I don't see the A. B capture running, but since we're on zoom, I think we can convene
our meeting. So I will call this january 18th, 2022 meeting of the jefferson County
Board of Commissioners to the service to order. Um, and I hope you all had some
rest and fun this weekend and some time for reflection. Um I know I yesterday spent
a lot of time listening to martin Luther King's speeches and just trying to get grounded
in the leadership he provided for so many for decades and still provided to this
day. And I reflect on how some people really have a lasting effect on our lives and
he's definitely one of them. So um one quote of his that I am stuck with me yesterday
was we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious face in the future. I just
love that simplicity and strength of that quote. So um as we always do, we start
our morning off with public comment. I don't know if either of you have any other
comments for this morning. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I spent some time in reflection
with one of our great speakers and really profound speaker in martin Luther King
Jr yesterday too. So I also brought a quote that I thought I spoke to the uh the
work that we do. So uh from a letter from the Birmingham jail. He wrote shallow understanding
from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from
people of ill will for acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
And this is a challenging one for me because I often find uh the outright rejection
that we're dealing with sometimes uh in the polarization in our country really uh
destructive, but it's uh you know, at least you know where you disagree. So I
profound man and a great loss. Thank you.
Yeah, I think I d I I think I I was taking comfort yesterday in the reading that
I was doing about how how much dr king struggled um and and was not very
popular and was not considered a leader in his time. And um you know, and it's just
it's it's so telling that that when we keep our eye on kind of the distance and the
future of of what we know is right and good instead of getting caught in louise of
what is in this moment and what is popular um that it's it's often leads to a different
place. And I just so admire his his vision even in the face of enormous um
hate and distrust. And you know, he stuck to his message and got more radicalized
um As his life went on. And you know, I think I read that only 30% of people supported
his beliefs and ideas when he was alive and now 90% of people do. Um and it's just
shocking to think that he was not revered in his time. It is, you know, only now
in the future that we come to appreciate his wisdom. So trying to keep the long view.
Mhm. Yeah, and on that, I I went for a long walk in the woods yesterday and was reminded
profoundly that that is where my wealth gets filled back up. So um I encourage everyone
to stick with what inspires them the most, and let's move ahead together and take
take the steps, we need to get where we to, where we need to go. Um as much as we
um have diversity in our community, I think that we can all work together to move
forward. So um with that note, I would love to hear from any members of the
public who are with us, who would like to make a public comment today, and um you
can do so by raising your hand on the zoom screen, the little raised hands on the
toolbar at the bottom of the screen. So is there anybody with us today who would
like to make public comments?
I feel like I'm not that in a very high average on public comments,
anybody who invites to make public comment this morning,
There's a few callers to might be worth mentioning Star nine.
Um Yeah, so if you're on the phone and would like to make public comments, hit star
Nine and we will see your interest and and call on you, or if you're on zoom please
raise your hand and we will call on you to make public comments.
Seeing anybody.
Okay well oh wait there's a hand I'm here, I'm bringing them over
and oh there's another hand. Alright
yeah that will be next.
Good morning Mr Kirsch, you want to turn on your or not? Turn on your screen? Cut
open your phone line,
here we go. No I don't have the internet and within our support video going out.
Thank you very much. Waiting for that broadband act please. Uh Thanks for
the opportunity this morning Commissioners um at your last regular meeting on the
10th something called my attention, Mr Mccauley was talking about uh some actions
that are being taken with public works alan monty regarding the moderate risk waste
facility at court. Um glad to hear that something is being done about that that facilities
is important. Unfortunately it's not really very accessible. It's not open very often
more often than not I end up taking like lithium batteries, I just take them to own
depot and they take care of them there and that saves the county some money to ideas
because that's the expensive process or to package for processing. Um in any case.
Uh another thing that caught my attention about that was that Mr Mccauley said he
wouldn't be meeting with all three commissioners and al and Matti to discuss the
issue and so I'm kind of interested to hear what came of that conversation, you know,
was there, are there any minutes taken or you know what what was the outcome of the
meeting basically is what I'd like to know. So that's not so much a comment, but
a question. Thanks, Mark, do you want to address that?
Right. Yeah. Well, Karen's and money um riders met individually with each of our
three court members to discuss the moderate risk waste facility at the airport. We
had had a public meeting a number of weeks previous to that with Aaron Berg and eric
pays from uh from the court. And that public meeting was inconclusive. And so we
had some ground work to do. And the purpose of the meeting that Alan monty had with
each of the three board members was to discuss the nature of the facility and
the desire of the court to have us remove that facility from court property. Um Based
on those three meetings, we felt we had um An idea of where, where we needed to go
as a county. And so monty, al and I met with Eric and Aaron Aaron Aaron Berg
from the court. And we came to an agreement that the MW our facility would remain
on the court until January 2025, which would give us some time to do some capital
planning regarding a permanent uh moderate risk waste facility
where our current transfer station is um which we are outgrowing. And so public works
is engaging in a capital facilities planning effort so that we can have a facility
that will take us Out into the future for 15 or 20 years. The court
agreed with that. And so we're gonna work up a memorandum of understanding or agreement
regarding the moderate risk waste facility. The timeline for removing
it and what the court would would pay to compensate us for improvements we made to
that facility a number of years ago. So hopefully that explains things.
It's a good recap. And can I just emphasize those are three separate meetings, right?
Public works with each commissioner said early the word
And it looks like we have another caller with a hand up collar ending in 874. Go
ahead and hit Star 6 to unmute.
Hi, can you hear me?
Yes, you can hear me Yes. Um a nice long weekend today. I'm gonna be
very brave and simply asked for you to please share your thoughts on the Canadian
covid Carolina video that I sent you last week. That's all. Thanks.
Thank you, Kincaid. It looks like a net has her hand raised,
Go ahead and bring her over as panelists. And then I'll bring over Q. And Beth O'neill
next
good morning Commissioners. Um can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Good morning.
Thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm going to read you from a letter to uh the
Israeli Ministry of Health from Professor Edward Cameron, who's the head of the department
of microbiology and immunology at tel Aviv University and one of Israel's leading
immunologists. This is an open letter, the Ministry of Health. It's time to admit
failure In the end, the truth will always be revealed and the truth about the coronavirus
policy is beginning to be revealed when the disruptive concepts collapse. One by
one, there is nothing left but to tell the experts who led the management of the
pandemic. We told you so two years later, you finally realized that a respiratory
virus cannot be defeated and that any such attempt is doomed to fail. You do not
admit it because you have admitted almost no mistake in the last few years. But in
retrospect, it is clear that you have failed miserably in almost all of your actions.
And even the media is already having a hard time covering your shame. You refuse
to admit that the infection comes in waves that fade by themselves. Despite years
of observation and scientific knowledge, you insisted on attributing every decline
of away solely to your actions. And so through false propaganda, you overcame the
plague and again, you defeated it again and again and again, you refuse to admit
that mass mass testing is ineffective despite your own contingency plans explicitly
stating. So you refuse to admit that recovery is more protective than a vaccine.
Despite previous knowledge and observation showing that non recovered vaccinated
people are more likely to be an effective than recovered. People, you refuse to admit
that the vaccinated are contagious. Despite the observation Based on this. You hope
to achieve herd herd immunity by vaccination and you fail in that as well. You insisted
on ignoring the fact that the disease is dozens of times more dangerous for risk
groups and older adults than for young people who are not in risk groups. Despite
the knowledge that came from China as early as 2020, you refuse to adopt the Barrington
declaration, signed by more than 60,000 scientists and medical professionals or other
common sense programs. You chose to ridicule slander distort and discredit them instead
of the right programs of people. You have chosen professionals who relevant training
for pandemic management positions as chief government advisors, veterinarian security
officers,
you have not set up an effective system for reporting side effects from the vaccines
and reports on side effects have even been deleted from your facebook page. Doctors
avoid linking side effects to the vaccine unless you persecute them as you did with
some of their colleagues. You have ignored many reports of changes in menstrual intensity
and menstrual cycle times. You have data that allows for objective and proper research.
For example, you remove the data on passengers at Ben Gurian airport. Instead you
chose to publish non objective articles together with senior fighter executives on
the effectiveness and safety of vaccines. However, from the heights of your hubris.
Also in view of the fact that any of the truth will be revealed.
That's three minutes. Thank you. Thank you
Antonio
morning. Morning, thank you. And next for pointing out those very important
facts and statistics uh that I wish you all would look at. You are leaders right
now. You are not doing the unpopular things, you are doing the popular things. Uh
you are not questioning the mainstream rhetoric. I really wish you would. I wish
you would dive in. This is so important. We have our country and our big pharma and
Dr Fauci, the head of the N. I A. D. Have systematically used black and brown people
in this country as guinea pigs for their trials. And you one example could be right
now that over 50% of black and brown people are not getting these shots because they
do not trust for a very good reason. Big Pharma and the relationship now that all
of our regulatory agencies led by Dr. Fauci and others have a big pharma. So our
district, our our little town now basically has jim Crow laws and does not allow
over 50% of black and brown people into restaurants, bars and into movie theaters
and is discriminating against them. So you are not on that. You are on the popular
side of things. Those of us that are calling in. And there are many many scientists
out there where opportunity. Junior, please read this book out there that are they
have put their lives at risk to fight this because we do not want medical
tyranny. We do not believe in jabbing Children to have no risk of death from this
with an experimental gene therapy shot. And that is what it is. It's not a vaccine.
Look it up. I would like to end because yes, I spent the day looking at martin Luther
king JR quotes and listening to speeches. One of my favorite is is beyond Vietnam.
He's an incredible hero. I wish we had more of him today. I don't see it in our leadership
in our anywhere. Um but one of his quotes that stood out to me, there comes a time
when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular. But he
must take it because conscience tells him it's right. Thank you.
Thank you. Looks like we have another hand braid. Mr scott stratman. Please
correct me if I got that wrong, bringing them over as a Panelist, we'll have to approve
the designation of panelists.
Well you'll have to a Knute Mr chapman.
There you go. Thank you for allowing us to speak. Um so I
understand there are many people including including the medical profession that
don't have time to do their research and to look at all the research papers and to
look at all the facts. But I think it's time for our politicians are
medical officials and even the medical community to step back and see
if they want a free country or not and do some research instead of being just tired
at the end of the day and going home and laying down, spend 10 minutes each night
and just going to internet see what India has, what Japan has, what other countries
have. Denmark Norway and then re evaluate where you actually stand in
society today. Um Things just don't add up compared to
what the medical officials are saying and what the facts are saying. Thank you for
hearing me.
Thank you. Mr Stratton. Anybody else on the line currently who wants to make a comment
raise your hands on the toolbar at the bottom of the zoom screen or press star nine
on your phone and you will be brought over
not seeing any other folks raising their hands. So um we'll
spend some time doing some response anybody interested in responding to the comments
we received today. Oh sure I will and I tried to prepare myself by by sharing that
on M. L. K. Quote. Still struggling with it. Um I mean I think I think Mark responded
to mr tears appropriately good conversations and you know sometimes you really have
to be able to ask uh questions and in a way that is uh can't
do everything in public question but if I I appreciate it going going back to the
ground and working through that issue uh uh Kincaid I did not watch the video. I
did do 30 seconds of googling and seeing that the what is Canadian covid care alliance
had uh, several other videos removed for misinformation. Just I'm not interested,
sorry, I'm not gonna know you spent a lot of time on your missus. But uh, there's
not a lot of values uh, to a net um, you know,
the health care system is struggled uh, you know, our health professionals, the cbc
right now is struggling with messaging, you know, as they navigate uh ever evolving
uh virus and and what's the appropriate response? Well, everyone made mistakes and
I think we're trying to learn of course are we can do much better than addressing
covid than we did at the beginning. So a lot of progress has been made and a lot
of lessons learned about public health um, To O. Neal, you know, the one part of
your margins 13 quote that I think you should really take the heart, you know, you
have faith but you are taking a position that is not safe and you really should.
It's vaccinated. You know, the confirmation bias you guys constantly uh, allege is
so apparent in your weekly attacks on public and
to Mr statman, Welcome first time we heard from um, uh, and I believe what you asked
us is that politicians to overrule our public health officials, I have absolute faith
that our public health officials are health officer and the network that supports
our people throughout the nation. Have good intentions uh, and are
more informed than you or I about the pace and conditions
of covid. Thanks for your comments. Okay.
Thanks Greg Casey. Have any response? No, I don't have a lot to add. I will
say that I, I bristle at the using of Brown and Black lives weaponized in
this way I find really, um, unfair. But um, you know, I don't want to get into arguments
here. I'm not a medical professional. Um, and so I do not feel it is my job to interpret
uh, medical, uh, data. Um, and frankly the Canadian Kobe care alliance,
which I did glance through the power point slides very briefly. Um, there's a lot
of non medical professionals in there too. So, um, it don't feel like it's my, I
need to weigh in on something produced by folks with some shady science that um,
when I don't have the qualifications to do, so I leave that to the professionals.
Um, yeah, not a lot sad. 10 couple of other
than what's already been said, a couple of things that stick for me is, you know,
I've said since the beginning of my time as a commissioner and um, have reiterated
this, but I really believe that people have the right to make their choice about
their health and a lot of people have made their choices and you know, I've said
that over and over again. I'm realizing as I go through this role that there are
so many opinions out there. I spent probably six or seven hours last week reading
things looking at links. I did not watch the entire Canadian Canadian Canadian covid
Caroline video but I did some reading and found out that there were questions about
their science and I am not equipped to be a scientific expert on
um the issues that we're faced with right now and I'm really, I think we're all
wearing of the pandemic. We're almost two years into this experience together
and um, I don't know, I just feel like it's important for people and I
appreciate people coming and making comments and upholding their values. I don't,
I share a distrust of big pharma and you know, I have my own beliefs about that.
Um, and I feel like it's important that we continue to hear each other and live in
the same conversation. Um, but know that when you send those documents we receive
hundreds of pages of both public comments and reading that we have to do each week
to prepare for our monday meetings. So if we don't get to the entirety of what you
sent us, don't hold that against us um share in this journey with
us and I know that many of you are and I appreciate that, but I would love to hear
from other people about other concerns that we're working on like school based mental
health or behavioral health concerns or um, the we we board or I mean the things
that we would work on each week. I mean I spent a dozen hours last week reading through
Foia documents about a project in our county that is really concerning to me. So
it's not like we have unlimited hours to spend reading the documents that you spend
If you can distinctly share or share a short version of something, we'll have a better
chance of reading it. But I think this week we had over 300 pages of public comment
to read. Some of it is just email newsletters that are forward to us, but we still
have to read through them entire packages sent to us. So anyway, I just I hear you,
I feel your concerns and um I look forward to hearing from you in the month ahead
as I know I will. So thank you for your time this morning. And um on that note,
um the last call for any public comments that people want to make who haven't made
comments already, anybody on the line who still has a comment that they'd like to
share about anything new or um anything
they know him. Um, I'm wondering if commissioners have any comments they want to
make on comments we received in writing this week.
Yeah,
okay. I'm just excited and thankful for all the hard work of people in our county.
Um there was a lot of comments about the roads earlier in the month and um, you know,
housing issues, housing solutions network is doing some great work with convening
a new hat housing action team on sanitation and they have a meeting coming up on
zoning, that their um bringing some new conversations together around housing issues
in our community and I'm thankful for that. Um I just want to let you guys know here
in public that I am responding to miss very student um inquiry of the letter from
the student that we received. Um I have reached out, we got a comment last week about
why don't we have off the shelf a bu plans similar to what Callum County has, and
I did reach out to Director Butler about that and he is working on that. So, our
Department of Community Development is focused on trying to come to a solution that
will provide affordable um a b or a small house plans that people in our community
can acquire from our Department of Community Development for shelter. And there was
a lot of reading last week about the final art that rule, the final um rules on the
use of the recovery funds that we received. And I was grateful that in the months
between releasing their interim rule and their final role, they made an effort to
make the guidance simpler and more flexible for counties and to create to place a
greater emphasis on uh relief for minorities because um
we all know that we're working kind of against the odds when we have sometimes up
to 1000 days, is to read of guidance before we can get to knowing what we can use
the money for. So making um the guidance simpler and more flexible is appreciated.
Um, anyway, there was a lot of big public comments. I mean our ferry system has been
taken it, I mean they've really been struggling. So I see that every week in our
in our packet. Anyways, Mark, is there anything that you want to ask for public comment
this week? I don't believe so. Thank you. Okay, well it's 9
30. So um Heidi Heidi, can I tell you one thing since this is the only place we're
really allowed to talk to each other, but I also did respond to the students uh,
the school project. Okay. Okay. Welcome to separately. And I guess you want one last
thing on your list. Okay.
Talk to each other and um Caroline the consent agenda.
Yeah, but we want to look at
It's short this week compared to our last two weeks where there have been about 20
items each week. We have a much shorter consent agenda. Do either you have any comments
you want to make on the consent agenda this week? I just want to call out the contract
with the Gateway Center and Jefferson Transit for the past caring stop at at Gateway
center. I'm really excited about the beginning of that new service. The jefferson
transit will be offering and great that you can, you know, we can park up 20 cars
overnight as the gateway visitor center to increase access because people out of
their cars and mass transit. So I'm really excited to see this come together and
to uh a double a nexus of county operations or county county partnerships coming
together. So I might uh if you look at the environmental benefits of that agenda
request have some stats in there about tons of CO two that would be removed.
People fully utilize that that bus round. Yeah, sorry, I was waiting for my
segway um there is a we were notified of describing the error on page four of the
agreement. I think four, maybe I tapped the wrong page. Yes, It's Section four.
Section 14 G. Yeah. Page Yeah. Page five. It refers to jefferson transit
throughout the entire document, but on page five it refers to the J. T. A. And so
would like that replaced with jefferson transit to keep it consistent with the rest
of the document.
They will note that in the motion when we get there. Um any other things you want
to call out on the consent agenda, Greg or kate,
good work. Um Public health in this case. Yeah, great to see public health, you know,
taking a leadership role. You can see the staffing capacity kind of implicit in that
to do their own have them uh nursing partners but still oversight from justice strong
program. Yeah, I was actually excited to see the mou with, I was going to
examine coalition for the work on the confluence of creek. I know that's been a piece
of that watershed that it's been troubling for decades and I'm, I'm glad to see um,
both public health and north atlantic salmon coalition digging in to come up with
a solution at that spot um, in to my gum. So kate, did you have
some the U. N. S. No, I was just going to make a motion to adopt the consent agenda
with the scrivener error corrected as pointed out by mr mccauley.
Um, second all in favor
consented and passive. Um,
so we want to look at our calendar flying back.
Who wants to fill us in on what you did last week?
I know first I needed first. Let's see of course like everyone, we all are
meeting with monty and how Karen and Mark's talked about the medium risk waste went
to my first Pcc meeting, which was good to see those folks again. Thanks for uh,
giving that back to me idea was uh, question. We talked a lot about that Kingston
fast ferry in there. So it serves a lot of functions. We also had a, our first uh
planning meeting to relook with jefferson transit with the consultants at the strategic
plan, which the three of us from the rest of the jefferson transit board had um,
indicated did not address greenhouse gas emissions and climate change adaptation
and mitigation enough for alternative fuel vehicles. So I saw that we got a new graph
based on that working session and notes that the commission being provided um uh
that I have not looked at, but looking forward to getting in those and we'll get
them done, you know, getting notes backed by the end of this week and then we should
have an updated strategic plan in time for the uh jefferson transit meeting in february.
I went and took a tour of glen cove with residents and the business and
glen cove on Tuesday. Um, we did not have the affordable housing task force because
that is a kind of a subset of the housing fund board, so we don't know um exactly
what's going to be like yet. I do have the board meeting of the finance meeting and
things are still going going very well the specifically the housing office, I don't
know if you guys have made it over to the new office on the Pearson building on a
person's way, but really nice for staff. They have a little bit of elbow room to
do that work. I mean a lot of, a lot of money passing through that organization going
straight to helping people I think was, you know, for, but a lot of, a lot of
assistance passing through, we have the 700 developed meeting that's still moving
along, you can see the parking garage last time I was there, that concrete was going
up to 77,007 street. Really exciting um behavioral health consortium meeting on
thursday friday was a bit of a wash for me. Unfortunately. I had jay batten this
opera group meeting for local investments entrepreneurs and I had some car issues
and couldn't remotely get into the meetings from my cars. I was struggling with prepare
and everything, so I missed meetings on friday and that was my home on saturday,
went down. My my daughter got boosted at the clinic and I also talked to the volunteers
and really met
for the first time and public health director Apple martin came, came down and toured
around for the staff and volunteers and it was again well handled smoothly running
operation. They got it dialed in at this point. So we're really glad to find no,
no side effects for my daughter and she feels very gratifying that she is,
hey, good man. Um see last week, first week of the legislative session, which means
uh busy busy time. So few highlights there.
The host bill 13 33 which we've been working on for years now the training and the
330.9 tax rebate from the state. Um that went immediately to the house floor that
has passed the house last time back to the house floor was voted off again. Um favor
um and so it goes to the Senate side. Um, and optimistic that that will see some
progress there, but that was exciting to see um the electrician apprenticeship issue
which we've been working on with the public legislative alliance, they had a hearing
on a bill that uh kind of opens up the new regulation that's that's so restrictive
for rural independent electricians, non union shops because of the lack of training
outside of metro metropolitan areas. Um and looks like there's some real potential
were also able to meet with the senator who sponsored that bill and um really great
that there's some willingness to take a look at extending implementation so that
some fixes can be made, um inadvertence and the unintended consequences of the bill
passed in 2018 with really negative consequences to a lot of world can be so glad
to see and partner with some folks in Callam County um Colleen McAleer uh testifying
on a kind of a partner bill um as was the new Director of workforce development for
a three county region. So some good support there. Um let's see.
Um yeah, it's a lot of time in meetings on various those two bills as well as the
which place during committee on friday. Um once the management group meeting on
Wednesday, um you know, just trying to um make sure public health has what it needs.
Um we're deep in this surge right now. Um you know, they're doing a good job that
are very honest in their ability to maintain contact tracing for all of the active
cases, much less contacts of cases currently, you know, they're there um not able
to do the kind of contact tracing that they typically like to do and really relying
on people to not be going out when they're not feeling well. Um or if they have close
contacts. So uh I'm doing great work at a public health and concern for their
ability to keep going um with a pretty high level of fatigue. I've been doing a great
job of course. Um Let's see um number of
meetings with staff, you know from the beginning of the year, taking a look at how
we're doing uh Development council new process for sort of health
agendas, administrative stuff. Um
Yeah I think uh oh maybe I'll save the legislative steering committee notes for later
this afternoon. Maybe a legislative updates. Um Yeah not number of meetings that
nothing no action to to call out projects in the works just in the beginning of the
year. Getting things lined up so that's all for now.
Um I'll just add my few uh have like 15 bullets but I'll try not to make it go too
long. Um So I'm working with the elections and G. I. S on the precinct balancing
process the next step in redistricting and this will likely be more work and um more
input from the community as each each precinct is visited but we currently have um
Uh kind of an unbalanced set of precincts, precincts as small as 80 residents and
up to 1500 residents. And so it's our goal to get the precincts kind of close in
uh numbers as possible but also uh respecting natural community boundaries and
so um stay tuned. I will be bringing updates but we are first um kind of threshold
is that we're having a a zoom meeting that the two parties um Democratic Republican
parties on the 27th of january at three p.m. By a zoom to get their initial tranche
of input um on the on the precinct balancing process. Um
Let's see, I've been discussing sewer septic and septic issues a lot lately. Um probably
25% of my time. I feel like I'm spending on those three lines of crop and
um uh there are some opportunities and constraints on the horizon
relative to our community's capacity to deal with some of some of the streams of
waste that we create. So trying to come up with solutions for long term um management
of accepted for example, which is uh byproduct of the uh object and sewer
processes, the solids that come out. Um
I've been starting the legislative session is firing up and I really look forward
to a little bit of conversation about that later because I feel like I'm being pulled
into conversations and I've spent probably one day this last weekend in conversations
with local leaders and our delegation and about specific pieces of legislation and
not really wanting to um jump in at the beginning of the session on certain issues
um but also working with the straight er en on their legislative agenda and had a
great meeting last friday with the tribes who are members of the er en and our our
delegation um to convey that um collectively produced legislative agenda for the
straight er en And that was a great meeting um working on the hotels and derelict
vessel recycling project with support and D. R. And D. Grant. I had a meeting last
week with them and other local stakeholders on trying to find a path forward for
the first transit boats which are currently sitting down in the long term yard off
stems way if you see those barn avoiding boats sitting in the long term yard down
there, those are the ones that are scheduled for recycling um meaningless public
works about challenging planning projects that they're they have going and had luck
and I realize uh how are the legacy of decisions made in the past if if they're not
accident can come out, come back to bite us. So um struggling with some
opportunities and options around uh planning projects that public works is undertaking.
I have attended um how the solution networks for sanitation. Hat was a good conversation
a lot of interest in looking at gray water systems and models that other communities
have used um didn't feel uh strong nexus yet for the current challenges. The county
had um to deal with septic and sewer and septic issues, but I could see it coming
there being a way to come together in the future. Um As I said, I so much as Sunday,
all of Sunday like 12 or 14 hours talking about a couple of pieces of legislation.
So And doing my Neko Leadership Academy work and have a great mentor. And the community
has offered to follow me through that whole 14 weeks uh project. So President
Heidi. So um Mark, I didn't leave you in that any minute. So we'll we'll get we'll
get you later because it looks like we have our um dr barry showing up and anyone
else we want to bring over. Willie is really on the line. Hey Heidi while you're
doing that, can I just make a quick announcement um America that dr barry and Willy
here this and the public as well. Which is that um next week on monday at our regular
meeting time immediate following um our public health covid update from dr barry
and Willy Benz. We're gonna be joined by congressman Derek Kilmer and he will be
um talking about what's happening in D. C. Right now. And that will also be aired
on tv tv. So listeners if you want to plan to join in and hear from our congressman
um at uh 10 30 next week. So sorry to interrupt. I just want to let everybody know.
Yeah. Thanks for getting that. Good morning. You guys, we'll lead off with you dr
barry. What what do you, what do, what do we know this week? Good morning. Thank
you for having me. Unfortunately, the situation with COVID-19 continues to get worse
as we have anticipated. Um, we are expecting a peak in cases in our region um, towards
the end of this month, which means unfortunately the news I bring from next couple
of weeks is likely to to report that the cases are getting worse um, nationwide.
We are still seeing uh, incredibly high rates of transmission, approximately 800,000
cases diagnosed every day in the United States. Hospitalizations are still rising
nationwide and unfortunately deaths are as well. Um, currently we have about 100
and 50,000 people hospitalized for Covid in the United States. Um, that is one of
the highest rates that we have ever had in Washington. We are not at our peak yet
at this point you might hear when you're following national news, there are a couple
of states that look like they may have peaked when it comes home a crown, but Washington
is not one of them. Currently, we are still seeing our cases just skyrocketing upwards.
Um, we're seeing about 2000 cases diagnosed every day in Washington State and unfortunately
our hospitalizations are also continuing to rise. Um, we are seeing an incredible
strain on our hospital capacity statewide and also on our ability for E. M. S. Two
transport statewide. So one of the things that happens when a neighboring hospital
system is overwhelmed is saying you bring a patient is critically ill um into that
hospital and they don't have any room in there. Er that that paramedic have to wait
with them. Um and that means that they can't come back and take care of us out here.
Um So we ran into a critic the shortage of that over the weekend. We basically didn't
have the ability to transfer folks out of this region no matter how sick they were.
Because too many E. M. S. Companies were either busy transporting other people with
covid or other critical illnesses or they were sick themselves. Um Or or or or off
the job for a variety of reasons. So the health care system is really really struggling
right now. As far as the numbers in Jefferson County, our current case count, we're
up to 2123. That brings us to a case rate of 1464 100,000. That is the highest we
have ever seen in our region with a 22% positivity. The little bit of good news we
have in jefferson those we have only three people who are hospitalized for covid
right now. Um For a total of 92 hospitalizations and 22 deaths in this response.
Um compared to neighbouring Cloud County, we have a total number in crowd of 7890
and a case rate of 2,034 400,000. Um, What we're really seeing is different between
the two counties is in Clown county. The sheer number of people with Covid who are
needing to be seen in the E. R. Or in the hospital is really beyond straining. The
healthcare system is nearly buckling under the pressure of all of those patients
who need medical care, particularly emergency department medical care. We are actually
not seeing that in jefferson. Um, and that is really thanks to the sheer number of
folks in our community who are vaccinated. The vaccines continue to be incredibly
effective at preventing hospitalization and death preventing that need for that hospital
level care, which is really good. So we aren't in jefferson straining our own healthcare
system. But the challenge is when all of our neighboring health care systems are
buckling under the pressure of Covid that has a ripple effect on us because we can't
get our very thick out. Um, and we do have people who are very sick. We have small
health care systems that don't normally take care of critically ill people. We don't
normally take care of Children here. Um, both of which have had to happen recently
because we just couldn't get folks transferred to other levels of care. So that's
where you'll start to see the challenge of the health care system here. We have so
far not seen a significant surge of people needing hospital level care in jefferson
in particular, so that's hopeful. Um but that we still see the challenge of of that
backlog of either not being able to discharge books or not being able to get our
most critically ill out of jefferson. Um But I am, I am very hopeful to see that
we aren't seeing the level of hospitalization spikes that we've seen in neighboring
counties. We certainly have seen a very significant rise in cases. Um but because
so many of those are breakthrough infections, the folks who are fully vaccinated,
they don't go on then to need hospital level care in the vast majority of cases and
that is hopeful. Uh One common question I hear, I'm starting to hear a little bit
more of lately is that when things look this bad, um there is a tendency to kind
of lose hope or feel like all the all the work that we have done is for nothing.
I've certainly heard that among some folks who worked really hard to follow all the
guidelines. Um and I think the key thing to see there is that we are in a different
position in jefferson compared to other places because of the work that we've done,
we aren't seeing a flooding of our er we aren't seeing our our own little hospital
overwhelmed because of all this work we've done um and it's hard because we can't
control what happens around us but we certainly can keep things like healthcare,
things like our schools, critical things that we need more available locally because
of all of that good work. We are going to continue to see more cases in the coming
weeks because we have not peaked yet and so we are unlikely to see uh some uh some
difficulty accessing certain services just due to outbreaks in those spaces. Um We
certainly are working as hard as we can of public health assist those spaces that
are having outbreaks to keep critical infrastructure functioning but you may experience
some delays in accessing certain services due to outbreaks in those spaces. Another
common question I guess why why do we keep following all these numbers? Um isn't
covid just the flu. Um It's basically the flu. Now I hear democratic super mild um
and that's not true. Um omicron is slightly more mild than the delta variant if you're
unvaccinated. Which is still more severe than the original covid virus. That if you
remember back shut down all of new york city. Um This is still a very severe virus.
The reason Why we report the numbers is actually to help everyone on this call make
decisions about how they miss their lives based on those numbers. When our numbers
are really low there are a lot of things you can do much more safely. You can gather
in large groups, you can go to an indoor wedding, you can do all kinds of things
when those numbers are low. But when our numbers are this high, your probability
of being exposed in any indoor space if you've got 10 or 20 people there, especially
if they've got mask off is high. Um, so we give you all this data so that you can
make informed decisions about how you navigate the world and do so safely. These
numbers will not always continue to rise, will likely rise for the next couple of
weeks and then they'll drop and then when they drop again, more things become safe.
That's part of why we continue to follow these numbers. We know they are incomplete.
Um, partly because so many folks whose home tests and not all of those get reported
back to us. We know that our percent positivity is over 20%, which means there are
a bunch of people who aren't even testing positive that we don't know about. There
are people out there who don't know they're positive. Um, The key there is if you're
sick, gotta stay home, try to get tested. If you can, as soon as you can, you can
still get drive through testing, injection and healthcare. We do still have tests
at the health department for as long as they laughed. But we will get to folks who
are symptomatic or exposed. Um, and then isolate and tell your friends if you're
positive, that's really how we break those chains of transmission. But if you can't
get a test, uh, if you're, if for whatever reason, you're not able to access one.
If you're sick, you gotta stay home to reduce that risk of spreading the infection
at work. Um, the only other big point I wanted to touch on before we move on to questions,
they do hear from some folks who are young and healthy, um, who, who are even even
vaccinated to say, hey, you know, I'm, I'm not going to die of covid, so I'm just
gonna live my life. Um, and that's true. You're not, you're the probability of getting
hospitalized or dying from covid if you've been vaccinated is low. But the big thing
that we worry about is the risk that you could bring covid to someone else. The biggest
reason why people who are young and healthy should be thoughtful about transmitting
covid is because we don't want you to give it to someone else who could then get
sick and die. Um, so it's not enough to just measure your own personal risk. You
want to measure the risk of everyone around you in your family, in your community
who could get sick because of you. And that's why we all have to make a good faith
decisions to reduce our risk of contracting covid. So we don't pass it on to someone.
So the first thing to do there to get vaccinated, that's the number one thing you
can do to reduce your risk of contracting and spreading covid and your risk of meeting
hospitalization. The next big thing you can do is wear a mask when you're an indoor
setting around anyone. Um, outside of basically your household at this point to wear
those masks wearing good quality masks and to wear it all time. And then to limit
those social interactions, especially when we're gonna peak like this, when there's
so much covid in the community really limit those out those gatherings, limit the
socialization you do outside of your house, bring back that pod probably the next
three weeks or so. And then we should be in a much better place by early february.
So with that I'm happy to take any questions.
Yes, yes. Thanks. Dr barry news. Indeed. But I'm glad we started our healthcare system
is not over capacity. My question was just wondering if you could give us a little
update how, how the schools are doing and what is what you see in the for
sure. So our schools are still doing relatively well. We are not seeing widespread
transmission in the school setting. We're not seeing transmission in the classroom
even with this year number of cases which really speaks to the power of the mitigation
practices that we have in schools. Um, the challenges that we are seeing for the
schools include one. We are seeing transmission in sports. Um, and so I think part
of making, um, making decisions as a family means that you need to know what is a
high risk activity and what isn't. Um, and in North sports right now is a high risk
activity. Um, there's just so much covid. Um, and that's one of the few places left
where we don't wear masks. Um, so when you're competing in a basketball tournament
and often against folks from other counties, we've seen transmission in those kind
of settings, even with everything that they're doing and they are trying really hard.
They're doing it kind of testing masking, but there's just no way to make an indoor
basketball game safe right now. Um, just with this amount of covid. Now, many families
will still choose to finish up the season. I know we're nearly through the end of
the season for many folks. Um, but it is important to know, especially if you have
a high risk child. Now, the number one risk that can put that put you at risk of
getting severely ill if your kid is being unvaccinated. So the best thing you can
do to protect your kid right now is to get vaccinated. The other key risk for severe
disease are having an underlying respiratory issues. So if you have asthma for example,
that can put you at severe risk of covid, um, or obesity actually is a pretty significant
risk factor. And of course, all the other severe diseases that are less common in
Children that can happen. Things like immuno suppression cancer and, and the like,
but most of our severe cases right now with kids are kids who are obese are kids
who have asthma. And so if you have a child in that route, I would think about how
to make sure we're doing everything we can to keep them safe. Um, and the biggest
one there of course is to get them back. Um, outside of the sports related outbreaks,
the biggest challenges that the schools are facing right now are just the sheer number
of cases in the community. They're not getting it at school, but kids are turning
positive right and left primarily due to household contacts. So they're picking up
covid at home or they're picking it up by socializing outside of school and the school
is doing everything they can to keep that out of the classroom. But that means a
ton of tracing and testing and they've been affected by the testing shortage as well.
So unfortunately, two of our districts in jefferson County ended up with a critical
shortage last week where they just didn't have enough tests to go around. Um, the
schools did a good job of sharing. Um, put out a call for their neighboring superintendent
to find some tests. Um, so that we could keep the schools open, but some districts
had to stop sports for a little while until we could get the tests to make sports
a little bit safer. Um uh, There was a lot of work through the weekend to move tests
to them. Um, Including a lot of people driving down the, the Olympia area, pick up
tests and bring them back to the spoon and so we should be in a better spot this
week. But it's um, it's been a challenge for them to keep things operational. Thank
you for that 11 follow up to some test. I'm wondering if you could, I guess predict.
I'm wondering if airline travel and everything we're gonna go to Anderson test, which
seems like a more um appropriate brief flight test to me. Um, What I know, you know,
the show if you're actually shedding. Um, and also if you speak a little bit about
the national effort to get, you know, four tests in every household. Uh, So yes,
the federal government has promised that we can all have the poor antigen test per
household that we can order starting on Wednesday. They did set up a website for
it where you can go and order your test. I will be interested to see how that rollout
goes. Um That's a, that's a technological challenge to have a website that won't
crash when all of the United States tries to log in at once. Um, but, but I, I hope
it goes well. Um, I would say if you are a jefferson county residents and signing
up to get your tests and say, hey do it gets a free test, it would be good to get
more tests into our region. But b if you log on and it crashes, try coming back in
a half hour or an hour, give it some time. I anticipate that there will be technological
challenges. That just is a big list for any website, no matter how well designed
it is. Um, and then know that those tests come in about 1 to 2 weeks based on what
the federal government is saying. So they're not something to have right now, if
you're sick right now, you have to use one of the tests that we have around. So,
uh, if you're sick, if you're symptomatic, you can go through the jefferson drive
through or you, if you are exposed, you can come to jefferson County public health.
If you're in South County, you can, you can pick up one of our, one of our test kits
from Jackson County Public health as well, whether you're symptomatic or exposed
because we know it's hard to, we don't want folks have to drive all the way to port
Townsend to get tested. Um, and there's also testing in South County at some of our
fire departments as well, definitely call ahead, we don't want people with Covid
walking into the fire department getting folks sick. But call ahead, we're happy
to help with that. Um, as far as travel testing, I don't know. Um That's one thing
that is outside of my realm of ability to manage. But I certainly think antigen testing
would be reasonable for before you get on a plane figure out whether or not you're
contagious going onto that plane. I also think um as far as talking about how we
could do travel better is that we should have a vaccine requirements of life. Um
even within this country, the fact that we only have that supply to other countries
is more of a matter of politics than a matter of epidemiology. Okay. Thank you.
Yeah, a couple of quick questions. Um if you could maybe just reiterate because I
know there's some confusion still in the community about what folks should do if
they test positive at home. So you talked about, you know, isolating and contacting
folks, but I just want to reiterate the importance of calling the public Health Department
correct. So if you test positive at home, there's a couple of key things you can
do. The first thing is to stay home. Um for most folks, the best time to isolate
is tending. I know there's been a lot of confusion with the CDC guidance. There is
a tiny subset of folks, um people who are asymptomatic at day five who could potentially
leave isolation, but the safest thing to do is to stay home for the full 10 days.
If you test positive, just 10 days from when your sympathy starts for 10 days from
when you test if you were asymptomatic when you tested positive. Um Then the next
big thing to do is we do recommend you give us a call at Jackson County Public Health
and we will give you guidance um to the extent that we can we did have 100 and seven
positive tests as of this morning that we were tracking. So you may find even when
you call public health um that it might take a while for us to get back to you and
give you some guidance. So we do have some good guidance online for what to do if
you test positive. And the next big thing there is the test positive is to tell the
people that you've been around since you were infection. Um and you became being
infectious two days before your symptoms start and then 10 days after anyone you've
been around in that time. It's really important to give them a call, let them know
that they've been exposed. Um and you can send them to our website for more guidance
about what to do based on that exposure. Thank you. Um And I'm curious are we
still expecting? And I know we're seeing less of this locally, but throughout the
state that that hospitalizations are lagging high case counts. So do we anticipate
hospitalization and then ultimately death to continue to rise even after we peak
on the case count. Yes. So hospitalizations sent to land by about two days, starting
out today, two weeks. Um And so I say we hit our peak in cases end of january, our
peak hospitalizations with the end of february. So right now we're doing better than
all of our neighbors on hospitalizations, but that doesn't mean that things can't
get worse as far as hospitalizations and certainly this is the highest case count
we've ever had. Um So two weeks from now, we certainly could be a larger strain on
our healthcare system than we have right now. And I did I see we had as many as five
or six patients in our local hospital at some point last week. Yes, that was our
highest so far, we were up to up to five checkers and healthcare right now we're
down to. Um So it can, it can vary over time and we are of course continue work really
cool to whatever's in healthcare and well I wanna, I wanna make sure people notice
that we have done better in many ways. I don't want folks to get cavalier. Um Our
health care system is uh is a critical resource um and they have been strained for
two years. Um And so if they don't have a lot of extra, they don't have a lot of
extra anything, they don't have a lot of extra people that tests. It's gonna be really
hard if they get a massive strain on them. And so it is still really important that
all of us limit our risk of getting infected. Um and limit our risk of needing health
care in the next couple of weeks.
And I think that actually just comes to one other point around folks who say, you
know, there's so much Covid or that we're all going to get home Macron's, we might
as well just get it um and doing risky things right now to get omicron because we're
going to get it eventually anyway. Not a good idea. We're expecting peak strain on
our healthcare system early february two weeks from now, which is exactly when you
would needed if you contracted covid right now. Um and so I don't, I want to encourage
everyone to be really cautious. Even right now, it is not guaranteed that you were
gonna get home Macron. Remember we many of us managed to not get covid back before
there were any vaccines right? There are there are ways that we can reduce service
of getting covid even when there's a ton around. Um and now we have a lot more tools
to do. So getting vaccinated and limiting those social interactions is actually really
critical right now because two weeks from now, our health care system is likely to
be in a very different place and that's right when you would need it if you got infected
right now.
So I only have one question. My my preamble to my question is my comment that um
you know many people I know are going back to their pods and they're um only gathering
outdoors which is what we're doing in our household um except for with my mom for
example but God forbid I brought covid to my mom that would be you know so Um but
the question I've gotten a few times so when I get a question a few times I think
it's worthy of asking is is the target for um lifting the mandate on restaurants?
Still 175 cases to a hunter 2000 is that what it was originally? It was 75
originally um I think you know with Macron very and certainly a lot has changed as
far as the variant circulating since that was written. I think It's possible that
we could consider a higher number actually for lifting that. I don't think that number
is 1400 though. Um I don't think now is that time but I do think with omicron and
the way the numbers are likely to shake out but a higher number maybe something closer
to 200 would be reasonable when we get there. And that was that was the correct the
question and is on the crime change, change our considerations relative to that.
And I think it has you know because of breakthrough infections because to some extent
a different type of virus than we saw before I do and and of course how infectious
it is. I do think that could change that number. Um Just won't change it to where
we are right now. Right right. Um Mark, you have any questions for dr berry.
Okay, so onto the list of KPTV questions but all our listeners who are out there
today and we have a slightly shorter list than before. So I think we are going to
be able to get through it. Um One person asked about the our thoughts on swatting
kind of the throat and consular area and then swapping their nose that kind of circulating
online. There is some early indications that a throat swab may actually increase
the sensitivity of a nasal swab. I don't recommend folks do that at home swab though
it's very very hard to swab your own throat. Um And the nasal swabs are still really
good. Um We're still waiting on more clear data on exactly the best way to swab.
Um And if we see that throat swabs are significantly more sensitive than a good nasal
swab, then we'll change our practice. But we don't have that level of data yet. They're
all very small. Um Small numbers research papers at this point which is not enough
to change the practice of the entire United States. What is important is to get a
good name of swab. And so that and you go up into your narrative just the top of
the stock part, you swap around for a full 10 seconds on both sides and then, and
then you read your antigen test and you wait 15 minutes to read it. Um Those are
the two most common ways. You get a false negative, not a good enough swap, but having
just one note or not swapping long enough or reading it too early, we've seen people
trying to read them after three minutes and I understand you really want that answer,
But we really have to wait for the close 15 because those very faint lines of a low
viral loads tend to show up at the end. Um so if you don't wait 15 minutes, you're
gonna get a false negative weight. That 15 any lie. No, even a little line, even
a very faint line is positive. Um and treated as such false positives are incredibly
unlikely right now, given the sheer number of cases we have in our community. So
any positive is a positive. Um other questions. Um as someone who got covid over
the holiday, I am reading that. I should go easy on returning to my former level
of exercise guidelines about this. Um and I would say when it comes to covid, everybody
responds differently. Some people have incredibly severe disease. Some people have
very mild disease. The key when you're returning to activity is to listen to your
body. Um and don't go too fast too soon, but it's okay to go back to activities that
you might find many people do that even after relatively mild case of covid that
you have more shortness of breath, um, and less activity tolerance. So just listen
to your body. Um, if you need to take it slow for a little while, that's okay. Keep
getting out there. Actually. Getting regular aerobic exercise is important for your
full recovery from covid. Um, but just start slow, listen to your body and scale
up as you feel able. Um, I think that's the other key thing that we don't talk enough
about with covid is we focus so much on hospitalization because it's so critical.
Um, but we do see a lot of folks with prolonged symptoms after Covid, what's called
long covid of varying degrees of severity. Um, some persistent exercise intolerance,
some things like prolonged brain fog and then some books are very, very ill. We've
seen some triggering up basically an auto immune disease phenomenon where people
have prolonged significant symptoms long after they have covid. Um, and so that's
another reason. Even if you're young and healthy to try to avoid getting covid, um,
there are some potentially significant downstream effects from getting covid at all
and do what you can, we know that many people are gonna get breakthroughs right now.
That doesn't mean you did anything wrong. Um, if you have, if you've got Covid in
spite of your best efforts. Um, please know that that is not a personal failing.
That's just a really infectious disease. But if you get covid in spite of your best
efforts and you don't get hospitalized and die. And all of those efforts really did
work. Um I know I spoke just on friday with a gentleman who was this elderly had
significant chronic conditions, got boosted and got a breakthrough. But he felt fine.
He had a cold. Um And that gentleman very well likely would have died um If he'd
gotten covid without all those interventions which still matter. Um I had another
person who asked please help me with a covid risk evaluation for two situations.
One a 90 minute dental procedure to staying in a hotel, masking in all common areas
and only eating take out food. So starting one number two, that's actually pretty
low risk. Um So hotels. The risk of hotels is other people. Um It's not space. And
so if you mask as you go in um And you avoid the other exposures that you get there
like restaurants or whatever other gathering you might be going to that space for
its actually pretty low risk. Um So if you sleep in a hotel and then go out and see
in the world, be outside. Don't go to a large family reunion. Pretty low risk, 90
minute. Dental procedure depends a lot on how your dentist is running their office.
Um So dental procedures are caramelizing procedures and so in order to do so safely
there have to be a lot of safeguards within that dentist's office to reduce the risk
of spreading those particles to the neighboring chair. So I would encourage you to
talk to your dentist. I don't want folks to not take care of their teeth. Many of
our dental offices have been very very cautious about covid precautions and have
interacted with our office to plan for how to do it but definitely check in. Um Dental
procedure is uh is a relatively high risk one because your unmatched for for a long
period of time and other people are getting aerosolized particles around you if you
want to make sure that they have a plan for how to manage that. There are ways to
do that safely. You just want to make sure that your office is one that's doing that.
Um This one I think a good one. I know many local families that have one uh that
have had one covid breakthrough but the rest of the family remain negative. Um With
testing even though they live in the same home, these are all vaccinated family.
So the person wanted to know, is that something that we've seen generally or is that
the work of the vaccine? Um And it's the work of the vaccine. So we actually have
studied this in multiple spaces in our country and in other countries that being
vaccinated reduces what's called the household attack rate. Which is the probability
that someone in your house gets covid um And it reduces it if the original person
who got covid was vaccinated and it reduces even more if everyone else in the household
is vaccinated, that doesn't mean it never happens. You can still bring covid home
as a vaccinated person and share it with your family unfortunately. But the risk
of that actually is much much lower. If you're vaccinated, if you have an unvaccinated
family, it just runs through. Um If you have extremely unvaccinated family, nearly
100% of people will get covid in that space if you're living in the same house. But
if you have a fully vaccinated family we're seeing lots of cases where someone comes
home positive doesn't give it to anyone else or may give it to one other person.
And that really is the power of the vaccine acting there. Um I may have the opportunity
to take some time off and isolate myself alone in my home until medicines like the
the antivirals and home tests become more widely available with such a strategy,
reduce the risk of my contracting long covid or other covid cause health problems.
Yes. Um so any extent that you can isolate at home right now reduce your exposures
to others to the extent that that is possible and manageable for you. I recommend
that you do. Um Now is really the time if you're going to be reducing your exposure
to others, this is a good time to do it um I do tend to phrase it less as isolating
at home and more. As reducing your exposure. Um Part of what makes it possible for
us to do this long term is that we find a way to make it livable. Um And so for me
that means that I'm vaccinated and boosted. The people in my family who are eligible
are vaccinate and boosted. And I have a small plot of people who I continue to see
because that's what makes this manageable for two years. And I encourage all of us
to find a way to make it manageable. If it is painful to do it you're gonna stop
doing it. Um And that is actually more dangerous. But if you have the ability especially
if you're very high risk to really limit those social interactions move them outside.
Um I think that is a good idea to do that right now because numbers are high, hospitals
restrained it's gonna get worse for the next couple of weeks and we don't have that
many treatments available because there's just such a shortage right now that will
get better and then you can start uh increasing those social interactions again.
Just a couple more. Um uh This one said after I got my vaccinations um I was
signed up for an automated system where I could report uh my my symptoms and that
didn't happen after my booster shot. Why is that? I think this person is probably
talking about something called the states um Which is made by the C. D. C. It's an
app on your phone you can track symptoms to report them directly to the C. D. C.
Um I don't know why it didn't get signed up after your booster bus. It still exists.
Um And if you haven't downloaded on your phone from your first vaccinations you can
actually go in and log your booster and then along any symptoms beyond that. Um Or
if if it's not currently on your phone you can actually go back to be safe download
it again. Um And use it the same way. It's a it's a tracker used by the CDC to look
for risk of side effects related to your vaccine. So you can still use it after your
booster. And I did get one other question that came in a little bit late but I think
it's probably worth taking some time to answer since we have a couple more minutes.
Um And this person asked basically why aren't we in lockdown right now. Um And I
think it's a really valid question when we see this many cases this much of a strain
on the hospital system. Um This person brought up the I think the very valid confusion
about if it was okay to lockdown before why aren't we doing it right now when things
are this bad. I think there's a couple of reasons. Um one is that compared to the
beginning of pandemic. We know a lot more about how this virus spreads. And so some
of the things that we stopped doing back in March of 2020, we now know how the virus
transmits and we wouldn't stop doing them this time. Um if we did have a lockdown,
you anything outdoors, for example, we know it's fine. Um many interactions where
people can stay well masked and spaced out from each other can also be done really
safely. Um So that I think is the biggest thing why if we did have any major interventions
like that, they would be much more focused and targeted than they were before because
now we really know how to stop the virus while keeping things going. But I do think
now is the time where it would make sense in truth to have more significant limitations
on our on our indoor gathering um and have those kind of things happen on a statewide
level. Um but that really is something that at least at this point I think has to
happen at at least the statewide level. Um it doesn't, it's not very possible to
do that just here um in this county. We, we really need statewide leadership to make
that happen. And I do think it would be reasonable for the next two weeks or so to
close some high risk venue um at a statewide level. I don't think that's gonna happen
though. Um I think one of the biggest reasons likely for that, of why the state hasn't
moved forward with that is we rely to a great extent on voluntary compliance, You
know, we don't have a police state, we don't go um shut everybody down, The kind
of thing happens and I think the read the state has is that um that many people wouldn't
comply with an order which would reduce its efficacy. Um That's that's my guess as
to why they haven't done it. Um But I it is all, it is challenging to watch health
care systems around our state start to fail and while everything else is wide open
when we know what works. Um And I we are not seeing healthcare system failure here
at least at this point. Um But I do think statewide it would make a lot of sense
to close some high risk venues for a few weeks while things come down. Um And the
only other thing this person brought up was kind of concerns about going to work.
Um And I think that's also very valid. Um There are some workplaces that are much
higher risk than others. The most important thing you can do to reduce your risk
at work is to get vaccinated and to wear a high quality mask at work. Um But I do
want to really encourage all of our employers who are still open um to make their
work place is as safe as possible for their employees. Um And that means enforcing
masking um enforcing people keeping people home when they're sick. Um not encouraging
folks to come to work sick um and enforcing that someone's sick, they should get
tested or they should stay out for the very least five days before they come back.
It's really when we don't have a state stepping up to close things down when we don't
have the enforcement capacity to enforce some of these things. Um It's really up
to individual players to make their work place as safe as possible. And with that
I'll pass to Willie.
Thank you. Thank you. So just a quick update on our vaccine operations, we were in
quilty um this past weekend um 62 kids in the morning followed by 74 adults
in the afternoon and there we really appreciate um South County support as always
after the clinic we did um do 900. Um So we went to the homes of
homebound individuals, folks who couldn't travel for whatever reason out of their
home and were able to get them um boosted are vaccinated at their home. So I do want
to put out the call yet again, please do call us here at the E. M. Um If you are
home bound and you're looking to get vaccinated or looking to get your booster. Um
we wait until we have a cluster of folks in relative proximity to one another. Um
usually 5-10 before we go out and do a round of home visits. So it's not an immediate
appointment. Um, but do please call, we'll put you on a list and once we do have
an appropriate cluster and we'll call you to schedule that appointment and visit
you um in the home. So happy to get those nine homebound individuals finally boosted
her vaccinated. So please do call and get on that list. The sooner the better. We
had a couple of folks who had to wait a couple of weeks before we got that buster
um to be able to go out and use a whole vial and vaccinated group. So you get on
that list, the better for us and the better you will get to you and some others,
hopefully a little bit sooner other than that coming up and we're really grateful
that the D. O. H. They call it the care of an um is coming to visit our community.
Um, this saturday. Um, they'll be at Blue Harris from 9 to 11 in the morning on saturday
the 22nd. Um they'll be offering fighter for the under 18 crowd as well as Moderna
on 1st 2nd and booster doses for the rest of us after they're done in poor town in
the morning. They'll be traveling to South County this time in Brennan at the Brennan
Kamu. The center will there be operating the same whether it's surprising for our
youth Moderna for the adults and they will have J. and J as well. So if you're one
of those folks who want the second dose of J and J guide post for one of the M. RNA
vaccines. And that'll be an option for you as well. Have all three flavors, so to
speak. Um they'll be at the Brandon Community Center from 1 30 to 3 30. So if you're
in South County, you missed out on the team clinic on that. The caravan will be in
your neck of the woods come this saturday. So do sign up there. Um Finally, last
but not least the our announcement will be back at Blue Heron um saturday the 29th.
Um and since giving the same routine as it's been for a couple of weeks now. Um Fighter
um for the kids in the morning followed by Moderna um for adults in the afternoon.
Um as with everything else, go to the public health website. Sign up for the clinics
or call us at 3449791. I'm here at the E. E. O. C. Our call center is not staffed
right now, but do please leave us a voicemail and we'll get back to you within 24
hours. We can also just asking other questions. So we've had a lot of folks in, I've
been calling and calling and calling and they never leave us a voicemail. So do please
leave us a voicemail with a reason you're calling and then we'll get back to you
a seven and a lot of folks like to call and get a person right away. And we've had
a lot of volunteers spend a lot of hours in that call center and we're trying to
give him a break on where we can clearly leave us a voicemail. And if you do, that's
great. Um, next up besides our vaccine program. Um, masking I announced last week
the state had a program where we will be offering in 95 to pay in 95 for the general
public when I mentioned last week that we would be announcing some more information
on a little bit later on in the week, we had a bunch of folks to reach out to us
very anxious to get their hands on those maps. We were waiting on some more program
guidance from state. One of those situations where governor makes a big announcement
and the details start trickling in slowly but surely downtown low level folks like
me. So now we have some of the details adequately lined up. We will start reaching
out to folks today and we'll be starting some deliveries to a few select locations.
I'm starting tomorrow. So if you reached out, you should be hearing from you shortly
again. I apologize for the delay. We're waiting on some details on the who, what
and how we could get a master folks. But um, that's starting to crystallize. So that
program will be rolling out and we reached out to us already. We appreciate it. We'll
be getting back to you but we'll be making some announcement on that here over the
next couple of days. Um, last but not least on the non covid front. Um saturday was
an interesting time I know for a lot of folks myself included with the volcanic eruption
in Tonga um created um and it was a unique situation that actually confounded a lot
of the modelers at the National tsunami warning center, underwater volcano erupted,
um, pushed some tsunami waves across the pacific and impacted a number of countries
and a number of territories. Um, We were under a tsunami watch for a significant
amount of our success on the advisory through progressive, significant amount of
time throughout saturday. Um ultimately ended up not causing a lot of major impact
here in the community. Very fortunately on the advisory was very much a precautionary
one for our area. Although our friends on the west end um folks down in Oregon, California
coast did some more significant impact. Um we were under an advisory for about 1-2
foot waves um here on the east end of the county. We really didn't see anything even
big thankfully we saw no damages but it was a good wake up call for um we have a
lot of other earthquakes and fault from across the Pacific that could cause such
a distant source of it tsunami traveled across the water and hits us a few hours
later because it was just an advisory. Um the tsunami sirens, the ahab as we call
them. Um down in the marina, a cousin those weren't activated. Um and neither were
the wireless emergency alert and those are the amber alert style that hit everyone's
phone on in the range of self house. We did send out the alert regarding the tsunami
advisory. So if you haven't signed up for our next little text alert service, you
can do that on our website at dot org before you can text Jeffco G E M
2888777 to get on that list. Um But with the advisory mostly just stay
off the beat will be some additional smaller way. And in this case we didn't even
really see much of that. We saw some both weird, stronger unusual currents. Um but
honestly it didn't um it Didn't really affect a lot of folks activities. I know a
lot of folks still going out on their boat. There was a hole in the PP leader as
to whether or not folks were concerned, 85 cents said no, I don't think there was
a huge cause for concern, but it was a little bit of a wake up call in an interesting
caution for us. Um and the advisory just impacts the water wave. If it was a watch,
that means damaging waves would have been possible. Finally the highest level is
a warning and that's when evacuations would be underway of damaging ways are likely.
Um so unfortunately weren't one of those situations, but I do encourage folks to
go to our website, read up on credentials on the impacts and I'm sure you signed
up for pixel otherwise. Thanks to all of our partners for helping get the word out
whether it was KPTV folks for local first responders et cetera. So I'm a fun little
wake up call for us to make sure that shot. So I guess that's the end of my report,
barring any questions. Thank you. Willie Greg. Do you have any questions for Willie?
They do actually wanted for maybe each um or maybe maybe more of a comment. But will
it was surprising to see and there was a fair amount of um effort put into messaging
things on saturday so that some folks to stay off of the beach. And sure enough,
a lot of people flock to the beach. So um question, can you know, how do we get folks
to actually pay attention when there's a uh you know, even even if it's a small amount
of risk um that it's serious that they listen to that in part because there are people
who are trying to be responding to and preparing for risk and they can, you know,
really be in the way of, of professionals who are trying to be helpful. So what's
the, let them learn there? Yeah. So, um, and this is an issue with every, every tsunami
warning folks have a very morbid curiosity to go and see the wonders of nature and
go and watch the tsunami. So wasn't unique to this situation. This is a problem we've
been dealing with for a long period of time. I am disappointed to say that a friend
of ours texted my wife and I decided to see my first tsunami in the picture of him
sitting on the beach. Um, so a little little disappointing there. Um, if there was
a chance for additional impacts and we would get a little bit more forceful messaging
out using the wireless emergency alert. Well, as the ahab sirens hoping um escalation
of notification would be would be a little bit more convincing for folks. We would
also work to actually in the lead up to the arrival control those areas a little
bit more and actually use law enforcement fire others to make contact with those
folks that actually shepherd them out of the dangerous areas. And in this case we
did have a big thank you to our Volunteer Emergency Communication Group B Combat
ham radio operators. We used for communications when landline cellphone internet
all go down. Um, some of those volunteers were out having an eye on the beach. They've
noticed folks watching around and they go up and tell them about what was going on
and and folks brushed it off. Um, but in a more urgent situation. Again, we use more
forceful in person messaging. And we use some of that additional emergency notification
that we have are so, um, again, this has been a problem for a long time. I think
we'll also be working with our neighborhood preparedness groups on some training
and on some additional education and messaging on that front. Um, ongoing problem.
I don't know what it is about focusing on. You see the car wreck on the side of the
road. Everyone goes down. In this case you hear about a tsunami. So another another
situation, I talked to our friends and family do some more education, but also we
have some more tools at our disposal. We didn't use that. We would use in a really
dangerous.
Well, I have a, I have a logistical question right before yours. So kate as the outgoing
chair of the Board of County Commissioners. When you are helping organize these sessions
when we past 10 30 what do we do? I rely on dr barry and willy tell us that they
need to go. But if if, if they're available for additional questions, I'm willing
to stick around and think it's great. Okay. You guys can can do five more minutes
and then I got to write, um, guys hand up just a comment for that. The,
uh, a well oiled machine. So kudos to the volunteers and staff and they run the type
chip. So good work, awesome. Thank you much. You know, 11 quick
question. Probably dr barry, but maybe willie. Um, uh, what's the recommendation
currently with so many folks getting Covid and uh, but not yet boost in. What's the
wait time between a positive case and getting boosted generally just given your isolation
period. Um, so we don't want you to come to the booster clinic if you're positive
and actively shedding virus. But we do want you to complete that 10 days of isolation.
Not the short five. We need to fully clear before you come to get your vaccine. But
then you can get it as as soon as it's available and as soon as you're feeling well
after that 10 day period and that's true for boosting or starting. That's true for
that's true for all of them. Um, you like we are going to get some protection from
that recent infection, at least for the remainder of the, um, a crime wave. But I
would say as soon as you're feeling well, there's no contraindications to getting
your vaccine. Um, and if you put it off, there's a chance you might forget or put
it off long and then maybe get reinfected down the road and we don't want, we don't
want you to deal with this again. Um, so as soon as you feel well after that sunday,
go ahead and get your booster or your vaccination series if you haven't already.
And is that true of youth as well? Yes thank you. I did notice over the course of
the last few minutes of our conversation that the White house has stopped lunch.
Their antigen testing um website so you can go on and order your test. Now everyone
I would highly recommend you do. It's gonna be intense. Get your name in that queue.
That's why I wanted to say it.
Anything else for willie or dr berry this morning? Willie I'm gonna follow up call
you on a question. I have the logistical one so thanks thanks very much. Thank
you. It was like 10 30 screened by and I'm like what do I
Yeah okay to have questions. Um So um it looks like on
our agenda we have um a discussion on county administrator
um recruiting. We are ready to do that now mother I think steve Worthington I
think is on the call. At least he was. Yeah he's still there.
Yeah recess until 10.40.
Yeah. Okay go waste your time. Go.
We're recessing for four minutes. Yeah. Good morning Steve. Good morning and thank
you for having me this morning. Let's see shall I just get started with things right
now until 1040. Very good.
I'm here to do Heidi because we're at recess.
It's like we're all coming back Dave are you there?
Okay I'll call us back into order 1040. And the item on the agenda is county administrator
recruiting? And we have our guests um Steve Worthington from Austin and Paramount
on our HR experts.
Good morning morning, who's gonna leave us up? Would you like to start? Would you
prefer me? Well, I can introduce the topic of the morning and so on. Hi, good
morning. Um so we're here today. We discussed the county administrator recruiting.
We started this process last year and were unable to um Uh be
successful with the top applicant and we decided to postpone recruiting until
2022. Um so here we are, and in the interim, we have established a new
salary range based on a comparison of comparable counties. We have updated
the county administrator job description to include requirements for advancing diversity
and equity um in county operations programs, services and the workforce.
And we've also spoken with Crossman to expand our advertising process. And so
with that um welcome steve, Thanks for coming this morning. Pretty good Sarah, thank
you for covering things. And so with those changes we have things pretty much ready
to go. Uh I think it remains to be seen as to what level you would like your advertising
to uh to go out as. And we have essentially two different options for you to consider.
Um I just wanted to briefly touch on some of the things we did with the last outreach
but uh and our outreach efforts basically they comprise about two perhaps three different
steps, but primarily we do ad placement and recognized recruitment, uh, job posting
boards, sometimes that may be something as um as popular as, as indeed other times
it's much more specialized as to a particular um, in this case county administrative
group, that's a nation nationwide group or perhaps it's focused on certain states
or even subregions of states. Uh, we use all of those things depending upon the details
of the job. Um, we also use things like association Washington cities as a very active
job board for the state and the Northwest states and we connect with it. Some of
those are free, but often there's a cost associated with it. So, um, we develop a
budget and to see what that is. Uh, that is like essentially um, doing something
similar to what we did last time. The advertising cost is running around $1600. And
those are costs that are going to be ultimately passed through to the county while
well, when we are doing this search second time without an additional fee for our
service, the hard costs come back through to you. And that would be advertising direct
mail. And if this travel associated with either travel for me or travel of course
for finalists coming in to see you. Um, so those are the costs you incur. Um, in
addition to the advertising, we also do a good deal of email. We develop uh, blast
list or email lists that are specific to county and city administrators. City manager,
county manager types. And we send things out there, not a direct cost of that one.
And it's a very effective method. And then finally to direct mail. That's right.
Just physical piece of mail, it still happens. Uh And uh that is the last time we
did about 798 announcements were mailed down each one of those is about a dollar,
a dollar and a quarter. And so roughly that's $1000. Uh but it's effective and it's
a targeted list as well. So we just want to give you some idea of that. I can give
you some more details about the areas we advertise in but just let me know if you
want that love of detail. I didn't want to touch on one area because this is sort
of a decision point for you. One of our typical places to advertises in careers in
government. And um one of the reasons we use careers in government is they actually
post a number of subset uh targeted uh
special interest rates. And those include things like the national minority update.
Uh National form of Black public administration, The League of Women in Government,
local government, hispanic network and the international network of asian pacific
administrators. Uh And then women leading government as well. Those are sort of subsets
that come with um the addition of the advertising cruising. It's one of the ways
we reach out for diversity. In addition to that because you've had some particular
interest in diversity, including it in the new job description. We've also put together
an additional risk of diversity oriented groups. And uh,
the, let's see, I'm looking to get that list on the screen in front of me and it's
gonna take a minute. But I wanted to add that the group that we have now that
we ran last time including prison government, let's say it runs and this is for illustrations.
This is not an actual number. Let's say it runs about $10 an application. What your
cost ends up being to place those ads and you get, maybe it's $10 or so for application
that you get with this other group, they are affected, but it's a much more higher
cost for application return to you. So maybe it's $100. Maybe it's essentially 10
times the cost of others. And but it is targeted and diverse. As I mentioned. So
that ad schedule could be or looks to be about $1000 in addiction. And Um, if you
wanted to go to that other step, we can, uh, if you wanted to go somewhere between
the middle, we could take out the $275 we spent on prison government And there and
then spend an additional 1000 in the targeted diversity group. And the question on
that real quick. Sorry. I mean you talked about the direct mail which is the least
appealing to me of the options that you mentioned? How much would that cost? And
about $1,000? That was an effective method about, can you talk a little bit about?
Yeah, so that's the one that really people, I mean people get it in the mailbox.
Often they get in their city hall office or their county uh commissioner's office
for that matter. And often it ends up being on the bulletin board, the physical board,
a bulletin board hanging around the county. Um people see it and it is effective
for us. We've also learned that list down pretty well. So it's reasonable targets.
It's not just the whole list of everyone we send to, but it's a targeted group um
that we use. So we would say that's a good tool. I think we get a good return for
the dollar on it. Um but it's ultimately your budget Commissioners, I might
add at this point that the contract with Brockman had not to exceed total of
$99,999, but it also had internal limitations. There was a limit on
the county administrator recruitment, I think the cost not to exceed 19,000 or so.
So we're gonna need to come to you with a contract amendment to remove that limit.
So the crossman can spend whatever you authorize them to spend and I can bring that
to you next next monday. Can I ask a follow up question on that. Is that inclusive
of the first search? So is the contract inclusive of the first search? And that search,
The contract doesn't make a distinction between 1st and 2nd. It just says for the
county executive for the agency executive that the limit is X. And we're gonna we're
gonna blow past X. And so I don't know why the contract was structured that way.
Um
But we need to do a modification and I'll bump it to 25,000 just so we don't run
a fallow of a new limit that's too low. So can we have a status of where we're at
with the first kind of the first branch of the search? Um Carolyn, I think you said
we had $750 left out of the 195 or whatever it was, it was it was
19,000. So we're very close to the wind. It was 19,500. And and given given the cost
that Steve has put forth here for you to consider we're going to blow past that limit.
And so that contract amendment needs to be done? Yeah. No, I was assuming it didn't
didn't know where we were at? Um Great, well, I think that,
did you did you say you were gonna share something on the screen steve? Did you have
a summary of these costs or? Yeah, let's see. So I'm looking for my advertising table
that shows the uh diversity oriented additional advertisers and I
Still looking for that, excuse me for a second. It sounded like it was about a 1600
for ad placement, 1000 for direct mail and about 1300 for this
um careers list. And the specialized listings that are typical id list is about
16,000, that's what 1600 rather. 1600 is what we did last time round number. Um The
diversity, the specialized diversity list is an additional 1000. Um And uh the uh
we could tear that down by eliminating careers in government uh since you're being
more targeted on the other side, that that would save you 2 75. from that perspective,
or we could keep the 16, 1600. And then I mentioned, the direct mail cost was approximately
$1000 as well. I'm just gonna weigh in with my my
opinion, which is based on my experience and hiring in the nonprofit sectors. It's
penny wise, pound foolish to limit the places that you're posting your position,
right? It's the as broadly as you can get the announcement out there, and especially
when you're talking about these specialized lists and targeted list that feels even
more important to to utilize those tools. So I would err on the side of um it sounds,
I mean it doesn't sound like a huge amount of money. Um 1600s of thousands of 1600.
It's about 4000 maybe without against getting a really good county administrator
and it's a drop in the bucket. So um I don't know, I would just say from my perspective,
I would err on the side of getting the word out more broadly. Um I don't know what
you guys think, kate and Greg.
Um I have a question first and then comments. Um so those are added in the 16 hundreds
and then the two additional options and could be $1000 for more diversity and $1000
for direct mail, is that right? Okay. So that's that's the kind of 3600 you're talking
about. Um Yeah, I mean it's even though it's disappointing that we we weren't
successful in our last search, um I learned a lot through that process and helped
to kind of refine some of what I'm hoping for in this process. Um And certainly the
desire for more diversity um is true for me and part of that diversity includes too
not just looking at um um people in the government sector um and so curious and we
want people with experience of course, but um is that does does university, while
I very much hope for more ethnic and racial diversity is also a possibility of getting
folks who aren't just coming from long careers in government but but perhaps have
private sector and non profit sector experience too.
Um And so the answer that yes, that's a possibility. Now we can broaden our list
as far as the general advertising to go, would would involve as well. Um things like
Cruise and government, uh government jobs available. Those are pretty general purpose.
Um And I think across those lines reasonably well, um, we still, I would say we want
to target the associations that professional administrators are are in I. C. M. A,
Washington city County appointed officials, variety of those, those types. But we
could broaden it yet further with some non profit uh previous experience or non profit
associations as well. Um And we have some some lists of that. Make sure if you have
a particular group in mind, we can see if we can identify uh forgetting mailing list
associated with them or or maybe they have a job board that there's a fee associated
with some, you know, any particular targets you'd like let us know and we can try
and hone in on that. Um, and we could potentially increase our search in a more generalized
professional uh nonprofit administration direction. I, yeah, I certainly
wanting the usual suspects to and out of the exclusion of of them. But um, I am not
familiar enough with the platforms to be able to weigh in on it to that level of
specificity. But um, certainly give it some thought that you do.
I'll just I'll share my thoughts, you know, I probably have the least experience
here of executive searches. So I I, my intuition tells me that the salary range is
going to be the biggest contributor to a deeper pool than we had last time. So I
guess I'm curious. I'm sarah opinion about that and I would probably not do
always check all the boxes, but I don't know which one I would eliminate. So I'm
not opposed to it. I guess it seems like a steep um, steve tickets to, to get the
word out there when I feel like engages applicants to be looking to and you know,
the careers and the government is that the posting online. You know, if you're looking
for a position, you're out there looking at it actively. So I guess I'm, I don't
understand the utility of the other ones, but I do think that I would love a more
diverse applicant pool, you know, racial and gender diversity. I, you know, I don't
think he had any last time. So I I guess I'm willing to go with the, with with your,
your recommendation. I don't have a strong objection to it. I guess I just, I'm wondering
steven sarah whether or not the pay grade boost is going to be the biggest contributor
to you before.
Um, certainly the pay raise does definitely help this. Um, as you remember, we discussed
a parallel position that was open about the same time that the farm was involved
in and they had a different set of Africans speaking. I believe that was primarily
because of a range. Um, so this brings in more a lot more in line with the market.
I think that should help us all the, I think there's also uh, it's a different time
now as well and there's enough time that has passed that that's going to be a fresh
recruitment. Uh, pool has changed and also being into a new year changes the pool
as well. That's when elected officials will change. That's when opportunities come
and go. And so there's a good timing on our, on all of this, I believe having said
that, you never know it's, it's fishing. Um, so, but I think we, we stand a good
chance and you have our recommendations as to how best to spend your money. Um and
truly outside of the pay range, The next best variable and most aggressive stance
you can have to get diversity is how you place your advertisement
sarah. Do you have anything to add?
Um the, the importance of um also we talked about this, the electronic advertising
on these social platforms like indie. Um It does take a little more uh
work um for the, for the group advertising on the social media,
but that does have a lot of it can reach farther. Uh and, and multiply.
But the advertising outreach, I mean really the more extensive we can throw on it.
I think the better.
So other than our outreaches there, what else do you want to cover today steve, I
have one thing I wanted to just circle the wagons on, I think you just really the
next step is getting a green light from you to proceed that you're ready to do this
now and then if you have any other questions I haven't really touched on schedule,
I can do that. But it is essentially a 4.5 to 5 month
process is the short answer and I can give you more details.
Just one more question or comment on um platforms. And maybe Stevie could help help
me understand a little bit better. Um how what what are some of the other digital
platforms um including social media that you guys engage with? I'm curious in part
wanting to um, you know, be thinking about the next generation of public sector leaders
and knowing that they are like more digital oriented. Um you talk about how, how
you reach folks on the internet based platforms please. So we do have social media
which is linked in facebook uh and we routinely post in in those we maintain
accounts and stay active there. We also have uh excuse me,
our own job board that we run and that process over. Well the people can post to
and and come to and see. In fact that's key. And really our whole strategy is to
try to do our job board where they can see what's going on and um
we believe so excuse me harry, I have to let me explain something by the way, I'm
not a social media expert for our team, but we have some people who are so uh and
that's probably a good thing that it's not me. Um the, but we have Jared and Madison
both who handle our electronic outreach and much of that Jared manages our email
list. He also does the anything on the profiles and even just profile a bit Madison
handles more of the social media piece and in coordination where I'm going with all
of that is I believe we have twitter as well, but it's not, it's not me doing this
and I'm not certain of that particular one. So, um, but I just want to give you the
details there. It's not by any means a one person team and that's what gives us strength.
Thank you. I'm not the social media expert on our team either, not sure who is.
Um, okay, so the only other thing I wanted to talk about is that I observed over
the process last time that, you know, kate means chair of the board was more engaged
in the process and I'm imagining that the time has passed to me as the new chair
of the B. zero cc. So I don't know what additional requirements you have of our board
of county commissioners going forward in this in this process. But um I'm raising
my hand to be your go and happy to help as much as I can. Um I'm
not sure that Sarah will keep me looped in and I, you know Sarah's new to the team
as well. So just a little, maybe a little bit of extra um bringing us onto the team
would be helpful. Certainly we'd be happy to have some discussions anytime. Commissioner
has an hour and uh the uh there may be some questions that come up from candidates
that I will work through, Sarah or yourself depending upon who you feel is best.
Um certainly there will come a time here when we have a work session scheduled and
that's about 7-8 weeks and when we start, so we can sort of say 7-8 weeks from now.
And that's the time when I bring the candidates uh paper way that is to say you can
you see the materials and you decide if you wish to invite any of them to the final
interview process. So we're about about 7-8 weeks away from that from when you give
us the green line and uh you and I would have a chance to talk before that. Uh but
that's sort of our next usual interaction point. Do you think that out of
questions they're up to that we need to decide on the green light base. Um And
the additional budget question,
any any thoughts? Favorite Sarah on the green light.
So from my side of it, we're ready to go uh and we can have this up and alive by
the end of the week. Um, so we can get things rolling. It will take uh, it always
takes a little bit of time to schedule the outreach components, but we're basically
ready. It's just a question of scale. And if, if you agree that you're ready as well.
Alright. I believe we should begin uh as soon as possible because the process takes
five months, six months. So yeah, it's gotta work this
time. That's Mark. Okay. Mark sticking.
So any any hesitation from UK to Greg on starting, starting now. Pulling the trigger,
nope. Okay. Okay. So let's go. Very good. And then the additional
budget. Um, you know, we're not, we're not talking budget. We're talking contractual
authority. Okay. And you don't need to approve that today. Just know I'm going to
bring to you a document that will change the terms. So that steve can do what he
said he would do this morning. But I think he's asking for direction on how much
recruitment. How many different recruitment platforms of that menu he lifted. So
I think that is uh, before we flip the light screen. Right?
Yeah. Well if you care what I think, I think we should shoot, shoot the moon on this.
I appreciate any hearts reference. I'll go with that.
Yeah. I already stated my support for going going broader than in the past. So do
you need a specific amount like enough to amount or that will come out in the contract?
Okay. Yeah. Like I said, Commissioners all add enough in the in the contract amendment
to guarantee that we don't have to come back to you for more. Yeah, I'm I'm fine
supporting that. Just again, having kind of learned in the last process that I think
there's a lot of value and having nontraditional candidates and wanting to see more
diversity in that pool and you know, um I'm hoping that we're not gonna have to be
starting this over again anytime soon so the water we can go the better at this point.
I think eight. Very good. I have your direction then and
work through Sarah have any questions with the board. I'll certainly coordinate with
Commissioners now.
Alright, good. And if I may mark you had a question that you asked me to look into.
I have some information there but we can do that offline.
Okay. Uh right. Yeah. I'll be anxious to hear what question I had. No problem.
Alright, great. Well thank you. I've enjoyed getting a chance to chat with you a
good things underway and Sarah and I will keep you close to them. Sure. Take care.
So that was our one item on the is just the specific item on the agenda but we could
continue. Uh we're done looking back on our calendar smart. I don't think you had
um and then we could do looking looking forward. Right. Um well
I asked linda Atkins for an update on and
and I got a commitment from the implementation team uh to shoot for a june 30th go
live. Um and I heard some encouraging things from Jody Adams um in D C D. And and
from linda and we're also going to on the advice of our internet
consultant, we're gonna come to you uh probably with budget and a contract of life
to buy Blue Bean, which is the software that will enable uh electronic plan review.
And apparently it's uh Greg, I know you're excited for that will buy it now. It'll
take some time to implement that piece. So, so intergroup goes live and then blue
beam and electronic plan review will come sometime after that. So I'm very excited,
Mark. So I'm, I'm understanding electronic plan review. Does that also mean electronic
submission? It's permit? Well, we'll be able to do permit applications when we go
live, but we're going to limit it to the simple things like a water heater permit
and then we'll gradually expand it to the more complex submissions. Uh, glad to hear
it. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And I did say to the group that you wanted a workshop.
So sometime probably in in May before we actually flipped the switch, we'll we'll
get the team in front of you commissioners so that, you know, with greater specificity
how ready we are and what capabilities will be available to the public. Um and I
once again, I want to thank you for meeting with Alan monty on the M. R. W. Facility,
you positioned us to have fruitful conversations with the court and I did report
to you that we have agreement and we'll be bringing, bringing a written agreement
to you to pull that facility out of the court in January 2025. So thank you very
much for that policy management group on Wednesday. And then there's this thing called
the north olympic Peninsula City Manager County administrative catch up um which
was dormant for an extended period of time but um but I was on a call with john morrow
and that the Queen City Manager and assistant city Manager and port Angeles city
Manager and that's a very nice information exchange medium. So I really enjoyed that
mill road updates um on thursday. Um you know Greg and I listen to a pitch and we've
reiterated the need to have a budget that we can bring to the board. I do have a
contract amendment that you authorize me to execute that I'll be taken over to cherish
tomorrow so that they can they'll have additional budget to continue work on that.
Um Cindy brooks hosted her second ceo breakfast eight o'clock on thursday
I think I think Cindy is going to be a fine executive director, I'm liking what I'm
seeing and hearing um and we had pretty good participation at that breakfast notably
we had the superintendents of jimmy come and closing school districts and
I just need to pass on the gratitude of of the school district. Uh think his name's
Scott. Um he wanted me to thank you commissioners for the 50,000 that you gave to
the school district. They use that for health and wellness programs for their for
their teachers and to provide some stress relief and so much gratitude there.
And and and then of course on friday, the meeting with the board on the M. M. R.
W. Facility, which went well. So that was, and then of course some staff work getting
contracts and that was my week. Really great news about the conversation with support.
I'm glad that the conversation facilitated uh an end to that negotiate. Well, yes,
yes and Greg that related to two additional conversations um all focused
towards partnership. I think you might be aware that the court wants to expand to
the west. They want to fill in the wetlands and then create a saltwater estuary there
and potentially create a new alignment for the Larry scott trail and
monty and ERin and ERic pledged to work
together on that. Also the court has facilities throughout the county, not just there
at the waterfront. And um and we talked about some partnership maybe doing some chip
sealing for them and some other things. And so yeah, it turned into a very very healthy
meeting. So
that's great. Um So you guys wanna talk about what's happening this week? Who wants
to fill us in on what you're up to kate? Sure.
So um Gregory take me to the punch so try and be quicker on the menu.
Um So again busy, busy time legislative session. Um
uh b uh We'll talk a little bit later about the Learning Loomis Act, which I am wondering
if that's something that you also were referring to in the um how we, how we proceed
early on in the session like this that uh the far ranging um uh riparian
act that is in committee tomorrow morning. So about that. Um I have a meeting with
the new worker statement, Council director staff. Um How come he's not met
yet? Policy management group tomorrow. Um So we're meeting council meets
tomorrow and pretty same agenda there. Uh You know, we can't say anything
too important to report that we're doing in that meeting um in the meeting with the
electrician group. Um Looking at the Senate bill 55 99 meeting with El ni. And let's
staff on that uh thursday have a monthly how would I do with the hospital just
making sure we're all floating in the same direction on greatest XC issues. We have
our board of health meeting uh thursday afternoon and been putting some work
into preparing the board reorganization as required by House bill 11 52. So we'll
be discussing that reorganization. Board of Health. Um, see friday, I have only
four conflicting meetings in the morning. Um, uh, so olympic coast National Rain
Sanctuary to join that as unable to working around the uh, chamber
Commerce state of the county address, which brother ken and I are both participating
in our jefferson county coordination meeting where we will be discussing um, with
our covid coordination response meeting, Countywide um, directors and electives talking
about the, uh, a draft policy we have updating our, our covid policy within the county
and also talking about the vaccine mandate one Supreme Court ruling last week means
the county wants Wednesday, midday and then legislative steering committee is every
friday for two hours. So that's a big meeting of the co chair. So that
is my week ahead concern. I have a couple of conflicting meetings on friday
morning as well, but they're between 10 30 known. Is there anything I can cover for
you? That's not between 10 30 noon. They're all, they're all in that time frame that
people like the 10-12 on Fridays. That seems to be a popular spot. Okay, thank you
though.
All right. I can go, let's do like a running theme is conflicting meeting this week.
I have had three innings friday morning from 9 30 to 11. Um, as well as the chamber
I've got the sailors behavioral health administration sailors P. H. A. S. O. Meeting
with that chair. But we have um uh rejiggered that there's not a lot of action items.
So I will be hopefully done right by 11 and maybe a few minutes late but I will be
there promptly and I can stay two again and you may be will be departing early so
we'll start off with you and then go to me because send me via Mark a power point
where you get drafted and right and I'll continue adding to it. Sure I can't promise
that that's gonna happen before friday 10 am I guarantee it. Okay well all of my
uh see uh today I have multi conflicts of course the normal Tuesday meetings with
our D. zero cc. Meetings in our production meeting in South county as well as uh
depending on the the empower teams coalition meeting this afternoon at 3 30.
Tomorrow I was relatively light day. The 700 to 7 Haven development meeting. Um at
noon on thursday we have uh Chicago Brown Village meeting. The weekly meeting as
Mark said and his his wrap up from last week really hoping to have a budget. I mean
we know some of the hard costs right now. You know we know the we have a solid excavation
been from and I think we're doing sole source for that because they've already done
work on this project motivated and even the prices, but we still have to get an electrical
bid, the septic permit event submitted. Um but we're also doing some additional perk
holes for part of the planning. We also, I just didn't really talk about, but we
have presented the uh, you know, the concept of massive planning at that site. So
I think everyone is um interested in really thinking about, you know, five years,
10 years, 20 years we as we work on that board of health at the same time as the
solid Waste advisory committee meeting. So um I'll miss my first swat meeting. But
uh I'm gonna have to redo my old bob Dylan video with the new one since the recycling
we're losing. But 77 items that were recyclable for are not going to be recyclable
as of february 1st. Um and those are the high points of my week. How can
we do in the chamber standard County of course with the case sounds like there's
not much relief in us covering for each other this week. No friday. And
is that a regular concept of black and brown people? It's the only conflict and I
think they made an adjustment. The calendar was already arranged before I came on,
but that's the only time that complex reported help I think because it's five weeks.
I don't know why it was like usually it's it's the fourth thursday.
Okay. Yeah, that was the only only time.
Uh but you will be afforded HealthGrades. Yeah.
Um so for me this week there's a couple of things that I would like to talk about.
Um I kind of started talking with Mark about this last week but that I would like
to start doing a weekly huddle with our staff and just me um after the D. zero cc.
Meeting largely to get feedback on how the monday meetings go and then um talk about
it here from them any um places where they need commissioner help over the week.
And And with the thought that this might be good tracks away in the transition with
county administrator in the next six months. It's just um, you know, how do we, how
do we form our team a little bit so that we're more to unified um when the new person
starts. Um so mark, I'll I'll talk to you and Carolyn about that. I mean you're both
here so you can hear this but it's just how to look like a 10 or 15 minutes stand
around the water cooler. You know, talk about how the meeting go yesterday. Any any
stuff this week that you need help with, any big kudos for the team. And it was the
thing we did at the maritime center and it was super beneficial and I would just
like to try it and the and the time between now and the administrators starting.
So um that and then and then the question yeah, that um and that will include
the administrator, I assume. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And then, yeah, the chain of command,
you know, we're in a funny position. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um and then the next
thing I found some input from the community about and um this idea of of being a
working board and then we rolled out the idea of workshop, it would be nice if we
could have a better sense of what workshops were coming so people could know when
they might engage on issues that they care about. Um so I don't know if we can think
through like eight weeks, I've heard of this morning, a couple of municipal workshops
that in May we'll workshop that, but it would be nice if we could maybe put those
on the county website or figure out a way to communicate those to the public so they
know when they can be, they can show up to the zoom room and talk about something
that they care about. So that's something I'm interested in. Um working on the view
mark. Um And then the other thing was a while ago we decided that we wanted to have
more opportunities for folks to give input on big bigger agenda items on our agenda.
Um And what I remember is that we were gonna try and do public comments before and
after workshop, was that was that what we were thinking. I just want to make sure
in making the agenda for each week, I'm checking for the right stuff. I don't know,
we always need to public comments for an agenda item, but I think for a larger workshops
or larger agenda items that we know that they're in public opinion, that is from
that to make sure that we specifically uh put it in. Yeah, I think, I think it depends
on the nature of the workshop, like this afternoon, we have the Sheriff's navigator
program um where the sheriff is going to be in transmit mode for the benefit of the
board and I'm not sure we need public comment on that. Um Maybe so, but Heidi when
we do our weekly agenda review, that's probably something that we have to talk about
it. We have workshops scheduled whether we need to add a public comment component
to it. Yeah, I got a navigator went on there and I thought well that would be public
comments case. Sorry, I saw your hand up. Okay. Um so my my understanding is that
we wasn't linked to workshops at all necessarily um that's and and partly because
we don't really have a definition of what's a workshop versus a briefing and um so
I think um I think it's really helpful to get public comment when we are at or near
a decision points on an issue that we know that it is interesting um and ah
the, you know, we can take input at any point in the process that I do,
I think for, for the sake of brevity. You know, sometimes you get public comments
on something where there's a lot of misinformation out in the community about what
we're talking about or what the assumption is that it's not very helpful. Better
to present information. You have there be an opportunity for briefing before uh public
comment, but I think so like briefing your workshop, I would actually recommend not
doing the place where we gain information and then you can see public comments on
if there's action being taken would be my my preference or understanding.
So that's something that we should plan. Review and plan each week, Mark, when we
do agenda review and I'm sorry if that was not something that I remember to fly in
the last couple of weeks, but I think, you know, we uh good, it's good to have this
conversation here and move forward with what
we agree that that's what we want to do, added public comment when decisions are
about to be made or being considered, then that's how long this forward. Okay. And
just an f Y. I am going to present something similar as before to help later this
week um along these lines too, because they have some consistency. Okay.
And then, okay, other than those more general topics on my looking forward. Um I'm
gonna meet with our compliance officer det Murdoch tomorrow just to go over a list
of the issues that she's grappling with primarily in District two. Um And then I
have to become empowered teams coalition tomorrow afternoon. I'm meeting with Senator
Amanda wig and a passel of conservationists on thursday to talk about conservation
um programs and funding bills. Looking forward to the next session actually. Um And
then uh community Foundation board meeting on thursday. Um We're starting to ramp
back up with my chest land transfer work and the phase two D. N. R. Work group has
been called back into service. So at the end of the month will start those probably
twice a month meetings again um will be good to continue the conversation about how
we deal with junior taxing districts
and then board of health meeting with you guys. Um And then have it, I have a sewer
outlet store, landowner, landowner, landowner meeting with popular on friday and
a lot of questions about different bills and legislative stuff which will be great
to hear more from kate um this afternoon and then the make leadership
assembly work is kind of a half time job right now. So uh yeah it's a lot of work
so it's good but they're looking for people to be leaders within that leadership
assembly and I think I need to raise my hands for this week. So anyway um so that's
my weekend in that show. Um What about you, Mark? What do you have this week? Well
it's uh we have a budget committee meeting next week. And so I'm gonna be studying
2021. Um so that we can have a meaningful discussion about about how we did and talk
about carryover and some other items. Um I'm also spending time with judy Shepard
this week. I'm gonna start handing off some of the things that I do in my finance
role, preparing reports for the housing fund board, tracking capital expenditures
out of the capital fund and a number of other things that I do on a routine basis.
And uh I've got policy management group tomorrow and then Kobe coordination on friday.
But other than that I've got lots of time to do. Staff work has piled up that I haven't
had time to address. So this is the kind of week I like and try to work. Mark, we
appreciate it. Um Is there anything else we want to cover This
morning? There's no office at 12 today. So we adjourn early nap this morning and
then we will come back at 1 30. And we'll have a workshop with the sheriff on the
navigator program. Is there anything else you want to cover this afternoon?
Did you say this afternoon? Uh Maybe that legislative update suspicion? Yeah that's
on the agenda. Right. And then 2022 I. C. L. E. I.
Annual membership. Is that the 2050 K. That we share with the city? Okay. Alright
Looking like adjournment recesses on the table so if there's nothing else for this
morning we can recess until 1:30. It's thanks everyone. See you then.
Yeah I don't see.
Oh yeah I was just in a meeting with joe so he might be a minute. I see him in the
waiting room so um probably just back into order. Hope everyone had a great lunch.
And uh
anyway oh I think today with a workshop
on Sheriff Navigator program excited to hear an update from you sheriff and all.
Nice to see you. I was out at the sheriff's office last week collecting some bud
wood from your orchard with a farmer from in and then it sounds like our team is
uh ramping up to move those trees out of your space in the next month. But that's
great. Yeah it's good to see that they're just not going to be chopped down and.
Yeah so John Bellows the farmer I was out there with whether you thought it looked
to be 30 or 40 years old. So yeah I'm glad we're gonna be able to say though.
Okay well I think that is Andy joining you today and Andy's not here that our navigator
is supposed to be logging on. I'm not sure why he's not here. Okay so anyway
um So I know we presented the navigator program before and I
didn't know if you had questions about it or what this was actually about. So I'll
leave it at that.
Um I'm sure we have questions but I know this is when I list the workshop. I don't
know it just came up randomly. Well I you know we had the we had a navigator
uh last year and we got a grant from the state through for six months
and then at the end of that six month period we applied again and got another grant
also through um mm Thank you thank you. And um
so we uh we we we we re upped again we have a new navigator now.
Um Stephen Eccles is his name. He uh and I should say the previous grant we
the through the bid process it's um I'm drawing a blank on their name
now. Anyway it went out of yeah M. C. S counseling. Thanks Greg.
And this time discovering behavioral health won the grant if you want to say. And
um it's really proved to be beneficial having a local place um Steven Eccles is an
employee of Discovery behavioral health. He's a counselor. Um He works at the sheriff's
office most of times sometimes he goes into th um But it's it's really pretty beneficial
having him be associated with with the local organization. Um Just one incident that
sticks in my in my head was they went to a call with the deputies and the person
was having a mental health crisis and he was asked if he wanted to go have some counseling
at the V. H. And the guy said yeah and so they said steven said we'll get my car
let's go. And we got in the car and they drove him up there and they walked him into
a counselor. And um things have been good since then. You know in the past we weren't
able to do that. Um So that's that's just one example of and it may not seem like
a big deal with some people but it really is because a lot of times we get people
when they're in their crisis and and they'll say they want help which there's no
doubt that they do but then it's like okay well we'll get back a hold of you next
week and then when next week comes we'll I don't want to do it now. So it it works
out really well having that way. And I see that um stevens on the on the call now
there he is. That's what the navigator looks like. Um That's a that's a friendly
looking face. He is and uh you know so much now we change things up a little bit
too. You know our previous navigator or a vast outer carrier vest and stuff bulletproof
vests and have stuff hanging on and whatnot steven as you can see the this looks
almost like a normal person. Um But he don't want to give away a secret but he has
the best job I just can't see it. Um So we wanted to have more of a low key approach
and um that seems to be working pretty well the other day I asked and I said did
you ever get it best? He says yeah I have it on and it was like oh I was really glad
to see that. So um but we uh this last grand we got was $416,817.
And it runs from july 1st of 2021 through june 30th 2022. So um
it's basically just we call it a pass through or what um You know we we we build
the state every month and then they cut a check that pays for for steven. Um
Another thing that made it a good setup too is that um the
discovery of hera health is also taken on um a substance use navigator
which I think they call it real because they're getting they don't want navigator
is getting used so much now the word that they wanted to kind of separate that a
little. But and that person will actually do a lot of things with substance abuse
kind of like what steven does with everything. Um But they'll actually be out if
you want to sell it on patrol looking for people that look like they might need help
and stop and talk to them and things like that. So sheriff this was to be that that
navigator for lack of a better word is kind of diversion pre law enforcement and
counter right? So it's kind of that you think that with steven and the reel navigator
will be able to hand off when appropriate. That's that's the plan and especially
being that they're both working out of the same agency if you want to say, even though
steven spends most his time out here with the sheriff's office, we just see that
as a win win situation all the way around. Um and you know, and on top of that we
have we have some navigation services in the jail through believing recovery. But
um Stephen is also available to pitch in and therapy needs to which I don't think
we really got the need for that yet. But isn't believing recovery gonna become D.
B. H. As well now? No. Yeah safe harbor is. Yeah. So
uh Beacon of hope so yeah, did you wanna say something steven?
Yeah, I was just gonna state that we recently had a handoff situation with a person
that I met on a welfare check and handed them off to the uh recovery navigator. And
that actually turned out to be a really good deal because this person needed ongoing
care beyond what I'm able to give. So yeah, we are already making those handoffs
already great. Can I follow up question for Stephen, I mean we've heard from sitting
navigator john Haynes before that. Often the navigators, you know, filling fulfilling
the navigator role and kind of missing that case management role that goes after
the fact as you described. Do you think this this real navigator will be able to
host function of the case manager in support of what you're doing or those different
things that type of, I believe that they will be able to follow up. Uh Our
functions are slightly different. Mind is more emergent in nature where there's is
more looking for people who need help, not that they're not in emergency where they're
at but um uh I believe that both myself and the recovery navigator
are fulfilling that function as case managers and trying to get people connected
to services where they need them. That's great and I'm in that line of thought, you
know, we talked and I was a participant in both our team panels for where we awarded
this the navigator contract and there was a lot of talk about discovery, behavioral
health as our community mental health provider and their access to the service providing
uh D C. Are designated crisis responders. And I'm wondering if you had any interface
with D. C. R D. B. H for any any um clients I guess and how you anticipate that that
that relationship working and if that their services are needed. So the answer is
yes I have needed to contact the D. C. R. On several locations. Uh So my role
is rather than hearing about a crisis after the fact I'm actually involved in the
crisis and that allows me to make a call triage the event so to speak
as to what is the best course of action for this person in regards to their mental
health. And so based on that I've had to call the D. C. R. On a few occasions and
I feel that that has speeded up the process and made them more aware of what's happening
so they can prepare and do what they need to do. Great thank you. Yeah I'd also add
to you know Stephen says how he's mainly an emergent kind of a guy but he also early
on we have a why don't you call him a client or a patient um at a
place and uh Stephen started going out there every morning at nine o'clock just to
visit with him like his own private counselor coming to his house. Um And that worked
out really well and um you know he has his own you know he has a department issued
the sheriff's office issued car so he has a vehicle and he's able to go out and do
these things. So I've seen nothing but good positive coming from this one thing I
could say about steven too is um the deputies for what it's worth. The deputies all
like him. Um He seems to have made a good impression on everyone and um Things seem
to really be going well on this front right now. I will say there was a call that
came in over the weekend and you know, Stephen wasn't on duty of course you can't
work 24 hours a day, but um just it just reminded me of the need that's out there
that can't always be fulfilled. Um so where that goes in the future, I don't know
and then follow up on on that comment by you sheriff. Um there many
of the things that I do uh is a lot that follow up as well. So I have many people
that I've made phone calls to or met in person uh to follow up and say hey have you
you know hooked up for services with D. B. H. Or did you follow through here or there
is there something that I can do to help assist you in making that connection? So
that is very true. My job isn't just responding to emergent needs. I do the follow
up as well or make sure that other people that have taken over that process, I'll
connect with them and say hey did you follow up with Zone Zone? And one thing that
I know just the other day we had a call and you know we do have people in our community
that have mental health issues and that in law enforcement and with the first responders
we deal with on a regular basis. And so we've had steven will go out with the deputy
to do the follow up and then kind of like a handoff to scheme and to see what can
be done, you know, and solve the issue. That's why they're calling and then maybe
we should meet next week or you know, whatever. Um So that is not always beneficial
for the person, but it's beneficial for us too because it frees the deputies up to,
you know, get where they need to go from our, you know, if you want to see urgent
things. Um, so it's really working good. I think
this is the second grant, is that correct? Yes. Yeah. Do we have a sense regarding
whether this grant stream will continue or is this a program that they'll eventually
want counties to pick up and finance themselves? But the actually serve on the committee
that selects the grant grantees for the state. And the idea is to
eventually you looked upon more favorably if you can hopefully take this on your
own at some point, it's not supposed to be for continual funding through the grant,
you're going to apply for it again now. Yeah. Well, I don't know if we're being recorded
I guess, but we'll apply for until they tell us we can't anymore. So
sheriff, you need to stay on that committee that selects who gets the money. It's
great to me and Stephen thanks for stepping into this role. Uh I'm the newest commissioner
on the team here. But over the course of my campaign navigator program for something
I heard a lot about and um heard examples from other communities and so I came in
with a head of steam about navigators, which Sheriff Noel knows and my colleagues
here. No, but um just thrilled that to see these positions becoming part of our community
and I can see it's gonna be a relied on thing in the future and just really thankful
that you're stepping into it with a compassionate, compassionate approach and, you
know, showing up as a human because that's oftentimes what people need is someone
to show up as a human in their lives and and just listen to them. So, um, I really
appreciate that. Um, and I don't know what we were supposed to workshop today, but
one thing I wanted to say that I when I saw this on the agenda is that I have appreciated
the reports that Judge Haynes has given us on kind of the number of cases and the
kinds of cases. You see that I just wanted, are you tracking, tracking the number
of contacts you have and what kinds of issues are? Yeah. Through the
Grant, they're actually requiring that I use a piece of software that's being tracked
by the wa spec I believe. And so I'm kind of doing double notes, I put
notes in, you know, for the police and then I take that and I make another note for
Joab spec and the holders of the grant. So yeah okay yeah
nice to meet you Stephen. Thanks for being here today. Um I'm curious kind of what
um what your background is or the philosophy that you you bring to this work and
then also if the state is providing kind of best practices and um any any professional
development for you. I'm just curious kind of what the landscape is um for this important
work. So I have spent the last seven years working at Discovery
behavioral house as a crisis case manager. And uh as far as mental health experience,
I also have five years of experience with department of corrections at the women's
prison, working on their mental health unit. So I have about 13 plus years of experience
working with severely mentally ill clients. Um and you know really
as cases christ manage crisis case manager, uh you know the real role
is kind of going back to what Heidi was talking about and that is you know when people
are in crisis they really need someone to listen. Uh and
once once they know that you've engaged with them and that you're you know on their
page you're not there to uh I don't know arrest or move them or do whatever you're
there to actually help them engage is uh quite often that people will open up and
start talking about the things that they need. Um and then that opens up doors for
me well because I'm connected in the community, I know what resources are avail and
I can start pointing them in the direction that they need to go. Um and then uh,
you know, do the follow up as well. I think that's really important. It's one thing
to have a one time contact with someone. Um, but it's I think super beneficial for
the client, whoever they may be to have that follow up connection. I think that reassures
them that they know that I have their best interest in mind and uh, and you know,
if things aren't going well, I can try to figure out what's happening and you know,
work along beside them to help them move to the resources that they need. Does that
answer your question? Yeah. Yeah. I'm thrilled that we were able to hire someone
that was a lot of experience in that field. Wonderful. Thank you. I would just add
to that. I don't know that this matters at all either, but, and it would seem relevant,
but I feel like I want to say it anyway. Um, steven is not a cop. Um, he doesn't
act like he wants to be a cop. So he is truly a uh, another body there.
If you want to say on scene that, that that influences everyone on the scene, you
know, he's not taking on, you know, whatever it is, he's really good presence that
I'm not quite sure how to say that. But you talked about his philosophy and I just
wanted to throw that out there that he does not want to be cooperative. He is at
least in my, in my experience, what I've seen, um, you know, he's dedicated to doing
this work and helping people. And in my opinion, it was right along with what we're
trying to, but, but he, he's a good, good presence to have on the scene. And I think
the optics sheriff of wearing the best under normal clothes is disarming. I'm sure
it's to me, so I appreciate that that approach. Yeah. No, I, we wanted to do things
a little different this second time around and that was one of them. And uh, yeah.
And no devices like tasers or billy clones or any of that. No, just my hands and
me and he has really, he does have a really sharp pencil that he carries.
So I'm interested you keep mentioning this time around what, what happened the first
time around or what have we learned in the first half, was it happened, you know,
I think the first time around, um, You know, we weren't really sure what we were
doing and it was all experimental and even it still is to a certain interview. Um,
but you know, our navigator, then we're outer body carrier and had stuff hanging
on it. Um, I don't know, it was, it was, it was just different and uh and I would
say I prefer the way it is now. 100% I like John but it looks like a cup. Yeah. Thanks.
I yeah
but yeah I don't know if that helps you know so
Sheriff um
the next Grant cycle, will it be synchronized so that we don't have a break in service
between the navigator and one from one brand and the navigator from the next Grant.
So we have to do it. That's how I would see it. And you know even the last one would
have went that way. But since we went to a different contractor, the previous navigator
did not want to work for that contractor. So and obviously that was that. But
yes it was just my the way I would envision it just flows right into the next grand
cycle. And uh we have done some talk about you know, whether we could just stay with
D. V. H. Um which in my opinion is the best way to go. I mean um
and we've talked to the lawyers and the ideas that we would probably do that. Yes.
So the current contract expires june 30th june 30th 2022 with any language in that
agreement that allows for it to be extended to additional grant monies become available
um that I'm not sure right off the top of my head but I know like with the last one
it just hands and you have to reapply. Okay.
And I from what I've heard from being part of the group and just my uh, experience
with legislative things and what's going on right now in the political world, if
you want to call it that the idea is that there's probably gonna be some funding
for this, at least for a while.
Well, it feels like an important program that we want to, you know, we don't want
to just run for a couple of years and let go and so, you know what I will say. Yeah,
I will say to you, I don't want to speak for Jim Novelli, but I will, he's the executive
director discovered behavioral health. He has a vested interest in it because he
thinks it's a good thing and he is willing to make sure that this continues.
So, and I would say financially, if you want to say that, but so there's, you know.
Yeah. And I think all of us here would like to see this continue. And another thing
I want to say too is this steven also interacts with Judd from. So, so
we still have that cooperative arrangement of working together
no boundaries. It's all jefferson county that brings them a probably a new, maybe
a new question. But um, how how does that collaboration uh, come to be? I mean, is
that when you have a stevens for you, when you have, um, uh client that you're dealing
with I'm just curious how how do you work with Judge, how does how do you support
people who need help together? Uh So I know judge from prior when he worked
at D. B. H. So I had a pre existing relationship with him prior to him going uh to
be the navigator for court Townsend Police department with that being said it's simply
really just a matter of a phone call and us talking about whoever it is and um you
know just exchanging information and figuring out what is the best course of action
whether he needs to do it or I need to do it or you know whatever. But it's really
just about talking and communicating and then moving forward based on who's gonna
take responsibility.
Mhm. True. Collaboration. Okay. Yeah. I'm not sure this is where you go or stevens
but um at the behavioral health consortium meeting last week we saw a lot of data
about behavioral health uh interaction both with the four towns and police and with
the Sheriff's department. And I was kind of surprised to see you know between two
and 5% of the sheriff office's encounters were behavioral were I guess um related
to behavioral health is how it was presented. And I guess I was wondering if you're
do you think that's accurate? There was some conversation about how that might be
an undercount. You know if someone stopped for you know speeding maybe there's something
I don't know. I'm not sure exactly how do you think that that number is about right
And is that surprising? I guess I'm just I'm asking for you guys the truth from me
I guess I could start by saying I remember last year the year before when we started
looking at the numbers like that. I think if you were to ask any deputy or you know
just me seeing the calls come in and whatnot I would say it's like every other call
is something mental health and so I was really surprised to see how the numbers were
so low but I think we're doing a fairly good job attracting that. You know it's up
to the deputy how they coded at the end. Um You know they could pull someone over
for speeding and then maybe the D. U. I. Or I don't know if that's a good example
but it could be they could be substance abuse mental health um and alcohol or something
and and so those would be the codes that go in and then when we tracked the data
it would pull that out of their number. Does seem lower. Yeah I can answer that question
pretty specifically for you. I did a presentation here not long after I started actually
my third or fourth week here I was asked to put a presentation about what I can do
and how that impacts and I was able to actually talk to one of the officers officers
here and dig up some data to give me a perspective. So let me pull this up here real
quick. I'm just gonna read verbatim what I put in the last two years there's been
3200 calls made that were closed or were considered as mental health or mental health
related. Uh So that that number does not
include Port Townsend Police Department and that doesn't include calls to fire or
aid calls. That's just strictly through the sheriff's office. And I would venture
to guess that those numbers are not high enough. Uh And so if you include port
Townsend and fire calls, that number would be higher. But there's also many times
where you have co occurring conditions and things going on. So people might be stopped
for A D. U. I. But maybe they're you know high on a substance but they're using that
as a means to uh uh manage their mental health or or you know, Medicaid, self
medicating or whatever. So I don't know if we would ever know the true number. But
at least we have a number to start with based on how those cases were closed. So
3200 in the last two years with just the Sheriff's department mm.
Yeah percent. Or is that 2 to 5%? I don't know how many total calls you have here
but that's 30 30,000 people in the county if I remember right. And so
3200. So that be what 1% and that's not including port Townsend police department
and fire calls and other calls that maybe could have been that. So like, I mean a
domestic violence call say would probably get coded as a domestic violence call and
not necessarily the mental health or substance use disorder issue when those are
often uh, you know, contributors. Right? If it if it
was if there was if the deputy believed there was a mental health issue while they
were coded as mental health.
So, um Sheriff and steven, has there been any inter department
training um by steven steven. You probably know how to deescalate and how to diagnose
situations. Are you sharing what, you know with with other deputies in the department
so that they are better equipped to deescalate in the event. You're not available.
We haven't done that formally. Um, but that is something that we plan on taking advantage
of us to have him put on some, you know, some training, you know, the way you were
set up. You know, we don't have like shifts necessarily where, you know, you have
a bunch of people coming on at one time that we could do a little training before
shift. Maybe one deputy trip is in in the next one hour or two later and um, you
know, I don't know what hard to. Um, but but and and I know
at least my recollection was even offered those kinds of things and so I don't know
if you want to add anything to that scene.
Uh
Yeah, I'm not quite sure. I have been trained through Discovery behavioral house.
So we we have yearly trainings on dealing with people who come in who are
uh in need of deescalating if I want to use that term. Uh So but as
far as interactions or formal classes, we haven't done anything as an interaction
with the sheriff's or the deputies here per se. Um So we do get our through
the state, we get our two hours of the ci team training, the critical incident every
year. Um So that you know that that's online, something that we do right now is online.
What is that? What is the agenda for that? Well it changes every year. Um It's it's
one year it was dealing with like people with schizophrenia and how to how to respond
and what things to look for, you know, so you know, you the stuff that normally you'd
go, you know that person's on drugs and they're going to fight me so I have to better
be ready to you know defend myself with them when you see some of this training um
and it is a good training I think um it's like you know things I mean it seems kind
of silly, but you know, things to look forward to know that oh that's a sign of,
you know, asperger syndrome or something where, you know, there's more going on than
what might meet the eye, so and and ways to deal with that. So it's that I was surprised,
I thought every year it was gonna be something like the same stuff over and over
again. But they, you know, I think the last one was autism dealing with people that
are autistic and I found it really helpful, you know, things I've seen over the years
and ways to work with that. So, you know, doing that and then, you know, being able
to get a human to do some things other than just sugar leaving, you know, setting
an example for the deputies to see. Um but uh yeah, so yeah, I don't I guess we haven't
done that hard. I can follow up also, you know, I've written with each deputy and
they've all had questions as two different things. Um and then of course they've
seen how I interact with people and when we debrief after a crisis call or
whatever. Now I have a chance, you know, they might ask questions about, well, how
did you do this or why did you do that? And it gives me an opportunity. Well, here's
what I know this and here's what was going on a great example. We we went to a lady's
house and she was definitely being delusional paranoid about different things, but
there were things I took into consideration and as the deputy and I talked about
it and I pointed different things out, we decided it was important to get the car
out there because I suspected that the person we were dealing with had a U. T. I.
Um And as it turns out it was as far as I know it was true that she did actually
have a U. T. I. She didn't have a history of any mental health issues. Um uh
Elderly lady women, elderly women tend to get U. T. I. S easier than guys do.
Yeah.
Yes your urinary tract infection which is a medical condition but it comes
across not all the time but often as someone who is crazy, they're delusional, they're
hallucinating seeing things. So she was leading us around her yard and she would
say oh did you just see that? And we're like we didn't see it but we believe you.
So then she would leave this on. Oh did you just see that? And I'm like no we didn't
see it, but we believe you. So after doing that and then getting the car in, they
found out that she had a temperature and uh you know so she was running a have or
had an infection and some other things. So the best course of action for her was
for her to go be treated. So that's the kind of learning situations I find myself
in often as I go out with the officers in the field of behavioral health.
It was because she was calling about things that she was seeing that were happening
in her yard, yep. So now we refer to him as dr Echols,
wow, that's a new one on me. I didn't know what U. T. I could cause hallucinations.
Should you drink your water? Yeah. So are there any other questions for Sheriff Noel
or steven? Yeah. Now we get in trouble.
Now, you know, one thing that I that you will that you might see and I think, I don't
know if this might have been something that generated want to have a meeting, but
we we have to put in like an appropriation because at least that's what I think we
did last time because the way the grand cycle goes. So uh so that maybe some things
that you see as we move along through here. Um so and I anyway, so that may be something
that comes up again, but we're always available if you have any questions or want
to talk about it more check in and see what's going on. But it's really proven to
be a good, I think a good thing for for us for community. So I'm
appreciative that I work in a county where it's it's uh it's seen as a, you know,
a good thing to have. Yeah. Do you hear from other counties that is, you
know, they're not prioritizing navigator programs or you hear anything from other
charity. No, I think, you know one thing that did surprise me was you know being
on the
or the group that works on grant and the money out there's there's other
places in other counties that have lots of cities and they don't all cooperate and
they all like put in for the grant separately and things like that. And one thing
that we look for is cooperation um between the different agencies but but there's
some that won't do that and I guess I find that troubling that you know it's more
territorial you know and and we're lucky here because all we have is the P. D. And
and I think just all of us in jefferson County in general were willing to work with
anyone for the benefit of the everybody. So I think we're lucky to have a place like
that so but that that would be the one thing that I've found you know that most agencies
want to help. But then sometimes stuff gets held up in this territorial thing and
I think it'd be great if if you guys can come back when you get closer to the end
of the grant period and you're working on grant reporting and can kind of give us
an overview of how to how the year went and what kind of you know um cases you encountered
and you know it's been helpful for me getting up to speed on navigator programs to
see just you know how he tracked his data and shares it with the community. So but
keep up keep I mean from my perspective keep up the good work and know that we're
here for you if you need us and um I really appreciate joe your leadership and leading
the way. So us having this program and Stephen you jumping in and taking the role.
Yeah. Thanks. Howdy. I appreciate that. But you know, I also give credit to for,
I mean I felt that this was a priority for all of you as well. Um So again fortunate
to it was like minded people see things, see these things coming to permission. Mhm.
Anyone Not there any more questions? I think I don't have a question. I do have wanted
to see. How do you asked earlier about the data and I do have the data from the behavioral
health consortium if you want we can look at it after we let the sheriff even go
or if you wanted them to. I don't know, I don't, there's a lot they can actually
add to the data. So I just wanted to present that as an option if you want before
you let go. And I want to say really nice to meet you. Hope to see you in person
here soon. Nice to meet you guys. Sorry, it was a little late. I was having some
technical difficulties. So all right, nice to meet you. Hey joe.
Um just wanna put in a little plug. Be great to connect on some legislative issues.
Um You know, there's a bill in the legislature for body cams. So if you can
touch base on some of those things, I'd love to hear your position. Um right now
I assume that you, pardon? You want time to prepare for that conversation. I
don't know. I mean, I can tell you that we were we have our body cams on order. Um
we ordered them a couple months ago, like with most things with covid, it's like
it's taking forever to get stuff. They're supposed to be here at the end of the month
or early february. Um We're still uh you know, we still have a position to bill for
the public records and uh person to deal with the stuff from the body that um the
data and we're excited. We're looking really looking forward to it. We've got the
chargers are on the wall by the, you know, the front of the office. So some of the
things are trickling in. Um And and just today I got an email from Sergeant Brandon
Sandusky, uh the acts on um uh where the where the all the evidence is stored. We're
all supposed to be setting up our accounts and whatnot. So it's it shouldn't be too
much longer. Um And we're finishing up our policy, the union's been meeting talking
about steps. So we are, we're excited and getting ready to roll that out. Oh, good.
Well, it sounds like the bill was written, um, to, you know, incentivize encourage
departments had not purchased them to purchase, which, you know, is great, but for
those of us who have purchased them, um, I think the goal now is to advocate that,
um, it would also be eligible for some funding to help the public records. And so
I didn't know that there was, that's new to me that there's a bill on body cams.
You know, that one of the things that we were looking at was there were some recording
requirements and some of the legislation from last year that was basically
making it where we would have to have body camps too, because some of the situations
that we find ourselves in with recording requirements. So I didn't know there was
a new bill about body camps. I'll send it to you. It's mostly as the grant program,
It's not about policy or use of them. And so it's good. It would be nice if it was
had benefit too, um, to everyone, not just to folks who are slow on the uptake.
So you're gonna have to redo it every year. Yeah, It's the body cams.
Yeah, It's, yeah, we haven't set up or we'll pay by the year. And, um,
but you sign up for like a five year commitment sort of and then every five years,
everything gets replaced. Maybe advocacy for, you know,
we should cancel our order and then reordered with. Well yeah that's the irony that
the earlier doctors end up getting, well you gotta be careful of what language.
Yeah and you know and then people who adopt late funding and so
yeah it's still early enough in the process that some of those uh unintended consequence
will get ironed down.
We know we know of other departments that are adopting um body cam program.
Well I know that the P. D. Has had them for quite a while. Um 4000 and
that's still in the world. You know the sheriffs were really slow on the uptake.
Um Remember I talked about it I think last year so I was basically getting emails
sam tell us how that works out and the big thing was the cost. Um but they're all
everyone's looking at them now and and I would be surprised if there are too many
issues at all that don't have a future here.
Can I ask you a question about public records? You know, I know I've had requests
from lawyers and the public, you know wanting a you know hey the sheriff's office
had body cams. I'd love to get a body cam footage from this particular stop. And
is that is that how you anticipate going? I know you don't have stacked up the position
yet but if someone says oh there was a call that we had questions about like the
info from this this that's exactly how it will work. Um And I I believe in, you know
that little battle, there's going to be the like the prosecutor's office will have,
they'll be able to log in to um where the videos are so they'll have access um to
the cases. Uh So and then if the public wants to get copies of it, you know we have
to have someone redact them and that's where the time comes in um in case there's
any personal, you know, who knows what might be on there. Um But that yeah, that's
what it's going to be for. Um
you know people that want to look at it, it's just gonna become like like a report
everywhere. I'm I'm down
everywhere. Yeah, I'm you know, I'm I'm thankful that I don't have anything that
I don't feel, I have anything to worry about where that light's gonna shine and um
I might be more worried if I had some fears about that, but I don't at all and you
know, even when we were we were testing them out, we had an incident where the guy,
we had someone make an accusation against one of the deputies that he bum rushed
him and did this just by chance. That was the first day they had the body camps and
it was the most polite uh interaction you would have seen and then the person ended
up saying, well you know I bumped my head and I don't know if I was thinking straight,
could we ask? We invited him to come in and see the video really quick. You know,
in the past it would have been
it would have been, you know, one word against another's and so that Yeah. And
and I just think there's a lot of benefits from having on it works both ways and
and like you say, you know, I guess I wouldn't be in this business, but I felt like
I had to worry about hiding things. Um It's just not the place for that. So
let the chips fall where they may turn the camera on. Yeah. Mhm.
I just sent you the bill and is involved with it. So it sounds like it has support
so far here Association.
Well, I hope that I hope that answers your question about Thank you. Yeah. And you
know about legislation though. I know there's a lot of comment about you know, trying
to maybe correct 13 10, 13, 10 as well. So I uh love for you to come back as a legislative
session. You know matures to talk about where we are and those two. Yeah, no, I I
I would love to do that. And I'm I'm surprised I didn't know about the legislation
that you sent sent me came up this maybe already noticed, but I served on the legislative
committee for wasp. There's four of us. Um So we try to stay on top of all those
things and you know, trying to get his best, the best way to do the job.
I'm being I'm being surprised by bills being dropped every day on things that I think
I know about some. Well, yeah, and and again it's still a new to me. So it's
funny how those things were.
Well, there are no other questions for joe. Let him get back to work and I'll see
you around the orchard, joe. Yeah, sorry, I couldn't make it the other day. I was
excited. I was in a meeting. But yeah, that's that's really cool that that's happening.
Art, art being super helpful and sounds like the farmer is gonna take all the trees
to this property. You might need some help with equipment. So I think art is trying
to figure out, but he needs to get him on a flatbed trailer. So Yeah. Anyway,
well, nice to see you and good seeing everyone. Hope your monday is going by
great
job before you move on. Are you guys interested in taking a quick look through the
behavioral health slide deck from the THC. Sure, yeah. Just take a
second contextual to the conversation.
Can you see it there? Yeah. Um so I don't have a lot of insight beyond my
recollection of the conversation. I'll let you look and let me know and you want
to go forward. I think, you know, there's still data collection inconsistencies across
the different departments. So that's been a big effort is to you know county that
are the genealogy of this I guess. Um And yeah, figuring this out. You know, the
doctor who runs R. E. M. S throughout the county Was the one that posited that perhaps
the encounters were under reported based. Because it was surprising. So this is an
emergency department of Jefferson healthcare. You see, we're down to less than five
around a little over 5% behavioral house uh um
causes for the emergency room visits and move on. Do you have any sense what the
Delta is like what's the total that that we're looking at? 5% us often. I don't have
that delta that I asked about it all the time. We're getting better at best. But
often we don't the quantity, the number
okay More than 80% are related to mental health
and uh jefferson healthcare. Wait, what was the first one was? Imagine the first
one was a percentage of total emergency department accounts. Okay, I guess you
can extrapolate the Delta is something like, you know, Is that 67?
And that was five Um 3300 300
encounter. 300.
So this is behavioral health and primary care visit. Oh yeah, so this is a slightly
different number. Sorry. Yeah, so this is a
okay,
they they don't come by police or ambulance
fail and take this pretty interesting Goes back to 2020 71 kind of looking
you know interaction but these are like specific results right, where they end up
being booked and this is from both tv police and the sheriff's department of course
yeah
mm this is the one that really startled me, it just doesn't see the track of any
of the other ones that we have.
So in the case of a J. Cso encounter who who decides
whether it was related to behavioral health, it's how it's coded by the deputy to
make the call. Uh and that just might be indicative of a lack of sensitivity or or
awareness about and that's one possibility. It's hard to tell. I mean you know I
kind of asked sheriff and Stephen a few questions about this just in our in our conversation,
you know and like domestic abuse is considered one and yeah they thought that mental
health issues were the inciting incident and yes, but um this is where dr carl baum
positive, perhaps it was a a perception issue, you know, there's a len bias a subjective
wins although some of the previous slides great talked about self recording because
we're all with the jefferson healthcare and wait let's see,
I think it was in the this uh now the forward forward
to Nicholas, one of the jail ones talked about identifying self reporting of mental
health and substance abuse has significant variation by month, it's more individuals
reporting self reporting substance abuse, right? So jail intake, it's a different
right data input. This is coming through believe in recovery um interacting doing
in A. T. Work and such inside the jail. So it's. Yeah well it's the making the data
jive is really it's been a real challenge. Yeah. Yeah. Um And this one is extending
the number of calls
and fire departments over 9% I think between five and 9% of their calls. Um And then
a lot of the meetings I am Jeff common such have heard from the chiefs about the
capacity drain on on their through E. M. S. And everything we heard earlier today
about the the real with dr barry this morning. The shortage of transport services
within my lunchtime meeting with farm production in South County is encouraging um
the idea that getting some steam about hiring a non emergency transport service you
know to avoid those things like Dr Berry was talking about where you have a an E.
M. T. That needs to go and wait for a bed for someone to get treated in a different
county and take them all offline all day long. If there was a service I believe it's
just like a sprinter van cattle. That uh probably doesn't open from the inside to
the safety of the client. So you can put them in there if they don't need you know
attention as as they are in transit. No through the shoe.
So this was all the data collected kept Canada epidemiology and Lorrie Fleming I
think is the one that really makes it look so good, so frosted them. So this thing
is just the participants in gateway to freedom. Um 90% of those are
recommended. Do we know how many inmates are eligible for? Gateway to freedom?
Okay. This is a small minority of the jail population or is it the um um already?
Mhm.
I feel like we have a number,
this is self reporting the number that reports substances. I think this is the trigger
I believe.
And to it this is the trigger self reporting of issues. So we're talking yeah
A 1000 or two. What
is it, yep
Sharon?
Yeah, Laurie does a good job happen.
So there were a couple of um we have, we have damning agenda items for the afternoon,
One being covid. Um I have too many screens open right now. Sorry. Covid. Covid 19
discussion next being legislative update. The equally membership miscellaneous calendar
coordination and feature agenda items. So um on the covid discussion there was a
um draft temporary covid policy passed around. I don't know if we want to talk about
that today or it was mentioned that we might be ready to talk about it today, but
I'm not sure that we are and kate. Are you a question answer that question or um
I'm sure I can give a little background. Um So in um uh discussions
of better tracking of Covid um within county operations, especially um
you know, in our within our workforce. Um uh and county is a great example where
they had to close the courthouse um for days of time because the workforce is so
impacted by covid. Um we uh you know dr barry worked with Sarah Melanson and
public health to set up a tracking system so that we know how many folks we have
out and um but in an effort to maintain the privacy that is um um required
with privacy protections, Mr hunsecker recommended that we open up our temporary
public policies and take a look and make sure that they were up to date and current.
Um and in going through that we identified a number of uh inconsistencies, things
that needed to be cleaned up and clarified. For example, our last eight temporary
policy was when um written in the summer when there were different masking requirements
were vaccinated and unvaccinated. So that's an example, the kind of thing we have
to clean up being very specific about maintaining privacy protections for employees.
So um Mr Inspector sent you a draft listed the edits that he made to that
um and we welcome input from the commissioners on that as well as we'll be presenting
it to the department directors and elective friday the coordination meeting for their
input um and then it could come before us as soon as next monday mark anything I'm
forgetting, I think that's an accurate recollection, Um I haven't
really reviewed it but there's two highlighted decision points in the draft that
we got. Um I don't know if you want to discuss now or let it ensure before we dive
into those.
Um I don't know, I mean do we want to read Philip over to talk about the changes
that were made that Philip just sent an email? I think what he's suggesting is that
that the draft he discussed at the policy management group tomorrow? Um Okay. And
then and then bring it on friday to the Kobe coordination meeting. Okay. So so we
would be able to visit it next week if there was a need for that.
I think there is um I think we do certainly want input from all of the commissioners
on this um and there's some uh from the decision point, you mentioned Greg that be
good for you guys to get some thought too and then we can discuss
and I'll give it a good read and uh yeah bring back opinions on monday. But I think
I like that path taking into policy management very and then to the covid coordination
and um raised his hand so I'm bringing them over,
taking up a commentary
everybody. Uh so uh yeah, I think maybe a good idea would be to
send it out to the department has send the director's ahead of time which I can do
um uh in an attorney client communication if you want me to.
Yeah I mean would that be for the policy management? Excuse me for a coordination
meeting friday. Yeah I mean if I mean I could do it in the next five minutes if you
want me to. Have we gotten doctor berries sign off on it? We haven't.
So if you want to wait till after you know tomorrow that's fine too. There would
still be opportunity for her to comment. Um So the reason I brought it up today is
because in the email said he intended so we can discuss it today if we needed to.
So that's why um and and I also wanted to recognize Sarah's contribution to. It
wasn't just me, it was Sarah and I had put it together. Great
okay and I like the this plan of talking about it tomorrow. Policy management friday
and have you give us some time to read it and digest and
Alrighty then I will actually be demoted please. Yeah. Back to an attendee
go. So are there other um um the agenda item and there are other covid things we
need to check in about this week. I don't think so. Um I know uh
sector is going to talk with us on friday about the um the Supreme Court decisions
and um before we let him go. Maybe we could have asked if he wanted to report here
but um you know so what what we know so far is that the uh um while the
president's ability to enact that mandates um was struck down that how the state
is planning to respond to that as of yet unknown. Um but there he is.
Uh yeah it's uh the federal government is unlike
state governments in the sense that all power comes in the federal government form
of legislation from Congress. So state government is a little bit different uh
there you know, there it has powers like police power that the federal government
doesn't have And and that's recognized in the 10th amendment. So uh I'm saying this
because both decisions by the US Supreme Court were based on statutory interpretation.
One decision under OSHA said the president didn't have power to issue those kinds
of regulations. The other um decision under Medicare laws said the president doesn't
have power to issue of abroad sweeping vaccine mandate. So
uh that's really important for understanding what power states have. And um
there's Supreme Court cases going back to 19 at least 1905 and two U. S. Supreme
Court. And Washington Supreme Court going back to I think 1909 that uh that
authorized under police power vaccine mandates. So this is, you know, not a
new thing. Um And the key case is a case for massachusetts called James. The massachusetts
where actual mandates vac injections were required and the U. S. Supreme Court upheld
that and most of the mandates that we're that we're looking at now are not, you know,
course injection mandates rather their mandates saying that if you want to work somewhere
be somewhere whatever you have to be vaccinated. So none of them are requiring or
forcing people to actually get vaccinated there just excluding people from participating
if they're not vaccinated. And so the cases that have uh you know, they decided during
covid that have these kinds of limitations uh typically all been upheld uh
and and put it as a choice on the person whether to get vaccinated or whether they
want to participate, be employed and so forth.
And the state of Washington still has the right to impose their own mandate that
would apply to the county. Um And last we heard that no decision has been made at
the state level that will be forthcoming or not. And and that in part will also be
based on state law and state authorization of folks to do that. And you know, in
this, in this covid emergency. The Governor has emergency powers that uh he has been
exercising issuing various proclamations. Uh But there's also power on the part of
the of the Director of the Department of Health to issue uh mandates
there's power on the part of Ellen I'd issue mandates based on separate statutory
authorities. So the Director of public Health or the health officer. Uh This is this
is statewide, this is the director, the director of the Department of Health. Uh
And then there's state law authorizing the county health officers called local health
officers uh to issue orders. So, you know, it's on a state level,
it could come from I think three places the governor L and I and the Department of
Health.
Uh the you know, uh So we'll just see how that I mean, I don't know how that's gonna
play out, but uh I expect I expect that to happen. I don't uh the governor has
said it, he's going to do it, he just hasn't done it yet, and they're probably trying
to figure out the best way to do it. That's not so simple
standing by,
I had not heard that the governor was was planning to proceed. I that's news to me.
So that's that's old news. Uh He's at some point when this before the challenges
came and said that and I think in a press conference, so I don't think he's repeating
it. I at least I haven't heard that he repeated it. But I expected that I expected
to happen
count so high. I mean it's
so so we'll see. Do you think we should be preparing for that? You feel it's an
eventuality? Well, I mean, I think you you know, you can we could ask dr Barry this
one at an appropriate time. But I think you already have and when when you consider
your new ninth policy, it'll be pretty up to date for the current situation.
So uh, you know, the question is, do you need to do more, it you need, is it
really necessary to go beyond what's which we're doing at least so far people have,
they're kind of handy. You know, major outbreaks uh, in the county that I'm aware,
I mean, I know the one in uh, in one of the departments. Uh, but uh, I don't know
if it was an outbreak or just one person had it and that's how they decided they
were going to deal with it. But you know county has had a pretty big outbreak.
Ah, so that's a judgment that you guys can make related to employees and who can
see the buildings and those sorts of things. Um, you definitely have the power to
do to go beyond what what you've got now come in building. You mean like we could
say you have to have, you have to be vaccinated next couple of comments. Well you
have to, you have to be careful how to craft all these things, make sure you're not
violating some other law or some other substitution requirement. I think we've done
a pretty good job of that so far. But we have to keep doing that.
Thank you Any other questions while we have before we
whiplash multiple demotions in one day. Well, these are, these are the kind of emotions
that I really love. So, so please please
with
legislative update.
Thank you mm
kate. You wanna sure I can pick us off and then um I think there's
uh one particular bill that we talked about earlier that Heidi and I might want to
revisit, have an opportunity to talk about positions and if if uh uh we want to handle
that bill and socially different different positions. Um so what's act legislative
steering committee? Um you know, we tend to focus on bills that have the greatest
impact of counties and uh spent a fair amount of time talking about Um Bill
56 97, which um popped up pretty quickly and it's about waste recovery. Um
and really far reaching bill where um all producers
of packaging and packing materials um in the private sector are responsible to the
lifetime um the life cycle of those materials. Um and so there would be
a statewide system set up funded through materials producers
um but paid for by the private sector requiring all packaging, the recycle or
providing for recycling of all packaging materials, including curbside counties are
able to opt out of this. Um but choosing to op in, you then have a
majority of your recycling paid for by the private sector and this is consistent
with legislative intent. Um that al has talked to us about where the state has instead
of pushing the responsibility down stream to the consumer and to the county who's
collecting, recycling is pushing it back upstream to the producer to say is actually
your responsibility to ensure that these materials are being recycled. So yeah, so
my wife ordered something from amazon made by some company headquartered in Spain.
And there's styrofoam in the box. The manufacturer in Spain is gonna have to pay
to recycle that styrofoam. Yeah, yeah. Or whether it's distributing it, but distributing
it in Washington state would, you know, have the responsibility of sourcing materials
that are going to be recyclable in this county. So it, it falls largely to the distributors,
um, Oregon already houses and dc already have their two most immediate neighbors
already have these systems in place. It's um, they're working. Yeah, it's not a foreign
concept much. The Western europe has a similar um chain of custody type roles.
Um So the Association of Solid Waste managers supports this bill. They've been involved
in the drafting of it, they support it. And uh uh we've spent a long time talking
about it on friday, and um blood flow steering committee voted to support the bill
also. Um I'm sorry, what was the number? 56 97. And al
uh Karen supports it as well enthusiastically. Would you, I'm sorry, can I ask one
more question about that on the line? I think it sounds fantastic, but does it mean
in these other areas and it just ended up being being passed onto the consumer. I
mean, that's usually what happens when the private industry responded ever, cause
it's like, oh, well, we're just gonna tack that onto the top and you gotta pay for
it in. So, you know, any mean things cost 10% more in Oregon right now he ordered
off amazon state or um, I know nobody spoke specifically and we
spoke about the concern, but nobody has good data. Um, as to how, how that has played
out in reality, I think that when we did discuss it, there was talk of the spread,
the cost is spread so far and wide. There's so many materials, um, that the revenue
were being brought in. Um, yeah, I mean, there's a project from the consumer and
then also from the county, our own revenue streams are tipping fees likely go down
because we would be recycling more products, but we lose a lot of money. Uh, we would
have to subsidize recycling anyway as it is. Um, so there's, you know, I think there's
different ways of calculating costs and the question as to how, how far it falls
on consumers is unknown at this point. I'm sure the material packaging lobby will
be spreading that information far and wide. Um, it has a hearing this week. Um, so
that there will be more testimony and analysis available. Um, as they fight it. Um,
exciting. I'd be happy getting rid of the wish, cycling chasing arrows is the first
step. So, this is, this is a dramatic move. It's really dramatic and I did not know
it was coming up this session, um and that it has a lot of traction that uh, majority
pocket things really interested in moving it through quickly. So pretty, pretty massive
change. Also the programs as it's called for in the bill. Um, it will reimburse counties
for um, all services provided in the recycling, including administration and labor,
which those are typically not included in programs like this. So pretty audacious.
Um, spent a lot of time on that bill and I'll report back um, The food waste
still 1799 requiring counties solid waste handlers to remove
food waste. That one has a little less traction. I think people see that that's a
little bit harder to implement. Um, we would be eligible to opt out of that regardless
um, which some analysis done by al and
have shown that we, there's not a lot of bang for a buck and be very expensive to
do a consolidated food waste recapture. Um, so looking at other other systems instead
that that one's not moving nearly as quickly. Um, let's see, trying to
hydrate a little bit here is one that Mark tipped me off about which um, would allow
counties that gets what we call our pit funds um to use use that for building affordable
workforce housing, infrastructure and facilities and that
it does not mention an extension like 13 33 the one that were, you know, actively
working on um, to extensive. Um and it sounds like we talked about trying to get
an extension added into that bill. This Senate bill 58 58 but it sounds like that's
not uh politically feasible right now, but we'll keep recording back on that and
just tell you 13 33 was voted off the house floor, so that's moving very quickly.
Um Uh, Bill 1908 is um clarifying some language
allowing surplus county surplus land to be used for affordable housing, um making
that a little bit easier. So that was certainly affect us. Have not read that bill
yet mentioned 1845 a grant program for body cams. So we'll see if we can um make
sure that that's available for those who have already purchased them. Um, uh, there's
bill, I think we've maybe heard a little bit about which would allow for conservation
futures to be taken out of the county portion of the levee and therefore not subject
to the cap. Um, So that is not being able to take a position on it yet, that must
be kind of in the works. But every year we go through this with the veterans program
and with behavioral health and developmental disabilities. Um Often efforts to try
to um take those out of the county portion and we'll both be separate. So stay tuned
on all of those unclear yet. What's going to get traction if any of those and what
would be the downside? Is that um, an increase in taxes for our residents?
Yeah, results in a very small increase To the total percentage
per $2000 value. Um the uh you know, we've been largely
without a comprehensive transportation package for a number of years now and legislature
really wants to fix that. They know they can't really do that in a short session.
But there's talk this year of doing what they're calling a mini package, doing a
$10 billion dollar um package for some immediate needs and priorities. Um just so
that we can keep, you know, keep bridge and road funding and ferries and you know,
the usual things going um um And but so far that package with many
package does not include any revenue sharing with counties. So currently in its current
iteration, there's not a lot of support for that but hopefully that would get changed.
Even the transportation package even though it just passed last year, there was talk
of um distributing the gas tax for example more amongst local governments. And so
that is not being talked about this year. Um Lots of G. M. A. Builds.
Um I mentioned some of them last week but one that got some traction right now um
is a G. M. A. Planning bill that it actually removes the 1% cap. Um which is, it's
funny it's not being billed as such. Um It also has a new state reef um
that would fund growth management planning and provides a new local option reit.
So counties could choose to increase their own reits uh to pay for additional planning.
So um no position taken on that yet. Um But it seems that seems to have a little
bit of traction right now. Um Just I've done this one interesting, this is Bill 18
12 which um allows the state to decide where clean energy projects go using similar
to the federal. Um I can't remember the name of the federal program that um you know,
kind of override uh local land use regulation because energy is a need that is shared
by all and um uh allowing local processes to shut that down. You know, nobody wants
a power plant next door. Um So because there has been a lot of resistance in some
rural counties to things like wind farms and solar farms. Um There is, I think it's
actually out of the governor's office, the desire to allow the sighting of renewable
energy to be done at the state level and not let local land use planning override
that. Well, the fact is I would guess likely to oppose that. Um I find it rather
propelling myself, but we'll see.
So those are the main ones um you know, tend to report that I think will be of interest
to us. Um And then there's um uh the Lorraine lumet's act House until 18 38 I don't
have the Senate companion Daniels all written down in the Senate. Um but I know that's
something that Heidi and I are both getting a lot of uh film puzzle box. Great enough,
you're hearing about it too, but the first hearing about it is tomorrow and um I
am um planning to testify in favor of it with the qualified support
and um um but I will not necessarily be speaking for jefferson County, so it would
be helpful if I had an idea sounds like Heidi you're on the fence or not ready to
wait in yet. So because I know where folks are at before, I misrepresent anything.
I haven't had a lot of conversations about it over the weekend and um
there's some language in it that makes me wonder what the implications are for the
county, There was something about county enforcement and I'm just, you know, I see
us having a hard time enforcing some of the things. We already have fireworks ban,
for example, You know, so I just wonder how uh if there's any unfunded mandates in
the act and if there are, what, what are the plans to fill those holes um are they
expecting us to do it on our county budget backs or are they actually gonna add funding?
There was a bit of funding associated with it. I think a pretty big chunk of the
governor's $160 million stamina recovery is to fund um implementation of this long
term, so the state is really taking responsibility for riparian areas for the first
time. So yeah, that's my question is that as I tracked down to the ground of the
people doing the work on the ground and who's doing that work? Is it w DSW? I think
it is, That sounds like it is. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not saying an testifying, I'm
staying agnostic for now.
Go ahead. Oh yeah. I looked at it a little bit. I don't have a position at this point.
It's hard to tell what the implications are to me and I think it's pretty major.
Um, it is a huge shift to go from riparian areas, you know,
originally in our Western culture, you know, because that is private property and
through a number of controversial eras in our recent history, you know, people
started to see the importance of that of riparian areas for salmon. Um, and I, you
know, I think that the theory that the tribes especially are operating from here
is that our efforts have been unsuccessful. There's um just simply too much habitat
being destroyed and um, you know, we know we consistently lose ground on um
um um habitat on pollutants. Um, and so that, you know, their theory is the state
really needs to step in and be the regulator. And while I, I bristle against that
a little bit that it's interesting, I feel like I'm thinking about it this weekend
to Heidi and that referring back to the conversation about martin Luther king Jr
that, you know, it felt to the conclusion I came to is that this is one of those
moments in time where you say like there was an opportunity to do more and did we
or you know, just to, I think, oh, let's leave it up to private property incentives
and conservation groups and um I really believe the tribes when they say it's just
not enough. Now is the time we're either gonna have this functioning ecosystem um
or we're not. And if we choose that, that means we don't have workout. That means
we, you know, don't we have very little salmon um um kind of growth we're seeing
in the region. I am inclined to go with the tribes on this one.
Yeah,
I certainly don't object to. No, not at all. And I'm glad you are because I wasn't
feeling ready to. I was thinking about the lands of growth management and management
processes and all that. I think maybe I went too far into the week and thinking about
it. Um so I felt like I can't get to all the answers I need and time to show up tomorrow
and testify. Yeah. And there's um association counties have a lot of concerns about
it and um they wrote a memo to um the governor's office, I
believe. Um that's what was addressed to a couple weeks ago and the bill was being
drafted and they are very specific concerns, you know, things like um to the voluntary
stewardship programming. How will this interact with the system that counties put
in place very recently that rely on different science um and allow for much more
adaptive management. What will happen to the DSP program? Um The science that Hillary
and act relies on is the site potential tree height which there's real questions
as to whether that is um uh the uh that's available science and if that's the only
that's available science that should be used and that could mean 200 ft bunkers in
our primary glands. Um There's yeah, so you know, I think there I will be calling
out some of my concerns and where I think that we could there could be more adaptive
management, less prescriptive regulation. Um And you know if
there's some uncertainty as to whether it's such a massive piece of legislation will
make it through on a 60 day session, but there's a lot of scene behind us so it
might and it needs to be done well and there's still some problems with that. Yeah,
well there are a couple of other pieces of legislation that I was excited to see
the count forest bill and then uh sustained spending for derelict vessel recycling.
Those are two girls. I might may testify either now or in the future about both of
those issues are ones that I would add to your list, another on the
checklist.
Mhm. That's all I have but happy to hear of other skills and interests and um
I'm gonna carry any message is forced to watch too.
I'm just getting into it. So I'm getting my information from you. I don't have any
bills that I'm cracking. Well I do, I do now. And one of the bills you'll hear a
lot about likely and drinks do especially in your housing roles um is another major
shift. Um It's called the missing middle bill. And it doesn't apply to counties.
It only applies to cities and it's uh bill that basically requires cities to allow
multifamily in all residential zoning types. And um cities
are association of cities is currently opposing it. Um They've largely created the
preemption issue. They don't want the state telling them, you know what they can
and can't do. Um But it's interesting to have a long conversation about whether we
should support it because in the counties that have large urban areas, um cities
often don't have the political will to be able to force stoning. We know that a lot
of single family residential neighborhoods don't want multi family. So nimbyism uh
amounts to political will, that stops multi family housing from being put in and
then all of those impacts end up getting absorbed in unincorporated areas instead
creating sprawl decreasing affordability in rural areas. So it's really interesting
to hear the more urban counties say we should support this because um we're the ones
instead paying for cities not, um, doing what they are supposed to do, they are supposed
to absorb density and instead it's getting pushed out to counties. So really interesting
conversation, you know, not the least of which, because my husband is the director
of planning in the city of Seattle and they don't like it either, but it's uh, that's
gonna be another like existential um debate in the Legislature this year. And
there's, there's a lot of those, I mean, it's really interesting to hear, to hear
the state say, or the proponents and in this case, the tribes with the Lorraine limit
back to say, no, we now see red korean areas as a public benefit, not as private
property. And I'm gonna do like such big shifts that are happening in a short session
um, unexpectedly or I know they've been in the works, but um, yeah, it was kind of
revolutionary. Um, bi curious to hear what 4000 thinks about this one. I mean, you
know, it's, uh, you lose some authority and you and you get some support and and
developing multi family housing, and you know, it's, uh, the balance they would win
something and they would lose something.
Yeah, I was surprised how strongly association of Washington cities came out against
it because in some ways than what I've heard, members of the Legislature say it would
give them cover. No, it's too hard for local elected to pass this kind of thing because
folks, you know, when your neighbors are mad and threatening to lose your job, they're
gonna vote you out and coming from the state. It's a lot harder to turn around or
put up a big fight again.
So it's gonna be an interesting session.
Yeah. It feels, it feels really compressed. Yeah. And normally you don't get these
massive game changing bills in a short session. But I think the democrats are worried
about losing majority, um, in the Senate this year. Um, so they're, they're really
pushing for a pretty big measure while they have the majority of support.
That's all I got. So I'll report back more sponge stuff next week. Great. And I really
appreciate watch list and fills every week. Um, that's where, where I started over
the weekend. As you can imagine. It was quite a radical. Yeah, it's really good.
And, but I find it overwhelming. Like I appreciate that we narrowed down in the meeting
with reliance staff to kind of call out the ones that are the most and um, are,
you know, gaining traction and gonna be moving or voted on or heard. So I try to
bring those two into, Yeah, it's great. We appreciate that. But totally, I mean,
I'm, and stuff all the time, You know, Mark assumed I would have known about that
tip. One that I haven't heard anything about. So don't, don't hesitate to say what,
you know, it's plot exposition. I meant, what are you hearing? You can of course
too,
anything else. And I just had to stop for kate marc or craig. Um
Let's see. So what else do we have on our list? We have it clean annual membership
wipe that on the list this week. Yeah, so the Climate Action Committee has
um in the last couple of years, Mark three years um
uh asked for the city and county to split the cost of our membership in
Italy, which I have to look at the acronym every year.
International um local governments for sustainability, which
does not the acronym. Yeah, no it is, here's the
International council, Council for Local Environmental initiative um and it is
the organization that owns the software which many smaller jurisdictions
used for calculating their carbon footprint. Um and so we have shared the cost
which is about $350 for the city and county apiece. Um 700 ish total.
Um and use that for our inventories, both the uh heavy wide inventory and then also
the new took advantage of the new um forestry and greenhouse gas and we, you know
we learned through that process that is, it is not perfect the broad sweep but you
can uh take from that especially the trending. Um and and while while it is not
granular data be using the same software over time, you get to see trends and I think
that has a lot of value. So it's uh, Caroline said $600 a year and might be a little
more of this year. Well, they wanted to, yeah, they wanted to build us for 1200.
But then Cindy Jane I believe said, is that correct? That went way up and they said,
Oh no, that's for counties with over 100,000 population. So it went back down to
600. So we will be paying 600. Yeah. Right. So um, speaking
authority from the floor to authorize $300 for our share of, well, we would have
to pay the 600 and then build a city as long as the cities with that agreement like
last year and the year before they agreed to pay half. I wasn't sure if that was
the same for this year. They're also agreed to pay for half. Yeah, that that makes
it easy for the city because you know, we have to receive a payment and then make
a payment. Whereas the city just has to make a payment and we're happy to do that.
Well, wait a minute. I'm speaking for Caroline, which I shouldn't do Caroline. I
know that it's fine. I said, yeah, I mean, I'm totally fine with this. I'm surprised,
I mean surprised we even have to have this conversation, but um, totally happy to
support. Can I get a motion? I'll move that we pay the annual equally
membership and charge the city or build a city at least if they're willing for after
that comes. I'll second that
all in favor. Hi. Okay. I got the second something once in
2022. Thank you. Okay. Now we we
move on to the the potential rabbit hole miscellany in anyone have anything miscellaneous
and I have one.
Okay. I think we all got a note about some of the professors that happened during
this last winter storm about I guess distribution of information on winter warming
centers and I guess I guess we are kind of circling in on information officer. It
seems like not that uh, you know, I don't think a lot of the indigents are looking
to the county website for where can I get services? But I do feel that having maybe
a place on our facebook page and a banner on our website just showing especially
during times of emergency where you can get services and support. I talked to someone
who was, you know, an 88 year old and Brynn who has snowed in and there was no uh,
you know, emergency center down there. So just having what the resources are on our
website seems like a small, a small hurdle that that is the least we can do. So I
guess I wanted a broom stab and that you guys are supportive. I'm happy to talk to
guess really? I'm not sure the best force to get this done, but happy to bird dog
where we want to pink ones. It seems like when there's an emergency declaration or
even before in this case it would have had to have been before. Um there would be
a list of you know things standard operating procedures for where we post notices
and you know what partners we reach out to to see how we craft those notices. So
I don't know if that's A D. N. Thing or um start the conversation.
I think the D. E. M. I think would be instrumental in creating the content and then
others would be responsible for getting it on the facebook and on the county web
page. So that might be that.
Yeah. Yeah. See and they told us they don't have the capacity to be doing our communications
that they need support for that. Yeah. On that note we're continuing the conversation
next week on the communications officer and we delayed it because Monte is out of
town this week. I'm having to wait for a week and maybe add that to the conversation.
Just you know, I mean like the same way we have a covid banner across our website.
Yeah. He's very Hannibal. Yeah.
Yeah. I just I don't know if you've heard yet but we do have a new fortune for each
coordinator. Her name is Sarah Peterson. She lives in quilting. Her husband works
at the hatchery and she they hailed from Alaska and she has a child
of a child or two Children of her own but has great, I was on the interview, the
hiring panel, so I great energy and Uh enthusiasm for the work of four H and not
a lot of direct experience before age, but she had all the right checked all the
right boxes in terms of a really engaging way about her. And anyway, so I just say
I was, I feel like it's been a hurdle since I walked in the door for each, so I'm
just really excited to announce that we have someone new on board and she'll be starting
I think in February 1st week in February.
Yeah,
I'm going to mention that this morning, but I breathe by it. So that was my added
peace, right. Anything else in the miscellaneous category uh
wheat board. Uh you know, we continue. I think we've got another possible candidate
candidate I talked about last week, ultimately ended up not living in the county
just having a property in the county. So they didn't quite qualify. So I'm still
looking for someone on the West end, but I think we have a south county ex producer
that is filling out the forms and interested A lot of four and five at that point,
which is awesome.
Yeah, 20 some years. I lived here. Yeah.
Calendar coordination, anything other than what we've talked about earlier this morning
and or over three more commissioners kind of rather meeting.
Mhm. Anything arise on any other days that you guys need coverage for?
I have a conflict on thursday? It's not a critical meeting, um I'll try to extend
the same food bank and I was trying to um the the Food Bank Association is trying
to build a food bank and we've supported already and they just haven't an ongoing
meeting that I that I coach you when I can, but it's not a conflict that
I'm hearing much there, so use your agenda items, anything we want to talk about
there.
I mean, I mentioned earlier that it would be great if we could uh maybe they're already
in the agenda planner. Start working. I think Heidi
this coming thursday, when you and I do agenda review for monday. I think we should
plan on spending some time coming up with a proposal list of workshops we could that
we could put on the agenda for monday for the full board to consider can, and once
we get those in the calendar, it seems here for people that if there's one that they
have interest in the public to them to put it on the calendar. So, I have preached.
I think that's a good idea.
Got through those topics many times, So, I think you probably have a lot of, a lot
of subjects to sift through already. We have that list of over 100 ideas.
Help
one. Mhm. I'm wondering Pinky will do that. I'm not sure where
ready for that. Yes, but it's not on the agenda currently. Okay, when the time is
right ready for you? Um Okay, well, I don't
have anything else to add. I feel I took like 20 pages of notes this weekend,
but I'm not even gonna start looking there. I will mention one other bill that we've
already looked at once that house bill 16 27 you know, that um is looking for subject
alternative, that might might might be a windfall for Brendan and our sewer capacity
from the state park. So you might want to put household 16 27
so that is allowing um uh utilities to go
outside of urban growth boundaries. Yeah, increased flexibility in extending publicly
provided water, sewer and storm drain facilities beyond municipal and urban growth
boundaries. And that doing so does not automatically create sprawl. I feel like we
could have written this one ourselves.
Um Yeah, I had contact with two uh constituents
this weekend during the last few days anyway, who um both interested in
investing in some sort of affordable housing kind of private model building
of, you know, smaller units that would be more affordable to rent out. Um And, you
know, clearly not allowed the kind of thing they had in mind, clearly not allowed
in growth management as as it currently stands, and um one of these in a lambert
and it reminded me that we really need to read this at that bill from last year allowing
multi family in lambert. Um, so I'll be taking that too. Uh that person that wants
ac and um that's just, it's just crazy, you know, we're literally sitting at the
river adjacent to the lambert and you know, like all these employees who have standard
housing and a business that relies on people who have really unstable living conditions.
And um, it's just The, it seems crazy that designate a corner for there to be more
intensive development. Why is it limited to the 1990 uses density? All points
we made when we were testifying on that bill last year. So Paul Jewel and patty and
I were all working that that bill last year. And so I'm glad to hear that. It's got
like well I don't know if it does. I'll see if I was hearing much about it this year,
but it's it's just a reminder that we really need that you need to keep making the
case for rural affordable housing. Also. Yeah, just As the corner
store across the street has another 50 employees.
Yeah.
Okay. Anything else for the good of the order today?
Okay, well then you gain some time back to do some work reading all those bills.
Yeah. So I will adjourn the meeting for January 18, 2022
County Board of Commissioner. Thank you everyone have a great week. Bye. Good