doesn't save that much money. And so, um the, the actual
design that we're looking at is, is designed by an aquatics um company and also an
architect that designs pools. And so we're confident that it's a good design and
solid design. Well, could, could I have something briefly sorry to jump in? Um Maybe
one thing if you're thinking about cost, the other thing worth considering, I think
I said that last time we were here was um the current facility, you know, the grace
of those who operated at the Y and the facilities team at the city and the users
who use it gently. Um We've been able to get 60 something years of life out of it,
about 60 actually. Um which is great. But I think, you know, the, the path forward
is um if you choose to give the voters a chance to weigh in on, on, this is um the
current life of the facility, which is, it's probably past its life. Um, and it's
on life support, those who I hear giggles from those who probably use it and are
very aware of that. So, you know, I don't, this is not meant to instill fear. We're
gonna keep on trying to operate it as it is for as long as we can. Um, that's increasingly
hard to do with costs. Um, we just had to authorize $100,000 to patch the roof for
the third time and after that, we can't actually patch it anymore. It actually comes
down. Um, so it will be a really a decision on whether we have a pool or not in the
region. No, thank you for that clarification. I guess I have one more question about
the, the public showers. I think it's great to consider that amenity. I mean, 50,000
operations seems like a lot you're talking about separate, freestanding showers,
right. Freestanding showers, three of them. Well, see a building the same sort of
things you can buy the prefab shower units. Is that what you're talking about? No,
it's built. If you want to pull it up again, it's built, it's designed right now
on the back of the facility. So they're free, the people can use them without going
through the facility and they're freestanding. So I know that the Y is not interested
in operations of showers because they've had some difficulty over the years. But
it would probably be behoove us to find a nonprofit inside in our inside Port Townsend
or Jefferson County that would operate them. The showers are on the bottom right
hand side right there, right. Um Mark to the right, right there, there's three that
are external right to the parking lot in the sidewalk. So if I may um in response
to advocates who are saying that um they don't want there to be um any sort of background
check or need for ID in order to use those facilities. And the Y MC A for its, you
know, security insurance purposes needs to have that level of risk management. Um
So it, and just let poor people use the showers inside the facility, which they have
been doing for years at mountain view. Um But it does require showing um identification
and um you know, so in their operating model, that's, that's, that's how they operate
and advocates are really pushing for these amenities. Um And with no, um with no
need for identification. So it's, it is a very different, it's adding on an entirely
different purpose than what the Y yeah, than the, the services that the Y provides.
That's the, the Y it's separate. No, the why we can get in here?
Ok, great. Thank you. You're welcome. All other questions I would love to hear from.
All right. So can I see again? Uh a high hands on how many people got? All right,
I think we we've got Oh, yeah, online too if you can. Um I think we're gonna have
to do 11 minute just to, to give everyone an opportunity. Um Yeah, and we can start
with the members of the steering committee that would like to make public comment.
And can I see AAA sign online too? Can you raise your hand if you're in? Oh, we have
three already.
Um ok. Uh Great. Well, we'll just do one minute and, and give everyone time and uh,
great. So, uh let's begin. Superintendent. Good afternoon. I'm Doctor Linda Rosenberry,
superintendent of the Port Townsend school district. The school district has offered
their land for low lease for this project because we believe it's an equity issue.
So if you look at throughout Jefferson County, the most kids experiencing poverty
are in the Port Townsend school district. And so locating this pool near them near
public transportation right next to a bus stop will provide those opportunities for
our young people who are right now. Many are struggling more than ever with suicidal
idea, substance abuse. And if they had a place like this aquatic center to go to
build community, to build skills and to feel valued by their county, it would make
a huge difference. My concern is that our current pool will fail soon and we will
have to bus our students to Port Angeles or swim, to learn how to swim and we will
lose more and more families. And so our enrollment going down and we will have less
services for students in Port Townsend school district and across the county. If
Jefferson County is not a place that invests in its young people. Thank you very
much. Thank you so much. All right. Uh Any other steering committee members that
would like to make comment, John, do you want to say anything? Oh,
I don't think I need to say much. I mean, I've been, I've been really lucky to be
part of this iteration of the process for, for the time that I've been here. Um And
I don't take it lightly that it's a pretty big ask of the whole county um to think
about a regional facility. Um I will say, you know, I, I've probably said this a
lot of times because I've come up to speed with the history of this project because
we've tried to do it for decades and it right kind of gets down to the wire and then
it falls apart. And I guess we're hoping that because the partners, which is an extraordinary,
you know, group of, of, of agencies and committed people. Uh, we've gotten this far.
It would be a real shame for it to fall apart. And partly because, you know, look,
I'm also a dad and I also care about kids in our region. Um, but also I do feel like
the amenities in Port Townsend are on the decline, uh for families and young people
and it has me gravely concerned about this future of this, of this community. So,
um I guess just thinking forward, um we have an opportunity now that's not very,
uh it's fast uh to Commissioner Eisenhower's point um to maximize the external subsidy
for this and, and our partners um really requires a, a quick, quick action and I
guess it's the city's hope that the efforts we put to this, um the $400,000 worth
of subsidy that we put in every year plus a little extra for facilities. Um And actually,
um if I could speak to finding somebody of carry heights caliber in the state to
actually lead this initiative, um This is not your first rodeo, you've built pools,
you've operated parks, uh dis uh uh parks departments and other cities much larger
than ours. Uh You know, that actually also was a pretty significant uh subsidy if
you want to use that word from the city over the course of three years to lead that
project uh at about half a million dollars um all up. So, you know, we, we've kind
of put our money where our mouth mouth is in terms of how much we want to contribute
based on how big we think the impact is regionally. Um We stand by that and we hope
we can continue to work in partnership to see it through. Thank you, Mr Ma. All right,
do we? Yes, Phil. Come on up. Thank you, Kate Dean for your, uh, thoughts on regionalism.
Uh, you know, I vote for every school bond. I don't have kids in this town. Um, the
superintendent addressed the need for young services. There is not a community I
can think of it needs whose demographic needs a pool more than this town. There's
no better exercise and aquatic exercise for people my age. And, you know, I've been,
I've been a swimmer that swimmer forever. And the other thing, I'm just gonna say
it. If you want to build this out the shower facility, you need to talk to Aaron
Beg at the Port first. Thank you.
Yeah, it's a terrible podium there. Whoever comes up to speak to you, who else would
like to come out in the room, please.
Mm. Hi. I, I just wanted to say that it really needs to be thought of regionally
and that, um, there's a current pool in Port Townsend and I wouldn't say not only
because of the state of it, but it does not boost my property value. So it's kind
of a false equivalent that we're building some spa and we're gonna like the people
in Port Townsend are gonna have this great bump to their real estate value. But I
think that um I think that the momentum of all of all of Betty, everybody coming
together rather than it's not gonna work because we're not gonna use it. And I guarantee
you if Jefferson County is on board with older people, if they break a hip and there
is therapy that's available at the pool, people from outside of Port Townsend will
come. I was living in on Bainbridge and there was so much negativity about building
a new pool back in the day. Everybody thought the old pool was just fine and there
is so much community community that you can't even imagine that happens when you
have a pool where people can gather and it's not. Oh, you're from Quill scene. You
can't come. It's our Port Townsend pool. That's all I'm saying. Come together, come
together. Thank you. All right. Yeah, Mr Scarin
one hour to save 25 $27 million and change his entire entire conversation. Contact
mclean sprung, get a zoom call with him. Address all your concerns to him. They are
building state of the art pools that they are designed to last decades around this
country. Uh The membrane does be replaced but not the rest of the building and the
cost of the membrane replacement. Ask him about it. I contacted him about the humidity
concerns. There's zero, there's zip. How can you justify going forward and not contacting
the world leader in an alternative technology that is being used by communities around
this country so that they can afford a pool, a sprung structure that slashes cost
by 50%. And the financing costs could conceivably be shouldered by a PFD city limits
that would change everything. Contact mclean sprung, get a Zoom call from him before
you decide anything. How else could you justify this to the voters that you're going
forward on this? And you haven't considered a cheaper alternative being used by other
communities around the country? Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Sure. In the back. Come
on up.
People queued up. Oh, yeah. Let's, can I see who else would be? We'll, we'll go with
you next and then hi, I live in the county. I drive about 15 minutes to get to the
pool. I have been coming to it for 33 times a week for 26 years. It has it gotten
me through three hip surgeries. And, uh, I know of many of my friends that come to
the aerobics class. They live in the county, they live in Cape George, they live
in Chimica, they live in Marist and even, uh, some have come from Quilcene. So
I know that for kids it's very important, but it's also important for the seniors
and I know of at least two in our current group that come because it cures their
depression and helps with their social issues. Thank you. Thank you so much. All
right, sir. And when, and then you first it is well thought of here.
Um, so you're district three, you have people that are gonna take a three hour drive
to come here. That doesn't make sense. Three hours to come to a swimming pool when
they're driving by swim, that has the same pool already. So that doesn't work. Those
that live over by Quim are gonna go to s swim versus drive all the way around it
again, doesn't buy off that it's beneficial to them two and I don't mean insulting
to all parties in this room, but we're old enough. We remember the Sears Wish book
and if I sat my child down with that Sears Wish book and said, what do you want?
I'm gonna have a long list. That picture is not a swimming pool. That's a big complex.
That's a lot of money. The complaint here is we need another pool, then stick to
the pool. Stay focused. Somebody here or more has lost the focus and
has lost the picture on getting a pool asking too much. Thank you, sir. And you,
and then you're gonna be next. And then sir in the, in the blue and then Gabe after
the gentleman in the blue. Having raised four Children, teaching every one of them
to swim at the Y which is a for profit organization. So we're gonna pay somebody
$400,000 a year to run a taxpayer funded building. There are hundreds of Children
in this county that will never benefit from that taxpayer funded building. They're
too far away. Their parents work two and three jobs. They don't have the money for
it. They can't pay the fees to get in to think that it's gonna benefit the elderly
and it's just a little tax. I paid for the ladies groceries in front of me at the
store today because she told the cashier to stop at a certain number and the
pile of food that was food
was gonna get left behind. That means she's not gonna eat.
Pools are a good thing. They're great for the kids. It needs to be a pool, not a
complex. The people here cannot afford it. Some of them can't afford it. Not $30
because they can't pay for their food already. You need to think about it. Modesty
is good. Thank you. All right. Yes. And then sir in the Chambre followed by Gabe
and then we'll go to the white shirt. Yeah, we're gonna do it in person that will
go online. All right. Good afternoon. I'm Diane mcd and Heidi. I want to introduce
myself to you. I'm working on the project to raise the money. And I'd be happy to
brief you on it and give you more details just for clarity. Um The Jack organization
set a goal of raising 3 million. Um We may have to up that, but we, um when we talk
about the 17 million, we're anticipating that those state grants would be in the
neighborhood of 10 to 11 and that we might get some federal help too. I will say
that fundraising is going to be hampered without any certainty at all about what
we're actually gonna build or what, you know, what's gonna happen. And I would encourage
everybody to keep this on track now as a viable idea, that final decision doesn't
need to be made now. But it super terrific to see that we can keep moving ahead with
this feasibility study so that we get some independent review of all the finances
which I'm sure everybody is interested to see and then other ideas are talked about.
Yes, but I'm, I'm hesitant to see things just slow down now because we are gaining
a great deal of momentum. I don't want to go into all the details, but we have raised
already a considerable sum of money when the original pool was built, the Kiwanis
Club contributed the funds. I think there's lots of people who want to help out the
taxpayer the way it's structured. All the taxpayers in the county will only pay 40%
of this entire construction cost, the rest will come from the other tax, the other
sales tax paid by tourists and from donations by individuals and by the feds and
the state. So, 40% is pretty darn good deal for a project like this. Thank you. Thank
you, Diane. We'd love to hear you back. I'm sure we'd love to all. I'll hear more
of the information on, on the fundraising. That's great information. All right. Yes,
sir. In the, in the blue,
I think you're not even there to the point where you should be looking at this. You,
I don't think you've done your research, your homework. You can't tell me right now
how many different people that's non duplicated. Use the pool each week? Those figures
aren't out. I don't think you've done the homework of how often do the people use
the pool? Are this specific days when pool traffic is heavier, which the individual
aging groupings, what are the hourly breakdowns of the usage? Basically getting a,
a profile of who you're aiming at and it's not there. We don't even know how the
research was conducted. Was it re uh daily log questionnaire interview, whatever.
So before you start jumping on, we gotta do this, know who the hell you're serving.
And that's not from what I've seen and I just got involved in this thing. It's not
there yet. So go step by step, don't jump and I keep on hearing the word community,
but you keep on talking about the county. Well, which one is it? Because I'm hearing
both you're saying community, but you're doing a broad span and you're looking at
more of community as poor Townsend and it either it's poor Townsend or it's the whole
county, but then you better have enough people to back it up. Thank you, sir. All
right. Ok.
Thank you, Gabe Bentley live. Uh I'm in support of this project for many of the reasons
that have already been stated. I do live here in Port Townsend. I have young Children.
They don't know how to swim because we don't make it to Port Townsend or, or uh Port
Angeles or swim frequently enough to support that yet. I hope to either do that or
um, that we get a new pool here. Um, as to the size of this proposed facility, as
I understand, it's important to have a cooler pool for exercise, including the high
schools and including the out of town high schools that would be able to compete
here and then a warmer pool for Children. And um just people who like a warmer pool
for exercise. I believe this does not include a like therapy level, um, uh,
pool or a lot of other amenities that are desired, but that have been left off this
plan um, in respect to trying to keep it right sized for the project. Uh Lastly,
I was in Port Angeles last weekend for a birthday party and there were probably 12
families from Port Townsend there. We were half of the people in the facility. Thank
you. Thank you. All right. And sir, in the white moon and then who else in the room?
Is one? Ok. You're next.
Yeah, when we moved here, uh 35 years ago, my wife was a copy editor for the leader.
And at that time, uh the city council would always say
call in the experts from Ch Two M Hill. Ok. And I guess that that's, that's the thing
that I'm seeing right now. The picture that you had on there doesn't have anything
to do with the actual place that you can see um uh where the, where the
pool is now because the hill goes right up behind it. Ok. And
this is the, this is a, this is an architectural design that was
made by somebody in the Midwest or something. It's like uh it's like that pool is
out in the middle of Oklahoma. It's not in Port Townsend. Ok. That's the, that's
the first thing. The second thing is wrap it up. Sorry that, that's, that's a minute.
Ok, that's it. Ok. Thank you very much and sorry that, that, that sound for everyone.
That's the minute. So when you hear that, that lovely sound, if you could just kind
of wrap it up and finish your thought, I, I don't want to cut people off. Um I am
a part of the swim team and I wanted to stress the need for a pool because when this
one breaks down, we will not have a place to compete nor have practice. And personally,
the swim team has brought me from a place of being completely not ok to a person
who goes out and does things, you know. Um, it's a great way to exercise and all
the people on the swim team love it so much. And I was at the pool this morning practicing
and there's not enough space anymore. I was sharing a lane with like six other people
and when, you know, we have to lap swim and we're all swimming different paces, it
doesn't work and we need to have a pool that has a deep end so we can dive and it
needs to be the temperature we swim in because swimming in a hot pool is not, it's
not good. You know, we can't go the speed we're supposed to go when it's hot. So
we need a pool. Thank you so much. Perfect. Thanks for your time. Yeah. Come on.
Hi. Um I'm also part of the swim team and um, this is a big stressor in my life
because we definitely need a new pool. Um, somehow our team makes it to state. I
mean, every year that I've been in high school, we've made it to state even though
the pool that we have currently is not the yardage that we should be swimming in
and so we have to work extra hard. And as a lifeguard there, I also see there's so
many people who use it and there is quite frankly not enough space. Um, just every,
everyone's very kind about sharing everything, but it's a very small pool when you
actually go into it and it's very old and the way that we cool it down is with a
hose and like it's not, it needs to be, there needs to be a new pool. So thank you
so much. Anyone else in the room, Jane, please,
Jane Armstrong. This morning, I spoke to the need but the people in the room have
spoken to it much better. This pool was designed um on the site where it is into
that hillside and there are other drawings that will show how it was built to accommodate
here and with the input from the community, and I'd like to just draw the comparison
on the funding side. Um We found through the Jefferson Land trust through our housing
initiatives, the initiatives to save land down around Brennan and in Quilcene that
we're having to layer the funding that there are grants that there's private funds
that we're finding common interests. Sometimes it's the Navy, sometimes there's other
groups and that's really what's making this work this time. As we have seven partners
who are together. After over a year, we have those groups reaching out to identify
the sources and the timing of when those grants become available and to where less
than 40% or 40% of the total costs, taxpayer paid and then dispersed among where
the tax is collected and who's paying it in the county. So I don't know how much
finer you can get than that. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Armstrong. Yes,
I'd like to respond to the gentleman who asked, who's looked at who's gonna use this
pool? The Y MC A in 2014 did a very careful study, a very thorough market survey
of the entire community. It was a statistically accurate sample of all community
uh areas they called 805 people. Three of those people currently use the mountain
view pool. Over 30% of the 800 people said they would often use a new pool.
So looking backwards at who's using the mountain view pool is not gonna give you
at all accurate data who would use a new pool and many people in the community who
don't use a blue pool because it's too short. They don't like the locker rooms, they
don't like the chlorine system. You, you name it. If you build a pool which addresses
the community needs, the community will come and use it. Thank you. I really give
a tip on the way out. Yeah, I got that big legs. Anyone else in the room like to
make comments? Yes, please come on up in public, but I've been on several iterations
for, I've been here for over 40 years to try and get it. It's not just for the kids,
it's not just for the old folks. It's for everybody. This is what we had between
seven and nine today alone, just seven and nine people are using this facility. And
as you said, if we have a newer facility that will have more people, we'll get more
people. Thank you. Anyone else in the room like to make comment today. All
right. Well, let's, let's turn online. If anyone changes their mind, we'll come back
to the room and let's let's bring, uh, I need 030. Yep. All right.
Star Six Avenue. So to the person on the phone ending in 030, if you hit Star Six,
you can unmute. Once you get yourself unmuted, we'll, we'll give you a minute to
share your thoughts.
Good afternoon. Um, I have, I have 22 questions or more points. Um, first of all,
the question of subsidy, the city of Port Townsend is gonna be subsidizing by $400,000
a year. Well, the half of the people in the county who will never have access to
the pool because it's simply not practical for them to use it. That th the half of
the 30,000 people in the county who are gonna be paying that, uh, that tax, that's
gonna be another 3 to $400,000 of subsidy to the pool from the county, not from the
city. So let's uh, let's do apples and apples. Second question or point is, are you
sure about the process by which this p this public facility district is gonna be
formed just by a resolution of the county commissioners without any public vote,
without any public process, creating a new governmental entity with taxation authority
that just seems uh out of bounds. So, uh, I don't think that's gonna be legal, but
I hope, I hope it's not. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll respond to that question.
After we finish public comment, we can, we can address any questions that come up.
Ok. Uh Do you bring in 165 over?
All right. And phone number ending in 165, you have one minute to share your thoughts.
Hi, this is Marcia Kalban in Quilcene. And uh Greg, I just wanna take this opportunity
to say, I agree with your position on this. So that's wonderful. Uh You know, we,
we are uh I'm 45 minutes from co towns in here. Buron is like an hour. I, I don't
even talk about the west end. I don't know if there's any way to exclude them. I,
I'll, I'll always go to that for kids. Um I think having a great, a new pool is,
is a great idea, but it should be, as people keep saying, a regional uh item centrally
located that is not Port Townsend that is Havelock. And, and if we're looking at
a six year lifespan that is where the growth is gonna be happening. The average age
in Havelock tri area is like 15 years younger than port towns. And, uh, and I, I
know older folks, uh, it's expensive for anybody to drive. At least they can do it.
Working parents with kids, they're not gonna be able to make that drive even if they
could afford it, which in today's environment is really questionable. So I'd advocate
slow it down. Let's do this. Uh you know, so take the time to do something that's
gonna last for a long time for decades. And I don't think it should be port T uh
thank you very much. Thank you, MS felon. All right, let's bring uh John Nowak over.
Ok. Uh John, you should be able to speak there when you unmute yourself and you have
a minute. Hi, everyone. Um, just a couple of points real quickly. Uh, as a member
of the steering committee, I, I just wanna say that I'm uh really impressed with
the work of that group and of the consultants and I think it's been uh a very thoughtful
process and I know a lot of questions that have come up in the room today have been
reviewed by that group and uh have been looked into and, uh, you know, I believe
our recommendation represents the best, uh uh you know, the best, best possible plan
to move forward. Also, in terms of the PFD versus the MP D, just wanna make you aware
that as a school board member, um we are concerned about using an MP D for funding
the, the pool because of the impacts on uh potential school funding uh that might
be subsequent to the to the uh uh uh pool funding. So just be aware of that and take
that into consideration as you make your decision. Thank you. Thank you, Mr Nowak.
All right. Uh Let's unmute Mister Cook and get yourself unmuted. You have one minute
to share your thoughts,
Mr Cook. It looks like you're unmuted, but we can't hear you,
Mister Kirk. We can come back to you if you're having other problems, but it looks
like you're unmuted but uh cannot hear anything
taking his hand down. No, he put his hand back on. I'm just giving them play by play.
You guys can't see there. I want everyone to be in the loop. Um All right. Well,
we still can't hear you, Mister Cook. Well, I'm gonna go and see if there's anyone
else in the room and we'll come back to you and try to give you another chance. Anyone
else in the room? Yes, please come up.
Hello. Thank you. Um This reminds me a lot about crop one where this
county lost funding for low income housing by a 70 to 30% vote. We have a room full
of proponents, I realize this, but instead of wasting time and money,
why don't we try to bring more people onto a plan that more people are agreeable
to like maybe central county? Thank you. Thank you very much.
All right, we're gonna go back to Mr Cook. Um, you can always try to call in on the
telephone as well. Want you cook and we can unmute you that way, can you? Uh. Ok.
Yeah.
Ok. All right. Anyone else online that would like to make a public comment we'd love
to hear from. You. See, uh, Wendy Bart there too. You wanna see if Wendy wants to
come over and say anything? Mhm.
Mm.
Ok. Well, Mister Cook, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you one more chance to try to get
the, uh, the, the tech sorted out.
No, nothing. Ok. I, I see Wendy has come over and Wendy, I don't know, uh, if you
have anything you'd like to add, but I wanna give you a chance as part of the steering
committee and great to hear the wise interested in, in, in the, uh, in running this,
this, uh, future pool. Yeah. Um, thanks and I, I apologize as flying in from Houston
today, so, um, just made it back, made it back home. Um, so a couple of things I
do want to clarify, uh, the why is a nonprofit organization? So that is one comment
that I come up that I want to clarify. I will echo what John Nowak and other people
on the steering committee have said, um, we've really, we have really tried to explore
all of the options in terms of where's the best location to the county pool, a pool
that would serve the county. Um, where, um, you know, what, what are the right amenities?
I think it's important to note that actually the more amenities the facility has,
the more you can decrease the subsidy related to operations of the facility. Um And
so I think those are, those are a couple of things that are really important to note.
And the, the, the other thing and talking about the PFD versus the MP D, I just think
it is important to note that, um, you know, 20% of the sales tax generated in the
county comes from tourists. And so it's a great thing that actually tourists would
be helping to establish an amazing amenity for people throughout Jefferson County
Treasure, Prada.
Hm, that she might not heard the first part of what we see, Wendy or Stacy. Can you
just raise your hand to indicate that you're able to hear us? We wanna make sure
that we're still. Oh, Yep, Stacey's raised her hand. Thank you very much. Ok, great.
Sorry. Take it away.
Ok. So, um I'm gonna share my screen briefly, uh, commissioners. Um So Mr
Tch, um, had a question about legality of creating a PFD. And so there's the RRCW
36 100 010. If you look at number two, the PFD is created upon adoption of a
resolution providing for the creation of such a district by the county legislative
authority in which the proposed district is located. I think that's pretty clear
that you have the authority by resolution to create the PFD, which does not give
us taxing authority until we go to the voters. My understanding is the PFD board
then that you appoint to the PFD board and the PFD board adopts a ball number four.
And can I just are authorized unless the majority of the voters of the have such
a follow up on that is maybe, I mean, so, I mean, the city has operational control
over the pool, kind of through Y MC A, I guess, but, you know, it's their facility
right now, but it, are they gonna be interested, are you gonna be interested in continuing
to subsidize it when you're giving it to an external organization that could decide
they don't, they don't want the pool operated anymore or they want to raise taxes
again? Right. The steering committee um, recommended that the Y operate it, the Y,
he's taken it to their board and they've accepted and the city certainly can continue
the subsidy with the pool in just like we're doing right now with the Y, the PFD
would have an operational agreement with the Y but would it be the PFD or the city
that gets to designate the Y, the PFD would have to designate the Y but the steering
committee as a whole, everybody that's on the steering committee is recommending
that the Y operate it. Ok. Yeah. And um, one thing to consider too would be the composition
of the PFD. We would wanna make sure that we have representation from a number of
different groups. So it's not county dominated and that's not lined in statute as
well. The, the PFD can and actually mark, you can correct me if I'm wrong on this.
I know you're still online. But my understanding is the PFD can be five or seven
seats within a county. You choose the, the composition of the county PFD. We can't
hear you either. I don't know, maybe it is something on our. Do you want to check
our, our speaker? Make sure we're still on. He as the speaker that all looks off.
Oh, there it goes. Try again. Mark the composition. Is that better? Hm. He's not
muted
in crossing. Ok. Can you say testing, testing, mark test. Can you hear me now? Yeah.
All right, good. Uh The composition of the PFD board is determined by the county
board of county commissioners. Um But the, the statute provides for uh, the, the
establishment of a um inter local agreement. Um And so the parties that are, have
an interest in the facility could certainly enter into an inter local agreement that
determines the rights and obligations of each of the entities.
II, I don't, I don't think that the city could tell the board of county commissioners
whom to appoint to the board. Um, but
it's possible that the county could agree and this is, uh, I'm not speaking on behalf
of the county, this, would you, your legal counsel would need to, to, to weigh on,
on this as to, um, you know how the, how the county charters, the PFD. But once the,
once the PFD is created, it's a separate entity, but it's the county board of county
commissioners that, that appoint the directors. Yeah, thank you. Um And we can
maybe go back to you, Wendy. I think it was probably a problem on our end. Do you
wanna try unmuted and, and finish your thoughts?
Sure. I'm not sure if you heard anything that I said or maybe I was just talking
to myself. Um uh just a couple of things. Um I want to echo what John Nowak said
just I think, although I, I hear Heidi that this feels very fast. The steering committee
really has spent a lot of time thinking about what's the right location. What is
um I, I mean, goodness listening to Doctor Rosenberry too, the property, we have
no property costs at all, staying at the mountain view location. And I do know um
that um people are traveling all over the place to get their kids to swimming pools.
And so, um for me, I think one of the things that's most important is that we provide
kids and families access to a pool where they can learn about water safety, where
kids can learn how to swim. We are surrounded by water. And so II, I hear uh I, I'm,
I'm not sure that I'm hearing much about that. We don't need a new pool and I feel
like this is an opportunity for us to finally take that next step. I want to also
emphasize what Kate and others have already talked about with those state grants.
It is upwards of $11 million or more that's only available every two years. And this
gives us a real opportunity to capitalize on that. And at the end of the day, this
really becomes a vote to the people. So I just am really hoping that we can take
this next step and focus on something that really is, becomes a legacy for our community.
So I really appreciate everyone's thoughtfulness. I just think we, we are at a point
that is so critical to moving forward for the kids and families and seniors in our
community. Thank you, Wendy. Oh, I have one other question earlier before you joined
us. I think about uh the the staffing challenges that are that a new pool might
encounter. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on, on that looking a couple years
down the line. Yeah. Um one thing that I will share is that the aquatics staffing
shortage is not a Port Townsend issue. It's not a puget sound issue, not just a state
issue, it's a nationwide issue. All of my colleagues at wise, all across the country
are experiencing the exact same thing and I really do believe it's a now issue. Um
We went through a period of time where high school students just, they've been through
a lot and um really have kind of lost that workforce and we are seeing more and more
people coming back that um we have more and more high school guards and it's the
great first job for kids, but we've got lifeguards, they teach swimming lessons and
I see it as a now issue. Not a forever issue. And I also don't think that's a reason
not to move forward like this is such a critical piece of infrastructure for our
community. So, um but I, I'm, I firmly believe it's a now issue, not a forever issue.
And like I said, we're seeing more and more high school students and more and more
people um kind of reentering the workforce, but it's, it's actually also not just
an aquatics issue. It's a uh um I think every every sector is experiencing workforce
shortages as, as you mentioned as well. So great. Thank you. I also wanted to broach
one other thing that I don't think you mentioned explicitly today, but I appreciate
that a decision has been made about the cost, right. It's 100 and $10,000 roughly
to run a special election with just a single item on it. And I think the proposal
is right now, splitting it between the city and the county for that. And I appreciate
that, you know, I thank you for bringing that up. I neglected to, to focus on that
too. Um, and I guess my, my kind of question around that and sort of the, you know,
the tension that exists on the DAIS right now about this. I think everyone's in support
of a pool. It's the funding mechanism that is, is more contentious among my seat
mates. And I um are there other ways to show support that would uh support these,
these uh grant opportunities this spring? I mean, even a APFD, if we decided on that
on the normal ballot, you know, would cost $100,000 less. So I'm, I'm wondering,
are there other ways we can demonstrate support to qualify for these grants that
are coming up imminently? Mm. Um Most certainly, I mean, I think that any letters
of collaboration will be helpful from all of the partners. And I know that, um, I
talked to Commissioner Dean and I think that, um, you guys have already talked to
your lobbyist, I think to, to start looking for some money in the federal level.
Um And we have some connections at the state level and So any kind of supportive
letters is helpful going forward. Can I chime in on that too? So with the, with the
um grants that are available through the Department of Commerce for nonprofit organizations,
um they really do look at what percent of funds are already committed to the project
and it, it, it makes a difference in terms of the rankings of the project because
they want to have confidence in the project's ability to proceed. So it matters in
terms of ranking with tho and those are competitive grant funds. But um when they
see significant amount of funds raised toward the over overall cost of the project,
um it just makes the grant request score very high. So it does matter um for those,
those commerce grants and I do believe it would be upwards, it would, it could be
more than $11 million toward the cost of this project. So it's meaningful even when
you're talking about $100,000 investment to put this on the ballot, the return in
terms of being able to secure those grants is amazing if it passes. Probably not
a great, you probably just don't put it on the grant application if it doesn't pass,
right?
Um OK. Other other thoughts? No, I just wanna say that I'm sorry, I'm still absorbing
and Greg just told everyone to email me. So I have more to now, but we um came here
today understanding that this was a briefing on this issue, not a decision point.
That was my understanding coming in the door. So I was not prepared to make a decision.
I was prepared to listen and that's what I've done. And I'm gonna read all the rest
of the comments that we received in the last 24 hours and I'm happy to chat with
folks. I have a few meetings already scheduled on this issue in the next few days.
But, you know, it's a lot to it. Um, commit folks in our county for the next
30 years. Even though it's 10, it's, you know, people say it's two lattes. It's like,
well, you know, it's, it's a commitment, right? And we're entering into a committing,
committed relationship and we should be thoughtful and, um, have all the information
before we make a, a big decision. So it's not about not supporting kids. I drive
kids around too. They're not mine. They're my godchild, but I drive them around a
lot because they live in Chimica and they go to sailing camp and, you know, I mean,
I'm, I understand the challenges of living in this county and, um, and also the benefits.
So we're, we're all together on this. We're just learning and working our way through
all the issues and
you're gonna have to do it pretty quick. So, yeah. Fourth Monday, the fourth, everything's
the fourth, the, um, the next, uh, step on our part is to get that independent financial
analysis and that takes about a month or two so that it's gonna be ok. So we have
a little time and have some time to read emails with that. Thank you. Go ahead. Yeah.
Thank you, Mr Chair. I just also to note, I mean, it's maybe not all the information
because information is coming in still. But um you can, you can go to the city website
to find at least some degree of, of depth and information and the process that we've
been going through over the course of the last 1214 months. And some of those are
first drafts and you insert expletive first drafts, you know, and I think that's
evolved over time. So that's why this was a really tight presentation on the most
recent layout and kind of funding mechanism. But, you know, there's quite a lot of
history about the MP D, the Metropolitan Parks District, uh the impact um different
designs and quite a broad amount of community input that went into the steering committee
and their recommendations. So for those who might wanna, you know, increase their
reading on the weekend, you can go and check that out too. I appreciate that. And
let me if we sent it back to the city and, and said, hey, we think an MP D would
be more appropriate, you know, strategy to hack. Um What, what would happen? What
would that would the, could the timeline still be the same what it would like if
we were gonna try to go down that path, what would it look like? Yeah, we would,
um, likely call the steering committee together and have all the brain trust at the
table to figure that out and roll up our sleeves and try to figure that out and,
and follow a question before you John. And is, is the independent financial study
support. Both of those. It's only required for a PFD. It's not required for an empty.
And I would only be musing at what would happen. But I think it's worth musing about
the careful balance of a number of things that come together to right now. Um, you
know, one partner brings uh land and that's not the city, that's the school district
because they own the mountain view campus land. Um So one group brings $400,000 of
current subsidy, not future, but current subsidy for the operations of the pool.
And that's the city, you know, uh one group brings the potential for significant
grant funding in the Y C A and then a number of groups. Um I'll say also including
the school district have um their own capital needs which are probably, I mean, in
a, in the worst regressive state in the nation tax wise, only associated with property
tax. So I, I think I can only muse that if that became the preferred direction from
the county, it would have a pretty significant negative impact on those who we've
been really trying to phase and time some of the collective lift on our community
in a way that didn't, you know, block out partners or, or frankly put the community
at large and in, in more debt. Um So I think that's it, it was, it's been a careful
balance to get here. And so I imagine it would be like Kerry says, kind of back to
the drawing board a little bit with the steering committee to kind of work that balance
out again. Just my amusing.
OK. Any uh last thoughts? No, I think I've been clear in my position. OK,
great. Well, you know, we, it's great to have people in the, in the uh in the chambers.
I'm sorry, it's such a divisive issue, but I, I think that there's a lot of energy
to make our community better and I think that's the ultimate goal. So I hope we can
keep that in mind as we, as we uh um you know, muddle through this together. So I
really appreciate everyone's time and, and uh um perspectives. So,
oh, let's read that out loud into the record and I think that might have been our
problem even with her the whole time. Yeah. So sorry, sorry Mr Cook. If we couldn't
hear other people, let's just read that out loud. Uh
What are you saying? Oh, he was just reiterating that the Y MC A is a 501 C three
nonprofit corporation and, and contributions are, are fully tax deductible. Well,
the Y MC A is a not for profit. They are absolutely never gonna do anything where
they lose money. This is why they now refuse every time to run a free shower program
because it has cost a month. Ok, thank you. Yeah, we're done with comments now. We
don't want to get into a back and forth, but thank you everyone for being here. We'll
get moments to clear. We're gonna talk about interesting stuff for the next agenda
item. You don't have to leave.
No one ever stays.
Ok.
Gotcha. Ok. Well, maybe we'll see Dan and Brennan.
I think uh Scarin who is here right now? You can talk to him in the vest, the gray
vest there on the way out.
I think he writes for the free press. He's just a community member.
It's fine. I mean,
yes.
Yes.
You have to be over 18 legal voter in the state of Washington. Yeah. All right. We're
still, we're still in session everyone. We're just kind of rotating the chambers
here bringing solid waste in. I can't believe uh no one wants to talk. This is like
hospital business was garbage.
Let's see if uh why don't, why don't we just recess for five minutes and we'll get,
we'll get cleared out. Sorry, I should have started with that.
I'd be happy to.
Mhm.
You can do. All right. I will call us back into session. Sorry. We just had a logistical
clearing of the room but uh we're back here and we're, we're joined with the very
patient uh public works staff, our county engineer Monnie Reiners and our solid waste
manager, Al Cairns. Talk about public works request for the, an an mou with waste
connections for our municipal solid waste hauling for a specific project. Yeah, for
the uh hospital demolition, which is a large project. And so I'll do most of this,
but I've just t it up, nothing's been uh finalized here or anything. But uh we're,
we're in the process of negotiating a possible agreement and we wanted to bring you
up to speed on that and it's always good to just be able to talk to the board about
solid waste issues anyway. Um We're not talking about a fee here. Uh
But we're talking about collecting some revenue for waste that leaves the county.
So, uh it feels like something the board should be looped in on. And then if we have
time, we might also talk about um another little item that al had as well about um
uh an old resolution the board had about granting certain uh community projects,
uh a waiver from uh from solid waste fees, but it's not really a waiver because still
someone else in the county, another fund has to pay those fees. It's, it's uh because
solid waste is an enterprise fund. But um if we have time and you have the interest,
we can also briefly touch on that topic. But uh I will talk about this hospital demolition
project and uh you know, possible agreement with the uh waste connections on that
project. Great. I wonder, could we just talk logistics for a minute? Um Because we,
I mean, there isn't a rush on the legislative agenda, but we should, if we're, if
we want to do more, spend more time with these guys, we could, we could push that
agenda item off, but we should let the other um directors and elected to know who
might be planning to attend. How long do you think? Al Yeah, it seems like a five
minute. I feel like we're ok. They're only scheduled to join by 330. Ok, I think
we're good. Ok. Thank you. Gonna get you out of here earlier. Yeah. Yeah. No, I appreciate
it. So are so Commissioner Eisenhower is probably familiar with the um the discussion
that we had with Swack as part of our discussions with Swack about the uh new fee
schedule. We had kind of talked um about what we are calling a regional direct fee.
Um and that fee would uh would allow waste haulers to move waste outside of Jefferson
County and, and bypass the transfer station for certain select uh and unique projects
that would overwhelm the capa the capacity of the transfer station um that, that
fee wasn't ripe enough that discussion hadn't, you know, really carried on as far
as it needed to, to resolve or to get, or to gain, uh, swags approval of that or,
or not approval. But their, their understanding of it even, and, and their, um, opinion
about that in favor of it. Um, the hospital project of course has, uh, and the, and
the impetus of that discussion was this pending hospital project with an estimate,
estimated 600 tons of material that within like two weeks um tons fit on the truck,
30 roll offs a day. Wow. Holy shit. Right. Oh, excuse me, folks.
All right. No,
precisely what we said, Scott smacked.
Right. So that out, please.
So one of the considerations is that, um you know, the county and, and by the county,
I mean, all of our customers uh on a per transaction basis have invested heavily
in the infrastructure to serve the, the whole of the county in that facility. Um
So where an entity moves a large amount of materials around that facility and goes
direct to either an intermodal facility, say in Chehalis or rent or directly to landfill,
um The county is still serving as a fallback for them. Should that direct route fail
them? Right. And so there's value in that we're sort of an an insurance policy for
them that we're there for them. We can, we can mobilize additional crew, additional
equipment which we, which we have done in this case in anticipation of the hospital
project, we've rented a large excavator. Um The problem for us right now is that
um we don't have staff to run the, the equipment. Um And so this is a real necessity
to move it along. We're um you know, we don't like losing revenue. We're an enterprise
fund, we, you know, actively solicit more materials to our facility. So, um so it's,
you know, it's only out of an extreme necessity in this condition that we'd like
that material to go around the facility. Um Waste connections understands the value
of that built infrastructure that's in place for them. I mean, 99.9% of all the material
comes to us is generated in Jefferson County. Um So they understand the investment
value there. Um And so they have suggested uh this rate to pay the county for the
privilege of bypassing the facility. So we set that at 10% of the current pre-tax
per ton rate. Um So that, that's what's been proposed, an early draft of this mou
has been approved by them. Um Philip Hunsucker recommended additional revisions additions
to it. Um We've made them and we've sent, we forward those revisions to them this
morning. Um The person there at waste connections who needs to review it is out of
the country for the next week. So this wouldn't uh be on the agenda for the 27th.
It would probably be for the first Monday in December 4th. We know that there is
Burn and no Brandon. So on the agenda on the fourth, assuming a positive review by
waste connection. Correct. Yeah. Ok. Any questions on this matter
seems like lean thinking to me. I don't know. What's the, sorry about my comment
earlier. But what's, um, is it the old building that'll be in those 1965 building?
Primarily like concrete and a lot of the concrete will be recycled. That's what I
was wondering. Yeah. Yeah. But the rest of the rest of the would come to us. It's
difficult to uh ways to manage in terms of packing it and trying to get to your target
actual weights because it's a lot of fluff. So it takes a lot more time with the
equipment to pack it in there. Um Yeah. CND is a real problem. That's why we're,
we're currently accepting most of our CND on the temporary wall. Um because it can
stay, doesn't need to be containerized. Uh by the end of the day, it can stay on
the wall and then when we have staff available, we, some staff will spend all eight
hours just packing the material that's been left on the temporary wall. And of course,
we don't approve this for some reason that just slows down the line and, and impacts
uh a already really constrained staffing capacity. Yes.
Yeah. Um So flow control is uh usually adopted by ordinance. It um when
a county, um, wants to preserve and protect their asset, their, their huge capital
investment in a transfer station, they adopt flow control ordinances which disallows
any way taller to move material out of the county to bypass those facilities. Um
So you're just protecting your customers investment in that, in that facility. Um
We were, we've been waiting until we have, um, until we're confident in the cost
estimate of a new transfer station to start that conversation with the board about
a flow control ordinance. You know, when we're, when we're talking about an investment
of $10 million or more, then that com it makes more sense to protect that investment.
Um But we, you know, we do want to have that conversation about the adoption of a
flow control ordinance. So they could just right now, they could just drive it out
of town and we get nothing they could. I'm glad that they, they approached you guys
though is that they did, that seems like a really strong relationship. We have a
very good relationship with our waist haulers here. Yes. So, and we maintain that.
So we've, we've always, um, looked at flow control as being something that you can
affect without an ordinance by virtue of your feet keeping your feet reasonable.
Your service is really good. Your hours of operation really good for our waste haulers.
We allow them into the facility off hours regularly, uh to conduct their business.
So we do everything we can to be just a really good partner.
That's true. And, and with, you know, the nearest other facilities being south of
Bremerton and east of Port Angeles, that helps too. So, where are they going to drive
it straight to the trains that our trucks go to and just put it straight on the trains
to the click aet probably to the Chehalis intermodal facility. Yeah, because clicks,
it's one round trip per driver. So it's just out of reach. If you can do, you can't
really gain efficiencies until you can do 22 turnarounds in a day. So it has to go
in a modal facility. So truck to rail is the the the only drawback here is that
we could be getting more revenue if it was all going through tipping fees. But that's
the logistical problem of clogging up the transfer station. Yeah. Yeah. 54%
over capacity. We feel it. Yeah. So yeah, then you throw staffing issues into it
and it just, we don't have the room right now. Hate to lose it. But totally,
I mean, you're coming back with this, but I'm super supportive of this action today.
We'll come back
when, when will you have it finally negotiated? But I guess we're looking for
preliminary, preliminary approval. So we don't actually need any action today. No,
no.
Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Make it. So. All right. Sounds good. And then did you have
time to discuss this. So, so, so we, it's been since 2008, since we've had a request
for a waiver from the tipping fee. It's been so long that we couldn't find the original
intake form anymore and had to make a new one. Um We used to, we used to field a
lot of these requests. They were typically associated with um Earth Day Clean up
events, community cleanup events, beach clean ups. Um So it's been the first in a
long time. Um This is from a couple in the qui scene area who have been doing um
marine litter collection for quite some time. Um And they've asked for a waiver and
as Manny pointed out that it's a bit of a misnomer, what we're what we are requesting
and, and we hope to have this agenda item for you for ne for next Monday. Um is um
is a, is for the board to agree to reimburse the enterprise fund for the cost of,
of their um disposal. Um And so a again, there's as an enterprise fund, nobody's
actually waived from the fee. We're just made whole again through another fund. And
um again, it's been so long I can't recall what fund the board had previously agreed
to reimburse us from. Let me guess. I think yours, how much
are we talking here? Uh for this, we estimate between 547 $120. 0, my goodness. I'm
not, I don't know, but it sets a precedent, right? I mean, these guys do this on
the regular. It does let you talk. Yeah, that's why when this issue used
to come up all the time, the board actually did a resolution to control it and, and
made it be, uh, you know, go through the board because otherwise it gets to be out
of control because it, it does, it can set precedent. It really has to be uh who
decides what a community of uh benefit and event is some poor staff person in public
works. No. So, um and a lot of time in the past, those requests would come from the
community through a board member to public works. So really, um in
95 this resolution was created to try to put a process around that recognizing that
solid waste is an enterprise fund, we can't just decide some people don't have to
pay because they're doing good work, you know. So then concurrently, would that be
something that we would put in the budget? Assuming that we have 3 to 5 of these
every year or?
Well, that's a great question. Um What it says here is that when the board approves
a waiver, it will then decide the fund that will make solid waste whole. Um
Well, not really because a bunch of funds you could take it from the road fund, but
it's a, it's a restrict, it's a restricted fund. And then the auditor would ping
you for that. Um, I ob the obvious fund is a general fund, non departmental probably.
Uh, or no, it'd be operating transfer, I would think. Um, and rather than ha having
to do a supplemental, uh, to react to these things, it would be prudent to like Heidi
is suggesting to have a budget item, uh, based on anticipated volume.
Sometimes we get requests for waivers of, um, event related fees you get through
the commissioners.
Yeah. Yeah, that, um, I think it's a temporary food permit for an event and that's
like a 50% discount, right? And waiver of the, right? So this is more costly
than, than the food. Um How do we, I know we approve them? Well, um, I, I've asked
Apple to come to the board asking to revoke the requirement that those come to the
board because they're so few and far between and there's such a small dollar amount.
It's a waste of administrative time to bring it to the board. This, however, uh if
the word gets out, I'm sure you might see an increase in, I guess it's good. The
room cleared out in volume.
Oh, I mean, this is why we wanted to take this opportunity to bring it up because,
um, you know, you do it once it's no big deal but, you know, this can have far reaching
effects and it's, I mean, I've heard these kinds of requests which we've just kind
of headed off over the years for, you know, noxious weed disposal, you know, uh not
having no weeds to dispose of not having to pay for, for the fee because it's hey,
we're, you know, and so, yeah, it can be problematic and maybe, maybe the board uh
doesn't want to go down this or we need to rethink this, this resolution from the
nineties. Uh You know, I, I think include the resolution please in the, in the agenda
request so we can review it, I think because that's the critical thing, right? And
whether that controlling resolution is, is appropriate to prevent, you know, everyone
that's got something that, well, the community sure would benefit if I took this
thing and didn't put it on the side of my curb. Um So yeah, it does. Ok.
Yeah, I am, I guess, I mean, I, I would also like to see the or I guess I have
it here. I can open it up but I'm curious kind of how, how to ensure that um that
there's public benefit associated with this, right? I mean, does it like have to
be in a public right of way or publicly owned property or, you know, shoreline? Um
And then to, you know, do we want to link it to say a nonprofit, you know, something
that's been kind of has some, some vetting. Um But I, I'm curious, would, so would
it be the um the whole tipping fee that would be, um, need to be reimbursed
then, or would it be some marginal? I mean, given that there are fixed costs to public
works that are not changed by having a volunteer effort come through. Yeah, for,
for staff, it takes a little bit of effort to work with the requester to figure out
the estimated volume or weight of the materials. Um, and we've got some pretty good
metrics and going back into the way back files, we found how we determined, you know,
estimated volumes and, and costs associated with that. And that's how we came up
with that range um of costs between 5 47 20 for, for this, this is fairly unique
too. Most of the, in fact, all of the previous requests were single day events. Um
This request is for an ongoing um collection of the materials. And so we had to kind
of rethink how we could make that happen. We're, we're proposing that um that an
account be set up with uh with our finance department and we would have to monitor
that account. So we would have a not to exceed limit. In other words, in there, uh
a balance would be established in the account and then we would monitor it. We would
also have to issue the letter to uh the requester each time they said that they were
going to bring material to us and, and, and so we would issue another letter that
they hand to the scale attendant. And then our finance division would have to monitor
that account and make sure that, you know, as we got close to that final not to exceed
amount we notified them and let them know you only have half a pickup truck left
on this account. Um And then of course, because they've been doing it for many years,
the open question then as well as this a perennial request to the board to re-establish
this account. So it does open up a lot of kind of philosophical noodling over this.
I mean, there is a lot of public benefit from, from folks doing this kind of stuff
too, you know, so I, I mean, I like the the attachment, that kind of the policy document
that's attached to the resolution kind of lays it out. And if we had a a set amount
that we put in the fund each year and this was how much we could do, you know, uh
reimburse uh solid waste before, you know, in this calendar year. Let me because
I can imagine, you know, the folks to clean up after fireworks every year, you know,
they, they always pay for that th those that disposal. So, I mean, there's a lot
of different areas where it could be applied and I see, you know, it, it makes, it
says individuals or organizations can apply for it, you know, in the, in the current
resolution or policy attachment. That's, uh you know, that seems reasonable up and
up to a reasonable limit. So, I don't know. Well, and, and with, um, I mean, ideally
having it not be really burdensome administratively, like, I think it's worth, you
know, trying to figure out if there's a way to streamline, it sounds like a fair
amount of work. But um, if that can be less effort in like a punch card, it's a lot
of work and there's a lot of public benefit from it and it's a great way to establish
really good working relationships with our customers too. So it's, it's worth the
effort so long as we don't make it too administratively burdensome. Like we have
like solid waste to ferment, you know, environmental, public health and everything,
some of those funds that are for just this purpose, right? If we really, I don't
know, I'm just brainstorm. I won't name the other funds that I would recommend. And
this is, this is not limited to solid solid waste. It's 1995 document. That's car.
No, it's county ordinances fees associated.
So it could be any, it could be environmental power. Yeah. Gotcha. So it's not limited
to solid waste.
Seems like something that we would wanna really think about policy implications of.
Yeah. So, you know, I, I guess another, I mean, that's why we thought we'd bring
this up. Um, this is kind of a late breaking issue here but uh, it sounds like maybe
this needs a little bit more time potentially and I don't know that this request
is an emergency. I mean, I'll, uh, we could cer, yeah, we could certainly push this
back and say that the county needs to review its current policy on this and where
the money is coming from and things like that before we can, you know, evaluate a,
a specific request like this. I mean, you can
clean up the beach anytime it doesn't have to be next week, right? So, um so maybe
it kind of feels like maybe that's something we need to and I need to talk to the
county administrator as well about um a little bit more reasonable. Just like these,
the permutations expand pretty exponentially when you start considering it, this
is a broad um resolution applies to any fee charged by any department for which a
waiver might be requested. Ok. And so can I just push back on that because I the
um is there any reason to delay this application? Like I, I don't want to discourage
it. Well, just because we like might want to take a look at the policy for future
uses, but like, I don't, I don't see because I mean, this resolution is still current,
right? It has not been rescinded. So I would be fine with continuing with this one
knowing that we are going to be looking at it um for future use. I would too. And
maybe considering setting a threshold in the future so that we can budget an amount
that we don't anticipate going above. Yeah, I mean, essentially the county is saying
we're willing to put in X amount of dollars a year for clean up, you know, community
clean up events and once you hit that threshold, then that's it for that year, you
know, uh which would be fine. I mean, the county used to do small grants and things
as well. Um So yeah, that could be the case just to be clear. Uh I think you guys
are looking at a resolute resolution about fee waivers. We have a resolution specific
to solid waste fee waivers for the different. Oh, it isn't, is it the same one? Ok.
Ok. 74-95. Yeah. Ok. So we're all talking about the same one then. Ok.
Got you. Yeah, I, I guess I don't have an objection to considering this request which,
which is in front of us invalid. Ok. Um Well, we uh it doesn't, there's no threshold
in there,
so like up to 750 say, but I think that the as we go forward and look at this policy
and maybe kind of dig into the resolution, maybe we want to demarcate between different
funds, you know, I mean, different, different uh fees and again, we're just looking
for kind of the go ahead we can, we'll bring this through a con consent agenda, you
know, next week or whatever, for your approval. If that, if you want us to put this
on the agenda essentially for $750 feels like it. It's yeah and let Mark decide where
to pull that from. And um yeah, because I mean, we want to encourage this kind of
community mindedness. You know, I think we totally wanna be careful to not have there
be abuses of it. And um you know, people we don't want to make it too easy for people
to be really irresponsible with litter either. Was this recent? Was it the derelict
boat that washed up on disco on Discovery Bay? No, because there was a big clean
up effort associated with that. No, we don't want to get into that.
Ok. Um Great. So. Ok. Make it so great. Thank you. Thank you guys. All right, good
to see you. Good to see you guys. Thanks for coming out for me.
Um Did you guys travel together? Ok. So um this the next conversation we're having
is about legislative priorities and I, I would love to um al
could you, could you recommend a thumbs up or a thumbs down on the, the new iteration
of the? Um Yeah, the producer Responsibility, the new producer, Responsibility Bill
or is that too long? A conversation? Ok, great. That's all I needed on burden. So
it was fun. Yeah. Push it back on the, on the producers Ok. That's when the fairies
are, are wrapped in a Coca Cola uh images. Now that, oh, your bottle is 100% recyclable.
It drove me crazy seeing that I almost wanted to do. There was someone had ripped
down when I was civic leader. That's not how I make my opinion known. Ok, thanks.
Thanks guys. Thanks ma. Mhm. Ok. I was
on that ferry the first day they did the red outside. Did they wrap the whole ferry
and all the inside? All the stairwells, all the walls are all Coca Cola, you know,
plastic bottles everywhere. Yeah. And then just one or the one of the Bainbridge
ones should be toothbrush ads or something. Wouldn't be a lot of my middle school,
you know, sugary drinks, diabetes billboard. That's it for revenue purposes, I mean,
I assume, yeah, I don't think they gave it away. Yeah. Yeah. Ok. Um We are on to
our legislative update. We're joined by some of our, of our esteemed colleagues.
Thanks for being here. Um You wanna see this off? Sure. Yeah. So, um, we have a number
of um legislative efforts that the, the board engages with and um as we start to,
to narrow down to some priorities, we also wanted to give our departments an opportunity
to weigh in on what their legislative priorities were so that we could all be kind
of pulling in the same direction. And, um, you know, it's, it's early days, um but
I know that many of you have had your professional associations developing their
agendas. So that would be great to hear from you and see if, um, there are things
that you want support on from either the commissioners or the, uh, uh, assuming.
Yeah. Yeah, I think it's probably too late for nola per se at the North. Will Legislative
Alliance. We do a shared, uh, legislative agenda with some other jurisdictions, um,
Jefferson and Clallam County, but, um, uh, we also have a kind of a unique opportunity
and that the legislative steering committee with the Association of Counties did
not adopt a legislative agenda. And typically, um, the representative who's been
me for a number of years is discouraged from um taking strong positions on a lot
of other bills if they are not in agreement with the legislative steering committee.
Um And I, I doubt that any of you are bringing forward things that there would not
be agreement on, but we might choose to take positions, um, that didn't agree with
um legislative steering committee and we are allowed to do that this year because
we don't have a agenda that we have to be really loyal to. So I was bummed that uh
legislative steering committee did not, couldn't agree. Um And yet it does provide
a little more latitude. So might anybody who's online wanna come over like Apple's
there. I, I just don't know if any other department directors to raise their hand.
Ok. Oh, there's Apple's hand.
Um So I thought maybe we could hear from our colleagues and then um you know, maybe
discuss uh I have a list of things that we have uh tossed around the last month or
so that we might be interested in. I don't feel like we need to decide on a, an agenda
that we stick to. Um But I think it's good to have us kind of prepared and aware
of each other's um efforts and we might decide on a couple of key priorities. So
we'll, we'll prioritize hearing from, from uh our colleagues here, so we can start
in the room and go online. Anyone that would like to kind of talk about what they,
what they see in the upcoming legislative session if you want to do it on the microphone.
So I don't know, Quinn want you wanna go for you, you wanna come take a seat
coming up to you, right?
Putting the micro puncture,
you know,
so I brought Queen because I have to leave at four and I didn't know how long this
is gonna be, but she can totally attest to um I know um the auditor's office, we
have a recording bill that's just a clean up bill. And I think that they have some
support with that. Um Just, you know, some language and to, to help streamline a
few things. Um So the, the, the main two that I think the auditors have been looking
at are the um the House bill 1241, addressing harassment of election officials. And
that's one Quinn can totally talk about and then there's the, the simplifying voter
change of address. So those are the two that uh that we're here for. Do you know
that bill number? We don't that I can that. Yeah, I'm not
sure what the bill number is for simplified voter change of address. But we as a
small county, we we struggle in the sense that our, our elections team has grown
from 2 to 3. So think about it, whether you're King County or Jefferson County, your
legal requirements are all the same. So anything to simplify the work that we do
and streamline, it is gonna be more beneficial for those smaller counties. So I think
anything along those lines that we're in favor of, but as far as the House Bill 241
I personally have had a death threat as an elections official. So this speaks near
and dear to my heart. You know, we had to have a tough decision if this is a position
that I wanted to stay in because of that threat. I had to have it with Brenda as
my boss and with my family. So anything that we can do to protect elections officials,
we're here to work hard and here to, you know, to do this. Um you know, for our county
for the voters of our county and for the state of Washington, you know, all 39 counties
are very, you know, passionate and producing, you know, fair and impartial elections.
And, um, we're just here to do our job and work hard and this, we didn't sign up
for these threats. And, um, I was threatened in 2022 and there was already legislation
that had changed prior to that and still essentially nothing really happened to that
individual that threatened me and it was very clear that they had threatened me.
It was over an email and there's been lots of red flags kind of posted everywhere
that, uh, we need to be aware that they're anticipating, um, in person. And, um,
would you say electronic threats? So whether it's, you know, via social media or
email that coming next year that we might see an uptick in that, so anything that
you guys can do to help protect us with any, do you know what kind of protections
does 1241 give more like, uh, penalties to those that engage in harassing larger?
Makes it a felony instead of, uh, yeah, or is that the one that happened in 2021?
It's hard because there's a few that have, have gone through recently that we've
been seeing and I think there was one last year that, that didn't go through. So
they all kind of end up mingling together in our brains. But like, I said anything
that can better protect us is more beneficial. So I haven't looked at house Bill
1212 41. But um do you know what kinds of things are, are proposed in it or?
I uh my, my real question is what would you propose that maybe is not in the bill?
I have to probably really think about what direction I would, you know, want it to
go. But I say Waco just drafted up a priority into a draft letter for this meeting
and I can send it to you and have all of these that will be great
to
us. So I take it, I mean, looking at the summary of 1241 increases the penalty
harassment to a class C felony and allows election workers who are harassed to apply
for the address confidentiality program. Yeah, those are the two main call outs in
the bill and the, the kind of minor the recording bill doesn't need a lot of advocacy
or is that, I mean, is that the kind of thing that's just kind of clerical corrections
that everyone's on on? And I do think that they have some support, Vicky Dalton,
the Spokane County auditor was putting it together and um, I think she has some support
there that uh I think they think it will just, there's like, yeah, they should go.
Ok. Thank you for it. Um Any other questions? No. All right,
appreciate you sharing the priorities. And yeah, we've, you were not the only person
that has been threatened, uh, in, in the, uh, county, unfortunately. So it's a, it's
a real thing now and it's just so unacceptable that we do need some teeth in that.
I'll say the Grant County assessor Open a Boe appeal had white powder in it. Got
sick has been in. Yeah. And now Assessor's office that we're gonna have cans of nar
can
in their offices. Do you guys have some in your office or for testing to see it?
If it was something
I got some, I'll give you that way. Both of us have it. Three counties were held
up on counting their ballots this last election, but they were like held up in county,
but there, there was three counties at least that we know of that had letters with
white powder in them. So once again, the threat is real. Elections are experiencing
threats
and departments are as well. And actually they did evacuate Pierce County in King
County, I think during some of that Spokane as well. King Pierce Spokane. So, yeah.
All right. Well, easy to get behind that. Thank you guys. Thank you.
All right, Jeff, you're standing up. Come on up.
000, it's in the period. Ok. That's welcome back, Stacy. Yeah, like
relaxed.
We got an email from Amanda. She couldn't be here. She, she, and she thinks that
HB 1205, the better alignment of duties um of duties in the dependency is gonna
go through this year. So she would like to see that and it says county clerk seek
legislation better aligning dependency case announcements with the dependency process
by directing the state to perform the publication of notice for uncontacted parents
of dependency and parental rights termination matters in all courts. I basically
want the state to pay for notifications rather than uh it be kind of partly county,
partly state. And, um, and this would actually make things cleaner and it would also
take some of the cost burden off the counties. And apparently the A GS office already
does it for like half the counties in the state. Yeah, because, and they recognize
it's silly to have somebody otherwise largely outside of the system doing it. So
they've taken it on. So this would just formalize so interesting, either that relationship
or the payment. I'm not sure which, um, the one that the assessors have is a high
quality statewide aerial imaging program. Um, we're hoping it gets funded. There
isn't a bill but there's no line item in the governor's budget yet. Uh, will we get
it in 2024? Well, we hope so, but at the very much, at the very least we want it
for the 2025. Oregon already has a statewide imaging program. We have a, a kind of
a consortium of several counties that have gone in with the, with the tribes and
with the colleges to, uh, have a, a modest one done where we get, uh, high quality
six inch and 12 inch imagery every year. But the, the problem now is that, that we
pay 6000 a year to be part of that, the costs are gonna go dramatically up starting
in 2024 if we stay in that. And it, I mean, like 4 to 5 times as much. And that's
assuming we could keep doing that and what a statewide program would do would be
replace this as well as provided for all the states, all the counties in the state.
Um But even if it gets funded, it will be a couple of years before it goes into where
we'll actually get the, the imagery in the product. So we still need to bridge over
the next couple of years and, and mark and I are working on trying to be able to
do that. But uh but this will eventually, the idea is, this will eventually replace
it. What does it cost to the state? Well, it's gonna be like, it's not cheap to be
statewide will be like 28 million per biennium. Um And if you want the mountains,
it's gonna be 36 million, they have six inch, you know, now this satellite images
basically like super refined high. No, it's even better than that. It's like six
inch uh plane flight aerial, but it's also obliques. So you get, it's not just uh
Ortho straight down, it's also obliques um for assessors. The uh the advantage to
obliques is that we can do if we can get to where we can do desktop assessments,
where we can use the oblique imagery to revalue property, we can cut the
cost of the county of personnel. I, I don't know, you know, I mean, basically it
would be through attrition. We wouldn't maybe hire a couple people down the line
several years from now. But, um, but also we get higher, higher, higher vat quality
appraisals by doing it that way. Um And you could see the benefit of having high
value, high quality oblique imagery. It's like having street view but for everything,
um Jeff, what currently, what's the um interval of like how often are, is the
photographic record updated every two years, every two years? OK. But, and that's
another part of that. If, is that the, the, the company that's licensed to, to w
to the state agency said they're not gonna continue, we wouldn't still have access
to some of the historic streaming data. In other words, it's licensed for us to use.
If the contract goes away, then we lose the license to use some of what we're already
using. OK. Um And there's other, there's some uh added things that
DNR for example, can do high, high quality analysis, stereoscopic analysis because
of the consortium. In other words, we're paying for those flights, they can use those
flights for their analysis. If we, if this contract goes away, then DNR would not
be able to do some of the work they do now. Um So we're hoping that that eventually
gets funded. It's, it's a pri it's our priority item is getting that funded preferably
in 2024. So then, and, and then 24 is a supplemental year. So you're requesting it
for one year and then you'll go back for a Yeah, it would be ongoing. You're right.
It would be one year and then ongoing from then on. So it'd be biennium after that.
So it'd be for half a biennium and then the biennium after that, Jeff, can you like
if this happened and it kept getting renewed and everything, would it change? Would
you like every six years you do use these photos instead of just algorithms to calculate
value or does this mean that you would be doing each property each year? That's a
good. Well, we're right now, we're on a six year revaluation cycle where the appraisers
are inspecting properties once every six years, we're trying to get to work and some
counties are doing them in. We do desktop appraisals where they can do that work
instead of driving out there and having to look at the property, they could do it
from the aerials, they're gonna do it. So you'd still be on a six year cycle. You
would just, instead of having all the, you know, vehicles going all over the county.
We would be doing it in the office. It's good. They're really bad about getting electric
vehicles in the assessor's office. This is the way we can remember. The carbon foot.
Yeah. Now, the National Trade, the I AA O our, our national Trade Association already
allows for that for, for fee appraisers for private appraisal. The, the state doesn't.
So we'd have to have a state law change that would say we could use that instead,
but we've had one step that way and we just haven't fully progressed to that point
yet that we can do desktop appraisal. Right now. The law costs for physical inspection
of every property and it doesn't, you know, that includes vacant land. So in some
counties like in Clark County, they hire a helicopter to fly the vacant land so they
could say they did a physical inspection. Well, obviously, why do you have to do
that if you can do it from aerials? Are there privacy concerns? There are privacy
concerns. Yeah. Um We've been showing folks that are considered particularly it was
mainly an urban issue, you know, rural issues, not so much. You know, you also have
tree cover is that if there's a lot of tree cover, you may not be able to see what's
in the trees. But the privacy concerns mainly come in urban areas that with obliques
that you might be able to look in windows and the aerials don't really allow you
to do that. I mean, if you, if you look at these obliques, you can't really look
in windows in theory, the time will come when maybe you could. So there is private
concerns that at some point that this is going too far. But then again, there's also
drone, you know, development of drones. So this is still better than drones package
is that it's, you know, the assessor is the one leading the charge on these maps
all the time. But a lot of other departments and accounting use the, you know, public
works, environmental health, community development. I mean, when you and I were back
here in 2000, they had mass with yellow, orange, red and, you know, once they got
the lineup of parcel maps and the aerials, you could discern a lot more that you
couldn't from the ground and the public benefits also, they use them. I mean, realtors,
this would also replace the Shoreline Ecology, the Department of Ecology, Shoreline
Aerials, which the state's paying for now and this would replace that. So it's, you
know, it sounds like a lot of money, some of that money is already being spent, right?
Yeah. The other item that's our request. The other thing you might see is, you know,
we talk about whether property tax is regressive or not. I mean, you've heard me
mention before that uh
we, we got we're throwing kind of a curve on our senior citizen exemption is that
we thought it would have a bigger impact in Jefferson County than it did because
the Office of Financial Management redid the median income by county figures and
actually lowered ours. The senior city extension is based on a percent of the median
income. So what we were forecasted going into this was over 70,000 a year as being
the median income for a household in Jefferson County. And then when they came out
with their final figures in May that dropped down to about 62,000. So it dropped
about 10,000. It was interesting when we were going into the session last uh last
January, we thought our median income was about 20,000 higher than clown. By the
time it got done, when they redid, the figures clown was like 10,000 higher than
Jefferson. And the worst thought was s gadget sad just and they complained about
that. They, their income just well from what they thought they're gonna get, it dropped
like $30,000 with no real explanation from Ofm on why that was done. Well with that
for us is what happened over the years. The senior citizen, what to qualify exemption.
Your income had to be under like it's been 40,000 for, since 2015. Before that, it
was like 35,000. It would go up by an increment of like $5000 every five years. Well,
when they changed it back about eight years ago to be by, um, by beating income by
county, we didn't really get re qualified. So, it's been quite a while since we've
been moved out of that 40,000 bracket as being, well, in all these years that you've
had the cost of living going up and CP I, and social security increases, we're still
a 40,000 income. So, also you have all these seniors making more and more money and
everybody else too, but they're going up proportionately because of the s si you
know, the, the Social Security increases. But they were still held to 40. So we're
pulling people off the exemption program because now their income from Social security
is putting them over the limit. And um, so what the, the state did is they, there
were two different bills. One said, ok, we won't count the 2023 Social Security increase
for one year. We won't count that. So until so we get the rest of this program straightened
out. So for, we had a, a holiday on social security increases for one year. And then,
but they also did redo the, the me, the um, so the senior citizen program raise it
to a 70,000 or 70% limit of median income. But then we didn't get bumped up, we got
bumped to 45,000 and that was it. Well, what's gonna happen is ok, we added all these
seniors onto the program with that one year holiday and then 2024 that holiday goes
away. So, in 2024 we'll be counting their 2023 cost of living increase, their 2024
cost of living increase. And we're still in the same boat we're kind of in before
is that we did really up the limit. So, uh, I, I hope that something happens this
next year to fix that problem. Otherwise we're gonna wind up pulling senior citizens
off the program that, that we advocate for. Exactly right now. Right. I mean, it's,
there's other than just like, but it was not using AMI as the, yeah, I was kind of
like get this bill this last year. It's been, get this bill out the door. We'll fix
it next year. So I haven't seen a proposal yet. Um, but, but yeah, that, that could,
that could be a problem. Um, the other thing we're talking about, of course is a
homestead exemption. And the idea with a homestead exemption and again, this goes
to the, is property tax regressive is that you would give, uh, a, an exemption on
residential, primary places of residence of around $350,000 off the value. So, if
we value you at 500,000, you're gonna pay taxes for the, for the state school levy
based on, you know, 100 and 50,000 instead of 350 it said 500,000. Is that connected
to the existing homestead, uh, exception where you can, you can't be kicked out for
non, non payment of property taxes. Yeah. The, the what? That's different. Yes. The
senior sister, a disabled person that's different. Um, but here, no, no, I mean,
it's, it, it, there's no, in other words, you, everyone would qualify who applies,
who has a place of residence. It doesn't matter your income, it doesn't matter who
you are. You know, it's just you, you would apply and then you get it on your principal
place of residence. What that does, it causes a shift because the state schools are
still gonna get the same amount of money. So what happens is commercial picks up
the difference, vacant land, picks up the difference. So they, they would actually
end up the levy rate would go up a little bit and they'd wind up paying that amount
of money because the your principal place of residence, you're getting that break
and second homes, empty homes would, would pay, would not get the break. So, I mean,
it is a way of kind of saying if you actually live in there, right? And you know,
you're going with that fair to commercial. Well, the the thing is in commercial,
you have people who work there and they're all getting it right? And the owner of
the business is going to get it on their, on their residence. So, you know, it kind
of evens out. Plus it's the state school levy, which is statewide. So the shift isn't
to commercial so much in our county, it shifts to commercial in the I Five Corridor.
There is, is the highest value. So they wind up paying more and residential property
owners would pay less. So if there are, you know, the mechanics of that are still
trying to be figured out, it is indeed, the intent of this bill is indeed to address
regressive. And, um, it, the wealth tax was going to help cover the, yeah, but it,
it's hard to say what will happen, but that should move forward. Um, maybe pass,
maybe not, but it'll be worked out in 2024 and maybe if it doesn't pass in 2024 something
will come out of 2025 like 18 states already have a homestead exemption, something
similar. So we should be able to get something through bill for that already. There
was a bill on it but it, it didn't, I think it was a, maybe it was a noah frame but
it was one of the ones that, um, but the, the legislators have shifted around and
so it didn't go anywhere. So are there bills Stacy that you are issues that you're
tracking from the treasurer side? Ok. Thanks. There are some that, um, the treasurers
are working on independently that aren't Waco priority bills. Um, one of them would
be asking to change the threshold from when property taxes are doing full each year.
So it's $50. If you, if your tax bill is $50 or less, then you have to pay the
full tax amount for the full year in April. And uh the proposal is to up that to
100 and $50. Um, the amount hasn't changed in decades and decades. Um, when I look
at this is not scientific, but when I look at a lot of the ones that pay in two batches,
um a lot of forestry, they've got a lot of parcels that, you know, they might be
sending in payments for 30 parcels and a bunch of them are split in two because it's
$60 and they're doing two of 30. Um There is concern for people in, you know, uh
mobile homes or other things. Um But I don't know, you know, the idea is that we're
processing payments less for a lot of these smaller ones or if people have multiple
parcels, we're getting it upfront. Um So it's kind of to reduce workload and also
just uh update that a bit. Um And then the other one,
I don't know, the other one I, I won't go into because it's not, I don't want to
ask you to get behind it. It's not fully formed. Um And then on deck,
I've brought this up before. I don't know that it's gonna go anywhere this year.
But the other was we have a, um, maximum of $50 as an investment fee
for the districts and our funds that we invest, um, per
investment maturity and when we book it, so it's been, uh, $50 since seven,
let's see, 71 or I, I have the numbers that 1, 1971. That's when I was born.
Yeah. So, you know, while, while rates were in the, you know,
2 to 15 basis points, it didn't really make a difference, but the larger counties
don't care about this because they run a pool, they determine how much it costs to
run the pool and then people just pay the fee, it costs to run it. We, um, do not
have a formal pool and we're dictated by that statute that it's
$50 per investment per time we book it. And so we do have, um, it, it just
would not really help the treasurer's office, but it would help the general fund
to address a lot of the work we do. Um, which is, it's a big deal managing that and
allocating each, uh, month and, and tr, and managing their ins and outs of the, uh,
LG IP. Is there a proposed fix or is there the, the proposed fix was, uh, also 100
and $50. Yeah, would be the max. So I'm, I didn't make this really clear. The fee
is 5% or up to the $50 right now. So, it would still be a capped at 100
and $50 but it would be 5%.
Is there a bill for that one? There's not, that's something that the treasurers are
putting forward. So, for Washington Association of County officials, um, we vote
on priority bills in it was the end of September. And so I think this is something
that is, um, they're, they're shopping for people to, uh, sponsor them. So, um, those
are two that I feel, um, make business sense and are not too onerous for everyone.
Some of the other ones I'm, uh, not real, uh, charged about. So we'll see how they
go and, and how much traction they get. And so, Kate, how in the past have you collaborated
or coordinate with, like Waco on legislative priorities? Does, was a coordinate with
w ok. But I'm often surprised that, like, the Waco seldom pulls in
commissioners, like to testify on a bill. Like I, you know, and it's because there's,
you know, very qualified assessors and treasurers to, to testify too. But, um, it
just seems like a stronger case to have, you know, the whole county family saying
like this is, you know, taking, taking positions but they seldom do. Yeah. I thought
there was in part of the process where Waco and was, would decide where they wanted
to hop on each other's bills. But that tends to be outside of my, uh, hands on approach.
So I don't know, I think also it just is my senses. Things are always going so fast
and furious that you're just really jumping up and, and testifying when they say
four hours beforehand, please be there. And so it's really a scramble. Mhm. I mentioned
we have the same problem in Waco that you, you mentioned in Wack is we've had it
where King County will promote a progressive bill. That's good for King County and
Waco will not support it. Waco takes a different position because, you know, you
keep, there's what works in King County with their staffing and then there's what
can work elsewhere. Um That doesn't happen often, but every now and then King County
will really push a bill. That's, that's, they see is very good for King County that
we're going, we can't administrate this without, uh, you know, more money to do it.
Wait, wait was a subsidiary of Wack. I should know this. Now, are you gonna mean,
are you having the same issues where the larger counties are, are, are balking at
membership or anything like that? We've been talking about that. But
so, yeah, Jeff shared what's going on with Wack. And so I pulled up the information
for Waco. So Wack is only commissioners and county administrators and that
area and then Waco is all of the affiliates. Um, and so treasurer, auditor, assessor,
coroner, prosecuting attorney, sheriff. What else did I miss anything? Ok. Um,
and so, uh, we do have our fee schedules. Um But in Waco,
the um cap for King County is 25% of all of it where I think there was 50% for
wack. And, um, so, uh, I, I was very intrigued by it to see if we would have the
same issues, but we do have the same, no proxy for voting. And um, but we do have
uh an electronic voting means. So when we do have our annual conference and choose
to have um electronic voting, if someone wasn't there, they could vote, you know,
in the time frame. But um no, we are sensitive to that and we try to make sure they
um see the value. But I mean, I think it might have been, I don't know, seven or
so years ago, I was hearing quite a bit like prosecuting attorneys were saying they
shouldn't, you know, didn't really care for Waco. And so we keep trying to show,
you know, being on the executive board, really trying to show the value of it. And
um I absolutely see the value in it that if um we didn't have that organization,
we really would be at, you know, it would just be wack, it decides everything and
we wouldn't have the, the expertise in our areas represented just because there's
too much to do. And I think a lot depends on the personality of the elected officials
in King County. King County has their own lobbyists. So what happens when and, and
the assessor for King County has been very good about understanding the situation.
So he does not like it when Waco testifies against the bill, he's pushing because
they're paying what 25% of Waco. But he understand we usually try to find, come to
terms with it that you make it a King County only bill or in, in most cases, it's
not something we're opposing, we're just not gonna support it. We're not gonna come
out one way or the other that gives King County the green light to go ahead and push
it with their lobbyists. So it's worked out so far. He's, he's, but, but again, there
is some, some tenseness there. OK? Um One question I would have for
you um is as you're going through this, are there any things that we can provide
information for or support on them um where we, you know, overlap. So, um you know,
just I appreciate being invited to attend and discuss this in session with all three
of you and my colleagues. Um And having it a little bit more front loaded than uh
hey, this is happening today, although the um during session it seems like
that does happen where I say, oh, I just heard about this bill at LSC. Can you give
me your perspective on it? And I hope you're, you're OK with that. Yeah, because
things change quickly and yeah, it's the same for us. And so, you know, we do what
we can and uh, you don't get anything if you don't ask. Ok, cool. All right. Well,
well, yeah, go ahead, Jeff. Well, the items that Kate provided here or they provide
here from what that, you know, there aren't any items in here that we would particularly
have any issue with in the Assessors Association. Um, and, and some compliment what
we're trying to do, you know, like, like we sit there and talk about uh media income
and that uh concerned that the AMI does not reflect true cost of living on the Olympic
Peninsula. You know, I mean, I, I agree with that. So, so some of these, some of
these I would support even if the, the Assessors Association because it's not in
their ballpark would not, they wouldn't oppose it. They just would say it's not.
Yeah, I mean, I wonder about the next steps for us, you know, if we kind of refine
this list down into a, you know, a page or two after we process this from our, our
colleagues and then redistribute it out to get feedback again. I mean, is that what
do you have a path that in mind? I don't, I mean, I think we should decide how, you
know, how, how much of an agenda we wanna have or if we wanna, you know, like let
the Waco ones kind of be the, the priorities of our colleagues and then they come
to us if they want support. And, um, it's interesting, we haven't even talked about
la salsa though. Yeah. And Apple is, um, I don't know if she wants to. So she raised
her head earlier, I think both Josh. Yeah. Um, why don't we just continue getting
input and we'll come back to what to do with it after that. Hello, Apple. Everybody.
Nice to see you. I would be there in person but run in between lots of meetings.
So uh and here the others go. This is relatively new format for me. I don't know
that I was able to come last year. Um So, and I'm, I'm really getting a legislative
one on one going on here for myself as a as a leader. Um And was also, as you mentioned,
the Washington State, um local uh public health officials organization really does
help us uh navigate set and focus on priorities legislatively. So, um I'm just gonna
share with you a quick list of, of items that I think are um mainly policy shifts
that we're interested in, in watching, monitoring and prioritizing. Um Some of them
are not being prioritized right now, so I'll skip those. But um what I don't have
is bill numbers. So I'm realizing that I'm coming up short here. I apologize. I was
not able to cram that in ahead of this meeting. Um But I think it's good to just
get a lay of the land of the things that are being prioritized by wao and therefore,
uh local health departments. So I'll start with um one that you're pretty familiar
with and we talked about the Board of Health last week. Um High priority, yes, is
um septic Capacity Assessment. Um And this is a carryover from the 2023 session,
but it wasn't funded. So that's obviously something we're gonna be looking at quite
closely and, and, and hoping that we get, um, that will get passed. Um, it
looks like the Las Soho has asked the governor and the legislature to include a $250,000
um amount to conduct a one time study supporting the apple that has been included
in the governor's budget. It has. Ok. So this is what I'm looking at. You're right.
That was discussed last Thursday. Um, in any case, along with that as a major priority
is also, um, the state Board of Health school rule budget proviso which um, Commissioner
Dean shared at our Board of Health last week and we've talked about it in the past.
But, um, we're looking at how um several local health jurisdictions have already
started to do um, school environmental health programs and the rules need to be updated.
Um So we're focusing on, you know, the, the administration of sort of science driven
uniform guidance and standards for how these programs get started and then utilized
in the schools and in the counties. Um And the proviso has uh
Kate help me with this, this proviso was enacted in 20 s. Has it been closed since
2017, 2009 even further. Yes, thank you.
So we're opening that back up in order to um to look at those rules and get them
updated in other aspects. I wanted to prioritize or share a prioritization. There's
some policy change we're looking at with regard to child fatality review, modernization
and that has to do with RCW 70.05 0.170. And they're proposing some language change
and updating some of the content so that it's more um in alignment with
um sort of the shifting landscape of what child vitality are actually encompassing
things like um overdose and suicide. So these are really important um changes that
are we're looking at getting made in order to have that system be modernized so that
it encompasses and tracks data that's more relevant to, to deaths that are occurring.
Now, can I ask you a question about that app? Go ahead. I'll do my best. I mean,
it's really, I, I guess it, it prompts in me other data that doesn't seem to be collected
very much about uh maternity. Um and you know, not fatalities, infant mortality as
well as uh you know, maternal mortality. And I'm just wondering if there's ever,
are there any efforts to try to get more data about the that part of the health care
system there is and that's another priority in this listing from a cell phone is
the access, which is something that is critically and chronically difficult for us
to get access to larger scale data statewide. Um And that particular priority is
called
um segregation. OK. The segregation of data is that the same. It's data
access, increasing uh local health jurisdictions access to statewide health related
data. And it's not being prioritized right now in this particular iteration. But
it is a common um conception that we should have access to this, but it's gets very
complicated in terms of how data is shared with regard to the child fatality review
modernization. Um It seems like they're wanting to add language from other rules.
Um In the law, it says that um doh um has things they can do in order to
help modernize the system and share data, but it's not, um it's not exactly the case,
it's really um available at the federal and private levels. And so we're trying to
change the language so that Doh Department of Health at the statewide level has more
access so that we can then glean and contribute more information that's helpful.
And so like I've talked to Bob Jones about this and the challenges in getting data
where even getting our own data. It's like a, you know, a, a bureaucrat, a series
of bureaucratic hurdles to get our own data back um anonymized. I'm not sure what
they, or maybe it's just because we submit it. But is that what we're talking about
here? And that is in part? Yes, I don't know. So specifically about the Child Death
Review or the Child f fatality review modernization that exactly pinpoints that.
But I do know that in data access arena, um even getting um data sharing agreements
with the State Department of Health are, are very cumbersome, very lengthy and take
a long time to get approved. You all have seen those um D SAS come through for signature
multiple times and we really are, you know, we are modernizing our entire public
health communication vehicle in terms of how people can access what it is that we're,
we're learning about the data on various issues and um having it be so cumbersome
on the back end in order to find um not only aggregate data but raw data to sort
of work with under the auspices of the new sort of approach we have and the staff
we've hired for epidemiology. Um and, and all of our assessments is it's, it's a
lot of work. Um I think it could be streamlined. Um I think the more, the more entities
that are accessing data, the more complicated it gets in terms of permissions and
access, we've got hospitals about health departments and, and Adam Anita, right.
Um So hopefully, at least in this case, with regard to child fatality, there will
be some clarity with um adding new or adjusting the current language um in the policy
or in the RCW. Um Otherwise, there is a priority around
um vaccine definition updates to include the RSV uh vaccine um uh
nurse vab. So that's included. Um We're broadening, we need to broaden the statutory
language of the word vaccine to ensure coverage for this RSV vaccine. Um It isn't
currently and so that's cutting off some of the priority funding to purchase and
allocate this RSV vaccine out to the public and the high priority um populations
that really need it. Um And that's needing to happen yesterday. Uh As you well know,
um this is, this is on the landscape currently in this um in this season and um changing
some of that definition to broaden it uh will help us disseminate that vaccine more
more broadly. Um The issue really is that um the RSV, I'm
sorry, I've used the wrong word, the RSV immunization, it's not prepared from killed
or attenuated living microorganisms. Um So it falls outside this current statutory
definition of what a vaccine is and that's what they're gonna be working on. Um changing
the um the definition to include it. Um Otherwise, let's see.
Um Another priority is uh in the realm of syphilis treatment as you probably are
aware and we're trying to do a little more um promotion and advertising around um
detecting syphilis and then also uh creating networks that help provide treatment
to those who need it. Um In this case, one of the priorities is um to allow medical
assistance with telehealth access to a supervising clinician, provide this um im
injection, intramuscular injection for the syphilis uh treatment in the field. Um
And that's not been allowed in the past. So they wanna make sure that MA S can provide
this shot to folks outside the uh environment of the clinic. And that way disseminating
it to folks who are really in need, who are more disenfranchised or um living outside
or just sort the wide state of folks who might be experiencing higher, higher rates
of syphilis can have access to it. So, can I just ask a question, a process question
here. This is a lot of priorities and I'm you, you called this agenda item is your
interest in getting all the priorities and then refining the list, getting that n
that down to a county um legislative agenda. I'm trying to figure out what the end
goal is. Well, I think um I think, you know, various or associations will have their
exhaustive priorities which, you know, is way more than we could take on for our
efforts. So, um I think getting to, you know, to our priorities based on what we
think are the most pressing needs affecting Jefferson County um is, is probably the
end goal. It is helpful to hear the association's priorities to situational awareness.
Um I, I am aware we're going to run out of time because the courthouse closes. We've
got nine minutes. We have D CD when, when Apple's done. But I want to give uh time.
Yeah, I think I have one more about standing orders for, um, you know, health officers
and also another one about micro enterprise home kitchens. Um, but that exhausts
the list that is current priority list. Um, and it's not, uh, las also would not
say this is an exhaustive priorities list. It's the truncated version and it's already
long. So you make the point. Uh Commissioner Eisenhower and um I'm learning about
this process vis a vis how the county wants to approach legislative issues. So, um
I'm open to whatever you all decide in terms of the, what the end goal is and how
we can show up as directors to supply that information, to encourage uh support from
a Jeffery County standpoint. This is the first step and, you know, maybe it means
that uh public health asks commissioners to come and testify for something more,
you know, that Heidi will be there for the septage one already. So some of these
will end up on our, our priority list, I think too. So, um I think it's really, really
helpful. Ok. Uh Josh, I'm sorry, we did not leave you a lot of time. But uh do you
wanna go into some planning priorities for this legislative session session?
Sure, thank you. Um
Do you think it, it might be worth it if you want to talk about community planning
more broadly, that we schedule some more time in the not too distant future so that
we can talk about getting ready for the session. I fully admit that I have not had
a lot of time to think about the session and I actually need to think about the last
session or two first because there are things that were passed in the last couple
of sessions that we need to start thinking about implementing. And I know you got
a, an education on that. Did I last week when we had the presentation from the Managing
Director of Growth Management Services at the IC G meeting. So that said though I
did, um I did put in the chat here if you're interested. That's a, it takes you right
to the PDF of the Washington Chapter of the American Planning Association and the
legislative committee priorities for the 2024 session if you're interested because
it is a fairly broad spectrum of planning related things. I did also attend uh virtually
a part of the meeting that some of you attended last week, the county leaders conference,
the part that the um the annual business meeting of the Washington State Association
of County and Regional Planning Directors of which I'm now a member. So that was
interesting. We met with a couple of legislators and talked about some pretty specific
things including lamer legislation that I know that this particular agenda request
had a blurb about that's limited areas of more intensive rural development. So that's
a very quick opening spiel if you have any specific questions you want to do in the
last five minutes, happy to talk about that. Or again, we can plan on talking more
broadly and and more completely at another time.
Questions. I'm, I'm zooming through the document I I, you know, the equity lens for
G MA goals is something that seems like it really dovetails with, with rural affairs
and, you know, situations. I mean, o obvious that's where I, you know, coming from
a rural county, see a lot of the equity issues. Of course, we don't have some of
the other equity issues that other planning departments probably have to deal with.
But do you have any sense of what they're talking of what the Planning Association
is talking about when they say equity issues?
A good question. Um I have a feeling that it's related to legislation that's already
passed and it might be considered again in terms of requirements when we do our 10
year periodic update, which we're on the hook for, for the, for mid 2025. But I think
you're right. Commissioner Brotherton that in, in general, there's the equity lens,
um, closely associated with the environmental justice lens and so forth. Um, and
we have perhaps a different set of interests, um, in addition to those, um, but more
more acutely aware of just differences in income levels and standards of living for
different members of our community as you've talked about today at length and, and
many other times. So I do think that it's a lens with which we should take another
look at our comp plan for next time. And also just survey the tools that we have
to try to with at least within the growth management and community planning framework
to employ, to try to solve various problems. Of course, you the board is looking
at a lot of different set of tools for a lot of broader set of problems, but just
from the community planning lens, which in and of itself is pretty comprehensive.
Hence the name comprehensive plan, we have some things we can do, but we don't have
as many tools, for example, as incorporated areas do um in terms of some of the other
housing related issues and solutions, but now that we have the UG A and H Hadlock
coming online that does give us another lens. And as I mentioned to you, um I believe
I mentioned last week that we are coming soon with uh another small grant for middle
housing uh that we want to incorporate as part of our re exploration of our urban
regulations as part of the Port Hadlock UG A. And so that's a, you know, another
avenue to at least make sure that our codes for when that sewer comes online and
in 2025 as scheduled that we're set up for success for different kinds of housing
to try to meet the various needs that we have.
I will say Greg um I think the one of the key issues driving this priority is displacement,
gentrification and displacement um which, you know, well, arguably suffered but in
a different way. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. OK. Yeah, I was looking at
Tacoma numbers, you know, that like Hilltop is like 95% white now, like a huge, it's
like one of the most gentrified neighborhoods in the country. Wow. Wow. Yeah, because
it was, it was affordable compared to Seattle. So you had displacement and then those
people got pushed elsewhere. Displacement down downstream. Kick the dog. Jeez. All
right. Um Great. Well, we are about out of time. We have to end at 430. Um, I don't
know, Kate, do you want to kind of think about how we can take this and, and, and,
you know, obviously this is going to be a continuing conversation and what's the
next step? Yeah. And we didn't get to that kind of stuff that falls more into our
purview too. You know, some of these I think we could certainly adopt. But, you know,
things like, do we want to really try and, uh, to find an ask for Brennan or not?
Um Where's my list? The, the, the rap act, the producer Responsibility Recycling,
I think that's a, a big one that's, that's gonna need support from counties like
our. Um, so, uh, it would be nice to have a conversation about some of those topics
too. But we, you know, like I said, I don't think there's a big rush, I don't think
we're going to be leading any important initiatives. Um, but we, the Brian one in
particular, I think that's probably our most specific ask otherwise we would be supporting
other efforts. Um So we should think about if we want to, to do a bre and ask.
Great. Yeah. Yeah, more on that soon. Ok. Well, um, I guess we'll give everyone a
minute back in their day and uh uh yeah, thanks a lot for, for um having the conversation
with us and we'll be in touch about how we can work together. All right, thanks,
Apple. Thanks Josh. Ok. Well, with that, we are out of time today. Um So I think
unless there's anything burning, no. All right, I will adjourn us and we will see
you.