Progress.
You are. We all good. I wouldn't say that, but all right,
good morning, everyone. I will call this 828 meeting of the board of county commissioners
to order. It's good to see everyone after a, a long festival weekend. Um We'll uh
we will start today as we always do with 30 minutes of public comment on any items
on our agenda or, or whatever the public would like to share with us. Um So we don't
have anyone in the room right now. So I will turn to the zoom room and if anyone
with us would like to make public comment, please hit the raise hand button or star
nine if you are on the phone and we would love to hear from you.
Go ahead the raise hand button.
Ok. See no hands raised yet. I will keep public comment open until 930. If anyone
is moved to, to uh comment on anything, you can hit, raise hand and we'll, we'll
bring you on over and, and process your comment. So, uh I guess we can take a look
at our pretty beefy consent agenda. Any questions or concerns about the consent agenda
now. I mean, great to see, um, the rfps moving forward for P
and the Housing Fund board. It's a lot of money going out this year. Totally.
Uh, sad to see Lorna lead the planning commission. That's a, that's a big shift on
our team there. And, um, she, you know, reached out and had an issue with a lawsuit
against her about her other board that she's on her State board, the Suspicion and
Wildlife Commission. So we tried to figure out if there was any way around. It, talked
with the Hucker and it just didn't seem like they seemed like there, this was the
best solution for her to not be on two boards. Yeah, that's unfortunate. Excuse me.
Um, Mark, I'm curious, um, the hearing examiner, um,
were we experiencing a backlog there and some of the decisions are taking longer
than we would like, but, you know, he serves, I think five other governments and
that's the lay of the land for hearings examiners anymore. And so, um, you know,
we could, uh, demand a quicker turnaround. Um, but, you know, if we
were to put too much pressure on, on Mr mclean, he might
say, um, maybe drop you as a client. So it's unfortunate that some of these are taken
longer than we would like them to. But, um, I'm not sure we have much in the way
of an alternative.
Well, certainly it depends on the case before the hearings. Examiner. Some cases
are pretty clear and some, some are much more complicated.
Yes. Let's bring SVB over and see what public comment they have.
Uh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Brace for incoming.
Are we having issues with, uh, uh, audio today? Are people able to hear? All right.
Testing. Testing.
Ok. Strange SVB doesn't seem to be coming over to Panelist.
Great. Ok.
All right. Uh, SVB, you have the floor, we'd love to hear from you. So down at the
bottom on the left side you have an unmute button.
Mm No.
Uh, gone. Fleeing. Completely gone. Yes.
Send a chat box to everyone. Can everyone here. We don't have any of our office staff
on right now. Huh? Says yes. Ok. Good, good. Ok. That was my main concern. Ok.
Onward. I was so not, not a lot of uh other options for the hearing examiner. So
you think, uh,
and I listened to, I listened to the hearing examiner, the one we had last week and
he is great. I mean, he, the way he was uh orchestrating the, the hearing and he
was very meticulous. I, I was very impressed. Yeah. The other alternative would be
for you to act as the hearing, the hearing authority and then you could, we don't
want to make those decisions. We're glad he does our quasi judicial. Oh, as then
I'm seeing Tom T so it was probably me, Tom. I'm sorry, I didn't pull my microphone
over initially. It's here now though, right in my face, I'm glad to see another contract
for um permit review. Uh So community development continuing to try to bring in more
help to uh expedite the permit backlog that we'll see concrete results in 60 to 90
days. And this one is specifically for the SDR, right, for some of that, the planning
services I had had a number of citizens reach out to me in the last week about the
press release, we did about kind of the changes that are being made at D CD and the
steps we're putting into place and just all gratitude, like I'd say 10 people either
stop me at the Democrats fish feast or the Thing festival or anywhere that I was
food co op and you know, just said, you know, communication is key. So um I think
that was a good move and I'm grateful for Mark and Wendy making that happen.
Um Good to see the the Piff projects moving slowly forward. It's good to see. I was
gonna give it uh grief uh you know about the uh the pops, but I I've been with that
quilting and Complete Streets project for over a decade now. Is it? Yeah, exactly.
So Eric Kuzma is now calling that his legacy project, right? One property owner.
Yeah, and it shifted. It's a different property owner than it was before. So they
sold the business. So they had to redo all the right away and everything. Yeah. Yeah.
Super s super challenging. Um Yeah, and I think the, I
won't even get into the, the, the Boatyard expansion project. But no, I'm not. Yeah.
Glasshouses. Um Great to see the overlay on center road. You know, that's a significant
project and a lot more than, than the, the usual chip ceiling that we're doing, but
it will add decades to that road.
I'm grateful that uh Gray Shadd stepped up to join the Board of Health. I will be
doing that appointment today. Yeah, I had a former Board of Health member approach
me and um ask about the board of health member that had left and the new one we're
appointing and if we felt like there was any more hope for this member staying longer.
And I said, well, I know that public health is doing a, a focused on boarding process
with board of health members now and that should change kind of how they feel coming
into this role. So I have a lot of hope that Gray will be with us for a long time
in this role. Yeah, I hope so. A lot of the work we have to do on these
boards is bureaucratic and not, not the, yeah, the most exciting but really appreciate
when people step up. I think we've hit most of them. I'm happy to move to prove and
adopt the consent agenda for August 28th. I'll second. Ok. It's been moved and seconded
to adopt, approve and adopt the consent agenda as presented all in favor, indicate
by saying II I and he opposed.
All right. Um Let's see, I guess we probably should wait till 930 for the
proclamations, do you think?
Ok. And we expect at least Apple and onion probably for the second one,
but we don't have any invited guests for the eat local. There was. But ok, well,
let's just wait a little bit and maybe we can take a look at our, our, uh, do a little
briefing for 930. How does that sound? Another call for public comment? Sure. Uh,
anyone that's with us, we've got public comment open till 930. We would love to hear
from you. You can hit raise hand or star nine if you're on the phone to make a public
comment.
All right, we'll keep it open and, and, uh, Heidi, you want to take a look at your,
your past week, past week was a blur. Last week is a blur. So let's see.
Um,
a week ago last Sunday, I was at the old county picnic, but I think I shared that
last week. So last Monday was with all of you, of course. And then, um, had
the experience of going to the district court and, um, witnessing a wedding which
was a first for me. So whenever there's a new first for me in Jefferson County, I
get really excited and that was exciting and fun. Um So that was Mindy did a great
job. I love the vows that she has. I was like, I wish she had officiated my wedding.
Although I had a great officiate um attended the 2024 25 budget training with
Judy Shepherd and a bunch of the rest of the county family on Tuesday morning. Um
had lunch with our team at Banana Leaf last week, which was
yummy. Super yummy. I'll get five stars next time though. Mark four stars wasn't
quite enough. Yeah. Um got a long overdue haircut
and then went to Tuesday evening to the port he Lux sewer project groundbreaking
celebration which was fun and drove an excavator for the first time in my life and
was jealous of my seatmate's skills. We got second place, I think I know, but you
guys knew how to drive an excavator. I kept looking at Monty and going which control
he go to the left to the right or whatever. Sounds very helpful. Yeah, he was awesome.
So I did deliver on my bribes yesterday to rep representative Chapman
and Representative Thring and we'll deliver the six the dozen or half a dozen Tamales
to Monty. They're in my freezer for you, Monty if you're listening. Um And let's
see, Wednesday morning, we had a strategic planning team meeting. Um middle of the
day, I met with a group of folks at Finn River for a regular monthly lunch we're
doing just with a group of citizens from the community and I'm appreciating those
unstructured conversations, missed my book group at the library because I was off
by a day. My calendar when the whole calendar and email curle happened, moved all
of my appointments an hour later. Yeah. So the problem wasn't, that wasn't the problem
with the library miss. But, yeah, I was still like my calendars. Yeah. Then that
evening the employee picnic at HD Carroll Park, which was a ton of fun. And, um,
and then, uh, uh, in the middle of that picnic or maybe just after it, I went with
public works and we did a little public meeting for the Sr 19 trail project which
will stretch from Chimica schools to HJ Carroll Park and the planning that's going
on around that trail. Um, I don't know, you probably have seen there's a whole plan
of a network of trails that will connect all of these public public facilities to
each other and how that it'll take a while, probably a decade or more for all these
trails to be put in place. But this is an exciting, um, part of that plan, Eric Kuzma
and I were talking at the picnic that we, I have some great photos of doing some
of that planning work eight years ago with him. So, yeah, with you on the long term
nature of these, I'm sure I'll be talking about this for a long time. Um When Thursday
morning met with Ken Huguenot on a public records request from the forest products
industry. They don't like, I don't think they like much that I'm doing about forests
or DNR, even though I have been saying we need to protect our forest products economy
in Jefferson County, they want to know what we're doing to do that. And so it's just,
I'm learning about public complicated public records requests firsthand. I jumped
into the deep end. Um Then we had api special meeting to approve the RFP for
24 and the funding amount. Um So that was a, a good meeting and then they did
affirm that I am chair of the P I board. So I guess I had kind of been chair of the
Piff Board for the last six months. Um Let's see, it's not automatically the commissioner
to the chair. Yeah, I guess. Is it, have you been the chair of the board in the past?
I can't remember you were immediately before me. So I just, I don't know. But anyway,
happy to do it, Friday. Um, went in person to the county co ordinated
response meeting at Dove House, which was great. I mean, there were people, uh, like
Steve Eccles who I'd never met in person. I was like, oh my God. And we both said
that we looked at each other and we're like, your human form is nice to see you in
your human form. Um and then I picked up my thing, wristbands and the rest is history.
You know, then on Saturday, I, I did roll a few 100 Tamales in the morning and then
um attended a great event that the Short Family hosted at the Short Farm midday on
Saturday. Um kind of their, I don't, I don't want to call it a farewell event, but,
you know, just marking, marking this place and time with the Short Farm and it was
super fun um to ride around, they had a tractor with a trailer behind it. And all
of us crawled in there and sat on hay bells and got all over the Short Farm, which
was awesome and spent a lot of time talking with Roger and um hearing his thoughts
on the drainage district and yeah, it's just a little bit of a, a bit melancholy,
right? It's a big transition in our community. Yeah. So let's see. And then
scooted my way in for the Thing festival on Saturday evening. And then yesterday
I attended the um Democrats, not fish feast. So there was no fish this year that
they, they did host it at the Erickson building at the fairgrounds. And, but as we
know, the hospital has the kitchen right now. So we had mo chili barbecue, which
was awesome and had a series of speakers including um
uh Bob Ferguson who's running for governor and it was just, it was inspiring, inspiring
set of candidates and incumbents, the state treasurer was particularly, um inspiring
to me. Uh, Picot Picot, Mi Michael Picot. Um, but
anyway, he was, he was saying, recounting what his policy changes had done for this
kind of the state treasury and impressive, impressive results in his first term as
treasurer. Um, yeah, and then it was back to the Thing festival.
I was running in circles all weekend. But yeah, it was good and making Tamales in
between all every, every second I could find. Yeah, you're making me more tired.
I felt tired yesterday. Um, Kate, you wanna look back? Sure. Um, with you all on
Monday, of course. Um Tuesday, long busy day. We had a, um representatives from a
number of the Washington congressional delegation and staff um touring a number of
projects in the Hood Canal. And so I went to the Ducker Bush and um, the Hood Canal
bridge. Um, the went to Taylor Shellfish and Hood Canal, uh went to Quill scene to
talk about uh the Linger Longer Bridge project and uh green crab. Um,
there haven't been any green crab like two. But uh
yeah, yeah. Um And what's interesting, I had not heard kind of that, you know, there's
some question as to kind of how much of an emergency is this? Like, they don't really
know the impacts that this invasive species could have here. Um But it's very much
a preventative, like why, why wait and find out if they are gonna, you know, either
compete for food or eat juvenile salmon or, um, but I, I assumed it was a foregone
conclusion that they were gonna ravage the area and it was, it was good to hear just
the research, you know, that's ongoing of, we're still trying to figure this out.
So, you know, if you find two, is that an emergency or is that a monitor and, and,
you know, hope to, to get as many as you can. Um, uh, but the feds and the state
have been, you know, involved in this kind of quick response along with the tribes.
Uh Jamestown were very successful. They, they harvested, destroyed hundreds of green
crab in Quim Bay and have not had any sense. So there is a bit of a success story
there, although it has much limited, more limited flow um in and out. So crab are
less likely to get in and out of Quim Bay. Um Anyway, because, uh, it, it
was good to connect with, you know, various federal agencies, the governor's office,
et cetera. But, um I was like, oh, this is actually like, you know, it's in our backyard.
So it wasn't, it was a good investment of time for relationship building. But no,
I wouldn't say anything surprising to us. Um Just after that, me met with um Kelsey
Hulse, who is our strategy 360 lobbyist in the Olympia office and gave her a tour
she'd never been to Port Townsend. She's lifelong Washingtonian. Never been to Port
Townsend. Yeah. Um, so we toured from Chimica North. Um, talked about a number of
the projects policy goals we have for street, you know, just really tried to fill
her in on our, um, you know, kind of what we're trying to do as a board. And so,
uh, then she, of course, joined at the, uh, sewer groundbreaking. Hopefully you got
a chance to meet her. Yes. Yes. Yeah. A former lobbyist who retired and handed it
off to Kelsey. Um, so yeah, I really enjoyed the groundbreaking. Um, it was
killed it on the Thank you Golden toilet there. It was surprisingly difficult. I
mean, I just, it was a much nicer machine than I've driven. So I am, but at least
I was disappointed in my own performance actually. Oh,
I should have done better but I just never had equipment with that many controls.
I'm like which one? Yeah, but you knew where the throttle was that you would have
appreciated it, Chief. You, you came in in the midst of this report, but we did compete
with each other on driving excavators last Tuesday. Yeah. And you can come to my
job site and yeah, yeah, I can move with a very small bit of earth if you want.
Um But yeah, just really, really great to see that project happening. I had, I had
not been out there. I was kind of waiting until the, the ceremony to see and there's
a lot more work had been done than I anticipated. So, yeah, really, really exciting.
Um Wednesday spent a fair amount of time, uh the fair grounds, you know, that continues
to be a um a bit of a challenge trying to figure out what the best structure is for
that. But um I think we're getting the pressure off now that they made it through.
We had a successful fair. Yeah. Although really that was the like a bit of a test
of, are we on the right track or not? So we had a long meeting on Thursday night
and um yeah, more, more to come on that. But it's, you know, I think we're, I think
we're on the right track. Um But I mean, really what's, what's hard is that there
are two very distinct missions. There is the mission of how do we make that facility
sustainable so we can continue to make the investments that are needed to keep it
a functioning safe facility. Um And then there is the, the county fair and there
are folks who are passionate about the fair and there are folks who are passionate
about the fairgrounds and it's not a ton of overlap. Yeah. And sometimes they might
not even be that compatible. So we're trying to figure out can we be one organization
with two missions? Um which is tricky. Um Yes,
that's the after a long, um, kind of existential conversation on Thursday night.
The interest right now is yes and trying to stick with one and just kind of have
clear roles and expectations. Yeah. Um, had a quite a few
scheduling conflicts. Somehow. We didn't figure out until Friday that our new, our
newly uprooted calendar was on the wrong time zone, which explains why I was late
to Housing Fund Board, Greg and I was like, 330 that started at 230. I didn't know
that there was actually some, I, I thought it was just my calendar had done something.
So it was an actual, yeah, it didn't happen to mine. Yeah, it's only certain events.
So first I noticed I missed meetings. All of my recurring meetings were lost. So
I didn't have any of those on my calendar. So I missed a couple of those and then
um was politely told on Friday that I've been showing up an hour late to the other
half of my meeting. So I know. Um so I apologize and
for, you know, any number of lateness and missed meetings last week. But um yeah,
so here I have like five meetings at the same time. Uh uh nothing to report from
E DC. Um Housing Fund Board. Um Not to steal Greg's Thunder, but we, we did prove
and finalize an RP and application to go out for the housing funds, which is exciting
and in a live open meeting Yeah, you did a great job um that I feel good that we
continue to, you know, kind of iterate and make that a better process. And, and what
can I ask a question about that? So there's 220,000 for homeless housing and 965
for affordable housing. Is that because we've already allocated more money for homeless
housing I can, this is, I think worth break going into a little more detail. Um So
there was a substitute Senate bill 5386 that came out last year that changed the
way the recording fees came in. Recording fees used to come in and get split into
fund 148 for the affordable housing and 149 for homeless housing, we added 1590 on
top of that, that also went to fund 148. 5386 has gotten. Um, it didn't change the
amount that we got from the recording fees very much like 14 cents, but it, uh, it
put it all into one fund and it kind of changed the rules a little bit. So the decision
we made was to stop splitting that into affordable and homeless, the recording fees
and they just really went down a lot. And that's why that just because the recording
fees kind of fell off a cliff when interest rates went up. Um So we are putting all
of that into homeless housing, uh, funding and then the 1590 was, you know, as you
know, our sales tax revenue has been very robust. So we're just putting all that
in affordable housing. There were a few issues, you know, like some of the projects,
it's challenging to put projects we've previously funded off of the affordable housing
funding from the recording fees, like the emergency house repair in South County
and things like that. But I think we've got it parsed and got a few questions out
to commerce to make sure we can use 50 $90 for some of those uh kind of less capital
expenditures. You know, those are vague. Are they housing related services is basically
the question, but so made it much simpler and just all the 1590 is affordable and
all the recording fees are homeless housing funds now. So in the future and what
if the, the homeless housing fund will be lower for the foreseeable future due to
the recording fee versus sales tax? Ok. Uh That's, that's the perfect explanation
for my question. Great. We're ready to add out this morning for the RFP. Excellent,
good. Well, and it's, it is a good example of where the legislature takes action
and then doesn't like, really, there's not a process for which that information is
disseminated. So, Greg and other members of the Housing Fund Board were doing all
this research and like trying to parse this new legislation and it's like, why isn't
commerce doing this where, like, just, like, really compatible without there being
any, any plan for how to make it practical layers of bureaucracy that always makes
things. Yeah. And literally every county is doing this. Like, it's kind of ridiculous,
entirely unclear how to implement it. Um, then went to the county and play picnic,
which was great as always, um, didn't get around to say hello to everybody, including
our own office staff. Um, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, you know,
again, like people I hadn't seen probably since before COVID in person, uh, colleagues
of ours. So, um it was great. Uh Let's see. I had a meeting with Cindy Jane on Thursday
morning trying to wrap up, you know, so as of Thursday, I'll be Wednesday or Thursday,
I'll be gone, basically gone for two months. So trying to tie up loose ends to Climate
Action Committee. Um But so we'll be, that board will be bringing stuff to you later
this fall. Um What's going on with the membership there? Are you trying to get both
all positions filled at the same time for Climate Action Committee? Yes. Yeah, I
think that's the um,
well, interesting. It's probably something I should follow up because the um we were
deep in conversation about that right when our email failed. So thank you for reminding
me Cindy. Cindy is no longer the chair of Climate Action Committee after many years,
case K took over from her. Um And so we actually didn't talk about that, but you're
right there. I should follow up and see where we are with that. Yeah. Still, still
discovering things that we lost on the uh outlook debacle. Um, had a good
meeting with the Association of Counties regarding the bylaws. Uh, you know,
talked about the, the struggle we're having with larger counties feeling unrepresented.
So, uh running a couple of proposals to see if we did um weighted voting.
Um So, you know, King County would basically have, I mean, it's interesting, all
you would need is three counties you could have if you were based on population weighted
the voting. Any proposal that came before us, just those three counties would, um,
could determine the positions of the state Association and um, like the rest of this.
Yeah, like the legislature. Um So it's, it's, it's really challenging to figure out
what's the benefit of having 39 counties have a voice when, you know, they
actually represent such different, you know, right now, King County, King Snohomish
here, I have 32 votes instead of one. But that's only six compared to, you know,
36 or 33. So, what are they talking about? Like we could
do a, a bi population. Um And apparently some boards like this only use a waited
vote when called for. So, you know, we could try to use just a
Yeah, yeah. Um could stay as it is. But then use that when needed, um, would be needed
all the time, wouldn't you?
I don't know. I mean, there are some things that do affect us all equally, you know?
And so there's some talk about, should we just be focusing on those things? Should
just be looking at, you know, the 1% cap and, um, behavioral health indigent defense.
You know, it would be interesting to know if, how that would like the way that I
experienced it most firsthand was that when I ran for Board of Natural Resources
and each county got one vote and I know that some of the larger counties felt like
they were underrepresented in that vote. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um We also
talked about a, a weighted representation where large counties could have three or
four members uh to small counties having one, you know, a gradation of 1 to 4 people.
But that's such a huge investment of time. Like the county wants to send four people
to meeting full time and be informed. And, um and it would be that much harder as
the chair of the LSC. I'm like, oh my God, we don't need like twice as many people
there. It's gonna make those meetings interminable. Yeah. Um So didn't make any
decisions but good conversation and it was much more uh constructive than previous
meetings have been. They have been fairly uh contentious and this one actually felt
like we were trying to find a solution, um, missed no DC because of that
meeting. Um, went to a reception at the fort for thing, like, kind of kick off reception.
And, um, it was, you know, it's good to hear that. That stg still, you know, really
wants to make this happen here. Um, and they're, they're clear that, you know, they're
a nonprofit, they're not driven by profit motive and yet they just can't lose too
much money. Yeah, they said about half the participants, there were paying to be
there and half were neighbors volunteers. Um, you know, any number of, of freebies,
um, vendors. Um, so, you know, it's a tough business model but it was, you know,
it's always so positive. It's just hard to, well, it makes me think and I said this
a number of times this weekend that when we were starting the corner store in Chic,
the first few years were really hard and I was just thinking back to, like, basic
business classes in college and like, it takes 3 to 5 years to even, you know, see
the hope of profitability. So, and then through a pan. Right. Right. So I hope, I
hope they stick it out. It was the energy at that at Thing Festival is really, I
mean, across the board, I was hearing really positive feedback from folks. Sometimes
some vendors didn't come back on Sunday because there was that there wasn't enough.
Oh, really? Interesting. I, I saw huge lines and at our local, I was mostly looking
at our local vendors and, um, like I saw some have a hard time keeping up. Like I
couldn't handle the demand. So, is that food or other? Huh. Interesting. Um, yeah,
I mean, it'll be interesting to hear all the feedback. It seems like the community's
anxiety around it has diminished a little bit with, um stgs efforts to mitigate traffic
and get more people out of the neighborhoods a lot. I thought a lot of the things
they did were great, the lack of recycling and everyone was well hydrated with the
Toach uh um stand, but there was no recycling. Yeah. Yeah, I think that was a
communication problem like you doing this. I, yeah, the fort and TG both thought
the other were handling it and yeah. Um so spent uh much of Friday, Saturday
and Sunday at the festival was not running around and doing work responsibilities.
It was my birthday weekend. So I'd have a good excuse for not um not working on a
weekend like Heidi did. But um just a couple of things on Friday. Uh We had a meeting
of the aquatic center steering committee and you know that, that there's a final
report which should be coming to us in mid September 25th, something like that. Um
And you know, really it's gonna be a matter of if the, if the, if we decide to put
it on the ballot and do the voters want to support it. Um, so I, um, we wait until
the final plan comes out, there will be a recommendation from the steering committee.
Um, and, uh, but ultimately, you know, it's going to be up to the voters to decide
who decides if we put it on the ballot. I think it would have to be us. Well, it
would be a county PFD. Yeah. Ok. Yeah. Yeah, we've really taken the MP D off the
table just feels like it's not, not sustainable. But you know that this challenge
because the city is going to run a transportation benefit district ballot measure.
They're going to do the measure in November. Yeah. Both the, both the council 1.1%
and, yeah. So, you know, those are both sales tax which is, uh you know,
it's, it's too bad like I felt like we had this in the hopper for a good long time
and then the city came in with it and that really changes the, I think the feasibility
of this. Yeah. Yeah. So wish, wish we had known that was on the docket because we're
trying to sequence things. Um Yeah. And another wrinkle is the, the cost of a
special election if there's one ballot measure. Um I can tell you how much Quinn
believes it will cost 100 and 10,000. 0, wow. So where, where is that money coming
from? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So still, you know, still a lot of hard questions being asked
very much with the, you know, the, um, reality of public being, um, feeling
stretched in. So, so that, so it being a Countywide vote is gonna, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And, you know, the nice thing about, uh, creating a Countywide district is
that we could also identify other projects that would be served by the public facilities
district. Um And so I've started talking with Matt Tyler months ago and revisit the
idea if, if, you know, if we get serious about this is what is a, a county project
that could also be served. Um You know, we, we talked about some sort of improvements
at HJ Carroll, but maybe there are others but, you know, try and make the case for
the uh full count benefits to the full county and the uh parks and rec
wouldn't the center need that whole PFD funding for bonding capacity? I mean, yeah,
I mean, we're, there's a lot of timing issues. So, you know, if we were to do a special
election in February, if we, if, if it were to pass, that would um make us very competitive
for about $5 million in Department of Commerce Funding. Um So there are other other
funding sources coming into the, the bonding capacity or, or need for the aquatic
center is high, but it's not that high because, you know, this is AAA fairly guaranteed
revenue source that we could build in a couple of million dollars for another project.
Um without it uh changing the course, we are also looking at the, the base plan for
the aquatic center, not, not doing a bigger build out. So, um that is, you know,
we're at the more affordable end of the spectrum. We feel that's the, that's the
only feasible um path at this point. So I did just tell you all the recommendations
you're gonna see in the report. Great noses. Um Are you, was that it or I just
say I had Shan Burns on the radio show Friday talking about uh juvenile services
and it was great. It would be great. I'm sorry, I missed it. All right. Well, I will
make one last call for public comment and then we will close public comment if you're
with us and would like to comment on something. Please hit raise Hand Star nine.
If you're on the phone and seeing no one, I will close public comment for the time
being. Um And we've got a couple of proclamations in front of us. I don't see Anya
and Apple yet. So why don't we start with our uh eat local month uh proclamation.
You guys ready to read through that and consider Yeah, sure. All right. Why don't
we go Kate Heidi and then me proclamation eat local month. Whereas the Salish Sea
region has provided a rich bounty of local foods from both the water and the land
which has been stewarded by the slalom people and other visiting tribes since time,
immemorial. And whereas Jefferson County, Washington is home to clean streams, shellfish
beds and mar waters as well as valleys and lush forests and a temperate climate.
All of which contribute to the diverse and abundant wild and cultivated foods available
here. And whereas since the 19th century, this region has been home to many farms,
producing a wide range of crops for local consumption as well as for sale throughout
the Puget Sound region and beyond. And whereas Jefferson County residents seek locally
grown, produced and harvested food products for many reasons including good nutrition
to live in a more sustainable way for our environment and to support our local economy
and communities. And whereas myriad local organizations have worked together for
17 years under the umbrella of the Jefferson land works collaborative to preserve
hundreds of acres of prime farmland, support environmental restoration, assist in
sustainable business planning and encourage local investment. And whereas Jefferson
County has seen ongoing economic growth in the food and farm sector which provides
employment and keeps more dollars recirculating in the local economy. And whereas
local food production leads to greater resilience in food security and reduction
of the carbon footprint of our food supply. And whereas eating more Jefferson County
grown food foods helps preserve Jefferson County's rural working landscape and the
way of life we cherish. And whereas Jefferson County strives to ensure all of our
residents have access to healthy local food regardless of income. And whereas supporting
farmers markets, grocers, restaurants and institutional buyers who support Jefferson
County's local farmers producers and fisheries also helps contribute to all of the
above. And whereas Jefferson County's 21st annual farm tour is September 16th to
the 17th, 2023. Now, therefore, the Jefferson County board of county commissioners
do hereby proclaim September 2023 as eat local month. Be it further proclaimed that
the board of commissioners encourages all citizens and visitors alike to join in
celebrating Eat local first Olympic Peninsula's Eat local month campaign proc proclaim
this 18th day of September 2023. I'll move to approve the proclamation as red a second.
Ok. It's been moved and seconded to approve the proclamation as red all in favor.
Indicate by saying hi, hi, hi. Uh We don't have any guests with us on this, but I
think we're all pretty close to this movement. I mean, I know I moved to Jefferson
County. Exactly. To get closer to my food and uh between my wife and I, my wife that
is uh we raised as much of our own food as we can. And it's uh I, I feel like it's
a really kind of part of the social fabric in, in Jefferson County that, that really,
that is makes for a healthy community. I just say it's not lost on me that the farmers
in our community are the hardest working people I know to, I mean, full stop to a
person. Yeah. I, I haven't been one of those. I would agree and found it really hard
to continue doing for a long time. Yeah. It is a ton of work. Um, and it's just so
gratifying to see, you know. So I moved here 25 years ago with the hopes, you know,
as a farmer in the hopes of really helping grow the local food economy. And it's,
it's just grown by leaps and bounds. And remember the, um, I think it was in 99 maybe
we were so excited. The farmer's market grossed, you know, between all the vendors,
the end of the season had grossed, um, $100,000 and that was over like 20 weeks,
you know, and, and just seeing, you know, they're now millions of dollars in sales.
And, um, it's, it's great to see the over the long term, how much you can really
change, change the way a community does business in the sector and, um, very gratifying
really grateful for the people who have stuck with it. I am currently only feeding
the deer, um, in the food that I am growing. And, uh, um, yeah, wish I wish I could
close that circle by eating the deer at least, but it's, it's not, I'm in the city
limit so I can't do that. All right. Well, yeah, definitely. Um, I think we will
all do our best to eat local in September and encourage everyone else to pursue much.
No, no, it's true. Ok.
Ok. All right. No worries. Ok. Well, let's move on since we do have a 945 that we're
slightly late for sorry Chief Black. But we'll get right there if you can uh
bear with us as we read one more proclamation about opioid awareness. I'm sorry,
overdose Awareness Day. Why don't we reverse it? And I'll go and then Heidi and then
Kate. So this is a proclamation about overdose Awareness Day. Whereas no community
in Washington State is immune to accidental or intentional overdose and drug overdose
deaths remain high across the state, impacting urban, suburban and rural communities
and disproportionately affecting American Indian Alaskan native communities and marginalized
populations. And whereas in the last year, nearly 3000 people have died due to overdoses
or suspected overdoses across Washington State including 11 reported in March 2023
for the preceding 12 month period here in Jefferson County. And whereas Washington
State Health Care Authority Department of Health and University of Washington Alcohol
Drug Abuse Initiative, local health jurisdictions, community organizations syringe
service programs, harm reduction services and pharmacies collectively distributed
overdose reversal medication, naloxone to tens of thousands of individuals. And whereas
Jefferson County acknowledges that there is a need to treat drug related harm as
a public health issue and invest in evidence based practices that save lives and
build communities. And whereas Jefferson County remains committed to raising awareness
around drug overdose morbidity and mortality by raising reducing stigma through Countywide
initiatives related to education prevention treatment and recovery support for substance
use div disorder. And whereas international overdose Awareness Day is an opportunity
for all people in Jefferson County to grieve the loss of those who have died due
to overdose celebrate life and commit to supporting the safety health and well being
of people who abuse substances. Now, therefore, the Jefferson County Board of County
commissioners hereby proclaim August 31st 2023 as overdose Awareness Day. Be it further
proclaimed that the board of commissioners encourage all residents and visitors alike
whose life has been impacted by substance use disorder to call the Washington Recovery
help line at 1866789, 1511 available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Proclaim this 28th day of August 2023. I move to approve the proclamation as read
all second, ok. All in favor of approving the overdose Awareness Day proclamation
as read indicate by saying I,
well, I can just since staff aren't here, I I did work with both Apple and Anya to
refine this proclamation last week. And I'm grateful for their leadership on these
issues in our community and also um appreciated Commissioner Dean's post that she
was heading to The Thing Fest Festival with her three f 33 day passes and her naloxone.
So um I also carried naloxone for the entire flight, carried all the time now. And
uh I think we're all being educated and prepared to respond if we need to in, in
the eventuality of any um instances of overdose entering our pathways. So it's a,
it's a different time we're living in. It's a short journey to an overdose these
days with the uh fentaNYL everywhere. Yeah, I usually call out my, my good friend
Carl Tru who uh, died of an overdose in 2005. And, uh, one of my best friends and,
you know, I always felt like I could be there more for him often. These um, overdoses,
you know, they're, they're real people with a lot to contribute and he was the most
talented musician I ever had the pleasure to play with and I, I miss Carl to this
day. So it's, you know, it, it reminds you that, uh, there's always work to do and
as you say, it is a different landscape now. No more recreational powders. Well,
and it's not a new problem. It's in the, let's see, how old was I? Seven. So, in
the, in the eighties, my uncle died of an overdose. And we, you know, I was, I learned
later, I mean, I was, I think it was seven years old. So I didn't, I wasn't, you
know, understanding the causes of overdose or what, even, what, what, why he had
died. But, um, I now understand that. He, he was, it was a fentaNYL overdose in 1988.
Yeah. So, um, and, and the, um, family has said, you know, the, uh, law enforcement
in, um, it was in the Bay area in Sausalito, California. Um, the law enforcement
there. It, it said it was fentaNYL and it was one of the first overdoses from that
drug that they had experienced in the community. So, it's touched my life for a very
long time. I wasn't really aware of it until I was in my twenties. But um when this
whole fentaNYL awareness stuff has come up over the last few years, I've been like,
oh gee OK, here we go. Here's the, here's the tidal wave.
I'm reading that book, the la the least of us right now. It's excellent. I, I highly
recommend it. Yeah, I just say um I've learned an enormous amount from our public
health staff. Um And I'm really proud of how we are responding to um to folks who
use substances here. And um really just pleased that our community is, is meeting
them with compassion. Um I lost a very young friends to an overdose here in Jefferson
County in um 2022. And, you know, it's, it's just devastating, devastating to friends
and family. And um it, it feels so, so tragic and like such a, you know, a one small
mistake forever ended a life and drastically impacted so many others. So
um we, that's why we need to, to, to treat people with compassion. Um So fully behind
harm reduction. And, you know, if you got uh diabetes, you don't refuse to treat
someone because they still eat candy virus, right?
All right. Um Onward. Uh we're a little bit late for our 945 presentation
but uh Chief Black, thank you so much for being here. You want to come up to the
table, we'll get you a microphone here. You can use this one. We do have a second.
You don't have to pass back and forth or lean over. I didn't plan to say a whole
lot. So Chief Black reached out to me about 10 days ago and said, you know, he'd
like to come talk to us about wildfire conditions.
And I thought that was a good thing because we're all I think, painfully aware of
how dry it is right now, but I appreciated him reaching out to proactively address
the community on the conditions here. And then we're also going to talk about the
community wildfire prevention planning that we're doing. Thank you, commissioners.
Can you hear me? OK. Yes, just give me one second to get the presentation up
since this isn't working. I had to find it on here and then figure out how to send
it using outlook on my phone. I'm proud of you. I'm not a tech guy and I'm already,
you exceeded my capacity. Well, this thing goes in the trash when I leave the room.
Right.
Oh, take it away. Very good. Just tell. Great. Next slide. Got it. The past month
has been really busy for East Jeff administratively and operationally. Um, since,
um, since that time, I've been asked to do a number of presentations to smaller community
groups such as Color Point, Port Ludlow, uh, and others. Uh, people are sending a
record number of questions through our website to us. Um Dozens over the past couple
of weeks concerned about events locally and regionally and what they can do and how
they can prepare. Uh And that's really what we're gonna talk about here. Next slide,
please. Uh Next, the two topics we're gonna talk about are the uh kind of wildfire
summary situation report currently of where we're at and then review some of the
evacuation practices um that uh are on everybody's mind post uh Lahaina for sure.
One of the questions I get without fail, every presentation is how to wildfire starts.
Um There's a couple, there we go. Thank you. Uh Most wildfires are human caused doesn't
mean there's people out there causing them deliberately, but a lot of our actions
or our infrastructure or our negligence or our mindfulness leads to wildfires.
Wildfires are notoriously hard to investigate. For instance, along the Beaver Valley
fire, you know, we were very confident the fire started right at the road's edge.
But in that area, there were so many things that could have caused it, that may have
been the cause, but could have also just burned up cigarette butts, fireworks carcasses,
you know, all kinds of other materials, um can start a wildfire in the right um,
carcasses. They can start a lot more information here. Well, fireworks carcass is
the show spontaneous combustion, spontaneous combustion. A
rocket stick or, you know, a shell of a, of a mortar or something of that nature.
I still have some gunpowder. It's impossible to tell if that's what started the fire
or if it was already there and just burned up during the fire. Right? So unless somebody
sees a wildfire start or we know lightning moved through an area in a high likelihood
it was a natural cause fire. It's really hard to determine the cause of fire, but
it never fails. That's the number one question everybody asks me is, how did the
fire start? Can I ask you one question kind of around that? And that's just about
containment. I know that you guys and other teams stayed around the Beaver Valley
fire for just ages and ages. And I've heard at least preliminary reports about the
Lehi out tragedy that maybe it wasn't contained at one point completely. And I'm
just, can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, the containment efforts around
any vegetation fire is the most meticulous part of the firefight. Uh Even the fire
we had out at Lord's Lake. Um they were out there for, I think just until a few days
ago, making sure every opportunity for a smoldering ember to blow out of the containment
line was non existent. And that, that containment is really the most tedious and
time consuming aspect of a wildfire because we don't want um a Lahaina or another,
you know, the Oakland Hills fire of 91 was started after a small controlled burn
was not properly extinguished. Um So it is common for that to be the cause. So that's
why we're so diligent. We had firefighters on the Beaver Valley Road um all night
that night um with other agencies. Thanks. It's a lot of work. Yeah.
So this is a situation report from August 25th Friday. Currently, they had seven.
The numbers are different this morning. They produce this every morning. This time
of year, the National Interagency Fire Center had 78 wildfires burning over 600,000
acres in 14 states. Wildfire fighting resources and personnel were assigned incidents
with 20 incident management teams uh and a number of crews, aircraft and military
aircraft. The, the mass units are the C 130 that get a slide in unit um to dispense
the orange retardant or the pink retardant that we're all familiar with. And normally
they only mobilize the mass units for the military when all the other normal resources
for firefighting are occupied. So that's um this is early to see mass units in play.
Normally, we don't see those till September October, but the season started late
as well. But it's, it, that's a really good point. Commissioner. It is compressed
and it is getting intense in a, in a much higher rate than we normally see. And we
normally see kind of a steady increase throughout the west coast, but it's been kind
of just a sharp incline. We have, uh, a person assigned, uh, in, uh, one of the fires
near Spokane and they're already talking about demoing them just for a couple days
because they're gonna time out. They're only allowed to be on the incident so many
days. But then they're gonna demo them for a couple of days only a couple of days
to remobilize them for another heat event that's coming in the next 10 days. Um So
overall, we have 18,000 plus firefighters deployed on incidents throughout the United
States. Can you talk about how that affects our local resources? Because I know I
heard that my friend Kevin Van De Weg was deployed to a fire. He wasn't able to be
at the Democrats events event yesterday.
Yes. If you think of our wildfire fighting assets or wild firefighting system as
a sweater, your grandma needed where, you know, when we have an incident on one part
of the sweater, you know, it tugs at the whole sweater, you know, you're pulling
resources. So we try to be really mindful of that when we get requested to go support
another agency somewhere across the state or the country. What is that? We look at
the local risk that we're facing here because if we aren't mindful of what threat
we're facing here, we could easily over commit ourselves and not be able to protect
the homeland. And that's really kind of what our balancing act is. We, we take our
units on and off the roster for mutual aid state statewide on a regular basis. So
that's, that's how that system works. And so really, it's up to each agency to determine
what those thresholds are and it depends on what position they're, they're in need
of. If they're needing engines and water tenders, those are, those are harder to
get back on a moment's notice as compared to a single individual in an administrative
position. So can you, can you be required to go like with, you know, the military
or no? No,
thanks. Mhm. So this is a wildfire weather outlook. This is where we're gonna start
talking about what we're facing or about to face here. Um You know, the Northwest
region has a uh significant wildfire potential coming up for the next few months.
Um The light easterly flow that we're talking about is creating instability and we
saw lightning uh hit uh parts of Oregon in the very southern part of Washington in
the next few days. You're going to see that paradigm really start to stress our system
because there was so many starts in such a compressed amount of time in a geographic
region. Um, the, er C values those are, that's part of the math that we use to predict
how big a fire could get. That stands for energy release component. How much energy
is in the fuel based on how dry the fuel is or how little moisture is in the fuel.
And for us, we're in the prescriptive area service area, the PS A of Northwest 01,
but all the areas around us immediately adjacent um were predicted to have lightning.
Luckily we weren't, but even an adjacent prescriptive area impacts us indirectly
because we may go initial attack to uh A PS A um two which is just south of us or
PS A three which is southeast of us to help them, we'll launch regional resources
a lot easier because we'll know we can get them back quicker as compared to going
to like Spokane or something like that. Um But the thing that really um is something
I want everybody and the commissioners to pay attention to is that last sentence
there, we're gonna have above normal wildfire potential for our area. PSAN uh NW
01 through the end of October. Uh and that's really um kind of AAA warning sign.
We're going to see the weather patterns kind of undulate for the next few weeks where
we're like tomorrow, we're expecting a little bit of moisture but it's not enough
moisture to dampen down the threat. It's enough to dampen down our dus dusty roads
which would be great. Our vigilance, uh, but not our vigilance. We want to maintain
that vigilance. Nothing is going to all the dead, um, fuel is what we call it, the
understory that's dead and very receptive to burning. And October. I mean, does that
mean that the burn ban likely will go later than it normally does? I, I would anticipate
it will. And if you recall last year, we had red flag days very late in the year,
which is unusual for us. Ok.
Ok. Sorry.
So this is the, uh significant wildfire potential product that we use from NFC, uh,
the National Interagency Fire Center for this, uh, month last year. And if you click
one more commissioner, it'll show you this year's.
So the compare and contrast is pretty obvious. And sadly, you can see Hawaii is also
in the red for the foreseeable future,
next slide. And then the September doesn't get any better in October. Is, it seems
more like punishment that it's just us. That seems very strange, but that's what's
gonna be very unusual. We're not used to being in that level of threat at that month
in October and that's where we really are calling to action people's awareness. That's
why we're being so vigilant. What, what is that? That is? I've never seen that pattern.
So we're going to have higher fire danger than eastern Washington. Well, what's the
thing to remember is this is higher fire danger than normal for us. So, it's, it's
relative to the, to the, uh, pre, pres prescriptive service area. The PS A. So those
are the P SAS along the west coast, those polygons, there's a number of them. You
can see the little blue lines and those P SAS are gonna have higher than what they
normally experience. It doesn't mean we're gonna have a higher risk than Spokane.
Spokane is gonna have more wildfire because they do. But we're not used to having
higher than normal for us. White still means you're gonna have wildfire. It just
means you're gonna have your normal threat level that you can expect. So, and is
that still related to the, the dryness of the understory and lack of precipitation
expected because of the weather pattern? Yeah, it's, it's the drought that we're
in, that's been well broadcast, you know, for months now and then the lack of sustained
uh, moisture, rain and that's gonna push us to the end of October. It's El Nino.
Yep. The winds are what really caused us to pay attention. That's what pushed the
Beaver Valley fire. It's what didn't push a couple of other fires that we're going
to talk about here in a minute. Ok. So just to review where we were with Lahaina,
when I put this presentation together, you know, strong winds were a factor we just
mentioned blowing trees in the power lines. Um And then several other fires are still
burning across the state. So everyone's focused on Lahaina, but there's a number
of other fires throughout the state that they're encountering. And what makes it
so hard for Hawaii is, although they're in the same gap as California geographic
area coordinations center, they can't just call up Oregon and Washington and say,
hey, can be here tomorrow to the logistics to get more assets. There is phenomenal.
Yes. And I've, I've heard something at least about Lahaina, at least that moving
away from sugar cane uh plantations, I guess. And that there's a, a bunch of grasses,
invasive grasses that have taken over. And I'm just wondering, uh are, I guess our
natural ecosystems usually more resilient in a particular area, right? That's sort
of out of left field question. But I'm, I'm just wondering about uh planning, you
know, landscape planning as we go through, you know, our, our, our wildfire protection
plan and other things and, and just wondering about the resilience of the natural
environment compared to what we do to it. I think human, it's hard to be specific
with a response to that, but I think it is in refutable that human influence is often
very short sighted and our, you know, our intentions are usually good as a species,
but we don't look at the unintended consequences, you know, for example, you know,
logging, we're replanting you know, polygons much denser than they would occur naturally.
So, you know, when we make decisions about policy and, um, our practices, those are
important things to keep in mind is, are we unintentionally increasing our threat
by, you know, allowing those, those well intentioned practices to persist? Yeah.
Like building in a, in an area that burns every 100 years too. Right. Ok. Well, and
I think Lana was such a wake up call for us and like it's a community that looks
and feels similar to Port Townsend was that really drove home and, you know, being
on a on the water and you know, just so many similarities, but there were some governmental
decisions that contributed terribly to this disaster. Um Apparently,
uh water resources weren't made available when they should have been. And uh the
power company um could have taken some uh preventative measures that they did not.
So lessons learned.
Uh And this is the summary for the whole um you know, North American continent for
the wildfire assessment. And you can see our friends to the north are also suffering.
Unfortunately, next slide,
we have towns, the size of Port Townsend and bigger that are completely being evacuated
um in preparation for a fire front that is not stoppable uh with, with or without
water. Um Once a fire gets to a certain size of wildfire, there's no water that can
overcome the mass of the energy that's being released really have to remove the fuel
to make a break or wait until the fuel burns up
next slide.
Uh talking a little bit about the Beaver Valley fire. Um I took this picture while
we were, we were en route to the initial um attack, the initial attack phase of the
fire. The battalion chief, uh who's a, a native uh Jefferson County uh resident uh
commented after this was over, this is the most extreme fire behavior he's seen here
in Jefferson County at a wildfire. Uh We had uh mature trees, conifers torching,
which is very unusual and we also saw spotting where the wildfire jumps ahead of
itself outside the containment lines. Both of those are indicative of what we would
categorize in our profession is extreme fire behavior and those circumstances are
what led us to do the evacuation was we, we, we were, we were playing this game of
catch up and cat and mouse with the wind, it would, it would lay down and then it
would start back up and we'd catch up to the fire and then it would run away from
us again. And finally, we got to kind of a a go no go uh point where we, we couldn't
uh you know, aggressively protect the homes that were adjacent there. So that's where
we decided to evacuate them. And um we had other contingency plans, but luckily,
we didn't have to put them in play because of the support we got from our partner
agencies and the helicopter really saved the day. Um It kept it out of the, the stand
of uh mature timber that it was just about to jump into. And the only other card
we had to play if that had happened, who would have been to evacuate Swana Bill Road.
That was our next card to throw. And that was DNR helicopter. Yes, Lord's Lake was
DNR too. Yeah. Uh The initial attack was not, the initial firefight was uh Quilcene
us Bryn and Discovery Bay. Uh It took a little while for DNR because DNR is, you
know, kind of the sweater metaphor. They're trying to manage all these fires all
over the state. So, uh they came um with initially just some single resources that
help direct the aircraft, but it took a little while for them to get engines there.
Yeah.
Uh like I mentioned three things I never thought I'd do when I left California, which
was request hell attack, order up, strike teams and issue evacuations is pretty uh
to my knowledge what my people tell me. We've never done those things before here
on a fire. So, um on the same fire at least. Uh so I think we just all need to have
that mindset of uh you know, be ready for that. Uh One more click commissioner. Uh
So a few days later, um at a more optimum time of day without any wind, we did have
another potential incident at Ky's Trails. But if this incident had happened at the
same time as the Beaver Valley fire with the wind, it would be a different conversation
than what we're having. Now, luckily the crews were standing right there when the
power line snapped and danced around and sparked a bunch of little spot fires. Um,
but had they not been standing there with their hose lines out which was very vigilant
on their part, it would have been a challenge to catch that fire.
And then we have the, the Port Ludlow fire that happened in the middle of the night.
Um, originally, it was spotted by a security officer driving by at around midnight.
This is across the street from the shell gas station on the water side and the trail
goes kind of sneaks between a couple of subdivisions and goes down to some homes.
Uh, and eventually the water. Um, and then by the time we got there, the fire had
grown to about 50 by 50 because it was night time because it was moist and damp.
The fire behavior did not stand up. It really just burned the understory. But again,
if this fire had been 12 hours later in the day with the sun on it, it would have
would have been a different outcome for sure. So when you say 50 by 50 does the
material in the middle burn out? And then the 50 by 50 is the fire line on the outside
of the burned area or is it all burning at once? It depends if it's a, it's a, it's
a variable based on what the fuel is. You can see a little bit of green right in
the middle of that black. That was, you know, probably a very moist plant that had
been getting water somehow. So, it was more resilient to the fire. But what's burning
out to the 50 by 50 footprint is all of the dead and uh dry, uh duff and
weeds and twigs. So it'll burn the, the driest material first. And then once that
heat evaporates the moisture in an adjacent plant that might be alive or semi alive.
So it's not uncommon to see flare ups in the middle of the black, what we call the
black. Uh Well, after the fire has been, the fire perimeter has been controlled because
it just, it takes a while for that water in the plant to boil off, basically. And
then it's dry enough to, and particularly if something's an oily by nature, like
firefighters, you will never see a firefighter put a juniper next to their home for
that reason because they're like a Roman candle. Very Scotch, scotch.
So the, the point of this section we just went through is the holes in the Swiss
Cheese metaphor. I use a lot for a catastrophe. Did not line up on any of these three.
They came very close in the Beaver Valley fire, but we had no injuries and no significant
property damage. And that to me is a win but the holes came close to lining up and
we want people. Uh and hopefully all of you will help us echo that message to be
ready. Um Learn what we're going to talk about next about our evacuation practices.
Have a go bag in your car, not even garage because Murphy is always watching. You
may not be at home when we need to evacuate your community. And so you can't get
home once we evacuate, we establish a perimeter so that we can reduce the threat
to lives. So having to go back in your car is really important
and uh you, you can click through until they all show up here. Commissioner. These
are the three levels that we use here in Jefferson County. Uh But really the the
bottom line there that we want everybody to know and I get asked a lot is, you know,
when do I know to go? Do I need, what if my phone doesn't have a cell tower that
it's hitting? If you feel threatened by a fire, don't wait for government to save
you. You need to leave. Follow your instincts. Drive the opposite way of the fire.
There's a reason we don't have every wildfire evacuation route scripted out because
it's too variable of a tsunami is very two dimensional even though it's very impactful.
We know, it's only coming from one direction but a wildfire can come from any direction
and even spot outside of where we think the fire is like paradise. Unfortunately,
where it cut off the entire escape route for the whole town. Uh, so don't wait until
you see a level three alert leave early and just call it, you know, a shopping day
or a vacation day. Um, throw the kids or the family in the car, drive across the
bridge, go, go out to lunch. Uh That's the best thing you can do. Don't wait for
us to come knocking door to door.
Do you have any questions on that pretty well? But I mean, I think in the moment
it's not right, like if you don't know which direction, you know, I mean, obviously
you can see but like there's chaos, right? Like your phone's blowing up, there's,
you know, probably some literal background noise sirens. We live on a peninsula where
there's basically one road off like that feels like such a weakness in terms of being
able to evacuate. Um
Yeah, like, you know, I've just been thinking since Lahaina like, oh my God, what
would, you know, I'd be the one running into the water which then you hear like not
smart, but I literally literally, I don't like, I often don't have a car. Um And
I'm not at home, you know, so like I've had to think, what would I do? Yeah, I think
it's, it's a, it's a paradigm that we have not had to think about here before. In
Jefferson County, we, the traditional weather has kept the understory nice and moist
and damp. So any little grass fire that does start doesn't get, um, to the level
of intensity that we're used to seeing in the rest of the west. Um, and until recently,
that was the case. But, um, to your point, you know, if you're not in a position
to at least evacuate with all, you know, your important belongings, at least take
yourself out of the immediate equation in that geography. Uh Because it, it handicaps
us when we have civilians still inside the perimeter of the evacuation zone because
we only have two tactics that we can exercise life saving and property saving and
life always comes before property. And this is what happened unfortunately in paradise.
And may, I don't know about Lahaina, but maybe in Lahaina too is when you don't evacuate
early enough. E everybody's gonna get on Beaver Valley Road or Paradise Bay Road
at once and then you're stuck. Um And then we have to abandon the firefight and protect
you. And that is a self defeating, you know, paradigm where the fire is getting bigger
because we're not attacking the fire. But the evacuation conundrum is getting worse
because we're not attacking the fire. So that's why we want people to try to think
about giving empowering us to be more aggressive and assertive with the firefight
is, is your call to evacuate or at least get out of the local uh, location so that
we don't, we can reduce that. The, the obligation to life saving to a minimum and
just go into firefighting mode as best we can. I answer your question. Yeah. And,
and you know, of course, it's like there's a million scenarios that could play out
here. But, um, you know, we're at Timber County and like, so it, it, and actually
the, the main route off the peninsula goes through the thickest timber in, you know.
Um So do you feel like you're able to provide evacuation orders that are like super
clear like that, tell people where to go and where not to go? And it's like, well,
Nix O in itself is limited as you all know, has characters that limit it. And that
was one of the comments I've gotten a lot with um the messaging is we want to know
exactly where the, the fire's going. We want to know what exactly where exactly we
should go. But when you think of the thousands of people in our community and the
unpredictability of the wildfire that I've mentioned, what I type in the Nixle is
going to be stale the second I hit send and then all of a sudden the wind changes
and it changed 100 and 80 degrees on the Beaver Valley fire on us. A couple of times,
uh, that message could now put you in harm's way and that's what we don't want. And
then I don't know, commissioner specifically where you are the hypothetical if you're
texting or calling me saying which way do I go? I can't see what you see. So if you're
south of Beaver Valley fire, I'm gonna say, keep going south. But if you're just
happy to be north of the fire sending you south is gonna send you through the fire
front. So there's, there's so many paradigms there. That is one of the things we
want to clarify with the CWPP is to give people a clearer message on at least the
the basics of evacuation, finding a safe refuge area. You know, the rule of thumb
is for firefighters is four times the flame, flame heights is a, is a safe area.
Well, we had flame heights of 75 ft on the Beaver Valley fire. So four times that
that's a big, that's a big radius to put a bunch of people. It's probably a school,
right? Or a big parking lot at the very least. And the, the, one of the films I talk
about at the end of this presentation, um Fire in Paradise talks about how you shelter,
they sheltered hundreds of people when the fire front was coming right at them. Uh
in paradise. I'm not saying we're gonna experience paradise, but at least gives you
the mindset of, you know, you know, looking around and, and understanding your situation
and where you are, maybe a beach, you know, front is the safest spot because there
isn't a lot of vegetation that will burn there. But maybe it's not, maybe the bluffs
go right up to the water line with a lot of fuel on them. Those are things you need
to, to kind of put that equation in your head together quickly. Seems like navigation
apps could be leveraged for this, you know, ways can take you around traffic jams.
It certainly should be able to come up with an appropriate route to a safe place.
That's one of the tools that Zone Haven uses, which is a A I evacuation scheme and
that they've adopted almost throughout California and it polygons up all of the wildfire
threat areas and it does interface with ways airbnb Google all of those and it, it
knows where you are and it'll tell you avoid this traffic signal signal because traffic
is backed up for miles. Um, but it's, it's, it's cell phone dependent, you know,
and how many areas of our county don't have coverage is significant at the fairgrounds,
Fort Worth for the festival. I can, I can quickly scroll through the rest of these.
I got a couple more. Um You know, we talked about the go bag. Excellent. There we
go. There's the inventory um of suggestion for you. You know, if you're, if you ha
if you have mobility issues or you have pets that are gonna take you a while to mobilize.
That's even more of an, a higher awareness that you should have is I need to get
out earlier and again, not make myself part of the, the life safety equation.
Anybody heard about this house? Yes, I read the New York Times article about it.
It's fascinating sprinklers. So it's that what I read and not to steal the punch
line is it was that they had done some hard scaping around the, the perimeter of
the house. That's what the homeowner said that you thought had saved the house. There
was no fire sprinklers on the metal roof too. Iii I didn't read that but I just read
the hardscape. There was no fire engine design to protect this home. That, that's
what's fascinating to me. And that's normally one of our jobs is structure protection.
Um This house is a stand alone home, uh, and they had just remodeled it, uh, in accordance
with the local historical society standards, which I find even more relevant to our
community because we have so many amazing historic homes. You can solve it. That
is case in point. And to your comments, commissioner, they hardscape everything along
the drip edge of the roof line so that there wasn't any fuel dried or semi dried
that could ignite and put, you know, heat up into the attic space and they followed
all of the historical society's recommendations, um, for making this building match
when it was built, which is over 100 years ago. It's a frame home. It's a beautiful
home. It looks like to me, um, sprinklers are and, and whether you should hose down
your, your, your roof or your debt is not indicated ever. It's not going to do anything.
It's in, you're putting yourself in harm's way and potentially robbing water from
the what where it could be used better. But the amount of energy a fire front of
this magnitude is going to bring through will evaporate the water before the flames
ever touch your home. And so it's not, it's not purposeful, but this is AAA really
good case study for how just a few basic things around your home. Uh Decisions on
landscaping where to store your uh you know, things that might ignite can really
make a, a powerful uh outcome.
It's crazy. It's still green like I feel like there's more to the story. I mean,
do you think that was the only, uh I mean, it can't be just the hards capping around
it, right? Because there's that, was it New York Times article about it? Ok. I, I'm,
I'm putting Hardy plank siding on the house. I'm building Paradise Bay that did not
have Hardy plank, hardy planks concrete. Um They just had the historical societies
my recommendation for what they did in that era and, and that's a metal roof. It
is a metal roof. Yeah. Which I've heard is safer. Safer a class a, um, you know,
c shingle roof is also pretty safe. But remember your roof is only as survivable
in a wildfire as your gutters are. And if you aren't cleaning your gutters, you might
as well not do anything because that's what the, the embers are gonna land. Right.
And then you just bring it off to the races. Hm. That's ok. There went the gutter
cleaning business. Maybe that's, maybe that's my next calling
side job for you got ladders. And this, this is really following the message we just
talked about is we want you to be more assertive closer to your home with what your
decisions are and how to protect your home during wildfire. So it is a stand alone
home where we don't need to put a fire engine. That's the goal so we can fight the
fire.
We can have an urban forest environment. We're not advocating clear cutting, you
know, 100 ft all around your home.
Next slide. Yeah, that's our mantra. I've got a lot of questions about sirens. Uh,
I don't know if you have any but, um, just a little bit of history. Tsunami sirens
were first used in 1949 following World war two where we all probably heard the slang
air raid siren. Uh, the technology is very, um, binary. It's either on or off. There's,
it's impossible to customize a message. You can have a couple of short blasts mean
one thing and a couple of long blasts mean another. But really there's no way to
communicate what specific threat the community, um, being exposed to. And really
you only see, uh, the analog sirens is what I call them used in zones prone to tsunamis
and in the midwest in tornado country and everybody there knows what to do when they
hear that siren, they either, uh, go to higher ground or they go underground if it's
Iowa. Yeah. So, I mean, that's the, the important part is the community needs to
be trained and know what to do, but that wouldn't really work for a wildfire because
you might have to do different things depending on the situation. Right. Yes. Yeah.
So, on the next slide, you'll, you'll see what they're doing in some communities
throughout the west coast and even on the east coast, uh, LRADS are something that
the military has been using for a couple of decades. Um, I've trained with LRADS
Berkeley, um, fire in Oakland fire every year. We would do a polygon of the community
and evacuate them for a simulated wildfire using no, um, in, in real time, uh, a
couple 100 homes because they're still threatened by wildfire even though you would
think everything burned up in 91. But it's still an urban forest. They installed
the L Rod rad system. And the only thing I could tell you is that it was like the
voice of God. It was in your head. It wasn't just a loudspeaker and you could hear
it clearly. It's very expensive. Uh And it needs more than one tower. You have to
have basically triangulate triangulated coverage across an area that is somewhat
terrain sensitive as well. So, although I've heard a couple well intentioned members
of our community say, hey, we need to use air raid sirens for that. We already have
from wildfire to your point commissioner. The paradigm is too dynamic with a wildfire.
You wouldn't know where to go or what to do if anything, it might alert you to turn
on, you know, your local radio station. But we haven't trained people that way. So
that might be something we, that might be some add on that we could consider. But
to just say we can use an analog tsunami warning to say, you know, run this way for
a wildfire is just not practical and LRADS are really expensive. Yeah. Even from
here, the, the tsunami drills sound like
the voice, you know, saying this is only a drill and the school teacher on the peanuts.
Exactly.
Couple graphics just from the, the national messaging. I thought I'd throw up there
and, uh, really just kind of a call to action. Uh, don't watch this movie with your
kids. It's, it's, uh, it's real footage. Um, and it's intense but the point is we're
not trying to say that's gonna happen here. But I think it's important for people
to your, your point. Uh, Commissioner, uh, Dean is ha you know, your, where your
mind needs to go. Uh, and how quickly you saw, you know, develop options is, is not
intuitive to us in this community because we haven't experienced it. We're not going
to experience anything to this degree, but I think we need to start thinking about
it when I'm out without my car. Where's my nearest safety zone? Is it a beach? Is
it a park? Is it, you know, at school? How reliable will cell phones and n
will be in the case of wildfires? I mean, generally that would be a, a very emergent
thing that wouldn't necessarily have like burned cell towers, right? I mean, when
you're trying to get information at first, are, are cell phones reliable or should
we be going to KPTZ? Is that more reliable? I think the more, uh, points
of messaging the better because it depends on where you are. Uh I won't get texts
anywhere. Uh I didn't get any text messages the whole day at that thing for, you
know, and that's, I call that in the city. So I'm not gonna get a nl at anywhere
in that community or the fair. Uh And then when I got home at, you know, midnight
Saturday, all of a sudden my phone starts loading up with all the tech side. So a
lot of it is is, uh, you know, coverage centric and it's hard to say cell phones
are better than Kptzi. I think the more, more variety we have, the better cell phone
towers can burn up quick. Or if we have the big power we had a couple of winters
ago, um, you know, cell phone towers aren't even going to be, you know, usable after
a few hours. Yeah.
Ok.
So the question earlier that came up about coordinating with
uh water and power. I mean, what, what, what can we put in place here to make sure
that we have the right network of um community leaders up to speed and responding
to kind of preparation appropriately. What I would propose commissioner and it'll
be the perfect timing because we'll be done with the CWPP is next spring. We actually
do an exercise similar to what we did in my past where we evacuate a polygon opt
in with Nix L which you can do. I've talked to Willie uh and do a polygon or a couple
um polygons in the spring, you know, like April May when the weather is better and
learn and you know, know what, we don't know, it is not gonna be smooth and we, but
we need to know that and we need to know how to counteract that and how do we interact
with Pud or if it's a private system, a smaller system, you know, I don't even have
a water system where I live in Paradise Bay. Um, so what do we do there? I, I think
we need to know what we don't know with a real time exercise. That better answer
your question. The one, if you, if I don't mind, if you don't mind me giving a shameless
thank you to, um, one of your departments, the sheriff's department was pivotal in
a lot of our recent incidents with the Beaver Valley fire, having the drone there
with its infrared camera gave us a level of intelligence that we have. I have never
had before on the initial attack phase of the deputy city. Right next to the incident.
Commander showing him where the heat signatures are and where the structures are
through was phenomenal. That's great to hear. So please keep that program
cool. This is just a list of resources. Yeah, a lot of, a lot of the community likes
to know where I look for my intel. I just thought I'd put all those hyperlinks in
there. Can we get this list up on our web page mark?
Can we get this list of um web resources up on our web page? So people can just link
on them, click on them, click on the links because now that the slides gone. No,
no, I mean, but no in general when we're done with this topic, right? It would be
nice for people to have somewhere to go. Do you have them up on my presentation?
East Jeff website. We do. We have a number of resources on EJFR website, maybe just
linking to the resource page of East Jeff would be the best thing to do.
I still don't feel clear about evacuation. So pay attention to, to nix a radio, look
around, see if we can figure out where the fire is and try and head the other direction.
But like how do you know if you're going to lead to some massive traffic jam, you
know, and be sitting there like pray, you know. Yes, that is the challenge. Um But
the, the message that we're trying to share that, unfortunately, it has been learned
by communities that have gone through. This is the longer you ponder, the better,
the worse off you're gonna be. So if you have that voice in your head saying I feel
threatened, just grab what you can and your, you know, friends or neighbors alert
them as you're leaving to do the same. I think Kate's volunteering in the uptown
area for the, the uh Yeah, my polygon. Yeah. Well, I, I think to your point though,
it would be fascinating to do a couple of these in different communities. All three
of our, we have a diversity of yes of challenges and interactions with different
agencies. The city is gonna be different than doing it in Chic or Irondale and, and
then where I live or, you know, shines where we have a plan right now. To put all
of our goats and chickens and everything in boats in the lake. I like that. Is that,
is that a reasonable plan? You'll save the chickens and goats? Yeah. So we might
be out there too. Ok. Well, depend on how, how urgent it is, but, uh, it's the biggest
lake in Jefferson County. Yeah. Which one? Lake Leland? You've been there? Mark.
No, no, he hasn't, didn't he come to the summertime parties? He's, he's on differently.
I always have to go to. I, um, I'm thinking my camper, take my camper van down to
the beach at Fort Warden. Pretty clear. Right. And there's not, not fuel down there.
Although, unlike Laha, now, you can't actually get in the water because you get hypothermia.
We got, we got an email about that this morning. Somebody saying, you know, we're
not going to be running to the shoreline and swimming in the water for eight hours
like some folks in he did. Right. But the thing to think about is a lot of people
in structure fires and wildfires don't succumb to the fire itself. They succumb to
the smoke. And that's important to remember. The smoke is also a threat at the end
of the day. On Saturday. I had this headache and my throat was hoarse. It's still
a little hoarse from all the smoke in the air. Yeah. Well, it's 100 times worse in
a wildfire because all that particulate is going right in which shoreline is probably
good for clearing the air a little bit, a little bit, but it's not, you know, it
depends on the way the wind's blowing and yeah, there's a lot of variables.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. You know, vigilance is the, is the, the watchword
now, right? And really understanding the main take home message is that our seasons
lasting longer than we might have otherwise assumed. Right. The dry season. That's
what the message that you were primarily bringing today is. We need to be vigilant
much longer than we ever have before. Yeah. All right. Well, Chief, thank you so
much for taking the time today. It's been really educational and a little chilling.
You have a good, all right. Thank you.
I hope it's a quiet week for you. Yes.
Ok. Let's take a little stock. Should we take a little, uh, just a little break?
I think we have an 11 o'clock.
Oh, yeah. All right. Well, let, let's take five minutes. Let's, let's actually, let's
come back at 1045. Let's take seven minute recess and spend it all in one place.
Give me time to get coffee and.