Good morning. I will call this, uh, September 5th meeting, the board of County commissioners
to order, glad to have people with us today. Um, we'll, uh, start as we always
do, um, by opening up for public comments on any item before us. So, is there
anyone we have no one in the room? Is there anyone online that would like to make
a couple comment this morning?
One hand raise. Go ahead and help Kate. You have something to say. I will while we
wait, I will. Uh, I don't know. I, I know it's the first day of school in Port Townsend.
At least I think other schools started last week. But, uh, I don't know. Fall is
here. The seasons have changed. It's already cooler out and wear a sweater. Like,
uh, welcome to the new season. Well, it is the season of Wooden Bow Festival too.
I drove into town today and they were putting the banner over the street downtown
and exciting. It's official.
All right. Well, as is our practice, we will keep public comment open throughout
until 9 30. We are going to be joined by Doctor Barry and Willie Bentz at 9 45 for
our health update and emergency service services update. So I guess we can take a
look at uh our consent agenda. Any questions or comments on the consent agenda?
I was kind of surprised to see the status update briefing on the stock plan. I was
gonna, yeah, I was like, feel like an agenda item like and it's, I read through it
and there seems to be a lot of, you know, new movement on it and change. Yeah. Yeah.
So I was a little bit confused by that being included on the consensus. The title
changed a couple of times because we were wondering what
and Mark's now in another country. So we can't ask him, Brent is with us. I don't
know, we'll, we'll give an option to uh Mr Butler if you wanna talk about it a little,
you know, we're very interested in the stock plan and the development of that program.
So it would be a appropriate non consent agenda since there's no actual action to
take. Um Yeah, it was, it was a little strange. So he, he assumed that it might be.
Oh, ok.
Hi, Brent. Hi. Um Just wanted to keep you appraise that the uh stock plan uh process
is moving forward. We've had uh um initially from and just to refresh
everyone and, and it was stated in the gender request. We had initially used uh another
municipality's call for projects and they had 100 and 40 submissions and they narrowed
it whittled it down to 10. And then our commission recommended four of those and
then we opened it up so uh to our community to supplement that. And so we wanted
to make sure that um of those that uh were reviewed by the planning commission that
there was an opportunity for local community members to submit. And we did hear in
advance that a lot of our architects and design professionals were really busy and
they would not likely submit some of them that had initially planned to submit could
not because they're several years out on just projects that they're working on. But
we did receive three submissions from three firms. And so we have a total of 34 different
plans. And so our goal uh based upon the direction that we received from the board
was to come back once we've identified which plans have community support and why.
And so, uh we're in the process now of doing that outreach and identifying community
members interested in the plans. And actually tonight at or excuse me, yeah, tonight
at the city council meeting, they're also having um this item before all of the council
members because uh there were uh quite a range of plans and they're, they're also
getting some input. Great. Well, I think, I think great, you're always welcome to
come on to the regular agenda too, to talk about the update. We'd love to, to hear
about it as it moves forward. But I appreciate that. And is there a place on the,
the D CD website that people can see the, you know, the, the larger group that you
guys are looking through right now, it's so easy to get there. You don't even, you
just type in Google under Google, just type in Jefferson County, Washington and stock
plans and it'll be the first hit. Great. Cool. All right. I was really glad to hear
about the collaboration with the city. I hadn't heard that. Um We were doing that
together. So good work making that happen. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, good stuff. All
right. Well, thanks for coming over Brent. Uh We uh return to our consent agenda
unless we have other questions for Mr Butler. We'll welcome uh Monty Rinder, acting
deputy uh county administrator today. Thanks for being with us. Um Alrighty and question
for actually, um I'm looking at the agreement with the Department of Ecology for
the solid waste funding for recycling. I didn't realize that um ecology covered so
much of the cost of that program that it's not a huge amount um because it's usually
that's a biennial amount. So, you know, we, that program is 600,000 a year, so 1.2
million over two years. So they're covering uh what's the amount there? Yeah. Yeah.
Uh but you know, it is some. Yeah. So it's, it's already subsidized by the state
to some degree. Um and just thinking long term about how to make that program sustainable
after you and al said last week, was it that, you know, it was gonna continue to
cost more? Um is, uh is the state pretty consistent in that funding amount or does
it vary? Um you know, a lot of people use that funding for other things like moderate
risk ways we chose years ago to use it to offset some of the costs of recycling because
um mostly because the grant billing requires you to submit all the invoices and
everything. So using it for the moderate risk waste facility was like every can of
paint you got rid of. Whereas with the recycling program, we can submit the 12 invoices,
we get from Skookum a year and say here's our cost and so it makes the administration
of the money, you know, a lot easier that way. Um But uh yeah, you know, recycling
is subsidized in many of the programs just because back in the day shall we say
there was an interest in getting people to recycle. So making it have the appearance
of being free was how you did it, but it's not free because the costs are borne by
the tipping fee. As you know, for, for solid ways. They're um uh you know, there,
there could be other models eventually where um recycling is supported by,
you know, like a solid waste district, an assessment it could be a fee for service,
but, you know, that would take some doing to, you know, get people to pay for that.
Um, but then, you know, you'd see a corresponding decrease on the solid waste side.
So it's the same amount of money. It's just where you collected. Typically people
are maybe, uh if they're paying for something, they, the contamination rate might
go down because usually when you pay for something, you, maybe you are a little more
conscientious about how you use the system and things like that. So I think it'll
evolve for our jurisdiction and others over time, you know, there's a growing realization
that the recycling message has kind of had a,
the unfortunate effect of making, buying lots of plastic feel. Ok. Uh Which is what
the plastic industry intended when they set up the recycling program for it, put
it on the shoulders of the consumer too. Right. Yeah, exactly. So, uh, uh, I know
having been now involved in solid waste for a number of years and, you know, and
it's hard if you're not to see all this stuff. But, uh, for me personally, it's really
hard to buy something in a one single use plastic container. Um, you know, if I go
to the deli at lunch, I'm looking for the thing that's wrapped in a paper which is
harder and harder to find, you know, the everything's in plastic. So, anyway, sorry
to derail the conversation No, no,
we love excitement but I am worried you're gonna get a neck ache using that microphone
all day. Do you want the taller one perhaps so?
Yeah.
Hm. Thank you. Bye bye.
Any other questions or comments?
You know, I mean, we can talk about plastics all day. We could talk about plants
or we could just do that. I mean, or the sewer, right? Great to see the easement
go back the other way by the percolation pond, uh, for, for and everything. It's,
uh, you know, good neighbors. I don't know, not about fencing but about being able
to move vehicles, I think. Yeah, that worked out well for all parties involved there
and all the concrete is gone. Uh, yeah, they are, um, you know, hauling back in the
free draining sand to replace all the unsuitable material that was hauled out. That'll
take some time. And, uh, uh, we're today, guess last, when
was it Thursday today? And tomorrow we're pouring the cut-off wall in the, in the
big, the big bem. It involves a HD PE
liner and a concrete mix to make the, the BEM completely impermeable. Although again,
we don't expect to see a lot of water lapping up against the inside of that BEM anytime
soon. But, um, so that's a big step. And, uh, but, you know, the contractor's crew
is, uh,
uh, for this week and, you know, certainly and maybe a little bit of next week kind
of down to a bare bones crew because they're on the uh Swanson project that the state
is doing and they have to, that's a 24 hour a day job to get that uh Beaver Valley
Road State route 19 reopened within uh is it 10 days? You know, so they have a lot
of work. They got their whole crew over there for the most part, the fifth, the 14th.
Is that right? The Beaver Valley closure expected window I get, yeah, I mean, it
starts to start today and goes for approximately uh 10 days as I recall. So, yeah,
and then Bainbridge is impacted with the seventh. No cars on the Bainbridge very
long. Seventh to the, oh, I didn't even know that 14th or 17th. They, they, the dates
are too similar. I'm getting them mixed up.
Um, so could the percolation pond be a um, affordable um, alternative to for the
swimming pool?
Yeah, if I, if I ever saw that much water in it, I'd be concerned that something's
not draining very well. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Flash park. No, just trying to save
money here. Speaking of parks, I mean, get out and see uh HJ Carroll, the parking
lot is looking really great. Our crew um, sealed it again and it'll get rest DRP
I believe this week. Um uh an improved striping, uh,
lay out to what we had before. Um, did some uh maintenance on uh, the gate at the
area at the uh jump project. That looks really nice. Eric Kuzma and Matt handled
that and, um, still looking into some shade structures to mitigate the issues with
the, uh, some of the play equipment there. So, yeah, I was wondering if they're gonna
turn. Yeah. Right. Well, I think we've determined that shade has multiple benefits
whereas painting no, is white only has one benefit. So that was
over the UK.
Um, I did see the, um, the RCO grant for local parks maintenance. Is that something
we've gotten in the past? I didn't recognize that that's a new program and I don't
know how long it'll last. I'm not that familiar with it but Matt Tyler, the park's
manager, um, uh, I became aware of this new program and applied. Um, you
know, it's a small, it's $100,000 per or parks jurisdiction, whether you're King
County or Jefferson County. So, um, there's, but, you know, not very typical to see
grants for just sort of maintenance. No, I get all the RCO grant emails and so I
sent it to him too and Matt was, he was already aware of it. So it's great. Yeah,
I mean, they should take care of me. I mean, it's, it's reasonable for it to be in
there.
Do we know how competitive that's gonna be? Is that? On the other hand, I think that
one's pretty much, um, if you apply well, Matt would know better but I think there's
$100,000 sitting there waiting for us to use it as long as they're ok with the uses
that are proposed. I know he, you know, talked to the, our grants coordinator at,
at RCO about his ideas there. So hopefully it should just be, uh, there are, there's
another program that is competitive that he's looking into and we'll need to workshop
with the board on um what it's a new program as well and where we should put our
efforts, you know, um with that grant. Um
Yeah, it's so hard to do all this prioritization, the um parks rec advisory board
and then it's like, oh, but funding comes up for, you know, something else I was
like, oh, ok. I think that's always the top of our tip is what's available funding
opportunistic. That is the thing. I mean, with the T IP again, yeah, it's like, it's
driven almost 100% by what, what the state and Feds are willing to fund, right? Rather
than necessarily what maybe our top priorities would be. Um uh And, you know, here,
here you go with the parks um, grants as well, you know. Yeah. Well, I mean, so often
the parks are not funded at all, at all, you know, like just projects that you can
go apply for. So it's good that the state's recognizing the ongoing maintenance needs.
All right. Well, happy, I'm happy to make a motion to approve the
consent agenda for September 5th 2023. 1 2nd. Ok. It's been moved and seconded to
approve and adopt the consent agenda as presented all in favor. Indicate by saying
hi, hi, hi. All right. That passes. We have a consent agenda. I'll make another call
to the public. Anyone with us, we would love to hear from you. We'll keep a public
comment open till 9 30. But if you're online with us, you can hit the raise hand
button or star nine if you're on a phone and I see no hands yet. So I guess we have,
let's see, at 9 45 we'll be joined by Doctor Barry and Willie Bentz. So I guess we
have some time to look at last week and now I wonder, um Caroline, do we know if
Bill Dowling is joining for the proclamation? He is, but he wasn't gonna be available
until after 10 after the. Ok. Of course, you've thought that through.
Yeah, great question. Do you have access to your calendar cake? You wanna take a
look back?
Um
Right.
So, uh let's see last week. Um had a good meeting with a gathering place and Mark
mccauley on the um potential lease for a building site at the fairgrounds and we
were able to kind of delineate their needs. Um It was followed by a tour at the fairgrounds
which I did not join for. But um some members of the board the fairgrounds, the uh
fair grounds manager gathering place and mark all identified a site that they thought
was most suitable for gathering place needs. Which yeah, yeah, it still needs to
go uh to the Fairgrounds board for formal approval. And I think ultimately we're
giving mark the authority, the administrator, the authority to approve um those decisions
at the fairgrounds. But um uh it seems like there is consensus and that's a necessary
step for a gathering place to uh be able to get to the next level of um design with
their architect um to get cost estimates and such. So, really nice to see progress
there. Um Where is it gonna go? So, I believe in the um no,
uh west corner or somewhere in the northwest quadrant, which is a parking area currently.
But yeah, but there's some ability to move, shift parking around, there's a lot of
open space there. Um So I think the perception is that the um you know, value of
having a brand new building there is uh and you know, providing a home for a great
community partners uh more important than parking that mostly sits empty right throughout
the year. Um Let's see a lot of preparation last week. Um The Puget Sound Partnership
Leadership Council is meeting at the Sco reservation and the coordinating council
is presenting um each leader, well, two leadership councils a year, we have a local
integrating organization present um on local issues And so we've been working on
the Coordinating Council's presentation um and uh done a lot of work to kind of
craft a, a case study and message, which um yeah, we, we will be talking about Brennan
some of the challenges that we, we restoration um inner faces with Lamar.
Um and the need for um wanting to go back to a watershed planning model that
we know that these projects or funding comes up um where, you know, projects really
need to be almost shovel ready to in order to be funded. And there isn't really a
any organization, any entity funded right now to be doing all of that preplan work
to have something in the hopper that's kind of ready to go. So we're gonna uh propose
that there needs to be um some funding for perhaps L I Os to uh serve in that
role um to increase their coordination efforts. Um And part
of that, the focus of that we are suggesting should really be about uh addressing
the multi benefit issues. So almost all projects now are met with a pretty predictable
set of stakeholders, with varying interests and that we actually need better, more
sophisticated frameworks for diagram. Yeah. Yeah. Um And of course, Tammy has been
doing that work for a long time. Um And so hoping to pull her into the conversation
as well. Um Typically, the local integrating organizations are asking something of
the Leadership Council um that the leadership council is in a position to kind of
advance. So those are both asks that um we could help advance either in the um budget
or the state budget or through how EPA funds L I Os or. So, um Stay tuned per Cardinal
is usually good about attending those leadership council meetings. Um So she'll probably
be able to carry that forward to the our other lio. Um So I'll be attending that
meeting. That'll be my only other in person meeting next week is down in um for that
meeting. Um Let's see, we were all at the budget meeting fairly
status quo there. Um
uh had a meeting on legislative priorities with the leadership council at a number
of legislative priorities meetings last week. It's head is swimming a little bit
with various legislative efforts. Um And I'm not ready to go there yet and I know
this is when you have to do it during the inter session. But I'm like, didn't we
just wrap up and I'm not ready to think about it, but here we are. Uh I had a good
talk with Josh Peters about the um Lamar's proposal that um both of you have seen
also legislative ask. It's interesting. Both he and Paul Jell um really feel like
the, the uh Senator Short Bill 52 75 from a couple of years ago, really allows a
lot of flexibility in Lamar's and my impression has been that it has not been interpreted
as such, um, in, in Jefferson County and, you know, that could be different administrators
or, uh, planners. But, um, I mean, the, the hearing how, how both Josh and Paul interpreted
it, they, they feel like there's not a need for a change that really we could up
zone land, it's very easily for more dense residential housing which, um, and, and
then Josh talked to commerce too. It's not just local interpretation, but also kind
of on the statewide level, maybe in interpretation is, is aligned with that. Right.
Yeah. In the case of the, the Brian, the, the sewer, uh, potential in Britain that
yes, he did address that, but I had not heard that for housing that could potentially
upset it. But, um, where septic would then be the limiting factor, not the, um, drain.
Yeah, not the underlying zoning, which there isn't really an la apparently we have
a lot of latitude there. So, um, I am doing some more research there and, you know,
trying to wrap our heads around. Um, and I think both and, uh, Brennan are good case
to be a little later that so, um, you know, I'm mostly, um, away these days and that's
the kind of thing I'm hoping to dig into, like, I'm not gonna do as much day to day
work. But, yeah. Yeah, a lot of time to dig into stuff like that. So that's one thing
I'll be working on. Um,
of course, at our special meeting um on the drainage district, we decided to declare
it inactive but keep it alive and hope that a consensus will form from stakeholders
on how to move that forward. Um I had a call with our uh communications manager,
Wendy Davis and then she's hoping to do a uh workshop with us and maybe right when
Mark gets back to, you know, kind of say she's been at this for eight or nine months
and what's working, what isn't, what are our priorities? What's the best use of her
time? Um, so stay tuned for that conversation. Maybe give some thought to, um, you
know, what you think has been, uh, valuable. I think she's looking for a little more
direction. Ok. Yeah. Interesting to see her name as one of the coordinators on the
stock plans, uh, stuff. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think that's, you know, kind of question
that she's like, what's, where am I supposed to be investing? Yeah. Worthwhile. Yeah.
Um, and that's, that was my week.
All right. Do you want to take a look? Sure. Well, why don't you let me make one
more call for public comment. If you'd like to make public comments about any topic
we would love to hear from you. You can hit the raise hand button or Star nine if
you're on the phone. It's always funny when I see the names of people who are sitting
there on the attendee list and they're so quiet. Hm.
Ok. I was my wife but I won't. Hi, Stacey. Um, so last week, let's see
was with you guys on Monday. Of course. And then, um, um, Tuesday, the
29th of August is my mom's birthday and I was not in the courthouse on Tuesday. I
was tending to my best, my, my best friend's birthday
and, um, in the middle of the day I did host a meeting with Senator Van Der Weg who's
running for commissioner of public lands and some forest, interested folks in the
county. And that, um, that was an interesting conversation and, you know, became
clear to me that where his priority is really, he's really gonna lead with firefighting,
which makes sense based on his professional background. And it also, um, underscore
that there are parts of DNR that, um, you know, I'll be working with Kevin so he
understands more about in the future. Um, but I think that it's gonna be interesting
to see what happens with the primary in that race because it's, there's a number
of candidates or, or presumed candidates, um, I think five or six. So, um, I
am withholding an endorsement in Telstra primary, but we'll see, we'll see how that
goes. It's always interesting to have those kind of open ended conversations though.
And I felt, um, glad to have the folks in the room who were asking the questions,
have the opportunity and, and to hear the answers. So I think Kevin has uh some
frustration and I think he lumps state lands in with federal land saying that there
are, I think he was saying 53,000 acres of forest lands that are,
that are locked up and I don't want to see anymore get, you know, set aside. And
so if there are proposals to um exchange or do land exchanges, so that
there's a say there's a parcel that we would like to see not harvested. We need to
come forward with a proposal for where we could see a harvest. And that's his, his
kind of priority in terms of not setting more acres aside. So um that's the nutshell
from that meeting and then budget meeting on Wednesday morning with you all. And
then I was joined in my office by a couple of housing advocates in the community
and had a lively conversation with them about some of their priorities and concerns
um a lot of human dignity stuff, you know, and I think I'm not really the housing
commissioner. And so it's interesting for me every once in a while to have these
meetings and get insights from folks that you guys probably hear from once a week.
But um some concerns about how OAP is running the Caswell Brown
and what's planned for the permanent shelter there and what kind of um
facilities for people to gather and socialize and things like that. I've heard the
same pitch con grave setting shouldn't be, it's not, not appropriate for some people.
Yeah. Well, can I say, I think the the the bigger issue behind that is, is people
wanting an opportunity for input? And um so, you know, I, I think the message I hope
is getting is we need to provide opportunities for um for community stakeholder input.
We, that is required for all things we do. We are a partner in that project and I,
I think we do need to hold them to a standard of that opportunity, providing opportunities.
I mean, they get a voice, not a vote. And uh you know, this is uh an advocate that
has uh hit up every board member at OAP and is now, you know, just casting a, a,
a wider and wider net to try to get the change that they want into a design that's
already been funded. And it's, you know, I don't know, I guess I'm, I'm being the
anti sunshine guy but um I think that, um, you know, we do process
everyone's voice and we try hard to do that is not the same as the government. Of
course, they are a, a nonprofit, quasi governmental and in some weird ways. But um
the same that Bayside doesn't have to ask, you know, you buy your, buy your leave
to, to buy the stair house only cap also. I mean, it's county property and everything
we need to make sure it's used appropriately, but there's a lot of, uh I don't know,
I guess just continuing to complain about one issue to a wider and wider net is not
the kind of public involvement that ends up in good projects, I don't think. But
like if, if there was a design charrette where there was an opportunity to provide
meaningful input, at least, you know, I think that makes, helps people feel heard
and I, I know that the timing can be challenging, especially with design and funding.
And I totally get that you have a funded design. Do you want to have? Is that that's
not the time figure, you're right. Right. Yeah. And I mean, it sounds like there's
still some opportunity for tweaking some things and that has been willing to do that
and I really appreciate that.
Ok. So um then uh let's see, Wednesday, midday, a strategic plan team meeting
um that was actually the implementation planning meeting. So the meeting to plan
implementation meeting. So that's, but the strategic plan has, the draft has been
further refined and sent out and it looks great to me. I um think that pictures are
much improved and anyway, really happy with the process and product and the implementation
will be where the rubber meets the road and it will be interesting to have that conversation
with our team. Um uh Then a meeting
regarding the chi outreach strategies um regarding the Chim drainage district. So
with our consultant. Further kind of thinking through our, how we will do the outreach
um to get the, the right quantity and quality of input into the drainage district
decision that's ahead of us. So a lot of interest in having multiple smaller conversations
versus kind of large rooms full of people. So I think that's, that's the um approach
we'll be taking. Then Wednesday afternoon, uh took the Port Townson Paper Corporation
up on a tour of the paper mill, which was awesome. Carolyn myself and six or seven
others, uh, from the county family went down to the paper mill and had a really long,
nice tour with, um, will the, uh, I think he's the CEO current CEO there. And then
you were gonna be doing a tour on Thursday. Ok. With a couple of our folks I shared
with no one. Ok. Yeah, we tried to work out. Ok. So, but it was great and, you know,
it's interesting, I've been on a mill tour probably 20 years ago and I was saying,
do we get to see the big, the, the big, there's the part of the, um, process where
you go into this dark room with these huge, um, lids that sit on top of,
uh, the pressurized ones at the digester and they're just these massive bolts and
nuts. And I'm like, I'm like, where's the rinse? I wanna see that rinse. So it's
just the, the scale of the industry there is, is a little bit astonishing. Yeah.
Um, the age of and all the abandoned in place, infrastructure, you know, like this
big concrete curve place where some giant engine used to go. Then obviously 10 times,
someone said I'm gonna jack hammer that concrete away. But no, they get away and
it's still there. I love that. Yeah. The use of the term abandoned in place was frequent.
Yeah. But, you know, also good to see, you know, you could see people members of
the team working and just the, um, I was struck by the precision with the woman who
was tearing the paper and folding it so it could run into the next part of the process.
And it was just like this very, um, exact uh part of the process. So
anyway, you know, the machinists, they're making their own parts because they sit
and 290 people. Yeah. The major majority of the staff are in maintenance, right?
Is that not what we heard? Yeah. So that was interesting and always good to get a
look inside of that part of our community. And let's see, 296 folks work at the paper
mill. It's a big, big employer in our community. A lot of cardboard. Yeah, they do
take a lot of cardboard. Um, and then Thursday was a catch up day. The first
ketchup day I've had in actually many weeks. So I was here just working through a
stack of papers. Um And then Friday morning, I went out and met with Steve Grace
and did a walk on the Quimper loss wilderness again and just let him know that we
were going to be pursuing a trust land transfer application for that Cape George
parcel. So he was excited about that and because the quer lost wilderness is embedded
within that parcel. So um met with Carrie Hart regard height, sorry, sorry, Carrie
Carrie Height regarding the pool later that morning just to get an update on um that
what, you know, the plans and what what we're thinking in terms of funding and the
public, public benefit district versus the Yeah, public benefit district and
sales tax, not property tax. Yeah, which would be a um a vote of the people and yeah,
question of of when. Um So yeah, yeah. So I I
did ask her for like an executive summary on the pool. So because I get a lot of
folks reaching out about the pool and with varying degrees of understanding of what
the proposal is and I I said it would be great to just have like a summary of one.
Yeah. And she said she was gonna work on that. Yeah, because the consultants are
preparing their final report. Um I think we, we see it on Friday of this week. Um
and it will have an executive summary and the out like next week. Yeah. Um And then
I was on KPTZ with Chief Black talking about uh fire conditions because despite the
rain, we've had the last week still really dry. And there was actually in the, that
crazy thunder and lightning storm we had, was it last weekend. Um, there was actually
a, a tree that was, um, caught fire. Yeah. Struck by lightning caught fire. The,
the water put it out, the rain, put it out for a bit. But then once the sun came
out, it flamed back up. So even in the midst of that crazy thunder and lightning
storm fires can be started. So, yeah. So anyway, um
don't be, don't be mis misled by the wet conditions folks. It's still dry out there.
What song did you choose to play out? Talking heads burning down the house? I just
love that. Yeah. Yeah. You're that every other radio show I've been like, I forgot
the song this time. I did not forget the song Commissioner. Um And then we had our
little hearing on the drainage district declaring it inactive but not dissolving
it. And then I met with Mallory and Catherine about our four trust line transfer
applications which we will be submitting by the end of the month. And that was it.
Except for the highlight of my week I would say was on Saturday. We had our first
ever block party in my neighborhood and it was great just to meet people who lived
there a long time and never met each other. People have just moved to the neighborhood.
People showed up with £6 of pulled pork that they'd made themselves. It was just
really uh fun, good, good and good. And everyone, and we, we did, I I printed out
a big aerial photo of the neighborhood, the block that was meeting, which was actually
a few blocks and had everyone put their contact information and a post it note on
where they lived and then typed it all up and send it out to everyone. So we started
our in prep list that day. And yeah, so it was really, really fun and everyone's
motivated to build it. I said, well, maybe if you know, you can reach out to the
neighbors, a couple of neighbors on either side of you to build the list. So we'll
just keep organizing our neighborhood. So feeling good about that. Yeah, medical
devices, propane tanks, there's a few things they say to put on that map. Um Oh,
that's really helpful. It might be good. Good to check in with the Willie on the
um we have that in our neighborhood. That's, it's great to who needs oxygen, who
has propane tanks for the other one? Good for everyone. We have Willy with us in
just a minute. Yeah. Oh, awesome. Ok. So maybe I can get more input there. So, all
right, that was your week. Yeah, that was my week. Um I'll see if I can wrap this
up in five minutes. Let's see with you. Of course, on Monday, Tuesday, the big thing,
the left one retirement uh group that I'm part of. I think I mentioned this before.
We're still dealing with one kind of sticky wicket. This is for firefighters and
law enforcement officers that had retired a long time ago. Basically, there's nine
people in our program, I think two of them live out of state. So don't really um
uh use the benefit port towns and in Jefferson County pay for this out of our general
fund. The last one I think I told you we had a um there was a helicopter ambulance
trip that's like to the tune of $40,000 that we'll likely have to pay. So we are
moving forward with getting airlift and life flight for all of the uh members that
are in Washington State. So it's, you know, less than $1000 a year to uh cover those,
any of those costs per person though. Right to, it's, it's like 100 and $20 is a
bit of a group rate and there's only like a 10, 10 folks. Yeah, just about $1000
a year. It would be 40. If we use it once in 40 years, it will be cheaper than paying
for one hour. Uh like um I was not able to join the budget meeting on Wednesday because
uh the re compete coalition. Despite my best efforts, we have a giant RFP process
going. So I was there to help refine the project line. I can show you my uh proposal
later for Glen Cove. But uh yeah, we by September 18th, anyone that you know, that
wants to put in a project, we're all comers. So let me know. Yeah, like we're gonna
deal with 50 things two weeks before the end of the grant application and then try
to make a strategy. But I think all the consultants uh are getting frustrated with
me too because I'm a squeaky wheel about that. And then I keep saying, oh, you guys
keep talking about, well, we'll figure it out in the phase one, but I want to use
those phase $1 to move the project forward. And they're like, oh, well, it's only
for planning purposes. It's like they're already looking at, I don't know. Um, it's
frustrating but, uh I'm still excited about the Glen Coe project. I'll share. That's
what I've been working on a lot is just kind of, I have a meeting coming up on the
11th after, after we're here, I'll be going and meeting over to Edens and, and bringing
some businesses together and I'm, and working with the one neighborhood over there
as well to have a little community meeting just to assess kind of get the pulse on
the idea before we go too far, you know, the community foundations over there. Oh,
yeah. Right. Right. And, and right. Yeah. All right. I'll talk to them too. Um, and
then also had I met with, uh, a Palmer from the city just to kind of keep them in
the loop with that. And my penultimate re anti-racism class on Wednesday, apparently
the jokes I was making at the thing were not appropriate. I was trivializing the
concept of decolonization rather than trying to embrace the vernacular. I kept saying,
uh still gonna repeat the joke that got so mad. I thought that was funny but you
know how people just leave those blankets and, and they're like, come back later,
I kept calling it colonization. And if I had to stand on someone's blanket, I would
say, and decolonize the spot. Not, I, I feel like using the words and, and I'm still
doing it obviously, but so maybe I'm not learning a lot. Um Well, the fact that you're
having a conversation with yourself about it means you're learning. So thinking about
it just not just, yeah. Uh and then we had our, we're doing strategic planning for.
So we had our, our annual uh meeting on person in Angeles with a consultant going
through the strategic plan process. The big takeaway that we're kind of the external
push that we're doing is trying to really get the door opened. You know, the door
has been closed to the public. Um You can make appointments and everything and also
trying to make it, you know, you walk through one door once and you'll get connected
with whatever services that only can offer or partner agencies can offer rather than
I need to make an appointment with the he person or I need to make an appointment
with the, uh, the housing person, which is kind of how it's, I would say devolved.
Um All right. And then we'll have to come back because I see it as 9 45. So let's
bring Doctor Barry and Mr bent over and welcome the listeners from KPTZ
for a monthly uh health and emergency services updates. 9 44. 0,
is it 9 44? Yeah, that time I have 9 45 wins.
This time
is with us. Hi, Doctor Barry. What time do you think it is? I think it just turned
out to be 9 45. So I'm happy to be here to join you all. Thank you for having me.
Um So today we'll primarily uh focus on respiratory viruses uh because as uh many
in our community have likely experienced, uh we are heading into a COVID-19 surge.
Um So we are seeing a rise in COVID-19 cases uh nationally and even at the local
level. Um And you've likely experienced that in your friend group. Uh Many people
have recently come down with COVID-19. Um and we are likely to see that get worse
as most of our Children have now gone back to school. Um And we're in a, a different
time in the response. So we're not seeing really anywhere near the level of masking,
but we used to see, um and certainly not seeing mandatory masking. So we expect to
see more cases out of the kids going back to school, looking at uh the data on severity.
We are seeing an increase in hospitalizations as well at the national and state and
even local level. Um But nothing like the searches that we've seen in the past. Um
We are seeing an increase particularly in hospitalizations of people over the age
of 70. Um Locally, we have seen that as well. We've had a total of 10 hospitalizations
for COVID-19 in the last month. Um The vast majority of those actually, all of those
have been in people over the age of 70 all but one were in people who were not up
to date on their vaccines. And so staying up to date in your COVID-19 vaccines is
critical, particularly for those of us at the highest risk of severe disease, including
all of us over the age of 70 those of us with significant underlying conditions.
Um Thankfully though the character of the hospitalizations we're seeing is very different
than we saw in prior rounds of COVID-19 surges. Uh back in the beginning of this,
uh I was still working in clinical practice and we would see people of any age um
coming in with severe disease. And when they got hospitalized, they very often got
intubated and unfortunately, very often died. Um That is not what we're seeing. Now,
the vast majority of these hospitalizations are short, they very rarely involve an
intubation. Um and they very rarely move on to death. And so it's a very different
character than what we were seeing before. What we're seeing in the hospital right
now is mostly people who are elderly and have some underlying conditions and getting
COVID-19 is kind of pushing them over the edge to needing hospitalization, which
is still a serious issue that we want to prevent. Um But I do want to emphasize that
this is even though we're going into a surge, we're seeing a rise in cases, this
is not going back to 2020. Um I am not thinking we're going to overrun our hospital
as I am not thinking we're going to see a massive surge in deaths that we've seen
in prior days, but I am concerned about it. And so it's important that we all take
steps to protect ourselves and our neighbors. Um And so that means staying up to
date on our vaccines. Um That means masking if you're in a crowded indoor area and
particularly if you're in a high risk group, taking extra precautions right now.
Um That means if you're, if you're in that group, particularly people over 70 with
underlying conditions or people with significant underlying conditions, making sure
that you're wearing a uh a, a good, well, fitting mask when you're in crowded indoor
spaces. Um and getting up to date on vaccines, we'll move into that shortly. Um I
do have unfortunately one more death to announce for COVID-19 since the last time
we met as KPTZ were up to 41 deaths in this response, which is still quite low, but
we did lose one more of our citizens in the last month. This was a person in their
eighties who was actually unvaccinated. Um being unvaccinated is uncommon in our
community, but it does happen. Um And it certainly puts one at higher risk of severe
disease. Um So speaking of what's driving uh this rise in cases and hospitalizations,
there are a couple of different things. Um One is that we are seeing uh very few
precautions. So um very few folks are masking. There's a lot more gathering and it's
getting colder. So we're moving back inside. Um And we're seeing the large scale
gatherings that come with things like school in return to fall activities. Um We
are also seeing new variants in the mix though we're still seeing the vast majority
of COVID-19 cases in the country and locally are still Ron sub variants of the XBB
variety um which is hopeful because that is uh what is in the updated COVID-19 vaccine
that should be coming out in the next couple weeks. Um We are likely seeing also
playing into this waning immunity against COVID-19, particularly in our elder population,
those over 65 are less able to maintain their immunity from prior vaccinations. And
so we're starting to see that protection fade. Um Thankfully, we have an updated
booster coming out in the next couple of weeks. Um We're hearing mid-september is
the most likely time that that's going to be released and that updated booster is
specifically against XBB, which is what is circulating now. Um So that is likely
to provide good protection, um particularly for those of us at high risk, but really
for the whole population, we're not likely to see enough come out in the beginning
for everyone to have access to that vaccine. Um but we should have it available for
pretty much everybody by around October and those at highest risk by mid-september.
And so with that, I'm happy to start with questions from our commissioners and then
move into questions from the public. We do have quite a few questions from the public
this, this week and I think that speaks to, you know, what we're seeing uh with increased
cases, it's back on people's minds and there's a lot of coverage of it, some of which,
which uh some of which is maybe a little overly um uh scary. Um I, I've definitely
heard from folks who are scared that we're going back into, you know, fall of last
year or fall of 2020 I don't think that's what's gonna happen, but I do think there's
more COVID around, that's we know that by the data that I see and uh particularly
if you're at high risk, if you're in one of those groups, um you, you can develop
severe disease and you can even die. Um So taking those steps to protect ourselves
um is very, very important. Thankfully, we have far more tools at our disposal now
than we did back in 2020 to keep ourselves safe. Um Doctor Brady, do you have the
um are we still doing the wastewater surveillance? And can you talk about what that
is currently showing? Sure. So we are seeing we do still do wastewater surveillance
in Port Townsend. So there's some limitations there. We're only covering Port Townsend
doesn't cover South County. Um But we have seen a rise in cases in the last few weeks
in Port Townsend but not a massive search. Um It's gone kind of up and down and up
and down. The trick with Port Towns and wastewater surveillance is Port Townsend
is also a tourist town. Um And so we see new surges of people arriving in Port Townsend
who are also using our facilities. Um And so that likely leads to some of the Buiness
in the um in the cases that we see in Port Townsend, but it's not when we look at
the the increase, we see an increase, but it doesn't look anywhere near the size
that we've seen in prior surges, at least so far. I do expect the number of cases
to increase in the coming weeks because there are a lot more connections happening
right now. As many of us dropped off our kids at school this morning. Um But um but
so far it's not as severe as prior surgeon. Thank you. No worries. You started it
with bringing up schools. I'm just wondering what kind of additional precautions,
you know, we need to take for things like school. Are you still working with the
schools? Yes. So we are still in close contact with the schools. Um, at this point,
things like masking are not mandatory at the school level. Um, but there are some,
there are still precautions in place. Um So there are still tests available at our
schools for, for kids. Um, it's one of uh, one of the only places where you can still
get free tests. So any child who's sick, um, the expectation is that they test before
they return to school and if they're positive they stay out for a minimum of five
days. Um and then they have to wear a mask when they return for the next five. Um
uh, there, so there's a lot more testing available. They test before they return
to schools, but very likely the only place they can get those tests is at school.
Right. Ah, yeah. So good question. So, uh it's not usually testing on site at this
point. So the schools mostly have home tests. Um And so they'll send those home,
uh, with families if someone is ill and we do still have, uh, tests available through
the public health department for folks who can't otherwise afford tests. And in South
County that's primarily distributed through our fire station. So there are still
places available. Um, but yes, if you have a kid who is sick and you can't otherwise
access a test, the schools do still have access to tests. Um and they can send a
home test home with you to test that kid out before they come back. So kids do need
to stay home when they're sick, uh especially with COVID around. Um And then if they
don't have COVID, they can come back when they're well. If they're positive for COVID,
they have to stay home five days and then mask for the next five when they come back.
Um But it is much less than we were seeing before. We're not seeing mandatory masking
and we're not doing the level of contact tracing we were doing before, but with the
accumulated levels of population immunity that we are seeing, we do think that this
will help protect us. Um But as a parent, the biggest thing you can do is uh keep
your kid home when they're sick, it's really hard. Um Having a sick kid is so hard
on work. Um II I know that challenge very well in our, in our family. Um But keeping
your kid home when they're sick, helps protect everyone else around them and testing
them before they go back to make sure it's not COVID COVID in Children can look like
a mild cold. Um And so any time your kid is sick, you do still need to test them
before you send them back to school. The main reason for that is because there are
other kids in that school who have significant underlying conditions. We have kids
who are going to school who have leukemia. Um and we wanna make sure and protect
them and we want to make sure and protect the other people in their houses as well
and knowing how difficult it is to have a kid who's sick at home. We don't want to
share that with all the other parents in that, in that room so we can keep our kids
home. That makes a big difference. Certainly we encourage masking, but it's hard
to get a kid to mask when the other kids around them are not masking. Um But I think
it is worth having a conversation particularly if your child is high risk having
a conversation with their classroom, uh with the the other parents who have kids
in that class to encourage safety around your child doctor. Be can I follow up on
that? You know, when I lived in Asia years ago, it was uh it was just normal if you
had a little bit of like the sniffles or something to wear a mask to do source control
as you went to school. And I guess if we have, you know, I mean, attendance is a
real issue with schools, you know, since COVID as well, you know, and, and being
able to string together a successful school year is really incumbent incumbent upon
that is actually going to school. So if you've tested your kiddo and they don't have
COVID, but they do have sniffles, would you say still keep them home or try to be
like the cool kids and wear a mask to school? I mean, our cool commissioner is wearing
a mask today. Yeah, I think that's a really good option if you are. Um, you know,
if you're very ill, you've got a fever or you're really sick, you do need to stay
home and rest. Um so that you can get better. But yeah, if you have mild illness,
mild sniffles and you're negative, um wearing a mask could be a good way to stay,
stay in school. Um and that's, that's even what I do if I'm feeling a little off.
Um and I'm testing negative but I don't feel severely ill and I still need to go
to work. Um I wear a mask and go to work because I know that I can protect the people
around me by doing that. Um especially for those in our community where staying home
is not an option for you. Um not everyone has the flexibility to stay home from work.
So if you have to go to work a little bit ill, wearing a mask can protect the people
around you as well.
Yeah, you, you one of the cool kids, protect your neighbors and take care of the
other kids in your class because we all want to stay in, we all want to be able to
stay in school and when, when we're talking about school and COVID, I think it is
uh good to address also. Sometimes there's fears that we might close the schools
again. That's not on the horizon. We don't think we're gonna do that. Um I, I it
would, it would take a, a true disaster for us to do something like that. And I don't
think that's gonna happen here. Um, what we could see though is if we see really
marked absenteeism of teachers. So all the teachers get sick and they can't staff
it. You could see classroom closures related to that. Um So the best way to prevent
that is to not share our viruses at school. Um, so that we can all keep going to
school as well
for one place too. Right. Yes, please. Absolutely. You know, everyone is short staffed
right now after the last few years. Um, there are a lot of different things driving
that including COVID and how many people we lost to COVID who were caregivers and
how many people developed long COVID after the last few years. Um So knowing that
nearly every business and government office is short staffed right now, being cautious
to not share illness is a good way to keep everything open cool. All right. So on
to the reader, uh listener questions. Yeah, absolutely. So, um we got uh a few COVID
questions. Um One was particularly around boosters. So questions about the upcoming
booster this fall. So the upcoming booster is against XVB specifically and that is
far and away. The most common variant that we're seeing. If you look at the breakdown
on the state website, you might see a lot of colors. But if you look at the key,
they are all variations on XBB. They're XBB 1.5 XBB, 1.6 just all XBB, which means
this upcoming booster should have very good coverage against what's been circulating
for the last year and is circulating now. So as soon as it becomes available, I would
encourage everyone to get it, but save it for those at highest risk for the first
couple of weeks. So if you're over 65 you have underlying conditions go out and get
that booster as soon as possible. And if you're immunosuppressed, go out and get
that booster. If you are any of the rest of us who don't meet those criteria, we
recommend waiting until about October so we can save availability for them. Um I'm
hoping caregivers get added to that list. If you're taking care of someone who's
particularly high risk, I think it's very reasonable for you to get your booster
too. Uh, because that's a really good way to protect those at highest risk, particularly
the group that we know who has continuously been at the highest risk of COVID-19
is people uh undergoing chemotherapy. Um, so people with cancer who are getting treatment,
careers of those in that group, I think should also get uh their boosters as soon
as possible to protect them. And when we're seeing a caregivers too, right? Not,
not quite that far but masking up when we're all together, I think would be a good
idea. Um We have a, a public health staffer who's been, been caring for her husband
with cancer throughout the pandemic. And so whenever we have a meeting with her,
we all mask up and that's just an understanding we have of how we protect her. Um
And I think the more that we can share our situation and, and take to take that into
account, the better we can all get through this search. Um The other question about
that was uh that I hear is do we get the currently available booster right now or
do we wait for the new one? And at this point, the new one is coming so soon that
I would wait. So if you haven't gotten your bivalent yet, I would wait for the new
one. It's coming out in a couple weeks. Um, if you recently got your booster, um
I have one of the questions was, uh, someone got uh boosted in June. So when should
they get the new one? Um And the answer is as soon as it comes out, um, you have
to have two months between your boosters. Um And so if you got it in June, you're
good to go to get one now. Um uh Another good question was what is an underlying
condition? Which is a phrase I've used a lot so far. So it's good to define um what
counts as having an underlying condition that puts you at risk of COVID um and severe
disease. And there are a lot of things that count as an underlying condition. Um
This family particularly referenced uh hypertension uh that counts um and cardiac
disease. Um One of the family members had recently had cardiac surgery, having recently
had cardiac surgery is a significant underlying condition which puts you at uh at
serious risk of, of severe disease from COVID-19. Uh in my family. Um I have a family
member who had a cardiac surgery in the midst of the delta wave. Um And ever since
then, we've been very, very cautious to not share COVID-19 with him having heart
disease. Really is, is one of one of those risk factors that puts you at serious
risk of COVID-19. So if you have either of those things, uh you count as having an
underlying condition that we want to protect you. Um There are many, many things
that count but think of lung disease, heart disease, immune system diseases, which
includes any kind of medication you're taking that reduces your immune system function,
neurologic diseases too. So people with MS, people with uh with history of stroke
that puts you at high risk of severe disease as well. Those are the big ones that
we worry the most about. Those are the, the systems that, that really go down when
it comes to COVID-19 and of course, any kind of cancer treatment um uh that, that
someone's undertaking puts you at significant risk as well or just having cancer,
um is an immune modulatory experience. Um All of those are the folks that we really,
really want to protect um coming into the fall and remember, you can't always tell
who's in that group. We talk a lot about people over 70 but there are lots of folks
under 70 people under 65 who have those conditions and you don't know. Um one of
the ones that you really can't tell is someone who's immunosuppressed in front of
you. Um So if you see someone who's wearing an N95 in the grocery store, there's
probably a reason for that. Um and take extra caution around them. You don't know
anyone's life story, either who they're taken care of or their medical issues. And
the more we can all take care of each other as we move into the fall, we're be the
better we're gonna do. And I think that is something that in Jefferson we've done
quite well. Um In recent years, I think we have to keep that energy going. Um, so
that we can do well through this next surge. Um Let's see what else? Um One was,
uh, they shared an article, it was actually from 2022 that they wanted us to talk
about a bit on this program. Um And it referenced in that article, they talked about
uh a really good study out of the Yale School of Public Health. Um that looked at
how many deaths were prevented by COVID-19 vaccines. Um And what they found with
their modeling was that between 2020 the end of 2022 COVID-19 vaccines um saved
3.2 million lives in the United States um and prevented 18.5 million hospitalizations
during that time. So they were highly effective, made a huge difference at keeping
people alive. They could have kept even more people alive if more people got them.
Um during that time period in the United States. Thankfully, in Jefferson County,
we had very high uptake in vaccination. We have uh the, the second highest rate of
vaccination or sorry, third highest rate of vaccination in Washington State with
84% of our uh population vaccinated. Um And we have actually the highest rate of
folks who are up to date on their vaccines, which is just under half of us are up
to date on all of our vaccines. That means there's still a good half of our population
that could use um to get up to date. And I would recommend doing so when we get this
updated formulation. Um but the amount of folks who got vaccinated in our community
was a huge driver of our success in the pandemic. In that article, they also talked
a little bit about some of the vaccine misinformation and confusion around vaccines.
Um Thankfully, I haven't heard a lot of vaccine misinformation lately. Um So I'm
hesitant to wade back into that right now. Um But one thing that they talked a bit
about was something called the base rate fallacy. So if you are seeing um conversation
around vaccines, one piece, you would sometimes see one piece of misinformation you
would sometimes see is people citing that uh the same number of people are dying
who got vaccinated as those who didn't. Um Or even sometimes more people, more of
the people who are currently dying are vaccinated than are not. And that has to do
with something called the base rate fallacy, which is, as we just said, 84% of Jefferson
County um has been vaccinated, which means the vast majority of us are vaccinated
and that uh that group tends to skew older. Um So more of our elderly population
has been vaccinated. Those two things together are what drive uh what drive that
uh that shift. When you see, um if the vaccine really wasn't doing anything, you
would see that 84% of those who are dying right now were vaccinated, but that's not
actually true. Um As we talked about for those who were hospitalized, the vast majority
of those are unvaccinated, even though that's a teeny tiny fraction of our population,
they are disproportionately represented among those who are hospitalized and die.
Um So the, the data is super clear uh at, at the time, the last time that we were
looking at um differential hospitalization rates, you were 15 times as likely to
die of COVID when if you were not up to date on your vaccines as some on who was.
And so it, it does really make a huge difference important to stay up to date on
those vaccines both for yourself and for others. When you're up to date on your vaccines,
you're less likely to get COVID and give it to other people and you are less likely
to get severe disease yourself. That was all the COVID questions. And then I had
an RSV question as well from the public. Any other COVID questions from the team
in the in the building? I think we're good, right? So RSV, we talked a bit about
RSB on our last uh our last meeting and some of the new tools we have available to
fight it. Um And so one of the most important things that we have available now is
an RSV vaccine, but there are three different products on the market. And I think
there's a little bit con of confusion about, about those three. Um So the first two
are regular old vaccines. They're what's called a protein subunit vaccine, just like
the vast majority of any other vaccine you've ever gotten flu vaccines, things like
that. Um That and they are recommended for people over the age of 60. Um people over
the age of 60 are more likely to get severe disease from RSB. We talk a lot about
RSV in very little kids, which is a very true and serious issue. But if you look
by the numbers, more people get hospitalized and die of RSB in our elder population
than anyone else. And so it is recommended for people over the age of 60. Um And
it's just uh it's just a regular vaccine. I think what this person was confusing
it with, which is called synagis. Um And that is a monoclonal antibody that we've
had available for very high risk Children for quite some time. Um But the vaccine
for people over 60 is just a regular old vaccine. There is also a vaccine for RSV,
approved for pregnant people. Um between the ages of 32 weeks and 36 weeks, gestational
age to protect their uh their baby when they're born. Um from uh RSV. That's a really
good option because uh RSV is mo is incredibly dangerous for newborn babies who are
too young to get vaccinated. The other tool we now have in our arsenal is a monoclonal,
a new monoclonal antibody for littles. Um And uh that is one called nurse and it's
actually just a one time dose and it looks like a vaccine. Uh It's just an injection.
Um synagis the old version uh did take multiple doses over time. It was very expensive,
it was very difficult for families. And so nurse mab is likely to replace synagis.
Um nurse IAB, the monoclonal antibody is now approved for all newborn babies and
infants up to the age of eight months, um going into their first RSB season. Um and
it's also approved for high risk toddlers. Um So toddlers who have significant cardiac
or lung disease, um premature kiddos going into their second RSB season. Um All of
these are now approved, not all of them are yet available. Um The RSB vaccines are
available now. Um There's a lot of wrangling right now to figure out insurance coverage.
Um they're currently covered under Medicare part D. Um So if you have Medicare part
D, um that should be a covered service for you, but that does leave out a lot of
folks um who have, who only have Medicare part B. Um And that is a frustrating policy
issue. Uh From our perspective, we would really like them to cover these critical
vaccines for everyone. Um But right now they're only covered under part D um nurse
AAB is covered under the vaccines for Children program. And so it should be available
to all kids, but the actual logistics of making it available for all kids is going
on right now. Um And I can tell you, our colleagues at the States are working very
hard to make sure it becomes available for kids in our community, but it's not available
yet. Um We're hoping to have it available closer to October that I'm happy to take
any other questions or go to Willie, who I think did get a question from the listeners
this week. Oh, wow. We don't want to Willie. We, we could probably go for another
10, 15 minutes though. He's so efficient. Any other questions for Doctor Barry? No,
I guess just um do we anticipate people being able to get like flu COVID booster
RSV all at once? Like we're gonna make this easy or you have to face them out? Good
question. So yes, you can get all of your vaccines at the same time. Um And so say
you're, you know, 65 and have underlying conditions. What I would do is I would get
your, I would get your COVID-19 vaccine. Um And I would get your RSV vaccine at the
same time. Um And I would get your flu vaccine as soon as it becomes available and
it's just starting to become available. So, I'd say in the next couple of weeks you
should be able to go in and get all three, um, for our littlest residents. Um, the
most likely way that we'll see, uh, nurse aab rolling out is actually in the postpartum
unit. Um, so after your baby is born, if you've, uh, had a baby recently, you probably
know there's a few different things that they get. There's a Hepatitis B vaccine,
there's some antibiotics. Um There's a vitamin K shot and nurse will likely be one
of those as well. So just something that you get as a part of the normal postpartum
course of care. And then for those who were uh born before it became available through
their pediatrician's office and we expect the kind of the usual. So um uh pharmacies,
uh doctor visits like public health is not planning to do any um booster vaccination
clinics, correct. So, yes, these are now moving into the, the normal way that we
used to get vaccine before the pandemic. Um And so that's gonna be primarily pharmacies
and through your doctor's office, I know most of our doctors offices are already
planning um for how to do kind of high volume flu COVID RSV vaccines. Um And so they
are putting in plans to do that. So you won't necessarily have to go during one of
your visits. But if you happen to go for a visit then you could have that available.
Um But we aren't going to see the mass vaccinations that we did before. Um, at this
point. Um, we do uh through the public Health department vaccinate kiddos. Um And
so we will, we'll keep doing that. Um But we're, and we will likely still be a safety
net provider for folks who are uninsured or underinsured for vaccination. Um So we
still plan to be available for that. Um Sadly, uh the RSV vaccine um has not been
included in that program from the state. Um So far, not yet. Um So we don't carry
the RSV vaccine right now. Um But we will still plan to be a source for vaccination
generally for those who are uninsured or underinsured in our community and that would
be calling the office and making an appointment. Yeah, give us a call. We have, we
have a clinic um and we are happy to take care of you at the health department.
We are also, I should, I should acknowledge we are also working with our schools
um to make sure that there are vaccines available um for, for kiddos further out
in our community, not just in our port towns in office. Great. Thank you very much,
Doctor Barry. Thank you. All right. Uh Willie. Well, we'll pass it over to you. I
think uh Commissioner Eisenhower has a question for you too. So, you know, don't
use all your time on the first question. OK. Can do always a big day when I have
a question um from the KPTZ listener so much appreciate it. Um And as the commissioners
were talking about, about um a little bit earlier, even though we did have some rain
recently, it remains dry. Um, fire hazard remains high and I think that remains um
on the minds of our community members as it's reflected in this question. Um So my
KPTZ question was asking um given the recent fires um around Lords Lake and then
on Beaver Valley, how firefighters actually fight fires in wildland areas. Um When
there aren't necessarily fire hydrants nearby for quick and easy access to a pretty
strong continuous flow of water. And um shout out to chief um Black as well as Chief
Mn with East Jeff Fire and Quil Fire respectively who provided a little bit of input
um into my answer today. Um And basically in short water isn't the only tool in the
toolbox to fight fires. Obviously, it's one of the most effective and efficient to
put the wet stuff on the hot stuff. Um But when fighting a wild and fire, um often
the most effective um tactic is to remove the fuel that actually allows the fire
to spread. So they will cut brush, cut trees, um cut that plant matter um that the
fire actually needs to survive and thrive and grow further. So they'll cut that plant
matter. Um They'll actually scrape the dirt. Um, first with hand tools, um, and then
with a dozer later on and what's called cutting line. And so when you hear that a
fire has actually been contained, that doesn't mean the fire is completely out, that
they've dumped water on the whole thing to put it out. They've actually cut a perimeter
around the fire. Um, so the fire cannot continue to grow. Um, oftentimes after a
fire has been contained, crews will be on site for several days if not weeks afterwards.
Monitoring it as that fire continues to smolder. There's just been a line cut with
no fuel, nothing for the fire to latch onto and spread. So it's been and therefore
in effect contained. So that's really one of the most powerful tools and powerful,
powerful tactics um for firefighters fighting a wildland fire is to again prevent
its ability to spread by cutting that line around it. Um However, water, especially
for knocking down fires, putting out fires on approximately less than 6 ft or so,
um, obviously is still very essential. Um Firefighter, um Their, their apparatus
can carry, you know, up to 1000 gallons of water or so. Um But they do carry tankers.
Um They do do have those as part of their fleet that can carry about 1000 to 5000
gallons of water. Um And so they will uh often call in mutual aid from other areas
to bring in additional tankers, get additional water on site that way. Um Then obviously,
like we saw during those two local fires, um, eventually they, during larger fires,
they may get helicopter support um to, to bring water and dump that on the fire.
And they'll often draw from lakes. Um, they didn't draw from Lord's Lake but rather
Lake Leland um, during the fire out there in Quil to, to help support that. Um, the
listener asked if they ever tap into wells, I mean, they don't tap into wells specifically
because they can use hundreds upon hundreds of gallons of water per minute. And most,
um, you know, private wells simply don't produce a fast enough rate to meet that
high demand. So they will look to tankers. Um They will look to bring in helicopter
support for larger fires. Um And on top of again, cutting line um and preventing
the fire's ability to spread that way. So, um excellent question, really appreciate
the listener asking, really appreciate folks continuing to, um, adhere to the burn
van exercise caution. Um When, uh you know, when grilling, when doing anything like
that to help prevent the spread of fires. Um I will say one question I have been
getting asked recently um in light of the fire in Maui, um was questions about our
usage of sirens. Um The emergency management agency in Hawaii made a somewhat controversial
decision not to use their tsunami evacuation sirens to alert folks of the impending
wildfire and they were afraid that upon activation of those sirens, um, the general
public's, you know, training would kick in and they would evacuate to high ground
as if it were a tsunami. Um, however, the wildfire was located in their evacuation
route on high ground. So they were really worried that that would folks, um, actually
into the hazard area rather than away from it. So they chose not to activate that
resource. Um, the questions remain whether or not that was the right decision. So
we'll, we'll certainly be looking um to see the results of their after action report,
likely a couple um a year or two down the line. Um We do have similar tsunami sirens
here locally. Um We have them in the boat haven, we have them at Point Hudson and
Point Wilson in town. I mean, those really aren't for um wildfire notice. Um Those
are specifically for folks outdoors um in the immediate vicinity to alert them of
an impending tsunami. Um Since they are um are, are located on low ground where people
congregate outdoors may not have access to a cellphone, access to a radio and they
may specifically um in some of the Point Wilson and Point Hudson, they may be tourists
and not know um of local resources or subscribe for Nel or things like that. So those
are for a very specific purpose. Um Not for general broadcasting of again, something
like a wildfire evacuation. Those sirens would be pretty useless for the folks um
on Beaver Valley um in Quill scene, things like that. So in case of a wildfire, um
we'd use the integrated public alert warning system like we did during the Beaver
Valley evacuations. That's the push notification on your phone similar to an Amber
alert. And that also activates radio as well as broadcast television alerts. And
we'll use NL which is our subscri based system on social media, our partners at KPTZ
and Kroh um and really the general public um helping um neighbors helping to notify
their neighbors. Um That's really what in prep is founded upon. So you might get
that alert um check in on your neighbors as you're evacuating or as the situation
is developing, especially if they have um unique needs um that may require a little
bit of extra assistance. So I'm getting that question a lot lately. Happy to talk
more about that. Um One on one with folks if you, you shoot me a note um or we may
talk about that through imp prep a little bit more since the, the siren issue has
been a big concern here for quite a while. Um Other than that, that is all from me.
I know Commissioner Eisenhower um potentially had a question and I'm not happy to
take any more. Well, actually, it's more of a report to you will that we did have
our first neighborhood block party and we did collect um contact information and
email and cell phone information for, I think 20 households in our neighborhood.
But there, you know, one, I guess the question from there is, um, how do we get more
coverage? I mean, how many block parties? So we thought maybe we'll have a block
party every year. But, you know, it would take a lot of years to get complete coverage
of all the neighbors in the neighborhood. So I was thinking something like having
neighbors who signed up to reach out to, you know, the closest neighbors around them
and build kind of pods and then have them get the contact information to build the
list. But I don't know if you've seen any great strategies for fleshing out your,
your uh neighborhood contact list. Yeah. No, that, that right there is an excellent
strategy kind of grow um kind of creep, creep and outward um using, using um the
most recent neighbors you talked to um feel free to contact um us and we can connect
you with the in prep leadership um who have, you know, some of them have 10, 15 years
of experience growing um growing their neighborhoods. I will say um more than anything,
it is a big time commitment and it can be a big resource commitment trying to get
folks on board. So more than anything, um you know, you mentioned, it might be a
couple of years and a number of block parties to get everyone um That really is the
most effective strategy is keeping at it. Um Letting folks know that you're here,
we're here to help you, you know, come and join us and eventually you'll, you'll
get everyone. But in the meantime, I like your strategy of again trying to, to recruit
new folks to help recruit additional folks and kind of um grow it. Um I don't wanna
say like a, a pyramid scheme, but it almost is that um but again, feel free to contact
us and our impre leadership is more than happy to help. I would just say our neighborhood
or the neighbors who did come were pretty excited that we were, you know, getting,
getting connected in that way and, and the idea of having uh a community contact
list. So I, you know, think that we'll move ahead with, you know, organizing our
neighborhood, but I appreciate the inspiration from the imp prep uh information that's
been shared over the last couple of years and it's taken a while, but I feel like
we took a great big step forward. So it's good. Awesome. Well, thank you. And congrats.
Are you sure it was Lake Leland. They were taking the water out of the DNR helicopters.
I mean, it was a grim, a grim sight to see those helicopters going. But, you know,
we were, you know, down there watching and we thought they were going over from us
from the north, but I don't know, it was, it was my understanding. They, they weren't
gonna pull from Lord's Lake since that was the, the drinking water um for, for us
here in the city. But um, my understanding was that they were going to Lake Leland
instead since that was the um uh closest major water source for them. But I may be
mistaken, I'll double check on that largest lake in Jefferson County, of course.
So it's reasonable.
Great. Well, thank you, Willie. Any other questions for Doctor Barry or Willie on
any of the topics we've discussed or any others? We have just a few minutes left.
Not for me. Ok. Well, we'll let you go. Great to see you, Doctor Barry Willie. Glad
you're with us. Um Yeah, good to see you guys. We'll see you next month, I guess
on Monday. Let's look at the actual day. What's it gonna be
Monday the second? So we'll, we'll see you back here same time. 9 45 with KPTZ at
9 45 on October 2nd. Have a, have a great day. Thanks everyone. Thanks and thanks
to the listeners of KPTZ and, and uh, we'll, we'll see you next month and hello,
Bill. Welcome. Good morning, sir. Thank you so much for allowing the time to come
before you today. Yes, absolutely. Um We have a proclamation in front of us. I don't
know. Do you want to do any in introductions? Sure. Yes. So welcome to Bill Dowling.
Who's the executive director of Olympic workforce. Um, as a reminder that is a three
county effort, um, Kitsap Jefferson and Clallam, um, who manage primarily federal
dollars, um, to implement AAA really robust workforce system. And it's one that,
um, that we, we don't see as much kind of boots on the ground here in Jefferson County.
Um, in part, just we, we have a, an interesting workforce. We don't meet a lot of
the same data that uh other, other counties within our region um do. And it's, it's
a little challenging, you know, we, we don't have the kinds of industries where people
are necessarily um you know, working traditional 40 hour week jobs. Um So it's, it's,
it's uh I really appreciate that. Bill makes an effort to try to meet the needs of
our community, even though we, our job seekers are not always the um typical job
seeker that federal dollars are meant to uh serve. Um So the workforce professionals
that we are uh honoring today are mostly um outside of Jefferson County, but they
are working on our behalf. And um so I'll turn it over to Bill to maybe say a few
words or do you want to do that after the proclamation? We read the proclamation
first. So if, if you don't mind waiting for just a moment, Bill, we'll, we'll read
through the proclamation uh presumably approve it and then we'll, we'll turn it over
to you to, to get some some context about it and uh how your work's going and, and
have a conversation sounds great. Great. So why don't we go alphabetically by last
name? What's that? DD? So, yeah. Yeah. OK. Uh
So I'll start a proclamation for workforce development professionals month. Whereas
the ability for businesses and industries throughout the Olympic region and its surrounding
communities to maintain a competitive edge in the global economy, hinges on the availability
and quality of a skilled workforce and robust talent pipeline. And whereas it is
important to recognize and understand the evolving complexities in today's economic
reality and to act according to new demands facing employees and employers at every
level. And whereas collaboration between the workforce system and businesses, educational
institutions and private public partners is critical to effectively effectively aligned
training and workforce needs. And whereas it is necessary to eliminate economic and
employment disparities based on race disability, veteran status or past criminal
records by bringing all residents in need of sustainable employment into the workforce.
And whereas employers depend on the workforce system to help them recruit and retain
competitive and skilled workers and continue to upgrade transferable skill sets of
their incumbent employees. And whereas the Olympic region's workforce system remains
committed to customer focused and community oriented services with a firm pledge
to prioritizing equity at the center of all of its work. Now, therefore, we the commissioners
of Jefferson County do hereby proclaim the month of September 2023 as workforce development
professionals month and do commend this observance to all residents proclaim this
fifth day of September 2023. I'll move to approve the proclamation as red. I'll second.
Ok. It's been moved and seconded to approve the proclamation is red. All in favor.
Indicate by saying III I, all right. Well, what do we just do, Bill? You want to
talk to us about this? Well, first, thanks. Thanks for honoring me. Um I just as
a workforce professional. I've been at this about 25 years uh starting many, many
years ago after I was in ministry actually, uh thinking I wouldn't ever find anything
as rewarding as ministry but really have uh in workforce. And I'd also like to state
that it's, it's really not just about the folks that work in our system, but workforce
professionals really work throughout uh government agencies, certainly in our human
services partners, our friends at and even our friends at the college, even our friends
that we work with and participation at Peninsula College, uh Doctor Ams and myself
been meeting, you know, it's all about strategy about where we want to be and where
we need to be as a community and workforce helps that. Um I do so thank the work
that Commissioner Dean has done and working with us and bringing that. And I would
love the opportunity sometime soon to come and talk to you all about a little bit
more about our efforts. And what we're doing and how we can better meet those needs
in Jefferson County. But I will tell you, we have struggled um uh it with recruitment
of individuals. That's, that's very true in Jefferson, even when we had a president,
certainly in Port Townsend. And so we're, now we're looking at pod delivery areas.
How do we do those through the library system? How do we do that up in Forks in a
different way? And so, you know, our youth provider has already been active in all
those areas. Um And it's important that we continue to figure out more ways and how
to reach people. And we're always looking for that together with the county's information
systems as well to recruit those folks. We've got some exciting things I think planned
um in this next year really, uh trying to push some of our dollars toward marketing
and outreach. And I don't, I don't like to say that we're, you know, government programs
are not supposed to spend to those things, but we also know that we can't just expect
people to find us. We, we, we have to go and find them and enable them to know that
these free services are available to them. I can tell you about some individuals
we've worked with in the community residents who have gone from, you know, a retail
job at, at uh 12 95 or $15 an hour, which we think, you know, it's quite good right
now, but we're able to really sustain and one individual I was looking at just some
of these success stories today that, you know, moved to $77,000 a year after a job
as a, as a logistics uh person, which is very in demand in the area. We have to have
these drivers for everything now, including county positions as well. And so we wanna
be able to figure out how that workforce works uh for, for you all as well. So I,
I wanna thank you and re recognize if you've talked to employers in your area, I'm
sure you've heard exactly what I hear every day. Where are they, where are folks
and we are committed to being part of, we compete. We're competed to be part of anything
that can help to build that long term workforce. Uh in Jefferson County, it's too
important not to focus on it all the time, as well as opportunities for our young
people to continue to grow and flourish in the county as well. Not have to go elsewhere
for a great job. Um That's really what we're focused on. So, thank you. That's great,
Bill. Thanks. I, I have one question you mentioned re compete. And I'm, I'm, I'm
working on this project for the, the county right now to, to get a, you know, our
coalition up with AAA decent application and, you know, it talks about 1200 or so.
Jefferson county residents that are in that prime age, employment that are, are we're
trying to get back into the workforce? And I, I'm, I'm wondering what you would identify
as, I mean, we other than housing, right? Housing is the biggest barrier that I hear
from folks all the time. But what would you identify as the biggest barriers? And
what, what is that this person, these 1200 people that are, are there in the prime
age and aren't in the employment sector? Um Is there a story that you can tell about
them? II, I could tell some, but I will say that the idea of the grant is to help
us to find those individuals. So, you know, if we were successful at it, we wouldn't
need the grant um in a certain sense. Although everywhere I, I think this grant's
really a boon, especially for the Olympic communities uh of Jefferson clown because
we're, you're experiencing while different very similar things as well. Um Of this
group that's kind of disappeared. You know, we hear about those individuals. Uh It's
less about disappearing. I think that it's more about people have made choices to
their life that they can get by on this and they're gonna decide to do it. Mr Dean
kind of spoke about less full time, kind of more part time. So we're working with
employers to look at what are the opportunities as well to bring, engage those individuals
to bring people who may have left during the pandemic. Uh Obviously, industries like
health care were very decimated. Uh long term care, very decimated our public work.
Uh public works very decimated, including transportation drivers, various things
like that, all of that. Um And that's just kind of following the many ways following
the pandemic, but it's also been a major attitude change about what's important in
our lives. Um We just sat through a great COVID briefing from the doctor who really,
you know, had us focus on. Let's do this together. Let's right. This is something
we are. And I think that change has actually made us all consider what's really important
in our life and our working conditions. We now have more remote work opportunities
than we ever had. That doesn't help our local need for in person workers, right?
If they're competing against AAA job that they can just do online, um I would say
health care again, going back to the the sector kind of um for many of our folks
that that is also a barrier. Do these, do these jobs include? Uh are they good jobs?
They include not only a living wage about housing that you spoke of but also enough
to be able to sustain myself and my family uh with benefits like health care and,
and other things. Uh child care still, we're, we're part of several child care commissions
working on. These are the uh the identity, excuse me, the identified barriers that
we just did in our strategic planning session. As we're looking forward, I will tell
you, we spoke with employers in Jefferson County, we spoke with public, public folks
as part of this, our partner agencies, folks at the college at a variety and it kind
of we're coalescing around exactly what all those are. But you've hit the nail on
the head. That housing is the biggest and just really child care, I think, and then
just availability of, um, you know, how we can have some different type of work environments
available for folks. Um, you know, an employer wants somebody there full time. How
can we make that work with two individual part time folks? We have to think outside
the box sometimes with employers around what that looks like. And what about remote
work? It seems like that has set up some expectations that's created a lot of tension
between employers and employees. I, I agree, reconcile as we come, come out of a
pandemic. And I guess I'm just, yeah, you know, uh, and everybody's, we, we were
kind of like we do our meetings exactly like I'm doing with you right now, remotely,
you're in person, of course. Um, and having both and, and we're even looking because
a lot of our members were like, uh we don't like this remote thing. We really, we
missed the opportunity to engage with one another except that we also know that we're
three counties meeting together and, and how difficult that is to make, you know,
hate come to South Kitsap or South Kitsap come to Forks or, you know, any of that.
And so when we only meet, so it's important, we look at that in business. We've had
a failure with that as well because our primary service provider is actually employment
security department for our adult and dislocated worker problem. And they went off
and this to retain employees and said, oh, we're gonna allow you to commute two days
or just work from home two days a week. Great. I can't keep an office open if all
employees have two days a week off. And what it should have been was one in one day
off and one day at a remote location so that we could have you at stations at the
library that day. And so we're working even with them now of bringing that back and
kind of doing it. But that's the kind of thinking that needs to happen. Um We know
that people want, you know, a lot of folks want to do work, but we also not every
job is a remote work job or every person is a remote worker. Um just because of,
you know, schedule a variety of things. But if we can get around flexibility, I think
is the thing to really make all succeed in kind of that negotiation because employers
will automatically say, well, it's just better for me to have everybody here. Yeah,
sometimes. Um, certainly if you're a retail operation, but behind the scenes, what
about your accounting staff? What about the other? Are you really just paying for
space for people or that they could actually do that work at a remote location? So
we wanna go to the other thing that we're working on really, really strongly and
I think we all need to look at this is skills based hiring. We've got to stop putting
degrees in places and certificates, even in places of when somebody can do the job,
when we could teach them those skills. So we have programs where we pay the employer
back 50% of their wages for the 1st 400 hours during that learning curve. And that
enables the employer not to lose money on an employee that didn't have all the requirements
at the beginning. But within three months, we'll have an understanding of the job
so that we really want to work with employers and say, don't see, you gotta have
a degree in this or you gotta have it because I have a degree in philosophy. I don't
know what your degrees are. Um And a master's a master's of theology. So really uh
that enables me to pardon my French bullshit. Um But other than that, not a lot,
right? And, and talk about that, which is always nice, but again, it doesn't meet
the require, but you learn how to do work. And it's really around critical thinking
skills that we're trying to develop and really around helping folks to understand
the work environment and how to, how to be successful in that environment. And as
you said in the proclamation, we're also looking for individuals who have been left
out of the system. Most importantly, our tribal folks are um individuals with disabilities
but also individuals with substance issues huge in our communities right now everywhere.
How are we getting folks back to work uh in that? And we also have to feed that workforce.
We have to feed the child care workforce and the, and the uh uh behavioral health
workforce, which are all experiencing those as well in their great needs. So it's
a lot of work to do but not something we should be scared of because here's what
we have going for us. We have a passion, you have an amazing community of people
that want to change. Uh And, and people that want the community to succeed, they're
thinking about the future. And um I just think we need to stay focused on that, especially
with young people. Great. Thank you, Bill. I'm sorry, I dominated the questions.
Uh I'll just say um something that um you two might not know. Um because I have actually
held, this is one of the boards I've been on since day one in this job. Um So I've
not shared it with you. Um is, uh, so we have great staff that is uh primarily the
um work out of Kitsap County um Bill and, and his staff are wonderful. I've had the
opportunity to travel with them and um just really admire their, their commitment
to this work. But there's also a workforce development council which is comprised
of um employers and labor and people who work across the workforce in uh the three
county region. And um they are really helping to set policy and direction for how
these federal dollars are spent. The little bit of flexibility we have. Um It is
not um a, a top down model. It really is taking in feedback from this diverse council.
Um And so, really appreciate the time that, that they commit to uh this work regionally.
So thanks to Bill and his staff and to the council um who, who dedicate a lot of
time,
right? I have one more question for you, Bill just to let you muse philosophically
about uh um I guess you, you talk about equity and then you also talk about flexibility
and I find that sometimes the flexibility doesn't end up being very equitable across
different um jobs inside one business or business line. And, and, and how, what are
some of the strategies to, to reconcile that if you have some jobs that just can't
be promoted um some job, some employee employees as you say, that don't drive that
way. But um they, they look and see this is a perk, this is a feature of this job.
Um And what are the some of the strategies that businesses can use to reconcile that
tension? Well, I think, you know, a smart business uh can use a variety of different
techniques we work with, with Danny Steiger on the board, you know, uh but love of
traders, company owned, right? Uh get a share of the company part partly to convince
people that, that work there every day that they have a say in the future, but they
have a say in their future as well and they're making and investment in their future.
So that's a great model. There are all kinds of models which really allow greater
participation of employees in the daily work of the company. And I would say those
companies listen to their employees and they're likely to have their employees there
a lot longer, longer term. And that's what really folks want too, is retention. Um
But they are looking as well as what's the entire, what's the retirement, uh what
other benefits if I was a, you know, I know the health care consortium is really
looking at like child care at the facility, right? That's an ultimate. If you have
that you really have. Wow, I can show up because I don't have to do this and that
some people are working and not even making enough money to pay their child care.
Uh because of the cost of it and then you have the child care workforce, we got to
get those wages up. So how do, how do we, you know, do it together? And I think it
really is just about not owning any success, really trying to duplicate one on one
with each of those. Uh, in some way, we don't, we're not gonna change the entire
focus of the workforce, but we're gonna make really big differences, one on one with
companies also, when companies see their neighbors success, they want to actually
have the same success as well. So it's again about sharing that and also coming together
as parts of businesses, you know, um in both in industry. But in, even in area, you
know, if you've got a, a folks that are gonna be commuting from somewhere else, think
about the commuting patterns of your, of your other businesses around you where they're
getting their workforce from and can we go together on a van pool? Can we, you know,
just again, trying to figure out what their needs are? And I think that's just really
on our side working with your chambers around what they're hearing as well and they're
members, again, members of the, of the ow DC. In some cases, uh in other cases, we
participate actively in uh chambers getting those knowledge and then again, participating
in all of our surveys about what, what are you seeing on the ground? Right. Mhm.
Sorry. Oh, go ahead. I'm just wondering if you're hearing any innovative solutions
to the housing conundrum in your networking or? Well, you know, um gosh, I
wish, I wish I could see more. I, I mean, there are things happening in all of our
counties around. I think it, it, as I said, when we did a whole, uh we did a uh an
entire workforce meeting um that was brought up by Danny and actually by, by Danny
Stagger really around the, the need for our workforce housing. Looking at the state
level about permitting county levels. What are we doing? Uh You know, why are we
forcing not to have multifamily housing, you know, not in my neighborhood kind of
discussions, all those things. We, we all have to be open to how we do that. And,
you know, it kind of depends what is it, you know, workforce housing I've seen in
the past. Um I will tell you, I came from Colorado. I was the state director of,
of Education and training in Colorado, a bigger job as it were no more important.
Uh I will tell you because the rubber meets the road at our county levels as you
know, um But what I will say is that we had, we had uh I owned a, a workforce center,
our, our state owned a workforce center up in Frisco in a frisco is kind of a, and
it's close to all the ski towns, right? And sort of a ski town. It's a town where
more people can live than they can in Vail or, um, other places around there. Right.
But it was still absolutely ridiculous. Well, we own some land in a workforce center
and we decided to give that to the developer who put a workforce center, um, put
affordable housing on, gave us two spots for our staff because we have single staff
who can't afford to live in their town either. And then also uh and those come with
the job, you know, they come with the job so they can't stay there, they don't have
the job. But then the other part is um at the bottom of that center is that they
actually kept a workforce center and allowed us to stay there. So they got $25 million
worth of land that was originally purchased for 75,000 rip down the building that
we owned and now are, are, are constructing that. So that's an out of out of the
thing kind of idea. Look at your, you know, at what land the county may have its
disposal. What what builders might be interested in doing some kind of a, you know,
a compromise, maybe it's for itinerant employees, maybe it's uh you know, similar
to what we've done with uh agricultural housing, temporal housing for migrant seasonal
farm worker communities or do we manage though, you know, manage something like that
effectively? I just think we have to look wherever. Sometimes it's railroad cars.
I mean, I, I mean, it's different for the house was population than it is for just
workers who can't afford to live where they work. Um So I think we have to learn
from all those, especially hospitality. You're, you really have a lot of hospitality
related jobs. Right. And we know they do not pay. No. Um That, well, so what other,
what other opportunities can we have to subsidize that through affordable housing
or other ways? Well, like you, you talked earlier about trying to struggle the struggle
of, of getting child care uh salaries up, right? And I, I'm really concerned about
the pipeline of child care workers as you know, Clallam County and Jefferson County.
And I assume Kitsap County are all working to build new units. But I've talked to
the folks at the Peninsula College too about that pipeline and there's just, it's,
it's untenable to think that you're going to be able to train hundreds of new child
care workers when you're paid less than you are at, you know, mcdonald's or the same,
right? So other than I mean, the only solution I can think of is really starting
to encourage, you know, backyard day cares again and, and you know, kind of a dero
professionalize it almost. But what are some other solutions that can help with that?
What I see the real dearth of a critical worker is as we, as we try to you know,
work on this child care issue. Yeah, I think it, I think it's a, it's a double kind
of way. If obviously without employers there, it doesn't make sense. The government
cannot do everything in this kind of way. But if we can think about, you know, if
you have an employee that's also has a child and if you had a child care center at
your site, what would that, you know, what would that save? How do we divide that
up? If that's an included benefit? Then again, you don't, so it doesn't have to be
the highest cost. Um I, I agree with you about looking, I don't know if I'd make
it less formal. We, we, I mean, there's always safety concerns, you know, obviously
with um family, child care just having the ability if something happens, all those
variety of things, but we also know that we all survived. We, we were part of it.
We all survived staying with grandma, you know, was it always what we wanted? No,
but, and, and then how do we help families to be able to afford if they want to use
a family health care? I mean, a family uh provider, is that something we can figure
out a way to help fund as well? In other words, does that person become part of the
public sector? There's been some interesting um things nationwide done in a variety
of different counties where they stand up um primarily focused on uh public. Um I
was gonna say like uh human services funded for child care of individuals who participate
in their programs, but it allows enough dollars to be in the center that then the
private can take over as well and fill in the other costs. So, uh I don't think it's
easy. You've got some bright folks working on it. Um I'm not gonna, you know, call
them out individually, but some very bright folks in the public community really
are, are, are trying to figure out ways because they know, um, and this really also
encourages great diversity in the workforce, both with minorities, but also with
women in the workforce, we want more women in the workforce. That's a big part one.
They're just better at everything and, and two, I, I hate to say that but they are
and they're just nicer. Right. Yeah. There you go. Leave you out. But, uh, but I
will tell you, you know, I always say that the best man for the job is almost always
a woman. And so, you know, we know that um we want to engage more. That's the other
part too is we're not fully engaged in our, our military families. We have a lot
of trailing spouses that come up to the area and they're not engaged in workforce
because of child care or because of other, other things that just doesn't make it
so possible. And, uh, we try. That's a, that's a hard recruitment group for us. But
we, we want more and more of that because we know with some training and a variety
of things they can continue to. You got you muted yourself. Bill just in the, the
very last bit. Yeah, I just know what I've said too much, I guess. Right. The computer
said. Ok. Ok. No, it really thanks for, for diving into this, you know, I don't know,
maybe uh bring your kid to, to work here. I don't know. Let's look at our biggest
department head over there and see what he thinks about. Bring your kid to work,
whatever it takes. Ok. Well, really appreciate your time, Bill and all your work
and, and helping to, to develop this critical workforce. My, my team appreciates
your success, uh your uh your assistance with it and really being positive about
workforce uh as a way to really help and benefit our community. Thanks, Bill. Thanks
a lot. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Take care.
Ok. Um Well, that takes us through our uh timed agenda items this morning.
So I guess we can return to briefing and calendaring and take care of that. Anything
else that people want to try to address this morning? I had one question for you.
I noticed that the rack is gonna meet. Are you gonna participate on this September
8th? Yeah. Anyway, it's on a Monday. Oh, September. Oh, great. It's a no, they, they
keep, and they posted it with the federal registry already. So, no, I'm not going
to participate. Um And I keep, I am going to read through the proposals and uh submit
notes. But uh um Matt Stewart's on the rack. Ok. And we have, you know, the way that
it's really uh split up. It's Jefferson County funds go to Jefferson County projects.
Low County Pro County SRS funds go to the county project. So it's not like we're,
I will, will really miss out for my lack of involvement. But I continue to say, hey,
can we do these on any day other than Mondays? Because so far all the meetings have
been on Mondays? Ok. Ok. Well, we do get the biggest chunk of the title two funds.
So it seemed like an opportunity um that, but they, they'll just, they will come
to us to projects that happened in Jefferson County II. I know that uh assessor Chapman
will be there in his role with black country horsemen and they've got lost a couple
of projects proposed. So I will, I will give notes. Great. But let's see. I was halfway
through my week back to the week
um today. All right. So
I think I took you through the cap strategic plan and the big external thing, as
I say is we're gonna try to do better, better job opening the door for the public
so anyone can walk in any time and that when you come in, 11 interaction gets you
to all the appropriate uh resources,
uh do Thursday. So I, I visited the paper mill too and, um, I was really impressed,
you know, we have new owners in the paper mill this past year and I, I learned what
makes paper mills smell too, which was interesting for me. You know, there's kind
of two things that do it. One is the, all the different uh, chemicals that they use
to break down the, the wood chips primarily, but also the occ the con post consumer
cardboard as well. A little bit. They want to reclaim all those. So they put it through
this big lime kiln. Did you see that? The big spinning cylinder, horizontal cylinder
super cool. But I think sometimes those create sulfur smell, but the kind of uh sewage
smell that we get more often is, uh from, you know, after they push all the water
through and, you know, they use 13 times as much water as the city, right? Huge amount
of water. So they, it all goes through and then it goes to this big holding pond
that's 20 ft deep. Um, and then it goes through a bunch of baffles and then comes
back and then they pour it into the, into the water into the ocean, right at 78 degrees.
No hotter, no colder. I don't know why. It's 78 degrees. Seems awfully hot. To pour
it back into the water. But, um, that's the temperature they're supposed to do. But
that retention pond is 20 ft deep. And because of deferred maintenance, uh, it's
only 3 ft deep right now. So that's where the smell comes from is the, the retention
pond and they're dredging it and they're gonna, they're, they've, they're putting
out how many millions they said they had allocated for that price for, uh, deferred
maintenance capital investments this year. I think the new company is really trying
to make it a, a, an ongoing enterprise. So millions and they're just gonna keep,
uh you know, a Abaco out there once they get the permits going, uh an ongoing process
of dredging, not just wait until it becomes a problem again. So that's gonna be stinky.
Uh It will probably be stinky when they do the work. But I think once you have that
20 the, the appropriate depth, the stink will supposedly go away. We did ask a question
of whether they could recirculate the water that they pump out into the bay and have
a recirculating system. So they don't have to use as much water. And they said, he
said that there were some mills that were closed loop that did recirculate their
water, but it would be a huge massive investment, but it's not off the table. Yeah,
it was crazy. I really like when they were dealing with the post consumer cardboard,
that first big uh ban where you've got the big dip, collecting all the plastic and
everything and then all the different progressive filters, getting the styrofoam
and out. It was, it was pretty cool. Learning about different, you know, how water
resistant is this paper? How, uh, yeah. Uh, yeah. And all the pulp goes abroad. Right.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Very, very interesting. I, I thought it was fascinating. Um, so
after that spent quite a while talking about the, the kind of the rec compete project
as well. Um And uh then did agenda planning with Mark on
Friday. Uh It's kind of the, the, the last couple of weeks, not a lot of meetings,
but they all happened at the same time. So I had to miss most of the rec compete
meeting because of our, our, our drainage district hearing that we had two o'clock
on Friday. Um, and, and those, those were my high points last week,
Monty. You wanna, you wanna share your last week with us? We've rarely, I think we
talked for 30 minutes. Last time. You've got lots of, we're all fascinated by all
the public work stuff.
You know, it's been uh really busy for our office. Uh Of course, the, the sewer is
under construction and, um, I've actually been out there on that project myself quite
a bit because uh Samantha and, and John and others are, um, trying to
get the, uh, the uh final plans ready to go out to bid in October. So they've been
in meetings daily with the consultant design team and stuff trying to iron out the
last details of the, of the design. Um you know, actually our
e even though there's a consulting engineering team, there's uh quite a bit of input
that goes into the design from, from our team is quite knowledgeable about um the
operation of wastewater treatment plants and uh and ask all the right questions and
makes a lot of good uh suggestions on how to make the final plans, uh a better product.
So there's big push going on right now, which um which means I've been out in the
field uh with this earthwork phase of the project. Um So that adds to my duties that
are a, a lot right now. Um
uh But uh we're making good, good progress on, on that project. You know, what are
some of the variables that are still remain in the, in the final design? What you
think, you know, that'd be a better question for Samantha and John R to both mechanical
engineers and that's the area. Uh And then of course, we have Dave Peterson, who's
the city's um a wastewater expert. I mean, that's how he originally came here. He
was uh with CHDM Hill and when they built their wastewater treatment plant. So, um
you know, there's just a lot of operational uh
uh uh things that, that need to be finalized with just how certain pumps work and,
uh, and things like that. But again, probably a better question for those guys. Uh,
I, I don't participate in many of those meetings because I'm doing too many other
things. And again, I've been trying to cover some of the field work as well, but
I, I can tell you that, you know, this team has come together kind of as we've gone
and, and just within the last year, you know, we added uh John Black and uh Dave
Peterson and Samantha Harper and it's a, it's a really strong team. We're very lucky
that that uh team came together uh in time, you know, because we got a lot of this
funding but it has, you know, deadlines on it. We didn't have any of this team when
we got the funding and, you know, hiring uh professionals like that that live in
our community is not the easiest thing to do, right? Uh But I've been really impressed
with uh with how, how they work together on this project. Sam came to my block party
on Saturday and that worked with neighbors who are eligible to be in the sewers.
So it was a good um great opportunity for folks to ask her questions about the project.
So, yeah, she had to work. Yeah, but it was great to have her and she got some barbecue
as well. She's a hard worker. Um Yeah, she does. She gets a lot done. And uh but
I mean, you can see like the project uh schedule, it covers one entire wall of her
office, you know, from floor to ceiling and corner to corner. Um because there's
a lot of elements to this project, you know. So, um and she's working on all aspects
of that um project right now. I mean, you know, we have the wastewater treatment
plant but we have the collection system. They've been getting those plans trying
to get um many, many comments back to the designers so that they can finalize those
plans. And then um uh John Black has been uh out working on uh meeting with some
of the property owners to discuss their connections and all this has to come together
kind of in a at once, you know, um is the ordinance mostly at the prosecutor's office
now or are you guys still working back and forth between us and them? Um I guess,
I mean, other areas, you know, the, the uh the equipment that is the wastewater treatment
plant itself um from OVI, you know, we're still working with them and all their submittal.
Um And uh and then there's this whole component of the projects. That's the um the
SK system, the controls and programming and electrical controls for all these pumps
and everything that has to be developed. So those meetings are ongoing. Um You know,
I mean, the, the O vivo plant itself is a self contained unit that comes, comes ready
to go, but it has to talk to all the other components of the wastewater treatment
plant. You know, the equalization tank pumps and the odor control system and things
like that. And, uh, it's quite complicated. Um, I forget, did any of you go to the
Port Gamble plant? Yes, that's right. So, of course, ours is, ours is bigger and
has more elements to it. But, you know, you, it looks like the Starship enterprise
when you go in there. So all of that stuff has to be designed. It's not mass custom
stuff, you know. So they're, they're doing that kind of stuff every day. Even the
package plan to still. Oh, yeah. Mhm. Um, you know, on the roadside we, we wrapped
up the season's Chip Seal program. We still have some fog ceiling to go in the couple
of weeks here. Damp weather hasn't helped with that. Um, it's gonna hit and miss
when we can get that done, but we finished, uh, nearly 20 M nine miles of chip ceiling
this year, uh, with, uh, a lot of new crew members. So, um, that's a,
that was a lot to accomplish with, with new people. Um,
I think we have three or four open positions on our road crew now and you're talking
about hiring here with Bill, a big challenge for us. We're, you know, rolling into
winter with a lot of vacancies. Um, same in the, um, equipment maintenance department,
uh, which isn't part of public works, even though people still think it is. It's
part of central services. But, you know, there's only a couple of mechanics for 300
pieces of equipment. So, um, pretty thin over there. Um, but we lost a person on
the west end. That's a four person cruise. A 25% of our crews. We lost to another
employer out there and, uh, two or three here in Fort Hadlock. So, uh, uh, again,
that's gonna be a challenge for us and we have a number of, um, people out or going
out and the solid waste crew as well. And, uh, yeah, so, um, variety of reasons
there but uh kind of thin, you know, and, uh, sometimes I lay
awake at night trying to think about where the next group of employees are gonna
come from for these positions. You know, I just don't, I don't know. And again, you
know, it's the cost of housing and the availability of it. That's, uh, that's a big
challenge, right? Are most of the new employees, I guess, I assume most of the like
for road crew and, and transportation are, are already already live in the region.
Is that where they usually come from? Uh, well, one of our vacancies was a person
who was commuting from Kitsap County and, oh, wow. Is it working for us now? Um,
you know, they, they do, I mean, more and more people are coming from, like the Brennan
quilt scene area up to Port Hadlock, port towns into work. Um, because maybe housings
a little more affordable in the South County. Um, some areas. But yeah, it's, uh,
we have people commuting from Lyon County as well. But, uh, challenge
and, you know, I, I mean, uh, a lot of the employees, even the new ones are of an
advanced age and we have some young people as well. But, um, I'm concerned about
the aging of our workforce as well. Right. Um, you know, those are the people who
have lived here a long time but, uh, about 30 years ago you can probably live here.
Well, someone mentioned, you know, the, the works really good on the contracting
side right now and then those, you know, they're the private contractor we're working
with on the sewer has a waiting list of people going, waiting, wanting to work for
them really high pay. You know, because it's prevailing wage. But they, um, you know,
it used to be like you went to work for the county because that's where you, you
know, jobs with benefits and things like that. But the private employers are paying
those benefits now too. So it's not a competitive edge for the county as much as
it used to be. Even pension. Uh, probably not as much but the medical side and things
like that, that's turn 50. You start thinking about those things. Yeah. The younger,
younger workers don't tend to think about retirement too much. They're thinking about
Friday. Yeah. You know, so you think it's more, it's more that pay benefits
package than it is actually having skilled people able to fill those positions? I
think it's a combination of a lot, it's a perfect storm of a lot of factors that
have come together. Um, if they're making a third more doing, working, working a
piece of machinery for a, a private contractor around here, why, why wouldn't they
do it? You know, I, right. Um, you see that we saw it the last time, you know, 2007,
8, we lost some people to the private sector and then they came back in 2010 11.
Right. Um You know, the, the, the nice thing about that with the way that we want
to get them back though. Yeah. No, I mean, the nice thing about county, a county
job is, you know, where you're starting every day you're not commuting to sometimes,
you know, Washington to do a job or something like that. And, uh, um, but yeah, it's,
it's kind of scary and just how many many openings we have and are going to have,
you know, and leadership positions too. Right. With Blues departure.
So, um, you know, but, uh, you know, a lot going on certainly with, uh, with all
of the divisions and public works. Um Yeah, great. Well, thanks for digging into
it with us. We appreciate you being here today stepping in for Mark. Yeah, if I,
if I don't know if you and Mark talked about this, but if it's a heavy lift to spend
a lot of time here, you'd be welcome to join virtually too. If you can get some other
work done.
Yeah, I might leave here in a few minutes to go out to the sewer. Yeah. Yeah. My
aunt is out there right now. But, um, uh, I appreciate that, you know. So, yeah,
that works. Yeah, we're flexible and, uh can often play by ourselves too. I know
you guys got it handled. So maybe,
um, I mean, you know, I just wanna be helpful and uh, I know I'll be over every day
or two to look at the paperwork that needs approval and signatures from a county
administrator and stuff like that. So great. Thank you. Ok. Shall we look to this
coming week? See any conflicts we need help with right now? Yeah, please.
I'm just gonna have Monte fill in, in all my meetings. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah.
Wait till he leaves. Wait for two minutes and then we'll assign him everything. Yeah.
Um, I could start so short week obviously with the holiday. Um, I do have a, a dinner
tonight with a number of folks from was, um, coming, we're trying to figure out how
we can, um, kind of heal some of the political divide within the association. So
that's a big county, little county. But the partisan divide. Yeah. Yeah. And I think
all sorts of divides and how to get, um, folks a little more up to speed too. A lot
of, you know, there's a lot of turnover of, um, commissioners, obviously legislators
too during the pandemic. And so a number of our commissioners on the legislative
steering committee have, um, never been, never been in person before this session.
And, um, so this is more of a brainstorming. I, uh, with staff coming from Mossack
and then, uh commissioner from Island County, Inland County coming over for dinner.
So looking forward to um, brainstorming with them. Um, I
will be in Seattle the rest of the week um, with my husband out on medical leave,
um, doing a few meetings. Virtually one, the uh public sector cabinet, uh who advises
the academic Development Council. Um Public sector needs is um meeting tomorrow midday.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I've been really involved in a couple of, um, kind of key issues
at the E DC. So I think I probably would have been there anyway, even if Mark wasn't
there. Um, but we will, we'll miss him, but I'll be kind wearing a couple different
hats. Um, have a weekly child care meeting about the, um, your
child care center. I'm gonna miss the Transit Advisory Group tomorrow afternoon.
I don't know if anyone is interested in sitting in. I don't, I don't know if we have
an alternate position for that or not. But, um, you know, they do report back to
the authority board as well. And what time is that at 3 30 to 5? That's something
I could attend. Yeah. Would you be interested? Yeah, that would be, that'd be great.
Thank you. Oh, well, we have Kelly, um, send you some. All right. Maybe I can just
forward this to you.
Right. I haven't quite figured out the uh new outlet. Yeah, totally. So I think,
I think it's easy. Damn. Ok. Awesome. Um Have a Economic Development
Council board meeting on Thursday morning and a legislative or sorry, a
um leadership council meeting in preparation for a two day meeting next week. Um
Friday morning, a healthier together steering committee meeting. Like I said, our
last one, we will see a draft of the uh consultants plan and talk about how we're
gonna disseminate that. We do have a date on the calendar for the consultants to
come present to us in October. Um
I'm a little uncertain if I'll be able to attend that meeting. Um I think a lot of
the hard work is done. This is the really just seeing the the draft plan and making
any minor tweaks to it. But um mornings are not a great time for me to get away.
The um rounds in the hospital are very important. So I kind of plan everything around
when the five minutes we get to see the doctor, which it could be in a, somewhere
in a four hour range and really annoying. Um uh, then I have a municipal research
service center board meeting. I'll attend that day gonna meet with the new, um, I
heard uh from Jessica, uh Tanya Barnett did the introduction of the child advocacy
center, which is an interesting combination of the, uh, Juvenal services and our
criminal justice system and the Y MC A have uh collaborated to hire someone to um
be working within the criminal justice system. I know it's, I'm, I'm a little weird.
Yeah, kind of specifically for you. So I'm meeting with her virtually for the first
time to hear about that new role. Um I will miss the community outreach meeting in
Brennan on Friday night. I can likely attend virtually. Um which is more just a listening
mode. You know, I don't wanna make it clunky. It's a challenge, I think down there
often the bandwidth. I know Tammy's been still struggling even though we thought
we would address it. So we'll try to have you available for the high. Yeah. Yeah.
And I can listen in that. I, I really need to be in Seattle. Um uh These are critical
days for me to be there. I will join you. Uh If I can just roll a little bit into
the next week, I'll join you virtually next Monday. OK. Um And then Tuesday, I will
be um in the um uh for the leadership council. So
I think that's, mm, I'm likely to also miss the community meeting in on Thursday
the 14th. We'll just put everything on you. Oh, that's really Kate. Right.
Yeah, I don't, I know it's Kate. I don't take lightly missing them but we're, we'll
be really in the, the depths of needing, um, needing care. So,
yeah.
Ok. Uh So this week, uh tonight I have the MRC meeting, Marine Resources Committee
meeting and we'll be updating them on our S MP update timeline which has moved
out a little bit, which I think the MRC team is working on S MP comments is relieved
that they have more time. Um Tomorrow, I have a
discussion with Elizabeth Court um about participating in a uh
work group on um
some solid waste issues at the uh state level. So let's see. Let me, I wanna fill
you in more on that but um I've been communicating with al because
we get requests to be on committees all the time. I feel like, and I was like, OK,
so how is this gonna, is this gonna um matter to us? And the long story short is
yes. And it's about the um food recycling and um the bill that passed the
legislature last year and implementation of that bill and how to um kind of meet
the priorities of our um community while addressing the, the um
next steps that were laid out in the bill. So, um, like with our crop and then that's
the tool that we use,
but trying to keep food out of the waste stream as opposed to uh recycling it. After
the fact, food waste is really the approach that we've doubled down on. So, um, anyway,
it looks like I'm going to be joining this work group for the next six months. So,
did you know Elizabeth Court had Bill Ing's job for many years? I remember her in
a workforce job but I didn't, didn't know it was his job. Yeah, funny that they both,
those names came up today. So that's tomorrow morning and then um not sure if we're
doing our weekly strategic plan project team meeting tomorrow or not, but on the
calendar for now and we do have a draft, a revised draft. So that'll be shared with
all of us soon. Um I have the JT, a audit exit interview tomorrow
afternoon immediately preceding the transit advisory group now. So it'll be a transit
afternoon tomorrow and then Thursday um is a,
it's a work task day until uh the afternoon. I'm gonna attend the hospital groundbreaking
and I think we figured that it's fine if we both go because we're not speaking and
we're just, I don't even think we both get shovels or anything. We're just gonna
be there and support. So, um Greg and I will be at that and then Thursday evening,
I'm gonna attend the wooden Boat festivals, lifetime achievement awards to recognizing
two people who've been important in my life, Betsy Davis from the Boat school and
Ray Beck. Um Yeah, so I'm definitely gonna be attending that and then after that,
maybe attending the Jefferson County cohort of the Peninsula Trails Coalition meeting
Friday. Um I just put KPTZ as a standing agenda item on my calendar because I'm not
sure what we have this week and next week I might have a conflict. Um I was gonna
do the strategic plan item on the 15. Yeah, but
might have a conflict with the Olympic Coast Sanctuary meeting.
Um Well, I could switch with you. I'm, I have not done any scheduling but I'm on
the, on the calendar for this week with behavioral health question mark, but uh I
am gonna be running out of town next week, but I could do the 15th and then you wanna
switch. Sure you want to. Yeah. So I will get with Wendy and see she can do strategic
plan with me.
Great, thanks Greg. Ok. So, and I'll let um, Jim know. So, and then
after that, I have the no public land steering committee meeting. It's a Zoom call
and then I'll be at the community outreach meeting with Greg and Brennan with all
of his constituents because he's gonna have turnout for his. I have. No. Yeah, be,
be prepared to talk about the Brennan Sewer and then I am about to make the phone
call to my colleagues at the Wooden Boat Festival to see that could be useful this
weekend because I've heard they have a call, a need for more volunteers. And um anyway,
I love going so seems like a good thing to do. So that's this week. Excellent.
Ok. Here with you guys. Of course, today, tomorrow, I'm also getting briefed by Carrie.
He about the uh aquatic center. Um The big thing tomorrow
Thursday, I have a conflict in the morning. I was gonna go to the quilt scene, Food
Bank, food Bank, a groundbreaking. They've gotten their permit. It has been approved
at 10 a.m. But somehow I, I did not have represented my calendar that we have our
annual in person meeting of the Olympic Area Agency on Aging at the Cotton Building
at the same time as I am the chair and it's actually in Port Townsend. I, I told
quilt I was not gonna be there, but if either of you would like to, uh, hold the
golden shovel down, uh, downtown Wilstein at 10 a.m. on Thursday morning, I would
love to have you happy to do it. All right. I'll send a few words just because I
had been quite involved in, in helping them get this far. I need a, like a mask or
a wig or a Greg, a beard, a beard. Yeah, I get you a fag.
Um, and then I have to cancel my haircut. Which is, is very necessary because I'm
gonna go join uh in the Natural Resource Innovation Centers having hosting a round
table Thursday afternoon. So I wanna at least attend by Zoom. So I can understand
uh a little bit more kind of the players in that, in that group. And I've invited
and saw as well um because they're gonna be hosting me the following week. Uh Then
I think we have a, a state auditor's office uh conference at two. And then I'll do
these virtual meetings on the way to Port Ludlow so I can join the Port Ludlow Village
Council which I missed last time. And then I'll be racing back to the Jefferson Health
Care groundbreaking at four o'clock. So kind of a busy Thursday, everything happening
at the same time. Um I was going to go to the radio on Friday, but I will not, but
I will do the rec compete task force.
I'm doing it on the 15th. All right, I got it. Got it. Yeah, I already put it in
my calendar. Um And then doing the rec compete task force. Uh Yeah, growing. We did
invite Suzie Ames from Peninsula College and, and Peninsula Colleges to one of them.
It seems like they're all the Ed CS think that Peninsula College is probably best
positioned, I think to lead the workforce uh training kind of component. Um And
that's my week. Thank you. I will send you the invite for the uh closing Food Bank,
Heidi. I also know that at lunch. Um, can I kind of show you what my RFP so far for
the Glen Cove? I mean, II I know I'm kind of pushing this and haven't really talked
through the idea with you guys, but as we have a little time, I'd love to, I can
print it out for you as well, but I'll just share my screen real quick. Sure. I could
use a little fire. Oh, yeah, let's take, let's take five minutes. Seven minutes,
come back at 11 30. I'll recess this until 11 30. Thank you. Yep. Oh,
ok. Welcome back. I will call us back into session. We have nothing else on the agenda,
but I was going to kind of share my thoughts about the rec compete application and
I'm gonna do one probably for the Brennan two or two. So I might um just get it in
kind of under one theme. Let me get here and I'll share this. I've printed out for
both of you guys, a copy of the same thing I'm sharing, but I'm curious your thoughts
about the, the direction and you know how to make it as competitive as possible,
I guess too, because we're, you know, competing both locally and nationally with
this.
Do you have a sense from participating in these conversations of how many projects
will be submitted? I could show you the current project list, but right now uh other
projects involve like the port of Port Angeles wants to get barge loading capacity.
Um A lot of the projects kind of are on the verge of uh not fund. I, I think I've
told you about the Jamestown partnership with Herman brothers on a biochar facility
and the tribe wants to develop their um
uh their mill like killing capacity, buying a killing for their mill mill, I think
uh which will probably be on, be on there. I think um you know, the city of Forks
proposed like creating little warehouses in new, in commercial areas, but without
really a person that was gonna manage them or anything, you know. So um uh there's
gonna be too many applications. I don't know. We have 15 right now and I, I am guessing
and lamented that we will have 50 to sort through on September 18th. I mean, Aaron
beg asked, you know, port to Port Townsend as long as we're, you know, and not money.
He's like, yeah, we've got some asks that we'll put in there. So the port and you
know, I'm shared it with the mill and, and uh it's kind of out there for everyone.
If, if anyone wants to see the rec compete the pitch, I can, I can forward it to
you the RFP, the RFP process. Yeah, it's a word document basically that is challenging
to use our internal systems because it goes to a Google form that you fill out that,
uh, won't load. I had to go end up doing it on my own computer. Hm.
I would like to see it. I wouldn't mind sending it to a couple of people. Yeah. No,
it's open RFP at this point. Is it on Nod CS website? Probably. I will just, uh,
send it to you though right now. I love it. The book, this book is on Housing Bridge.
Oh, yeah. And, uh, housing is not something that can be funded. But uh, definitely
the feature, the, the leverage would be to, to, yeah, and bringing, uh, services.
Right. And everyone, I mean, the mill can't hire folks. That was something, I mean,
you know, they're trying, they're hiring, you know, engineers like 100 and $50,000
and they, you know, even those folks when they come over, they're like, well, I would
have to pay twice as much for housing as I do now. So I would be taking a pay cut
to take this, this promotion. I, I sure wish we could get some answers on this air
quality around the mill question. It's the Department of Health just came out with
a new report that was totally un inconclusive. Jefferson Health. Uh, no, the Washington
Department of Health. Oh, I knew they were doing one. Ok. So it was in inconclusive.
Apparently the CDC is doing one too. But I think that was on, it's been on hold since
COVID. Um, but doh was really just doing a, like a literature review and they couldn't
find anything um inclusive films. I mean, that, that's inconclusive. That
tends to make me think that there will not be negative impacts. Well, it was inconclusive
because the, the science isn't available that they weren't doing the science. They
were just saying there's not enough uh science to, to say one way or the other. And
so the CDC is supposed to be doing the science and that's what's been on hold. I
could try and track down the researcher who was assigned to it years ago, but she
never called me back three years ago. So I'm not, she'll call me back. Now. I asked
him why it was the Department of Ecology not, or that was the regulatory oversight
and he had no idea, you know. Yeah. Um So there are different, um uh uh the type
of processing they do at our mill, it falls under federal um regulation.
All right. So, um
oh, I'm sharing my screen still, aren't I? And, and the federal and the Feds assigned
that to Department of Anthology EPA. So it would be EPA, but they've decided to ecology
to do those to monitor those permits. Um And this is the big thing is the map here.
Share that this is a super generic. But I mean, we've talked back to Bill's Point,
you know, about, uh you gotta put some skin in the game. We, the county does own
four or five of those larger, uh, plots, right, just south of Cowell Brown. That
if they did turn into high density residential, we really could, um, find partners
to, uh, you know, keep them permanently affordable workforce housing for a good time.
And I would say at least the way I'm maybe it's just, uh, my, uh, Pollyanna attitude.
But I, I think designing a whole area that is for denser housing in an area that
maybe is not as appealing as some of the other areas. It has that Georgetown industrial
vibe, I think might be a feature, not a bug for creating, you know, hopefully 500
units of workforce housing, the part on this on the, the, um east there,
I'm meeting with some of those property owners to kind of determine whether you mean,
yeah, whether they should be part of um, the project or not. I mean, it could, because
it also could easily go uh to the, um, to the west of Highway 20 as well because
there is part of that Glen Cove does go on the other side. And so I don't know, I'll
work with Kevin to create a, a couple of different options. But, and where's the
city of this, uh, full throated support right now? Um So they're really excited about
it. They, they've got the money for that lift station up at Evans Vista and that
will create enough capacity to get down and I think they're really flexible in um
working out an agreement with us for, you know, maybe it's just an expansion of the
urban growth area and eventually, you know, if 60% of the folks, the property owners
petition them, they can get annexed. But finding out a path that kind of keeps both
the city and county, you know, fairly whole through this process, um is, is the goal,
you know, so whether, whether it's just an expansion of the urban growth area and
it would probably be, this would expand here and then it would retract in other areas.
So, you know, up at Hastings or somewhere where there's, uh, some, uh, more rural
applications and people aren't on the sewer or something. But the current law is
that, that would get trunk in basically. So the urban growth area would not expand,
it would just reform a little bit. Oh, ok. Um, but coming up with the path that,
that, yeah, made, made them comfortable and us comfortable going forward to whether
or not the mill is included. I mean, naturally is our only heavy industrial area
should be included in the urban, in the, uh, um, urban growth area. But whether that
actually pencils out is another question
but not discussing annexation at this point. Just extension. I I it's premature.
So not discussing and that's not something that we can easily do without, um, without
the property owners. And I think that part of the tension in the in the conversation
in the past has been around that and you know, bringing an urban level infrastructure
increases your cost, making it part of the city really increases the cost of knowing
those, those two different uh I guess pain points before we, we walk down either
path really. But you gotta walk down the expansion of the urban growth area before
you walk down the annexation just but keeping a friend of mind, you know, like I
not hiding the fact that this could end up an annexation from the property owners
because it could some want it, some, some want it and some don't. And from my early
conversation, definitely depending on sort of how long they've been there, whether
they're kind of trying to grow or, you know, looking towards succession planning
and, and uh winding down. So, but if you have any other thoughts or notes on this,
let me know, you know, it's not due until the 18th of September. I'll get some more
data. As I said, I'm meeting with both residential and commercial property owners
in the next couple of weeks. And have you talked to D CD about this? I've talked
to D CD about this. They were the first meeting. They were Josh and, and Brent were
on the meeting with me in the city. And uh um you know, I talked to Josh again last
week about it. His big concern is of course capacity Right. Um And I talked about
and I think I even uh put in here that we're really leaning on contracts that we've
just made that are hopefully beyond the scope of what we need for most planning,
you know. So it's the, the goal with the phase one, we compete would be to use those
contracted consultants to do the outreach and planning work for the expansion of
the urban growth area in parallel with our comp plan amendment which has a funding
source already. You know, we've already gotten some money from ecology um on commerce,
excuse me. Um So that was Josh's big point is that, you know, don't nest the, the
things that have to happen too closely with the project that can't happen. Yeah.
Yeah. Ok. Well, I like the, I like the direction generally. I mean, it's been talked
about for decades. So I think it's time to
time to move forward. We got to, got to say a word. Oh yeah. Uh Yeah. Don't get
off the split or get off the I will say there's, there's a huge opportunity that
um it's, it's hard to wrap our head around, but it, it has been, I think some initial
very initial engineering estimates have been done to see if the mill creates enough
heat to, to create a district heat zone where that heat would be siphoned off and
piped to um even coming into Port Townsend, it still was enough heat to Iceland.
Yeah, and offset, you know, other energy use. Um So it's probably a little too audacious
to try to include that in here, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't rule it out as a, well,
I sent them, I mean, and again, as the consultant is very fond of saying, you know,
kind of rough outlines into the phase one application. If we get into phase two,
those projects can really move a lot. So II I think I, I mean, I, I sent the same
RP to the mill. So if that, that, you know, um I'll, I'll mention that idea to Craig
their hr directors who is engaging with the rec compete. They were at the original
meetings as well. Um And, and see if that's something that they're willing to push
forward now, I think it would have to kind of come, come from them a little bit.
Yeah, this would be new owners since that um um very preliminary study was done,
but Jane was involved with it. Um And I mean, it's pretty remarkable when you hear
the, just the volume, you know,
that um it would have the ability to offset a lot of energy use. Wow. Interesting.
Cool. That cool. Yeah, but they, the new owners of Kelly say, what are you talking
about? I mean, in, in, in industrial uses, it's not uncommon there are a number of
district heating systems in the state but um might be this to them. I don't know.
Yeah. Interesting. Ok. Well, that's what I had. Anything else that we want to address
before the lunch break is there was a meeting today?
What I've been inconsistent lately as a all right. It's Tuesday. You're right. Have,
is that, does anyone else have a sense of them being inconsistent lately? Uh, I'm
pretty consistent in that. I don't pay any attention to it. Yeah, I feel like I saw
it was, I think there was one last week, wasn't there and I, yeah, I wasn't able
to attend, I think maybe there in every other week. Ok. Yeah. Got you. Uh, you, you're
obviously up re epping for the legislative steering committee. Yeah, I'm still chair.
So, um, did, did we get an email and I'm planning on re re indicating interest in
the Federal Issues Issues Committee because I did that last year. So, just since
we all got that. Ok. Oh, um, other issues. Anything else,
uh, hanging chads? We need to take care of, you ask questions like that? Sure. There
are some that, yeah. Well, we have, we'll have time our, our schedule this afternoon.
Let's take a quick look at it. We'll have Tammy with us to talk about, uh, the draft
agreement for the, the Ruck Salmon Creek Conservation project that we've approved
in the past already. Um, it's great seeing. Do other municipalities have such a
good, uh, uh, partner as we do in the land trust? I mean, they did such a good job
coming up with 75% of every project. It seems like that normal across others. That's
because that frequent, you know, if an organ is, if, if an area has a active land
trust, they know what the sources of funding are and what matches what and how to
make everything work. But, and largely because it's difficult for counties to hold
the easements, it's way easier for an entity to and for a while it was required that
the county hold the easement and it's, it's just where they have that rentals. The
one for Wildlife. Yes, I shouldn't say that so definitively, but I think so, but
it's, um, I know that there was a big sigh of relief when RCO changed their, that
requirement that the county holders allowed land trusts to. Um, but they can, you
know, they can access so many other types of funding sources too. Ok. Yeah. Well,
we have that and then we'll have an executive session for half an hour at 3 30 that's
what we have on the agenda. So, what do we need is Tammy's presentation gonna be
two hours or so? Why is there so much time between 1 33 that was available? Oh, ok.
Ok. Yeah. Ok. Well, uh, I guess we'll have time to address anything we don't take
pick up right now. So if, if there's nothing else you guys want to deal with now
we'll break a few minutes early for lunch. All right, we are recessed. We'll be back
at 1 30. Okey doke.
It, is that or? Oh, thank you.
All right. I will call this, uh, September 5th meeting of the board of county commissioners
back into order. We're joined by Tammy Pecor today for our 1 30 workshop
on the, uh, what is it? Rock the Salmon? It's the one down in Discovery Bay, right?
Um So, uh without further ado, I guess it's, it's really your show or we should see
if Sarah Space from the Land Trust is in the Zoom room and I wonder if I could share
my screen everything you have.
Ah, welcome, Sarah. We're actually on time. You can join Tammy up at the table, please.
That's great. You guys kind of match you compliment each other today. I like it.
You look very nice. All right. So we are, we're here to hear about uh this project.
Uh I guess maybe let's move microphones to talk.
Great. Mhm. You Yeah.
You know,
thanks to see you, sir. Thanks for joining us.
So, uh thank you for having us today very much. I'm Tammy Courtney Natural Resources
program coordinator and I'm here with Sarah, who's the conservation director for
Jefferson Land Trust. And we just have a couple of quick things to say to share with
you and heads up um around the Roxanne and Creek Conservation Features project which
was approved for funding in 2022 at the $135,000 level. And, um, I would
just like to give you a reminder of what this project is about. And then,
yeah, it's a couple of pictures. Yeah. So, um, this is a really critical piece of
habitat in the Salmon and Snow Creek watersheds. Salmon Creek, about a mile of Salmon
Creek is on this property and historical summer Trump spawning habitat in the lower
reaches Coho. And uh, we had previously attempted to work with a landowner and hadn't
reached agreement in a previous round. And, uh, they came back. And so this, this
time we've secured our co funding salmon recovery funding board, appreciate the conservation
futures, funding dedicated to the project and we're ready to close very soon. So
we're here to just talk about that process and, and a little bit about how the match
worked out and all of that.
And would you like questions as you go or in at the end? Ok. Great. I don't have
questions. Well, I guess that was a question. Mhm. That was a class. That was a question.
You know, the goal is to permanently protect it through land trusts ownership and
do restoration on the tributary habitat and some on the main stam and, and some in
the forest as well. You'll see it's a very long and narrow kind of oddly shaped property
with a good, um, section of, of tributaries as well as the main stem and it is immediately
upstream of protected property with conservation easements that the land trust holds
and really only one missing gap all the way from this property down to the mouth
of Salmon Creek. So a really critical piece and uh and to have this opportunity again,
is really quite remarkable. So, is it more valuable now that the bridge is in? I,
I'm just, I'm curious how does that impact the, the conservation value? Oh, the conservation
value? Well, the conservation value has been high and our partners have been doing
her in efforts to get the salmon up even before the bridge went in. But it was a
major deal every year. They had to put, um you know, they had to build for the water
basically for the fish to transit every year. So the bridge being in is obviously
a great relief to everyone. But um the fish have been able to get up and with our
ownership, um the, the current landowner has been hesitant to have DFW and other
partners do. The survey work has been ongoing for a long time and um he suddenly
got nervous about it. So that's another advantage. I mean, we ranked really, really
well with all of the grant funding that we applied for because of its critical habitat
value. How much does that mean you had like 135 from conservation futures and then
650 or something. How much of that was contributions versus other funding. All. Yeah.
Um Salmon recovery funding board and RCO Rian habitat funding. So, yeah. And
is the family name Ruck is the family name. It's been in the family since the forties
when Grandfather Rock bought it after being, being stationed at Fort Worth actually.
And so there's a lot of family legacy which has led into very lengthy negotiations
and phone calls and more negotiations and more phone calls. And um ultimately,
what we wanted to draw your attention to today is that when we applied for the app,
the funding for conservation futures, we anticipated that we were would be bringing
about 81% match and now we're bringing 78% match. So it's not a significant difference.
Um We really appreciate the fact that the county is now kind of falling back on.
You have to have at least 50 50 match to other grant funds. But um but now we have
a little bit more flexibility as to what we're bringing. You just want to draw your
attention to the fact that the match has changed a little bit. Um The total project
cost has changed a little bit too. Um And we have this, we have a
closing date of October 5th, which took a lot to get to with the landowner. And so
we're kind of on a very tight timeline to get this approved. And I've been working
with Tammy on a draft deed that covers all the count county conservation futures
requirements and working with us to ensure that we're also recognized as
grantee its successors and the signs, not that we anticipate the land trust ever
going away. But if we do go away, we will have assigned someone that we feel or an
organization that we feel really confident can continue uh with our obligations of
permanent protection.
So, so mostly what I'd just like to bring up is the, the timeline
because the closing um having been scheduled for October 5th um is coming right up,
of course and I checked with health and it sounds as though it wouldn't be an issue
for them to uh undertake a third check run. And so if the agreement could
be processed in, in the consent agenda on the 18th, and I and I just submitted it
to Glenn today. So that doesn't give a lot of time. Basically, it would need to be
submitted by next Tuesday and then um we'll hopefully be able to take a look at the
draft invoice this week and have it all ready. So as soon as the agreement is signed,
we can submit everything we need basically on, on the 19th
up to the like weeks of weeks of uh extra. Yeah, never feel that way. But
anyway, um yeah, I was concerned that maybe it couldn't all fit together as well
as that. But going after I speak, I talked to some other folks at health. And so
just, uh, whatever might be possible in terms of the risk of legal, anybody or incentives
for that. It's really what we're here for to me. And, um, and otherwise,
um, if you have any questions, yeah, any questions, appreciate the update and I,
of course, we'll push it right through consensus when, when it comes. Um, I guess
my one question is it, it has some of the property that the Pacific Northwest Trail
is on, right. So, what's the future plan for recreational access? And I would love
to have, see better recreational access to that trail? I mean, it's just sort of,
I'd say a little hackney and then it's not quite clear where you should park and
the private residence that you have to kind of go through is, is always a challenge.
And I, I feel, I feel bad when I walk there, but beautiful. Yeah. So it's actually
the alternate route, Pacific Route. The, the, um, the official
route goes from Wykoff Road up through Rainier now. Honestly, I don't know with Rainier
not being Pope, what the situation is there. And I, you guys probably may know better.
What? Well, I wonder if it's part of, uh, Reindeer's new hunting access,
but they charge people join their hunting club or whatever it is. Yeah, I haven't
have having to have a permit but I don't know what arrangement, whomever it is. That
is the Pacific Northwest Trail Mhm Entity might have with rainier for that. So, I
just heard from Rainier. So I, I'll reach back out to Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah, that'd
be really helpful to know. Um, so right now it's shown as the alternate, I know that
some people do hike it and the Reick family has the little shack that was built for
the salmon restoration effort when they were trying to, you're up for restocking
Chico Creek. They've made that into a little camping. Like you could go, if you got
rained on, you could go spend the night in the north little cottages. So they're
very welcoming to have people hike through it. And I don't think that they're planning
on doing any parking, you know, big um infrastructure to welcome people. And that
hasn't really been an issue in the past. We're, we're not going to be advertising
it as such on, on this property. Um, but we're not going to prevent people from coming
through either because that has been a tradition. Ok. Thank you.
We are gonna be doing some significant forest restoration. However, um, it was replanted
after previous landowners did something or maybe it was the rocks that actually did
some clearing and the alder is coming in really thick and the fur has not had a chance
to get established in some of the repair, repairing areas. So we're gonna be thinning
just leaving the trees there because the commercial timber access is nearly impossible
without going through rainier. So, um, but we will have some restoration funding
to actually improve forest health and get more Conifer established along those riparian
buffers. It's a different funding stream though. Not the budget sheet that we saw.
No, certainly not onm $8000. No, it's, it's a different funding stream.
So, is the last gap that's not protected between the orange and underneath the word
salmon? Yeah. Ok. Mhm. Yeah. And I don't know what the family's
opinion is about that now.
Yeah. Well, I, um, seems very easy to support. It's, you know, gone through a lot
of process, um, already so, you know, move forward with it. Sorry, you lost your
conservation district, uh, member. He proved, uh, Kale's resignation today. It was
a bomber. Come back.
Right. Right. Kind of, yeah, changing paths it sounds like. Yeah. Ok. Well, really
appreciate you guys updating us on this. I think you have our full throated support.
So, you know, we won't do anything to slow it down and make sure that it gets done
so you can make that 10, 5 days, no action needed
and, you know, made me there for that. Yeah. Ok. Ok. Great. Yeah, it's great to see
you guys. Easy peasy. Yeah. But you didn't have to travel far. Sarah. It's
funny because I was just gonna walk over here without my purse and then I thought
that I'd feel naked.
I would just mention that we're moving forward with some trust line transfer applications.
So I don't know if you heard that on our agenda last week. So four parcels because
counties the whole program has changed now. Right? So, um
I wish I had a map but it's um Cape George and North Jacob Miller
transportation on Beaver Valley. Yeah, Beaver, you mean egg and I Beaver
Valley. Uh unit one from Beaver Valley sorts timber sale last year was or the year
before feels like time is flying out of the sail and harvest. Unit one was taken
out. It's behind that um electric station on Beaver Valley Road just south of, I
think it's just south of Pete Plank road. Oh, I'll have to, I'll have to look for
that anyway. So I'm, I'm blanking on my. No, they're all
so. No, Jacob Miller. Other than what we already have in process. Yeah. The North
Jacob Miller, the 80 acres. That's north a adjacent, but it's called North Jacob
Miller or West Jacob Miller in the DNR parcel list, West Jacob Miller. Sorry. Yeah.
Um Why am I blanking on the last one? Anderson Lake? South of
the 500 acres south of Anderson Lake State Park across the road and, and that would
go county ownership. Yeah, great. A lot of adjacency reasons adjacent to
the county ownership adjacent to state park also having to do with any trail possibility
would go right through it. So. Mhm. So just a heads up that
Catherine Cope and Mallory and I are working on because we're, we're, we want to
see a robust list uh set of applicant applications in this first round of the new
program. And do you happen to have any information on the upper enr parcel?
Because that's one that the there was uh was it the um scoma tribe was talking about
doing that application or that's what I'm not really clear on, but that's a really
important piece that the Bush River Peter knows about that he was working with. I
think it was the tribe. Ok. But yeah, that one's been mentioned and
someone, someone reached out to DNR and they said, oh no, somebody else is doing
something. Um Peter knows. All right. Well, great. That's
exciting and, and thankfully, we won't have to worry about 50 year les anymore. Yeah,
good to see that in the room. Yeah. Wow. Yes. And so, um waiting for
his breath on the full transfer of equipment, we need to have a celebration
and the Cougar that was just spotted next door will celebrate. Oh, good. Yeah, just
last Friday, a couple of neighbors and we're hoping to have Doctor Mark and the can,
can speak at the breakfast. They are the Olympic Cougar project experts. So awesome.
Cool, cool. Right. Ok. I think that's all my updates. Well, thank you, sir. I have
you both your eyes, right?
Ok. Our next timed agenda item is at 3 30. So we do have a little flex time here.
Didn't even think it was something they wanted to address over the lunch break.
Mhm.
The long weekend was long. I had tacos with my best friend over the lunch break.
It was fabulous. Oh, nice. So,
um, I had glazed pork chops from last night. It was delicious too. Oh, my God. The
best thing about a block party is people show up with food. Big mountain of ribs
and, yeah, it's awesome. Pulled pork and
excellent.
Oh,
I mean, I don't think Tammy was speaking loud enough.
Anything else? Are we gonna take a break? Oh, gosh, I don't know. I mean, we don't
have to be formative. Uh, sit quietly quietly and, and look at the email of what
the interesting part of the meeting here.
Um, I mean,
I don't know. I, this doesn't come up too often. Usually there's more than we need
to, more to talk about than we have time for. Uh, what's your guys's pleasure? You
wanna have some dead air and, and do a little bit of email or just return or
recess for 3 30?
Sure. Let's do it. Power in 45 minutes, right? Uh, it's an hour and 15. Wait, yeah,
hour and 45 minutes. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Ok. It's a little hard. But why
don't we come back a few minutes? Really? About 3 15? So, ok, we can, uh, what's
that talent show at 3 15? Work? On your skills and, uh, we'll do a little, maybe
I'll run out and get Rico some jellyfish. That's what I'm gonna do. That. Awesome.
That fun.
Cool. All right. Well, let's, uh, recess until 3 15. We'll see you guys back that
time. Good. Thank you. Yeah.
All right. I will call this meeting of the board of county commissioners back into
session. Eisenhower just stepped out to help someone with directions. But, uh, we
have, we're back at 3 15 going into executive session at 3 30. It will come out of
executive session at four o'clock and, and that will uh likely be the, the end of
the meeting today. But we here we are. Ok. Anything you wanna talk about? Um So
we talk about maybe um starting a list of um workshop items, we went on um
schedule and get totally, get busy with budgets. Um But we haven't,
haven't really outlined, doing workshops lately and then we could also look at radio,
look, I got the radio schedule up.
Uh
maybe we should look at radio first. Um So for one more on the
books, the 29th, maybe elections. Yeah, I do have one planned already for the 29th.
Ok. Um ev ok. Ev cars and chargers, chargers and then,
and Mark's gonna do the 22nd when we're all occupied. Well, bless you with Judy for
budget. Um and I'll do the 15th with uh some sort of behavioral health
thing. I'm not quite ready to invite my, uh, author to, uh, be on the radio with
me, but I'm, I'm, I'm trying to set that up. What about harm reduction? Uh, we can
do harm reduction? Yeah, that would be a good one.
Usually the security is really helpful. I guess they weren't that one.
So, we're looking at the, uh, kind of connections, radio schedule. Heidi, of course,
is the last week and is going to be this week and then it's me and then Mark and
then Kate October 6th. Of course, we'll all be headed to uh the west end, the west
end. So we should do it from there. Yeah, we could probably, I don't know, maybe,
I don't know. Could you do it from here? Are you planning to be in? All? Depends
how Rico is feeling. I would guess I'm not gonna be able to go. Um, and so, yeah,
I could, I could do that, Kate and then, um, I guess reverse Greg
hiding.
I'm at the conference on the 20th. Ok. You going to the risk pool conference?
Something I wanted to do since I was, came into the courthouse. But I'm finally going.
Really? Yeah, I can't think of a more uh boring conference to go to. What are you?
I'm just curious, I'm man, talk about insurance for three days straight. I always,
I always, I always joke that they must party so hard, you know. You know, you think
they're the good kids. Right. I could do the 13th. Ok. We got you in for the 13th.
Um, and then do we want to wait? I can't do the 13th.
That's, uh, well, I can, I can do the 13th. Are you, are you sure? Yeah, I'm in a
retreat but I can. Oh, no, that's ok. Retreat away. We'll go, go great twice and
then we'll go, how about the, the 27th and the third for Heidi?
Um, the third, I'm at the MRC annual meeting, the 27th on the 10th.
See,
May 7th,
I should look at my schedule too. October. We're in October into November is a holiday.
It's Veterans Day. Is that actually our holiday? Well, I, so do we get someone for
the 20th because we have the coordination meeting with all the elected? Oh, right.
I'm, uh, I'm, yeah, so I guess I should. 20th of October was me. But me. It was that
the, like the one with everyone? Oh, right. With the whole I could, well, you, you're
not gonna be here for that meeting. I have either. I will, I can be here for the
digital meeting. I'll be in Ocean Shores that week. So I probably not the best. Can
you, can you do the 20th Kate Radio? Yeah. Yeah, I'll have to miss the Quarter league.
But, yeah, everybody's tired of me anyway. I don't know about that. Uh, I didn't
say that I've just been around a long time.
All right. So I've got October 6th, Kate October 13th, Greg October 20th, Kate October
27th Heidi November 3rd, Greg November 10th Heidi. Yeah. Ok. Um,
do we wanna think about other potential guests now? Topics, I was thinking, um,
should I just sign up for the sixth, um, uh, doing having Quinn to talk about elections
and then for the 20th thinking of, um, Apple, um, she's knocking on, I guess, or,
um, maybe talking about clinical services and public health,
Michael Service movies
and then next Apple.
Hm. Ok. Um,
probably talk about three things in the October 13th. We'll have our,
on Wednesday. That's on my calendar.
Brooks out from E DC. So, the, um,
the 20th,
the 2020. Yeah. Is, when, is during the conference at Fort Worth? So we can do it.
Go. Yeah, I get Kelly Henwood out or something. Or Amanda Milholland or a farmer,
Amanda or, ah, yeah. Ok. Um, November
3rd.
Well, I don't know. I'll, I'll keep thinking,
um, and then November 10th,
you know, it might be good to get, have we done a sewer one? You did a, we done us
to one,
didn't you do it? Yeah. Or did you? No, it was me. You have Bob out. Can't
remember now. I like shining light on, on, uh, fast too.
Like, uh, this week you take it having windy out, which is great. Yeah. Mark
doing one tells me I could do armed or Kelly. Yeah. Um, and then on the
20th or the 10th we actually are into uh, property taxes. Right
station. Make it through all 17 slide. Last time you had her own.
No. When was she on? Wasn't she on with you? She was one of the first guests, I thought.
Yeah, I don't remember. What about the Trail? Hm. Oh yeah, that's a good idea. Er.
Mhm.
Yeah. Trail would be a good one.
I realize the 20th is gonna be hard because all the John Fleming Air
because all the uh directors and elected will be here. Oh,
so I could get um a staff person from public power. Yeah, I mean, you can get a or
something. I think sometimes going a couple, couple runs down the the chain of command
is, is good.
Yeah.
Um
All right, good. Well, this is always on my P drive. If you ever need to look at
it, I'll save.
OK. Um
Yeah, I really. OK. Uh Kate also suggested talking about workshops that we wanna
have coming up. We've had a little bit of time on our agendas recently. Um
things that we want to work on
ideas.
So you're scheduling and communications one. Mhm. Um
I guess we'll have one for the um implementation of the strategic plan. Yeah, we
had a one that we had put off with the er and R
uh
are these, are you saying these are workshops and workshops that Yeah. Like the Bush.
Hm.
That my usual work computer to be able to, at some point we can do the, um, TLT proposals
when we have those drafted for,
which would be either the end of September or the beginning of October. After we
get this. Granted, I can get a recompute workshop too. I think it would be good.
Um, if you hear something that a wild fire protection plan. Is that all right? Yeah.
20 seconds is our next meeting. Not soon.
Um There's one of them on my head.
Yeah. Hey, Barbara, welcome. We're just uh wrapping up our busy day and then we'll
jump into uh 3 30 um
proposal we CWPP.
Mhm.
We have an IC G meeting coming up too on the 21st talk about that, the time for a
drop agenda on that. I haven't heard anything back.
So we talked about having commerce come and give their uh the plan presentation which
everybody seemed into which I still think would be great. Although I'm supposed to
be in Ellensburg have like three conflicts that day out of town, like in different
parts of the state. So, um what day are you in? Ellensburg? Not the 20th or for LSC?
And I'll be there on the 20th for Timber County. You have a contact there. And the,
is that one? Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Um So we're doing our all day
community wildfire protection planning workshop on the 22nd of September, so that
a workshop after that maybe coming out of that or do we feel like, I mean,
I'm not gonna have much information before that. So I think after that. Absolutely.
I mean, probably after, you know, like with the strategic plan when we actually have
wild fire protection plan, right?
Um. Mhm.
Ok. Uh budgets coming up, of course, we're gonna have those already. So let's, I
mean, we're probably, we're talking through that the fall here. Another one I know
is top of mind.
Oh, in inter gov, oh, start, uh, shadowing some of their implementation meetings.
I mean, with the consultant now, but I think, uh, as we move down that path of having
contract planners too. Right. Very nice.
How to get engaged in their work planning. Right. And what are they working on? Right.
But like also that out, like, who were, you know, planning for the infrastructure
or the, um, build out there
zoning? And
I know, but the, you know, a lot of people ask me what's had luck gonna look like
once the sewer is going on in and people are hearing that the Dollar Store is spec
speculatively, has bought a lot and had luck and people are starting to get worked
up so it might be good. Yeah. Yeah, that's the of gentrification, I guess.
Hm, notification from now.
Um. Ok. It's a good start. Yeah, I'll take this to, to mark and, and get a little,
um, spreadsheet going. He's probably got some ideas too. Totally. Ok. Well, it is
3 30 now and we are going into back to our agenda so I can read the verbiage
accurately going into a planned executive session with the human resources director
and uh, our deputy prosecuting attorney to review the performance of a public public
employee. No discussion of salaries, wages and other conditions of employment to
be generally applied within the county. No final action on the hiring setting, the
salary of an individual employee or class of employee or discharging or disciplining
an employee exemption is outlined in the Open Public Meetings Act RCW 42.30 0.1 10,
parentheses. One parentheses G we're going in at 3 31 we will come out at 401.
Uh We're coming out of executive session. We need to extend for 10 more minutes.
As a reminder we're in executive session with our human resources director and deputy
civil prosecuting attorney to review the performance of a public employee. No discussion
of salaries, wages and other conditions of employment to be generally applied within
the county. No final action on the hiring setting, the salary of an individual employee
or class of employee or discharging a discipline and employee exemption is outlined
in the Open Public Meetings Act RCW 42.30 0.1 10 parentheses. One parentheses G we're
going back in at 404, coming out at 4 14
403. Ok. 403 coming out at 4 13.
Ok.
Looks like we might have lost our uh a V capture during the last executive session,
but we are coming out but need to extend one more time for another 10 minutes. It's
uh 4 15. Now going from 4 16 to 4 26 we're going into executive session as a reminder
with our human resources director and deputy prosecuting attorney to review the performance
of a public employee. There's been no discussion of salaries, wages and other conditions
of employment to be generally applied within the county. No final action on the hiring
setting, the salary of an individual employee or class of employees or discharging
or discipline disciplining an employee exemption is outlined in the open Public Meetings
Act RCW 42.30 0.1 10 parentheses, one parentheses G going in at 4 16, coming out
at 4 26.
Thanks,
friends. All right. It's, uh, did you start recording? Ok. Uh, coming out of executive
session and we still need five more minutes. Uh, it's 4 28. We're gonna go, go back
in till 4 33. Um, and again, this is executive session with human resource director
to regard regarding the review of the performance of a public employee, no discussion
of salaries, wages and other conditions of employment to be generally applied within
the county. No final action on the hiring setting the salary of an individual employee
or class of employees or disparaging or discipline and disciplining an employee exemption
is outlined in the open Public Meetings Act 42.30 0.1 10, parentheses. One parentheses.
G we're also joined by our deputy prosecuting attorney.
I went in, I guess, 4 29 coming out 4 34
and that just, I just decided not to drink. So I think that that's the easy one to
give up. All right, I'm, we're coming back out of executive session, uh, as a reminder,
we're in there under RCW 42.30 0.1 10, parentheses, one parentheses. G we're coming
out and there is no action to be taken and it is, uh, past the normal time of our,
the end of our meeting. So I will adjourn this meeting of the board of County Commissioners.
We'll see you here next Monday 9 11 at 9 a.m. Have a good week. Everyone.