No, not yet. Mhm. Do you have a segment?
Bring her over if she wants to? Uh there's an error message?
Oh yeah.
Video playback can't start 38. Let me think about. It
looks like our handling down, so it looks like it's nine o'clock. You guys ready
to get started
ready? There goes the clock tower. Good morning, everybody. I'll call this
January 10, 2022 meeting of the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners to order
um as we do every Monday, we'll start off with public comment. But first does anyone
have anything they'd like to say before we get started?
I would just say yesterday was glorious and I regretted having a 500 page document
to read, but um found time for a short bike ride in the midst of it. So it was good.
It was such a beautiful day. So thankful for that. Um Okay, so we'll start out
the meeting with public comments as we do. We'll take up to 30 minutes of public
comments. If you have something you would like to address the board of county lectures
this morning, please um raise your hands um
and accept being panelists when you see that come up on your screen. So, does anybody
have anything they would like to talk with us about this morning
And yeah, go up
tom church
and we can bring Mr Coburn.
Good morning. Good morning. Mr pierce you will have up to three minutes for public
comments and you can get yourself and start your comments. Good morning, commissioners
morning. All three things to talk about this morning quickly um on your consent agenda,
Item number seven, which is regarding centralizing more of your servers into one
place. I just, one thing that worries me is putting too many eggs in one basket.
Is it a good thing to have one location where all your servers are vulnerable to
one event? Just concerns me having designed issues such systems myself. Um, item
number 14 on the consent agenda Has a has a typographical and factual error. Uh,
the term that is being filled for position on the Ferry Advisory Committee expires
in 2-3 knots 2024. Uh, so you might want to correct that before adopting that on
the consent agenda? Uh because 2024, maybe a five year term, which of course is not
for the R. C. W. Um The last thing I wanted to comment on is the thing later in the
agenda, the public health uh, folks want to have a retreat. You uh
improves their own mental health. Probably not a bad idea. Um, the uh question I
have is wouldn't it be advisable or better to have jefferson healthcare at
least pick up part of this. Have uh, you know, they're responsible for community
health around here. Pretty much monopoly organizations. So I would like to see them
ship in a few. They also have a few more dollars than the county does. So, uh just
a thought, just a suggestion. Um, that's about it. Thanks. Thanks for your comments.
Mr chair. So it looks like we have steven with his hands up Caroline
and as we always do, we will address public comments after all public comments are
made. Good morning, Good morning Heidi. Hey, well, good
news. I'm cold variant is sweeping the country with mild cold symptoms and zero deaths
so far nationwide, bestowing robust natural immunity wherever it goes. Obviating
any rationale for getting on the vaccine. Rooster crazy train. Some have called it
god's vaccine bad news for backs pushers. The FDA acknowledged last week cardiac
risk from the J and J back but failed to knowledge worldwide data. Cardiac risk from
the five during the backs are just as bad british data shows cardiac risk for boys
or 10 times previously reported. We're now looking at the battle I think 1.8 per
1000. This is for an age group with specifically zero risk from the common cold given
risk benefit, pushing the covid back on our kids is child abuse. Meanwhile, the mystery
deaths about the recent facts recently, vaccine booster continue to mount up yesterday,
bob Saget mysteriously died a few weeks after tweeting about his booster. As that
a 49 year old new york times editor who died of a heart attack the day after his
Moderna booster. A seven year old Minnesota girl died 11 days after Pfizer shot a
13 year old michigan boy died from myocarditis three days after his Pfizer shot and
a new phenomenon this year of athletes collapsing on the playing field. Most disturbingly
the ceo of $100 million life insurance company worn the indiana Chamber of Commerce
on december 30th. The death rates among the working age folks, I think that's 18
to 64 have surged 40% last year. Mostly not from Covid, which is very
mysterious, but what was new last year besides the actual out member of fighter work
speed at the trials were terminated after six months by jabbing control group and
all of cause mortality from heart attacks et cetera, turned out to be higher among
the vax group than the control group. Even during the trial period. Safety and efficacy
of booster shots were never tested in any trials. So we're totally flying blind booster
shots. But studies now showing negative effectiveness against the on Nicole after
a few weeks. That's right. The boosted are looking to be more at risk, which turns
any pretext for mandating these experimental boosters completely on test. So, I mean,
are you hearing any of this from your health officer who said it's your migrate about
the wrong things and stupidly case tracking the optical, I mean, due diligence on
your employee's job perform and should include checking out the New Year's Day fact
check article on the top 10. Provably false stories that she's telling you and super
spreading through her public platforms to just go to port Townsend free press dot
com to review the detailed exposure of the fraud that she is perpetuating under your
watch and check the source link if you don't want to believe what you're reading
me. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you. Mr schumacher. Does anyone else
out there has public comments they would like to make this morning?
Um Okay, so I guess what we'll do is
keep public comments open in case somebody wants to comment after we respond to the
couple of comments we received. Um Does Greg do either? Do you have anything you'd
like to say to? Mr Sure. Although thanks for your comments. As always, we can
talk about number seven on the consent agenda. I'm pretty sure that usually I see
has a really good uh backup scheme in mind, so I doubt that it's it's one place but
we can it's always a good question to ask. To number 14, easy to change that error
to 20 to 3. The public health retreat. You know, we can talk about it or if we don't
control jefferson healthcare budget and if we can manage this ourselves for our staff,
it's probably a small enough um his I mean healthcare has got their own
funding issues. So whenever, excuse me, you can take care of your own business. It's
that's probably the best quality uh Mr schumacher like the new terms on like this
only cold or honestly, I'm not sure. But uh I do appreciate your comments a lot to
unpack? I'll just take one. Um you know, pour one out for bob who passed away suddenly,
but to imply that he died from his vaccine. As you did in your comment rose, everything
you say into um it really loses credibility because no one knows right now what what
tragically passed away from it. So it's an irresponsible suggestion and it colors
the rest of your promise to. Um and I'll stop there.
Thank you. Um Sure, yeah, just a couple of things.
Um the public health retreats, I um I think jefferson healthcare probably definitely
needs to do something similar for their staff. They are extremely burned out and
demoralized um right now, so I hope that they will be able to invest the time um
and financial ability to uh to invest similarly in their own employees soon. And
they have taken out pretty massive financially. So I'm happy to support our folks
in our retreats. Um and uh yeah, it's concerning that the level of
burnout that we're seeing across the spectrum. Um I'm sensitive to Mr schumacher's
comments today. I have a 14 year old who is very, very sick right now with covid
and um kind of insensitive to suggest that this is just a cold. So that's all for
me.
Um have anything to add to those comments this morning and uh except
you know, it feels like at times um speculation and I verbally come into
play in the public comments we received and it's unfortunate and sometimes personal
um Okay is there anybody out there who wishes to make public comments this morning
seeing him grow up?
So do we traditionally read public comment open? Um Your
okay
okay thank you. So second weekend chair so they're with me public um still learning
as I got a little bit. Um So will the public coming open if anyone feels inspired
in the next 20 ISH minutes to make comments please raise your hand and we'll bring
you over. Um
Okay do we want does anyone wanna guests will now look at consent agenda?
So I noted a couple of comments from Mr Pierce about items seven and 14.
Um Sounds like seven isn't really I also trust our I. T. Department and we'll check
in with them but it's like 14. We might wanna pull that. No you can just just
approve approve it subject to the date change to 2023. Okay, expiration of term.
Although I'm curious I just want to make sure that we have um done our due
diligence in the four years term. I'm confused finishing out larry.
Okay
so that started in 2019 and would expire 2023 then
if mr kirsch is correct. Yes. Okay so can I have a motion to approve the consent
agenda? One other discriminatory error on number I think on number nine for the viper
House and House and the
big contractor the statement of issues. so
house by the house in the body in the body of the contract and now it's just.
Yeah. Yeah. Right
correct. But glad to see that contract there, you know, just on meeting with fiber
house and trying to get a anchor anchor award for more funding for diversity and
equity and inclusion. And they got that grant and the partnership between Holy Cats
and our 3 60 or fiber houses is just trying to see um, also really excited to see
the conversion of uh, the two year limited positions of B. C. D. The permanence I
think um, you know, supporting D. C. D. Right now is really critical and I opened
our conversation later that uh, we might be able to do something about uh, staunching
the weekend is having right now.
Lots of good stuff again. I mean are we is 20 the normal number for business items
that pass in front of suppressive. Yeah, three weeks in a row. I think we've had
20 or more items. Yeah. Um, yeah. See our annual contentious public
paper of record that, um, conversations against two. So yes, that's what I am.
If anything I'm concerned that you want to comment on. No, just happy that Department
of Emergency management was um, you know, we're doing that later in the agenda. So
I was looking at the number one, they're different emergency emergency load limitations
on county road. Um, no, that's good. Glad to see our collective bargaining agreement
continuing to move through the system. Three looks great. Good job much more quickly
than in years past, appreciate that. I appreciate that the city offering us a really
qualified candidate for the advisory committee I think will be a great addition there.
My couple of things are always happy to see more additions to the wildlife corridor.
I know we approved this earlier, but I'm glad to see us protecting habitat. Most
are urban currently our urban only urban area. Um, also not surprised to see the
oil city road watch out crossing more than we originally thought that if you saw
the pictures about a month ago, it was, it looked quite dramatic. And uh,
whenever I see the words not just control on the consent of and I just want to call
out, but there are a couple of vacancies on our wheat board so we don't have anymore.
Okay, great. Great. Okay. Um, if there's no other comments on the content
is gonna have emotions to improve. Subject to that one change. I think it's
22 errors to correct. So I will move to approve an adopted consent agenda with the
state made that change the very advisory committee in 2023 and uh, some changing
stuff house to the house. Okay.
Okay. All in favor. All right. Thanks. I thought Sarah can go up replaying down again.
I don't,
I don't know if Mark, you can check in with her to see if she has something that
happened a few times this morning, son.
Um, okay. I see. No hands up for public comments. So I guess we'll do
a little bit of briefing. Who wants to take a look at their calendar.
Yeah. And I can go ahead. I'm ready.
See um, Last week I did a
planning workgroup for the empowered teams workshops, the second of two planning
work groups and I think have some clear action items that we're gonna take on. I
think we're gonna do the guiding choices, which is of course it's been taught 4000,
empowered teams, coalition plus support some programs that the school district is
already beginning. It's really great when there's existing programs that we can use,
uh, the empowered teams dollars for, uh, to give more, you know, more bandwidth to
the smooth district. So I think I forget exactly the program called second started
something. It's a uh, kind of healthy choices curriculum within the classroom for,
I think k through eight. Uh, so that was a great workshop and a lot of consensus
and what we should work on. Uh, also a student, a student driven projects as well.
I think we're going to do, um, we're gonna go to a Cosmo Brown Village meeting that
was sort of misunderstood and got rescheduled to Wednesday did enough going there.
Um, and uh, you know, listen to some of the frustrations of the residents and as
fully capped chair, you know, not really trying not to get into the operational side
of things, but also just as true thing, our concept is, you know, still still pretty
bare bones down there without running water without without flushing toilets. So
um I want to make sure that we continue to do everything we can to preserve dignity
and health and safety of the population, of the flexibility. I met with the Planning
commission housing subcommittee at their request on Wednesday morning, I had a really
lively conversation and great to hear what they've been doing since um fund founding,
I think a year ago. They have four of the planning commission members on there and
it was a really lively conversation. Things are moving along with the seventh Hendricks
Development meeting we had um as I mentioned, I know no real hiccups there. Um
as I mentioned, we had a an interview to try to get um anchor a C. I. A
wellness initiative to fourth piper House and Holy kath and me and all the captains
who applied for and they did, we did have that interview and they did help you improve
improvement. So that was great. Um it was three a so we had some pretty significant
retirements over the um was this last year, but I think we finally have
found someone to uh fill the one of the senior finance positions there, that's been
open for over a year. So great to have a good candidate there unfortunately. I think
they come from another organization in the county. So we'll start looking for a senior
the Bookkeeper Finance director at um and Mill Road is
moving along still I think uh no starting to look at sort of
master plan concepts in the meeting, which was, you know, a bit of a chilling conversation
to start, but I think ultimately was informed and inform the process in a healthy
way. And we've got some notes back to from charlie Hitchcock, a developer consulting
with the developer that had hired to look at at fossil future facing. Um
also it was really exciting. I think we're going to sign a contract with Silver net.
So read the right, our director, read the writing stories for the portal, a voice
and in a month or so the contract is not going to get ratified until the end of february.
So, but that's the home sharing for seniors and it's kind of an app that facilitates
that and put people together. And uh I think that both grade looking at using dollars
they received for setting up the contract for a three year three year trial run to
uh to put uh seniors, they want to age gracefully in their homes with with folks
who are looking for a place to rent for for the airport. So that's really exciting.
Looking forward to that. Um had a meeting with swimming about the uh the
working age band that I'm we're still continuing our chip bands and just talking
about the housing uh framework basically. Uh P. O. B. C. Had a good
the presentation there and then went down to the school where I looked at the portable,
I think I've mentioned it briefly before they got a portable that they are gonna
have to demolish to make room for the new bus barn. Um We have agreed that they can
temporarily move that portable too uh to the old shop that is kind of a decommissioned
shop down there right by the school and Wilson and it hasn't been moved yet as soon
as the permit comes through, they'll they'll need to move it kind of that day. But
I went down there todd Armstrong from the mill road folks uh and it looks great,
you know, it's got a little weak where the roof was shifted a little bit when they
jacked it up, but you know, it's 70 by 20 for in fairly good shape, you know, new
T 11 on the side and it'll have another 10 years. So excited about the possibility
of maybe a um if it comes to that a temporary emergency shelter to to supplement
or supplant the american legion potentially. Or as a common space for the Cosmo Brown
Village. Both applications look Uh doable and because it is affordable, we can get
it in pretty quick. We just need to find out how to get past the uh overpass at 104.
That's the big challenge kind of shrinking a little bit to get under it. Still some
details to work out, but exciting, you know, didn't didn't wipe it off the list,
but said, yeah, that looks like it has real potential. And those were the high points
of my country.
Hey, Trying to think of the other route from hosting the hair 101 up to
20. That's pretty scary too. Yeah. You're gonna go to center. You're gonna go 11.
What about the Discovery Day and then a barge.
I feel like we've had bad luck with historically. Yes. All right. I'll give you my
week um, big kickoff week for legislature starting as we speak this morning.
But the a lot of work last week during after that, that much of
Tuesday, getting ready for the puget sound partnership leadership council meeting.
Um, and a lot of legislation being introduced, um, some of which could have a pretty
massive impacts. And I know we're going to do a legislative update later, but you
need to call your attention to the Lorraine Loomis Act, which would start to regulate
riparian areas across the state, which of course we have a lot of and a lot that
is in our historic agricultural land. Um and that would be uh an entirely
new regulatory framework um for activities within riparian areas. And so that's gonna
be a major um uh, I don't battle sounds perhaps too contentious, but I'm sure for
some it will be a battle in the legislature this year and something that I will be
tracking closely. Um and I'll get some more legislation a little bit. Um Let's see.
We have policy management group on Wednesday, that is our internal, one of two internal
covid response meetings we have um and were talking about how we could do a better
job of using our friday public coordination meetings every other friday within the
county most effectively. So looking at do we need to make any changes to that? How
do we ensure that that's the best use of all of our director and elected time um
among other things and I'll touch on that a little bit when we get to my friday.
But um he has the leadership council of the partnership meeting on
Wednesday. Um Thanks to some input from the straight E. R. N. L. I. O. Which Heidi
spoke to a public meeting. Um So this is a state agency Leadership Council adopted
a fairly aggressive um a legislative agenda and uh with the request of the number
of folks and straight er en and it's uh particularly the importance of getting funding
for rural on site subject system. Um We know that there is a major source
of uh contaminants in the sounds in rural areas and often those kinds of issues get
ignored in statewide conversation. So thank you mister Eisenhower and others for
bringing that attention to that issue. Um the record that legislative
agenda is available if anyone wants to take a look at. Um I don't think anything
very surprising. Um This is the state agency that is tasked with protecting and restoring
so number of environmental efforts. Um uh Climate change, language is strengthened
in there again at the request of Straight er en and my own eastern there. So it's
a good agenda. Um And there's certainly some feeling that now is the time to be passing
strong environmental legislation at the state level. Um So they choose some more
there. Um We had a transit advisory committee meeting Wednesday
afternoon and the Transit Transit advisory group no longer the too many
phds that group is very interested in the Transit board pursuing these expanded forward
option. So they'll be bringing some information to us to consider this year as we
look at expanding the Transit fourth. We had Economic Development Council board meeting
on thursday morning and that uh spent a fair amount of time which we have for the
last number of months trying to find the right balance of how much that entity operates
as a public institution, especially with now before government having representation
on that board versus the importance of protecting the confidentiality, working with
businesses and their proprietary information that's been a little bit authority might
be coming back to the I. C. G. Or excuse me to the before um partner government organization
to uh might need to make some changes to the agreement because um for example the
BBC have contracts that require a certain level of uh confidentiality. Um and yet
we call for a fair amount of um kind of public transparency in that sideway agreement.
So stay tuned for more on that. It is a little bit tricky. Um And you
see a note in the chat that Sarah has something she does want to come and so when
I finish up and hand it off to her um a little bit of exciting news. Um uh
legislative front that I've mentioned to you the kind of existential threat that
some legislation passed presents to independent electricians especially in rural
areas far away from union training program. Um rather unexpectedly a couple of senators
introduced a bill to make some edits to that statute. And they are potentially open
to at least including an extension. So this this year I believe it might be next
year I'll just go back and check um when basically our local uh electricians would
no longer be able to train journey level the highest level certification their trainees.
Um And so it sounds like they're gonna be willing to put that on hold to do an extension
of the uh start date for that Uh prohibition which is great news. Give us some time
to make required edits to it. So uh that we'll see that it felt like really great
news that someone else was opening that up and and willing to make some important
much needed edit the unintended consequences of legislation passed in 2018. And our
legislators are on board for that exciting. Um We had our started our
monthly meetings with our lobbyists in D. C. To help with infrastructure funding.
Um Got some updates on the various pots of money where they are. Um You know at some
point we probably should have a conversation with this group and maybe a few of our
departments that touch on capital and infrastructure public works in particular around
prioritizing what we might want to be seeking funding for with the infrastructure
package coming through. So stay tuned on that obviously workshop.
Yeah yeah questions about roads, electrical charging infrastructure. Um A number
of directions we might want to um Head with that or I. T. G. Actually this could
be a good good conversation with CG. Um a couple more things. Um Oh I had
our 1st 1st time sharing the legislative steering committee um and survived that
you put in with some really contentious issues already coming up before session started.
So there's gonna be some big ones, there's some gun control um bills, there's um
uh voting rights act coming before the legislature, many criminal justice, obviously
a lot of environmental as I mentioned. Um So it's gonna be a wild ride trying to
share this group of vastly different political ideas that can get us all on the same
page. So uh wish me luck there, it got this gate,
I we'll see. Um I it is interesting, you know, we have had little
uh political diversity on this board, so it's actually really good experience to
work with a ford with that kind of um in beliefs. So I do appreciate
the opportunity to test my shops there and that was my week. Should we go back to
the,
I have a couple of things to add in the camera on or you can turn it on. So a couple
of things I wanted to call out for my last week for um
I did some straight a year in work which he had already talked about, didn't meet
the new coordinator, uh Cara Cardinal who seemed great on friday. I spent some time
with her and it was wonderful to meet her in person. I never met our previous coordinator
john Campbell like in person. So it was pretty shocking to actually meet her in person
and she lives in so great that we'll have that kind of access to her. Um had a behavioral
health advisory council meeting and presentations from ali Cap on the seventh Haven
project, which is exciting and I would call out that um uh cherish pointed out that
she was keeping photo logs of both the mill road project and the seventies and projects
and I believe those are on the only Cap website. So if anyone out there is interested
in looking at the progress of those two projects their their photo documented on
I believe the only cap website or maybe great great squinting at this pace. There's
google is like a public google.
Okay thanks Greg. Um and then had the Marine resources committee meeting and there
was a great presentation from the city on port Townsend Marine issues and a lively
discussion about the North Beach sewer outfall. Um and you can go back and think
and watch the Marine Resources Committee is meeting if you're interested. But um
there was a lively discussion about the sewer outfall and other sewer and septic
issues related to the city of port Townsend. So it was a really great conversation
um and I think I'm going to have a great meeting on friday around accepted
capacity limits in the county with the city and county public works departments and
Goodman Foundation. So um good good conversation and some next steps there that um
I'll update you on as we move forward but I don't think any work landed in my lap
for that one. Um and then our business grant planning with the E. D. C. On friday
and we're gonna hear more about that this afternoon. So I'll say that for them. Um
And then yeah Sarah had something on,
I just forgot that I said I was going to and then I didn't but that had a couple
conversations with some folks about the noxious weed board, the unfortunate board.
And we had one applicant from the West and West End. Actor producer. And uh they
said they were great application. It's Dean fletcher went out there there on the
south side of the ho when I was the whole resiliency program and happy to meet them
and really appreciated with fletcher. Uh And I think I have a District three South
end um and producers that are interested too so we might have a completely filled
here. So
that's an important issue. We've um Anything else? Sorry I'm not good about asking
anything else? Um Yeah I'm gonna get better every meeting. Um So uh Sarah has something
she wants to add relative to consent agenda item number four the teamsters contract.
So Sarah if you want to turn on your camera and post what your updated. Uh Good
morning. Yes. So that's item number four. And I was as I was looking at, yeah I am
this morning I noticed that the last two pages of that document should have contained
the um welfare trust subscription agreement. And this is standard with all our
such a bargaining agreement to have an agreement as well for subscription to the
medical, dental and vision. And I wanted to bring this up. Um We could share my screen.
I can show you what that document is. Um You have a shared cream button at the bottom
of your screen do let's see video transcript record
which the green green green mountain.
There you go. Okay let's see can you see this? Yeah. Oh great
Because did you see this 1? No we just see your blue screen there goes.
That was good. Okay great. So this um there's a document that was
on the copy on the agenda shows this is the last page which is the signature that
just said construction agreement. I should have had these two pages. Three pages
listed as well. And what this does is it outlines what's covered in the bargaining
agreement in terms of the medical plan for life insurance, find lost, dental plan
and vision plan. And there's a place on this for the board to find as the employer
on this page. The first page of the agreement. And um yeah I just wanted to bring
that up during the agenda.
So do we need to um amend our earlier motion or I don't believe you will need to.
You've already approved it. Um Sarah just bring it up. So the public is aware of
it and you're aware of it if you had any changes you wanted to make as a result of
her sharing these new pages. I would do so now but you can just state that you're
you're in agreement with your previous decision.
Is there any concern about this item kate or Greg? I mean agreement with our previous
decision. And I am as well. So we will. and then the the attachment
on the community update sarah. Yeah thank you for your good eyes sarah thank you
very much.
Okay so You look fast we have five
minutes. Not really enough time to do a whole bunch of looking forward unless we
want to start and try. What about martin? Oh yeah barbecue. What happened in your
world last week? Mark? Well a lot of good interaction with my department directors
on various matters. That's why you see the why you saw the agenda item for the D.
C. D. Staffing to convert those two positions to permanent. Um Yeah and that's why
you see you approve the retreat for public health um A couple of significant things.
one was Philippine Sucker. And I met with Jefferson Transit and we hashed out whatever
differences for misunderstandings we had on the inter local agreement for their Kingston
rapid transit bus line. And so you should see that on monday's agenda annihilate
with jefferson transit. Um I also met with monty and all parents to talk about the
moderate risk waste facility at the airport. We were gonna talk about that today
but Because of the holidays and uh some commissioners coming down with various ailments
and we didn't do the groundwork necessary to facilitate that meeting. And so I believe
we have meetings with all three of you tomorrow with with al and monty to discuss
that and then um and then we'll bring um poured in on January 24, hopefully to resolve
that issue. So those are the two big things and then policy management and covid
coordination. Um, so that was my week in a nutshell.
Any questions for Mark. So when I realized I forgot to report on any coordination.
Um, so, um, let's see a few things. Um, there's no update on the
uh vaccine mandate from the state or the feds on friday. While we were in coordination,
the Supreme Court was hearing um, arguments. I'm not sure that's the right legal
term, but they've taken up the um, one of the challenges to the federal vaccine mandate.
The state seems to be waiting to see which way the feds go on that or the court goes.
Um, and uh Washington could choose to implement the vaccine mandate that would affect
uh the county operation as well as other businesses over 100 employees. But they
have not decided whether they will pull the trigger on that. Um, again, if they do,
it will require, it will include a test out options aren't vaccinated, they can test.
Um, but of course we know now that that we need to be more often with the underground
periods and uh what the statement said that would be at the expense of could be at
the expense of the employees. Not necessarily that the employer, it's a big
policy decision that might come before us. So, um, they change no updates um on that
really. Um, we decided to keep the structure of the county's coordination meeting
fairly and hot, the Alexis and director to attend that, that is very helpful for
them to have a meeting where they have access to public health and can get their
questions answered. So no significant change there. But uh good meeting, they said
it's still very valuable and they want to continue doing that every two weeks.
I don't think I missed from court coordination Mark. No. Good summer. Okay.
It sounds like that long term care taxes being delayed to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're
still required to collect it and I think you saw the all staff email that came out
from the auditor saying that they were unable to engineer gems quickly enough to
get it deducted from your january paycheck. So there will be a double deduction on
the february 5th paycheck and then of course, if they eliminate the requirement,
then uh, those monies will be refunded to the employees.
Okay, It's 9 45 and I think we're probably ready to do our weekly update
with our, our health officer dr barry and um, I mean she's probably in the attendee
list, so if you want to bring, bring it dr barry over. Great,
welcome dr very nice to see you willie. So,
so I'm just getting everything already. Um, so uh, updates on the COVID situation.
Unfortunately the news is not good at this point, we are seeing uh incredibly rapid
rises in cases throughout the country. Um, if you've been following the graphs online,
you see just a straight upward trajectory. Um, and that unfortunately is starting
to apply locally as well nationally cases are up 215%. Um, right now we're diagnosing
over than 600, more than 650,000 cases each day in the United States. Hospitalizations
are unfortunately also up 80% and deaths are rising as well statewide. We're seeing
a very similar trend in Washington state covid 19 cases, there are 249%. Hospitalizations
are up 95%. Um, Icu capacity is becoming critical once again. So we're seeing the
amount of, I see events available in the state getting back into the low thirties.
Um, so for your, your health care worker colleagues when we're seeing very sick people,
um, it's very hard to find a space to send them. Um, I know I was on a call this
weekend on sunday trying to find a benefit a man. Uh, and the only in one negative
pressure that we could find for him in the state. Um, and so that's, that's the level
of strain we are experiencing right now in jefferson County cases are rising quite
rapidly as well right now. We are up to a rate of 795 per 100,000 which
have ever been our total cases 1825 we are
experiencing an outbreak olympic correction center. So that is driving some of those
cases. Um, we certainly have seen covid 19 move very quickly through those spaces.
40 of our most recent cases are olympic correction center. So that does play into
those numbers, But we're still seeing quite a bit of transmission in our community.
Uh, currently we have three people hospitalized for COVID-19 which is a rise from
where we have been recently, but we are not at the level of critical hospitalization
numbers that we're seeing in neighboring counties. Um, and that is really largely
driven by the proportion of our population who is vaccinated. We we are seeing that
there is uh, there are frequent breakthrough infections of people who have been fully
vaccinated getting COVID-19. But we're not seeing that group be hospitalized at the
same rate. Um, that we're seeing in the unvaccinated. Still the VAT, this vastly
disproportionate number of our hospitalizations are in people who have not completed
their vaccine series. Um, in neighboring Cloud County, we were up to 7624 cases.
The case rate in clown is 2072 per 100,000, which is also the highest that we have
ever seen. We have 11 folks currently hospitalized for covid 19 in cloud and have
had 82 deaths. We've not had any new deaths in jefferson county. Um, when I look
at the OMC hospitalization numbers, which we tend to have higher numbers there because
of a lower rate of vaccination, 90% of those in the hospital today are unvaccinated.
Um, and so it is still, we're still really seeing a disproportionate strain on the
hospital system for those who are unvaccinated if you are fully vaccinated, um, you
are well Protected against the worst of COVID-19. We're seeing good protection against
hospitalization for folks who are fully vaccinated and even better protection for
those who are boosted. Um, so it really does make a huge difference. And right now,
when the health care system is critically strained, it's incredibly important to
get vaccinated to reduce the strain on that system. We are seeing shortages of beds
statewide. We certainly have shortages of staff. We're seeing shortages of tests
and shortages of medication. Unfortunately we are expecting that we're going to reach
peak COVID-19 transmission at the end of January, which means we're going to see
peak hospitalizations mid february. Um, that means that as crazy as these numbers
down right now, we anticipate that they will be worse for the next couple of weeks
and the strain on our healthcare system will be worse for actually even longer. What
does that mean the general person? That means that we have to do what we can to reduce
transmission in our community and to reduce the strain that we put on the health
care system, that means getting vaccinated, that means wearing a mask. It also means
limiting your social contact. We have more covid 19 in our community right now than
we have ever had in the entirety of this response. And so that means now is a very
good time to start scaling back of social contacts to limit your social, limit your
time in indoor spaces with other people. I remember very well this time in the very
beginning of the pandemic when you might have heard on some news outlets that people
said okay if we all quarantine for two weeks this will be over. That actually never
came from my department. That was not true. Um but what is true is the worst of this?
We expect this way, the worst of it to be throughout january. And so if all of us
can limit our social context for the rest of this month, we can limit how bad this
gets. Um and we can really do a lot of work to prevent transmission in our community
in that way. And that's one of the biggest things that I would recommend for our
community. The other thing to know is your health care system. Health care system
serving all of us is critically strained already and will be more some in the next
two weeks. And so that means that how we access that system matters. We can access
that system of course when we need medical care. We should but know that there will
be less appointments available. Wait times will be longer wait times on the phone
will be longer. None of that is because the person who's picking up that phone isn't
trying. It's because the system was not built to handle this level of disease. Um
and so just know know that the strain on your health care workers is intense. Um
They're doing everything that they can um please try to be kind be understanding
and only utilize the services that you need. So that means if you uh if you are ill
but not they're not severely ill if you're not having breathing, you're not having
chest pain. If you're not having those kind of come to the emergency department,
we really need all of that health care out in emergency departments. Emergency departments
are working overtime right now. And unfortunately our healthcare system has been
strained for two years. Our health care workers have been carrying the brunt of this,
these waves after waves for two years and many of them have been demoralized by that.
And so we've lost some of them. Um folks have quit the profession and not come back.
So our health care system was running on fumes before this place. Um and now they're
getting hit harder than they ever have. And so we need to understand that that means
there will be shortages for us when we want to access healthcare case. It won't be
as fast as we're used to it being, we may not be able to access everything that we
want and we have to, we just have to know that that's the reality, that's the reality
because of what has gone on for the last two years. Um, but we can get through this
and we can do our part to get through this. Um so vaccinations mass limiting those
social gatherings and being thoughtful about how we access the health care system.
We do still need to get our medical care, we need our primary care to be running
well, we need our chronic medical conditions well taken care of so that they don't
get work and don't have us needing those hospital beds. Um but we need to, we need
to be thoughtful about how we access that part of that is testing. So with this dramatic
rise in cases that we have seen nationwide, there has been a strain on the testing
infrastructure like none we have ever seen. Uh so even if our federal government
had done a better job of investing in testing sooner, this would still be too much.
Um, so when it comes to testing at this point we are really recommending prioritizing
testing to people who are symptomatic and people who are exposed. We no longer have
the testing capability to do the kind of testing we could do even just a month ago
to make sure our gatherings were safer things like that. We just don't have that.
There's a critical shortage of antigen tests Um, and of PcR capability. So we just
got notification from the university of Washington that they will now only process
PcR for people who are symptomatic, her folks, they don't have capacity to do anymore.
Um, so we all have to understand that testing shortage and part of that. Um, certainly
we have been faced with testing shortage in Jefferson County for a while. Um, so
I want to give some folks some guidance on how to use those tests. So I know many
folks are trying to ask them antigen tests and struggling to access them. If you
do get ahold of an antigen test. One of the more common questions I get is what do
I do? When is the right time to test? And so if you are sick, the right time to test
is right when you get sick. Um, so within the first, the first day or so of symptoms,
that's the best time to get tested. But if you've got exposed and you have one test
to use to figure out whether or not you've got covid 19. The best time to test after
you've been exposed is about three days after you've been exposed. Don't get tested
immediately because you might not have a high enough viral load to trigger a positive
test, you might have a false negative in that very first day or two. So if you wait
three days, if you don't have any symptoms, you're more likely to catch that positive.
And of course if you are very sick if you have, if you're having a significant restaurant
illness and you tested negative the first time. But it was right at the very beginning.
If you can test again, we recommend that you do, acknowledging that many of us don't
have the ability to test again because we don't have the tests available for it,
um, anywhere in our community. And so if that happens, if you find yourself sick
and you can't get another test to figure out if you have Covid, the best thing to
do is just stay home on which we should do anyway because we don't want to give anyone
else a viral illness who's now going to have to wonder if they have Covid and go
through that same all those steps. Um, so if you're sick, really, really important
to stay home and prevent transmission to other people until your best. Um, and we
do have, we do have testing available for folks who are symptomatic through jefferson
healthcare. We have testing available through the health department at this time
for folks who are close contacts of those who work folks and in South County where
we know there's shortages of testing. We have testing through the health department
for those who have symptoms as well. So we we are still able to take care of those
most critical folks who need testing. But it is, it is short, it is tight right now
And that that is most of my updates for now. I know there's lots of questions from
KPCC. But what questions do we have from the commissioner before we move forward?
You have questions is an easy one. I'm curious. I've heard people talk
about swabbing the throat with the home antigen test is um effective. Would you recommend
that this is where there is some early data suggesting possible increased sensitivity
if we combined a nasal and throat swab? What I would say is it's very early data.
Very small numbers and the nasal swabs are still really good and you are very unlikely
to be able to successfully swab your old throat actually. So a good a good throat
swab that we do in the clinic involves the very back of your throat and you just
don't do that to yourself. Um So if you're doing home testing, I would really stick
with nasal swabs. But the key Is make sure you're doing a full 10 seconds on both
sides. I've seen some of the variety event that's available. If you look at the instructions,
say five seconds, it's not enough. You need 10 seconds on both sides. This is particularly
important if you're slapping a child. Um so sometimes when we get 12 negatives and
kids, if you have toddlers you swab before part of that is that they don't love it.
But you do really need a good um you need a good a good sample in order to make sure
that you really can trust it. Of course it's just in the mayor, just the lower part
of your nose. We don't want anyone going deep in anybody's nose outside of a health
care setting. Um, but if you can try to get a good 10 seconds in both sides, you're
gonna get your best sample. And then the other key thing is that, you know, you need
to be it at 15 minutes, uh 15 minutes or later. And within 30 I've heard of
some folks will just see that it got to the, you'll see it. It's slow up until it
gets to the control line and they don't see one on the test line and they're like,
okay, good, I'm negative. Um, you really need to give it that for 15 minutes to develop
to make sure that you're catching any viral particles that are in there And just
know that no test is 100% sensitive. There will always be some that get that get
through. But we're doing everything we can to minimize transmission. We can't stop
transmission right now. There's far too much of it. But testing injury symptomatic
is a really easy way to minimize that transmission. Um The other thing along the
testing front. Um, just to kind of keep that, that ball rolling as you may have heard
from the President and now from our governor about some, some stuff to try to increase
testing access. We are excited to hear about those. We have not received any of those
tests yet. So um there was some confusion after the Governor's press conference focused
on that. We had them at the health department right now. We don't get um as soon
as we get them we will make sure to get into the community immediately but we don't
have them yet. We do have our baseline supply that Jefferson county has purchased
to make sure that we are able to support folks. Um but that kind of free two boxes
for everybody kind of saying we don't have that yet. Um So hang tight on that and
we will definitely put out messaging as soon as we get
a couple, a couple quick questions about you know post covid folk, how we can, you
know, support public health efforts as as well as we can. Um One is what the current
recommendation for isolation and is that impacting our health care capacity at all?
Do we have how we doing on health care health care workers and covid. So the best
for the general public if you've had covid um the best thing to do is follow the
10 day isolation that's safe for up to 30% of people are still shedding positive
virus at day five. Um so if you are able to stay home for 10 days, that is the best
option every time. Um If you know, if someone's working in a critical infrastructure
space, often you'll start interacting with your, with your HR with your employee
health will probably interact with us and we'll talk about whether or not it makes
sense to bring you back earlier. But for the vast majority of folks, 10 day isolation
is the way to go when it comes to the health care system. There are some different
isolation and quarantine deadlines, but just to be clear in case anyone's nervous
in jefferson county, your health care workers still isolate pretending if they're
positive, we have not brought anybody back at five because that's that's a really
risky move that we do in crisis capacity situations. We are not in crisis capacity
here. But what we are doing is we are working on folks who have been exposed who
are not positive, doing very frequent testing to get them back into the, into the
workforce. So that involves testing daily actually for several days to make sure
that they can come back and not infect their patients and still keep health care
available to you. So that's kind of the the split that we do very, very cautious
work there lots of work on masking and things like that. But the health care workers
are very good at masking in workplaces. It's just the general public can the isolation
uh best thing is to quarantine for 10 days to if you can, the longer quarantine,
the longer isolations are gonna be safer for you. And even if you have some mild
symptoms that persist after that 10 days. Okay, what about if you have symptoms,
You know, on day 14 you get, you know, a head to head cold or something. Should you
test again? I mean with our over burdened testing capacity and everything, you know?
Good question. So yes, if you are one of the many folks in our community who has
recently been diagnosed with Covid, you might be wondering how this all interact
with you. Um We do know that unless you are immuno suppressed, you really only shared
viable virus pretending. Um so if you've completed your 10 day isolation, you're
good. Many people do have some lingering since after day 10, but they're not getting
viable virus, they're not dangerous to other people. So it's okay to leave your isolation
of course keep matching because we all should when we're in indoor spaces. But if
we don't think that you're you're shedding viable virus after that time unless you're
immuno suppressed. But you're on chemotherapy, things like that, that's a different
deal. That's a 20 day isolation and it will help you do that at the health department.
If that happens as far as prevention of subsequent infection, we are seeing shorter
shorter time periods between original infection and subsequent infection with omicron
primarily delta omicron, that's the only one we have data on right now. Um but we
do feel confident that you are protected for at least 30 days after your infection.
So the next 30 days after you've had Covid, if you get the sniffles again, it's not
new. Covid. It may be something else. There are other respiratory viruses around
you still stay home if you're sick. Um But it's not Covid.
Very good question. I have one question. Um have gotten a couple of phone calls from
people and I feel like having a short conversation out loud might be good. Um couple
of a couple of calls about how many people are in hospital right now. We just reported
there are three. But I but it comes from a place of people who are sick not feeling
like they should go in the hospital because there's covid in the hospital. And I
said, I know that our healthcare system is doing a good job of managing Kobe cases
in the hospital. But would you talk about that for a second to confirm or deny my
my claim I've been making for the people who've been calling me. Yes. So jefferson
healthcare does a fantastic job of containing covid um in the hospital system. So
if you have covid there's a lot of things going on to make sure that that stays in
that room. So they've got special air purifiers. They're closed rooms, Everybody's
in really intense PPE. Um there's a lot of things that we do to reduce transmit in
those spaces. And we have had no healthcare associated outbreaks in the hospital
setting in jefferson County and so if you do need to access medical care for valid
needed medical reasons, I don't want you to be afraid to ask suspect care. Um They
do a really good job at taking care of folks who have covid and taking care of folks
who don't and not inter mixing those two. Um So I don't want you to be afraid to
access the care and if you do need it in consultation with your doctor, if your doctor
says, hey, we really need you to come in because don't worry about your heart or
whatever, listen to your doctor, your doctor is the right person to tell you whether
or not you need to be in the hospital. Um What we are trying to avoid is something
that we've seen at least in county, which is folks just showing up at the hospital
because they have covid. Um and it's scary. It's scary to get a covid diagnosis.
But if you're not having trouble breathing, not having chest pain, not having those
critical things. Uh Covid alone is not a good reason to come to the E. R. That's
what we want to prevent. But if you need medical care, we absolutely want you to
get and your health care system can still provide. It consists of the wait times
are likely to be longer. Thank you
onto the KPTV last question you've got a you've been getting a good a good list of
questions. Um So a couple more about masks. Um and we've been kind of waiting into
this, is it? So omicron is more contagious than the variants that came before it.
Um And so it is a good idea to upgrade your mask at this point, depending on what
you're doing. Um So in most cases in most setting, most workplaces, something like
a surgical mask is gonna be your best option for protecting yourself and others from
covid 19 infections if you're gonna be doing higher risk things. So say you are not
just going to the grocery store but you are a grocery store worker, you're gonna
work there all day. Um Upgrading to a K. N. 95 mask makes sense, reduce the risk
of you contracting covid 19 on the job. Um Similarly, if you're traveling, if you're
getting on a bus or a plane, things like that, or if you are a very high risk person,
that's the other time where I really think that it can 95 mask is a good idea. So,
say you are immune suppressed, you couldn't respond to your vaccine and you need
to go to the clinic um and sit in the waiting room for maybe a little longer than
you normally would. Um That's a good time for a K. N 95 masks um or any any time
that you can tolerate a kn 95 I think it's a good option for folks. Um We have some
questions about whether or not you can reuse a kn 95 or an N 95. Um You can, what
we studied, we studied this when we have the masks ridge for folks who are wearing
masks full time in the healthcare studies. Um And we found if you're gonna wear a
mask all day every day, a. K. And N. 85 can last up to five days. Um So you can wear
it up to five times for full days. Most of us are not wearing them like that though.
We're wearing them to go into the grocery store, we're putting them down. And so
as long as they still have a good feel to your face, they're not dirty. They're not
saturated, You can wear them pretty frequently. Um but we also aren't in a critical
mass shortage right now, so it's okay to um to replace that mask and rotate it through.
Um And I want to do some other KPTV questions but I have flooded my computer because
the stuff die. I apologize, would willie mind jumping in and doing your update and
I will be right back
and do. Um So it's actually a good a good segue on dr mary starts talking about the
n 95 masks um as part of governor enrollees, um Press conference last week, he talked
about making impacts more available, but he also talked about making high quality
masks more available as part of the fight against omicron and so throughout the pandemic,
we've been supplying um cloth masks. Um Thanks in large part to a team of community
mask makers who've been making cloth masks for adults and for kids and we've been
serving those through businesses through grocery stores, schools etcetera. A most
friendly part of this initiative will be making K. And 95 95 available to the general
public. So we will be doing some outreach this week. We have a stock of kn 95 on
hand here at the end will be Ordering more potentially from the state and we will
be distributing those through our previous channel local businesses, um grocery stores,
schools that respect. I mean you don't have um and 95 or access to those that haven't
quite yet. We'll be looking at making those a little bit more available um in lieu
of our so we're making some more high quality match activities through the channel
of communications on that. Um other than that other than some a new type of mass
distribution for us, just real quick on our clinic um 475-11 year olds in the morning
past Saturday and let me grab the final tally again, we had a
215 vaccinated as for our adult McDonagh booster in the afternoon. Um
That is nowhere near our maximum throughput for those large clinics. We are seeing
a decrease in them
man both first of all, um not just us that are large vaccination plans. I know the
pharmacy are seeing a decrease in demand as well. So for those of you who have been
maybe struggling to find the booster appointments are more readily available than
they were at the same time last month. So in local pharmacies um it's out there and
you don't have to wait weeks for an appointment like you did previously. We do have
a clinic clinic coming up this saturday down in quill seems before our boat follows
a similar model. We'll be doing kids in the morning, 5 to 11 year old as well as
boosters for the 12 to 15 crowns. Um and then we'll be doing adult moderna boosters
in the news. Um there's still space in the adult moderna booster um clinic in the
afternoon. Currently the kids clinic in the morning is full and it's weightless only
but please do. If you want to sign up, please do add your name to the waitlist. We
are going to be able to accommodate a number of folks from the waitlist. So don't
let that middle appointments available. Um Message concern you at all, put your name
on the wait list will be in contact and we'll be able to get a number of folks in
that clinic, so please don't hesitate sign that way from there. We were initially
planning clinics on the 22nd and 29th, but with this decrease in demand Um we really
are kind of reconsidering that for the moment, so unexpected and more information
following. We're continuing to try to do our best to ascertain the demand and the
need out there and scheduled clinics appropriately. But again, we've we've seen a
sharp decrease. These were our first clinics in quite a while that failed to fill
up. We have 400 people are last afternoon clinic in december and then half of that
on this past saturday, so more information to be determined and in the meantime if
you're looking for a booster, thankfully you can head to the pharmacy without a multiple
week wait, otherwise we hope to see lots of focus on on saturday. Thank you. Really
appreciate you jumping in a little bit early. Um And in truth, so just to wrap up
the discussion of masks, the very best mask is one you will wear continuously. Um
So with the move to kn 95 95 if you can tolerate that, that's excellent protection.
But for many of us we don't talk 95 for a long period of time or people can't hear
us. Um so that's the other time I see is people take them on and off, talk to folks
and if you pull your mask down and talk to someone is not doing what we needed to
do. Um so the best is what other masks will fit your face and that you will keep
on throughout the duration of your time when you're around other folks, but now is
a really important time to wear those masks in the indoor settings. And I did get
one question from a listener asking about omicron with its increased infectiousness.
Are we seeing transmission outdoors and we are not um, we have not seen transmission
in outdoor settings. We are just seeing more distant transmission in indoor settings.
And so I think the key there is this idea of six ft being enough to protect you.
That was starting to fade with delta, but it's really faded with omicron. Um, so
if you are, you're six ft apart and mass, I think that's good protection in north
setting. But if you're just six ft apart, no masks on, um, you could certainly be
exposed to covid 19 in that setting. Um, that's where the mask is layered. Protection
comes in. That's where spacing, masking, getting vaccinated, all those things work
together to protect us. But no, we're not seeing transmission outdoors. If you see
me running on a trail in Jefferson County, I'm not quite a mess because they don't
think we're gonna get covid outside. But if we're inside, you will never see me without
a mask on. Um, so it's really, really important in those spaces. Um, I got a couple
questions about folks who have had breakthrough infections and what does that mean
about about boosters generally more protection is good. And so if you have had a
breakthrough and you're wondering whether or not not to get a booster, if you tolerated
your first two doses, it is reasonable and appropriate to get a booster. As soon
as you have recovered from your infection, you do need to be outside of that 10 day
window before you go get your booster. Um Otherwise you're contagious and we don't
want you infecting your vaccinate er but after that 10 day does 10 day period you
can get a booster. Um We are seeing very good protection However, from those breakthrough
infections in the fully vaccinated. So if for whatever reason, you're not able to
get a booster immediately. One of the people who wrote with someone who had received
monoclonal antibodies and which normally delays any subsequent vat Destination for
90 days. And they were worried about whether or not they were adequately protected.
If you've completed a series and had a breakthrough infection, you are likely similarly
protected to someone who has received a booster. So I would say you're actually pretty
well protected while you made out that 90 days. The primary reason for that 90 day
delay after monoclonal antibodies is the possibility that the monoclonal antibodies
interfere with your vaccine, rendering it less effective at protecting you and you
are well protected by your monoclonal, your recent infection and your prior vaccine,
even if you get a breakthrough infection, it doesn't mean that your vaccine didn't
work. Your vaccine is still working to make that infection less severe and shorter
duration. Um, it's what's keeping you from getting hospitalized. You may still feel
it. I certainly heard from folks who got a breakthrough and they felt like they had
the flu. They felt good and sick. Um, but they, but they didn't get hospitalized,
they didn't have terrible things happen to them. So that means your vaccine is Working
really quite well. We certainly would prefer for it to prevent all infections. And
in many cases that build up, we're still seeing a disproportionate amount of infections
at all among the unvaccinated, we're seeing more breakthroughs among those who are
vaccinated but not boosted. And we're seeing some breakthroughs among those who are
boosted that we're actually still seeing very good protection around 70% protection
against any infection at all if you've received your booster. But what happens is
if you get a breakthrough infection and you've been boosted, everybody knows, right?
So how many of us have heard from a friend of a friend who knew a guy got their booster
dot covid. Um, so that words bread. But the fact that you got covid, if you weren't
vaccinated, that's not news anymore. Um, and so it can skew our understanding of
our own protection if you are boosted, you are well protected against General infection
and you are very well protected against hospitalization and death. One person asked
whether or not that's true if you are over 65 and it is actually, so our first boosters
worrying people over 65. So actually most of our booster efficacy data is around
people over 65. So that's actually driving these numbers is people over 65. The other
thing that's very hopeful for me because we have had unfortunate quite a few outbreaks
of covid 19 in long term care facilities in Clown County. Um And what we are seeing
is the boosted folks who in those facilities are getting mildly. This is the first
time that we've seen folks in long term care get covid and not get hospital. Um So
that's really hopeful for the strength of the booster to protect even the most vulnerable
among us. So that's good. Um a couple other things. Let's see.
Um One person had a question about a mass poverty objectives in healthcare. I will
take a look at it and we'll contact them. So if you are that person, uh let me know.
Um and I will, I'll keep you updated on the progress of that one. Um One person asked
when we're going to get our free at home testing kits from the federal government
did not arrive yet. Um but when they do, we'll definitely let you know, it's also
possible that the federal government will just do the online ordering portal and
not involve your local health jurisdiction at all. We'll let you know when we know
more, but we don't know yet, um, when they're coming. Um, but we still have them
symptomatic or if you're exposed projection jefferson public health right now. Okay.
A couple other things. Um, we talked about outdoor transmission. Um, so
as far as uh, which we have a little bit about saliva test versus uh, nasal tests
right now, if you have a nasal swab, use it as a nasal swab, we'll keep following
the data if it would be better to transition to other types of clubs. But right now
it's all about testing at the right time. Making sure you test long enough and then
being thoughtful about your symptoms if you're still sick, it's still important to
stay home.
Um, We talked a bit about masking. I think that's good. Um, I worked as a health
care provider and I am fully vaccinated and boosted. I did order a couple of at home
covid tests to have on hand in case of exposure. Now, I'm wondering how accurate
the tests are. Um, uh, I seem to remember hearing on your update last week that can
be false negatives for those. Those are usually if you're tested too early. Um, is
it better to go in for a test at the health department if I have symptoms. So that's
a good question. Um, all of your antigen tests are roughly equivalent, um, for efficacy.
So all the ones you can buy over the counter here. Um, those are relatively equivalent.
So don't ignore an antigen test you have at home to try to come get one at the health
department if you have an antigen test that is a precious commodity. Um And I would
use it like it's real. Um And don't go get a bunch of tests to prove whether or not
it's real. We have been accessed by and large. We also have some other ones as the
health department. Um But anything that's still open at counter in the United States
has to be of high quality. I would be cautious with some of the ones you can get
online. There are some scans on amazon in particular and a lot of price gouging around
instant tests. So primarily focused on the ones that you can get in person. Um As
far as what you can, what you can trust for brands, you can trust that you can order
through online pharmacies, things like that. Alright, couple more questions. Um One
person was asking about whether what counts as a fever when it comes to Covid 19.
Um So generally to count as a fever in an adult, it's a temperature over 100 and
one. Um But please know that many people with Covid don't ever get a fever. Um So
don't let a fever be a determining factor about whether or not it's Covid. So I think
now is a good time to review the symptoms of Covid. Um Covid can have this classic
fever shortness of brass flu like symptoms, but it also can look cold. I've unfortunately
still heard far too many people who say, well it's just so it's not Covid that's
not true. If you haven't gotten a test, um if you have the symptoms of a cold, it
certainly could be covid. Um and it is important to get tested and and do what you
can to access testing during that time to make sure it's not and stay home until
you're better.
Um Okay, let's see. Um uh some folks were asking about travel
plan and whether or not to cancel their trips and I think um that's always a personal
decision. But I do think it's important to know we have more covid in the country
right now than we've ever had in the history of the pandemic. And so now it's a good
time to think about activities that we have plans, whether they're asking indoor
gatherings here. Um Flying, traveling to see other family for myself and, and really
for for everyone, I recommend thinking about darling those back. Um for the rest
of january, at least we are expecting the peak of this at the end of january. And
so things are going to get worse between now and then. If you have plans to have
large indoor gatherings, safe weddings coming up in the next couple of weeks, I would
seriously consider postponing those plans. Um if it's going to be indoors, sports
changing them to make them small and outdoors. Um Now it's a really really good time
to kind of dust off the pod concept um that we used a lot during the height of prior
surges um and really limit our interactions as much as we can and to keep those interactions
vaccinated and boosted as much as we can when we're looking at in new york gatherings
and travel. I can't decide for you whether or not to travel. That would be very cautious
about travel right now and then especially look at what are you gonna do when you
arrive. Um So what is causing that travel? Are you traveling? Go to a wedding, a
family reunion, sometimes a large group of people indoors. Um That's gonna be pretty
risky right now. The best practices would be to delay that. But the good and bad
about the chrome, the bad is that we're gonna see dramatic rise in cases and unfortunately
significant strains on the hospital system. The good is, it burns through really
quick. Um So this is not forever. We should be in a much better space by february
but this next couple of weeks is the time to really kind of batten down the hatches
limit those interactions if you can. Um I have a friend who got the johnson johnson
shot and a brace for infection. So if that person get a booster, if they can they
should um Getting a booster is a good idea, it'll increase your protection. We definitely
have seen um some decreased efficacy from just a single dose of johnson and johnson.
Um So getting that boosters good, they likely have some protection from the recent
infection as well. But if they tolerated their vaccine getting a booster on top of
that I think it's a good idea at this point. Um our household is boosted and we're
wondering what the current omicron uptick whether it's wise to have boosted but vaccinated
friends over for dinner unmasked and inside so that goes to the state of at this
point, remember a month ago before omicron we would say if you had fully vaccinated
folks indoors that's pretty safe. That unfortunately that has changed with omicron.
And so now if you're going to have folks over it's actually really important if you're
gonna be indoors and um asked that they be boosted or recently vaccinated. Um So
we're seeing good protection in the kids who completed their vaccine series in the
last six months. Um So if you've been very recently vaccinated or if you've been
boosted you have a lot more protection for those indoor gatherings to the extent
that you can otherwise transitioning that socialization to an outdoor meet up um
Or some modern way that you can still have those close connections but not an unmasked
indoor gathering. Um and speaking to that we have seen the approval of boosters for
kids 12 and up. Um so it is important if your kids completed their vaccine more than
six months ago that they get boosted um that would reduce their risk of a breakthrough
infection and help prevent the quarantine in the school setting um in jefferson counties,
if you have not been vaccinated in the last six months and you've not been boosted
um you will likely have to see your kids move into something called test to stay
where they have to get tested multiple times per week in order to stay in the classroom.
If they are boosted, they actually don't have to do that. I think we might have time
for one more since we already got willie in there answering questions. Um So this
one asked about, what is your opinion about dining indoors right now. Um So it is
safer in jefferson and Callum to dine indoors than in many other places because it's
a fully vaccinated space but with the amount of cases we're seeing and the amount
of breakthrough routine in the next few weeks, I would recommend supporting our restaurants
but doing so by either dining outside or getting some take out um that that's what
my family does um because it's right now it's just so intense the probability of
interacting with another person who has covid and unless indoor space is much higher
even in fully vaccinated spaces if they haven't verified that the person is boosted.
Um so right now I would support our businesses, but I do still take out by eating
outdoors. I wish that weren't the case, but I think that's where we are for the next
few weeks. Um, it will get better. Yes. Thanks. I'm wondering maybe we could put
out a shout out to the new guidance that public health is put out regarding exposure
and testing and I spent a lot of time distributing that and referencing it myself
this weekend. So that is just a good reminder that that's up to date. Yes. So we
have updated the jefferson public health guidance to largely reflect the you guys,
but I think with some important clarifications, um, there's a lot of confusion and
how to interpret the weekends and hopefully we've tried to make a really clear flow
sheet that you can follow to figure out when and if you should isolate and when to
get tested. So that's up on our website. You share it on facebook. Um, and we'll
try to make sure that it has a very good public presence, definitely please check
in there. Um, given the sheer number of cases that we're seeing, we are unfortunately
not able to complete contact tracing for most people. Um, so if you test positive,
it's really important to go there and see what to do. Um, that involves calling your
friends. Um, if you have been around live when you were positive. Remember anyone
can get covid, it is not a marker that you've done anything bad omicron is incredibly
contagious and a lot of us will contract it in the next couple of weeks and it's
really important that we call our friends and let us know if we contract Covid 19
so that we can reduce the transmission.
Thank you. Dr Barry
mom lives this week. I feel like I'm thinking back to when in March of
2020 and my husband and I started a food log and all the recipes and last night he
started, I was like, I'm getting back out my set of red recipe and I was like, oh
it was fine for me, you know, limiting our interactions with folks again. So, and
it's hard. We've um no one wants to be here again. Um, but I think the thing to know
is we know a lot more about the virus. Now. We know how to prevent it and we also
know how long this is likely to last. It's not an infinite future of isolating anymore.
We expect it to be end of january. So batten down the rest of january, limit those
social interactions. It doesn't have to be zero pass really well. Um so having a
core group of people who you see indoors on that, I think that's fine. But keep it
that core in your group and then use all those other skills that we've learned over
the pandemic socialize outside to wear masks indoors, you're outside of your pod.
um to support our businesses but to do so with take out um there are a lot of things
that we can do to get through the next few weeks um and get through it intact with
the community and we've done it before.
Oh, just a comment and I'm excited to the
will definitely be bringing our daughter to get boosted and I have an appointment
already. And I just want to say again, I really, I credit being, you know, partially
boosted at the time that I suffered the infection really for the mild symptoms that
I had and I encourage everyone to do everything can protect the community. And then
one final question from, you know from the here is the on the other side of the aisle,
I guess so to speak. And that's, I'm happy to go back to pods and really be um conservative
in the way that we interact with the world might go and sit down. But is that data
driven if you have car boosted and have have had an infection in the last month and
I just At a certain point you're gonna have to put it in your rear view here and
I'm wondering if for me for the next month that point is now or if it's not, if you
are vaccinated and recovered. Yes. Actually I think you are very well protected.
Your, your some of the best protected. So if you experience it and you come out the
outside and you're more than 10 days leave that pending. Um then I think you are
some of the safest. Um But you want to make sure that that's only applying for your
vaccinated boosted um and breakthrough infections, not just had Covid if you had
Covid and didn't get vaccinated, you are not that well protected. Um But if you have
completed your vaccine series and how to break your infection, you are pretty well
protected. Um And you want to make sure that that applies to everyone in your family
too. So a lot of times we forget our kids. Um So we may be vaccinated boosted all
the good stuff but our kids didn't get anything. Um So they're still very vulnerable.
If we want to be thoughtful about about their exposure. Um but if you're if you're
everybody else, if you have completed your series, not how to break your infection,
um now's the time to kind of limit those social interactions for a little bit. Um
and then if you are if you just had an infection and not been vaccinated saying,
saying or you can go get vaccinated and you can have the level of protection that
Commissioner Brotherton does, you can start doing more things.
I'll make the soda bread or I will make the soda bread. Okay, thank you dr barry.
I think we are ready to move on to our agenda items and I think willie can stay online
because you're first up for that back. Thank you. Thank you so much.
I'm not sure if we are we bringing anyone else over for this willy monty or so. A
couple of folks joining us. I think monty um might be able to join. Um I do know
we have kevin Street from jefferson TMD as well as Kristen master from Mason tv.
Um We can share in the we can bring them over. I just want to start out by saying
I got an email this weekend from somebody who was briefly stranded on the peninsula
and was super grateful for our roads department for coming and dealing with her um
Her road. It's not a main road but it was she was kind of stuck. So our roads department
has really been killing it lately with their work out and out on the roads and the
P. D. To. I mean so we we are thankful for the good work going on in our community
things to our Rose people and our electric people and yeah so agenda items.
Emergency declaration.
Yeah. So um as we've we've talked about a couple of times before, not only for the
covid pandemic. Um but since in my tenure here we've had a numerous emergency declaration
specifically for washouts on Upper Hill Road as well as for a couple of other winter
storms here on the east side on the emergency declaration. Um Give uh county departments
a certain amount of flexibility um by you know, waving certain kind of bureaucratic
regulations especially around the big process and contractors. Um It really increases
our flexibility to be able to respond to disaster um during these kind of emergency
circumstances. Um also um allows us to go to the state and seek a emergency
declaration from the governor, then allows the state to go on and seek an emergency
declaration fema the federal emergency in which then opens us up essentially if that
declaration is approved into money via the Stafford Act, which reimburses responding
into case for certain possible costs related to the response. And so when you have
an event like this most recent winter storm where jefferson and mason T. U. D. As
well as our county road Department has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars responding
to this emergency clearing our roads. Foreign power. That reimbursement can be can
be a lifesaver in terms of replenishing our limited resources. Um So for that reason
today, I'm at the request of the two county P. U. D. S. Which has been working in
partnership. Um We are seeking an emergency declaration as part of um not only the
most recent winter weather event but the ongoing um winter weather event, as many
other parts of the pacific northwest experiencing flooding due to the melting snow
in the additional rain. So we're here before you can speak that emergency declaration
and hopes we will eventually get a federal declaration um and be able to replenish
some of our limited local resources. So I've invited a few of the responding partners
um to talk a little bit about the damages that they've seen as well as costs they've
incurred. Um So if monty, if you don't mind um leading us off, I know this isn't
your first rodeo seeking a declaration from the board so I'll turn it over to you
real quick. Sure. Thanks willy. Well certainly there was a significant amount of
storm damage um south south of Mount walker and out of the windows coil peninsula.
Um There were the feud either here, there were, you know a lot of a lot of heavy
snow and wind came kind of after we were done with this up here in Port Townsend
and uh not a lot of trees down took a lot of wires down. Um And uh you know they
were plowing every single day all last week uh which was kind of surprising how much
snow was coming down in those areas. Um Eight inches of foot overnight was not unusual
for a few of those nights. And I think I sent some of you that video of them, they
were still clearing closed roads up at the end of the dose e wallets on friday. Um
They they have a lot of a lot of snow up there. They had used a bulldozer to get
get in there and work with the beauties as lines were cleared. So that was kind of
a different world down in those areas. Um And we've got a lot of tree cleanup to
do. Um You know things are cleared out just one lane in some cases right now are
sort of pushed off to the shoulder of the road but we'll have a lot of uh debris
cleanup to do um in the coming weeks. So uh yeah that's that's where we're at.
We did finish that repair out in the oil city road that we started before christmas.
That was our other emergency declaration. So that um was was finished finally. Um
great work by our contractor out there to get that one done. So I'm sure the P. U.
D. S probably have some some experiences to talk about here.
Kristen, do you wanna tell us thank you for joining us. We appreciate you for jefferson.
Board of County Commissioners meeting. You had to work in jefferson. Um So tell us
about the work that you did some of the costs that you incurred in how this decoration
will be able to help you. Sure thank you. Thank you commissioners for putting this
on your agenda today at the last minute. So yeah I'm a 51 and you know it turns out
the walker mountain and um I would say the soc and Brennan are two areas that were
hit the hardest for us during the storm. Just tremendous um inches of snow coupled
with the 50 to 50 MPH winds laid a whole bunch of trees down. Um I have a 22 year
old year lineman that said, this is the worst you've ever seen it. And so the damage
was quick and um widespread all on the north end of our system. Actually going from
south of the county line up to the up to walker mountain. We're still going to be
putting stuff back up for the next couple of weeks. Our line crew worked eight straight
days to get everybody in power. Um Starting from, well, I guess the first, the very
1st january first through uh saturday, I think they finally got the last customer
service so that we had to bring in six mutual in cruise. Um It's gonna be easily
202 $150,000 impact to our budget. And just to kind of give you a scale um for my
small utility, our annual capital budget to do like line work in house and stuff
is only $750,000. So in the very first week of 2022 the storm has taken 30% of our
budget. And so it's critical for us to have the same declaration because that as
you know, makes it eligible for the 75% federal reimbursement and possibly 12.5%
state reimbursement to try to make ourselves as whole as we possibly can. Um And
it's not just the labor and that is the supply that's like our shop out. We're already
suffering supply chain issues. Now what we did have is gone in addition to what we
borrowed from our neighbors. So it's a crummy spot to be in in a crummy time. The
only thing I can say that I'm incredibly thankful for is Covid hasn't liked my line
throughout yet starting now. So hopefully the weather is good and we all get Covid
and get over it and get back to work here in the next couple of weeks cause I got
four people out today. So um thank you again. I know kevin's got a whole bunch of
stuff on his uh utility to but thanks for thanks for working with us. Honestly appreciate
it. Thanks for your work. Thank you very much. And last but not least
kevin can mind sharing a little bit. Yeah. Um First off I'd like to thank the county,
the road crews were out there plowing roads. They did a lot of work for the P. U.
D. Getting us access to where we needed to be. So um we do want to thank them and
all the work you guys did. So from the P. U. D. Standpoint we think this last outage.
First of this year would cost us roughly half a million dollars and I don't care
how big your budgets are when it's an unbudgeted expense. Um It hurts so um
not only does the thema resolution hopefully gets to send money back. Um It does
make us eligible for some hardening dollars that people puts out. That we're hoping
to kind of utilizing some of these areas where at least down on the coil, we've picked
up some of these lines multiple times. It's time to start an underground project
if uh if a female declaration and declared then we will be applying for some hardening
money out of the fema budget. So as it's multiple reasons to do the declaration,
not only for reimburse our coffers for what we did spend but the possibility of getting
some additional funding through the federal government. So um you know, we appreciate
what everyone did here uh and we just hope you guys approve the resolution and it
does move forward through the state and um the federal government. No this is just
the first step but that we'd appreciate it. Thank you.
Anything else anyone wants to add?
Have a question. And I asked Willie would be an email over the weekend to but maybe
for its helpful reminder of, we did hear that the governor did a declaration of emergency.
Um You just talk a little bit about how these overlaps um and if that declaration
included jefferson County.
So while the declaration um that includes jefferson County um the local declaration
specifically um is our our local authorities um that flexibility to respond to the
emergency state level declaration. Um Well including us doesn't necessarily um and
for the same powers the local declaration um declaration would additionally this
declaration um we're considering here is specifically um to bolster our case long
term um for that that federal declaration opening up of that dollar. So um well this
isn't um doesn't necessarily preclude us if we don't declare this emergency from
being included in the federal declaration. Certainly is another piece in our argument
to be included in that long term. So um know that the governor's declaration have
been supersede. Um This one. Um And again this will just be another piece of the
puzzle in trying to pursue that federal declaration doing everything we can to try
to try to ease the burden of those budgets.
You know, not really a question. Just just a comment. I mean thanks to Mason TV one
and TV and the department you guys really work here in this is obviously an emergency.
So this is a very easy uh resolution to. So I don't have any questions but I appreciate
you guys being here and I really appreciate the work everyone. Mhm. I have no concerns
about this resolution so that somebody I would entertain a motion. Mhm. That we declare
a state of emergency record regarding the recent adverse what winter weather activity
is actually coming. Happy second that all in favor. Hi
thanks everyone. We appreciate you big time.
Thank you.
I think we do a quick fire break, do that. How about five minutes. Thank you. Take
a break until 10 50 10 51
on the public health staff retiree. Um And direct response reflections in the future
of public health in jefferson County Director Martine. Good morning everybody.
Thanks for giving me this opportunity. Um
Sounds like I can't go that me, that was me.
Okay shut it down. So you can see in your packet a few things that I included including
um sort of a draft plan for what's it called? R Jackson County hotel staff retreat
which we hope to have take place in february. Um I have a dedicated date which is
friday february 18th but I made a little note in the plan that it's subject to how
we're doing Obama crown in the middle to late part of february. And um I just want
to reserve that right to be very cautious about how we do this even in a very uh
well considered space. So let me back up. I wanted to um just express my gratitude.
I have had several folks encourage me, chief among them, Commissioner Dean just consider
how to provide some respite for public health staff. We've all been inundated disappeared
and if we've all had our you know phases of pandemic trauma and response as well
as just really trying to hold our staff and we try to keep our businesses and our
departments functioning despite all of the distractions and and the sort of burnout
level that often comes with being in a sustained emergency. So thank you for voicing
your your hope and your your focus on making sure that our staff in particular really
have the support that they need. Each of you have done that in so many ways and I
just want to extend my gratitude for to you for making that extension to us. Um We're
in no way unique. There's so many public health employees and officials working this
hard um everywhere around the country. But I think we have a unique opportunity in
Jefferson County given Um how closely we've been able to stick with our communities
and our citizens through this pandemic. We've really been able to create a lot of
hands on and interpersonal connections with the public with regard to the pandemic
response and managing case race and um keeping death from COVID-19 lower than most
places. So kudos to us all this opportunity is something that I don't believe public
health staff have had in many years. So it has been done in the past, not since I've
worked here. Um and I would really love to seize this opportunity with your support
to move ahead for a one day retreat off site with the ability to close our services
down at least mostly for one day. Um and do some um reflection on where we are in
the pandemic, um some therapeutic um discussions with one another in terms of um
reconnecting and and having a chance to discuss openly um things that we've experienced
um and where, where we feel we are now together in a forum that's not in a typical
staff meeting or whatnot. So I believe this is a really rare opportunity to um changed
the headspace for folks here, we have worked tirelessly and people show up every
day um they are doing their due diligence in every way and I have absolute space
in all of them um and yet we need to get back to them as well. So that's where they
started and respite initially was a concept that I thought about for many, many weeks
in terms of um could we offer something um therapeutic like massages, could
we, could we offer um exercise classes or yoga in the morning or things like this?
And as I kept evolving the idea, I thought more and more about, you know, where does
resilience you come from? And what kind of kernels of wisdom can people hold so that
they can reduce their burnout and stick with this, this hard work. And for me that
was bringing us together on an off site location, um having a chance to connect,
having a chance to think forward into the future and having a few um special speakers
come to share some of their wisdom with us. So you may have noticed in the packet,
there are two speakers, both of whom I know fairly well from having taken their training
in the past and I'm really eager to share their work with our staff here. So in the
morning we have scheduled to have Jenna Tillman um come and join us from Seattle.
She's a well known motivational interviewer speaker, an advocate and those of you
on the board here are not familiar with motivational interviewing. It is something
that health care professionals often learn in their schooling and then continue to
learn throughout their careers and utilize in their contact with clients. And it's
really about behavior change, It's about encouraging and meeting people where they're
at to move the needle on behaviors, whether they're just tiny baby steps or otherwise.
What I've been learning in parallel is motivational interviewing for leadership and
I'm really interested in that at another date for now. What I want to do is make
sure that our staff, other environmental, public health, community health, um our
prevention teams, all of the teams in general here in public health deserve to have
a little bit of nurturance and um review of these skills because we use them with
our clients, whether it's in a one on one health care situation or whether it's um
code compliance or you know, a solid waste visit motivational interviewing is always
the essence of sort of social interaction with the folks at hand that may be encountering
a risk for displaying behavior that um, you know, leads to poorer health. We want
to help encourage people. So I see this training as a critical step to, you know,
refresher for some of our staff and be brand new for a lot of our staff. Um and that
us learning it together is something that will improve our customer service, improve
our outcome. And learning this skill is actually something that reduces burnout because
it helps the person, the staff person managed those difficult conversations with
people in a way that's more sustainable long term. The second speaker that I'm happy
to introduce to john Tunheim is actually at a first in county and he has made it
his personal mission um to travel about and talk about the science of hope. Um and
I don't know, it sounded like some of um some of our folks in the county may have
taken a virtual version of his presentation um but he is the prosecuting attorney
from thurston, an incredible human being. Um and he has worked together with some
scientists as well, some special sciences folks on um sort of packaging this notion
of where hope lies in the continuum of trauma and resiliency. Um and I was really
impacted by his work about seven years ago when I worked in christian county. Um
he comes to us free, he does all of this out of the goodness of his heart and in
addition to his day job, um he very much would like to come here and present and
I've got him queued up for the afternoon and the retreat, there is a hope screening
that people take a much like the aces screening if you endeavor to do that. And it's
a deep dive and understanding um where we build hope from. So it's not so much presentation
about being hopeful, it's about understanding sort of um reactions, resiliency,
flexibility and then the ability to um work with the way the brain works to enhance
the ability to be able to see hopefully within the storm. And that's what I think
public health employees in particular um do do already, but when you are um in the
long haul and sort of higher from all the excessive work we've done in this area.
I really feel like that's that is a message that I want my staff here um so that
they can, they can be have the tools for that in order to have better work life balance
and also stay in tune with what the ultimate goal is, which is to hopefully help
people with their health and part of that is having hope in our communities. Um you
can see very clearly what the day entails. I'd like to invite um Commissioner Dean
to maybe come and um maybe start the day if she's willing, she's expressed some interest
in that and um it would be our honor to have her join us for some or all of the day.
Um and I don't mean to single her out, she just as someone who has nurtured me in
this um to this end and I really appreciate that on behalf of all of our staff
if the remaining items in the plan really has to do with some um um team building
and art exercises. So one of the, one of the things that helps me in processing trauma
is using artistic expression and I am no artist by any means, but some of the supplies
money that I've put on this um brief plan are to create some long lasting archival
um pieces from our staff at this retreat including um a quilt because we have so
many quilters among us on our staff. I have been dabbling with the idea of a time
capsule for public health of this time. Um and this is one portion of that dream
is to have something tangible that is a reflection of the tapestry of all of our
experiences here in public health um written large on a campus that is a quilt.
Are there any questions about the day or the motivation? Um any
suggestions?
Yeah, I'm so glad to see this moving forward, ethel thank you for shepherding and
even in the midst of all the other work that you have to do and um yeah, it just
seems so critical and you know, the um the work that you do in such
a sensitive and trauma informed approach. You know, we need to take that that same
medicine to heart, which is that you cannot do good work if you are in a state of
trauma and um, not kind of refilling your own wells. And so this is critically important.
We know this sector, the public health sector across the country is just hemorrhaging
good caring people because they are simply too burned out. So there's a lot of reasons
to support this. I'm happy to be there for a chunk of the day. I'm honored to be
included in any way. So thank you. Um uh, just endless gratitude for, for the work
that you're all doing.
It looks great. Apple. I applaud, applaud the effort and I know it takes a lot of
work to put this together on were already very busy schedule, but fully fully in
favor. You know, I'd like to participate of course as well, so that's, that's my
only small regret but happy of course commissioner being a leader in this and work
a lot with you. So happy happy to represent the board and, and you know, start start
this, this model. Yeah, I think there would be opportunities Greg and Heidi for you
to show up later in the day. I don't imagine kate's gonna be there the entire day.
Absolutely true. Um, this is a draft plan and those types of things can be added
in. So, um, let's talk about that, we can, we can manage that for sure. I would love,
I would love for our staff to see you all there. And um, as I said, I didn't mean
to single kate out in that in that regard, but um, you all have been very vocal in
your support for us and very aware of checking in about how we're doing. And it's
often hard to say what can be done to help in that way. Um, so this is just one tiny
drop, you know, in the, in the big well of things that could be done. But to me,
and this is just, you know, my perspective symbolism is, is impactful and um,
you know, it's not a superficial symbolism, it's a chance to dig deep on some therapeutic
tactics that help our work, but also help us in turn. And as kate said, um, you know,
it's the old adage of the parents putting on the oxygen mask and then assisting the
person behind them or the passenger, I should say, and we use that, that, uh, that
analogy a lot in healthcare, uh, you know, education, but it's particularly so for
us to use it for ourselves. And sometimes we can forget that in all of the, in all
the giving of the care of the community. We can forget to take care of ourselves.
And I would say, I don't feel like I need to participate. I'm so glad that you're
doing this and showing the leadership to organize it. And I would say, I'm most I'm
most interested in hearing after about the outcomes and then next step. I mean what
can we do to keep the flame that you like together as as a team alive going forward
and how can Media commissioner support our public health team because you guys have
been in a sustained crisis and we've all been in it. You know, one public comment
got to speak from a person who said that we should be wearing masks while we're on
the zoom calls and I wondered if there are we causing, are we really causing um trauma
by not wearing masks? I mean, I don't know, I don't know that that was that you think
really? Okay.
But it made me pause for a second and think about, you know, what do we do? You know
I mean we keep dr Berry sometimes talks about the end of the pandemic, but you know,
we keep seeing these benchmarks go by and how do we how do we sustain our energy
together um going in the future. So I'd be very interested in hearing what you learn
from each other and what people think we can do with next steps to sustain the impact
and the good work. You're doing great. Well I am coming up with some ways to promote
this further. It's not indicated in the plan for today's purposes, but with some
hopeful looking forward to some strategic planning for public health in general.
I mean I know you all understand that we're at an interesting juncture. I mean never
before juncture um with regard to making it through the pandemic and maintaining
our staff and nurturing them and encouraging them despite the long haul. And then
the dawn of what, what is public health in the eyes of the people moving forward.
And that means many things. Some I can tell you and some that I am hopeful about
and others unforeseen. So this is a really critical time and we are very busy. So
strategic planning seems like that would be hard to onboard but it has to happen.
It can't not happen, this is the time, this is this is to not make waste of a good
crisis situation and I want to make sure that we capitalize on that and to answer
your question. You know, one of the things I've learned and this is my personal opinion
through this pandemic and all of the burnout and the staff you know burden the truest
and best thing to count on is our connection. And while it can be stressful here
are connections to one another and our knowing of each other and even bringing in
new staff um is really the core of what sustains our energy. I can say that clearly
seen it from every angle now. Um and this retreat while it's only one day, it is
an honor of all those relationships where we can take a breath and not worry about
meetings with the phone ringing and really be present because that's where the rejuvenation
comes from is the shared experience of being present and having a reason to come
together that's outside of your, you know the constant drains of the day.
So there will be a way for us to do a reflective tool on our retreat in the 18th
and then moving forward with that information will be able to plan best how to take
next steps. Thank you for asking about that because it's right. It's true. We need
to be able to hold that momentum and use it down the road. Yeah. So I mean I
think there's no action on this. We already approved it and I'm consent earlier.
So I appreciate hearing more about it and seeing the agenda. And your leader said
apple. Really big thanks to you. Well I can't do it without all sports. So I
I appreciate the opportunity to do it and learn how to do it with every passing minute
and power every day. Thank you. I'm gonna have to like the mask. I wish you could
do it on a warm beach somewhere. But alas one of my staff said, are you sure we're
not doing this in Hawaii. And I said yes, I'm sure yeah, it was warm on the beach
and iron nail yesterday. That's true. Thank you. Thank you. You said
this was a fruit on consent didn't. Yeah. Well it wasn't there about this.
Mhm. You approve you approved the conversion of 2-2 year-term limited positions permanent.
But I know if it if it would have been on consent then it wouldn't
have also been on the regular agenda. So I think emotion. Um I think the staff
report is seeking financial support from the board.
So if um if you were to make a motion to provide that financial support, then We
can adjust the transfer to public health in the spring supplemental. Thank you. Mark.
I misspoke there. I'm sorry, I would entertain a motion in support of
this retreat that we support public health retreats um and support them with the
$5,188 for venue catering activities for the February 18 or if it needs to be
rescheduled for whatever that is. I will second and the question um would it be good
to authorize a little more budget authorities and kids additional expenditures come
up Maybe 70 500 just in case Um um modified 75
and I will accept that modification All in favor.
Thank you.
Mhm. Thanks, Mark.
Alright, so we need to come over, yep. The next item on our agenda is a workshop
with Department of Community Development brian has to approve the notification to
bring, brought over.
And do you see we're trying to raise you the panelists. Oh very come
is David Wayne johnson on
is David. David joining us? know? David will not be joining us today. I wanted to
share with the board that David Wayne johnson is with staff but he's no longer serving
in this capacity and the inner um planning manager. Um So I'll be delivering this
presentation on behalf of D. C. T.
Um Thank you,
I have a power point. Um so I will share my screen if you allow you
have the ability to do that at the bottom of the screen. Yes, there we go.
Is it coming in loud and clear the power point? Yeah. It looks like you need to change
it to presentation view. Yeah, because you got your notes up. Oh okay. So
presentation. Thank you.
Yeah, your screen went away Brent and I'll be back. I just want to make sure that
presentation view uh slide show. Okay, um and I'm gonna try this
again.
Okay, we got it.
How does Thank you. Okay, great, thank you. Uh Chair
Eisenhower and members of the Board of County Commissioners may also the public.
That's President today. Um My presentation will cover the 2022 Comprehensive Plan
Amendment Cycle. This is just a re workshop to overview some of the um considerations
that may come into play. The agenda includes first an overview of the
comprehensive Plan Cycle considerations that are sort of laid out in jefferson County
code, the C. P. A cycle history. I've just done a really brief overview of some of
the last three years of of the comprehensive plan cycle and then I'm going to just
share, make sure that everyone here is familiar with the comprehensive plan amendment
cycle process. And then um one of the considerations that's always critical. Uh will
we have sufficient staff or do we have sufficient staff which is a consideration?
And then I'm gonna open it up for questions. So the annual cycle something that we
announced and it's really timely for us to discuss the workload at this point because
we would accept applications as of March one, And and we would look at that
um that are those that are submitted um and create a preliminary doctor. This is
done once annually um and we look to the public for site specific
or there can be suggested amendments. Um I wanted to point out that we do have exceptions.
We will see an exception of coming forward soon. That will be our Shore line Master
program. We're hoping to bring that to the board. And so some of these exceptions
fall outside of the regular cycle. Another one is um emergencies
and then um
Okay and so then I also wanted to share who um actually submits amendments. And so
our code identifies that citizens can. The border county commissioners can a member
uh county staff, county departments and other agencies. Um When and we said that
essentially that the preliminary document compiled March this year and then um the
B. zero cc. The board would review uh and consider the Planning commission report
and a recommendation for the final doctor in May. Can I ask you one question, I know
who I mean, the I mean you mentioned them specifically but the Planning commission
is kind of definitely a moving party in this list of who, isn't it? I mean they have
that is correct and they have. That's absolutely correct. And they have submitted
in the past and unfortunately we haven't had resources to up and move forward with
recommendations that provide. Thank you. Um What are the primary
considerations considerations need? Uh Is that a comprehensive plan? Is there a need
for that? Is there an urgency? Um We have currently to interim controls that emphasize
that we do have some urgency placed upon uh homeless housing um and
also urgency placed upon resolving issues surrounding lots of record, appropriateness
is inappropriate. Is the application that we submitted is inappropriate. And then
critically important during a refugee of permits to bring of the capacity of staff
to review and manage. And then finally the budget. Um And the cost to process
those.
Um And as I've shared with you this has not been updated but it does show that we
were record to surpass all past years. Our revenue does show that we have an
extraordinary number of applications that have come in that were paid for by members
of the community and we will come back with you at a later date with an update on
the year end. So in the C. P. A cycle the last few years um we had a
2021 cycle and we had two projects are man, that's what green burial which was submitted
by the jefferson um Land Trust and then a mile sand and gravel which is seeking to
expand a gravel excavation operation. Those are in process and if you
remember The 2020 cycle, because of the coronavirus started late. And that
was a proposal by C um 2 22.15 acres. And it
just, you probably remember that this was in a Woodland Hills area and that there
was an actual area that has been just left out. Never made sense. And so the recommendation
from the planning agency and when I say the agency of referring to both the planning
commission And um the Planning Division, they concur and both recommended approval
which support didn't do. Um and that was the 2020 cycle, which it started late. Um
the 2019 cycle. There was a request out in Cape George to rezone
um from a 1 to 10 to 1 to 5. Um The planning commission did not see a reason for
that, It was not recommended for approval. Uh There was a discrepancy meaning that
the uh the division and the agency issued me the planning division recommended
approval, but the planning commission recommended it not to be improved. And so the
board's ultimate action was to deny that project? Um so this is just a brief history
where we started on the 2021 cycle. We already were behind and that really was in
Michigan by out of a cup of COVID concerns. And so um so this is uh
an example I put up on the screen also shows you that this is very common. That up
on the upper right is Skagit County's process. So this is a common across western
Washington communities. And then um what is the process look like? And so
we have this up on our comprehensive plan website. Um and uh as part of the
uh Community Development Department and you see the shaded area that is sort of
um a I guess you might call that pink um is really you know, legislative determined
dates. And so that that first state is um as I indicated earlier is March. That's
when we would round out or accept cycles. And then um we would um by the second
full business week in March we would prepare a preliminary docket. And so this does
move forward. So that in May, as I indicated earlier, this is the other legislative
point here, that is in the code that the board would consider um the preliminary
got the items that are on that um and then um is possible public hearings almost
uh suggested amendments. And then typically at the end um in december, we would finalize
the doctor, that's the standard approach. Um Free de poulet. So what is a
comprehensive plan amendment meeting and are their best practices? And so we have
seen one where rezoning um does trigger um comprehensive plan amendments. We also
are aware that uh sub area planning um critically is a driver for
a comprehensive plan amendment. The actual Brennan was one of the only communities
in the county um that had its own sub area plan, that's incorporated in the Comprehensive
Plan. And then one of the Growth Management Act was adopted in our county, Jefferson
County began the process of of creating a new com plant that was taking
into consideration. Um The growth management, there were neighborhood
or I should say areas within the county had their own plans that were all incorporated
into the uh jefferson County Comprehensive Plan. And then um there are potentially
needs to amend the comprehensive plan if we were to rework our transferable development
rights program. So here's an example of the best practice. Uh This is uh
congregations for the homeless shelter and center. Uh This was the result of a master
planning process that is currently underway and and this was a master plan that was
looked at from the perspective of meeting specific needs within The community, envisioned
360 units of permanent affordable housing in 26 story towers on 7.3
acres. They also had 20,000 square foot homeless shelters that occupied um almost
just under three quarters of an acre. And then they also had additionally a uh
95 supportive housing unions on 1.69 acres. And so this was a process that was
done with a a master planning process. Um And as a consequence of that,
uh they looked at critical components like septic crime prevention through environmental
design. Uh It looked at other issues um related to uh fiscal
um needs. And so this was a really robust process. Um and it's one that might be
an example for the mill road site. Should the board have an interest in in in looking
at a long term use for that site. Another area that comprehensive plan amendments
may be necessary if we want to transfer development rights if we wanted to allocate
densities to certain areas in the in the county um that have as yet not been
associated with density, like our parks. Um The transference of that density to adjacent
sites might be affordable housing use. But this is also an example of of a type of
process that is used in a lot of of counties. This is an example of King County's
the visual, there is a graphic from the King County website. Um And so this is another
area where a comprehensive plan amendment process might be necessary in terms of
ensuring affordable house.
So I'm gonna shift now to management workload priorities because a lot of what we
do really depends upon their being sufficient staff. Um, I wanted to um a should
have been changed to efforts to obtain a planning manager. Excuse me. This is from
a former and so I wanted to share that. We posted in November the availability
of the planet manager position it closed or I should say the first review was December
23. We received no applicants. We were alarmed by that and it is, I believe
um related to this overall um availability of jobs across the nation being
2021 there were a record number of job openings and again in um, the latest
report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, uh an additional 400,000 jobs were
available in the fourth quarter of 2021. I think we're seeing that impact. We've
heard um that public works had difficulty in recruiting for the sewer project. And
so this is something that we need to be cognizant others. I truly appreciate the
boys action earlier today to transfer to term limited positions to
permanent ones. Um, and I'm hopeful that maybe one of our resident resignation ease
may reconsider um as a consequence of your action. Um so what are, what is the
existing work plan when um we joined the staff who were a list of items that were
identified. Um and this refers back to a May 2021 staff report to the B. zero
cc. And it lists a group of projects that are moving forward um where we are now
is we're moving on these projects. Um We've went to the board, you were gracious
and offering enabling us to postpone item number two here. The court Hadlock uTA
implementation so that we can start looking at this at the end of the year. We really
was a focus of moving ahead in 2023. Um Again, the board on December 13 of
last year allowed us to extend the completion of the affordable um homeless housing
project until June of 2022. And we are coming forward within the next, I would imagine
this quarter of the shoreline master program updates so we still expect to carry
out to completion at this first quart. Um we are working assiduously to
address um the needs of our new software and I know that
Mark has set up a meeting tomorrow, we're having an internal discussion to ensure
that this private meeting ahead of all delivering student the fee schedule update.
I've been working with the prosecuting attorney's office uh and that is moving ahead.
We hope to have something by the end of this month, if not then early february which
will address the what we've seen is a need to ensure that no applicant falls behind
on a large project that we never fall in the rears of hundreds of thousands of dollars
and that exposure is removed, a fiscal responsible approach. We're also looking
at a building code updates, um and and to be completed in the first quarter and then
finally we're going to come back to you soon um with number nine here, which is the
f cap on the shore line grant. And so these are potential new additions to the work
plan. So if you remember, I didn't come to the board and I originally suggested that
in order to manage this, that we should cancel the 2022 comprehensive plan cycle.
But I have, I would request an amendment to that. Um and this amendment would be
consistent with recognition of some of the really extreme needs of the community
for homeless housing, The needs of the community for affordable housing that we limit
the 2022 cycles to only those projects that address that that emergency need
of the community. Um, we did suggest even considering um like declining
acceptance of the new department of ecology grants. I do not recommend that. And
I think the interim county administrator pointing to the fact that the department
of ecology would look unfavorably upon us and the should that occur. So we're hopeful
that with the system planners and a new group of hires that we'll be able to carry
that out. It's a bit early to say, but we do have some um some applications out.
We've been more successful in hiring um persons at the lower end of the world than
persons that are hiring. So we have I hope that that will fill that that means. And
then um we were very pleased by the board's recommendation to keep
of the lot of record to one year. Just given the capacity limitations that I've identified.
Um And that we are right now recruiting assistant planner up to an associate. Um
that would help with some of the grants and then um um number five maybe a little
premature because we're hopeful that uh We have a better understanding of the amount
of work for the Grand Project and once we have an understanding of the amount of
work we can talk about whether or not it's 25 or 50% of of a full time position.
And so barring that we do not know but I have a question on that then. Yes I'm
sorry to interrupt. I'm curious with the difficulty in staffing up in any capacity
right now. Is that limited planner for Pleasant harbor? I mean don't we also have
the authority to say pleasant harvey you probably need to hire some staff to get
the work done that really work that D. C. D. Needs to do or is that work the DCP
is volunteering. It's uh we could have um the uh the
applicant hire a consultant. Um And that's one of the options there. One of the concerns
is that the consultant we still have to carry their hands. They don't know our code.
So there is a cost benefit analysis is the amount of management time um more than
having a regular member of staff who is familiar with the coast from doing it. So
this is this is sort of a really hard way. Gotcha. Thank you. You're welcome. And
um so where I am now and before questions is that we would recommend that the Board
of County Commissioners limit the 2022 comprehensive comprehensive plan amendment
cycle to only those projects that advance affordable or homeless housing. Um And
we do this out of recognition that we were unsuccessful in um recruiting planning
manager. We also had two resignations and one is an associate planner and one is
an assistant planner. So we do this out of recognition of limited capacity but in
time we would typically say to cancel the disciple entirely. But given the emergency
that we do find ourselves in with the need for homeless and affordable housing um
the fact that we do have one of the most wonderful purchases reasonably made by the
county the mill road site that we do see opportunities here that would potentially
necessity comprehensive plan amendments. And so we want to make sure that that is
always available to the board and that closes my um presentation. Thank
you Brent looks like Pete has your hand up. Yeah. Thank you president. Sorry if you've
covered this. But are we test the timeline for site specific amendments that would
be requested by property owner or are we talking about limiting those entirely also?
Yes, we're talking about eliminating those uh they would be due March one of 2022.
And so we're requesting that any site specific reasons be limited to homeless or
affordable housing projects
And want to build a house. Like let's look at the 2021 where you know, Stephen wanted
to cut up two parcels of before I think. And that is that an affordable housing that
qualified that would not have qualified. That was really Woodland Hills subdivision.
Um housing there is fairly expensive would typically not meet that that 100% of the
area median income or less. And that's typically um the definition of what we look
at is affordable um 100 and 100% of the area median income and less.
I wanted to follow up on capable. I was I was curious about the site specific applications
as well and I just I'm hesitant to remove that that option. I mean usually have one
or zero, but if someone is uh working on their own project that doesn't qualify as
affordable housing and we didn't have this option, it would just it would push their
project by a year or a year and a half, is that right? It would push it out to the
2023 cycle. But if we were to accept it and there were other projects that the board
wished to move forward, with we would have an impact on the boards projects as well
and no good choices.
Friend, I had a question and a couple of times in your presentation, the last couple
presentations that famous mention of consultants and just begs the question, are
there consultants available currently and you know, I mean, what's the viability
of you think consultants for some of this work? Um I did record that the
limitation you just mentioned of having to hold their hands but just curious that
there are projects. I would say that we are hopeful for sure that we'll have consultants
for areas that we are having the competency. Um the review of Miles standing gravel
the expansion we need to supplement staffing with consultants um for a review of
the reaches along the doctor Bush, accusing that's the big and little quill. We're
actually doing a comprehensive floodplain the board so improves to accept the award
from the Department of ecology that would result in consultant being retained. Um
and so we are still using consultants and it's actually a strategy that we will try
to balance between what is the size and scope of the project and the management of
that project side. And and and for those two projects that I've mentioned, they are
ones where we don't have the technical confidence in on staff to actually carry those
out. So they'll have no choice in those. They have been done by an outside consultant
and then are you planning on re posting the planning manager position or what's the
plan with that? We have several concerns as you know. Um This sort of follows
along with the general issues we're seeing in the country. We
would like to um repost but we need to have some internal conversations
with sarah market to understand why we were so unsuccessful. We wouldn't want to
have the same
questions. Um anymore, Mark, do you have any questions regarding this
proposal to limit me? No. Okay. Not at all. I think I think it's a prudent plan.
Um would you mind bringing back up to your list of options? That was really helpful?
You'll have to share your screen again. Oh, okay. Sorry, thank you.
Thank you.
Um So I am I'm pleased to see number one on here. We have in the past um not allowed
amendments in the comprehensive plan cycle and did not include affordable or do not
exempt affordable housing from that. So I think that that's an improvement. Um um
I guess I'm part of me wishes we could wait and see how many site specific
applications we get and then and then make some decisions based on workload and
um uh funding
just so that we have as much information as possible and are not stifling potential
projects in the country. Is there any way of knowing for example, through through
customer assistance meetings if any site specific applications are expected? Um
We could, that is one area no one has come to me with that but I have also not asked
that um Typically um one of the concerns I have is that it may take an applicant
from time to put all the documents together and so that's one of the reasons I decided
to come to the board as early as possible because if you make a decision not to move
ahead, um it's beneficial for the community, you know, so they don't spend time on
something that would not move forward. Um So unfortunately I can't really answer
that question.
I know there's some some risk associated with Mhm
without either relying on consultants because you know, we can be certain that they're
available, but I do feel like in a time of high revenue and the county's ability
to backfill um the department as needed, that, you know, if this is a problem that
we can throw money at and not cycle potential projects, I would rather lean in that
direction because we're in a position to do so right now
But um, but that's risky. You know, I think my guess is you would know if there was
something big in the pipeline that was going to land in the next 68 weeks? Um, by
the March one deadline? But, um, but I'm, I'm very wary of um putting you in a tough
position brands and overextending your department more. So I guess I'm curious that
there's, if you could have that conversation with staff and um, and just feel out
kind of what the likelihood is of projects coming down the pipeline for an amendment
and and then make a decision with a little more information. The other, the other
question on that line is the project that you outlined in your presentation, the
one of a commercial adjusting a commercial property for a different forestry property
for commercial use is that is an exempted from the back it
Or or this one. Um, no. Oh,
It was on your list
now, it was a 4th street project. Forestry property currently that
speaking to be a commercial property that you mentioned on one of your slides, a
large, a large project. Mhm, mm hmm. You think of my own
standing gravel extension that wasn't it?
I didn't hear that. I didn't hear it today. I know when you speak and I think about
it as well. I didn't make it up. I saw it on the list. Uh, okay. Go to
the beginning of your slide show. Sorry. It wasn't that
way for them.
Okay, keep going.
Okay. This is getting excitable through once more. So this was uh, the overall and
then this was just sort of targeting some of the most important and then and then
who would win? And then um what are the considerations? Yeah. And
we'll talk about where we are currently, just share some of the history of the last
eight years and then this is the cycle more specifically, much more detail. This
is on our website
and then um and then this covers looks at some of the types of apart trigger, how
can I be imagining this on the list? And then this is an example of best
practices building, um maybe borrow from? Yeah. And um this
is in reference to how to capture some of the densities that our parks and other
open space areas have to
um and then um there back to the overall
okay, maybe I mentioned it and uh and some of the things that uh in terms
of large projects, we do have some in the hopper going to the planning commission,
but they don't uh need comprehensive ones that we're gonna be able to do without
that. Okay.
And Brent that's true of the different phases of that potential project, they would
not be impacted by this. Um that project here is different because,
you know, this was in a city
uh Oh no, that's why, yeah, that doesn't need a compliment and
based upon the information that we've seen up to date. Um so
there's been a bit of a delay in going to the planning commission but we're hopeful
that will go through this month.
Uh that example on the list. So sorry, advice derailed us for a minute. I'm not gonna
apologize though. Um and I think it's worth pointing out to that many um
many projects that might have been in the hopper are affected by the
moratorium and so they are not being presented as well, is that correct? Oh, I would
say that the board has been very helpful in addressing the community's concerns.
So when we went to the board on the 20th, you added a new exception related to um
those areas in the county that serve a our needs for the fish and wildlife
species and so that we can all go forward and then um for single families, homeowners
that own land without an actual property on it. Uh the amendment to exception number
six enables those projects moving forward as well. So you've done everything necessary
to allow projects by their community people that have lived here that invested their
time and into ownership of land. And those projects now can go forward
in that in that line Brent I still have a lot of reservations about removing DCB
depart ability to react to the site specific complaint. And I just, I feel like,
well we've got a lot of proactive programs that we have a lot of energy behind and
and already staff commitment to, I feel like your department one of the principal
responsibilities is to react, you know, with our code to to applicants so I have
a lot of hesitation to remove that site specific um site com plan amendments from
the cycle. I do as well. We don't know what's out there, right? And it feels like
it really limits the community ability the is for us to
accept um all projects and then to come to the board when we come with the preliminary
package, um we can actually look at our resources. Again, maybe we've had some success
and retaining a system. Um So that would be the other option that at that point
we've been sort of take the bucket down the road or the ball down the road and see
see if we're able to at that time. Has there been a change two months from that?
I prefer. I mean I think couching it, you know, um projects that concern affordable
housing and homeless housing or or site specific complaint minutes now I guess I
would like to um provide that. I will. Yeah. Okay.
Mhm. With the knowledge that this might come back to us in a couple of months but
more needs for capacity from D. C. D. Yep. No, I think yeah I acknowledge that and
also acknowledge it is very possible. We don't have any type of specific complex
so it won't be an issue at all.
Great. Do you want to make a motion to that effect? Do we need a motion here? It
almost sounds to take no action because if you take no action today, um then we'll
just be coming forward with the comprehensive plan cycle. I don't mind limiting it
somewhat. I mean you have, you still, I wouldn't mind living that just to affordable
and our homeless housing and specific, so I'd be happy to make a motion um that we
uh limit the 2022 comprehensive plan cycles, projects that advance the community
needs for affordable and are homeless housing and type specific applications?
I will second that. Um and have a discussion.
Um So friends, how does that, how does that sit with you? Oh, it's just, I
think about what we've seen in the past. Um we do have site specific applications
that come through and they have historically been at least in the last couple of
years. Um Changes from rural residential um you know, 1 to 20 to 1, 10 or 1 to 10
to 1 to 5. So those are types of applications that I would expect to come through
as sites facility
and the moratorium would not affect those, is that correct? Um
Well, if, if I heard correctly, um the site specific would not be limited in terms
of the types of site specific were accepted um If that's correct, then those would
still appear on the docket. Okay, and it is true that all site specific ones
are the costs are borne by the applicant right capacity that they pay for it. That's
that's correct. Um So kind of
if we were to head in this direction worst case scenario if you get a number of zoning
changes so that's that's largely the um it could not be well federal residential
developments would go through a different process. Um The zoning changes I guess.
Mm hmm. And then I mean I feel like then we have the tools of the different the letters
of the options that you presented to us. What do we hire out for? Um And
um yeah that would be my my preference as well as we are trying to
be as responsive as possible to people. Um You know
especially something many of these are residential but um just as open as possible
to people's plans for their labs and um not be not be limiting those unnecessarily.
I'm I'm more comfortable heading in that direction too and fingers crossed that it
does not create enormous headaches for the cd. All right and if it does we'll
be back before you. Commissioner is asking for resources. Yeah
it might have to go work in D. C. D. Guys great kids. I really wanted to actually
I think you're actually I appreciate that that should
be done. Is there more discussion on this item?
The motion has been made and seconded made by Greg 2nded by Kate So all those in
favour. I
thank you. Thank you for all your work.
Don't hesitate to reach out friends. We know you won't go.
Thank you Brent thank you. Well it's 11 57.
Anything really. I know some of us have a watch back meeting at noon. Um Anything
else that we want to cover in a couple of minutes? I'd love time. I'd like to be
on that call right at noon. Um So I'd love to adjourn its um deputy directive.
Yeah so important uh update. Yeah Okay we
are until 1:30. Hi everyone
some minutes later lady comes down to read the um executive session
looks like a v capture is live and running and we are going to start off this afternoon
session by going into executive session with our interim county administrator Central
services director chief civil deputy prosecuting attorney, Human manager and project
and representatives create evaluating the qualifications of applicants for public
employment exemption as outlined in the open public meeting fact. R. C. W. 42.30
dot 1 10 Francis's one forensic key. What's the
from 1 30 to 2 p.m. Thank you won 31 to 2 p.m. Thank you
you're still on
for now remark.
So we are coming out of executive session and we are not taking action
and on that nose we have a look at it in the
item
I was gonna bring over. I was gonna bring over the BBC team Cindy brooks. I see Ben
Bauer meister. Um I'm bringing those three over.
Would you be willing to make brian a presenter as well? He's on his way over
and he's able to share. Mr Yeah.
Okay,
so this afternoon we have three agenda items. The first being a discussion with the
D. C. Around the ERP a grant program. Small business grants. Um the second being,
oh no land to uh discussion of our communications position. It's a little
to
So I I guess I could start this off because I participated in a call with Cindy Ben
and Bryan on Friday to talk through criteria for a grant program. And as you know,
I remember we set aside or allocated $500,000 of our arts funding to be used to support
small businesses in um responding to the economic hardship of the pandemic
and um I think that maybe I'll turn it over to you Cindy now to talk about the work
you've done. And um I did spend some time reading the final guidance yesterday and
talked a little bit with Mark about it so we can go over that when we get to that.
Yeah, well there are four things that we'd like to discuss. One is the community
survey that we sent out to businesses with the help of our community partners, the
Chambers and main street. Um So we wanted to summarize that for you to let you know
how the community responded to that survey. We wanted to talk about the Arco rules
with you to get some guidelines. We have a proposed starting place to start to start
to discuss the criteria and we have a couple items to discuss around the timeline
and the cost to the minister. So that's what we'd like to cover on our 30 minutes
and Brian I think is ready with the survey results queued up
right there. Pretty
introducing your team. Yeah, I'm Cindy brooks the executive director of A. D. C.
Team, jefferson and brian, our business services director is here with us today,
brian kuh It's done a lot of valuable work and preparation for this conversation
and we have our board director Mr Ben with us as well. Right. And I'd like to clarify
that you're not living in the 30 minutes. We don't have a time frame on this particular
agenda item so it can go as long as it needs to. Great, well, that's the luxury.
Thank you.
All right. Thanks Cindy. I appreciate it. And good to see the commission this afternoon.
Thanks for having us. Obviously exciting stuff. We've been talking about it. You've
been talking about. It is another round of grant funding. So we started by uh wanting
to get a temperature where folks are out in the community. Um not unlike the outreach
that each of you all have done. Just see how folks you're doing um throughout 2021
and as we move into 2022. So I'm not sure if some examples if you have any follow
up questions or want to see a deeper dive, I'm happy to, you know, minimize the responses
and get that to you. So we wanted to give you just enough to set the framework, but
if you want more it's there for. So the first question or one of the initial questions
was just trying to see how folks were doing uh in comparison to 2019 pre covid. Um
and as you can see from this pie chart on the screen, uh solid 41% said they're doing
worse. Um and we we weren't necessarily surprised by that um A solid
32% said generally the same and I gotta apologize, I'm getting a little bit of a
feedback, Are you hearing that too, or I'm like, okay,
a little bit. Okay,
sorry about that, I will try and ignore it and try not to exacerbate it. Um so there
was a small percentage that said they're doing better actually. Uh and I just was
speaking to some folks in King County about half hour ago who shared some of their
outreach and businesses and how not surprisingly, some businesses are actually doing
better, despite the pandemic, although um the nuances that are in has to do with
what their operating expenses are and what their net income is, and then not surprising
to jefferson County. Uh the entrepreneurial spirit was represented with 11% of the
respondents saying they weren't in business in 2019, so meaning those are new businesses
that have started uh since the pandemic began. And uh anecdotally one of the things
that our abc team jefferson does is act as the administrator for lion. Um and there
has been a robust amount of funding for not only new business startups, but also
uh funding requests for purchasing existing businesses. Another thing that
was important in previous rounds of grant funds and you may recall uh gosh, a couple
years ago uh when we were speaking, um I had recommended and we pursued um
spreading the small amount of money 100 and 25,000 around further by giving smaller
awards two more recipients. I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure that was the right
call. It may very well have been, but it uh you know, at the end of the day, one
does have to question, You know what the Minimus award would be, that would be financially
impactful for any given business. So it's definitely an art, not a science, but I
want to see what businesses thought. Um so you have a lot of folks saying that solve
28% of respondents said they thought more awards with smaller grant amounts makes
sense and I use the example of 100 grand's of $55,000 each. Um You had a small percentage
about 12% say they'd like to see fewer grant awards with larger amounts. So in this
case an example is 25 grants of 20,000 each. Um, but then the vast majority responded
that they'd like a mix of boat. Um, so like that famous, uh, uh, porridge story and
the three bears, you know, they wanted something in between that was just right.
So unfortunately, that means no easy answer for us. But something I did want to share
with you and something I look forward to discussing with you today. We're going on
to see what sort of needs people have and what they would use grant funds for. So
I won't read all the results here, but you can see that, you know, we had given them
some options to choose from, including of course rent, lease, famous salary payroll.
Covid related updates to a business marketing, professional services and the like.
And it, it was split out as follows in this pie chart that you have in front of you.
Um, fortunately and, uh, will speak to this. Uh, this does align, uh, don't align
with what appears to be allowable under the art, uh, funds as, as who you were reading
them over the weekend along with commissioner is in power. So of course, we've got
a lot of responses to this, but I'm trying to condense it down into just five people
that's for your consideration and wanting to see what types of businesses or sectors,
if any, should be prioritized for grants. Um, and a lot of, a lot of good and thoughtful
responses here, but some top top ones included and these are in no particular order.
Um, tourism related restaurants, hospitality, so things where businesses were required
um, to scale back significantly. Um, you know, obviously have many of these have
fixed um overhead costs that they have to absorb and and deal with. And so we know
these sectors have struggled throughout. Covid the other one that's kind of a no
brainer. And and Ben had a nice way of uh, uh, succinctly describing these businesses
when we spoke on friday. But those businesses that, because of the mandated closures,
uh, their their music completely stopped. Um, you know, in terms of financial inflow
of jim's um theaters, museums and the like. And you know, numerous examples locally
of those situations, a lot of folks called out nonprofit and community organizations.
So organizations that are doing support in the community but nonprofits that are
part of the, you know, the social fabric here in jefferson County with something
that people had indicated it was important to them. Not surprisingly minority and
bipod businesses in particular, but also women veteran and tribal on businesses.
Um, was a common response from people. So, uh, you know, businesses here or at least
responded to this survey survey were especially concerned with um, you know, marginalized
sectors in the business community. And then another one that came up quite a bit.
And this commission has certainly allocated um some sizable uh branches of this are
for funding to address is things related to health care, housing and childcare. So
I included that in here, uh, for your consideration, but also just to demonstrate
uh, you know, what's in the hearts and minds of businesses um as they're looking
at this pandemic um in a broad sense, and I'm sorry, the question was this a like
a text box in the survey that these were the answers you received? Uh
text text box in the survey and where they give weights at all. You know, how many
and I do. Um and I apologize, I don't have that in front of me, but generally speaking
restaurants was very high, you know, this business is impacted by the mandatory closure
was very high. Um Housing and childcare were two very high um
responses as well. And then, um, you know, non profits and community organizations
were less frequent, but um, you know, still mentioned, you know, a handful of times,
uh, as was the minority owned businesses. Yeah, you bet. And 11 thing too. And again,
I can share much more detailed info. There was, there was kind of a healthy tension
of responses in terms of obviously businesses that were forced to close, but also
recognizing businesses that were able to remain open but still financially impacted
significantly. Um, Cindy and I have spoken recently with a local manufacturer who
uh they described because of covid restrictions and distancing and things like that
that they could only have so many people in the manufacturing space at one time.
And so that could have been artificial cap on their production and therefore their
uh, net record gross revenues. Um, so that was reflected in the answers as well.
Mm
Any other questions on this component?
I'm looking out to the side because that's where you all are on my screen set up.
No other questions for me, Ryan.
All right, Cindy, what's next? Well, the next thing on our list was to discuss the
our final rules guidelines and I wondered, you know, before we launched out Heidi,
it sounds like you and I lost a good chunk of a beautiful weekend reading that 430
page document. Um, I'm curious if you have already made some decisions about how
you'd like to go forward in terms of um, narrowing the scope and consideration of
those guidelines? Well, it seems to me from what I read that the guidelines were
super flexible and they made them even more flexible from the interim guidelines
that were published a while ago and I shared with all of you the two page summary
of um, the our final rules guidelines. So the one thing that I, I think on
friday, I committed to you guys trying to figure out that that formula applied to
how we grant out funds but know that formula applies to the recipient, which is us,
the county. So, um, then then comment of the timeframe that we look at for the pool
of businesses that were impacting, we want to look at, you know, the last year as
opposed to the last two years in terms of businesses or impact. That was a discussion
that we started on friday trying to make the, the funding opportunity more real
time. And I think that that question is still now unanswered because the guidance
does not limit us to look again 2020 for example. Yeah, yeah. Um, could I,
this is Mark, can I ask uh brian, I think since you administer the
325,000 and our cares grants, Has there been a hot wash or an after action review
on what the 325,000 accomplished for the businesses that received those funds?
Yeah. Mark, we did ask physicists to report back in. Um, I think it was three months
after the funding was received and uh, they did, there was nothing, there were no
big aha moments from that data that was received in terms of any variance from what
they had indicated in their application, what they intended to spend the funds on
and what they actually did. Um, and those are primarily limited to payroll, um, and
rent. Um that wasn't exclusively, but those were the big buckets of need at that
time. Do we know the survival rate of the businesses that received those grants?
Are they all still viable businesses or did some of them shut down? Even though they
got grants, we know that a very small minority uh had shut down or transacted
but essentially shut down. But I can give you those exact numbers. I'd be happy to
to synthesize that and get it back to you. Well, I just think that knowing those
the answers to those questions might help inform us uh for this round of of business
grants as well. Well, I find that I think that's a really good question mark. Um
And where that takes me, is that the initial idle money and the p. P. P. Money did
leave out a lot of people with home based businesses. And so proprietorships and
a lot of people fell through the cracks with that. And my, you know, I guess I'm
worried about that question. And how this this particular final rule document looks
to me is that they're trying to capture all the people that have been overlooked
or kind of historically discriminated against. Um It seems to me less focused
on helping people that are doing okay or you know that we can trust will be around
next year and then more to help the businesses that are at threat.
Yeah, that's a good comment. Those that said they're doing better than pre
pandemic. Why would we want to give them a grant that they don't have to repay? Well,
we might not and that's why we didn't write right. So I wonder if and and when we
review the criteria that we reviewed on started reviewing on friday um Do we want
to keep our our eyes wide open for um making sure that we are
leaning towards the businesses that have had not had support today. We want to try
and um address those gaps that were um exhibited through the past
funding opportunities. There's a way that our criteria was designed and I don't know
that you're gonna be able to see it in the short form but there's a way of back you
know asking and also if we want to take the time to research what um other grant
opportunities these folks have taken advantage of. We can back out those figures.
Right? So if if we score a company based on their application um to receive $10,000
but they've already received 7000 from other sources we can subtract that 7,003.
And is that based on the previous funding that they've gotten from the E. D. C. Or
are you able to get the information of what they've received from various sources
from various
we were talking about timeline too and I spoke extensively with Colleen McAleer from
column about their process because they're in their third round of life book trees.
Um And her team clown county required of them to do
extensive double checking. So to find out their team had to double check to business
start date the U. V. I. Number um and also double check the past grants that they've
qualified for and received. So that's like a fair amount of research on the team's
time. But then they were able to accurately calculate that you know, to make sure
that they were eligible as a business and to make sure that the past um grant amounts
were attracted from the offer.
So I guess it's a matter of rigor and what our criteria is and you know how we prioritize
things
and as a um I guess a comparison or what I was looking for when speaking with King
County and other communities was kind of best practices that have emerged a term
of undue enrichment um was was shared by the team in King County. Um and they
described what Cindy just described as well as you know some sort of measure or
prioritization of businesses who have not been able to access um as much funding
or support in comparison as well to their overall um you know, standard operating
side, they described the salon whose typical net income or gross income was 17,000
year even though it was a meaningful part of that household's income. Uh you know,
they had a hard time justifying, you know a $10,000 reward and certainly not a $25,000
award. Um So they decided they described rightsizing the ultimate grant award, but
also recognizing uh you know, businesses that hadn't received previous dollars and
we do have access to that detailed information session being, I mean, do you, is
it your opinion that we could come up with a formula that um that gets this granular
versus having a committee that makes some of these subjective, harder calls? Well,
there are a couple of things to consider. I think that we will have to have some
of our team be double checking data that's offered by the recipients. So that will
be some research time. Um Colleen mentioned that they had won their last question
on their application forum was intentionally kind of open ended and squishy because
they wanted to understand, you know, with their best guess in terms of a criteria
based on their research, who they were still missing. So they invited people to tell
their covid um impact story as the last question and then they could reconsider like
is there a strong case to be made over hearing over and over again, that we've left
out a certain category? Or are there some stellar examples of people that have performed
above and beyond during Covid that is deserving of, you know, an award. So that came
true. I believe in this community impact score. Um and I think they used it with
two different recipients. So it wasn't many, but they learned a lot about how people
felt and who was left out. And there were a couple that, you know, exemplary businesses
that they felt deserved, um, an award based on their performance.
I also want to chime in with one other thing there and, and you know, in the discussions
that we had, and then, and then continued with Commissioner Eisenhower last week.
This is such a trade off between getting it right and getting it out, you know, uh,
we, we could do a whole bunch of background checking and make sure that every business
is viable and we have a small team that's gonna chase that down and, and when, when
we move to the timeline in a second, you're going to see that, that, that timeline
already has, has people waiting longer than we may want them to have to wait to get
these checks. So, uh, I'm, I'm really not wanting to see any of this funding go to
the wrong people. I also think that we are a small enough community that we know
a lot of these businesses and we can, we can speed process through some of just the
community fabric that we know in a reasonable way. Um, so that's, that's two cents
worth and I said yesterday that my sense of that of some kind of, um, we need to
hurry up because the business I was holding on to in my head and my heart throughout
this whole process has been closed. They're the ones coming forward asking for this
kind of support. So, and I agree, I agree then that, you know, there's that balance
of um the details and getting the money on the street. Sorry, Commissioner being
led. Well, I also think um like not that he's even more expectations on abc, which
we clearly are but um but you know how, how to undertake a process that isn't competitive
too, that's not fitting businesses against each other in a small community, you know,
and that's um yeah, I'm just feeling for you guys.
Um one of the questions criteria. Yeah.
Um I just wanted to make a comment about the upper rules. One more comment before
we move off of that um Regarding industries as we're moving into criteria. You can
see on the slide that that Brian has up here, that type of business is the first
category. Um the Arca guidance allows us to prioritize industries. Um and there
were, there was a simple test which is um has that industry received an 8% drop in
employment. Um I talked to kevin Decker from Washington Sea Grant, an economist and
he said we're not gonna be able to get that data because we're two years behind and
you know, collecting it and recording it. So the second test that the simple test
couldn't be um couldn't be performed was really messy. You know, find essentially
find some other way of describing the impact and convince us that it's necessary.
It could look like a lot of different things. Um So we noticed that some counties
aren't including industries or doing it differently like first and picks three industries
and they're just providing grants to food businesses, what were the other two brian?
They picked anyway three categories and they were just limiting it to that and I'm
sure that's because they had the proof of need. Um So we we don't know quite how
to sort this industry section yet but I wanted to call that out that if we do pick
industries that we just need to have a good rationale for why they're in there and
have some data to back that up for the guidance
just modeled after what done correct? Not really. Well it's modeled in the fact that
they have a section for industries. Um We just sort of random were not randomly.
We picked some that came out of our survey and we've seen come up a lot and we we
just chose a selection one business from each of the points system that we bryan
and I decided on which we need to expand on with your foot. Um so we we gave we clustered
businesses um high priority to little priority and assigned a point system. We have
a multiplier then so if you're a tourism lodging and hospitality business in this
example um you'd be awarded five points and have a multiplier of $1,000 which would
grant that business $5,000 in that category. Um Since the arca guidance was so heavily
weighted toward minority and underserved businesses, uh We created a special line
item there, so you're either a minority veteran or tribal owned or not and we ordered,
you know, one point again, this is a this is just a starting place, we can change
the multipliers or the point ranges as we'd be an expense overhead score, assuming
that we can ask for a profit and loss um before and after and we can verify that
there's been some change in expenses, we can award points for that. Um Community
impact score, was that squishy last question that column asked, you know, tell us
your impact story in case we missed something technical service and eligible youth,
so that is something new or different in in the arctic guideline, that wasn't informal
guidelines. Um So they're allocating funding for programs developed to help specific
business clusters or um thurston county is doing a special workforce project
in alignment with this line item. Um If you know, if we wanted to support technical
services to support our businesses, if they're asking for something in particular,
we can allocate funding to do that.
So we left that kind of open like 501 C6 is can apply if there providing technical
services or of eligible use. So for instance, the chamber helping tourism businesses
do their marketing would be eligible use and that's given a much higher multiplier.
Um It's given a higher multiplier because it's just zero or one and we're trying
to, you know, we're trying to provide enough money to actually do something. It's
a dollar multipliers of 5K.
Do that again, then the dollar multiplier is 5000 as opposed to the other ones being
1000. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's sort of program. Um and I can't imagine doing much
with less than that. Yeah. I want to put one other comment in real quick at this
point and that is, we have to bear in mind that this is not to to over overarching
criteria. One is small business, the other one is the folks who fell through last
time. And, and if you're asking small business people, people who own one and two
person shops too, they are going to get nervous as soon as you say, I need two years
of profit and loss statements before and after. They've never generated a profit
and loss statement. They honestly haven't um They know whether they broke even or
not and they know what their bank balance told them. Um Maybe we can do a big service
in the application to say here's a great simple template for reporting your profit
and loss for the last three years and it's only six fields and you can pull them
right out of your bank account. Um but something that makes it, so that we don't
continue to afford the folks who need some of this funding the most back through
the cracks because we we expect them to be able to report like a county agency or
a Fortune 500 company when that is just really difficult for them to do. Yeah I I
agree. Then I think I'm gonna rest for some businesses but um I think that's a detail
relative to the topic today. Um I trust that we can work that out. I
asked the question about this. So this is um this is criteria not to get to uh Yes
you're getting funded or no you're not but to actually determine the allocation for
the grant, is that accurate?
Um So the eligibility Heidi, you can correct me if I'm wrong but in the art guidance
had to do with whether you have an established business or not depending on you being
able to produce a U. B. I. Number um and some other documentation maybe correctly
state your business start date. Um Those are all that you need to you know, be eligible.
But the way that the criteria it's described, it's really emphasizing micro enterprise
um underserved and people that need, you know, really need it badly. Um
And I'm less interested in the guidance other than following it of course. But this
criteria that you're showing here is to help determine amounts of France of Amanda
grant and there's a cap to so we could, you know. Yeah okay so this is like uh something
of a needs assessment, but once, once they're eligible, then we would, you know,
run it through this formula and just see how it lands. Um some of the other counties
close actually assign reviewers and then once the reviews are done, actually get
together and do it and have a discussion on top of that so you know, questions can
be answered and rationales can be compared and we can be sure that the process. Is
there
very cute you're on mute I think. Thanks. I am. I like, I like this. Um it's kind
of, it's like a sensitivity analysis right? Like based on these criteria, you know,
greater needs to get more funding. So I appreciate this. Yeah. Well even though it
was based on micro enterprises in particular, um we put on the employees line item
up to nine because in the survey that they seemed to be kind of a tipping point,
like most of the businesses were that small and awarding one point for employee because
payroll and employee retention were really important criteria to the small businesses.
I think this framework looks really like a great start and the multipliers for type
of business I find, I don't know, strange, maybe I don't agree with the listing exactly
as it is right now. Um, but I also have some guess fundamental questions I think
of just ignorance on my part and when when I look at lodging and hospitality and
when I think about impact of business, I think, you know, restaurants straightaway
and food service and I assume you need to put that under hospitality. And then if
I look at lodging, I think about, well, I mean there's a few small hotels, there's
some larger hotels, there's a lot of Airbnb. You've been running a short term rental
business and have a U. B. I. And that means you would qualify that we have a lot
of small landlords that I'm afraid you're going to get out of that business. And
I'm wondering, is there an excess here for small landlords? I mean, I know there's
there's other programs like you rap, the rap and other rental assistance programs.
But I guess to me, I see that small mom and Pop land or it's something that I really
want to nurture right now and I don't know if it fits in here or not. So I guess
I'm asking opening this question, how about the mom and pop landing Well, yeah, all
of it is up for discussion. So if that's important to the to you into the county,
we can add that as a type of business that you like.
Is that allowed in the in the guidance, so, and that like there are a few small amount
of top landlords who run that um and and arguably their their network has
also grown extraordinarily during this time because of the real estate and speculative
I'm not, I'm not saying that that's liquid or helpful, but I that doesn't pass the
sniff test for me. Yeah, that's a fair point. Yeah, they would have to have
a registered business and with the FBI and the start date, so probably they're just
not gonna hit it.
Um Well, think, let's think about what, what kinds of businesses. I mean, can you
think of an example of a business that would, that is like a is an apartment building
or is it? Well, I mean, I'm just concerned that we're gonna have a massive exodus
of people that want to be landlords uh and and rent out rooms. So I don't know,
this doesn't feel like an exact fit. It's an, it's an issue, you know, looking for
a solution. I don't think this is the solution. I just wanted to kind of truth and
in front of this group of people. But um I do think, I mean, you know,
restaurants, gyms, things that have closed down and you guys have talked about earlier,
these are the things that, that I r really apparent when I, you know, yeah, let's
just take grocery stores have done great right. I mean, I probably shouldn't be and
it's been a challenge for everyone. So this is not of course to undersell and mail
that any business business owners, small business owner has gone through in this
time, but um I don't know, I could dig into this ranking the types of businesses,
I guess that would be more in favor of kind of a clown model where you choose a few
business types that we can prove are really being impacted and I would say foodservice
one just off the top of my head. Um and focus on that. I guess I like that ranking
better than ranking all of them. I don't know why maybe because I see, you know as
far as the marijuana shops, both of which I have honed in the past and most, I mean
marijuana shop should be just fine. They shouldn't need any support. It's been record
record sales but bars have really suffered, you know and places to socially gather
have not exactly thrived in this this opportunity. So I would, you know, would you
market them that you know in bars? Have they sort of function in our society? So
I don't, I don't think it's a blue industry that we should ignore necessarily they
how they live in as well. So I don't know, I guess that's my, my big problem here
and I just, I'm not sure where gyms and things like that would be under professional
services. Yeah, we have a longer list and I think we pulled gyms and um you know
kind of like high touch service businesses out, but I guess what it might be useful
today is to decide if we want to keep that category and I think we could um work
over trying to refine it. So we're actually reflecting accurately, um, the need.
Are you asking if we, if we want to keep the category of actually defining types
of businesses or the specific type of business of food. We want to keep the category
1st. Okay. I have more on the side and there's a few businesses, a few types of
businesses I would like to highlight, but I guess I'm less in favor of, uh, ranking
all of them to come up with how much each one of them is worth in this, in this,
uh, this process. Right? So it's sort of a slippery slope once we start to do it.
Yeah, I think I'm leaning away from it after all this discussion. I mean leaning
away from having a list that, you know, rings like that because we'll forget. There's
so many kinds of businesses, right? And, and tourism, some tourism has done
remarkably well, not at a high cost, certainly doing business. Um, but you know,
I think there could be a lot of pushback in the community that the tourism, its tourism
wasn't appropriate during this time. And by rewarding, you know, I mean, it also,
some, some sectors did really well. Okay, so if we eliminated it as a section essentially
are gregor, there several buckets that you'd like to include maybe for special grants
like Kristen county did, um, you know, I think that would be worth, I would be in
favor of that just for some of the, you know, as they say, food service industry
that we know are really suffered. But in general, I would be happy having um, businesses
demonstrate their needs with the, you know, I find that the same loss, the loss breakdown
as more germane to the point of what we're trying to get. We're trying to find those
businesses that are really struggling and, and fill that gap. So I guess
open, I'm open to a couple of buckets, but I am tired of getting rid of the type
of business as as an important criteria. Okay, So has childcare been
addressed? Otherwise We put some money into child care efforts? It's hard. I mean,
I think childcare is definitely a bucket that we can, it's a, it's a big challenge.
Yeah. We've tentatively allocated I think 382 Jefferson healthcare as um this
match for a grant or something they've applied for. Yeah, that's very different though
than these supporting existing child care providers. Um, and just, I'm wondering
if uh, Gregory familiar with any of the CDBG or that went to, I think those are
more subsidies for people using needing childcare. Yeah, they would, they would go
to the person to pay for the child care, not to the childcare provider to um, you
know, pay the lost wages or what happened? Yeah, yeah. Um
because they have the luxury of having a conversation on this right now. Um I like
the idea of getting rid of the type of business? But do we want to somehow capture
the impact in business is impacted by the pandemic? Like with mandates or you
know, could we, could we have some qualifiers? Like you know a mandate affected by
a mandate or affected by I don't know. I was just trying to think of how are we really
getting at what the pandemic did to the business as opposed to the type of business?
I like Cindy's the squishy question that found county used at the end, you know,
a narrative answer especially if we're gonna end up with a board that goes over this,
you know, explaining how does how does the pandemic impact your business negatively?
What why are you applying to this man? I think it's really it's really freaking question.
Yeah, I suppose we could do it all based on need number of employees and um
the diversity equity and inclusion question,
isn't he the same block? Yeah. Like their story and the proof of story.
And I mean keeping the business opening is usually the goal of these, of these uh
grains. Right? So uh yeah, I'm just talking a
lot I guess brainstorming. Sorry. Mhm.
So we're on the criteria item in the in our conversation right now right? Do we need
to we, I feel like we've agreed that we're not wanting to capture the type of business?
Um So that that list of fire categories categories will be gone. Um Do we want to
put something in place from it like impact an impact or is it just captured in the
text box that we're talking about? How was your business impacted By the COVID-19
pandemic? Mhm.
And then are all the other criteria good for people? I mean I feel like we've started
talking through all of them. I think we might need to change the point the multiplier
and maybe the point system that we're taking out the type of business
technical services I guess we don't have to have that in but if you think it's valuable
that we developed in parallel to our understanding of the community needs and programs
to match that rather than um issuing the entire grant amount to small business payroll
and employee retention and operations. Um And I'm sorry are you maybe I didn't understand
the same technical services like indirect costs like cost. Well it's for it could
be for any technical service provider, it could be for C. I. E. To help these small
um You know if we give out a bunch of money to micro enterprise and Mark's question
was how do we know how they did the best way we can track that is to align them with
services so they can spend that money well and you know grow because of it, can we
get a pie chart of what businesses said they needed support with again,
brian still driving you get, let me grab that real quick.
I'm wondering a lot of these things as you said, I think in the presentation are
things that the EEC already does. Right? And, and I mean some of this,
I'm sorry, sorry, I'm wondering if um Building AD. C. services and
I guess I'm also asking about indirect costs. You know, we have $500,000 for this
venture. How much is the eating is he gonna need to administer? Obviously put a lot
of time into this already. So I guess I didn't want to talk about costs over here.
Okay, we're gonna talk about that last Right, Okay. Well
that's okay. We can we can talk about that. But I guess I'm wondering are there abundant
services that can be offered in lieu of just straight tasks that might actually get
to the need of the business? Well, so here's here's part of the deal. Like, like
at NBC, it's been a one person show for some time and now it's a two person show
and we might have an administrator on board soon, I hope, but we're really limited
both. And the fact that the businesses that we're addressing um come from multiple
industries and multiple business stages. We really need a network to address the
complexity of the issues that they bring and we rely heavily on partners like C I
E like Spdc like score like enterprise for equity maybe just to name a few, um we
don't get the idea Penny right now and this whole grant is perfectly aligned with
the population they serve. This might be a really good opportunity for us to improve
our relationship with them instead of expecting them to go out and hustle their own
grants and then provide business services for us for free, we could help them a little
bit to do that better and more easily, they're looking to expand and they've been,
you know, they've had some bottlenecks because of funding and I think this since
this article guidance is so um emphasizing micro enterprise diversity, equity and
inclusion clients and technical services, this is a nice fit for our local providers
that we have not been supporting so far. I think we also under fund spdc at $7500
a year, that's about 1/10 of what it costs bound to hire one advisor, so possibly
use of some of his grandfather's that was taking money out of business hands itself
is to support some of the partners like C I E S P E C to develop some of these services
more robustly or at least pay for the services more robustly. Rather a lot of what
some of these micro enterprise. Yeah, just so, you know, I'm currently working with
Rick Dickinson to host their open network which is sort of a pure learning group
here in jefferson County. I'm also working with S. P. D. C. We have a webinar on
thursday that introduces three of their advisors to our Jefferson County community
and even though they're underfunded, they're willing to do the work. Um but it puts
us further and further out on a limb if we start shoveling work their way without
supporting them to keep, you know, their advisor employed And we can think about,
you know, a pool size for those technical services. Um you know, out of the overall
500, this percent can go to services but not beyond that. Uh so that so that we can
say yeah we would we've decided to invest X percent in the sorts of programs that
will help these businesses as well. Um and that should be a percentage that everyone
feels good about.
So what's the best way for us to move forward with the criteria? Should we um Did
you guys read it with the multiplayer and yeah, we're happy that we work that I just
want to make sure that we were capturing the categories that are important to you
and that we're aware of any of any of the um you know, uh parameter limitations that
you might have for us.
I think our number one priority is to get out the businesses that haven't gotten
support over the past, you know, 18 months so I don't know if there's anything we
can add to the criteria that would help. Um She's not out more or prioritize that
more. I do think that that impact that you're getting at Heidi um could could get
some of it, you know, that were you mandated to be closed or have to cease operations
by uh by mandate were no,
that was, Did you see a 50% drop in customers? You know, I mean, again, it's like
the Devil's in the details. Right? I don't know. I think I'm inclined to say, I think
you guys are totally on the right track and and I trust you to come up with something
you've implemented a similar program before. We're probably not going to think of
anything that you haven't thought of already um in greater detail. So I'm really
glad to be kept in the loop and think that you're, you're on the right track and
I'm fine with you continuing in this path and um you know, I think you'll have to
do that dance of what is most fair versus what is quick and able to get up
on the street um you know, timely fashion, but that that's a prosthetic, but I think
you guys will have to figure out based on your capacity to Yeah. And I also think
once you see the timeline, you'll see that there's a process for us to revise this
and get it back to you guys for approval once more to this isn't the last, you're
gonna see from us and what I like is that we're we're all close enough to the same
page that when you see the next generation, you'll you'll be able to to tie those
things together and understand the discussion that formed it. And I'm with kate that
I think you guys are totally on the right track and I don't want to micro manager
that I'm going to micromanage a little bit more before I'm done. I have this opportunity
and I I agree that community impact store, I think it's really relevant and I guess
if I was going to look at it right now, taking out the types of business, I would
bump that up. I don't quite understand the employees, one through nine. Each employee
is worth $1000. I guess. I'm just trying to that in my head. If I'm a small business
and you know, I mean they're all yeah, I'm not I'm not saying that not an appropriate
threshold. I just, I guess the community impact for really resonates to me. Mhm.
Great. Thank you Greg. What about Yes, No. To the whether you have a home based business
or micro enterprise or not.
I think they've gotten short shrift. So I'm supporting just an extra little um reach
out to find,
Okay. They also have significantly lower overhead um that they had to maintain for
two years. Um So I feel a little on the fence about that one. Mm
hmm.
Well, micro enterprise Yeah, maybe we, My brother prize could be up to five employees.
Mm,
we're trying to wrap in what was important in the offer guidance there. Yeah. And
it gets a small, it's a small um, bonus points. So I'm kind of
okay, well we'll rework the point system by pulling out the burn already pulled it
out. Um, prior we had a minimum grant size size and the maximum grant size and we
felt pretty comfortable with that range considering it's 500,000. Is that a comfortable
range for you all for me? And I think I said that on friday.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
So I guess we're ready to move on to talk about timeline and cost
those are timeline sheets. And this was based largely largely on clowns, multiple
rounds and they told us where they experienced bottlenecks, which means we might
learn from. Um, So it's a complete one as we're already in week two and we're in
discussions. So this is assuming that our discussion goes on for a few weeks until
we really hammer out contract between us to get started. So we're shooting for a
contract the first week of february And then we would post application immediately
after that line six. This is something we want to check out with you I think is up
for 30 days at the request of the county and we wondered if you had a sense of how
long if that was long enough to keep that posted.
30 days. Great. Okay. So we'll continue with that assumption and
while that's posted, we can be refining our metrics and training our review team.
Um, again, the column county contract required
quite a bit of research and double checking. Um, So we think four weeks is
enough, but it depends on what, you know, what kind of, uh, eligibility
requirements are in the contract and how thoroughly we check those. That's why we've
highlighted these, um, certain rose and yellow. I think we could expand that or contract
that depending on how that contract ends up looking questions based on an earlier
comment from, from man's not really pregnant to this. But I'm just curious as you
build the application process, you think that it might be possible to do a real quick
form that will kind of, that everyone would fill out basically populate a profit
and loss statement. So they're getting that information and then that's an asset
that they have as well. I mean, you know, like here's your completed form. Oh, and
this part of the form is a PML in case you're looking for anything else. I just,
I love it When we can give um assets to folks for filling out the application, keep
it simple and make it productive. Yeah. We'll do our best to do that. We've also
included some links to the state website where they can look up for themselves with
their E B. I number and their start dates are, so hopefully we don't have to do this
much chasing of that. They can kind of learn how to access that information on their
own. And I remember the first when it was the state stuff that brian oversaw that
was so onerous that he ended up I think having pretty much hold hands to the whole
application for a lot of people and we would want to make it easy enough. So you
know the mom and pop business with one employee or two employees from philadelphia
himself. Yeah. Well this is another argument I guess for including some technical
services support for C. I. E. Because if people are having trouble filling out that
application they should be in contact with the I. E. To learn some basic business
skills and we plan on you know helping people that call us you know for assistance
filling out this survey or this application. We plan on connecting them with the
I. E. As a resource you know as soon as we can. Um Okay so once we have the review
process done then we return these um you know results to you
for review. And these are also highlighted in yellow here because you know we don't
understand what your process might be on your end. That could be longer. It could
be shorter. Um But we were told by Callum that this was a huge bottleneck for them
just getting getting the the list of final applicants and their grant amounts signed
off on by the B. zero cc. Didn't you necessary. Extraneous
smith. I appreciate you mentioned that I was going to call out that that is not a
step that y'all had required before. But it was uh it
was something that other areas had done. So we definitely felt obliged to include
it for discussion today. Yeah, we we improved a lot of things. I'm not sure what
kind of we're gonna go through 100 applications and investment for completeness.
I just don't I don't see that as an effective use of our time or committee time has
already come here at once. So I guess I tend to agree we don't need to that.
Yeah, I think they should share the list, but I don't think the board needs to evaluate
and deliberate and uh, the recommendations. Okay. And brian's right
for the 3 25. We didn't do that. You're right. We have a flight, we have an E. D.
C. I appreciate your trust. Um, Clark County allocated two of their
staff to be reviewers. Uh, and I don't know, you know, what what will they had in
this final review process. But I think they actually performed this March review
process with the E. C. And their volunteers.
I'll be happy commissioner. You or someone else. I volunteer myself or someone
else way to get our fingers into the process. But you know,
I'm happy to help too. I mean maybe we we
um, maybe the ones in our district and the kid's gonna have a lot more than but I
think there should be exceptions only. I don't think we need to have a fancy process,
but you know, Greg gets all the applications and Heidi gets them and Cape gets them
and they object to one of them, then they can raise a question. Have that question
addressed? Okay. That sounds messy. Yeah. With the committee.
I would rather than just be one of us representing the sec. I don't I don't care
who that is. Okay. Alright.
Do it. All right. Yeah, I do know, went back and forth a little bit with their Africans
to, you know, sending out additional surveys and requesting more information based
on the process they had with their county. So yeah, the more we can talk about it
and streamline and I think it's gonna be easier for everybody
make it short now. I'm really motivated to make it a short application.
All right, well, as soon as we get through this review process and that, you know,
you agree that where are we can you process?
And another thought I had is we just did the attack brand around and we had 18 grand
applications and we the committee, you know, how we have short presentations like
him and presentations from the applicants and then we reviewed them all in a day
come up with some kind of streamlines process. That was the same for everybody. Um
That might might, you know, make the job easier. Mhm.
Yeah, we've got some time while the applications posted and their people are completing
them to kind of work on our process. So yeah, we could probably collapse that if
we were really communicating well.
So it may take four weeks, it may be faster in March. And at the end of the process
then we're assuming that you send the funds and that we can send contracts out to
the recipients and get those checks issues pretty quickly. We talked for a second
about the kind of next upcoming tactical items between all of us, which is the contract
between uh the E. D. C. And the county. I just love to have some expectations that
in my mind for what you see is the contractual needs there and and how much time
that might take. We put, you know, you know, three weeks leading up to that. So the
contract wouldn't be finalized until the first week in february. Um If that's more
or less or you're not gonna be able to act that quick or you can have it tomorrow.
I I we just haven't talked about it as a group.
You're Ben, are you speaking about a contract for management of the 500,000? Yeah,
well we have a template that we use for, for cares that we can we can dig that out
and tailor it to DARPA and we could do that relatively quickly. Okay. Uh
Cindy did you have other uh questions or or things that need to be considered in
that part of the process? Well, no, but we we really can't refine our application
process until we know how that contract is worded
to some degree. There's a chicken and neck there. Uh We can we can start it. Uh we
can't finalize it until the contract's finalized. Yeah. We kind of have to happen
in parallel. Yeah,
february for that. Right? We can get started on that now. I say we looking at Mark
but
a royal we well and it's it's a royal. We for us too. I mean we can take the next
stab at the criteria and getting that developed at the same time. It's the contract.
I think the two of those who feed off each other. But are there aspects of the contract
for managing this? That that would be a policy decision that this group should be
talking about? We already decided that we don't need to approve every single substance.
So I mean that's a great question I think. But I don't know there are other hanging
chats Cindy
um I'll admit that my reading of the RP guidance wasn't with us, you know, great
detail I guess my concern is is that we're with you as the recipient that we're meeting
all the marks that we need to meet and I'm hoping that the contract will elucidate
some of those.
Yeah I know I've I've probably read them at the same comb that you did send me. But
I did look I was looking for those kinds of um hanging tests potentially. And I
feel like based on my knowledge of the interim criteria that that final criteria
is even more flexible in regards to this. And I think we really rely on that document
that was put out by the S. B. A. The two pager on the overview of small business
assistance or put out I guess it's not just like
but what I'd be nice for us to provide for the businesses from that, what they can
spend on and what you know is ill advised. One thing that struck me about this particular
document was that there including capital expenses for like improving storefront
facades and improving um you know ones space essentially that was
specifically excluded previously and they call that I was an expansion of allowable
criteria. So allow expensive. So that's that's that's a lot of
expense now. Right. So I just want to be sure that we're capturing that well so we
can provide those parameters for the small businesses when we apply.
Yeah. And that that would seem to fall in your wheelhouse, you're the one that's
gonna be in contact with the sub recipient. Um You would be communicating that criteria.
Yeah we can do that. There's some tricky bits in here like with
just what kind of proof is gonna be adequate. And it seems to me that with this particular
target audience of businesses that have been left out or have been marginalized.
They're gonna be like the least able at least able to provide us proof. We're gonna
get a lot of story and probably not a lot of documents. Um so it's it's just awkward,
right? Like how do we get that proof? And if we're audited, do we are we prepared
to show what our rationale was and why we felt like these applicants were just sit
I wouldn't say coming up with some prescriptive ways that these small micro enterprises
can demonstrate that. So we have, you know, we don't have 30 different subjective
versions of it. But, you know, we have these three questions and then they have a
paragraph to give context to the answers to, you know, why couldn't your business
uh dr or you know, why why? Why did your revenue go down? Can you show us your bank
account now and then demonstrate gone down? Or one of these three things, you know,
the more, you know, just prescriptive rather than, you know, go with
everything I think will make it easier to manage, I hope, and easier for folks to
fill out. Okay, that's gonna be hard on our end to try to, you know, come up with
a shortcut version. Yeah. Just brainstorming, don't think handing is that is
a prescriptive need from me for just a brain. You're making it your heart is in the
right place and you're making it easy for the business and I appreciate that. Thank
you. I liked the conversation we started to have earlier about making an easy financial
reporting like six boxes, that idea of six boxes and maybe it's, you know, maybe
we have a little table they fill in and it's, you know, um being down balance beginning
of in the, you know, so that's kind of get that profit and loss. And then somebody
who has a profit loss could take your profit loss and put those numbers in. But then
it could be like employees or you know, and then each year so then we could, they
would have changes to employees or changes to payroll or compensation. I don't know
what, but it seems like we could come up with 3-5 measures that people
all businesses could fill in. I'm using a profit. Last others using their check register.
Okay. I like that too. I'll scratch my head on that one. I also really liked the
the piece that breakthrough and about, you know, doing some education, maybe even
letting them have the results of an asset that makes them understand their business
better just for filling out the application.
Okay, well this is great. Looks like we've tightened it up a bit already and
yeah, I feel good. I guess what we can do next is to spend some more time revising
that criteria based on this input and you know connecting with you via email with
an updated version would that be adequate?
Okay so brian's moved us onto the cost worksheet so
we're we were assuming six months start to finish based on you know the other counties
that we've been in conversation with. Um some counties are requesting from their
recipient a the Minimus amount 10% which you know apparently we can allocate the
federal monies And in this case with 500,000 that would be 50,000.
Um We also try to calculate this based on the hours that we know in neighboring county
spent their processes are different. So are ours might be different but 1.5 F. T.
E. S. That's what we calculated here. We've also factored in to part time temporary
people. 20 hours a week for the six week during six weeks. During the interactive
reviewing process was based on the workload that we've heard described from other
counties. We've factored in some additional costs. People have been spending money
on legal on marketing on bookkeeping and allocating a percentage of their operations
to this process. And I think that's it we totaled that up at $65,000 which is a bit
more than 50 which will do the
a brian. Oh did he is he still on still here?
So um when we gave you the 3 25 and cares funding. I
don't recall going through a process like this um where you calculated the E. D.
C. Costs to administer the 3 25 correct? Um That was just a carve out I think that
Philip drove um And it was I want to get my numbers right. The cares funding I believe
is only 125. Isn't that correct? But anyway the
question you're asking the city side for the ec at that time was 12,500 which is
the basis of the 10% basis. Uh So there was a car. Yeah and you're right it was 1
25 and um and there was a card out for those cars. Yes okay remember what
that was said? Yeah that was that was 10% for 12,005% of that Trump.
Did that come out of the 125 or
That? Yes that was the 125 correct so far. So then depending on
Which calculation we go with here the net is gonna be 450 or 435 or so
and I would like to talk one better because I need to. Um But you know I do think
that there's there's a room in here to talk about as well. I think that would be
appropriate. You would be mine for um Well concerned more concerned I would have
is the five way agreement? There's a budget in that document and and I think um Cindy
and brian you're fully funded through the five way agreement.
So we are but our mandate hasn't changed for all the other stuff that we would be
doing if we weren't doing this right but shouldn't shouldn't we just cover incremental
costs here and
you know the staff and the part time that you would have to add.
I believe that these are the instrumentals um This this is the additional time that
the processing of this is going to take for the team that wasn't expected in
the multi party agreement. Okay. But Cindy and brian are salary so uh how that cost
is going to increase because of the separate
I don't know I'm worried about brian doing um almost twice as much work and he was
Expected to do with the existing contract. Um do you have to backfill friends spending
75% of the time on this? You have to backfill with some other capacity and then yeah
I'll probably be doing that work. We may be hiring some subcontractors to pick up
the slack coming in between
trying to trying to allocate the hours to the people that have the best knowledge
and you know not like overuse my time for instance I talked to other executive directors
and they you know 40% of their time was pretty typical for this type of project.
Um We don't have an administrator yet. I'm not sure if we're gonna be able to allocate
his or her time this or not. That might be just an additional cost of, you know,
somebody from the community that we hire for this specific process, Even some of
these uncertainties. I wonder going with the minimum um which is unquestioned and
and the guidance is a good approach
and precedent in our situation. Yeah. And I also think that we, Some of the discussion
we just had about the timeline might have shortened that timeline below uh the timeline
that was anticipated for the percentages that were calculated for the 65, That was
kinda month off today. I mean, I feel like we're being super-efficient government.
Again, we don't know. Mhm. All right.
Other thoughts on on cost.
Well, I mean, I just want to acknowledge that this work. It's a lot of work. But
they say there are real questions like how you're already salary. So how do we, I
think, yeah, I think it's
having an overhead amount makes sense to me for the grant program.
Sounds like we're in agreement.
So, I do have the cares of Great Agreement Open on on my on my screen and there was
a 10% uhm allowed for general costs associated with meetings administration not to
exceed. Uh yeah, it was a 10% but actually a little a little less than 10%. But
we we can stick with 10% for this agreement. Thank you.
Well, I think that was all that we were bringing in today. So um are there questions
or defective one?
I appreciate the good conversations we've had about this sense. Look forward to helping.
However I can have great runs out of time. Okay so when we have
a revision in our criteria, should we send it to all of you, Greg the point person
and it was great being the point person to avoid any potential of CMA issues and
copy me as well please. I don't know if we need to have another session to have the
board blessed but um Heidi what do you think? I think it'd be good to
have on our agenda at some point to review the final criteria and the final the final
timeline. Yeah. Okay. All right Greg I'll work with you and when it's ready for prime
time we'll get it scheduled. You can just get an administrator update or something
you know, standing timeframe but I would like to see it again. Hopefully I did old
dog and pony show I mean I think we talked about the substance issues with
regarding the agreement the contract. Is that something that more needs to see or
do you want to delegate to me the authority to enter into that with the BBC. I move
that we delegate authority to enter into the the contract disbursement of $500,000
of funds for small businesses and micro enterprise in Jefferson County a second after
discussion. Um uh we also should probably authorize the $50,000 expenditure of our
phones for that purpose, one, It happened 500 home or
original. Okay. So the net for grants is 4.50. Okay.
Gotcha. Okay. My second stem.
Oh, in favor. Right. Alright. That that will save a little bit of time on that timeline.
So thank you. Perfect. Thanks
everyone. Thank you.
Whatever we whatever we say goodbye to people, I go to leave the meeting, I'm still
waiting. You're gonna stay kate stuck
with. The next item on our agenda is the york shopping of the communications position.
Well, uh Heidi, you had asked for a job description of the folks over at public health
and so I did share a job description with you earlier today. That might be helpful
as part of this discussion. Um and I'm gonna let kate leave this discussion. She
and I met with veronica shaw and and talked about their process and the team that
they've got over there. That's got a pretty good track record of performance. It's
okay you want to see it up? Sure. Um so I think you are both
pretty aware of how we got to the place of funding uh a communication specialist
um and veronica approached Mark about discussion to see if there was some kind
of overlap um or energy or cost savings in combining communications efforts with
public health and um it was a good conversation, It led me to realize just how kind
of unformed our vision was for this position. So, um uh take
that, you know, just keep that in mind as as I talk about our discussion with public
health. Um, so running to emphasize the amount of work that has gone into and continues
to go into having an effective communications um program. Um and she
is of the belief that there could be some, some savings of time and effort by combining
those, by having the communications person that we decided to fund be nested with
her communications team that would create a team of three, um which has some uh just
more, more capacity to be able to take things on. Um A lot of questions about where
that team of three would live if they would need to all be together or not. Um but
also public health thinks that they would have the capacity to manage that team.
Um and so, you know, I think there's there's some, some benefits there, you know,
I think there's some little bit of risk of losing, you know, that kind of direct
pipeline access, that I think in terms of having someone closer at hand for our office.
Um and this is where you run into the question of what exactly were we envisioning
for this position, which is it something we really want to be um uh kind of hand
in hand with the Commissioner's office. I don't think that would be an FTE, we've
always had the intention of having it be with other shared with other departments.
Um But is that on a as needed advances or assignments of time to different departments?
Um You know, some of that could be to public health. Certainly they have probably
the greatest need for communications right now during Covid. Um And and that will
change with time. So I think still some big existential questions go ahead. Mark
and Bonnie Obolensky, I think it was her last name has demonstrated um
some flair for this kind of work and I think she's in a covid funded position and
that according to veronica and Apple, they've got 300,000 or so left in covid money.
And eventually, um you know, Bonnie will have to be let go. Um And I think she's
a talent we'd like to hold onto and this position would be a permanent one that she
could slide into this position. Um And then we would have the benefit of her, her
talent and skill going forward. So I just wanted to put that out there and it just
um you know, so they said they have the protocols down the system. I think there's
a little bit of risk of um you know, not having the same kind of access to this position
if it was live housed in public health. Um They also have a very arduous process
because they're disseminating public health information that might be more arduous
than the need for um for our messaging. Um
So I really appreciate that they're willing and brought the conversation to us and
considering some kind of cross shared space share staff share. Um and so I think
we should give that some serious thought, but I think we need to first to find how
we see this position being most useful to the county into residence. Yeah, and this
conversation is good because Sarah has started work on putting together a job description
for this specific position. Um and then we would have a competitive process. Of course
we have to advertise and collect applications and have a process for determining
who to hire.
And I mean there's some pretty major questions still to be answered. You know, are
we are we thinking of um redoing our website, like what's the scope of this person
press release on social media website graphics. Um You know, these are big different
jobs, What are we hiring for? What would we use this person for? Um And
uh do we need a policy Countywide and communications, we don't really have one. Um
So he said, you know, someone hiring someone who we work with to write that, then
you get the kind of process which is where public health has has built in a good
monitoring daily monitoring to managers. Somebody called to be monitoring daily check
in to um discuss what comments to respond to and what not to do. So is the
idea that public health has capacity to extend that management of the information
officers and communication officers outside of public health as well into something
where maybe you have content direction from, you know, public works a on some Hadlock
communicating that have to happen. Um so they would have a team that is most not
subject matter, expertise experts, but as the process experts of the communication
and communication inputs could come in from other departments into that still, the
vetting process would be the same and the oversight would be the same except of course,
the public works said, oh, that's not what we meant, you no community was that is
that they're proposing. And one of the, one of the things that veronica stressed
was that staff members provide um content and communication ideas
and then Bonnie and Liz convert that into the communication that's shared with the
public and um and the communication I think is vetted by the content
originator to make sure that communication is loyal to the facts that they're trying
to communicate, but there might be different uh level of
responsiveness needed depending on the communication. Right? So maybe GM has, you
know, hey, these roads are bad and get it out there right now and it's an emergency.
So you need to like how do you escalate the communication out how responsive you
want staff to be to the comment right? If someone makes ask the question you answered
right, This is a fundamental question that we struggle with our social media policy.
Yeah. I mean has done a great job. So I'm I'm all in favor of this idea that it is,
as I said, it's uh giant smorgasbord. We've got to get down to a tightening so there's
there's proactive and reactive communications that will need to happen you know?
And then and at least in the nonprofit I worked in we've had a communications calendar,
right? So we weekly facebook post, you know, it's like you have kind of a metronome
of activities. Um I think we want to develop a communications plan
and you know so it's it's not a small job we're talking about. Oh
no
I still think the place we should start from is what do we see as the needs um
for our department and then thinking out as far as we can to other departments. So
you know, my prime example, I think when I the fire was really lit under me was uh
when we did the moratorium recently with the C. V. And it was just so apparent that
we didn't have a way to communicate. Um And so you know that's something that isn't
necessarily our department but you know clearly is policy both G. D. Needs that expertise
and the and it's communicating a policy that comes from our office also there's a
lot of overlap. Um
So but
you guys,
yeah what I was going to say is we had a resource but we didn't take advantage of
it. Um You know, we could have enlisted Jeannie's health to come up with a communication
on the moratorium, but but you know, we acted uh with such speed,
we didn't think about it and we should have. Mhm. Mhm.
One interesting piece of advice I was given by a communications person um was that
like, you know, we the board is often approached by press and the media and we often
represent ourselves in that and that there was a lot of value. Um and you know, we
don't necessarily want to hand all communications over to A. T. I. O. And um and
lose that kind of direct voice too. So, you know, those are the like, like do we,
you know, right, the communications plan or the communications policy before we hire
the person, like have them help us or do we bring that person out and then write
the policy? It's it's uh the job in the job description is part of that as well,
right? Like what do we want to hire for and what kind of experience do we want them
to have? Um I agree. I also do that want to lose money. She's um excellent to
really revolutionize that there's communications coming out of public health. So,
you know, if it's indeed it's starting with with working with public health to decide
how what each of us brings to the table and um if that's the starting point, that's
fine with me too ideally we could come up with a scheme so that we keep
Bonnie somehow and add the additional person so that we don't don't go to three and
then back down to two and so that's something I need to give some thought to.
Yeah, I mean we do have another person working on communication already, right, that
would be using the existing capacity, making it more efficient. I think um starting
this in this conversation with public health is a great way to do it because I do
think that they are are are shining stars. The communication had to be with Covid.
They've done really well. So I think it's I would say let's take them up on the offer
and start the conversation there and help them let them help inform that job description.
Right, When Sarah has a draft job description, we will certainly have another conversation
with the board. Mhm. There was raising her hands by the
way, so Caroline, can you bring Sarah over, bring it over now,
Sarah, we see you you were talking about you. I kept having these thoughts
and wanting to say something and finally, I just said I gotta do it cause I was gonna
try to chat chat. Um I agree with what you guys are saying about what needs to take
place before further action and really to define what your goals are. So,
so why do you want this position and um, and what the goals are that?
Um, you wish to meet with that And I think once you have that, then everything else
will fall into place, including a job description because that can't happen. So we
know what, what you like, what you want that position to do.
And I had the, and multiple times in my first year as the commissioner, like
we should have sent a press release about that. You know, I mean, I can't tell you
how many times a month I think that and so, um, I just wanted the community to know
and to be engaged in the good work that we're doing and, and to know that there's
a course corrections that we need to consider that they didn't let us know. And you
know, I um, we see the same handful of faces every week in our public comments and
I don't want that to be the only way that we're communicating with the public and
hearing from the public. So I think, um, having a pretty thoughtful discussion
about what proactive communications plan would look like and how we respond to opportunities
when good things happen or bad things when storms happen. I mean, I don't mean bad
things like bad, but I need my challenges our community faces together. How can we
communicate more effectively about them. Um, that's my number one priority that I
don't see being matched currently. Well we have 1700 and 35 followers on our Facebook
page. So People are engaged to some extent and 1500
likes and I don't know whether likes are important. I think maybe they are. Um but
you know, website optimization and press releases or or two areas where I think um
you know, we need some work done
kate, you need it. But are there others to like now, is the time to be thinking,
you know, should we be thinking about other social media platforms? Um if we're going
to be assisting or doing capacity to emergency management and communications, what
do they need? They probably have very specific needs. Um uh you know, public works,
road condition closures. That kind of information be great to be folding into this.
Yeah. And you know, I don't understand why john morrow has a regular slot on K. P.
T. C. And the chair of our board does not Okay.
I think I think we should approach them and have a have a weekly, I don't know. I
don't know how long johns pieces are they? What are they 10 minutes or so,
Longer than 10. We do have our timeless doctor very every week. Right. But
that's, you know, myopically focused on covid. Yeah. And there are other things that
people might want to hear about.
Mhm.
Oh, it's a big big undertaking. Um as a suggestion
uh If we're talking about public public health communication processes. One we might
want to emulate or used as our basis or even house uh this person, I think they should
be involved in the conversation because they're doing it effectively why we are but
then you know, of course serving other departments like what are your communication
needs, what do you want to get out there and what information you need to process
from the public as well? Uh I think we can make a pretty, it wouldn't take long to
establish what people anticipate their communication needs are. I think I'm with
Heidi, there's many opportunities where I feel like, oh man, I guess maybe I should
get on social media myself to go, you know, proclaim something that that the county's
working on that that we have information to that I know people want, so we have a
lot of information that we want to get out there and I think that is a big part of
our push to uh um but it's the position myself, I
don't we have a lot of opportunities for dialogue with the public already, we get
emails all the time and I, you know, go out and read with the public. So personally
I don't feel that I really need a commissioner two way interaction to a degree higher
than we have now, but I do think that we as a county can do a better job putting
information out there where people find it, that that might. Mhm.
Yeah, yeah because like our board and commission opening. Yeah, I was just thinking
about that board. Yeah. Great. Mhm.
Um Okay, so it sounds like maybe we go back to public health and um maybe expand
that conversation a little bit with some other departments mark and see if we can
further um define what that scope might look like.
Peter you are commissioner lead on this or can we assign one of us so somebody can
report back or I have been by default because I've been the one watching a communications
for some for a long time as in the advocate, so I'm happy to continue to do that.
I think that would be great because let me know there's somebody with their
so um kate, how about I set up a go to meeting with all of um
commissioner department heads. Um and with veronica and
maybe Bonnie and and Liz and maybe we can have a a think piece brainstorming session.
I mean I think the elective probably have an interest in this too. I was gonna suggest
that we do elect this after we, after we have our own discussion so that we will
come across with the elected a little more organized and with a better baked product.
If we start with a smaller group. You and I, Apple and veronica and Lillian monty
maybe. Okay. And narrow down a little bit more what what was what the G.
M. And public works need or anticipate using and then see if that would fit with
the public health um, model.
Okay. And then we have another iteration to talk to Heidi and Greg about or take
the larger group. Yeah. Okay. I'll set that up and Sarah, I don't know how,
how involved you want to or should be in that discussion.
Well, I'm happy to participate. I do have ideas about about it.
Um, and I think that it tends to get really complicated, as you said with all the
different social media platforms. I also see it as an opportunity to really um
develop the culture side of the, the county, um, the county government. And
when you have, when you have an ability to even journal on social media and stories
about it and what's going on. Um, I think that could be a really good voice for um,
than are people who work here too. So good for the community, good for the people
that serve the community. Yeah, that's true. It tends to highlight good work that
staff is doing. And um, yeah, you have the ability to do a lot of things to build
trust and relationships in
sounds like a great plan. The Markkula Sarah and that invite.
Thank you guys, mm be continued. Anything else you want to cover on this communications
position topic today?
Well, we do, we related as the state of the
county coming up. That Greg and I are both. Um, so, um,
I'm giving back from my constituents, why are you doing it? And I'm like, well we
talked about it. Greg raised their hands and so I don't know. I think you had a complex,
didn't you? I think I did, yeah,
It's the 21st and I've got my meeting as a fairly light agenda, so I'm still
attending it, but so I might be a minute or two late is the worst that would happen.
So maybe we should plan for you to be the first presenter and meet the second presenter.
Um Actually that would be great because I have a county coordination meeting at 10
30. So I would do maybe that first that the chamber will do their own introduction
and such. But um if I need to sign off at 10 30 maybe I could do my piece and then
you do yours after you. And would you be able to stick around for answering questions
and
Okay. Um should we divvy up what we want to speak to the state of the
county? Um So um certainly open
to what what people think we should include. I would be inclined to talk about
the budget About kind of uh goals and priorities for probably two year
horizon. Um
I think that would easily take up the 20 minutes that I have. I think of the budget
as a great educational opportunity. I tend to Sprinkle analyze kind of physics. Um
Is that, you know um this is how, how we are, where our revenues come from and how
those mechanisms work property tax, sales tax, that kind of thing. I think letting
people not, not going through the list of committees but letting them know that we
each have about 20 committee defendants and those fellas is off on the website. If
they're interested in any of those topic areas, talk about the rest of activities
that the county takes care of, which incorporates that and also the myriad departments
that we have that, you know, how, how often the county touches your life is something
that people don't really, that that follows the budget conversation, I think pretty
well too. Mhm.
Um I would guess that that people would like to hear about housing, but you're welcome
to speak. I can certainly speak to housing the whole continuum of housing and what
we're doing and what we can do partnerships and, and you know, people's responsibility
and yeah, I'll talk about housing breadth of the uh, breath of the county. We want
to talk about any particular projects. We want to catch anything. Um, for business
owners, do we want to maybe talk about the uh grants that we've just been working
on? BBC. Yeah, good idea.
I was speaking to our update as goals and priorities for two years. Yeah, yeah,
you can speak to that right to that. You're gonna talk about priorities.
Yeah. And let's legislate events, uh potential infrastructure,
positioning ourselves. Well, the state and federal. Yeah. Um Okay. I think
talking about the partnership. I think we do. We are in a new era of partnership
with our partner jurisdiction. So maybe speak a little bit to the I. C. G. And I
can do that in the breath of the counting. Great. And maybe talk about um like
how we've reached out to the chamber and like public health now as a liaison with
the chamber trying to improve communications with Covid.
Should we talk about Covid?
It was a little reluctant speak about Covid.
All right, well we can we'll have questions about it. We can address. Um Yeah the
numbers change so quickly. We know generally what we're doing. I don't think hopefully
we're communicating that the business grant program is in response to Covid. Right?
You can talk about it. You can preamble the business grant talk with, you know, as
part of our response to Covid. And I can talk about DARPA as part of the uh state
and federal relations. What we're doing type of fun. Okay, well I'll get an outline
of my, I don't know my with my side and and maybe we can bounce it through Mark to
make sure that we we complement each other and what we're gonna talk about. Yeah.
Or next week although maybe we want to keep it um lighting under wraps. Yeah build
the anticipation. So excited. The governor's during the state of the
excitement there. Yeah. Power point just talking. Right. Um, I usually do a power
point for it. Sorry, how are you?
I don't think maybe I didn't last year. I probably did. Mm Then your slide deck to
martin so I can build on, I mean one slide deck to better than two. Alright, okay.
That's good. It was really different to touch on that. It's all relevant and interesting.
So you want the same slide template for everybody? Yeah.
Yes. Our communications, our communications plan has the template for official jefferson
County commissioner business
to finish up. She did a great job.
Problema temper a bit, feels like a good starting point for me. When is the exact
when is the presentation Next Friday at 10 weeks from the 21st. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.
So since the last meeting on the third we start, we talked about our committee assignments.
I wondered if we wanted to review where we landed or I printed out the list and saved
them into the G drive. So everyone has those. There's no questions or arm wrestling
that needs to happen in this moment. I'm feeling good. Thanks. Yeah, you too.
Okay. But I want to make sure Heidi you're the one. I think you might have unexpected
impact. So as you get into the chair. So it's always open if we need to,
this is Caroline here. If you were ready to approve that list. It hasn't been approved
yet this year. So so I could have it open. I could put it on the screen and
that will do it. Make sure her until
hey you see it
very small benefit for the benefit of the public. Maybe go go to a single page
two men. All of them.
My heart.
Can you see it?
That's that's page one.
I think I got all of that changes that I heard that you guys had or updates.
Okay. Can I go to page 2?
It's too
so we're pretty evenly divided if you look at the tallies at the bottom of the page
and Greg, have you heard if you've been appointed to the Housing Finance Commission
yet? No. Okay. Okay. That's the only question on the list.
See I can make it bigger for myself can't I?
Yeah.
And that.
Yeah. Thank you. Looking good. I'm happy to make a motion to approve the uh committee
assignments list for 2022
today. I'm in favor. Thanks. Okay.
Nice work. Everyone
anything else? We didn't we didn't we didn't look forward. Yeah. Also wouldn't mind.
Does a better time on legislative update.
Okay let's start with looking forward and then we'll do legislative update. Um I'm
gonna grab a an important call. Okay I can go first. Uh
Let's see um tomorrow have the first meeting the subcommittee to talk about
the jefferson transit about the strategic plan and the changes I think kate and I
are both on that as a minority of the jefferson transit authority, discussing
meeting with staff and public works. Talk about medium risk waste and then going
to walk around with business on on glen cove a little bit tomorrow. On Wednesday
we have the olympic area agency board, the first meeting with our new directory,
Jeff johnston excited about that. Um and then we have the development meeting for
seven haven the uh tentatively scheduled affordable housing task force has been canceled
because we don't have the official uh membership from the city. So after we do the
housing task force and the housing fund board which is replacing J. O. B. Then we
can decide what the housing task force looks like. So that was on my schedule for
Wednesday but not their fully capped meeting on Wednesday. Um visiting some
residents uh try to go to the um opera meeting kind of local investment
opportunities on friday. And we have the normal thursday railroad update on the Brown
Village and the behavioral health consortium is on thursday afternoon and then
saturday while I take my daughter to get her booster. I'm also meeting a public health
director to um uh walk around and uh we focus the opposing
clinic on saturday. That's my
Sounds like a busy one. Um uh
I have a meeting regarding the moderate with risk waste facility with public work.
Um Tomorrow I'm having lunch with prosecutor Kennedy and my self
prescribed um checking in with people in the beginning of the year. Um, I'm working
with Quinn and kevin on the next phase of redistricting, which is precinct balancing.
We're just having a planning meeting to talk about what we just did with commissioner
districts and go over the next step. I am commencing operations day the sheriff's
orchard this week, starting on Wednesday with blood collection from the trees with
a farmer from spring lane farms. We all know who that is. Um housing tuition
network. I'm gonna attend the sanitation hat just cause I'm interested to hear the
questions and thoughts people are having about sanitation in the community. So um,
that would be a good forum to hear from folks attending the potential of trails.
Coalition board meeting. We're having a um meeting regarding the port
Townsend derelict vessels pilot project which is something that I started in my work
at the maritime center and I'm now helping with um, uh, just to make sure
that gets off the tarmac. Um, I'm excited about that. There's, there are about 10
derelict vessels sitting in the long term yard in the forge. You'll see them when
you come down this way and also that the vote for the pilot or some of the votes
for the pilot um, shredding of the fiberglass boats and with uh agenda planning was
marked for next week. Um, on friday I'm meeting with our legislative delegation to
talk about the straight E. R. N. L. I. O. Legislative priorities which we spent the
last seven or eight months on and are getting some good traction and various venues
with those um legislative priorities which will all benefit our marine waters around
us. Um And then on friday I'm starting the NEKO uh county leadership academy.
No all week. I really feel full. Um
Yeah and okay we'll come back and tell us what she's doing or Mark will come back
and tell us what he's doing. We went after all gone.
Mhm.
What do we want to do Greg? So your meanest? Well that's good because I. T. V.
Room.
Yeah we don't really have anything else on the agenda. Right. Well yeah
I just said about days
creating that music video right now. Get that banjo out. I've always I've always
got something. Last one I wrote was too snarky. I couldn't share Greg.
One will snacky.
I've been doing some research on how to engage you know how the community outreach
is the local life and official and you know the whole conversation about social media
I just I don't focus much on my facebook account. I'm happy to say that here publicly.
Um So waiting whether I should be on there more with getting positive proactive
messages out or I take much better about it but maybe
yeah it's interesting and I don't mean on my own personal page to put county stuff.
I feel a little uncomfortable and it would be the only thing I put up anyway so I
just social media makes b confirmation by ss community. That's my that's
my judgment on all social media.
Mark. You want to tell us what have you? You haven't given up your look forward yet
keep still on a call I think.
Well I have got a lot of staff work to do. Um I've got to put together
um and agenda request for the eye allayed with jefferson transit. I've got to put
together a hearing notice. Um We got the this ordinance back
from Chief black and apparently we have unanimity with the Fire chiefs on the proposed
ordinance.
So I need to um scheduled workshop on the on the island document at the same time.
I'll ask the board to approve a hearing notice. Um I've got to have you heard that
we need an agreement with the D. c. for the 500,000 and business grants. I've got
to write that up quickly. I need to put together a contract with Bayside for housing
of people involved in drug drug court. And I've got to get amendment to the alley
cat contract for the mill road properties to the board on monday. So in addition
to various meetings I've got a lot of that work to do.
Sorry we keep making more work for you. That's okay and I got to set up that meeting
to talk communications. Oh yeah watch to do.
Yeah
I'm not sure what kate.
I'm gonna go knock in new york.
Um
They've got a call. She can't get off right now. Mhm.
Do we take
Come back at 4 10? Hang on. Okay
mm
interested. That's correct.
I'm here and he captures on.
Okay. We went through
we went through our looking forward all three of us marked Greg and myself. So if
you want to do that and then legislative. I'm sorry. Did you?
Yeah, what we can mean.
Okay looking ahead this week. Um so it's my meeting with the
public works tomorrow. I'll do on the uh ports and moderate waste
issue. Um I feel like I'm probably repeating a lot of what Greg said um followed
by a meeting of the subcommittee rejection transit to discuss long range plan um
meeting tomorrow afternoon on this electrician apprenticeship um bill that will be
testifying on third early thursday morning. We have a meeting with the senator who
is sponsoring the bill on that on Wednesday. So our legislative work this week policy
management group on Wednesday. Um I have a meeting with R. D. C. Team
taking over his chair of NBC. Um meeting with Karen fl and Mark to discuss kind of
our plans for that organization in the coming year. Um been meeting with the olympic
huddling trust thursday afternoon here. What they're up to uh friday of the legislative
during committee meeting and then meeting with the new commissioner from thurston
county on friday afternoon. So not too heavy a week. I feel like my calendar isn't
totally populated yet with new committee, so I better go back through your handy
list tidy and see what's what's missing. Um, the legislative steering committee chairing
is pretty fairly demanding. I feel like I have to be much more informed on bills.
I used to be able to just sit in and listen and let my ears perk up and something
came up that interested me and was like, no, okay, now I have to really be informed.
So that's going to require a lot more time and attention and that's very last minute.
You know, things change quickly. So, um, that's gonna keep me busy on my toes.
We're all busy.
I'd like to report on a few bills, um, whenever the good time to study.
Yeah, don't do that with next. So we're done with our looking forward and um, legislative
update for next. Hmm. Um, one of particular note is, uh, they'll have
1638, which um, is giving authority to counties to prohibit fireworks when
environmental conditions apply. Um, And there's also provisions for prohibiting the
selling of fireworks up to, and only a 90 day window for that, not the one year window.
So it also eliminates the one year window for, um, for the prohibition on firework.
I've not had a chance to look at that yet. Um, watch is interested in having folks
willing to testify on that issue, um, that he was interested um look that up 1638.
I can't remember when the uh committee meets sometime this week. Um uh You know we
might be a little further along in our thinking on this. We might have some interesting
you know input to suggest for example that you know, we're looking at having each
fire district to be able to do it instead of counties as a blanket and might be more
palatable as uh fire achieved for fire district decision. And then there's some question
on the um what science to rely on? It's the D. N. R. Um designation
of of emergency or threat is sufficient or if there's more local conditions that
should apply. So um there uh just I know that they have been
approached before about doing a bill similar to this, but I see it gets contraction
right now.
Um Hello, 1618 and 1630 looks to be contentious so they're both
prohibiting weapons. Um what is it, election-related offices and one of the school
board and other government meetings. Um And uh
those bills are probably going to get a lot of pushback from from Los At. Um and
you know, I think um if anyone is interested in myself included, I might be interested
in testifying in favor of some prohibitions. They probably don't hear from a lot
of especially rural counties that support limiting um where what public space
can be in. But I'm I'm happy to be a voice on that. Um Senate bill 55 97
is the Washington voter rights act and it has um failed previously.
Apparently it is not well written, very difficult. I have a lot of problems, but
um right now walk back is focused on the kind of structural problems with the bill.
Um So they did not support the previous bill either and that's gonna be tough for
me. Um not voting in favor of voting rights. Um But of course, you know, it's
the devil's in the details with how that's implemented. Especially auditors, you
know, and and their um the importance of having statues. That makes sense that is
implemented by our auditors for elections is really important. So, fingers crossed
look at that bill cleans up um uh the place that it can be supportive.
Um The governor's proposed budget did not provide any additional funding for blake,
which is very upsetting. So there is a bill to um
fund additional liabilities from the blake case. Um couple
of growth management, one which was moved growth management to an 8 to 10 year review
cycle. Comprehensive planning tenure, uh update cycle with tribal
participation. Um There's another one. Bill 55 93 that allows
countries to look at patterns of development and move urban growth boundaries. So
development is happening in one direction and not in another um to allow the growth
urban growth boundaries to reflect that reality. Um That is currently being
looked favorably upon by taking a final position, but they like that flexibility,
of course the local control. Um I think I'm gonna have a 55 degree. Yeah. Yes. Senator
short is the sponsor. I think it's gonna have might have some trouble in a strongly
democratic legislature right now, but but we'll see maybe some comfort built in there.
There's another G. M. A. Bill 1627 that would allow utilities to go beyond the urban
growth boundaries. Um so currently that's allowed just for schools, um emergency
public health situations that we talked about, but that's another one that we might
want to track. Would that apply to the sewer and Brennan? Yeah. Yeah,
likely. I can't say for certain, but certainly what I thought of. Hm.
Um the 1799 uh would require um companies to remove food waste from the
waste stream. So very expensive. But it's a methane reduction bill has given us a
sponsor who is very highly regarded as an environmental sponsor, a bunch of environmental
bills. So making some traction. Um remember did you say that like I have the
Montignac hot sheet 1799.
So what what what happens to the food when it's removed from the waste stream? Where's
your coat ideally composted? Um And whether that's you know locally or sent elsewhere.
Um That's you know, likely for the county to figure out what works for them. I pick
up food waste from two different places on a weekly basis for our farm, there's always
use for it. So when, when the food is converted in the compost, it doesn't give off
gasses as it as it changes form. It does, it can um
uh it varies a lot depending on what the these stocks are, the compost and what you
can capture and what you can't. Um So hard to generalize that going into a landfill.
It is um, it does create methane um you know, in our case that methane is captured
for electricity generation. Um so, you know, it's, there's the analysis is
tricky. Um but it's one we should definitely track, presumably it would be, you know,
people will be making the case that if that's a new mandate that it needs to be funded.
So uh stay tuned. We've been talking about that as black a little bit over the last
few months. Yeah. It would be interesting to you guys take a look at it. Um, do some
analysis. Yeah. They, an alternate approach would be the mandate methane capture
in landfills. Right? Yeah. But if you remember like Laura
tucker is her grant program in the school district. I think they can put in thousands
of pounds of food waste a year. It's not that hard to do it. It does make a lot of
sense.
1 1 List. Are you reading offices out of curiosity. So I'm going from the, I write
down the ones that I think are of interest to us from quote from the legislative
steering committee. Yeah, yeah. So each staff member from walk back lift the bills
that they're tracking and considering a position on and I just jot down the ones
that I think are relevant to our county our interest
guys, I think those are, those are the most relevant ones. I mentioned the Lorraine
Loomis Act, um, which would be really massive shift. Um, I didn't say that it relies
on um, the site potential tree height for determining the width of the criterion
area. And um, that is, has been very controversial and not well accepted as best
available science by counties. Um, but it would be used in determining that central
street height is the best available science. Um, quite a bit of pushback on that
watch that has um, a number of points that they're very concerned about in that bill,
some of which I share. Um And yet I also um know that we
are still losing ground on salmon recovery and uh Orca
viability. So I I see the names of the tribes are very involved in the creation of
Glory 56 65. Um but that that could be a real battle
um in the legislature this year. I partly think that the democrats are feeling very
gold and wanting to cast um, strong environmental legislation right now because they
can there's certainly some fear of losing uh the sentence in the election next year.
And um, so I think they could be more inclined to move stuff to really quickly as,
uh, we could see some bills that maybe don't get the same amount of time to be
worked out. The kinks worked through adequately. Gonna require some attention from,
from counties. I haven't heard you mention the next ecological game yet. Is there
any GM a film that's pushing down? So, um, lecture legislature created a study group,
ecological game. And that's actually, that wasn't one of my concerns about the Lorraine
limits active. Hey, I thought we were developing this other more adaptive um tool
for, you know, measuring that's the, you know, the tribes are really wanting to be
quantifiable, um, differences in, in impacts and, and therefore, you know, the good
side to be informing it, it is, it bothers me a little bit that we're pushing that
aside uh, for the criterion protection, um, which would, you know, give, well an
involuntary search program is another one of the existing programs or science and
Development that's not yet finished, but were instead of saying, no, we're just gonna
do central tree heights. Um, so that their work group is um, working on that ecological
game, they are expected to reintroduce that bill. Um, but I think people will say
the science hasn't quite figured out yet.
That's what I have. I've had something along to Heidi and I, and if I'm inclined
to pass you guys, you know, broadband ones or things that are of interest in your
shorelines, your areas of interest. But if that's not incoming stuff,
oh, I've got more to come every week. It's
exactly I know, I know I found the food waste one. I was I was over here searching
for us. Mhm. That
anything else,
It was like a long day
4 26 screaming up to the finish line. Um If there's marquis of anything else that
you want to cover today, I think we can adjourn our 10 January
2022 meeting in the Board of County Commissioners in Jackson County. You guys next
week, they will they will. Goodbye.