Recording in progress.
Um I'm next. Yes, hi, I'm Julia Cochran.
Oh, I am, I, I assume Miss Cochran was going to speak.
I can. Yes. Can you tell me?
Um Can you hear me now? I can
apparently MS Cochran can hear me. I don't know why, why you can't.
Yeah, I think we hear each other. Why aren't you hearing us? So,
uh I see tech support is on the job.
Oh, I would, I would defer to miss Cochran if, if you don't mind. That's fine.
Ok. My name is Julia Cochran. I live in the city of Port Townsend and I am part of
what runs the Winter Welcoming Center. And my comment is about that is that it looks
like that starting Thursday and possibly going till Tuesday. There's going to be
pretty extreme cold and other things happening in Port towns in Jefferson County
and emergency management approached us to be a warming center since the American
Legion will slash Holy Cap will not be fulfilling that role this year. So we've been
hustling and um I think that we are prepared as best we can to do this. Um
We will be open for people to stay with us 24 hours. Um Right now actually part of
us is talking to the city. So it's a little weird the timing, but my announcement
is a little odd, but that's fine. I have confidence and um emergency management is
gonna give us cos we're have a call out for blankets from the community and we're
trying to deal with food because we don't have a kitchen. So, you know, everything's
gotta be individually wrapped and not cooked unless it's microwavable. And um, yeah,
so we're about to start a great adventure uh starting most probably Thursday and
go until possibly next Tuesday. And um just want you guys and the public to be aware
that, you know, when we were asked, it's our moral responsibility to say yes, we're
not gonna, we already have people banging on the door saying please let me in. So
it's um, yeah, yeah, we are doing this. Ok, thank you.
Um We have a Facebook page also. First Presbyterian church has a page for the Winter
Welcoming Center that has a donation button and um anybody is
willing to find me and I have an email address. Willow tree at
ten.com and willow tree is just like it sounds,
you're welcome.
Uh Good morning commissioners, you know, um I have a few more comments about the,
the mountain view pool, Port Townsend Pool, whatever you wanna call it. Um I just
have to read what I wrote because I want to get it done in three minutes. Um The
board of County commissioners was told a few weeks ago by the health here together
project that refurbishing the Port Townsend Pool would cost $21 million. That's the
number that, uh, DC W documented in their mountain view pool renovation cost study
dated December 5th. Uh, you've just heard that two engineering reports have surfaced
which show that the existing pool at mountain view can be refurbished at a much lower
cost. In fact, the total cost should be less than 8 million. That is uh 4.1 million
from the two reports plus uh other costs that have been provided by an expert in
that field. Uh I say these reports surfaced because both have been in the possession
of the city for months and yet were not presented to the healthy art Together Committee,
I obtained the reports through public records requests. Uh One report from WT I is
dated September 8th and the other from CG engineering is dated October 30th. I know
that all three of you commissioners have now been provided with copies of those previously
hidden reports. Now, why those reports were not disclosed to the members of the steering
committee is a separate matter and it should be investigated, but we can talk about
that some other time. Um Given the slipshod work evident in the Ballard King and
other parts of the healthier together final report and the fact that two important
cost estimates have not been considered by the steering committee or by the council
or by this board. I'm recommending that you commissioners put the brakes on this
project before any more money is wasted. Uh Nothing should be submitted to the Department
of Commerce until first, a thorough unbiased review and analysis of the two new cost
estimate reports has been conducted by the steering committee. And then both the
city and county governments have been presented with a new set of findings based
on that analysis. And then an updated final report has been prepared based on
facts. And finally, both governments have approved that revised final report now
then and only then should a package be sent to the Department of Commerce to begin
the $18,000 independent Financial feasibility review that's required required before
a PFD can be created. Uh That's it. Thanks very much.
Can you hear me? Ok, so I wasn't gonna talk this morning because I felt like what
we needed to say was being covered by the previous speakers. But I have to say I'm
really dismayed by the what looks to me the justification of what has appeared,
not being such a bad thing. Um I think it's horrific that there's these details that
were kept away from uh everybody by potentially people who are being
paid to do this. Um The reason that there was not a lot of county participation,
I think in this was because originally this was a city thing, not a county thing
when the city didn't have enough money. All of a sudden the county comes important,
but there wasn't lots of follow up after that. So I'd like to know what's gonna happen
when the city can't, uh, hold their people to their
$400,000 annual commitment to the pool. And the county has to take that over as well
And you can bet that's gonna happen. So, I don't think there's even any reason not
to have a plan working forward to that objective because that is gonna happen.
Um, I just am, like I said, dismayed that there seems to be not a lot of,
uh, surprise and indignation that this is what you're getting from your committee
who's trying to give you facts about the pool and you're not getting them. And I
think that that's, uh, it's terrible and that's basically all I have to say today.
Um, thank you for the explanation. Uh, appreciate it. Um, this too is kind of, it
is the first time it's happened since I've been here. Um, but I think it just causes
us to pause and also make sure, um, even those funds that we normally don't have
to pay a lot of attention to that we're looking more because more money is flowing
through them. And so, um, I think it's on my part as finance manager for the county.
Uh, something I'm gonna be looking at a little more closer, uh, to those funds that
just kind of have a way of taking care of themselves just to make sure that we don't
have to have these emergency appropriations. So, um, that's something I'm gonna be
working on in 2024.
Yes. Uh, Lisa Greer from Burke consulting and Amy Sumi from Shannon and Wilson, if
she's there too. I know, I, I touched base with Lisa today. I know she's prepared
to, to be here with us and Lisa has some slides to share.
Yes, we can. So at, at your pleasure, chair, Dean, do you want to go over the process
first or have the a brief presentation to catch everybody up from, from Lisa and
then talk about the process before accepting comments?
Ok. Um Let's, yeah, let's do that. Then let's talk about the process. So,
um
so first of all, as we, as we know with shoreline planning in Washington State, the
final decision on a Shoreline Master program for local government is actually at
the Department of Ecology level, at the state level and that's under the Shoreline
Management Act. So eventually when we um through your action and adopting an ordinance
that amends our Shoreline Master Program takes action, then that um that proposal
will be sent to the Department of Ecology, they will have their own public comment
period. My understanding is that is a written public comment period before they make
their final decision on whether everything that we've done at the local level is
consistent with the Shoreline Management Act. So that's a step that's going to happen
later in terms of our steps, uh where we're at is, is we had a, a planning commission
recommendation that we forwarded to the board. The board decided to hold a public
hearing that is today, we're holding a public hearing to accept public comments on
both written and verbal about uh about the proposal as it stands right now. Um The
board of course, could choose to eventually accept this proposal as it is or change
any aspect of it. And then meanwhile, in the background, staff is working on the
ordinance that would adopt amendments to the Shoreline Master Program. So we're um
Barbara is here and we're, we're collaborating on that effort and um we think it's
gonna take a little time though to put that together. And also um because this is
a complex issue with a lot of moving parts and um it's um we don't know of course,
which way the board is going to go on several of the issues. So therefore, um you
know, we're drafting it, but we're getting ready to essentially have that ordinance
reflect exactly what or we think your direction is going to be in terms of um of
adopting it. So, what we're thinking is that uh we worked with Carolyn Kicker, the
board to identify February 12th as an ideal date to actually have an ordinance ready
for adoption. And what we were thinking is that, um you would have, you know, open
the hearing today, start the hearing process. Uh But because there could be changes
and we've already spotted some, some, some technical aggressions essentially uh that
we would like to address as well. Um Things that I would, I would, I would postulate
are not um substantive matters, but more like consistency matters in code in terms
of definitions and things like that, that we could add those to whatever whatever
uh policy direction the board sets in terms of or, or directs us to, to move towards.
And that way we'll prepare an ordinance and there will still be an opportunity for
the public to comment on, on the ordinance itself as essentially part of the process.
So what we're thinking and uh certainly open to insights from, from Carolyn and Barbara
about exactly how to do this, but essentially an option would be, um, that the chair
could keep the hearing open until all the way until February 12th. And that way,
um, we'll, we'll publish the, uh, we'll make the ordinance available to the public
as soon as it's ready. Um, well ahead of time from February 12th, that's why we're
sending it out that far. And then, um, that will just keep the, keep the public um
involved all the way to, to the, to the very end. If that indeed is the date that
the board takes action on an ordinance. February 12th. Also, it gives us a chance
to, uh, for you to schedule time for deliberation like today, since we only have
this time between now and noon, essentially on your calendar. Uh We were thinking
that that would be principally time to accept public comments. I'm not sure how many
people are there or how many people we're going to get online, but it sounds like
we'll get a fair amount, right. So, um that'll, uh, so I was thinking that you would
send, you know, you could start a conversation afterwards, um if there's time, but
otherwise today is just listening to what the input is and then we'll schedule time
to for deliberations. That could be Tuesday, next Tuesday. Um Monday being a holiday.
Um It could also be the, uh 22nd I think is the next regular Monday. So we could
have deliberations, we can go back and forth, we can answer questions, we can see
if our consultants are available or we can come back to you with the responses if
they're not available at those particular times. And then, um, meanwhile, we'll be
prepping the ordinance and then we'll draft the ordinance specific to um, essentially
where we think we're going for, uh, a February 12th decision. Any questions about
that?
Excellent,
I believe so. I've, I've told Lisa and Amy that, you know, we, we've already briefed
you on this uh overall big picture. So this is just to make sure any many parties
that are new to the process or just to make sure we're all on the same page that
Lisa has just a few slides, right, Lisa. So go ahead and take it away. Ok, thank
you. Um Good morning commissioners.
Are you able to see the lights? Ok, great.
Just a brief overview of the purpose and that the county started this process um
to fulfill state requirements to do a periodic update um to look at any changes necessary
since 2014. Um So that would be basically anything that's changed in the law or
rules and then other local circumstances the county chose to address. Um And then
the county had um identified uh a goal of uh looking at the changes through the lens
of regulatory reform and all of this to be done in terms of the uh capacity and resources
as well as legal framework um for the county.
So our components um that Josh uh and team posted um for this hearing
include the revised Shoreline Master program. There's been an addendum to a cumulative
impacts analysis uh that ecology requested. Um When we submit, there'll
be an updated periodic checklist, there's a version online. Um and then the SEPA
review has occurred and we've um there's been a, a revised DNS issued um
and then the hearing comments and responses to the Planning Commission have been
provided to the board,
Josh went over this timeline just but just briefly, the county started this process
in 2020 forming a S MP task force, the recommendations and of areas of focus went
to the Planning Commission um along with um draft amendments. Um and the Planning
Commission completed their first round of recommendations. In fall 2021. Ecology
took about a year to review and return an initial determination of consistency. Um
The county secured a grant to do more work on the S MP itself plus the shoreline
users guide in the spring of 2023. And there were some draft responses developed
over the summer and some engagement in the summer as well. And then the Planning
Commission took it back up and came up with a recommendation uh from summer through
uh November and then it went to the board in December at your briefing and now it's
here before you at your hearing.
So this reflects what Josh was just mentioning. So this, this may morph a bit as
he mentioned. Um So today's the public hearing, um There's potential for deliberations
on the 16th or if you choose a different date and then there's a potential for bringing
the ordinance back in mid February for, for action.
So after your process is complete um through the first quarter, uh then as Josh mentioned,
it goes to the Department of Ecology through a standard process with a state comment
period and then ecology determines whether to accept the proposal or require changes.
So that's the process side of things. Uh We wanted to just briefly touch on key issues
which we also touched on in your, your briefing in December. Um But we have um higher
level um overview. Uh So as we mentioned, we started off with a focus on
required and recommended changes that ecology brought back in um September 2022 as
well as bringing forward the engagement process comments um through the task force.
And we had a survey and, and other avenues for people to make comment as well as
here, the, the testimony that went to the Planning Commission um aquaculture was
one of the key issues um and secondarily uh less so, but uh mooring buoys and marinas
um generally, there were matching federal and state guidelines. Um Amy will touch
on aquaculture in a minute and then the other category of things were uh buffer modifications.
And so we'll touch on um some of those key changes on following slides as well. Amy,
would you like to speak to aquaculture? Sure. So kind of moving quickly through it.
Um As Lisa already mentioned, there was a task force convened in 2020 the focus at
that time as far as aquaculture is concerned was just to make those minimum requirements
necessary to meet uh state guidelines. And then when it advanced to the planning
Committee, and that's when uh a larger group of um the public became involved and
submitted a lot of, of written testimony and um oral testimony as well. Um Raising
concerns about aesthetics, ecological issues and associated impacts and that sort
of thing. And as part of that process, uh we received direction to look at other
county regulations around uh gooey duck aquaculture in particular and to incorporate
Kitsap counties and sort of fill some of the gaps that were perceived in Jefferson
County's regulations. Um And at that time, it was switched so that gooey duck aquaculture,
um all gooey duck aquaculture, whether it was an expansion or um a new uh use required
a standard cup with a kind of an automatic hearing. And then it kind of continued
through Planning Commission in 2023 addressing those 2022 ecology comments and continuing
to receive uh testimony and information from uh neighbors and other property owners
as well as industry uh representatives.
Um So kind of, in summary, the, some of the more recent input has um acknowledged
that aquaculture is a water dependent industry. And so there is an interest in um
supporting that aquaculture industry for economic purposes. Um But still trying to
make sure that, you know, net loss of ecological function standard is still met.
Um And also trying to make sure that we weren't having unintentional um adverse effects
on other types of aquaculture. Um as we tried to uh focus in and um put appropriate
sideboards around the gooey duck aquaculture. And then finally, just I think this
came mostly from um tribes and, and industry, but just a recognition that the aquaculture
is important for local food production and can also be an element of restoration
projects for shoreline ecological function.
And so our kind of final approach was to apply a mix of standard and discretionary
cups for new conversion or expansions of gy deck aquaculture depending on the environment
designation. Um And that touch point with the environment designation kind of follows
a pattern that was recommended by a Department of Ecology at that time to acknowledge
that certain areas and activities in those are um have kind of a different lens that
we should look at them in, in terms of their potential for harming uh high value
areas. And we created a table of some middle requirements and this was based on,
I think both tribal and industry input um that tried to tease out what application
requirements were um important and relevant for different types of aquaculture, whether
it was finfish or um gooey duck or other shellfish. Um And we did um after a lot
of discussion, maintain a requirement to include an aesthetics analysis. Um But the
whole table of seminal requirements is kind of prefaced by um a statement that if,
if something is just demonstrably not applicable to a particular aquaculture proposal,
um That, that information didn't need to be included. And if the county thinks differently
than it can, it can request that information.
Thank you, Amy. So, the other uh key areas of change were um regarding buffers and
non conforming development or existing lots. Um And so just to highlight there's
three pathways to uh modifying a buffer, particularly for single family homes. You
can follow the standard buffer or there's a process for reducing or averaging the
standard buffer um that has been fine tuned a bit, but it has been in place.
And then there's a modest home provision and ecology asked us to clarify the differences
between modest home and common line. Um So uh in the clarifications we made, um we're
identifying modest home provisions for non conforming lots and spent some time defining
what a non conforming lot depth was and then put in some additional parameters about
the minimum uh buffer width, um retained building and footprint sizes that were in
the code that added some standards around geologic hazards and, and enhancing 80%
of the shoreline frontage Common Line. We're clarifying that it's now applicable
to conforming lots. Um Non conforming lots would follow the modest home provision,
uh Common line. It's meant to accommodate shoreline views. And so we spent some time
addressing what are the appropriate standards for um if you're matching your, your
neighbors um existing homes. Um And that you would also have to do the enhancement
of 80% of the shoreline frontage.
So these next slides just reinforce what I just uh mentioned. So modest home for
non conforming lots, this is a standard buffer setback of 100 and 50 ft. A modest
home would allow you to move closer because your lot depth doesn't meet the the minimum
lot depth of the zone. So your home would be closer, but you would um enhance 80%
of the shoreline frontage
Chen.
Yeah. Um It generally means to um you could, you could uh improve the uh
function of the buffer um with native plants and Amy can speak to this. We added
a provision um a requirement based on some earlier tribal and um other agency comments
and we can discuss that
Amy. Do you want to describe the the enhancement? I thought that was for later. Um
Yeah, so I think Lisa, you already said it was, it was just uh requiring that you
vegetate um the remaining 80% of the buffer to provide uh I improved shoreline ecological
functions to sort of offset the fact that you are reducing the depth of that buffer.
Um So it's intended to sort of balance and still meet no net loss of ecological function
requirements.
Uh
Yes, thank you. Um Common line is again, declare to accommodate shoreline views and
recognize existing development patterns while still achieving no net loss of shoreline
ecological functions. So we clarified the text. It's for conforming lots with either
one or two homes that abut the the vacant lot. Um You can used
to be, you looked out at homes within 300 ft. We're suggesting shortening that to
100 and 50 ft to meet ecology um guidance. Um And based on looking at example sites
in Jefferson County, um then before they go through the common line provision, they
need to go through path one that I showed in that original chart. Um Can they meet
the buffer averaging or reduction standards before they move to the common line provision?
So it's kind of a hierarchy you try there first, if not, um you go down the common
line path and you demonstrate it's the minimum necessary and it's, it's addressing
the need for adequate views. Um And then again, you would enhance 80% of the remaining
buffer.
So those are highlights of the major changes. Um This is just um bringing that one
slide back that your process is uh to be complete in the first quarter and, and then
um it would move on to the Department of Ecology that concludes our slides this
morning.
Nothing. Unless there are any other questions from the commissioners.
Amy. Do you wanna take that on? Yeah, I think if it, if it is underneath that cost
threshold, then it would be surely exempt. It still would need to meet all of the
standards of the SNP though. So it's not an exemption from compliance just from having
to pay for that permit and go through that process and the other thing I would add
to that
uh being exempt from the requirements of substantial development permit or an SDP.
But it's irrespective of um a variance or conditional use, that's more of a use um
requirement. So that's not my understanding is that it's really whether you're exempt
from SDP and not uh conditional use or variance. And in Jefferson County, the difference
for us is, is especially if this new program gets adopted, at least this section
as we've proposed an STP as a type two process which requires public notice. But
um but not a hearing, that would be a type three process and then uh an exemption
is a type one process. But as Amy said, you'd have to be consistent with the requirements
and there could be C A involved. So that would be the wild card and for an exemption,
state Environmental Policy Act review.
Thank you. Um I live in Port Townsend. Um I'm commenting today on behalf of the 1200
members of the North Olympic group of the Sierra Club. Um And we have submitted written
comments uh which I would appreciate you enter into the uh hearing record today.
Um On behalf of the 1200 members of the new Olympic Group, we are requesting that
uh the update of the shoreline master program require a standard conditional use
permit for all proposals to cultivate uh Gooey ducks, our tide lands and estuaries
of the nucleus of our marine system. They are where eel grass spawning fish, young
salmon, marine birds, native selfish crustaceans and an entire food chain interact.
Modern geo duct cultivation involves extremely intense use of plastics, uh some seven
miles and 11 tons of tubing per acre each tube fost uh fosters for about two years.
The growth of three or four goey ducks wholly on natural density of a very large
clam that feeds on marine organisms circulating in public waters. Then after 5 to
7 years, they are harvested using hydraulic hoses that liquefy the substrate down
to 3 ft. Um This li lique application also destroys the marine life in the tide land.
It's conducted over and over every square foot until every buoy duck is harvested.
Then the whole process begins again. Uh So we are asking for each proposed site before
any permit be issued. Uh These concerns and others deserve a thorough review, including
the cumulative effects of the proposal. Uh And the appropriate process for doing
this is the standard conditional use permit. Um I want to thank you for your time
and the opportunity to comment it's an important issue to us. Uh And I also appreciate
uh the county commissioner's leadership on so many important environmental issues
in the past, uh including net pens and preserving our legacy forest. Thank you.
Hi. Uh Can you hear me? Ok.
Ok. Uh Bruce Morris, I live in South Puget Sound and I'm uh involved with the Hood
Canal environmental council, I support the use of a standard conditional use permit
for all new and expansion of gooey duck farming as well as the conversion of other
shellfish to gooey duck. Each site is unique. Uh but each site is connected to the
entire puget sound environment. So you have on record the types of impacts caused
by intensive gooey duck farming, plastics, use of water cannons, exclusion of other
marine life, etc. So I'm not going to go into those details. But uh a conditional
use, a standard conditional use permit would provide the decision maker with an unbiased
accounting of all facts involved and a fair and open process to allow the the participants
including the voting public to make the best decision for its citizens and the health
of puget sound. So I encourage you to require the use of the standard conditional
use permit. Thank you for the time.
Yes. Yes, I'm in.
Hello. Um my name is Bernadette Lawson and I live at 2460 Cheeky Road in Sebe.
I've made some comments before but today I'm speaking as an officer of Root Canal
and Neon Council and on behalf of over 300 member which also
live in uh Jefferson County. We support a conditional use uh
permit for, I mean a standard conditional use permit for all G ID E application in
Jefferson County including expansion and conversion from another shellfish to G I
duck commercial Guido operation can have a significant impact on the water of
Jefferson County and root canal. Guido Farm are planted with about
43,705 60 PV C tubes per acres. That is
over 100 ton of plastic. Mr Guerrero already has talked about all the distraction
it will imply over the years, but so I will just uh I have two minute,
right? Um You know, uh Jefferson County residents should have a chance to speak up
and be heard before any decision is made on Guida cultivation. That's what a
standard
C is. Full. Kitsap and Clallam counties both require a cab to convert from non guido
aquaculture to Guido aquaculture. Jefferson County residents and UADA deserve no
less. Thank you. 10 years old.
Uh Hello. Can you hear and see me? All right.
OK. You're missing out on a lot if you can't see me so sorry. Ok. Uh OK. Sorry. I
apologize. Um Yeah. Uh I just wanna say thanks for thanks for letting me join and
um yeah, I live here in uh I'm in Dover, New Hampshire is where I live. I'm from
Port Townsend, Washington. Um Yeah. Uh As a kid growing up in Port Towns in Washington,
I worked in um shellfish aquaculture and stuff. It was really good. It helped me
learn how mechanical skills and then as I got older, I needed to pay a few bills
that helped me with that a lot. Um Those mechanical skills have helped me to, you
know, study physics and, um, and now I'm studying ocean, uh, ocean engineering. I'm
hoping to ideally return to Washington State and, uh, get involved in working in
aquaculture. I, I don't know if that's, yeah, I'm a little concerned about, like,
some of the, the permitting load and if, if aquaculture is really gonna be a good
fit for me. Um, I, yeah, I mean, about the con, uh, about the conditional use permit.
Um I'm a little concerned about that just because look like if you're uh you know,
a 30 year old or something like me and you're trying to get involved in agriculture,
like maybe if somebody like a large organization is concerned about aquaculture,
maybe they would have, you know, better legal resources, more people, more time uh
to, you know, maybe stop you in the conditional use permit. So I'm a little concerned
about that. Um Yeah, I think uh yeah, again, you know, uh aquaculture is um
been uh yeah, it's um
yeah. Um Yeah.
Ok. Sorry. Um Yeah, look, I think uh aquaculture it's um probably it's like building
a house or a windmill or a road. It's not got zero environmental impact, but it's
probably got like some, but um the question is, is it a better way of producing food
than like, maybe higher carbon input, like systems like cultivation or maybe, uh
you know, feeding, feeding large mammals and stuff and I think it, it, you know,
a lot of it seems like it is a better way. Um, and you know, um, I think is that,
uh, is that my time? Ok, perfect, thank you.
Hi, good morning. My name is Jonathan Davis. Um, I reside at 1545 lane Bainbridge
Island and um, I have been operating a, uh, shellfish farm in Thorndyke Bay in Jefferson
County since 1990 and also more recently a combined seaweed and shellfish farm off
of hood head. Um Also in Jefferson County, I'm um I'm testifying today just to simply
um reiterate some of the comments that have already been made regarding the necessity
or not of a of cup requirements. Um The, they seem to me adequate as provided by
the state um for and uh it's, it seems um redundant and not necessary for expansion
or conversions. Um I was actually part of the research team that um investigated
gy duck um aquaculture back in the day. Um And uh we as, as it's been just um testified
about the gy duc to provide ecosystem services that are incredibly important um at
harvest, you um have a significant amount of carbon and nitrogen that's removed.
Uh They are good for water quality, they filter vast amounts of seawater as you've
been hearing, um they are very similar to oysters, Mussels and clams in that regard.
They are ecosystem engineers that, that are capable of um providing significant ecosystem
services to mankind um on the visual analysis of point that I would just briefly
say that the um these, these requirements also seem to be redundant, especially um
um unless perhaps they're in areas of, of, of active um residential development.
Uh So in general, I would agree that there are redundancies and um unnecessary
requirements that are um plan that are planned for incorporation with these new,
with these new requirements. And that I feel that they're unnecessary. I've been
a marine farmer for 40 plus years and uh feel that um there's a great deal of regulation
already. Um um put on to um shellfish growers and that uh it's, it's just not necessary.
It's, there's actually in my view, a social equity component associated with it.
And um I thank you for my comments.
Hello everyone. My name is Kim Thompson. I am the Executive Director of the Pacific
Coast Shellfish Girls Association and we represent oyster clam, Gooey Duck, and Mo
uh Mussel farmers on the Pacific Coast with the majority of our membership here in
Washington. While I am based in Olympia, we do have several members in Jefferson
County who provide important sources of well paying jobs and economic activity that
help to diversify and strengthen the local economy. We really appreciate the work
that has been put into the document by the Planning Commission. The current version,
well complex is workable for the growers and we do recommend that you move forward
with the draft as is, however, if you do decide to make changes, we recommend the
following. Specifically, we are concerned about the visual analysis recommendation
in the application requirement table. Um It's part D on page 160 the track changes
version um as written, it is very, very subjective. If more prescriptive language
is added as a result of additional review, we would request an analysis to review
the efficacy of such requirements and identify solutions that county staff and growers
can realistically navigate while remaining consistent with and not duplicating other
processes. Additionally, the conditional use permits should not be required for gooey
duck conversions or expansions. Given that the legislatively mandated sea grant study
and biological assessments conducted by NOAA and the US Fish and Wildlife Service
were robust scientific analyses. They found that goey duck operations have insignificant
impacts requiring these onerous and resource intensive processes are unnecessary
and again redundant. Washington shellfish farmers do provide important economic and
job and and economic benefits for local communities. They also provide nutritious
food with a lot less impact on the environment. This has been shown scientifically
through highly regarded groups including universities, the Nature Conservancy World
Wildlife Fund. They are also actively engaged in ongoing efforts to support healthy
water quality and ecosystems that benefit not just their livelihoods but also the
communities in which they operate. We highly urge you to consider, yes, we, we urge
you to consider the many benefits that they provide to the county. Please see our
written comments for more information on existing permitting requirements and our
specific requests. Thank you very much.
Wow.
Hello. My name is Rose Gelman Gitelm, am MA N I was born and raised in Port Townsend,
Washington. Um And in my teenage years, I worked on both uh good Duck and oyster
farm. Um This provided an excellent uh and accessible early job that allowed me to
support paying for my college degree um and my early adulthood um for myself and
other young adults in the community. This was one of the highest paying and flexible
jobs available um that allowed hours when home from college. Um and to kind of come
and go, I felt pride in producing a sustainable product and working in a unique industry.
I think that it is really important to support shellfish growers in Jefferson County
and be cautious about regulations that may make it too difficult for shellfish growers
to operate in our community. Um Particularly any regulations that are duplicates
of state and federal regulations. Um Thank you very much for your time.
Uh I currently live in Portland.
Mm.
Hi, good morning. Uh My name is Brett Ver Husen. I'm the principal uh of ocean strategies.
We are a public affairs firm uh focused on fisheries, seafood and marine resources.
I am based in Seattle. Um I'm testifying just to share results of some recent Washington
resident polling that we completed in six shellfish producing counties um in the
summer of 2023 we received uh 500 responses from residents in
Pierce Thurston, Mason, Kitsap, Pacific and Grays Harbor County. We did not, uh I
don't want to be clear. We did not survey residents in Jefferson County, but we think
that our results may be of interest to the county commissioners because the results
county by county um showed very little variance. Um and we also surveyed equally
across party affiliation. Um In summary, uh 81% uh
of residents in shellfish producing counties um support shellfish farming
and 82% support clear and consistent policies that support shellfish farming. Um
from our experience kind of like in summary, very few issues. Poll so, well, very
few issues poll in the eighties. Um I think um most issues would hope for that. So
that, that, that's um was interesting um from our polling. But what was even more
uh fascinating was the responses when we asked about the benefits of uh shellfish
farming. So, contributions to local economy and good paying jobs had a net favorability
ratings at 90 88%. That's um with something as, as high as shellfish we would hope.
But yes, yes, yes, yes. Um water quality and
the benefits to the marine ecosystems equally um had high favorability rating. So
we thought that that was um very uh interesting and was consistent across counties
and we hope that that information um is helpful to the county commissioners Thank
you.
Thank you. Um Sue Corbett, 31 Churchill Lane, Ludlow. I have lived on Churchill Lane
and Shine for 41 years. I walked the tidelands and I know where the native eelgrass
is and where there are large beds of sand dollars. I know where the sand lands and
herring spawn. I know where windsurfers surf over a proposed green duck farm. I wouldn't
expect the county staff to know all of those conditions in Squamish Harbor or the
conditions of other tidelands. In Jefferson County, the people who spend time on
the tidelands have observed the marine environment and would have knowledge to share
about a proposed re site. That's why it makes sense to allow the public to be heard
at a public hearing before a hearing examiner and to have a standard cut for all
proposed G duck operations. I have firsthand experience of how G duck farm can affect
native eel grass. A biologist showed me how to identify native eel grass. In July
of 2014 tubes were in a dense native el grass bed. That bed of Denson of el grass
has never recovered. Uh The research that the shellfish industry uses to say that
eelgrass recovers is flawed. I have taken many photos over the years and I have two
to share um one from 2014 and the other from 2023 both in July located the
same spot. I hope you can see this So the top one is
the um 2014 and the bottom one is 2023. It is, it's honestly never recovered. I did
send a hard copy of this so you should have the picture um to, to view closer. Thank
you.
Ok.
Good morning and Happy New Year. Um My name is Anne Detton and I live uh in Jefferson
County and I'm here to support my friends and neighbors of Shine and Discovery Bay.
I urge the commissioners to adopt the Standard Cup uh for the S MP for New Gooey
Ducks, operations, expansion, conversions of other shellfish and Goey ducks. I think
there needs to be more oversight, um more clear and transparent process which will
eliminate any type of conflict of interest um with the neutral party making some
decisions and also the public weighing in. Uh Yeah, um what we're witnessing on with
these farms. So again, thank you for your time. Um And I appreciate uh you doing
your due diligence and um we look forward to uh your decision. Thank you.
Good morning. Um My name is Linda Lowe and my residence is 10 Woodman Road on Discovery
Bay. Uh My property is just north of the Taylor Shellfish Gooey Duck Farm that recently
has been put into place. Um I I am here to support the Standard Cup for any new and
expanded Gooey Duck applications. Uh I'm not gonna go into um my feelings about the
adverse envi environmental impacts that people have already talked about today. I
have the same, uh, concerns. Um, I do have concerns about granting a discretionary
cup. I'm wondering, um, who would be granting the cup? Uh, what influences go into
making this decision? Um, I just feel that the Standard Cup is the best way that
we can have, uh, a good sound decision made on, um, any, any Gooey duck farm. Uh
A lot of us love oysters here in the United States. I'm not sure how many of us actually
eat gooey ducks. It's my understanding that a most of them are exported. Um I may
be wrong about this but as far as I know, um for food, I don't know if we can really
count that uh as food for uh the local people in, in our country here. Uh
And as far as jobs go, um I've watched the farm um going in
and I have never seen more than four people working on the beach at this farm. Um
So I don't really have a lot of information on how many jobs the gooey duck farming
industry generates. Uh So again, I just um in, in support of the Standard cup for
any gooey duck. Um For me. Thank you.
Yeah. Well, hello, my name is Adam James. I appreciate the opportunity to step out
of the rain today. I'm in my car and it's kind of poor service. So I'm not joining
by video. I reside at 610 North Eagle Creek Road in Lily Wop, Washington, which is
in Mason County. I work for the Hama Hama company which was established around 1922.
Um Our business employees over 50 people, many of whom who live in Jefferson County,
our operation hub. Um Yeah, is in Mason County, but we have been farming shellfish
in Jefferson County for over two decades. Um We grow timber and oysters and I guess
I have a few comments on um kind of the general state of things, you know, not, not
too long ago, a historic dairy in the heart of the Cum Valley was purchased by new
owners and turned into an apple orchard inside. And so I think most of us come from
the perspective that we're farmers. And if, if you have an existing farm, there's
lots of things that are out of your control, control, market demand, changing climate,
those types of things. If um if, if you want to convert an existing farm to a new
species, maybe you're growing uh flowers that you're cropping and you decide to turn
it into hay pasture or grain production. Um You know, there's a big discrepancy between
what's allowed terrestrially and aquatically for specifically existing farms. And
I just would like people to think about that. Um The other thing has to do with visual
analysis, you know, um um obviously as a farmer, uh you know, we all have our own
biases. Uh, seeing timbered shorelines is my favorite view, maybe not houses. I understand
that there's gonna be conflicts with neighbors. And, um, I'm hopeful that down the
road, Jefferson County residents will start to see Jefferson County for the hub and
uh center of aquaculture, which it actually is. You know, I've gone to a number of
Jefferson County farm walks and I don't even think, uh, any aquaculture operations
are part of those farm tours which occur every September. And I'd like to see that
changed. Um There's a lot of aquaculture that goes on in Jefferson County. It's a
big revenue generator, a big employer. And, uh I think there's a lot of shared interests
we have with everybody in the room and, yeah. Ok. Yep, that's it. Thank you everybody
and have a great day.
Yep.
I'm Chan Wold and I live on Shine Road. 20% of all Washington tide lands were under
permit to shellfish farms 10 years ago. According to the Army Corps of Engineers,
increasing to around 30%. Now, Guede farms are usually located in estuaries that
are extremely important ecologically for the marine food chain and for supporting
or feeding forage fish, salmon orcas and many threatened and endangered species.
I can think of no other county project that would be more negatively impactful. I
urge you to require a standard conditional use permit with a hearing before a hearing
examiner for New Gooey duck farms as well as all conversions and expansions. There
are shellfish farms of 100 and 28 acres in size and Hood Canal. Now that could be
converted or expanded. 91 of my neighbors and neighbors from Discovery Bay signed
a letter to strongly support this permitting approach for Goey Ducks. This allows
for everyone to be heard, to share their knowledge and ensure sufficient scientific
data is in the record for a hearing examiner to make a site specific decision. This
also keeps our gooey duck permitting consistent with the approved S MP S of neighboring
Kitsap and Clellan counties. Contrary to what you may hear biological opinions completed
by the federal government a decade ago, do not prove there is no damage to the environment.
These opinions are outdated, grossly underestimate the acres of shellfish farms and
only looked at threatened and endangered species. Not all species. Nearly 10 years
ago, the Army Corps found that there would be adverse effects to essential fish habitat
for Pacific salmon and other fish species. There certainly is a cost to local citizens
and damage to estuary's loss of commercial and residential fishing and tourism due
to these activities. Thank you.
Can you see me or hear me?
Ok. My name is Mike Patterson. I live on Shine Road. I concur well, I support the
cup and I concur with Miss Lowe in Discovery Bay and, and what Mr Dip are just said,
I think it's very important that uh that we look at plastic that's disintegrating
in our water, uh, gets ingested by the seafood life. So, now we've got oysters. So
we've got gooey ducks that are ingesting plastic, which eventually we eat. Uh, it
doesn't sound good to me. So, um, I would certainly consider that and, uh,
really comes down to a few in the industry that are protecting their money interests
versus, uh, the majority of people that live in the northwest, particularly on the
peninsula. Jefferson County that really uh enjoy having a pristine environment. And
now, uh if we start putting tubes all over the sand, uh it's just gonna degrade the
whole area. So that's my thoughts. Thank you.
Uh Jardine, I would say it's either or, or both. Um I think that I, I said the 22nd
would be a good time to, to hopefully wrap up the discussion so that we can have
time to prepare an ordinance based on the direction that we're getting from the board.
But um, we could schedule time for both the 16th and the 22nd at your pleasure.
Go ahead, Lisa. Uh Yes, commissioner. There is um an online map um that's available
on the Jefferson County Shoreline Master Program periodic update. There's a story
map. It's one of the elements of that
and I, I would add Commissioner Dean that on our, on our GIS tool that we use as
on the planning side to review development proposals. We have all the shoreline environment
designations mapped out as well and plus critical areas and other important information.
I believe. I believe so, but I will confirm, keep going with your questions and I
will uh meanwhile, be looking that up to confirm what it looks like online. I know
there's some subtle differences between what we see and what the public sees. And
that's because we're trying to protect certain information according to agreements
with state agencies.
That one, I am also going to defer to Lisa on my, my hunch is that if you're talking
about that particular shoreline environment designation, we're talking about natural,
natural set, which of course is an important resource, not only for recreational
and ecological uses but for tribal treaty rights, but I'm going to refer to Lisa.
Perhaps that's um that's more complex than that. Um Josh, we will rereview the language,
but uh we were not proposing to change that original approach and I concur with what
Josh's um language is that it was meant to um address the ecological protection
of particularly sensitive areas, but we'll double check that language.
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that commission brother. And I did, I found this thing
at the same time. He just found it faster, which doesn't surprise me. So yes and
I just, I just put the link in the chat. I believe it's available to everybody. Caroline,
you can correct me if I'm wrong. So people can access that information. Through there.
And um just on your last, we did do with the consultants, I should say did a cumulative
impacts analysis for this planning process. So I believe we've addressed the question
as best we can from a programmatic policy perspective about be duck aqua culture.
But I would, I would defer to Lisa and Amy for any additional insight on that and
we can come back as well to talk about that more.
I I believe our cumulative impacts addendum is focused on specific activities and
uses that ecology requested. I don't believe aquaculture was one of those. But basically
our charge was to um incorporate the um state rules on GED aquaculture that did come
out of the best available science and um stakeholder process
if I could jump in for sec, I, I, I've heard from Caroline that there's some schedule
issues with February 12th. So in that light, um I guess of course, however, you want
to handle future uh input from the public, but I was thinking that a workshop format
for next week is great and then perhaps a deliberation format for the 22nd. And that's
when in theory, we could receive direction from the board in order to put the finishing
touches on an ordinance and then put it out for public, for public consumption and
comment. And then we would schedule perhaps Tuesday, February 20th that Monday being
a holiday for the, for the potential action by the board and then you'd have essentially
the hearing part two except it would be focused on the ordinance and any changes.
If that, if that makes sense to everybody
recording in progress,
I'll start us out. Chair, Dean. Uh My name is Josh Peters. I'm the community development
director. Um Apologies for you having to see me again so uh so soon, but here I am,
but this is a yeah, we have a lot of stuff going on, important things and this is
just one of them. Um Joel has prepared a, a short slide presentation that I'll go
over and um for many of you, it will be a a trip down memory lane perhaps and for
others, some new information about our obligations under the Growth Management Act
for allocating population projections that we've been provided by the Office of Financial
Management. That's the essential role of this growth management steering committee
that we're going to discuss as an advisory body for the Board of County Commissioners
decision in coordinations with cities. And we only have one, of course, Port Townsend,
we also have our county by planning policy that we first adopted in the 19 nineties
in preparation for our first G MA compliant comprehensive plans, both the county
and the city. And there's been talk about revisiting the Countywide planning policy
for amendments to catch us up to speed, especially as we embark upon joint planning
efforts with the city of Port Townsend and with that, um, we think this will take
about a half an hour or so of discussion. Uh But of course, we're open for, for,
um, any questions and I'm not seeing anything else in the genus. I don't know if
we have a hard stop at any point, but this is a complicated issue that we're just
starting just scratching the surface on and I'm gonna turn it over to Joel and then
we'll see where we go from there in terms of next steps.
Yeah, thanks. I mean, Joel really just laid it all out. But I guess I would say that
with the caveat that we're still learning about House Bill 1717 and all the implications.
And as Joel mentioned, we met with the Tribal Planning Program Manager at Commerce
Bridget Ray already and we expect to meet with her again. Hopefully, next time in
person she might visit with us. If anyone's interested, you can participate if you
like in that, in that meeting to learn more. But essentially my read of the statute
is that there is no obligation for government to government meeting. There could
be eventual government to government meeting depending on the request from any given
tribe. But essentially it lays it out in two different ways. And I put some links
in the chat too if you want to look at that. But the first one would be recounted
by planning policies. We are required to invite tribes that have ceded lands, so
or reservations. So that would be the two that Joel mentioned on the west end. And
then for um for the tribal participation in our planning processes in general, our
legislative planning processes, then there would be um by request. So our understanding,
according to the way the statute is written is that if we get a resolution from a
tribal council that they would like to participate at that level, then we'll, we'll
respond to that accordingly. But I don't, I don't think there's like sort of an automated
mechanism that it would be considered government to government. But I think this
maybe um it's minutia in a sense and how we would do that. But as Joel mentioned,
we already do have a participation program essentially with, with um with tribes
that have expressed interest so far in our planning processes. And you can see from
this morning just we had a tribal participation in the SNP hearing. So just adding
a little detail to that. Thank you.
Thank you Joel. Um
So as George has mentioned, our next step we believe is to work with Carolyn and
the prosecuting attorney's office to draft a resolution that would replace or supplant
all previous resolutions around the growth management steering committee. Um As part
of the agenda request we put in a chronology that starts in the nineties pre G MA
comp plan. Ours was 1998 and then in 1999 we added the port as a, as a voting member
if you will at the time. And then there's some uh there was an interest expressed
at the last Intergovernmental Collaborative Group meeting IC G meeting late last
year about adding the Pud. And as Joel mentioned as well, it's morphed over time
at one point. Um We added three representatives from our Port Hadlock UG A to go
along with three board members and then three city councilors. So I think there's
a few choices. One thing I would advocate uh we consider strongly is, is just to
change the, the tenor perhaps of the resolution, the original joint Growth Management
steering committee between the county and the city. You know, I think had a formality
to it. And uh and I'm not saying we go completely informal, but I think voting, the
idea of a voting member versus a non voting member starts to get more complicated
as you add more parties. I would say that based on the statute, ultimately, it's
the county's responsibility to manage the Countywide planning policies and to incoordination
with cities to allocate population and establish growth targets. So I would say in
that light, the Growth Management steering committee in that perspective is, is an
advisory body in the sense that it's a good forum to have a conversation to get input
from stakeholders. And then that information goes back to the board for a decision.
So in that, in that view, I would say that um In this resolution, we are proposing
to steer away from um differentiating members in terms of who votes and who doesn't
and so forth. The second thing would be to consider whether you want the full board
participation. I know that the city council, I believe already has three city, three
city councilors selected to participate in these conversations. Um But if we, for
example, decided that we just wanted one board member to, to be assigned to that
committee. Uh We could tell the city that we're looking for one city councilor plus
of course, staff from the city and, and for the same for the port and the pud, of
course, one elected official from each of those boards and commissions um is less
than a quorum. Um So that's we want to avoid the quorum problem in a sense or challenge
I should say. Um But we could also just say three, all three commissioners, it would
be a board of county commissioners meeting. And then we would get traditionally like
always the three city councilors from the city that would be less than a quorum for
the city council and then one elected official, court commissioner and a pud commissioner
for those bodies, plus, you know, staff would be there to support the committee.
Um So that's those are the types of things to consider. And then, as Joel mentioned,
there's this other piece about, um I would say that the tribal participation with
respect is really directly, directly related to the counter way planning policies
and not so much related to the population allocation. But of course, we could, we're
still thinking about that question and uh interacting with Congress on it on how
to, how to um invite that participation, how to signify to uh participating tribes
or interested tribes of that opportunity and what our obligations are versus what
we believe is um in the spirit of Cooper Operation that we've, we believe we've um
practiced lately and that we'd like to do. In other words, we want to err on the
side of inviting more participation, but we're also wary of um what that might mean.
Uh We've seen examples from other counties where they, their Countywide planning
policies ended up being um amended significantly, but it was really between one tribe
and the, and the county working out an issue and what I'm picturing or what I'd like
to see more is definitively a policy on collaborating with tribal governments. But
more of a broad policy in the Countywide planning policies themselves, which we would
perhaps take a crack at drafting and in an early version and then send it out to
tribes and gauge their interest, invite them to participate, participate and then
end up with language. Hopefully, that would be agreeable among different tribes.
As you know, every tribe is, is quite different. It's a different government, different
interests. So, uh rather than getting into the, into the new degree. We, when we,
as Joel mentioned, the two tribes that have reservation territory in our, in our
county, um, the Kal Indian nation and the whole, the whole Indian tribe,
there might be some issues there, especially in the cor side of things where we've
had some long standing issues that we need to work through. And my, I guess my, uh,
the opportunity there is to work through those things, but my, um, consternation
would be how that fits into the 2025 periodic update because that could be a whole
endeavor in and of itself which, um has the, has a chance to sort of, um, derail
the schedule if you will. So just I'm throwing it out there as a, as a sort of a
cautionary note on how we, how we together manage this process. So I'm thinking the
Growth Management steering committee, the first order of business is get the thing
going and then, um, concentrate on the population allocation allocation question.
So that way the city can march off and do their comprehensive planning, the county
can march off and do ours. And then, then the second step would be to tackle the
county wing planning policies which we can, we can once that population decision
is made in a joint resolution which it has done in the past the county resolution
and the city makes a resolution. Um, then we can insert that in a sense or, um, that
would be just one piece of the puzzle that we then we work on with the county planning
policies, which would be going, be going a little bit further. So, II I anticipate
maybe, maybe three months of activity and something like that. Um, starting perhaps
on the week before the second week in February, the week before the next scheduled
IC G meeting. I've been talking to Carolyn about scheduling a growth management steering
committee meeting and that, I think it's February 8th. It would be that Thursday.
Um, that could be the first meeting and we've already asked to report if we can borrow
their facilities. Um And then, so we're kind of used to meeting there on Thursday
evenings and then the next week we could report out to the IC G about what happened
at that first meeting. If we can't pull it all together before then, then we could
just tell the IC G where we're at with it and go forward. So I'll stop there and
see if there's any questions, discussion, thoughts.
Yeah, thanks, Josh and, and Joel really clear. Um First of all, I'd be really interested
in, in helping it as, as much as I can with tribal engagement. The meeting with Bridget,
uh, Ray. So please try to include me if possible unless there's a arm wrestling match
with Heidi and Kate. Um, and I, I think what you've outlined makes a lot of sense,
the timeline composition, I guess the one countervailing idea I would throw out is,
you know, we talked a little bit about this at the last IC G meeting. I think there's
a lot of interest around the county. It makes more sense after this description now
to consider even making the IC G into the Growth Management uh committee um as you
know, more people. But if we're looking at an advisory body, it just would actually
make less work to, to do that work in IC G. I guess I just wondering about your,
your uh initial thoughts on that kind of idea and whether that would be more work
or less work if we just combine the two.
OK. Uh Thank you for the opportunity to respond to that. Um That was the impression
I got at the last IC MG meeting that there was some interest in having that body
be the forum for these conversations. And I guess I would, I would answer with a
hybrid answer. I think that the level of detail that we're going to be diving into
um is better dealt with with a smaller, more nimble body if you will, plus you wouldn't
have the um seemingly perpetual challenge of the quorum factor whenever you get that
IC G together because you know whether there are meetings or not and, and because
you need all those bodies to participate. And I would think that, but the hybrid
approach though would be to then have the IC G be the sort of next test case. For
example, if we were to somehow magically work out a population allocation uh proposal
a week before the IC G, then that proposal could then be presented to the full body
for input. Um So I would say that an input and discussion and um that kind of approach
would be preferable perhaps logistically, then having that body be a decision making
body and then that input could then could go to the board and then your next board
meeting or a board meeting shortly after an IC G meeting where you solicit that input
would be when you would take action on something.
You, you've talked me out of it. I just wanted to make sure we broach that idea
now to give one countervailing point to my own point um playing my own devil, devil's
advocate, here is another variation of that would be once we settle on things, whether
it's counter plan planning policies or population allocation, if you wanted to sort
of document complete consensus among all participating parties, then some kind of
action at an IC G meeting where all the elected officials are there with their quorums
and can take action. I know that Caroline is probably going, oh my God. Um But um
there is, I suppose a possibility it's been done before even to establish the IC
G, right? So there could be some sort of final action, maybe maybe at the next meeting
or two down the road, if that's what you wanted to sort of memorialize that, that,
that would be a way to kind of combine both of ideas.
Yeah, thanks. So, um we will get clarification on this question, of course. But my,
my impression is that there were several bills in the last few years that relate
to housing and that's part of that G MA checklist that we're working on right now
with, uh, with Joel and with one of our consultants to kick off the process here.
But that said, and, and some of the things are really related to cities. There's
just a few things that are related to counties in that regard. All that said though,
the, the new housing element requirements, I'm pretty sure are a county requirement
as well. Um To me, it's interesting because we have far fewer tools in the toolbox
if you will in the rural area for dealing with housing as opposed to cities. Um,
sort of naturally, I guess if you think about urban services and so forth and density
and real character. However, we have our Port Hadlock UG A like Commissioner Eisenhower
just mentioned and of course, we're planning out to 2045 in this cycle. So I would
say, yeah, absolutely. We, we need to consider that. Um, and um, we have started
the conversation with the city staff at the staff level about these various um, new
things for us which are these income bans that we have to plan for. And there is
a tool that commerce put out, for example, that we've already, or the city already
took the, took the step of plugging in information to see what it would spit out.
And of course, it didn't quite work for us. You know, we only have the one city and
we're just, we're unique, I suppose. Right. We have, we're only planning for, in
theory for another 6000 people or so in the next, um, 20 years, it seems like maybe
we'll get more. But then again, we thought 20 years ago, we'd have more now by this
time. So, um, anyway, um, I guess there's a lot of conversation around that and we'll
have to figure that out and it's sort of like there's a waiting period to get all
the information together. I know that there's, um, housing fund discussion, um, housing
fund board discussion going on right now. That's very applicable. There are housing
proponents. In fact, I would ask one of the commissioners who is most engaged with
that to report out to us. Really? Like, where, where are we at with that? Because
that information is going to be crucial. So I guess I'll go back to Joel's recommendation,
which I agree with, which is that we start out with a somewhat simple question, which
is back in 2015. What did we do to allocate the population in terms of percentages?
Between the city and our UG A in Hadlock and the rest of the county. And then just
see if, does that still make sense or not, should we essentially propose to stick
with that or tweak it a bit? And then we, we actually make a resolution to do that
for planning purposes. And then we continue the conversation including this new requirements
under the, under the G MA which I posted in the chat by the way, and it's in our
housing element section right there. And then when, if we find that we um our initial
assumption is not gonna work for whatever reason because the UG A is coming on because
of the habitat project because of Evans vista because of the conversation around
the UG A swap, any of those things, then we can always turn around and make an adjustment.
Well before on June 30th 2025 because that's when we actually have to finish this
whole thing. But in order to even start it and go down the road towards planning
for a certain population, I know the city has been asking me, um how far are we on
this conversation? Because they want a number that they can work with? And I think
we do as well.
I did want to bring up just that on that very point, Commissioner Dean, that as Joel
mentioned, we had a UG A representatives the last go around. I think there were three
my understanding is those particular parties either have moved out of that, you know,
being within the UG A itself or might not be the best fit. So, um that's another
puzzle. I like that idea of inviting two city councilors and then we can, the board
should select, perhaps the district two commissioner would select someone, really
sort of recruit someone and try to get him, get him interested to participate in
this committee. This a maybe the short term part of it will be attractive. But of
course, we don't know how short it would be because if we, as we got into this, we
should probably be a commitment all the way through, all the way through spring of
2025. But I like that idea. 32 and one. in a sense, it's our, I, I do believe it's
the county's decision to, to do this. But um, I know that we're, we've been in contact
with the city. So certainly after this discussion, we would tell them what, what
direction we received and we would certainly give them a chance to comment on any
kind of draft resolution that we, that we put before you.
I, I'm fine with that distribution. I'm, I'm wondering last time, I mean, the reason
there were three I think is because there were three in the previous incarnation.
And uh does your historical research Josh or Joel lend any uh rationale for that?
And also I like the idea of having a UG A, you know, citizen on, on the Growth Management
Board. I'll defer to Joel case. He's got different information. But my, my, I guess,
educated guess would be three commissioners, three city councilors because it was
below, below a quorum. And it would, you know, they didn't want, we didn't want four
city councilors to outnumber the commissioners. And then, then we just added three
UG A reps so that they would all sort of be an even playing field of like a baseball
team of nine. But then of course, you add the port commissioner. So, um that, that
does lend itself to sort of bringing things down and trying to get a smaller, more
nimble uh committee. Although even two county commissioners of course, would be a
meeting as I'm sure Caro Carolyn will remind us,
I agree.
And another detail that I would pass on that Caroline, um and I discussed and it
was her suggestion that this time the resolution would be preferable just to state
the composition in terms of the entities being represented rather than names. I think
we ran into trouble because we had specific names in a resolution before I think
it would be again, it, it leads, it leads back towards just a decision of let's get
this community together to have this conversation and not dwell on the names and
such. And it, that way it could actually maybe last a little longer too that's another
thing to discuss is do we want to convene this and then end it um by the end of this
update or just want to keep this body um for whatever purpose is we need in the future.
For continued discussion.
I was thinking that um back to that kind of uh take that first step, which is the
basic population allocation and just revisiting 2015 and seeing if we need to, if
we would like to change that um allocation, that division uh right away or not. And
um perhaps we could get to an agreement on that. Um Perhaps not, maybe that's more
of a complicated question like, like, like you're suggesting it could be, but let's
just say for a moment, we do pick an allocation for planning purposes and that, that
enables the city and the county to kind of march off and continue to do the work.
And as we reconvene, we have these touch points uh during the process to make sure
that we're in coordinating and, and our planning efforts are consistent. Plus we
have this ongoing conversation around a potential urban growth area swap from the
for the port towns in UG A. And we're just embarking upon that as and as you know,
we just uh were awarded some grant funds to, to start to um dive into that a little
deeper. So I guess I would say that um there could be those touch points where we
come back and during this process, um and end up doing a reallocation based on what
we learn in the next say 68 months by the end of the year or something like that
or the early next year. And that would just allow us to put the finishing touches
on the 2025 periodic update again, all in theory that we are going to make that deadline.
Mm
And that reminded me of course, that your original question, commissioner team was
really around the county by the planning policy. So I would say that I think there
may be some counties in Washington in which those policies have been revisited more
frequently, perhaps every time they do an update or something. But obviously, in
our case, um we haven't touched them since the 19 nineties. So I, I would even say
that absent any new statute or some reason to touch them. We don't really need to
do so. Now, um as Joe mentioned back around 22,004, um I think I have some policies
that are some draft amendments that believe it or not I composed when I worked for
D CD at the time. Um and we had these kinds of meetings with, with the partners and
um I know the city kind of gave them back to me and said, look what, look what you
did in 2005. So we proposed amending them, but we never did and yet we still went
through a couple of periodic updates. So from that standpoint, I don't think we necessarily
have to change them. Now, I would say that because of the 1717 requirements, I do
advocate um following that and um working on some kind of policies that, that
set the tone for uh tribal participation and involvement in, in county planning.
And that would be then the overall framework then, then we can use to uh whether
it's a tribal element or whether it's just introducing policy language someplace
in our confidence. So that's a whole question there. Um And then the other thing
would be any conversation around um around the port towns in UGA. I do think that
would benefit from having a count wide planning policy to again set the framework
to sort of say, what are we trying to do? What are we analyzing? What question are
we trying to address? And how do we, how do we purport to get there? And then um
and then there's that just sets us off and, and then we, then we do the planning
necessary. So in other words, if we are jointly pursuing um something in the port
towns in UG A which happens to be coincident in this case with the city municipal
boundary, again, kind of a rare situation, but it is what it is. And so are we going
to think about that uh with respect to Casal Brown or any other um any other reason
and then having a accounting planning policy would be important. In fact, I just
learned recently and I think I remember uh are just notice that the board here discussed
that one pre file bill that would adjust the language in the RCW for the UG A swap
provision. And um there's some input from some um some interested parties. I think
the planners in the state of saying that any UG A swap should be predicated by um
uh Countywide plan policy stating such. So in that sense, we may end up if that bill
passes and if that happens, then we may end up having to amend them anyway. So I
guess I would say in terms of back to your question of schedule, if we got the growth
measure, steering comm community, soon, the first point of business would just be
catching everyone up to speed, of course. And then focusing on the initial population
allocation. First of all, choosing one of the bands low, medium or high for the ofm
population projection as you can, as you heard from Dave Anderson from commerce at
the IC G meeting, he strongly suggest sticking with the medium. But anyway, that's
what we've always done. But that's, that's an open question. And then the next thing
would be the percentage allocation between the Ugas and the rural lands. After that,
then that committee could be working on the side on the on counter planning policies
just maybe picking up the pieces of what was, uh, was proposed back in 2005, seeing
what we need to update what we could update, um, asking the tribal policy question.
Um And then, then seeing where we go from there, I can picture that being a 2 to
3 to 4 month exercise and maybe around the summer time, we would be, it would be
coming before the board with proposed amendments to the count, count planning policies
which again, which only just buttress in a sense what we've already been working
on because we can't just wait for that to happen in order to start doing our compound
work. But at least we would know that. Ok, we would, it would be like a consistency
checkpoint in the coordinations aspect of the city county planning process.
That's a great question. I'm sorry to chuckle. Um I guess
the glass half full part of my personality says, yeah, we can do all of this all
the 20 or so long range planning projects that we've got on the table right now.
Um And that's only the 20 like time sensitive ones right before us and we can figure
it all out and get it all done by June 30th 2025. The glass not so full part of me
is like the whole thing seems um precipitous, but the good news is that we just hired,
you know, we just got a new um, planner on board In fact, I think Vince is listening
right now perhaps out there in the, in the hinterlands over in his cube, I should
say uh uh Vincent uh Mariachi is here to help us as well. And we've got consultants
on staff. And as I mentioned, probably in previous previous uh meetings, we're gonna
be going out for an RFP for additional consultant services which are all um or hopefully
all paid for by the three commerce grants that we've got going for this, the periodic
update grant itself, which is an allocation, the Middle Housing grant, which is an
award and then the climate planning grant, which is an allocation
coordinate water system plan. Brent Butler is working on that right now. And that's
another piece that we're hoping to uh hoping to work with partners on. He had a meeting
last week with Department of Health officials and uh Kevin Street, the general manager
for the Pud and uh Alisa hero from uh environmental public Health. And so that is
a project he's gonna be coming back to the board with an agenda request with the
scope of work. So that is also happening, but that we, we're hoping that um a consultant
can be, can be um contracted with to take the bulk of that and run with it. And plus
we have partners to work with in that. But you're absolutely right. That's another
piece. The thing is, it's all of these things tie together as you know, from your
work, um, we're hoping to actually tap into the climate planning funds for, for our
portion of that. And I've gotten the, uh, the ok from commerce to do that, that,
that is AAA use for that money. And, and the whole idea would be that we're looking
20 years out to the future for our water resources as a whole. And so it's not just,
you can't just, I guess the exercise would be not just coloring the map with different
land use designations. And then just assuming it's all gonna work out, we're actually
looking at that question more closely, what, what's the situation with instream flow
rules or any other limitations that we may have vis a vis water resources and then
having that be part of the conversation. So ideally, we would get the co-ordinated
water system plan done right around the time that we'd be finishing up the 2025 period
update. And again, the glass half pool part of me says it's all going to come together
very nicely at the end.
OK.
Yeah, February 8th. So if the board is comfortable providing us specific direction
on some of these questions we're we're discussing now, then our goal was to get a
resolution uh into the hopper this week for you to consider this coming um that your,
your next board meeting, this coming Tuesday, I think that is because of the holiday.
So, so um if we're able to do that. I mean, you could, if you wanted to, you could
start to out to um con contact your, your folks, the folks that you know, that are
interested in this. I know that there, there are folks obviously that are interested
in, in the soul growth management, idea, community planning in the Havelock area.
So just uh rely on your judgment and that Heidi and, and if you wanted to start putting
out the feelers, and then if we got, if we finish the resolution on Tuesday, then,
then we would put out like a formal invitation to all of the partners, including
the individual or individuals that you selected.
Thank you so much for bringing that up. I, I totally, I, I'm sorry that I forgot
that piece. I mean, I, I remembered it, I just forgot to mention it today. Absolutely.
So I think that the school districts fire jurisdiction, there might be other districts
that or other stakeholder groups that would be interested in participating. And I,
I would advocate just like you said, Commissioner Dean to put those in the category
of stakeholder involvement so that you have a, a nimble steering committee and then
the, the meetings are advertised and the invitations and, and the solicitations are
sent out that would include those districts. Um And perhaps this is something we
consider can consider for the resolution itself just to stay state examples of stakeholders.
So we don't get, we don't constrain ourselves too much. That also goes into the whole
idea there. You know, the difference between a voting member and a non voting member
is it becomes a moot point. And because again, the other piece would be the tribal
participation, we haven't quite sussed out exactly how to do that. I think that would
be wise to, to inform tribes with which we've been engaged previously that we're
doing this process and to kind of give them a heads up that at some point in this
process, this committee could be considering amendments to the counter way planning
policies in which case, we would actually invite them per statute.
Yeah. So what I've heard so far from you is that, um, in terms of membership, that
you would agree with the idea that we'd have a smaller committee and move away from
kind of the voting non voting issue that all three county commissioners want to participate.
We would invite two city councilors and um, pick a UG A representative. We would
also invite one pud commissioner and one court commissioner and then we would list
some other districts right now. I have school districts and fire districts. We would
list districts and tribes in the list of stakeholders that would be invited to participate
as they wished during the process.
Yeah. Um What as you wish, Caroline and I were talking about some of the advantages
of scheduling of, of using that same port facility where we have these kinds of joint
government conversations, uh Intergovernmental collaborative meetings. But that said
though, um scheduling some for other places fits in with the overall Planning Commission
outreach, that's the other thing too is meanwhile, as you'll learn more when we have
our joint board Planning Commission meeting on January 20th this month on a Saturday
as a reminder, um Saturday afternoon, that is we, we have it in mind to work with
the Outreach Committee of the Planning Commission to set up some meetings around
the county. So, um, we'll just have to figure out how it all fits together. Those
might be a little bit later in the process perhaps, and we'll do some of these earlier,
but I also don't anticipate it kind of depends on how, how much we bite out to chew
and how complicated it gets. But I'm trying to back to your question of, can we pull
this all off? I'm hoping to achieve some kind of magical efficiency in the sense
that we have maybe 34, possibly five meetings this year of this group. But again,
we'll see what we see what the group wants to do.
Well, we certainly use that one every time we have a planet vision, meaningless to
dial.
That is a good question. Um I wasn't around for the first round so I couldn't tell
you whether they did at the time and then we haven't edited them since the, since
the 19 nineties. I would my, my guess would be not statutorily mandated but, um,
running them through the planning commission could be something that we choose to
do. Um, I know that, you know, it's, I don't, I guess I don't, it's, I would differentiate
it from the planning commission's more formalized role for amending our comprehensive
plan for our development regulations. Um, but that said if you wanted, if we wanted
to choose to do that, if we had some amendments, you wanted to have a touch point
or something like that. Um I don't think it's the case where for example, I don't
think we have a 60 day notice to Department of Commerce just like we would for a
comprehensive plan or a development regulation amendment.
It's exciting.
I believe so. Um Yes, and we'll work with Barbara and Carolyn to draft up a resolution.
Sure, we'll, we'll draft it and, and, and just pass it along to Caroline and Barbara
to work from there and before it gets on the agenda,
what happened?
Excellent. So um that was 30 minutes that lasted 60. So
good. Excellent. Yes. Yes. And that was important. So I I I'm I'm being facetious
really. So um the next topic um if if Caroline, if you could pull over uh George
Terry, I believe he's, he's zooming in with me and I'm asking George to join because
he has been tasked with um taking the lead on implementation of the site development
review program. And So um just, I just want George here with me in case
there's questions about it that he might know the answer more than I would about
the day to day implementation. Um As you know, since we hired a development code
administrator, I have tried to step away as much as possible from the day to day
permit making role and been much more focused on exactly what we just talked about
the policy making aspect of community planning. So I'll just kick it off very briefly
that go ahead.
OK. Thank you.
OK. So I will just uh kick us off and briefly summarize the contents of this four
page status review report which I characterized as a summary to mark, which I think
made him chuckle because it's four pages worth of bullet points. It doesn't sound
like a summary, something, something in between. It's not quite a thesis. But anyway,
um what we thought the reason why we wanted to come back to the board is the last
time I remember being in front of the board talking about STRS or site development
review. Um There was some thought about, yeah, let's come back and keep talking about
this or, you know, give us a status update. So it's really just a proactive reach
out at the beginning of the year and I'm calling it a milestone report because
we really reached the end of the initial anticipated contract amount with our principal
consultant at the Atwell group for this effort. And so we've gone over that amount
as I described in the report itself and in the agenda request, but for good reasons.
And so in a nutshell back in, as you know, I mean, the program launched in the fall
of 2020 there was at the end of a one year development moratorium for lots of reasons
that we've gone over with you. But of course, we can revisit as you wish any of the
reasons why we got ourselves into a hole. If you will at the time, the pent up demand,
then the gov transition, we turned off the tide mark the old software and then waited
for gov to get turned on and then did that and all the sort of database issues that
came along with that, which by the way, I believe is there's gonna be a workshop
schedule with the board later this month to talk more about that. And anyway, those
challenges coupled with the uh I would call, I was gonna say the word significant,
but I think that lost its meaning almost. Oh, maybe I'll be more dramatic and say
drastic staff turnover between the fall of 2022 and the spring of 2023. And then
uh department reorganization um including me taking over as, as a director on June
1st of 2023 bringing in new staff and also
hiring land use consultants to help us and Atwell was the one, formerly known as
Blue Line, a Seattle based group or at least Future Sound Based Group, um helped
us out in significantly. And George has been um in the driver's seat in terms of
managing that consultant contract and working with them on a weekly basis every week.
They, they have a meeting to check in on things. We hand them a batch every week
or two and we get the batch back and so forth. And the bottom line is that, that's
after some, you know, what you would expect to be some ramp up time for them to get
up to speed, just like same thing with training your staff, right? And they've come
back um and produced a lot of products and given us a lot of decisions and um analysis
that then we've turned into the final product for STRS and issued them. So, and they've
also helped us in analyzing the process itself and trying to improve the program.
And of course, now we have um senior planner Mochi Lindblad doing the same. We've
got Greg Ballard development code administrator um doing the same. We've got um other
new staff uh working on uh working on the, on the process as well. So it's kind of
a, it's, it's a team effort all, all the way through and then the, and the bottom
line is that we are, well, we're so close, we can taste it to um getting through
the backlog, at least on the D CD side. And so, and what that means is not like all
the way down to permit zero. There's no permits at all in the queue. But more like
we kick the queue that was in the hundreds and it's down to, you know, I don't know,
2030 whatever, whatever that number is. And the only ones left would be the ones
that are just puzzles, no matter what, no matter what the rules are in a sense or
the process, these are the hard to develop properties or the properties that just
have questions that need to be answered. And so we can't, can't just issue those
or, or work through it, um, immediately. But what I, yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
Well, I certainly appreciate that Commissioner Eisenhower and I am ready to pretty
much ready to wrap up. I was, I, I was gonna say, tempering expectations here a little
bit. We're not quite there to the point where we're down, you know, we're completely
through the backlog, but we can, like I said, we can see the light at the end of
the tunnel. We're really hoping that at least by the end of the first quarter of
this year, we'll, we'll be at a point where where we initially wanted to be, which
is that an applicant comes in, applies for the permit and we can actually look at
it like right away or the next day or something. And then within a week or two, if
it's a simple case, just get it out the door. That was the original idea. You might
remember that from the fall of 2022. And we're at the point now where we finally
work through that slog and to get there, um, it doesn't mean we're completely out
of the woods. There's still policy questions to answer. There's still logistical
things we're working on. We're gonna send a couple more staff to the lien training,
um, that's offered by our local um uh experts. And so we're still continually looking
at, at improving the process, but we are a lot better. As you said, we, we are, I
agree that we're completely a lot better than we were before. And really, it's a
testament to just everybody who's been involved. I mean, I, I, I just put pieces
in place and everyone else did the work. So really all the, all the, all the credit
goes to the new development code administrator and his team and then to George and
George, if you want to jump in and say something at this point, you're welcome to
do so in my, in my book. Anyway, just to any other thoughts that I might have missed
in terms of the summary here.
Thank you, Josh. And uh it's a pleasure to be here today. Commissioners. Thank you
and, and I appreciate the kind words, Commissioner Eisenhower for sure. And Josh
said it best that it has been a fantastic example of a collaborative effort. I'm
so grateful for my team, the team that Josh and his leadership team have assembled
for us and it is a very, very exciting time at D CD. For sure. Thank you.
Yeah, I'm not sure if you're looking for action, but I I have to say kind of in line
with what Heidi said. This document, this bullet point progress report is giving
me more joy than any other document this year. So I mean, I want to pile on to the
kudos. It was uh definitely like a herculean task and, and you really the only, the
only bittersweet thing was seeing former staff members working for Atwell on the
other side. That was the only thing that kind of gave me a little bit of schadenfreude,
uh self-inflicted schadenfreude. I don't know, but really good work glad that it's
going together. And if you want feedback, I think you want, you're kind of we're
looking forward to kind of finishing this out with Atwell and it seems like it's
definitely the most efficient course and a little bit more, you know, even General
Fund's dollars. I I appreciated that the price breakdown, you know, that has been
and the projections of the price breakdown as it goes forward as well. So, uh again,
really good presentation and the and the package, you know, the the packet in our
packet was uh answered all my questions before we even got to today. So, thank you
very much for all your work. Um Thank you, Commissioner brother. I know that, that
all of you have been patient with us as we've worked through this and supportive.
And so the board and uh the, the county administrator's office and um and, and Judy
Shepherd and everybody that's involved with, with the budget question have been very
supportive about our, our plan essentially to, to invest in this in, in solving this
problem and hope. And part of what I was trying to describe in this bullet list is
just uh um emphasizing that we hope that it, it's just this one time investment in
that regard. And then we have to come back and make some decisions about, about fee
recovery and we'll be coming back to the board in a few months or maybe several months
this year. Um with the results of the fees study that we've undergone and the policy
questions that will be before the board about fee recovery. As I hinted, I think
in this document that the initial results are such that at this time, even without
these additional expenditures using the third party consulting services that even
just internal staff, which is cheaper than using consultants. We're still not, we're
still not at 100% fee recovery. So that will be a policy decision for the board.
Do we want to do that or do we want to supplement the fee, the permit program through
the general fund as we've been doing, um, perhaps, uh, without full knowledge about
the consequences of that. So, all those, all that's gonna come your way soon. Yeah,
I just, I didn't have any, um, specific, um, question for you other than just presenting
the information and see what questions you had really. And now that I know that it
was this four pages worth of bullet points was your favorite Greg. I'll make sure
to make it eight points, eight pages worth of bullet points. Next time it'll be even
better. The year is young. I mean, the year is young
that
no, II, I had one final comment in, in, in regard to what Commissioner Dean just
said. We also have to acknowledge that the public has been very patient as well.
I mean, the applicant community has been um has been challenged at least as much
as we have. And so we just want to acknowledge that and uh we're thankful for um
for the patience of, of those folks and we're hoping that, um, you know, we continue
to work together in, in that um
interesting and sometimes tense relationship between the regulated and the regulators,
right? And we're trying to strike that balance to give the best customer service
we can while while accomplishing our, our goals and objectives that the comp plan
lays out. So that's, that's what we're trying to do. It's not always easy and of
course, you know, even more than we do because you're dealing with so many other
issues besides just the community development issues that we deal with. But that's
it. Thank you.
I can stick around. No, it's good. Yeah.
Ok. Thanks Doc.
It would be a joint meeting because we'd form the Bocc.
They wouldn't even have a special meeting. We would just do the task force in the
afternoon session. I think that's a, if it's workable for the calendar, I think that's
a fa great idea. It drags Kate in though. I'll, I'll ask for Kate not to be included.
Right. No.
Mm.
Yep. No objections at all. Hope they get it
a move that we approve, uh, collectively signing this letter as presented.
Ok,
I admit I've not done a lot of brainstorming but we can, uh, we can start the conversation.
It might help brainstorming. I wouldn't mind taking a few minutes.
Can I just say to Carolyn? I'll be, I'll be back in the office in the morning to
sign all the documents. So I will be there.
I can see you anyway. I can see you the whole walk in.
I, I was hoping that she'd crawl in and we get the slow and as she crawled across
the floor.
Well, I mean, I, I think there's a, there's, you know, personal commissioner goals
and there's, you know, Bocc goals and I assume we're talking more Bocc Goals. I think
we did a good job last year, having more workshops and interface with a myriad of
departments. And I think more of that it really helps me. I mean, I, you know, the
biggest example is just the the budget process and the the additional transparency
that we have for that budget process. I I would love to find other ways to make sure
that we are um if not engaged, aware of really what's happening on the front lines
of the, of the many departments that we serve and, and try to represent here as well.
So more of that, I guess that's what's one idea.
Are you dying? Like uh what is it nucha? Am I pronouncing that correctly? That's
the, the quick, there's a whole, yeah.
Yeah. Or even shorter than that. But, you know, uh yeah, super, super fast powerpoint
presentations just like uh delivering in essence,
no,
I think a workshop on all those granting uh organizations that we sit on would be
really helpful too. I think both Heidi and I as kind of serving on the brunt of them.
I think the last couple of years have seen some places where a lot of clarity could
be had if we're saying, you know, hey, we're gonna take, take these things that are
automatically assigned out of the uh out of the competitive RFP A as, as an example
or, you know. Yeah, I, I think it would be great.
Mhm.
But then it also creates strange uh downstream impacts. I remember when I was uh
back when I was a new commissioner Heidi, um and was put on to the B A AC and uh
you know, there was this, uh you know, this money automatically goes to therapeutic
courts and you know, you, you need to document that clearly as to the reasons why
because what we're talking about doing also is potentially uh uh holding on to some
of the authority as the BBOCC instead of, you know, really asking an advisory committee
to make those recommendations. And I just, we, I am, I think we should have the conversation.
I think we, we should make those restrictions and budget specific amounts of some
of these discretionary funds with uh a lot of care and with a lot of clear documentation.
So people understand the rationale behind it. I mean, on housing fund board too,
you know, we've talked about whoever runs the emergency shelter. Should we set money
aside for the emergency shelter which you know, um has real social fabric implications
that we might want to prioritize as a, a municipality over what uh an advisory board,
um how they interpret uh a series of rfps.
Mhm.
I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't include, I would not include conservation futures
in that group, I guess, largely because we don't have a commissioner on it. So I
don't know, I guess which groups are we, are we talking about? We're talking about
L a BH ac if
having fun board,
then we should bring staff on the way that you're framing it
to the workshop.
Mm
mhm.
And community wildfire plan implementation. We're gonna have that soon too. I'm not
sure there's much implementation to do, but I feel like it's gonna be uh a lot. I
don't know. That's just in my mind.
Mhm
No one is trumpeted it today but we, we do have a new central services director,
right. So uh it is time to, you know, maybe not on day one but I think, yeah, swinging
uh spinning up the capital facilities uh committee again.
Excellent. So excited.
Mhm.
Happy to do it.
I never do. But now you've got me feeling like I'm gonna regret not doing it.
Check it out. I did load it one time when there was one to confirm. Oh, yes. There's
a light in front of me and then I,
oh yeah. Oh, if it so much faster, especially for me living on one on one.
But I'm doing, I'm going to Olympia today. I'm going to Tacoma on Wednesday.
Oh, sorry about that.
Legally. It must have been going 45 or something dawdling down the road. I'm like,
hm,
recording stopped. Have a great week. Everyone.
Thanks.