Ok.
All right, good morning, everyone. I will call this uh, 85 meeting of the Jefferson
County Board of commissioners to order, uh, Commissioner Deans and under the weather
and at home. So I'll be chairing in her stead today. Um, got a full agenda and, um,
I, I guess I have one quick announcement that we'll, we'll talk a little bit more
about later, but just want to really, uh, um, proclaim, you know, a good news that
the North Olympic Peninsula was one of the six final awardees of the, the recompete
grant. So we have $35 million coming to the North Olympic Peninsula region that's
here over the next five years to support all sorts of barriers, approvals, social
services, school, wooden boat building and, and our team Jefferson E DC and our North
Olympic Development um council, as well as Peninsula College and Olympic Community
of Health. There's a lot of work going to be going in. It's gonna be um just, just
the beginning now, but it's really exciting. So there'll be, I think there's a press
release that's going out. But, uh, it's, you know, out of, out of the 652 I think
applicants. Originally, we are one of 66 that got awarded so that their most subscribed
program ever. So, really kudos to the whole team, Amanda Kristofferson in our office
that just spent so many hours plus her normal duties, you know, it's, it's hard for
a little, little counties like us to uh contribute to this kind of really wholesale
effort but uh um feels really good. So, with that more to come, but congratulations,
you worked hard on that. Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's, it's great. Some of our projects
I I'll go into more details, did not get funded, but we'll, we'll break that down
a little bit as, as we go further. So with that, we will uh uh start as we always
do with public comments. So anyone in the room or online, you can hit raise hand
or star nine to raise your hand. If you're on the phone, we'd love to hear from you,
Maggie. Come on up.
Ok. So we had that housing meeting about a week after Bayside
uh threatened to kick everyone out if they did not sign the mandatory ro I or the
American Legion. And Bayside is still
using the legal document to gather and disseminate
information, private information against HIPAA laws to
non-government organizations like the legion uh using the
same illegal document that uh the County Health Department and you and
yourself, Greg opposed. Um And it's
illegal data gathering illegal data, buy and selling. It's human trafficking, it's
organized crime, it's racketeering and it's consumer fraud and they have
not given that illegal document back to the occupants to destroy. They have
not gone around to do it the right way. All they did was offer them a copy. The
occupants are still in fear of being kicked out if they try to get a copy or say
no to that and all this could have been done the right way and you guys chose not
to do it. So it's the county, it's Bayside with their history of bank fraud, with
their history of taking government money to house homeless people and not house homeless
people is Heather Dudley Nolette saying the RCW codes don't exist. They do.
It never happened. Yes, it did happen. Uh And just because it's not getting in an
overburdened court system, uh to be heard, uh, you know, for the public to hear
doesn't mean it didn't happen, doesn't mean it didn't exist, doesn't mean it's not
true. It is true. And you know, you can play Schrodinger's cat and a tree falling
in the forest all you want. But the fact is is that every person I've ever talked
to about this instantly recognizes how illegal it was, that it happened, how illegal
it was that there still continuing it and how it will be continued to be illegal.
And the justice department, the state department at the state level at the national
level, you can go look at the laws, they all say, you know, this is, this is illegal.
Ok. Now you can play your, uh, banjo. Thank you, Maggie. Bye. All right. Uh, as always,
we'll respond to all public comment after we hear it. Would anyone else like to make
public comment today in the room or online? We can hit the raise hand button or star
nine. If you're on the phone, we would love to hear from you about any topic,
make one more call and we have one hand, let's bring Mr King over
then Julia
welcome Gordon. When you get yourself unmuted, you can turn on your camera if you
wish and you'll have three minutes once you get yourself set
there. We are, I, I noticed that the, uh, on the calendar for the week that it says
that the MRC meeting tomorrow night is virtual and it's actually in person. And,
uh, I don't know, on the calendar, it said virtual. But
yeah, it's, it's kind of hybrid. It's because of the venue. It's in the hybrid part
is a little bit difficult Heidi, but it's kind of hybrid. But yeah, but it's not
not virtual, that's all. Thank you. Thank you, Gordon. Ok. Uh, Juliet, when you get
yourself unmuted and camera on, if you wish you have three minutes to talk. Love
to hear from you.
Good morning. I'm, um, well, I guess I would like to support what Maggie is talking
about is to some extent because I'm in agreement that bartenders shouldn't be getting
any type of personal information about the unsheltered or sheltered. Anyway, besides
that, I was really, I was, I'm curious about the payment to mom's laundry, the voucher,
laundry voucher thing on your consent agenda because I think it was the health, somebody
from the health department told me they're no longer accepting vouchers to do laundry
And I don't know that's because they were waiting for this payment or what that was
about. But it was something that I was, um, it was on my list of things to investigate
before we reopen and before the winter Welcoming Center opens because we use them.
So I, yeah, that's just a curiosity on my part. Good morning. You all great. Thank
you, Juliet.
Would anyone else like to make public comment today? You can hit the raise hand button
or Star nine if you're on with us virtually or on the phone or raise your physical
hand if you're in the room with us.
Ok, we've seen no hands. We will is, is our custom. Keep a public comment open till
930. So if, if someone uh if you do get the uh impulse to, to contribute, please
hit the raise hand button and we'll, we'll keep it open till 930. Um And I guess,
uh maybe I'll respond first to Maggie. I'm flying a little closer to this than other
people. Um I would, I would say the more kind of broad allegations that are
thrown out in a comment, the more difficult it, it makes it to actually take action
on it. There are a lot of uh attacks I would say in there and um we have been working
on this ro I issue and continue to work on it. And, and Maggie, you were at the Shelter
Coalition meeting as well as Julia and, and others and I have another meeting with,
with Bayside to tomorrow morning before the Shelter Coalition meeting. Um These aren't
easy things to resolve and I don't, I mean, I'm not an expert on it and I would say
I facilitated the conversation more than oppose the ro I at the ro I
at the Shelter Coalition that my apology. Yeah, no worries. I finally connected and
I was trying to be resident there. So it's good. Um And then, but we can, let's,
let's let's just keep it uh back and forth. But yeah, you know, we want everyone
to be able to attend those Shelter coalition meetings, but they do have a specific
topic. So if, if someone uh leaves the topic and and is starting to use other other
attacks that they are gonna be muted, Maggie, please, we're gonna have to just uh
recess. If you keep talking over. We, we gave everyone their, their comment, period.
It's not a dialogue back and forth. So now is our opportunity to respond. And uh,
and I'm always happy to, to talk after, after the, when we're not in meeting. Um,
ok, uh to Julia as well, you know, we continue to look at it and uh like the, the
moment of the thing of contention on the release of information is that the uh American
Legion really wants to be informed if someone is exited for disruptive behavior uh
before, you know, uh from the shelter because often they end up coming around. So
Julia is right. It's challenging to give information. I don't think it's protected
by HIPAA, but there are laws that protect this information. Um And so we're trying
to find a path where we can still, um, you know, maintain the peace basically, but
of course, not infringe on people's rights. So I don't know exactly where those are,
but we continue to have conversations with Bayside and the American Legion and residents
of the, of the shelter and other subject matter experts as we try to get it right.
We are definitely building the airplane as we're flying it, continuing operations.
You know, there's not a spin up, it's just a here we go. So there's gonna be issues
that need to be corrected uh on the fly and that's what we're attempting to address,
um, to Gordon. I don't, uh, you know, good to see him as always, but I don't have
any information about the end like the meeting, but I think he was just letting us
know that it maybe is not a great Yeah. Yeah. Um and then to Julia's other question,
I was really excited to see the mom's laundry voucher there. My understanding we
can double check with pinky and public health. Is that that kind of, it just took
a while to get this contract back into place and they've not had laundry vouchers
for some time and I'm quite gratified to, to see this, this on our consent agenda
and I think they've been working on it for some months. So maybe there was some resistance
from moms. I'm not sure this is the back story, but we can, we can get it, but I'm
really happy to see, uh, that, that access, uh, um returned in the consent agenda.
You know, I noticed that that contract was dated for the first day of the new, um,
state fiscal year. So I wondered if it had to do with state funding becoming available
again, um, for July 1st. Yeah. Um That's very possible. Yeah, that's a good point.
But we can get a little more information about the, the back story too, from public
health. All right. Any other responses? Um I would say I, I defer to you because
you're a commissioner sitting on the Shelter coalition. But I'm, I'm glad to hear
that your Bayside and the coalition is working through the ro I issues they do sound
concerning. Um, and on the way that the MRC meeting was listed. I
think that, that Wendy who puts the weekly meeting list together assumes that she's
putting, how we're attending the meetings, but I'm not sure. So I'll check in with
her on that, but I, um, intend to attend the MRC meeting in person tomorrow night.
So, um, I'll check in with Wendy about that when she's back. You know, we could probably
just take that off. Yeah. how you attend? Yeah, so yeah. Yeah. Oh, it says virtual
because you maybe attended some virtually meetings for virtually, but I tend to attend
MRC in person every time. If you agree, we can just take that off from future. That
sounds good, Kate. Is that ok with you, you know, from the calendar, the our calendars?
Ok. Yeah. And I'm also glad to see uh the laundry vouchers back in action. So and
more laundromats in our community up and up and running. So more access to clean
clothes. That's great, Kate. Anything to add. No, I just add that. Um you know, it's
um uh appreciate that Bayside is, is continuing to work with the Shelter Coalition
to try to, you know, get this documentation right? It's, you know, it is a reality
in any housing type that we sign away a lot of privacy when you sign rental agreements,
mortgages. Um You know, this is um a part of the world that we live in. I don't feel
that the the unhoused are being singled out uh differently in this. And there's a
lot of requirements for reporting from the state for the funding that supports this
housing. So um just hope there can be grace on both sides as we figure this out.
Thanks again, I add one more thing just that, you know, there was a suggestion of
the Shelter coalition, there were a lot of like positive, you know, uh constructive
comments on, on ways to resolve this, this issue. You know, a separate document for
the uh you know, because it's different kind of information to notify, you know,
the landlord of, of an issue than it is to um voluntarily reach out for uh service
support and things like that. So it might be a different form that is similar, but
we'll continue to work on it. I see Mr Tis raised his hand. Let's bring him over
for public comment and Shelley
Mr Pierce, we get yourself unmuted. You have three minutes, three minutes. Hi, good
morning. This should not take three minutes. I was just wondering, I noticed that
the uh uh Bocc agenda and a V capture are not uh functioning. There's nothing listed
there and I just wonder if there's any news on that, uh any intention to move forward,
backward or sideways on the, on the technology. Uh So if somebody could, could fill
us in on that, that would be helpful. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mister J. We'll
respond after, uh, we hear a comment from Miss Yn L Shelley. Please go ahead when
you get yourself unmuted. You have three minutes. Good morning. Um, I too would like
to address the agenda first. The agenda was not listed online until just minutes
before nine o'clock. That makes it really hard to know what there is that's gonna
be on it and what we're talking about. Um If we could have that sooner more often,
that would be uh great. Um And I too would like to support Maggie. You can hear the
frustration uh that grows in her um weekly and I sympathize with that. I
feel when you're in a moment that if you can't get some solid answers, it's really
frustrating and um I would hope that maybe there could be um a little bit of
special attention paid here to specific things um that might help. Um
I know that there's lots of information required. I know that there's lots of rights
given up, but there shouldn't be any bullying and if it feels like bullying, it needs
to stop because um everybody needs to feel like they're in a safe place, especially
somebody who doesn't have a uh permanent home to live. So I would just hope there
could be a little more compassion and a little more um help to get some of these
issues addressed. Um I appreciate what Bayside does but uh it doesn't really have
a stellar reputation. So um maybe just a little more focus on. It would be a really
good thing. Thank you. And they went up and we got Oh yeah, Viola, please. Oh,
just to address the, the ro I um I think it feels particularly oppressive
for individuals to have a choice between sleeping outside or signing a paper that
they feel is a violation. And I think that's where we get a lot of the elevated responses.
Um I did offer to assist, but I remember at the Shelter Coalition meeting, Dove House
had an arm O I to provide Gary. So I've just reached out and asked them, but perhaps
it would be helpful to have a meeting between Bayside and possibly as a shelter service
provider who understands these rois um and the legion to meet and have a discussion
about the nature. Like for example, if somebody does come in hostile to the legion,
how would they normally respond? And would it really be a benefit if somebody has
exited from the shelter and they come in if they're coming in angry? I understand.
But even if they've been exited from the shelter and they want to come into the legion
to, to receive services or to be a customer, um are we setting them up for discrimination?
I think those are very good questions to ask. And I think it's also an assumption
of criminality if somebody gets banned from the shelter because you don't know what
the ban is about. Um So I think those are good questions to ask and it's, it would
be, I would be um I would make myself available for that conversation to support
Bayside in any way, but also support our people utilizing the shelter. Thanks. Where
anyone else that would like to make public comment?
Ok. Um Well, we'll keep it open for a few more minutes. If someone is moved to comment
and I'll talk about the agenda, the agenda was posted but none of the materials were
posted, I believe because of the, oh, you have an update. Yeah. No, I'd, I'd like
to chime in um on Friday we had a uh internet outage and a capture was not cooperating
once internet got back on. But as it, as it is the same, all our boards and committees,
um we try to reference the calendar where all the committee agendas are on and then
on each agenda it tells you how to get to the meeting materials. So we've met our
op ma requirements um posting in advance. Um The fact that it wasn't on a capture
is not fun, but um we are working on trying to find a new vendor here this year.
So, yeah, and I'll just add, I I sorry, go ahead, Kate. Well, and in fact, it was
um added to the top of the news flash on the county website. So you didn't even have
to go into the calendar. It was, um, one of the first items, you know, slightly different
spot. I know it's disorienting. I was at the office on Friday trying to help troubleshoot
while, you know, the there's chaos across the peninsula as far as I can tell. Um,
so sorry that it didn't get on A V, we did everything we could ad L was working on
it on Saturday as well. Um, but we, um, we were sure to cover our requirement of
having it available on um on the news slash quite visible on the home page of our
website. It was on laser fish. All the documents. Yeah, the supporting materials
on laser fish. It's only the agenda that we are required to post on um uh on the
website 24 hours in advance. But um yeah, and the instructions for accessing it on
laser fish were uh included on the agenda posted. We realize people are used to finding
it on a duty capture. So we're trying to migrate to a, to a method that works for
everyone. So to Tom's question, are you moving forward backwards or sideways? A little
backwards right now? But we're gonna, we're, we're gonna stop moving sideways and
maybe move forward with the different frustrating to us too. And I really care a
lot about uh product management. How does the, the, the public get access to our
work? And so I, I go into it the same way the public does and I you know, was frustrated
having to go into each laser fee document myself and it is uh complicated and we
should make it easier, you know, as we do our website upgrade this fall, you know,
looking to make sure that uh people can find it without having to, you know, have
circuitous instructions they need to follow, to get to the documents. Even when things
don't work, you know, when we have technical issues like we did on Friday. So, but
even me, often the most technically challenged commissioner found all the attachments
and read them and printed the ones I remember to. So,
um ok, and uh to Kelly and Viola about the um the shelter, you
know, we're not going to fix this problem in public comment, of course. But uh I
appreciate Viola's uh uh offer and I I know Bayside is interested in, in resolving
this. I have a meeting with them in the county tomorrow to, to go over it again as
well. And I'll, I'll reiterate your, your offer to assist. Coming up with something
that, you know, does gets the appropriate job done but does not infringe on people's
rights is not, is, is the minimum amount of barrier to people relieving receiving
services or, you know, shelter for the night. So that is the goal and uh you know,
building it as we're flying it. So I have to think there are other entities that
have done this and other other localities. Well, I mean, even Bayside has an ro I
for their other, for Pete's Place and pa place there, you know, so there's, it's,
it's not rocket science, but it's a pretty unique situation there and trying to address
landlord issues that haven't been addressed in the past frankly, you know, while
still maintaining the rights of the, of the residents, uh, and, and, uh, patrons
is really important and just challenging, you know, so, you know, attacking the reputation
of the organization as we try to work. It is. And one of, again, one of those counterproductive
things that, you know, saying, oh, they have a bad reputation and so they're doing
this wrong is, you know, uh,
just not helpful, I guess is what I'm saying. No, it's not so super grateful that
they stepped up to fill this role and they, I would say they have a great reputation
and they're doing a lot of good work and this is, uh, challenging work too. Yeah,
they, no one gets everything right. But you just keep, I think the most important
thing that I'd like to, I guess, leave this topic on right now is Bayside continues
to say, yeah, we'll come to the public meeting with all of the, the folks. We'll
come to the, the table, we want to get this right and, and we need to get it right
for our organization as well. And that's, that's, uh, you know, a pretty, pretty
small needle to thread.
Ok. Um It is 924. Any other one else like to make public comment today? Lots of names
there. Lots of folks hit the raise hand button or star nine. If you're on the phone,
we would love to hear from you.
Ok. Well, I will uh keep it open for another few minutes and we can turn to the consent
agenda. Pretty robust consent agenda. Any questions or comments, Kate or he, well,
the, the item two is huge and super grateful that we got a great contractor to do
that phase of the sewer work. And Hadlock and I, I live in the midst of it. It's
happening, folks. Um, I think, uh, the road sign showed up on my street today. My
quiet little corner of Hadlock is about to be invaded. So, um, you're getting a grinder
pump eventually, I think. Yeah, I don't know how they're gonna hook it up to my ancient
septic system, but we'll figure it out. They don't hook it up to your septic. Oh,
your outflow. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So anyway, just grateful for all the work
going on and they're doing a good job of managing traffic confusion and Hadlock.
I love all the traffic upgrades we're getting on the peninsula right now is downtown
Hadlock is, is confusing some days at best. But, um, I don't have anything else
to call out on. I mean, so much good work here. Grateful to see the laundry vou voucher
program. Getting more funding
should have been a surveyor. I would see when I see us giving contracts with surveyors.
I'm like, oh, that's, that's one of the jobs I wanted to do. Um,
yeah. All right. Nothing else to call out gate. Any, any comments or questions. No,
no. Just, um, great work to our team for getting all these to the finish line. Yeah,
I'll just, I mean, really happy as that. We already talked about to see the laundry
vouchers on there and, and moving forward again, I thought the uh historical document
image En Ham Smith was uh really interesting uh contract to look through. It seemed
like a great, like we should, we should have those skills for our office too. I don't
know if you do that, but uh the way that they're straightening things out and, and
like lowering data needs data requirements for saving the files by getting rid of
all the black stuff or turning, you know, inverting the black stuff. And I just feel
like it was a great uh template to build our own capacity as well. But uh um and
especially because the like it seems like if we did the first part of the contract,
uh so we could get the expertise and we could save the $200,000 part of the contract
that you know, is now doing 100 and 50,000 more documents. Like it's like, it's like
$30,000 to set up the system and then, you know, a dollar per page to do 100 and
50,000 pages worth of, uh, do, but I'm not gonna bulk or anything. I just, uh, you
know, sometimes looking at that it seems like that's capacity that we would always
be able to use. And it's sometimes even small organizations, I feel like developing
that might be worthwhile. But, oh, so sad to see Gray leaving the Board of Health
and the health Advisory committee. So those are, those are big shoes to fill for
all of us. And um we'll get right to work on that. I guess that you are team is already
working on it. And so I'm sure. Yeah,
Kate, if you don't have anything, I'm happy to make a motion. Ok? I I I'll move to
approve the consent agenda for August 5th, 2024. A second, right, and moved in second
to approve and adopt the consent agenda as presented all in favor, indicate by saying
II I in your post. All right. That is unanimous. Great. Thank you for that. And we
will move. Well, I guess, uh, not a lot of time for briefing. We're just, we're joined
by Greg Ballard here and I don't maybe I, yeah, they're all time this morning. Oh,
got you. We are ok. So I saw Melissa in the zoom room and we can bring Melissa over
and we will, it's time for 930. So we have two minutes, two minutes. Ok. Can I um
can I make an announcement which is um that um after our 1015 agenda item, um we're
going to be joined by Phil Hunsucker to look at some draft documents uh agreement
um between the county and the Point No Point Treaty Council for the Trust line transfer,
um Treaty rights Protection. So, um Carolyn put a little placeholder in but just
fy I, that's coming as well. Thank you for your work on that over the weekend. Commissioner,
Commissioner Dean. Well, I think Phil Hunsucker spent the whole weekend working on
it. So my view was very minor in comparison. They reached out to me and I was literally
out on the racecourse and in a sailboat with, with a sheet in my hand. I'm like,
ok. Ok, I'm on the water. It's funny. Um, we racing. Mhm. Oh, we hear more about
that. Um, ok. So we have that after the 1015 workshop. Um, anything else to add to
the schedule today?
If it's a packed schedule? I don't think it's a pretty packed schedule. Yeah. Ok.
Can you ask Melissa to please, uh, promotion? I don't know if you heard that Melissa,
but is unless you're coming down here in person, you'll need to accept promotion
to panelists to, uh, to join us the Zoom room.
And mhm.
A pregnant pause for one minute. Is she accepting? She's like declining again. Um,
I don't know if the homesick or in the same ring with her, but I don't know if I
should promote him. Um, someone raise your hand, give us a high signal of some sort.
What do you want us to do on this county's litigation against DC YF related to juvenile
rehabilitation intake? Freeze
anyone ready to come talk about it? We'll wait for a moment when we decide I would
love to. I bet she's walking downstairs. That's my guess. Good morning Greg. Hello.
We got a joke. We got a minute to sp here. You know the words to loud and Wayne writes
the swimming song because we're gonna have a sing along a little later. Part of my
briefing. You got it. Are you uh for, she went to the uh high school, uh sailing
class and she's working at the Maritime Center as a uh lifeguards and the little
uh motor boat. Oh, that's very cool. Well,
Kate as well now
just grabbing more cough drops. All right. Yeah. Keep coming. Maybe. Did you hear?
I thought about you this weekend, Kate, as I was weeding. I remember you talking
about weeding a lot sitting up here on the da. I was like, yeah, and my body is like,
wow, that was combat weeding this weekend.
What, what did you say? I talked to her staff that will tell her to ask her to accept
the Motional Palace or come down? Ok. With the regular meeting. So we can always
just flip flop these guys too. Right? As long as it doesn't start before the time,
it's, it's ok if it starts later, you could do a little commission briefings until
we find, um, all right, someone wanna Hunter is raising his hand. No, it's Mr Hucker
over.
Good morning, mister Hucker. Good morning. I can fill in for Melissa if need be ok.
Yeah, we're not, we, we're trying to get a hold of her but, um, I, you know, wanna
give her a chance to, to do it. Do, do you know if she's in the office or? I don't
know, I don't know whether she was planning on attending virtually or, or in person,
but I know she was planning on being here. Ok. Well, let's give it one more minute.
I appreciate you stepping up.
Um,
yeah, I don't know. What's, what's your, what's your pleasure you wanna have? Fill
uh, pinch it or, or move to? Great. Oh, ok, great. Welcome Melissa.
I'm so sorry. I was trying to switch over and, uh, with the outage on last Friday,
I had to restart my computer. It was not letting me connect to the drives. So just
one second while I got the headphone reconnected,
that was quite the outage on Friday. It was big. Did it impact you over in headlock?
It was just Ness's corner this way, right. Um You know, it's really widespread. Port
Ludlow was out. Um, yeah, much of the county I wasn't at home. So, but it, so I was
at my mom's and it definitely even the phones. Yeah, because I was trying to
get some information from me and I was like, I can't, can't do anything right now.
I'm sorry?
Well, we'll give Melissa a few more moments. Uh, there we go. Hey, headphone and
webcam connected. Right. Um, yes. So, uh, we've come to the board here this morning
on behalf of the prosecuting attorney's office, uh to request authorization to be
added as a participant to the lawsuit that's been filed um by Pacifica Law Group
on behalf of was a the Washington State Association of counties. And uh it looks
like 12 other counties. Um
And um, at the time that I did
uh the hearing request, um the lawsuit had not been filed. So we are here now on
Monday morning, the fifth. Um and the lawsuit has been filed. Um So the status of
everything is that there are several other counties um that are coming before their
boards to request authorization and that if we are um, added or approved to be added
as a participant, that there would be amended complaint that would include Jefferson
County. So we are not precluded because, uh, we didn't get in um when they first
filed. Um But uh there's been an update provided to um, Pacifica and the other counties
that if we do get approval that we will um join in on that amendment.
Great. And you wanna just kind of give us the high uh man, we read through the the
agenda request of course and, and the materials, but you wanna talk about a little
bit about what the uh the lawsuit pertains to, you know, the elevator pitch. Sure.
So, um on July 5th of this year, um the uh Department of Children and Families uh
services um announced that they were going to put a freeze on a admissions to juvenile
rehabilitation centers in Washington State. Um This was uh really a, a blow for our
county um because we had just recently sentenced. Um
uh oh no, we lost you, Melissa. Turn off video, maybe try turning off video, Melissa
and close your mouth. Jeez uh Juvenile rehabilitation Center with DC YF. Um So
that was quite a shock to the system. Um Sorry mess. We lost you for like 20 seconds
between the beginning of that sentence and in the end, can you repeat? So, uh July
5th. Yes. So we had just sent someone to DC YF Detention Center and then
we were getting ready to sent another one. Um And so that date had already been set.
Um and um our juvenile uh services administrator um had to work some um to hustle
and work some magic um to try to figure out what was going to be done um for that
uh individual and that was anticipated to be sentenced to, um, the detention center.
So, um, in the state of Washington, if the sentence is over 30 days, then it's mandatory
that they be, uh, the person be, um, housed in a DC YF uh detention center. Um, we
had very limited options, um, because we could not either not follow
through or, um, the court could not choose to impose a, uh, illegal sentence. Um,
so we know that the sentence was mandatory and then where does this individual go?
Um So that was something that's been, um, an issue just in this last month since
that, um, freeze came down. Um And it's specific to our jurisdiction. Um Additionally,
we are different from some of the other jurisdictions because we don't have a detention
center, um, in our jurisdiction, we contract um with other jurisdictions. Um And
what I was trying to identify in the hearing or a general request was that, um, there's
already this like blowback or pass down, um, from other counties because they too
are experiencing this, you know, freeze. Um And then having to hold uh, individuals
that are not being transported in their facility. So, you know, the pass down is,
that means their facility is full now or they're, you know, uh looking at having
to reduce their numbers to anticipate. Um So then they're not wanting to take our
individuals. So it's this, um, additional compounded, um, uh stress on our jurisdiction.
Um And that's one of the reasons we are asking to join the lawsuit because we do
have a specific um cause of action here um and additional um uh remedy um that
we would uh want to address. Um Then there's the impact of having as many named counties
as we can join the lawsuit because it does also speak to the nature and impact that
this decision has on our counties across the state of Washington. Thank you, Melissa
and, and on the agenda it said discussion, but you're looking for action for a motion
today from us to join the lawsuit. Is that, that is correct. Yes. So we'll just do
a quick public comment before we vote on any action that we take to give anyone a
chance to, to weigh in. It seems pretty cut and dried. Do your job. The cascading
impacts if you don't are pretty significant, Kate. Oh, sorry, Kate had her hand on
the, just to say that, you know, it's, it's, um, I think it's important to point
out that, you know, Jefferson County, um, I won't speak for other counties and certainly
can't speak for a prosecutor or juvenile services department, but I have spent a
lot of time talking with our team about this. It's, you know, nobody relishes, um,
detaining juveniles. Um, this is something that we take very seriously that that
is done when there is a, a danger to, to oneself for the youth or to someone else
um it's something we don't do very often. We are unique in having a Proctor House
here, in fact to try to prevent detention. Um, but it is a, a low security facility
and not sufficient for, um, the, the types of charges that we're discussing here.
Um You know, my, my desire to support this is really about holding the state to its
statutory requirements. Um And I think we do a really good job of trying to get youth
to the the uh best place for them to rehabilitate. And um you know, our team says
that very occasionally that is a detention facility and that, that, you know, we
end up absorbing so much of the cost and impact of our justice system which the state
is really supposed to be. They, they are constitutionally required to do so and statutorily.
Um And so I think this is just another opportunity for us to say, hey state, remember
you, you, you have this requirement that you're not fulfilling yet again. So that's
my interest in supporting it. And I would just add, I I pinch pinch hit for commissioner
Dean in one was sack meeting where we voted to for was sack to move forward with
this lawsuit. And some of the context that I gleaned in preparation for that meeting
was that the state facilities are over capacity, but that's not our fault, right?
And so, um it feels like, you know, this, this action that we're proposing to take
is going to help hold the feet to the fire of the state to do the right thing and
build the capacity for the youth that need um housing when they're in this situation.
And so I, you know, it makes perfect sense to me. Yes. Um Both of you were much more
eloquent than my, do your job uh summation, but I appreciate it, Mr Dean Eisenhower.
Any other questions or comments?
All right. Well, I'd welcome a motion. I'm happy to make a motion to approve Jefferson
County's participation in the lawsuit filed by the Washington State Association of
counties against the Department of Children, youth and families related to its refusal
to admit youth and young adult offenders sentenced into juvenile rehabilitation facilities
consistent with the law a second. Ok. It's been moved in second and since this, uh,
wasn't listed as an action item, we will open it up for public comments. So if anyone
is with us in the room, you can raise your physical hand or online. You can hate
raise your virtual hand or hit Star Nine. If you're on the phone,
make one more call. If anyone would like to make comment on this particular item,
you can hit the raise hand button or Star Nine if you're on the phone or raise your
physical hand. See, none. I will close public comment and call the question all in
favor of the motion on the floor. Indicate by saying II I, all right, that motion
passes unanimously. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Melissa. Ok. Well, we have a uh
we made it 945. We have a couple minutes here. Um So I guess uh we have Josh and
Phil and Greg in the room. We can take a moment. Uh Let's just recess for two minutes
to, to get uh people into their places and then uh you don't need to be a microphone
or anything, but please come join Mark at the table, whoever is appropriate. And
uh we will recess until 945.
Just you're the. All right. I will call us back into session for our workshop regarding
a hearing notice uh regarding the D CD fee, schedule update with public health,
we're gonna get our, our screen up. I gotta find it. I didn't realize I was gonna
do the w apologize for that. No problem. I can send the laser fish as well on the
ban.
Um I don't wanna shoot my wall to quit. I know it's like,
you know, uh check off if you see a gun on the gun on the wall in the first act,
you know, it's gotta be shot by the third act. So I'm, I'm trying to build a little,
I should put it up in my place. Suspense. Yeah, we should have it on the screen.
Even the ones that are effective. February 2024 with the new one. All right. Yeah,
take it away. Hey, good morning, Josh Peters community development director. I have
two managers from D CD with me today, greater Development code administrator and
Phil CRE building official fire marshal. I, I'm sorry, should we bring D CD guest
over? That's also what Chelsea looks like. Raise her hand and she
administrative services manager is part online. Only. Nothing
necessary to explain anything. So just to rewind a bit, we came to the board with
a workshop on July 22nd to uh to talk about implementation of Centerville 5290.
And also the results of a fee study done by the F CS group. And the result of that
fee study was that they recommended that you have 100% cost recovery for our, our
cost recoverable services in terms of our permit fees that we should be charging,
uh a higher hourly rate, $123.20 per hour. So what we've done then is
taking that number and updated our fee schedules for building permit fees, fire
marshal fees, land use fees, most importantly in this case and other uh miscellaneous
fees. And I think most importantly because the building permit fees as we talked
about before and it can go into any detail as needed. Um, well, don't change in terms
of the base fee. It's based on valuation. So that has not changed only those fees
associated with building permit review activities that rely on an hourly rate would
change. So the biggest thing of mark, if you could scroll down or find the land use
fees. So we get into that one. just in a moment here, I'm gonna hand it over to Greg
to, to review what the land use fee schedule will look like under. Uh, if we were
to have 100% cross recovery for those interested in the question of finding efficiencies
in permit review. We have also made some modifications as we suggested in our last
workshop to that schedule, identifying certain permits, a handful of permits that
we believe that reassessing the the average time spent on those we could take the
base fee down based on that hour. We're using the new hourly rate, but the multiplier
is, is less in other ways, we assume fewer hours just for a few of these. And Greg
can explain that in a moment, there's one that we're setting a little higher. That's
the hearing examiner gene that's just based on the cost of a typical hearing and
what our contract is with our current hearing examiner. Um And then so, and we've
highlighted in the limit that possibly, you know, Greg's highlighted some spots we
can go over here. So what we're doing today just to summarize is we're showing you
what the updated land use fee schedules would look like if the proposed resolution
that we're moving forward with the board this month, uh were to be passed or were
to be adopted as it, we'll also have an ordinance to go along with that. And that's
because I believe we're one of the last departments that are fee based to transition
from, from having the fees in the code itself to having the fees adopted by resolution.
In order to do that, you need to an ordinance which the Pao has helped us with prosecuting
attorney's office. And we also have a corresponding resolution that adopts the new
fees concurrently and un with feedback from the board. We've set that hearing now
earlier, I think it's August 19th of memory serves. And so in order to do that, we
have a hearing notice today for approval and if that hearing notice is approved this
morning, then we can submit it to the leader by noon, get it published on Wednesday.
Then the proposed ordinance and resolution and all the supporting materials will
be in that laser feature folder on Wednesday, the date of publication to support
the uh what we're proposing. Um and the subject of the hearing out of the other main
thing. So that's the plan for today is to talk about this, see if you have any questions
and then ask you to approve a hearing notice so that we can submit it by computer.
Unless there's any questions I will turn over to Greg just to talk about this. Highlighted.
The looks like we're good. Um This is pretty much I took the existing fee ordinance
and I reorganized it by like case type so that it would be easier to find which fee
would apply to. What, um, the first thing that I added was I added the cam since
it seemed like the, the home own home builders and the realtors and the commissioners
wanted the cam. So we added a two hour cam at the top there. The next thing we did
was the shoreline exemption. Uh, instead of just charging seven hours for a flat
shoreline exemption, we said if you meet the standard shoreline buffer of 150 or
100 and 60 with structures, we only charge 2 ft in 7 to 7 hours. So that would, you
know, that basically doesn't, you know, it doesn't take that long to review something
that's 100 and 60 ft back from the or your head of water market. We also added a
different, uh SDRS. We have three different types. The first type we have is just
a li legal lot of record for one hour. We have a limited SDR which is you already
have a house or, or another structure and you wanna put, let's say a garage or something
in a developed area, we're only gonna charge you one hour for that. So the three
hours, the lot consolidation is something that we do when we uh go through the STR
process. If we make people uh provide the assessor parsing, we were charged in four
hours and we're doing that in two hours. It's a really popular process with the assessor
and everybody likes that. Um The next one is on the forestry and the conversion option,
harvest plans. I've done a lot of them here. Uh They were charging seven hours. Uh
It's, it's a really good uh product that we do where you, you know, keep 40% of the
tree, you only have 40% of the trees, keep all size classes. So I reduce that from
7 to 4 based on my experience with those applications. Um The next thing is on the
shoreline, uh, potential development permit and the, uh cup, they were 25 hours and
I made it just 21 hours just the same as a shoreline variance because with my experience,
the shoreline variance is a harder application on those two types. And then finally,
um, we didn't have that Pr Rd. So I just added that. And so what the fees are is,
uh, just a way of trying to, uh, after a year, over a year being here, I kind of
know how much, how much time it takes to each of these types of cases. Now, one quick
note on the shoreline substantial development permit or STP
since 2014 is my understanding perhaps earlier, but I believe it's since 2014, that's
been a type three permit with a hearing. I believe that was one of the things that
was identified early on in the regulatory reform concept to change that back to a
type two permanent with just public notice, which is what most jurisdictions do and
what Jefferson County did before the last major Shoreline Master program update.
So that will change that substantial development will be, will be coming a type two
if um if and when the board adopts an update to the trolling program that includes
win, win, not if or win, come on.
If and when the board takes can't predict that the nice thing about that is instead
it will still be 21 hours, but we will have to charge that $1400 urine exam, right?
But,
ok. All right. Is that uh, questions, comments, I guess I have one question about
the cam. I appreciate you, you know, considering the cam and, and, you know, finding
a place that works for the department too. I mean, I know that, you know, people
want free cams, of course, and we've offered that and I would, I'm just gonna uh,
I guess, repeat my understanding of it and please let me know if I'm understanding
this move correctly. Uh You know, we have, you know, actually given budget capacity
and, and money for, for D CD to uh offer free CAMS. And I, and with the understanding
that those CAMS get bundled into the price of an application permit. So if someone
actually, you know, pulls a permit after the cam, then we get paid for it. But if
they don't, then we don't end up getting paid for it. And my understanding was that
many of the, uh, uh, cams that we were having ended up being not turning into permits
but just kind of being, oh, should I buy this property and, and just kind of being
AAA time suck. That didn't have, um, you know, obviously was not getting cost recovery
if there wasn't an application pulled, I guess with my understanding there, I, I
see why this is, but can you talk about the, I guess the thought process behind charging
for CAMS and, and, and the two hour, the two hour, uh, that, that you put on it,
I'll take a shot first and then turn it over to Greg. So rewinding back to what you
were saying, Commissioner Brotherton about, about the board deciding to give additional
budget to D CD to have CAMS that wouldn't have a fee associated with them when, before
they did. My understanding is that was maybe three years ago, maybe two. I'm not
sure when, but whatever that was, it occurred in that one single year and maybe in
the next year, I'm not sure about that. It may be more of a Jody Adams question because
handling our finances at the time. Um, but that is not part of our budget now. So
we don't have that money. So, so what we are thinking more is Greg was identifying
that typical land use questions. Take less time than an hour. You don't need to set
up an appointment. People were self selecting the appointments. We would have repeat
customers. We'd have no shows we have the wrong staff aside. Sometimes bill would
be called in. But really, it was a not a building permanent question. It was a land
use question. And so Greg and his team on the land use side have just moved things
around so that we try to answer people's questions by email, by phone, by just drop
in appointment or just, you know, can I meet with you this Thursday at such and such
a time? Yes, kind of uh approach because most of them were just fairly easy questions
that could be answered. So and now that said that they still wanted like the realtors
and the builders like Greg said, still wanted the chance to have an appointment that
was a was on the next level of formality if you will have a, have a secure time and
have some time built in for staff to research a set of questions. And so that's what
we're providing here is that the next step beyond that would be a pre application
conference. We are uh considering one of those lists of things from the 5290 legislation
that if you were to make pre application conferences completely voluntary, I don't
know if completely is in there, but the word make them voluntary. And by implication,
you think all kinds of pre ops, then we would qualify as one of those lists of 10
things that we can pick or eight things. Now, there's right now, we have mandatory
pre application conferences for some types of permits. The most complicated among
the permits. And then someone could ask for one or the administrator could waive,
the code administrator could waive the requirement. So we're thinking about going
through a process where it's all, it's all voluntary. There's some implications to
that. We could get applications that don't have all the materials in it. We'll have
to go back and forth. But um we're thinking about that. So that would be the next
level of an optional things because that implies that we were going to organize with
other departments, including perhaps even other agencies that are outside of the
accounting agency to get all the information we possibly can gathered on a particular
application for those that are most complicated. That's the pre application conference,
probably four hours of work. I can't remember what that was. It's on here. Then we
have like Greg is set up as the CAMS per request and then we have, and then we have
um and then we have just the formal things that don't cost anything. You know, when
we get to a point where it's now we're, we're past, I don't know how long you'd say
15 minutes, half an hour, 20 minutes, whatever it is that we decide. Ok, this is
getting more complicated than just a simple question that will set up. Ok. Right.
Right. And the whole idea is that the, uh, you know, if you come into the office,
you get 15 minutes with, uh, with a staff member, if they start to ask really complicated
questions or they wanna come in on a Friday or they want something more formal. We
have like two options. You can either do a pre op, which is more like with the other
departments or you can have like your specific questions answered by a planner and
uh get something kind of in writing. Uh The whole idea of that. We also have, you
can also do it on site so we could add two hours for a site visit because a lot of
times, you know, it's a lot easier to give them the answer if you actually see what's
going on on the site. So there's, there's just more choices. This is more for like
somebody coming in out of town on a Friday and they wanna have something formal,
you know, two hours is a little bit, a little bit high, but they're not there. There's
a, there's a lot of work when I got started here, we were spending a lot of times
on the c so then I took them over along with David and uh a lot of them were just
repeat questions or a lot of them were on SDRS, they were very useful and we really
didn't have the capacity to do them. I think now that we have the capacity to do
them, we're basically putting back on the menu. I don't think we would credit them
for the, the fees for the application either. Is the other. Got you. Ok, great. That's
helpful. And III I appreciate it. You know, I think often we see uh what's, what's
the output and the interface with the customer? And I, I just at this sounds reasonable
and I just appreciate you kind of breaking down the thought process behind it in
the different ways that people come in to get their questions answered and, and potential
applicants and applicants. So that's helpful. Any other questions for, for Josh and
Greg and very clear, I just need to verify that um the 15 minutes you just mentioned
Greg. Is that, um is that free of charge? Yes. And are those scheduled or how, how
does one go about doing that? They drop in or if people send us an email or a phone
call and we'll get back with them in a, in a way that's most convenient for everyone,
but we just don't charge a fee if it's a short question and then sometimes that they
start asking a lot more detailed questions. This will give our, our team a chance
to say, well, that's, this seems really complicated. Would you like to do ac a or
a pre op instead and actually uh get, get a more affordable response. Great, thank
you. Right. And of course, we're not deciding these things right now, but we're setting
up a hearing that will have Public Testimony Act and everything. So, yeah, I mean,
really what we wanted to see, gauge your comfort level on going forward with a hearing.
And that still gives us, you know, according to the schedule that we're proposing
an effective date of September 1st, it still gives time in the, in the second half
of the month to make that decision. Um So if you're feeling comfortable enough that
there's information should go out together with the ordinance and the resolution,
the public to comment upon, then we would ask you to approve the hearing notice if
there were additional questions or you wanted to come back. But, you know, in another
workshop format that that would obviously change the schedule and we would just react
accordingly. Ok. That's great. How, how, how would you guys gauge your comfort level
with moving forward on this? I'm very comfortable, provides clarity for the public.
So great. And there's a public comment on this. So after we, uh after our motion
is made, which we're ready for, we can, is there anything we want to say on the fire
marshal be while we're here? So all the fire marshal be? Thank you for bringing that
up. Actually, that's a great question. So the fire marshal bees will follow the same
path forward as the, uh, uh, per hour wise as the building fees and with the rest
of the OD CD, however, the farmers fees were established by resolution. So we don't
have to go through the ordinance process to take them out, put them back in. So it
would just be the, the same straight across the board hourly fees. Um, all of those
are based upon hourly rates. Great. I see there's a number of miscellaneous fees
that were added, but they all make sense. So, yeah, most to life. Right. Yeah. Miscellany.
Ok. The last question, Thomas, I'd welcome the motion
and I move that we approve the hearing notice so that it can be submitted by noon
Monday by noon today. The newspaper record to request a public notice on August 7th
and August 14th
to say for a hearing on Sure. I was just reading off the for hearing on the D CDC
schedule update and hearing or Yeah. Ok. Thank you. And I, and I can't get many words
out without starting to cough. So, thank you, Heidi a second. All right. It's been
moved and seconded and we do have a public comment on this. So we'll, we'll pause
here and ask if anyone, we don't have any public in the room, but anyone online can
raise their hand with the raise hand button or star nine if you're on the phone.
If you would like to make a public comment on this hearing. Let's bring Mr Cho Mhm.
Morning. Uh, you have three minutes, Tom. Hi, good morning. Thank you. Uh, commissioners.
Um, yeah, I had a couple of comments on this. First of all, I wanted to, uh, emphasize
that when I spoke to this, uh, topic, I believe it was the last meeting. Uh, my comments
were not intended to be critical of the current efficiency of these, of the department.
Uh, simply concerned that there were that there's nothing in here in what's being
proposed that encourages D CD to be as efficient as possible. In other words, they
can spend as many hours as they want to on a task and say, well, that's what it costs.
And there, there are no guard rails on that. So I don't know, I have no documentation
whatsoever to say whether D CD is currently operating as efficiently as possible
or not. So again, it's not a criticism of current operations but a cautionary note,
uh, and along those lines, uh, now D CD fees will no longer be, uh, subject to, uh,
passage by ordinance, uh, assuming this goes forward, uh, but merely by resolution,
um, as with all the other, uh, fees that are being now done this way. The concern
is that, uh, and, and across the board is that there, there are no guard rails, there,
there are no upper bounds on any of these things. The fees that are requested by
the departments are gonna be the fees that are gonna be passed and there's gonna
be a little less scrutiny because it doesn't come in the form of an ordinance. Uh,
that's, that's a concern and I don't know what the answer is to that, but I would
suggest that that some overriding, uh, guardrail be put in place, something
like using the I, the implicit price deflator as, as an upper bound for the rate
of increase. Uh in some of these, uh these labor fees, something like that, uh would,
would really be uh a little bit of insurance for the public to, to, to know that
things are not gonna get totally out of hand when it comes to the county's needs
to raise money for providing the services that, that the county provides. Um I, I
think that's about it with respect to, to these proposed increases. I do hope that
they are all reasonable and I, I definitely hope that the, the department will continue
to operate as efficiently as possible and we'll keep our fingers crossed. I hope
that the department also actually does what they say they're going to do when it
comes to certain fees. Like for example, when I had uh a re roof done on my house
and when I had solar panels put on, nobody came out to do the inspection. In either
of those two cases, nobody physically showed up on my site. What the heck was I paying
for the county provided to me? No benefit for that. That fee, a fee is supposed to
be charged for a service provided. D CD provided no service. All I did was collect
my money. Uh Of course, I brought that concern to the attention of the previous director
and I was just laughed at. They said no, no, no, never happened. No, no, you must
be wrong. Well, I was not wrong. I wasn't lying. They were not talking about the
current director, but I hope that behavior has improved anyway. I'll get off my soapbox.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr Chair. And we'll respond to all public comment. Uh, after
we, uh, after we hear it all, so miss you right now, you can, uh, we'd love to hear
what you have to add to this, uh, topic about the fee, schedule update and hearing.
Um, good morning. I too would like to, um, uh, address the lack
of guardrails on D CD fees. Um, I think that there has to be, especially where consultants
are concerned. There are hours and hours and hours that could be added to something
that aren't really built in. And I think that there is as a, uh, propensity to add
a considerable amount of money to a project that could doom a project and could make
Jefferson County even further, uh, not a friendly county to work in. And I really
think we need to take a look at that before anything more is done. Thank you. Thank
you, Miss Darnell. Anyone else like to make a public comment on this hearing? We
are completing, make one more call. If you're in the zoom room, you can hit the raise
hand button or star nine if you're on the phone to make public comment on this uh
motion that is on the floor. All right, seeing no one else. I will close public comment
and I don't know Kate Heidi, any response to public comment before we move to the
vote. Well, it sounds like the comments about guard rails on the increases are not
directed at D CD but more of a whole cloth, you know, some kind of overriding policy
around a cap on fee increases or something. So, um, I don't know how we would achieve
that, but
yeah, but I just like to say like the second footnote says that once the base fee
is exceeded, we will notify the applicant if there's additional fees. I've been doing
permits on the peninsula for like 21 years. I've never gone over the base fee once
and I'd be real reluctant to basically have any of my staff go over that base fee
and it have to be a really good reason for that. I'd like to add during, um, you
know, when Greg was addressing the highlighted items on, on the, uh, the fee schedule,
how, how many of those, uh, where he reduced the number of hours. And so I would
say that validates our approach to fee setting and you know, costs in the county
go up and if they don't recover fees uh from applicants, then the general fund has
to fill in the void. No, and I would, that was gonna be my second comment is I appreciate
you taking a, a real look at this and looking at where fees are estimated hours may
be over, what, what the work actually takes. And I really appreciate that kind of
look at this. So thank you for doing that, Greg and Josh,
just to add to what Greg said there. Um The first thing that came to mind when I
heard the term gargis come up is that we are subject to the reasonable fees provision
in the law and it's referenced in the agenda request if anyone's interested, that's
the RCW that we have to follow. So I can't speak for other farmers and their fees
only for hours and that we are subject to that clause. So, um, that's, that's the
context in which we're proposing these fees. And also, as Greg mentioned, it's, it's
rare when we would exceed the base fee. It happens on occasion. It has happened.
Um, at least when I rejoined the county before Greg day, there was a complicated
case that was already in process and it's, you know, we're talking not just a public
hearing from the hearing exam three days worth of schedule for a public hearing.
And, and of course, the, the intention there was just to recuperate the cost as we
get the bill from the air examiner and pass it on to the applicant for those rare
but sometimes complicated projects. So that happens. Yeah. And I, and I would add
um, much like money and, um, Samantha on sewer fees where they showed where we are
relevant to other jurisdictions. Our fee appears reasonable. Uh, the same thing applies
here. I think there was one government that charged what 100 and 47 bucks per hour,
an hour and we're what, 1, 23. So I think that validates again. Uh, the approach
that D CD took in setting these rates, uh, subject to your approval in the public
area, of course, and, and point out too that, uh, you know, the regulatory reform
ordinance that we did in 2019, it's great to see that implemented in the open space
conversation we're gonna have later with D CD. I think that's a great example of
looking to reduce that regulatory burden. So I, you know, I have a lot of faith and
in the, the department as it's, as it's operating right now and, and trying to streamline
the operations and get these things, uh, you know, as efficiently as possible out
and they got money and, and appropriate 100% cost recovery is what we need to do.
So, I think this is, this is great and of course, we'll have more input on this as
we go through the, the hearing itself. So this is really, should we have this conversation?
There's one more topic that came up that, that I want to give Phil a chance to respond
to Mr Tier brought up a specific permit since and it was prior to my time at least,
and perhaps even prior to Phil's time, but definitely prior to my time as director,
I'm not, I don't know, I don't really think, I don't know enough about the specific
case to make a comment about it, but I wanted to give Phil a chance to talk about
the different kinds of inspections or what we look for in a solar. Absolutely. So
thank Josh, appreciate that. So yes, there are uh in a normal circumstance for any
type of a solar, be a roof belt, there is a little bit more uh of an involved process
it, if it's a ground belt, you know, so we do a little bit more land use for those
sorts of things, but even for a solar, for a roof belt for PV or for a uh roof replacement,
there would be at least one on site inspection schedule, so not sure exactly what
happened with this particular case. Um We more than happy to take a look into it
or, or who um was uh you know, the time, how long ago. This was, you know, I, I definitely
don't remember this particular case. So I believe it may have been prior to my uh
tenure here at the county. Um But yeah, uh typically we do have at least one
physical inspection that would happen on each one of those over the counter type
permits. Um Usually sometimes there's a follow up to it if there is a re roof is
kind of hard to, uh, we have had reinspections on re roofs, but it doesn't happen
very often. You know, usually it's more, uh, water heaters that didn't have correct
strapping, that sort of a thing that m, you know, minor things that either we have,
uh, taken pictures of and when we, uh, have that done through an email or, you know,
we do a second site inspection. Uh, but yes, we do inspect, uh, anything that we
collect a fee for. We do provide a service for. So I think that that was isolated
incident. Like I said, I'd be more than happy to dive into it, but, all right, great.
Thank you, gentlemen. Anything else ready to? Ok. Well, I will, uh, we've got a motion
on the floor to approve the, the request for a hearing on these, uh, uh, fee. Um,
all right, fee schedule update. Uh, I will call the question all in favor, indicate
by saying hi, hi, hi in the post. All right. That is unanimous and we're done just
in time to jump into the uh the next item, which is again, Phil, and I'm not sure
if Brian Spacer is online, but thank you, Josh. Thank you, Greg. And uh please come
on up, Phil. And do you have a, a document you want to share? You got a slide deck
with this, right? I believe that. Uh
ok,
Brian, do we expect Brian to come over? Uh No, thank you for coming today. I'm so
sincere fire marshal in the building. Official production account. Brian Tre unfortunately
is on a uh wildman call though and couldn't join us this morning. He's meeting on
the DNR. So I'm gonna try to get through this the best that I can. We did write it
together and we had uh originally uh decided to, to share different slides. So uh
can you try a Tracer voice for his slides? Yeah, I to try. Yeah. Uh but we will uh
still still should be able to give you all the information that you need to and be
able to have a conversation about this. All right. So a little bit, uh so this is
for the resource resource request for the office of the fire marshal. And yeah, and
commissioners. Um what we're experiencing here is a little time lag where we created
a function and I, we were counting on uh the grants and uh a revenue stream
that uh neither of which have materialized. And so, in order to ramp up the program.
Um We're requesting um about 83,000 to equip the office
to ramp up the programs that the board is approved and that are in our code. And
um so, um anyway, given, given the recent economic news, it, it's sort
of tough to ask for 83,000, but, you know, I'm very supportive of the request and
um I'll let, they'll work through the specifics. Thank you very much. So, this is
just a slide. I explain a little bit about what the, what does the fire marshal need.
So, uh as you on the board, obviously know, uh I'm pretty familiar with what we do
but for, for public clarity, uh I cherry picked a little bit out of uh chapter 2.4020.
Uh, the fire marshals should be responsible for fire and life safety inspections,
fire and arson investigations and review for compliance with fire and life safety
regulations and other associated duties as further prescribed in JCC 1505 020, which
is uh our, our building section uh of penny. Um, one of the other bullet points there
is and the fire marshals will be responsible for any duties assigned under the Jefferson
County code to the fire code official or to the fire marshal. The fire marshal office
is the county authority having jurisdiction and his response was the fire code official
across all of Jefferson County. So we do plan review inspections, investigations,
uh addressing and road naming, uh enforcement of burning regulations uh per our newly
instituted uh outdoor burn uh regulation code, uh monitors atmospheric conditions
and communicates with interested parties. So that is a big chunk of what we do. We
have a lot of standing meetings with the uh the Fire Chiefs Association and all of
the different districts around um the county to make sure that we are still at uh
an appropriate burn level restriction. Um And that we have uh science and that we
have uh atmosphere conditions are reflected what we have uh currently selected. Um
And that goes in the last one, there establishes the fire danger risk levels and
corresponding restrictions.
So start up challenges. So this is actually this is a recent event that we had uh
over off of the Shine Road. We had an incident uh where Brian and I responded um
to uh to do an investigation. So those were actually personal vehicles because at
the time we had a vehicle for D CD in the, in the office in the uh in the shop. Uh
it was down for repairs. Uh We went to go grab another vehicle and that vehicle didn't
have an appropriate on a fuel on us. So we just forget it. We loaded up our gigs
and went um the funding needed for equipment, equipment for investigations, uh record
management, software for inspections and investigations, uh communications with Jef
Com and fire and law enforcement partners uh training to stay current with certifications,
commercial and short term rental inspection programs are, are, that's what we're
trying to get off the ground. We actually have sent out, started to send out um annual
inspection uh reminders for the short term rental program. So we just started out
last week. So we're really excited to get that uh program at the moment. Uh public
notification and outreach. We're currently limited to social media and county website.
You know, we really don't have any kind of an advertising budget or anything like
that. Um So it's kind of we're able to do, I mean, um Wendy Davis has been great
about getting stuff on the county website and uh getting a word out there. We were
utilizing a lot of QR codes and, and links that link back to our web page, uh especially
with the short term rentals, um have all the forms and things there uh trying to
help that out. Um We'll see how it goes, haven't, it's too early to tell. We haven't
had a lot of uh uh response, public response from it yet, but uh even with somebody
who is a relatively technolog, technologically advanced, you know, having it in a
QR code and then having the link and everything is pretty straightforward as to what
needs to happen and go forward. Um And that also helps us from having to send out,
you know, a four page permit application or a questionnaire or anything like that
and then have that, have them return it to us. We can also take fees online as well.
So there's a lot of streamlining things. We've already started off, um, without having
to re invent the wheel. So that's really nice. Uh, also funding, you know, eventually
future staffing we're looking to do in a clerk hire, um, that sort of thing, not
really part of this presentation, but just something to uh to have the note of.
So vehicle need. So our number one need at this time, the vehicle sharing uh has
not been an ideal solution um is necessary to implement the short term rental and
commercial inspection programs. So soil, clothing and gear and evidence collected
should be contained. A clean cab which is percentage andre is the industry standard
for staff safety. Uh Crew cab F 150 was selected as the best solution to fill the
needs that we have. We worked with uh food services with Josh Montgomery. Um to come
up with what available options that we would have in the state bid process. Uh Crew
cab configuration provides the maximum flexibility to drive storage, uh confidential
interviews and uh personnel seating, um uh canopy and a bed organizer. A bed slide
provides the best use of the carnival area than in the back of the truck. Uh We work
with fleet again to investigate second life vehicles. Uh We started this process
back when, uh, uh, previous fleet manager was, was in and, uh, started having this
conversation and they didn't have anything coming up, then they still don't have
anything. Now, for second life vehicles also lived across the state, uh, for second
life vehicles, um, which was not Josh Memory's first. Um, you know, first
choice for sure. Is that a fancy word? Is that fancy two words for, uh, used, yes,
satellite vehicles. Some has already been through service life and it timed out,
you know, due to age or mileage or whatever else. Um, so, you know, some of it is
already, you know, in Josh's mind, he didn't want fleet to be responsible, you know,
the shop, be responsible for something that's already, you know, pretty much a worn
out vehicle. So there's a reason that they're going to auction, there's a reason
that they're second. So, yes, uh, satellite vehicles aren't used vehicles. Uh We
did investigate an electric, uh, an F 150 lightning. Uh We did not select it for
various reasons which we can't go into here. Uh We invested, we investigated grant
opportunities. Um, we either not eligible or there, there's a lack of grant opportunities
at this time. Um Finishing the CWPP was a huge step in that you Hazard mitigation
program being eligible for direct funding. All those things are right down the road.
Um, but they're not going to be a very timely solution for what we're trying to do.
Um, are you gonna go into why you didn't? Absolutely. Absolutely. So we can do that?
Ok. I, I knew that you would ask that the commission. So, uh, one of the reasons
that we were, we did not, we looked into, uh, f 150 lightning. First thing we looked
at was, you know, range, what kind of range we, we going to get with an extended
battery, uh, which is an option on some of these, uh, vehicles on the state B uh,
it was about a 300 mile range is, is what they offer in a pickup and a and a four
wheel drive pickup. Uh, for the lightning when you hook up a trailer to it, those
numbers dip significantly. Uh, they go down to about 100 and 27 mile range. Uh Now
we're not, we don't plan on towing, but we are gonna have a canopy on it. We are
gonna have gear in the back of it, probably close to 1000 pounds of gear. What we,
what we anticipate by the time we get the, the canopy, the bed slide and all of our
gear in there. Um, so we, we expect that we probably would have a shortage of range,
not entirely sure what that would be. Um, and in order for us to get around, it's
not uncommon for a building inspector, uh, to put 354 100 miles a day on a vehicle.
Brandon Brown. Uh, one of our, he's, he's, he's, he loves to drive and, uh, there's
not a problem for him to hit all of the, uh, county lines in one day. So if we were
to take the same vehicle, we need to respond to something out on the west end. Uh,
we have a possible lack of infrastructure of car dealers, things like that. Also,
the other thing is if we're out for the day and then we come back and then we get
a call, you know, I'm sorry, you'll have to wait, we have to wait for the truck to
charge. Um, if we were to be, uh, on call and we would have, uh, one of these vehicles
at home, how would we charge it? You know, Brian or I, you know, we, we anticipate
uh, sharing an on call schedule. Um, you know, as well as having a, a charger at
the office. Um, a few other things we looked into too is, you know, one of the primary,
uh, uses of this vehicle is going to be a disaster response vehicle. What we can
do, you know, after, uh, if there is an event, chances are that the infrastructure
is probably gonna be gonna go down, we probably have electricity. So how will we
charge it? Will we have a generator? Um, you know, what would be the options for
that? We can go a little bit further, you know, with one of the Wix cars that we
have, uh, or, you know, again, we have multiple places of fuel inside of the count.
Uh As long as those are still up and running, but don't, wouldn't have as much access
to charging ports. Um So those were the concerns that we have going into it. Uh I
will say the D CD, I, I'm uh a part of the conversation with fleet for the rest of
the vehicles in the D CD. We are investigating electric vehicles for other uses,
but don't think that it was a great fit for this particular vehicle in the way that
we intend to use it. Ok.
Uh The one time hospice for a vehicle with upgrade uh with up fitting, you know,
which was the decals, amber lights, those sort of things. Um The mechanic that I
talked about was a $67,943. That's the, this the vehicle on uh the just basic
truck on state bid came in about $49,000 and the rest of it was up fitting um some
radio equipment, that sort of thing. Um that would go into it. Uh The ongoing cost,
we need to break this down just a little bit. So the ongoing cost for it, that was
actually what we estimated if we were to rent the entire vehicle through sleep services
would be about $10,000 a year. Um And again, that would be if we were to, to rent
it. So that wouldn't be, there wouldn't be the one time cost, you know, if we get
an appropriation for the vehicle expense, obviously, the ongoing cost would be much,
much less than that. So I was trying to, to uh indicate a little bit of a, there's
two paths that we can go there, you know, if we didn't do an upfront cost and maybe
there were an option to do some sort of a subsidy for the annual rental fee. Um,
and it, it would go down to about $4000 or so, uh, per year would be the fee for,
uh, annual maintenance, uh, fuel and a, um, replacement program that we have through
fleet. So about $500 would be the actual vehicle rental fee. I'm not in a
year a month. Yes, I'm sorry? Oh, a month. I, I'm sorry, it was about 4000 total.
Correct. I do pay about $4000 a year for the fuel and the maintenance and everything
like that. You know, the remainder of the, that $10,000 that roughly $6000 would
be the actual expense. And is that estimated for 10 years or
correct? This is based upon a 10 year cycle about 100 and 20,000 miles. Uh, we estimated
about 12,000 miles a year. Um, which is what we based off of the, uh, public works
vehicles. That's what we use as a, as a comparison uh through fleet services with
Josh's breakdown.
Ok. It looked like there was a concern about a life expectancy of an electric vehicle.
There could be that there was a little bit of a concern about that. When we had looked
at an electric vehicle, Josh suggested that we use less than a 10 year life cycle.
Um, again, don't know what that would be exactly, you know, for the way that we would
use it. Um, but he was putting it to more in like the 67 year range, uh, which would
bring the overall cost per year up a little bit. That deal on maintenance would be
a little bit less, quite a bit less. Uh, one of the things is too, when we do select
a vehicle, uh, we were looking at uh, optional equipment. I don't even know what
we're gonna use for an engine and everything we did. Uh, look at the, the base model
uses a, uh, I believe it's a 5 L V eight and we were looking at the, uh, 3.7 L V
six. so it was a more economical option, um, smaller engine, a little bit, uh, better,
uh, life expectancy a little bit better, uh, uh, repair cost on those. Um, and these
are all fleet vehicles that, uh, fleet is familiar with and that they have access
to everything and these are the same as other vehicles that we have in the fleet.
So it's nothing that's a one off that would require special filters or anything like
that to stock all of this. The, the things are uh the same as, you know, the other
vehicles that we have that the county. So I have to say that when I read through
agenda yesterday, I was like, I feel like I'm getting nickel and dime to death on
this electric vehicle mandate that we set for ourselves of moving fleet to electric.
And I get the range issue and I get emergency response and the need for this. But
I'm starting to get frustrated with every vehicle coming along being a gas vehicle
for, for some reason, you know, and it's time for us to start finding reasons to
move to electric as, as a county family because we said before I was even a commissioner.
So it was on Greg and Kate and we, we do have a workshop coming up with public works
and I know I've heard that too, but I just, I just feel like I'm getting nickel and
dimed on this issue. And I feel like, as, you know, the days get hotter and I thought,
oh, wouldn't it be great if our fire marshal vehicle was electric? That would really
be a statement. But I get it, that range is a concern. And, um, I just, I'm,
I'm, I'm starting, I, I haven't gotten frustrated much as a commissioner but I'm
starting to feel frustrated on this one because it keeps, I just feel like this is
just one truck or it's just one car and I'm just got like, uh, so anyway, just wanna
share my frustration and hope that we just in the spirit of, I hope we could really
commit as a community to moving to electrification. II, I think it's, it's, uh,
it's a game changer and it's something we have to do. It's not something, it's not
a nice to have anymore. It's a need to have. I'll echo that a little bit and amplify
it. You know, I'm unlikely to go out of the normal budget cycle and approve this
truck. But if it was electric, it would be very different. Um, so you were getting
into the backdraft kit. Now, I love the backdraft kit, obviously, stuff that you
need. Probably not what you call it. But, um, yeah, I'm, I'm in the, in the same
boat, you know, every time there's an excuse not to use it. And I understand it's
challenging. I have an electric car that goes 70 miles and I use it. I live 30 miles
from anything and it's still fine. It takes a little bit of thought to plan it. But,
um, you know, outside of the normal cycle coming in for another gasoline engine and
I'm inclined to say no, I was inclined to give him our bolt because it just sits
out there. I just had a quick comment. I know I don't want to. This issue is certainly
way beyond D CD. Yeah. And I don't want, I have a particular issue and Mark did say
there's a workshop coming up. I just want to say quickly that when the last time
we spoke with fleet about our own set of vehicles, we did say, hey, we've got a vehicle
that, that's nearing the end of his life, if not there already. And we, we picked
out an electric vehicle, but remember we don't have a charging station there at Castle
Hill yet in the back. So we're not, we're not at a place, at least from our perspective,
just as customers and users of the vehicles, we're not ready to actually just convert
our fleet because we don't have those stations. I understand there's a grant that's
in the works that was gonna be for a lot of charging stations and maybe that's window
down to, to a number that could actually be accommodated in that back parking lot.
And by the way, there's activity going on in that back parking lot right now replacing
some old sheds with a whole new source system that health is doing. And, and all
this other thing, all these other things going on, I guess what I'm saying is like,
we're poised to be able to at least take one in a small D CD group of vehicles, but
we're not actually ready because there isn't actually a charger there to charge for
so we can go out and do business. I mean, there's a level three charger that's never,
never occupied down by the, uh, you know, the chamber and there's, uh, there's chargers
all over the place. Um, and it's 1000 bucks to get, you know, if you've got a fenced
backyard that you could put it in. Yeah, put a charger in. It's 1000 bucks. It's
like, uh, you know, it doesn't even have to be one of these, uh, charge point ones
that prevents anyone from using it. If it's in a locked area, it's really $1000 and,
and an existing, you know, 50 amp circuit, you know, it's, it's, uh, I have one at
my house. But, yeah, no, I mean, I, I've installed one before, you know, uh, but
so I don't know, can I, can, I chime in and I, um, you know, agree that this is,
it's a much bigger discussion than, um, one vehicle at a time. The problem is this
is we, we've only had the conversation, one vehicle at a time. Um, but I just, I,
I'm, I'm worried about being a source of misinformation and, uh, you know, we haven't
heard from, um, Josh on this yet but the, um, is that right? Is it Josh, the, the
new fleet manager, Josh Montgomery. Josh. Um, but, but, you know, I, I'm, I'm just
super curious, this shorter life cycle or lifespan of a electric vehicle which is
exactly the opposite of everything I have heard. So, um, I just don't, don't, don't
wanna, um, not point that out that I think that that is, uh, again, curious to hear
his rationale, but there's a lot of misinformation about electric vehicles and I'm,
I, I don't want that to be fueling our decision making.
Not what we're talking about today. Tell us about, uh, the mobile module. All right.
So, uh moving on to, to technology. So there's a Tyler product out there. It's called
the tire, the tire fire prevention mobile module. So this is a, an add on that we
can get through Tyler. Um It is compatible with our current Epo system. It's not
for the current Epo system again. Uh Inter GV is not formatted for new expand needs
right now. You know, we basically set up as a kind of a building inspection module
and it's a little bit of a square peg in a round hole. Uh the module, this new module
that I'm proposing the fire protection module allows for inspection reports to be
emailed at time of inspection, which we have that functionality through the current.
It's very, very nice um to be able to just email somebody right there then and there,
when you're doing their inspection, we've had really good luck. Um a really good
response from the public with that. Uh We have increased functionality over the building
as much as software. So I kind of touch, it allows for code insertion reports. This
is huge. This is something that I wish that we had on the building side. Um You basically
have a code library and you can just pick and choose from that and attach it to the
uh to the inspection report, you know, as you go, which is really cool. Um We do
have uh function, we can take pictures of things currently with our building inspection
module. Uh but we don't have that code library, which would be great. Um This also
has integration with jet com and the C ad software. So the C AD software is the computer
computer AED Dis bench. This is one of the things that um as we go along, we can
actually download blueprints and things like that so that they're available among
all of our uh first responders. So that would be super critical. We have some of
that capability now, but this would really streamline it. Uh So it, it also allows
for a reporting mo a reporting website if you will. So where for $3.50 that the,
the property, the business owners um if they have third party inspections or if they
have new um uh sprinkler uh confidence testing, anything like that, they can, they
can submit a report for $3.50. The current program that we have is a company called
Tres. It's about $15. So a lot of times that's just a pass along fee, but uh again,
$3.50 is quite considerably less than, uh, than the current technology that we have.
Um, this module would collect a 5% technology fee for, to pay for the continued maintenance.
So that should be pretty much budget neutral. Um, just along with all of the other
EPL stuff. Um, all of the permits I should say would collect a 5% technology fee.
Uh It is a cloud based data retention system. So we currently don't have anything
cloud based to my knowledge and talking with it through Tyler. So this would kind
of be a nice guinea pig uh to try out their cloud based system and how exactly works.
Uh It wouldn't require any space on an on site server. Um The fee for the for the
technology is a uh about $6700 exceeded for the one time cost to purchase it. And
then it has an annual maintenance of above $4200. And how much do you think the technology
fee, do you have an estimate of how much that would raise that 5% or so? Depending
on? So, if we just took our and, and this is uh there's, I do have some projections
on that. It depends on exactly what kind of uh response we get to when we do our
short term. I also, we start setting those up again. We have, what is it 4 to 500
of them that are currently, I mean, right there alone, you know, 5% for each one
of those. Um, we do have close to 500 businesses that we've identified in the county
right now. We're, I don't really trust that number. We're kind of cherry picking
through them because a lot of them go through, uh, uh, the zip code based system.
So we're trying to back the ones in the city out. I think the ones that, that are,
that would be our responsibility. Um, but we would be looking at 5% on potentially
up to 1000 paragraphs.
I know you to be budget neutral. That would mean $100,000 worth of permits. Right.
Um, I'm curious, Phil did, um, have we reached any, um, decision with the topic we
discussed at the IC G about, um, inspections, commercial inspections with the city
within the county or the city city within the city. Uh, the police Jefferson fire
and the city have, uh, signed an air local agreement. Uh, we are not a part of it
in this time, but the city is investigating, um, I've had some talks with them of
Olan as to whether, um, we would still be desired or wanted to be like on an on call
basis kind of a thing. So they're still, they're still sorting it out, I guess is,
is the best way that I can say they do have a plan in place to use existing staff.
Um But if they run into capacity issues, then they want to leave the door open for
us to be a part of that. The special programs. I know we had discussed too kind of
the, the um uh cost of inspections. Do you know if uh
where East Jefferson has landed on that? Are they, are they planning to do them free
of charge? Uh They are going to have to recuperate some of their fees. So how the
city chooses to do it, um, is still unclear to me. Ok. Ok.
Ok. So another, uh, product that we're looking at is the Tyler Tech Technology Crew
force. This is something that is being used um, across the county with other, um,
of our fire service and law enforcement partners. Uh This supports the, the department
goal then not shift burned. Other departments like law enforcement and fire. Uh,
this aids with communication, notification, incident, location, dispatch, and information
sharing. Uh, what we have here is a fee of $900 that would cover two licenses and
I'll support two phones and two tablets. And this gives us real time data for fire
and safety issues occurring across the county. So this is, this is a screenshot of
exactly what true force looks like. This was actually, uh, an incident that happened
last week on Center Road. And so it's kind of hard to see there, but it gives you
a case by a step by step, you know, uh, incident started who's responding, who's
on scene when they inter scene, when they clear scene. Um, at this point, you know,
it's just Brian and I it's pretty small group. So we to text each other, you know,
different things, you know, if we're not on the same place, just that we keep tabs
on each other for safety purposes, you know, uh, entering scene, clear scene, you
know, I got a text from Brian last night at about 10 o'clock that he had just gotten
back in, um, from an incident, Alan mccoy. Um, now that fire down in a boo, you know,
and he's, he's back out there again this morning. Um, but there's, uh, this would
just be really nice because it not only loops us in, but this would loop in all of
our partners, you know, when, when we're on scene, it gives us kind of a location
and, you know, like, hey, uh, you know, uh, Brian or Phil never left the scene like
what's going on, you know, before, uh, you know, whoever leaves is the last to leave
the scene, they can kind of, you know, do, do clean up and make sure that, you know,
uh, that everybody either accidentally did log out, which is usually the case. Hopefully,
you know, where there's actually an issue that we have somebody that's, uh, you know,
in need of, you know, some help can I ask one question. Does this mean that, that,
that uh the fire marshal's office would be like a, a user agency in Jefro. So that's
one of the things that we're discussing right now is that in one of the slides, I
believe there's another slide in here that we were talking about uh communications
equipment and things in radios. So we would be able to receive, we are still investigating
on how exactly we can fit in Jeff K and be a user of Jeff K. Um, you know, we've
had conversations with, uh, you know, both with fire districts with, uh, Matt Stewart,
the director of je com as well as, um, uh, Andy Pernsteiner trying to figure out
exactly how we fit into the overall, uh, system of job call. Whether we can have,
uh, an ability to broadcast, let them be able to receive, but maybe honestly broadcast
on the, on the call. Um, the issue at this point is that there's really no way for,
uh, Jeff Com to text us or to call us. Um, there is in a later slide show that there's
a, a pager option, you know, that we're gonna accept. Uh, well, they can hit a button,
they can send out a tone it, you know, tell the fire marshal as well as, you know,
I've talked to other jurisdictions, um, and how they do it and it's kind of all over
the place. Um, but a lot of them do have some sort of a paging an on call pager system.
Uh Some of my radio access, some of them do not. Um As small as we are in this,
excuse me, kind of remote as everything is. It would be really nice that radio access
we're gonna try to pursue that option. Um But that could be a little bit of an uphill
battle. Gotcha. Thank you or undetermined. I shouldn't say uphill, undetermined.
Um So if we took all those technology expenses and put them in maybe uh about $7600
for both the, the crew force and the uh the fire prevention.
Can I ask a question? Um So just since you pulled up the quail incident there, which
I was following a little bit yesterday. Um So what is the, the role of the fire marshal
in an incident like that where you obviously have East Jefferson involved DNR was
involved, you know, number of a number of agencies. Um What is the fire marshal's
role there? So that one was fire district two, that was Willa and we actually got,
got contacted by them um to request that the fire marshal come out and have a a and
do an investigation. Um Brian went out there and took a look. Um And did you do kind
of preliminary and then is going back out again today with DNR with the DNR fire
investigator? So we are, Brian previously had a um an inter local DNR. We're
pursuing that right now, but unfortunately, DNR is busy as they are with everything
that's going on across the state is not super responsive. Uh, but we are in contact
with all the right people right now to continue that, um, that partnership, uh, with
DNR in order to be able to, uh, be on scene on things that are within Jefferson County
in the, um, fire district does not do those investigations typically. So by, uh,
the fire, the fire district can be involved in those investigations as well. But
if you look at, uh, our chapter two in Jefferson County code, everything defaults
to the fire marshal. And so we're currently working through those inter local agreements
also with the fire districts. Um, there's been a very confusing system of inter local
agreements in the past. So, uh, the desire the, the way that I understand is for
the fire marshal kind of be the clearing house for all that. Um, I still allow districts
to be able to do those type of activities within them. Um, but the fire marshal would
be the holder of all that when it comes time to, uh, go through the WSRB, uh, state
Survey and Ratings Bureau, uh, rating system for the different districts. We would
be the keeper of all the investigations and the, uh, the inspections. We would be
the authority having jurisdiction for all that stuff. Robert De Niro and backdraft.
You. Yes, it's so interesting though because we, we didn't, you know, we had a, a
fairly inactive fire marshal program previously. So I'm, I'm surprised to hear that
it's that in our code that's actually where the responsibility lies for that because
we didn't have that function until very recently. Right. A lot of that change in
that 2020 22 more events, uh, which pretty, pretty, basically spells out everything
that the fire marshal is responsible for and it's, it's all just about everything.
Um I don't know what the original desire for that was. I wasn't a part of that process
when it happened. Uh But if that was gonna be handled through a series of inter local
agreements with the local districts or, um, I, I don't know what the, the original
intent of that was, but what, what we have right now, um with, with chapter TV, basically
says now that we have an established fire marshal, a lot of the districts are pushing
back and, you know, no, I shouldn't say pushing back. That's not, not the right time.
Um They're just now that there's an established fire marshals like great, we have
somebody that's responsible for doing those type of activities. Um And my goal with
the, uh you know, if we, we take a kind of 50,000 mile view of this, it would be
to get those inner locals going. And I've got a lot of really good examples from
uh local jurisdictions, um, that have implemented a similar process to where the
fire marshal is basically the clearing house for everything, but for low level inspections
for, you know, certain things that the fire districts could do those with certain
minimum training requirements. So, and that's what a lot of it comes back to. Also
with the, the surveying Ratings Bureau when they rated is, do we have people that
have the credentials to do what they're doing all these type of investigations? Well,
and to re-establish all of that with the local districts? Yeah. And, uh, I mean,
just to, to, you know, as a reminder that people pay a lot of money
to fire districts and their, through their property taxes and, but it seems like
a lot of this work is getting shifted to the county that does not have dedicated
funding for this work.
Um, a again, like I said, I, I don't know exactly what the intent was when we had
that original ordinance, uh, where all this changed to establish the officer, the
fire marshal, uh, back in 2022. But, um, it points a lot of, uh, responsibility to
the fire marshal themselves. You know, traditionally fire marshal was, uh, established
in a local agreement with a local district. Um, but that is no longer the case. So
one quick note on that and I also wasn't here. I did rejoin the county in 2022 but
it was the summer time. I believe that or who this was done in the, in the earth,
the late winter, early spring group. So either way, my understanding, knowing discussions,
preliminary discussions about new interlock agreements with the fire districts. And
our office is that the fire districts point out that their statutory responsibility
is for responding to fires and suppressing fires and also emergency response for
ems services and so forth. And it's the office of the fire marginal statutory responsibility
for things like investigations, inspections and education is something we share.
And so the, the way things were done before, I don't know, I think we did the things
our own way. Every county does things a different way. I've been feeling that as
Bill just mentioned that the duties of the office of the Bar Marshal were essentially
handed from the county back to the districts willing to assume those for those taxes
that they were assessing as, as commissioner Dean points out. But there's certainly
the message from the largest of our, our districts. Now he starts a fire rescue is
that they refocusing on the statutory responsibilities and having to work with us
on these other responsibilities. But we do have the trained personnel, the fire marshal.
Now, the deputy fire marshal who, of course, as you know, was working for, he serves
in fire res and rescue and has all those intentions.
Well, and maybe it's, um, you know, I'm realizing that we probably should have been
talking about the associated cost of, of setting up um this new uh
office or division or um whatever you called it. Sorry, my brain is a little foggy
with a bad head cold. Um You know, in, in while we were creating these additional
authorities um by ordinance. So, um I'm, I'm just feeling a little surprised that
we, we weren't planning for all of these expenses um and doing them as a one off
instead of saying, oh, wow, this is really like a whole big new effort that we need
to be considering long term funding for. Um, seems like a, a little bit of a, a missed
opportunity. Well, we did have a discussion about revenue generated by the new office
and once it's up and running fully and all the inspection regimes are in place and
the inspections are actually occurring and the fees are being collected. And I, I
think at the time we talked about this, um, you know, our county matures. Um, you
know, this is a function of a more mature county um infusing some professionalism
in into the program. And, you know, we just had a meeting, uh was it last week with
East Jefferson fire to clarified relationships. And now we're gonna have a follow
on meeting with all the other fire districts to clarify responsibilities. And, you
know, Brett, uh Brett Black did say that they want to focus on their core statutory
responsibilities and, you know, they really appreciate what we're doing uh by establishing
this office. And so, um, you, you know, I did mention at the beginning that we have
a timing issue with, with funding. Um and in order to get the program up and running
these things are essential and I'm, I'm glad those conversations um are
happening and of course not, not, I'm not privy to all of them. But, um, you know,
I think too we did discuss then the just the concern about pushing all of the cost
of this on to residents and business owners who again already pay a fair amount of
their, you know, good chunk of, of um property taxes go to emergency services and
not fire districts specifically. But, um, you know, II I just want to be sure that
we're discussing the kind of fairness and equity and this came up in the discussion
of the specifically inspections within the city. If East Jefferson is going to do
those without a fee. And we in the county are going to be expecting our residents
and businesses to pay a fee when they are, they are paying me, many of them are paying
into East Jefferson um at the same rate that the folks in the city are so, you know,
just like hope that we continue to refine this and make sure that the um, the
uh fees and all of the revenues generated are being used most fairly. No
judgment of that. Thank you. For bringing that up. As as Phil mentioned, there is
an interlock agreement now between East Jefferson fire rescue and the city of Port
Townsend. And so I don't want to speak on behalf of either of those entities. I was
though with Phil, part of early discussions about a possible three way agreement,
there still is an opportunity for us to reach agreement with with those parties.
Uh really contingency services, backup plans. My understanding though, in just listening
to those conversations was that theirs is really a a transitional model right now,
Commissioner Dean. So for example, East Jefferson might be providing more services
than they than they normally would. Now, I'm not talking about what they've done
in the past. It's all about moving forward. They were saying they were basically
telling the city we can't do what we did in the past. We have to come up with another
plan. Um and we need cost recuperation and the city was saying that's a big transition
for us. We want to gear up, chance to gear up our own staff to be trained to do life
safety inspections and combine it with other inspections. And so I think they're
working really on a transition plan to cover what needs to be covered. This district
would be more likely involved in the the more complex cases like the hospital and
the port down the boat haven. Whereas the city would then quick, more quickly ramp
their ramp up training for their own staff to handle some of the smaller businesses.
Also, another context though is that there is a business license in the city of Port
Town. So businesses in the city and by state constitution, state law, what have you
are able to charge a business license? And I believe that some of the talk was that
if their fee setting would be based on the fact that just take into consideration
the fact that they're paying an annual business license, the county does not have
a business license. So we're more on it. Just 100% fee recovery cost us as much to
do these firelight, keep safe and saves the inspections, which we should be doing
both by law and by ethics. And so we're doing that and that's, that's what we'd be
recuperating in our fire life safety special program just like say the health department
does, but there's similar, uh, similar public benefit goals, a different, slightly
different situation again because they sit, the, the business is my understanding
that we don't have the business license through the city. Right. And I might add
that the, uh, in, in order for Bayside to, um, take the place of Holy Cap, uh, running
the shelter at the legion, uh, the county had to pay $99 for a fire life safety inspection.
So they, they are charging a fee for that service. Maybe not to the businesses. But,
um, but certainly the county had to pay it
a, I mean, I, I would just have it. I'm grateful that we're buttoning this up and
getting organized in this way. I mean, just based on all the risks that we're seeing
in our society these days with climate change. And I mean, I can't tell you, I wake
up in the middle of the night when those sirens go by. I live right next to Sir Andale
Road and that's a, that's a freeway in my part of the county. So, um, I'm super grateful
for the work you're doing, Phil and that you're mobilizing in a very organized way.
Thank you for bringing that up. Commissioner Eisenhower. It reminds me of another
point I wanted to make. Which is that luckily in the past, we've had very few
fires are required fire investigation. Yes, we've had some but fairly infrequent.
And so that hasn't been a cost that we could even predict or budget the specific
amount that we knew pretty much knew we were gonna spend that year. Um, remarkably,
since Phil has ramped up this office, since Deputy Tracer has come on board. Uh,
we've, we've had a fair number of instances, unfortunately, and we think that that
might be the way of the future, but I guess I wanted to make the point that in terms
of the budget of the office, yes, there are ramp up costs and that's what we're here
to talk about today. Absolutely. Ramp up costs. And as, as county administrator pointed
out, we have a plan for recuperating the cost for investigation. It's the uh sorry
inspection, fire safety life safety inspection. It's the investigation piece. That's
a wild card and really frankly always has been and always will be in the sense that
we don't know how many fires we have to respond to. We don't know what our role will
be in there. There may be a criminal element to some, some of, of what's happening
lately. And that brings a whole new, uh, expense and, and the sheriff's office obviously,
and the prosecutor attorneys would be involved in those kinds of instances anyway.
And it's hard to recuperate cost of those once in a while you can find and you could,
you could basically ascribe the responsibility to a party and that party is responsible
for paying those costs through report process. That's what DNR does when they try
to see what started the wildfire. And it happened to be because of a train track
or a power cable or something then, or a, a person said it and they could actually
be traced to that person, then you could possibly recuperate those. But you have
to be prepared to do the investigation anyway. And without, uh, without the promise
of being compensated.
Ok, to move on. All right. Yep. Onward. We might be. Yeah. All right. So, equipment
and gear. So we have here. So this is, uh, a lot of the minimum equipment, hand tools
that we have been acquired. That's one of the things we have in a couple of totes
that we've been playing, you know, uh hopscotch with the different vehicles that
we have available to us. You know, we have to move that equipment around each time,
you know, some basic shovels and rakes and uh uh some evidence collection equipment,
some of that sort of p uh some minimal PP, gloves and TVE suit, that kind of thing.
Um This uh securing this would secure would support our mission and duty consists
with our county code, uh a wildfire pack, a wind and a monitor and a handheld GPS.
Um Are some of the things on the list uh pagers which I briefly touched on earlier
to dispatch from Jeff com. Let's picture one up there in the upper left hand corner,
um portable radio and charger for outer vehicle communication, uh miscellaneous hand
tools and now already acquired um just a few little odds and ends type things. Uh
We have been able to get some things to a normal uh budgeting stuff. Uh Total for
this portion of the equipment would be about uh $4886. Uh the next slide. So
this is the uh this is kind of the gold standard here. So if, if we were to do this.
So originally what I had wanted to do uh come to the pressure, it's kind of a tiered
system if you will. So the personal protective equipment, this would be the gold
standard would be this uh powered air purifier respirator, the Papper. Um these are
a great um option that have a rechargeable battery in them. Uh And with an integrated
hard hat. Um So it's a really nice unit uh to set up right now, we're using, we have
the ability to use half masks, which is a kind of a temporary solution. So again,
this is one of the things that I didn't want to include it in everything because
I want this to kind of be an add on. Definitely something that we would try to go
through once we get funding or something like that. But if we can include it in this
round, it'd be great. Um They're about 70 $1700 750 dollars each. Um If we were to
include this with the last screen, uh all the equipment and the PV U be 8300 and
$86 what's the life cycle of these blues? So these uh we have had at least five or
six years, maybe again, depending on who that. Usually it's uh the batteries are
we out before? I think the lithium ion battery and you can get replacement batteries.
Um But five or six years. Um no problem. I've been told they can go up to 10 with
a minimal maintenance, which is basically basically just filter and battery replacements,
but these are more likely to be able to be obtained through grants as well. Is that
what you were saying, potentially? Well, that would just be the next time that, that,
that I'm estimating that I'll have an opportunity for funding. That's probably when
we get into uh eligibility for some different grant opportunities. We have a temporary
solution. We definitely, we get these uh but this doesn't and immediately, but it's
definitely something that's on the list that we would like to see how. Yeah. And
originally, um as Phil said, uh, this was not part of today's ask, but as a risk
manager, I added it, uh, and ll and I claim for inhaling uh substances during
investigations and whatnot you think would, would be a risk. We'd like to avoid.
How many are you proposing we buy or two
my screen. So this is something that really doesn't, is loosely has something to
do with, not necessarily today, but definitely, uh the department of where we want
to go in the future. So Tyler also offers a business module. So again, this is an
introduction for future consideration. This is not part of today's bid. I just want
to start the conversation and let the board know. This is something that we're looking
into. Uh, this will um help several different uh departments, not just B CD.
Um And what this will allow us to do is to set up each one of those businesses or
each one of those short term rentals as a business and have reoccurring inspections
where automatically generate uh renewal notices, that sort of a thing. Uh We'll also
be able to uh well, go down the list here. Uh captures essential information about
a business. Uh for the jurisdiction allows management and processing for renewal
in your business license. And we wouldn't have, we wouldn't be issuing a business
license just to be clear, but we would set these up in much the same way. Um So we
would have an annual requirement. I would link business licenses, tax, Remittance
accounts and inspections to business records. It would be linked to permits, plans
and co cases. So everything will all talk to each other inside of uh inter gov. It
would be really cool uh to see all that integration in one day. Uh business license
administration for short term rentals, possibly expanded food establishments. Uh
There's a professional license uh management um component for it for like septic
professionals. Uh There's also the exam administration or septic professionals, you
know, as they come up on their annuals, you know, a lot of the stuff is, is based
on their environmental health. But um there's also operational permit management,
which is what we would be doing. We would call it an operational permit, these annual
inspections that we do, you know, you're good for a year. You have a uh an operational
permit to operate uh for, for, you know, get valid for a year. Um And so you would
have that renewal that would happen on an annual basis. Uh The next businesses and
contacts with businesses permits, co cases, everything. So everything again would
all be in one place. It would be just a nice place for it. Uh Future integration
with the CS S portal, uh which we just launched. Now, this is why it's not in today's
is because the investment cost is about $47,000. Uh It's about $21,000 for license,
about $22,000 for implementation and then about $4200 for maintenance. Um And this
is something that I've been working with Scott Carpenter a lot about um one of the
things that we would like to see happen. Um But again, I know this is one day ask,
but just something that I wanted to kind of put that, put that on the table and just
let you know that it is something that we're working towards, something that we do
want to include in the future. It seems like this is a bigger picture. This is definitely
a bigger picture today and that's why I said this is just an introduction. This is
for future consideration. I don't want to confuse any of the, the stuff that we're
out today, but I just wanted you to know that it is something that is definitely
at the forefront of our minds and that we're working toward and them I definitely
want to see happen in the future. And so would this be like used with business license?
Like if we started to charge for business licenses throughout the county, charge
for business licenses, but we do have uh more like the operational permits and we
also have like the annual permits, right? Um, and you know, temporary food establishments,
things like that, that happen on an annual basis. Also, you know, the septic uh inspections
will happen on an, an annual or every other year, every third year or whatever. Um
This would be a, a really great way to track that, but we don't really have a way
to do that currently. Um And so I, I, I'm here, you know, lobbying for my use of
it. Uh but it would help a lot of other, you know, uh environmental health and uh
possibly other um possibly public works. There could be, you know, in the future
if we're, but I don't wanna, I don't wanna speak for them, but, you know, if there
was a grinder pump maintenance or anything like that, you know, that was gonna happen
in the future that, that sort of stuff, there's options to go with that seems like
this would be a, a larger workshop and this also seems this also seems critical to
me, I mean, in terms of all the regular inspections that happen and everything to
track and definitely, and that's why I say that I just attended this today as a label
to top just an introduction for future consideration. It's not part of what I'm asking
for for today, but uh just something that I said, I want to start that conversation,
right? And if, if the board approves moving ahead with the ask uh for today, then
it's gonna take the bread and Phil quite a while to digest and implement all of these
other things. So I would say this is well out into the, but as we were, you know,
talking with Tyler with all these other things that we were looking at for the crew
force and for everything this came up. Um You know, it was definitely something that,
uh Scott Carpenter said, hey, if you can, if you want to throw it in there, you know,
this is, this is a great thing to start the conversation. I just, it's a nice segue
to get into. So, is this 47,000, would this cover all the departments? Yes. So it's,
it's, it'd be a larger budget conversation.
Oh, ok.
Right. So today's ask for the total one time vehicle software equipment and PV be
the uh the $83,000 again, ongoing uh for vehicle rent that is that if we did not
get a one time appropriation to buy a vehicle and unfit it and everything else, um,
annual rent would be about $10,200. So, and so if we rented a vehicle, where do we
rent vehicles? That's services, does it? So we would buy a gas powered truck and
then we would rent that from them basically. And, and if we were to, to purchase
one outright, uh with impro and then just have the additional uh again, the maintenance,
the fuel, everything else that goes with it, it was about $4500 a year, about $6000
of that is, is the actual cost the rest of them.
All right,
next slide is just next slide was
Stacy had the shot in the courthouse. Oh, it's beautiful. The northern lights. It's
lovely. It's just ok. Uh Questions before we get into the deliberation and then we
will have public comment before we take any action as the agenda indicated, Kate.
Anything to no hiding. I mean, I said my nickel and diming soap
soap box speech. Yeah, I mean, I'm, you know, I want to support the program. I'm
still, I guess I would probably suggest they continue to use D CD cars until for
the time being and, and buy all the rest of the materials. That's what I would support.
Mhm.
Well, are we gonna move right into deliberation? Yeah, we had no questions. Let's
get into deliberation. What do you think, Kate? Um Yeah, I'm just, you know, like
I said, I'm, I think I'm, I'm feeling a little bit of sticker shock and which I probably
should have anticipated when we created this office. Um, and didn't so my bad and
also want to support the important work that's being done. Um, but I, since I'm working
from home, I was just able to pull out my property tax statements and see that 20%
of my property tax goes to the fire district. And, you know, it, it's I, it, it's,
is a lot of, it sounds duplicative. Um and, you know, to, to certainly equipment
that the fire districts own and, but I, I understand the different authorities and
certainly understand the need for redundancies in um in, in this work as we experienced
last week, just with an internet outage, how um lack of redundancies, compounds problems.
So, um I, I'm, I'm having a little bit of sticker shock and, but also know that,
you know, we might just have to eat it and probably should have thought through a
little more of the um kind of ongoing costs associated with this office a couple
of years ago. Um And, you know, II I don't feel great about the using
more and more fees to recoup some of this because it's, again, you know, I just feel
like we, we already um pay a lot into a system that uh provide some of these services.
Um And so, you know, if indeed the general fund is where we're gonna be funding this
from, that's fine. It just gives me a little bit of heartburn. Now, during the meeting,
Kate with, um, with Chief Black, he talked about the, the two new trucks he ordered,
um, a million a piece. Um, and I think the wait time is 830 days to get those pieces
of equipment. And so a lot of the money that goes to the fire districts is for salaries
and benefits and, uh, for equipment. Her fire response.
Yeah. And we, we seldom need it and we're really, really glad it's there when we
do
and a personal, you know, individuals seldom need it, but certainly grateful for
it when we do need it.
All right, thank you. Hi. Um, open to the truck proposal knowing the range issue,
knowing that they drive 354 100 miles some days. I mean, Brandon drives 350.
Well, how would the four, tell me how a fire marshal would drive 400 miles in a day?
For example, like, one of the things that we have coming up right now is that we're
trying to plan a trip out to the west end to go to, like the Clearwater. They use
a different vehicle for that one trip. I mean, that's like if it was a response though,
it would be a little bit different. So then we got to have all our gear with us.
Well, I mean, you can te, you can charge the lightning at the Tesla place in swim,
which will take 15 minutes. You can charge it at the Tesla place and Forks, which
will take 15 minutes. I mean, it's like these are only problems that we haven't encountered
because we haven't encountered them yet. You know, I, I guess I'm, I'm, I've got
very little sympathy for yet another gasoline vehicle outside of the normal budget
cycle. So I didn't, yeah, I will vote for it if you had 20 to the 83 and mandate
in electric lighting. That's what we'll do. Um, I, I guess I feel bad mandating an
electric. You're saying it's not gonna work, that's fine. I'd say don't approve the
vehicle right now and consider if it can because I would approve an electric vehicle
right now. But I don't feel right saying, oh, this is, you'll get this or you'll
get nothing at all. I just say you get nothing at all. But that's there, there was
an additional cost for an electric vehicle, but you have to look at it again, but
I do believe it was 1000 120. Yeah. Yeah. And, but the life cycle co, I mean, the
yearly cost is a fraction of that $4000. So, and I, I mean, we all drive electric
vehicles and I put money into my old gasoline one. I don't ever put any money into
my, my new one except tires and you don't have to do brakes as often because it's
regenerative braking So it's like, yeah, I'm with Greg. I, I would
fully support all the other costs that you outlined, all the um tools that are needed.
All the additional p pe um that all makes. Yeah, and I expected cost for the fire
marshal's office to ca I mean, we were all all all there at the conversation and
that, you know, it is hard. But I think even then East Jefferson fire and rescue
is like, we're doing things that are outside our mandate and, you know, we, we gotta
take care of all that. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm ok, leveling up our capacity there and
I think it's, it will be good for the community. And, um, so I, I recognize that
cost so I, I feel some of the sticker shock too, you know, as you, as you start a
new program and of course, we're not gonna be able to do 100% cost recovery for the
fire marshal's office if there's 30 investigations, right? I mean, there's no way
that to recoup those funds. So recognizing that this is gonna be, you know, I mean,
we get at what, 4% public safety sales tax that pretty much just goes to the, um,
you know, into the general fund to the sheriffs right now and recognizing that we
have other public safety responsibilities that we had not been upholding is, you
know, it's, it's, it's a budget challenge, but I guess that to me. It's, it's not
a value question. I would like to see a two part proposal, all the other expenses
other than the vehicle and come back with a, uh, what it's gonna take us to get us
in an electric vehicle. I mean, I'd approve everything except the vehicle now that
I would do and they're asking for the Tyler, the big business, uh, uh, plug. I approve
that, but
I don't know. Ok, we're, we're, we're over here horse train. What do you think? Oh,
it's tough. I mean, like, I, I feel like holding, holding this office to
an electric vehicle policy that we haven't created yet, given that there are so many
other fleet vehicles that, um, have fewer challenges. Um, the, you know,
and I, I agree, like, I think, I think the challenges are insurmountable, you know,
and I, I drive the boat to Olympia all winter long and I'm, I'm aware of those challenges
surmountable or surmountable. I think they are surmountable. Um, but, you know, just
like it feels a little, a little weird to be holding this office to it when, you
know, there are so many fleet vehicles that would be uh much better candidates for
converting to electric right off the bat. But, you know, this is, happens to be before
us now and when we're all a little bit frustrated that we have, we, we don't have
this electric vehicle policy yet. So, um, you know, anytime you draw the line is
when you draw the line. And I, I just feel like, uh, you know, if we don't, we'll
just, it'll be another year before we have a policy and then, you know, we'll still
hear every use case. Oh, well, that doesn't quite fit our needs because we always
do it this way. So, I, I guess I'm, yeah, that's definitely set me up all night last
night. And the fact that, you know, there is one on the state list that, you know,
exacted for F 150. Like, you know, it is, it is, there is a, an option that, um,
you know, I, I think could work, but so I, I don't, I don't have a strong feeling
about it. I could go either way I could support the, um, uh, uh, kind of requirement
of, of purchasing an electric vehicle. Um, and I could also, uh, go along with moving
forward, um, until we get a, a better policy in place Countywide.
All right. Um, well, I guess, um, before we take public comment, if we wanna do a
motion, I don't know if anyone is inclined to, to make a motion or if you wanna talk
about it a little more, it would be good to know what the costs other than the vehicle
are. Like. Can you, can you do that math real fast? It's, you know, 67,000 out of
the 80 odd. Yeah, it was 16, 17,000 or something. Yeah, 49 was
the price of the vehicle plus outfitting was about 18,000.
So the total ask is 83 9 20.
Mhm.
Just doing a little math here folks. No, it is six making the Archimedes sausage
15, 985 for all other than the vehicle. 16 K.
Um I'm happy to make a motion that we approve up to 17,000 for the office of the
fire marshal, for all of the tools and equipment they need um, to get their programs
up and running and ask that, make the motion out of it
a second. Ok. It's been moved to approve the up to $17,000 for all the uh, equipment
requested by the office of the fire marshal, excluding the vehicle. Um, and we will,
I guess come back to the question of the vehicle after this motion. But, um, before
we take action, we will open it up for public comment. And anyone that's with us
in the public can hit the raise hand button or star nine, if you're on the phone
to make public comment about this particular motion, I'm coming over time. Ok. Ok.
Mm,
welcome, Mister Tt.
Good morning again, commissioners. Um I sincerely appreciate your uh, discussion
about the concerns about not having evs as, as I'm sure, you know, uh, you gotta
draw the line, you gotta draw the line and, uh, you know, this, this case isn't all
that specially use case. Uh, some of one of the things that, that always amuses me
though, when people are making these justifications is, oh, well, when the power
goes out, you won't be able to charge your car or when the power goes out, the gas
pumps don't work either folks. So, you know, yes, you can carry a gas can in, in
the, in the, in the bed of your, your truck and then you can't do the same for an
EV. But, you know, you need to either refine that argument or not use that argument
about when the power goes out. Um, the range of a, uh, standard F 150 is about 500
miles by the way. So, yeah, it's a lot more than, than the, uh, the, the lightning.
But as the Commissioner Brotherton pointed out, there are numerous opportunities
for fast charging now available and more coming online as we speak. So I, I think
that concern just really, really goes away. Uh, one of the things that caught my
attention in the request for equipment was handheld gps. Really? There's a gps in
every phone. Come on, folks, that one you really need to scratch off the list. Uh,
you've got, you know, and if there, if there are more than one person in the vehicle,
you've got redundancy, you got two phones. So, uh, uh, I, I think a little bit, uh,
a little bit more careful consideration of the equipment, uh, for ordinary items
like that uh would be in order anyway. Uh once again, appreciate the discussion about
uh to, to, to remove the uh the vehicle from this particular appropriation request.
So that's my comment. Thank you. Thank you, Mr T. We'll respond to all comments after
we get them all, anyone else like to make a comment on this particular motion?
Ok. Seeing no more, I'll close public comment and I don't know, Phil, Do you want
to speak at all to the, the GPS? I mean, I've, I've been with people where they,
it's a different tool than, you know, being able to send that to
that. That was part of the, uh, the Wildman kit. It would be part of the, uh, you
know, the win theme and a hand in GPS. If you're gonna be in the back country at
all, that's just, you know, we, uh, we may not have cell phone service or, you know,
other things. So there's a little bit of enhanced functionality there as well as,
you know, the trails, uh, your trail function and get in and get out, you know. So
it's difficult to get to topography and maps, things like that on your phone. So
that's, that's where that was coming from. Ok. Great. And they're waterproof and
they're water phones are waterproof too. I spend a lot, no, they're not, spend a
lot of time on the water. Not the same tool. Yeah, it's not the same tool for sure.
Yeah. Ok. Um, so we closed public comment. I will call the question on whether
to, it's been moved to approve the equipment request, minus the vehicle for the fire
marshals request up to $17,000 all in. Are there any more questions or comments?
Ok. All in favor of the motion indicate by saying II I, all right. Uh, that motion
such as it is passes. Um, and maybe we could talk a little bit about what, uh, we
individually and collectively would like to see vis a vis a vis vehicle. I don't
know, Heidi, I'd like to see staff not being relied on to use their personal vehicles.
Yeah. Um, that's, that's a, that's a ST for me has been in my past professional life
and I know it's a stuck for those folks. But I also, um, I think this is an opportunity
to do the right thing and I've learned with my little electric car, the charging
is very available. You know, you just have to have your map, know where you're going.
Yep, Kate, anything to add. Um, I, I wonder if, um, I
don't know if the, the workshop on this topic is scheduled yet. Um, but, you know,
might be, I, I guess, I think it would be good to discuss a little further the pros
and cons and maybe develop some criteria when we hold a, a department to this potential
new policy we're considering. So, um, I always default to wanting more information.
Um, even though I'm feel fairly informed on this topic. But, um, again, so it doesn't
feel like we're just signaling, pointing out, you know, holding 11 office to something,
uh, different than others. Like we could have a little more conversation with fleet.
Yeah, I think if we can get that workshop scheduled sooner, I don't know, Mark, do
you know, do we have a timeline for that Carolyn? Um I know we talked about it on
the agenda. Yeah. No, and it was kind of put off on the back burner for a little
bit. I think as it, as it has been, it has been. I know Monty had reached out and
um replied that they are working on other things currently but um I can bring it
back up again. Yeah, or yeah, I, I would, I would, if this wasn't uh a lightning,
I would have approved it today. I think Heidi would have as well. So, um if you guys
want to before we have that workshop, which is on the back burner again, let's say
we'd consider it. Yeah, that's why I suggested adding 20 to the ask. I know, I
just, it doesn't sound to me as though we can justify a gasoline powered vehicle.
So, yeah, in the meantime, there's, they got nothing. I mean, I if you, if you need
help getting the D CD vehicles gassed up so they're ready for you, I am sure we can
accommodate that too. But II, I mean, I guess, I don't know, maybe there's a, a real,
I haven't heard a good reason yet. That to me justifies it, but I also feel like
it's not our job to say you have to have this vehicle. I mean, we could, you want,
do you think it would be advantageous to give the budget capacity if they choose?
Well, I think they made their best case this morning and it failed. So I
don't see any other course of action other than pursue an electric vehicle and see
how it works. Um, well, I guess we, you wanna, we can make a motion to authorize
that ex expense. I don't know. I'd be curious if, if, I mean, it
feels concerns, you know, actually feel insurmountable. I don't want to push a $80,000
piece of equipment on someone who doesn't want it. Yeah, we definitely need to go
back to the drawing board and have that conversation. Yeah, I mean, I think bring
back a proposal to us in a week or two or, you know, whenever, um, sorry, sorry,
this is coming up now but it's, it's been again and again and I'm just not ready
to do any more of this. Rarely do. We get to come into this, uh, kind of go, no,
go point on a vehicle. So, you know, to Kate's point of we're doing this without
a policy. Like usually it, it comes after it's been worked into a budget and all
the way through and, oh, yeah, this is exactly what we need. So, I guess we're just
gonna push a little bit here. So they should go back and, and talk with Brian and,
and fleet to see if they can make it work. I mean, I think we would also support,
you know, getting a, a charger at the D CD. That gate does lock back there, right?
Yeah, so, I mean, you've got a secured spot. You don't need an expensive, you know,
proprietary charger. Just any Clipper Creek charger on a on a nine. Works great.
Yeah. Yeah, we have, we have a parking issue back there too, you know, you'll always
have a parking spot for the truck if you put in a charger. Yeah. All right.
Ok. Um, well, great. Thank you guys. And I guess that that concludes that unless
there's anything else.
Ok. Thank you very much. Great. Trust land transfer, trust, land transfer consultation.
Yes. Um, is Mr Hunter still with us?
Ok.
All right, Kate, you wanna see you later? Yeah, good to see you guys. You wanna see
this up the, the, the need for this conversation timeline or? Yeah. So, um, you know,
this has been a, a little bit of tag teaming since Heidi is our main contact with
DNR on the trust land transfer process. Um, and I've done a lot of the tribal relations.
Um uh It came to light in receiving a letter from The Point No point Treaty Council
in July that they were opposed to the four projects we have applied for uh with DNR
for the trust land transfer um because it was not apparent how treaty rights would
be protected. And this is on the um back of a number of uh circumstances
where uh tribal treaty rights have not been explicitly upheld in various state uh
funded um land related programs. And so, um you know, we're certainly concerned that
the tribes uh letter will cause our projects to not be ranked very high. Um In conversations
with the Bocc, we have all expressed our interest in uh upholding treaty rights and
willingness to uh put that into whatever instrument it needs to be. So, um let's
see, uh Mark and Phil Hunsucker and I, as well as Tammy Porny, met last week with
representatives from The Point, No Point Treaty Council Jamestown S Clallam and Port
Gamble S Clallam, as well as a couple of folks from DNR. And um thanks in large part
to Mr Hunsucker, um came up with a plan to be able to move forward. Um I'll let him
talk about the details of that and um just enormous thanks to Phil for working all
weekend. As far as I can tell, I'm putting together a bunch of documents which we
will take a look at and decide. Um If and how we wanna move forward with. Is that
a good tee up Phil?
And I wanna, I wanna just express my gratitude because this has been one of those
awkward handoffs of, you know, sharing, sharing responsibility for getting this down
the road. And you know, and also to express that this is the first time the state
is running this new trust land transfer program process. And they um made tribal
consultation part of the process, which was awesome. We made it part of it because
I was on that committee. Um But then we didn't really talk about how that was gonna
get uh taken care of. And so a lot of counties thought that DNR was doing that and
it lo and behold not the case. So I think our projects are being held up as, as you
know, kind of the test case for how this is gonna work. And so I really appreciate
you guys um doubling down on this on behalf of the entire county's family in the
state of all the counties that are gonna move forward with projects in the future.
Thanks a nice shot. I assume that's a, oh, you gotta get your, bring your microphone
down. Phil, is this a a Phil Hunsucker credited photo? I like the different angle
on it. Uh Yes, it is. But um but the angle is because I'm looking, not looking
into the camera. Oh, yeah. No, we can see it there. You go. Oh yeah, that's, that's
from the, that's from the corner of the street. Gorgeous. Yeah, pe people don't usually
take it, take the photos from there so a little different. Um just following up to
what, what Heidi said it's, it is probably caused because this is the first time
there's kind of a catch 22 in the process that I'll talk about in a minute that we're
really trying to, this is, this whole thing is designed to get around the agreement,
the catch 22. But uh for the for the benefit of those who are as I was uh
on Thursday, um uninformed about the details of this program. Um This is
basically the basics. Uh uh I'll talk about the basics of the program. Uh And then
you know what we ended up with. Um basically the county applies to
DNR for one of these trust land transfers. Um The NR collects all the information
then sends the a all the applications to an external advisory board and it's the
external advisory board that ranks the applications. Uh DNR then seeks public comments
and that's including from the tribes. There's even a specific provision about talking
to the tribes and others um in the legislation. And then after receiving the public
comments, the external advisory board ranks the application and um tribal comments
are, are, are rated heavily. There's a pro I'll show you the pri the prior prioritization
criteria on the next slide Um And then uh the list gets sent to the legislature where
funding and final comments are set. So the, the, the list after
prioritization and considering public comments happens uh before the
determination of what covenants are going to be in the final documents. Um So, uh
here's the prioritization criteria and uh it's just, it's a policy decision
how to, how to rank anything and it was made in the, in the um in the prioritization
criteria. So uh that this is you see that highlighted at the bottom that the tribal
support uh score and if you get a negative uh
it, it zeros you out. Uh or, or I guess a negative if you get a positive, you get
all 15 points. So it's a big deal in the context of this prioritization. I'm sorry,
Phil. Are you saying that five is uh shows tribal support times the multiplier and
lack of tribal support is zero times three. Yes. Yes. And
if you get, if you get a negative, I think it's a zero. I don't think, I think, I
think it's a zero or a five. So I have the other, there's no negative
anyway, it's a big swing. You can see that that is I, I didn't put up the other thing
explaining the tribal support and how it works. There is a um there is a uh another
chart or explanation of that but uh but I didn't have time to put that put the whole
thing together. I did this on the fly while you were doing the conversation
with the fire marshals. So, so that you would have something to look at. But, um,
uh, so here's, here's kind of the catch 22 and it's, it's, it's already sort of talked
about it but, but it's in, it's laid out in the agreement, the draft agreement we're
working on. Uh, and it, it just explains the process, the problem with the process
and uh that I just talked about um and uh
DNR is not doing anything wrong. It's the pro it's the process that's been created,
but it's frustrating because uh because of where the ranking happens uh in, in the
process and, and this is from the DNRS website. Um We also talked to them
about this problem and what, what this says from the website is
exactly when uh when the final documents are, are, are um
approved, you know, they're, that's when the ease easements or the uh covenants are
placed in the final documents, but you don't get to see them until the finding comes.
So if you have an application like ours and somebody's a, a tribe is thinking about
making negative public comments, it's gonna affect your ranking before you even know
what the documents gonna look like. And so the tribes are in a difficult position.
If they're worried about treaty rights, they have to make their objections known
before we know anything about what the final documents say.
Um And so Kate talked about this uh a while ago, uh the pork gambles Clallam tribe
and the Jamestown tribe um and sort of their partnership which, which
manages uh natural resources for them. The Point, no point Treaty Council, I think
they would support this uh proposal if it weren't for the, the doubt about treaty
rights and, and all the difficulties that tribes have had enforcing their treaty
rights uh against the state of Washington. And, and as you know, there's a, a whole
uh years and years and years of fighting with the state, particularly uh uh
fish and wildlife about about treaty rights that um that uh we
were fully upheld starting in the bolt decision and there's many decisions following
Bolt that upholds them. Um So, um, so we, so we, um, we
talked to DNR and, and, and basically, they said, I, I think they're correct
that we can't tell you what the final documents are going to look like and we can't
agree um to what the final documents are gonna look like because that doesn't happen
till later. So this go ahead some cases, it's much later because um
trust land transfer projects, certain, certain ones, the 11 that's on the list for
this year is South Lake Os Thatte, being proposed by the Ku tribe has been on that
list, the trust land transfer list for over 25 years. So lots can
change in over two decades with, even with state law. So, you know, that, I think
that's what, what explains Dnrs reticence to um not defining this stuff.
So, so this concept is a bridge to try to solve that
problem and you're seeing it or these, you're gonna see it for the first time, Kate's
Kate and Mark saw the third version of it this morning. Um And um, and the,
the uh uh, Lauren Rasmussen, who's, who's involved for the tribes
negotiating it. She saw a fir the first version of it and the second version of it
yesterday. Uh, and, and, and is working on it this morning. So, uh, I'm kind of on
a tight wire here without, um, uh, without a net because, uh, I'm putting something
out there that you haven't seen or agreed to and I, I have made that clear to Warren.
But, um, so I'm gonna tell you kind of what's in it. It's, it's, it's very complex
because, whereas clauses you can see here lay out the problem. Uh, and there's more
than you've seen in this, in this presentation. But this is the essence, these are
the ones that show the essence of the problem. There's also ones talking about how
the program works and so forth. Uh But, but here are the key, the key, um,
principles of the agreement. Um, first, it creates an opportunity for the tribes
to object to the final language. And, um, and there's an, uh, a written notice requirement
that's not on this slide, but basically we give them the, you know, when we get the
final version of what the covenants are going to be. If, if we're selected for funding,
we send it to them immediately or I think it's five days or five days of getting
it and then, and then they look at it and they have 10 days to look at it and they
can object that it doesnt pro that it doesnt protect their treaty rights. Um, and
if they object and we agree, then we're not going to do this deal. Um, if they
object and we don't agree, which I, I think will be unlikely because treaty rights
are defined, I think using the language of the point, no point treaty. Uh I
don't, and I don't think you can really argue about what the treaty, what the treaty
says. Uh But it's comp it's a complex subject and, you know, we don't, we don't want
to presume that, you know, they should agree to it just because we say it doesn't
violate treaty rights. So there's a mechanism for, um, uh objection
discussion, um, and alternative dispute resolution uh in the agreement. So if we,
if we, uh, if we have a dispute, uh about whether uh whether the final
language uh violates their treaty rights, uh, then I'm, I'm proposing that we have
a government to government meeting to talk about it and then, um, uh, possibly, uh,
mediation and, um, uh, and man, and mandatory arbitration. I don't know how the
tribes feel about that. Uh, you, you know, and we're gonna have to have a discussion
about that. Uh, but there's lots of ways you could do that, that process. Um, so,
so that's, um, that completes discussion of 0.1 0.2 is like, I think
really the key provision here is it would add a treaty rights easement um to every
property that um uh that gets funded and where the, where there's
agreement that the uh that the final documents do not violate
the um the tribe's treaty rights. And uh the easement is a separate document,
but it's an appendix to the, to the agreement. Uh And it says says exactly how, how
the easement is gonna be placed, what it um both the agreement and the easement defined
treaty rights. Um And it requires the county to record the treaty rights
easement on all the parcels that are, that are a part of the project.
Um And then in exchange for that, we get an agreement for the tribes to support the
applications and there's an appendix with a proposed letter, but that's a part of
the agreement. Um So that's the, that's the basic outline of how it works. The de
the details are in the document, but this is the vision for how it would work.
How does this affect, um how how could this affect other
lands? I mean, could we do this for more, more of the lands that we hold the easement
piece? Number two. Well, the e the e so this is an agreement and we're doing this
by agreement, an agreement if you're going to do it by agreement and you need consideration
for the agreement. In other words, you have, you have two parties to an agreement
and each party has to give something in order for an agreement to be val to be valid.
So, so you'd have to have a partner um to do it on other, on
other parcels. And um this whole treaty rights
thing is, is sort of complicated because um and what we can do is
complicated because of, of preemption. I think we've talked about preemption in the
past. So basically, it limits what um local government can
do in the face of federal laws or state laws. So we have to kind of look at that
and you have to think about that for all of these parcels. And uh you know, for instance,
uh what kind of rules can we create for a shooting on these parcels? Right.
Um Didn't, didn't treaty rights come up when we were doing the no shooting ordinance?
Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, but that's only for that no shooting ordinance. Well,
if you have a, if you had a um uh and you know, if you want an area, no shooting
area, then there's always heavy con consultations with tribes on that, right? Uh,
if, but, um, so we've, so we've had discussions about tribal rights in connection
with adding no shooting areas, uh, under our, under our ordinance for that. Uh, we
also had discussions with tribes with the, um, commercial shooting facility ordinance
about preserving their, preserving their rights. So you have to think about what
that means every time and you have to think about, you know, let's just say the laws,
uh, related to people using guns. I don't care who they are, right, reckless shooting.
You know, we can't change that law. Um, so we have, so you have to be really careful
and the way I've tried to deal with that here is just make it clear that this grants
them access to exercise their treaty rights without saying, without saying anything
else so that all the other laws that are out there still apply and, you know, we'd
have to work through those but where it's likely to come to a head, uh, is they get,
somebody gets a, somebody gets confronted, uh, from a tribe, a tribal member gets
confronted or arrested around there, uh, for something they're doing and, and they
say, you know, we, we're just exercising our treaty rights and, uh, we have a prosecutor
in this county, uh, who as part of his prosecu Tory discretion puts
those disputes very far down on the list of things that he's going to prosecute and
would have to be something really, really bad that happened before. I think our prosecutor
would prosecute. So it is complicated, uh, by those, by those things and maybe that's
more than you wanted to hear in response to your question. But it, or not enough
if you're gonna tell me in a minute, no, it was good. Well, and I think, you know,
part of the, um, I don't know if there's confusion but you know, the,
it's interesting because the tribes have these rights, they have the right to hunt,
gather access. You know, this is what, what is the, the description fill on lands
that are open and unobstructed, open and unclaimed, I believe. Yeah. Um So
these rights exist, we're just making it, you know, really explicit through the use
of this easement. Um And we, we haven't talked about the timing here, which is one
of the tricky parts, you know, which is, you know, Heidi sits on the review committee
and it meets on Friday. So we're hoping to get the tribes to rescind their letter,
letter of concern and actually provide a letter of support for these projects. So,
um I don't know if you're planning to get to that part, Phil, but um the how we move
forward is important in terms of being able to, um, you know, get this resolved before
the Friday ranking and scoring meeting. Yeah. So, so all that's all that fits into
three.
Um uh basically procedurally what's going to have to happen
is um and this is why I just say this is why we set a special session for yet for
tomorrow is beca because the um the agreement is gonna have to be approved by,
you know, all the sovereigns that are parties to it and they're gonna have to go
through the processes of approval. So uh most likely that would be done by resolutions.
Uh I'm not exactly sure the exact mechanism that is used by each tribe for approval
of agreements, but whatever the um I think our process would be maybe by, be by motion
or we might want to do it by resolution since it's so significant. But um uh that's
how it happened. And so uh one of the one on our meeting on Friday with the DNR
um and, and the tribes, that's one of the things we said. So there
uh working on that, I think uh simultaneously um we have a, we have a meeting tomorrow
afternoon at one uh uh same people. Uh Same all, I guess just the tribes, there's
nobody else and us to talk about the, you know, this document and there might be
some negotiating between.
Me and Lauren, you know, today or tomorrow, I don't know. Um but you know, I mean,
she's a little bit in the position. I am about, you know, walking a tight rope here
without a net. And before they, before we'd have discussions among, among parties,
but someone had to put the document together and that was me. So, so this is what
you got. It's I've, I've told Lauren very clearly. I don't have any authority for
this. I haven't even talked to my clients about it but given how much time we have
um I, I thought it was worth it to try to walk the type. Yeah, it was. Thank you,
Phil. And I really appreciate your leadership on this and I did read, I did read
every draft you sent.
They, they just got progressively clearer. So it's not a lot different from the first
to the third. But mhm. So do you have a recommendation Phil in terms of um
if we um
uh because we don't have final documents to approve because we haven't gotten any
feedback yet from point no point. Um Do we wanna can like hold our special meeting
for tomorrow or do we wanna authorize me to sign or do you have a preference on how
we move forward? Um So I think the problem is we might not be done tomorrow. In
fact, we might not not be done in time for the executive se for the, I'm sorry, the,
the special session. So I, I think, I think the only way to get this done is really
to have the board authorize somebody to sign this document on behalf of the count
on behalf of the board. I don't see any other way of getting it done in time because
so much has to happen. Like, well, all the, all the um all the parties have to come
to agreement and then, uh I'm not so much worried about, you know, finalizing the
easement, but there might be some tweaks to the easement, but the letter of support,
right? That's gotta be worked over by, by the tribes and us. So,
uh now we could, you know, we could have the me, um even if you want to delegate
to Kate, the authority to sign, we could still have the meeting as kind of a check
in. So, you know, what's going on. Uh And if, and if, and um, you know,
if there's, uh uh you know, significant changes or whatever, you might wanna
know that, um, if I had to guess I'm gonna say we're not going to be done by the
time scheduled for the executive session. But it's possible that, you know,
I did such a fantastic job that the, that the uh that no one will have a single thing
to say about this complicated document and that's never happened in the history
of me. So, so it would have to be something really
unusual because because it's complex, complex problem, it's a complex document and
uh you, you gotta think about it. I mean, Kate can, can talk about her own review
of it and, you know, whether it was, you know, pretty clear to her or she's been
involved dated, you know, on this process consistently, there will be people that
get this document that haven't thought much about it about the details
and, you know, not a, not a knock on um or on anyone at the tribes.
Uh But um uh uh they weren't, they didn't have the
detailed document like this to, to, to talk about, they were worried about, you know,
an overriding principle of that they've been fighting for, for years, right? It's,
we don't want this to violate our treaty rights and, and so I have no idea how they're
gonna react to this document. Uh But I was trying to think about how I would if I
were them all the way through, through it, you know, so we'll see how I did when
we talked to them. But I mean, I guess I would argue keeping, keeping the special
meeting tomorrow. So we can check in seems appropriate. Also authorizing chair Dean
to, to sign this agreement on, on behalf of the, of the county is, seems like what
we can do to add flexibility to this, you know, getting this done in the, in the
short time frame that we have. I totally agree with that. And, you know, I think,
um it's
this what we're experiencing right now is indicative of um all the counties being
on the ranking committee. I've heard multiple counties express. We didn't know we
had to do tribal consultation. We didn't know who was doing it. So, um this crunch
time we're in is unfortunate and was hard to anticipate
partially because of the catch 22. Yeah, but you, you, you are, you, you articulated
well,
so, you know, I mean, it, it happens sometimes with legislation. That's why we're
always fixing it the next year, you know. Yeah, I don't know if the two of you have
had a chance to read through the documents yet, but um tomorrow I haven't sent them
to him. Ok. Yeah. So that would be another reason to keep the meeting tomorrow is
that give you an opportunity to read through it? Yeah. Would it be more appropriate?
I mean, it's not gonna happen before the meeting tomorrow, right? So should we just
wait to uh kind of um give to, to move that, that uh Kate has that authorization
at that meeting tomorrow? It could be the action that we take if no other or would
you, is there a way to do it? Here's why I think you should do it anyway. Um, even
if it's approved tomorrow. Ok. Uh even if we get all the way through this, they love
the document, they don't have any changes and they say, ok, go, we're not gonna,
all, all the parties aren't going to be able to agree to it by tomorrow at three
o'clock. It's not, it's not gonna happen. So just as a function of, you know,
having ha not having to go through a process of having all the commissioners sign
it, you should probably delegate it to her whether you do that today or tomorrow.
If you're gonna do the special session, uh, it doesn't matter but, but I don't wanna
lose track of that. So it might be better to do it while we're talking about it.
We got two minutes left here before the lunch break. Kate. Did you have something
else to add? Yeah, just that, I think there is some benefit that, um, if we are able
to sign it as soon as possible that even if the other tribes don't get to signing
it before Friday, that that might be, um, evidence enough for the Treaty Council
to rescind their letter of concern and submit a letter of support. Yeah, that's a
really good point. Yeah, that's an excellent point. All right. Um, well, Heidi, are
you inclined to make a motion. I move that we authorized Dean to sign, um, an agreement
with the, um, 0.0 Point Treaty Council. And that we stick to our three o'clock meeting
tomorrow
about this matter. Ok. I'll second any, uh, further conversation, I guess since this
wasn't on our agenda too, I'll open it up for public comment if there's no comment
from Phil or Kate or Mark. Ok. Yeah. And I think it's, I think it's good to put up
the powerpoint too and I'll send that to, I'll send that to Carolyn. Um One thing
about pub the Public Records Act, I wanna say in case people are, I, I don't think
we should put the agreement up and because we, we don't know what it, we're still
making the sausage. We don't know what it says. And I don't want uh comments from
the, from the public about a document they, you know, that they don't understand
happening uh until we, until we get farther down the road. And fortunately there's
an exception to the Public Records Act that fits us, which is the deliberative process
exception. And so we can rely on that. Um And then the way that exception works is,
uh you know, once we're, once we're done with the process, we come to agreement,
final agreement, then you produce, you produce all the, the back stuff. So I think,
I think that's the way we should do it. That's the way you do negotiations with,
you know, on leases the way you do negotiations with unions. So it's not anything
untoward at all. Great. Thank you for that clarification, Philip. Ok. I will open
it up for public comment if anyone has something to contribute to our uh before our
motion on whether we authorize chair Dean to sign this agreement that is still being
uh you know, going through the meat grinder. Uh Please raise your hand. You can hit
the raise hand button or star nine if you're on the phone and we would love to hear
from you about this topic.
Make one more call for a couple comments.
Ok. Seeing none. I will close public comment and call the question. There's no other
issues all in favor of the motion on the floor. Indicate by saying I hi, hi and opposed.
All right, that is unanimous. Uh, thank you for yet another all weekend work, Philip
to, uh, uh, you know, empower the county to get this done in a timely fashion. You're
welcome. Ok, great. Well, it is a little past 12. So I will recess this until 130
when we'll come back and have a pretty full afternoon as well. Hope to see you Kate.
But if you're not feeling well, you know, get a nap and we'll see how you feel. All
right, take care
beam or she does.
Oops, that's my
and, uh, keep with us. You back with us, Kate. I'm here. Oh,
ok. Everyone ready to go.
Welcome. I will call us back into session for the afternoon. We have a uh, continued
workshop with the public works crew on the sewer ordinance at two o'clock. So this
might be our only time for, um, briefings and calendaring is there. Oh, and you have
a letter Kate that you were gonna walk on as well. Maybe we should have, sorry, I
don't have it yet. Um I'm still waiting to receive a copy of it. So sorry, we'll
have to push it later. Ok, that's fine. Well, why don't we get going with, um, with
briefing? Do you wanna go first gate? Sure. Take me a minute to get back
to last week.
Um, actually I are we looking at two weeks back really with the A didn't meet on
the 29th,
it's going way back.
Um,
we'll say, um, had another meeting with, um, City Port and uh East Jefferson fire
and rescue about the roadie carnival locations downtown and it sounds like there
is, um, fair amount of, uh consensus around trying to find a spot downtown for the
carnival to be able to come back. So be meeting with, um, Roadie Fest, uh, representative
in the next few weeks and hopefully start narrowing that down a little bit but really
appreciate the city and port being such willing partners in that. Um, I was away
for about a week, so, um, probably relatively brief briefing here get back um
uh J uh Wednesday of last week. Um
Let's see, um uh Peninsula Regional Transportation Planning Organization. Uh We have
a legislative work group that met and we finalized some, our legislative agenda um
which I'll be running by all of you. I should say that work group finalized it, it
will go to the uh P RT PO for uh final approval and then I will bring that back to
you. Um getting ready for county fair. Hope everyone is uh planning to attend the
county fair this coming weekend. Lots of good stuff happened in there as usual. Um
And then the tribal consultation which we talked about last week and dealing with
the uh internet down on uh Friday, a bit of a um a busy afternoon at the courthouse
on Friday and then uh mostly spent the weekend trying to kick this uh bad head cold.
So short briefing from me. No problem. Thank you, Kate. Uh Looking back two weeks
um on the 23rd at our board of health sanitation sub-committee that work keeps
percolating along. Um Let's see,
talking about chemicals of emerging concern, working on um
building some flexibility and on our current minimum land area policy for environmental,
public health and water quality. Um We talked
about uh holding tanks for RVS and on site on site code the state revision regarding
additional dwelling units and how that might apply to RV. So we just have a lot of
topics that we keep bird dogging as a, as a sub-committee. Um uh the opioid
subcomittee opioid funding planning sub-committee met that afternoon. We continue
to work forward, work forward with um developing a, you know, a sub a funding sub-committee
of Behavioral Health Advisory committee which we have formed and are working on the
RFP process, separate RFP process for the funds, but we don't really have a firm
grasp on how much opioid like we need a, a spreadsheet that outlines when and how
much funding is going to be available before we really start talking about. It's
just the one settlement so far. But another one coming, that's more, you mean any
foundation board meeting? Is there only one settlement so far that we had 21 is kind
of holding up the Behavioral Health Consortium and the second one, the second of
the two big ones that was going to BH AC for RFP to get into the community. So, and
then we have a couple, a small one coming soon and then another one. Yeah. OK. Thanks.
And they're all multi, multi years in different time frames. So it's, it's complicated.
Um Then, let's see, Wednesday afternoon.
Um I met with Apple and Anna. Oh,
just Apple actually to talk about the Behavior Health Advisory Committee and kind
of how to structure how to, how to true up the um defined
membership of the Behavior Health Advisory Committee and some, some change seats
that have happened over the years um because we've proposed adding a community services
seat, but we realized we need to do that formally. But there have also been changes
that have been made since even before my time as a commissioner that we're never
really tracked through the system. So just trying to true up when, when did, when
did seats get added, how did they get added and how can we level set where we are
with Behavioral advisory committee and at a community services seat? So doing that
work um met with a constituent who's concerned about the food bank and also interested
in being on their board and she would be fantastic for the food bank. So trying to
get a sense of um where the food bank is at with their board recruitment and they
keep people, different people keep getting different messages. So I have not been
able to attend another food bank board meeting, but I am gonna reach out about their
August meetings and see if I can attend either their executive committee meeting
or their full board meeting. This month,
we had a swag meeting on Thursday the 25th in the afternoon. Um Friday the 26th
we had there are uh trest land transfer um
project ranking team meeting. I think that was the third of four meetings and we've
now reviewed all 30 ish of the applications and are in the process of ranking, giving
rankings to each of the projects. So our work on our, our projects is couldn't be
more timely.
Um
Let's see. Oh, and then I went to the LSC meeting where they approved the
wack lawsuit on the juvenile court. His wife. Yeah. Um
Saturday the 27th, I went to a great forest celebration of my North watered Institute
down at the community center. It was fantastic. And Jane Hall got me in a wig for
the raffle drawing. So she won you in a wig. No, she got me to wear a wig. I could
help with the raffle ground. That was entertaining. I mean, you would be a good prize
in a wig as well, right? Lunch with Heidi. Um Let's see, we didn't meet on the
29th. I did actually take a day off that day. Um On Tuesday, the 30th, I had a meeting
with Willie Bentz just to get a status update on his um how he's doing. I went to
uh a recycling meeting regarding a program called rid. Well, if you've heard of Rid
Well, um they are offering a service called RWE Express where you can mail some categories
of your plastics to them and then they mail you an empty bag and a bunch of people.
100 I say 100 people were there maybe 80 people. That bridge is loft downtown and
I had bet half of them signed up for this service. So um there's a hunger for
effective plastics recycling. And if Al Cairns is listening to me, he goes, he'll
say nothing works. Uh Wednesday, the 31st, I had an encumbered lands work group meeting
in the morning and this is all the week I was supposed to not be working these others.
I had that week. Uh, Thursday morning. The first I met with Representative Beringer
about the upcoming session. I had a meeting, um, at the 03 A Council of Governments
meeting after that. Then I met with Commissioner Osas, um, Cam just to talk about
um, some DNR Forest land issues. Then we had the fourth and final trust land transfer
ranking committee meeting that afternoon on the first. Then I went to the Jefferson
County Parks and rec board meeting. Um, and on Friday, I took most of the day off,
although it did have a call with the commissioner of public lands who wanted to
talk about the day Bob expansion. And, um, they're intending to announce the Day
Bob expansion soon, um, and are not going to include West Day Bob and explained it
very well that it is, it is uh, those acres, those 45 acres. I think it is our part
of what we're getting compensated for in our encumbered lands work. So this is where
my two work groups are, two DNR efforts are emerging. And so I, I get I get it completely
why they're not gonna include West Bob. So I've been, then I spent much of the rest
of Friday calling other ST Day, Bob stakeholders explaining the situation to them.
Um And then went to a great uh anniversary party that evening at then river
sailing on Saturday when Kate was needing help with the truss and transfer work.
And that was, that brings us up to, yeah, to this week. Great. Thank you, Heidi.
See mine will be pretty quick as well. Um The
week of the 22nd with you guys. Of course, on the 22nd, can I hit high points? Uh
The Shelter Coalition was on the 23rd. That's when we talked with kind of solicitations
and ideas about the ro I situation and, and uh we'll get more tomorrow talk about
the calendar. Um The South can harm reduction meeting had to be rescheduled and I
visited some certain citizens out uh Thorndyke way near Bridge Haven that we have
some issues with the speed limit out there and want, you know, the classic poopoo
platters, uh speed tables and flashing lights and everything else. And so I, you
know, uh Monty is gonna look at, you know, the, the traffic studies they have and
do a little internal traffic study. But it is, it's a, it is, you know, that section
where it goes down to where there's a bunch of houses that wouldn't be built right
next to the, the street that are 25 and it's 5040 on either side of it. So people
just barrel down there and it's true and there's nothing that we can really do about
it. Um, and of course you run to go, well, we're willing to pay for flashing speed
limit signs. Oh, well, are we gonna do that to every neighborhood that can only afford
it then? What about the neighborhoods that can't afford the, the, you know, 30 to
40 grand. So, I have a few that would be ready for that. Yeah. No, there's a lot
that would. Um so one of those out in Thorndyke on Wednesday, we had the left one
disability meeting. Um uh great, still not gonna do airlift for folks, but Lindsay
is doing a great job staffing that and uh with one of the other um
Julia Cochran, I met the Ruckel House folks to talk about their, their report on
housing that we're going to get a little report out to and Housing Fund board later
in the year kind of after RP process. And then they are willing to come in the first
quarter of 25 as well. And you know, basically help us use the tools that they're
building to understand that kind of the different housing sector. So good meeting
there initial and thanks for thanks to Julia for, for making that connection. Um
I had to go in your lane a little bit about the food bank. I met with cap, there's
just concern over the community center and we see in the food bank as they start
to spin up building on that other building. So, just kind of was there to help. Uh,
um, so are they, are they spooling building back up because they, you know, I, we
didn't talk, they are supposedly we didn't talk a lot when I went to that board meeting
six weeks ago. Now they said by the end of July it was their goal to start construction
again. We didn't get a deadline for starting construction. But, um, yes, I think
they are still planning to do that. I actually just forwarded on a note from Assessor
Chapman about how they should, you know, apply to the Department of Revenue to, um,
the taxes on that building because it's new construction. Of course, that's, uh,
the taxes low quite a bit. Um, and then we had the Housing fund board meeting all
went well, uh, I had Jeff Com in the morning on Thursday. I'm still kind of working
on strategic plan there. Everything moving along and then I was out of the office
for the rest of the day, Thursday, Friday, a couple meetings about the, um, uh, Black
Point Master Plan Resort as well as getting ready for the, the final, uh, uh pool
task force meeting, which happened last Thursday. We also had an LT A meeting, heard
some reports out and we have a meeting again this week to try to kind of refine,
I think there'll be some recommendations coming to adopt a couple of the examples
we've seen in other LT A. Um not to put anything more on the P A Os office, but getting
uh a quick spreadsheet that talks about each applicant's eligibility under the RCW
one. Um to probably a suggestion to create a master plan in, in uh uh coordinating
with the BOCC to, to guide those awards to have, you know, so we can say, oh, this
is important, this is value. Uh this, these are what we want to do it instead of
ensconcing that in the code and then they'll probably be some code uh recommendations
as well. Um And then yeah, lots of cool stuff getting ready. So tell
us anything about the pool or? Well, I haven't gotten through that week yet. I will.
Ok. Uh L thanks going along. I was out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday on LA Crescent.
Um I missed the E DC meeting. We had a on Thursday, the first, we had an E DC board
meeting at point Hudson that was starting a kind of strategic planning for E DC.
Um really good exercise trying to, you know, find the mission which is and all encompassing
and, and, you know, they B DC still struggles with that four way agreement on what
exactly are we supposed to do. So also, um sad news unfortunately, and that uh Douglas
is uh retiring at the end of uh by the end of August. So wants to train up, you know,
several trainers. I again tried to push a, a dug bot and no one, no one was biting.
But, uh, I'm not gonna give up on Dug bot. And then you're gonna play your banjo
about Doug Bo. I was gonna play my BSO though. I don't know if we have time about
my swimming pool update actually. But we'll see. We're, we're running, we're running
out of time. Um And it sometimes just bring the Bando and not playing. It says more
and is appreciated by people more. Uh, talk to Melissa at Pao office
about A I as we will go back into our A I think tank on Thursday afternoon.
Um It's, it's all around us. Um But uh yeah, just kind of swing that back up
again. There's gonna be more stuff coming out of the States in September, October
about policies and we looked through the new MRSC article that, uh refer and references
Jefferson County in our uh public uh records case with Belinsky as, as part of the
reason for taking, you know, knowing that any, any input you make into an A I system
is a public record though. It's probably a transitory public record. So if you, you
know, do a search and you've kept that search, then it's a public record, but it's,
uh there's not a, uh records retention for A I inputs or outputs yet, but that's
probably something that will come this fall or winter is what is a record retention
schedule for A I content and generating a, I couldn't a I just take
care of all of our public records requests for us. Give it a year, give it a year.
Um I went out to the PL BC board meeting, uh, where I
was, I mean, I actually got an apology from the chair. I was accosted a little bit
about Breaker Lane Monty and which is, uh, the private street, you know, that goes
right by the village center there. Um, that is just broken down. And, uh, PL A is
talking about putting a, just like a big landscape block or whatever they call these
big blocks to prevent people from using it as a short ecology block. Um, because
people just use it to circumvent the stop sign and the little loop, the loop you
have to do around it. And, uh, it was suggested that the county should take it over
as a public road, even though PL A had said that the county was not interested. And
I said, well, it's, you know, we don't usually take those stuff, that stuff to public
works. We hear it from public works that there's a road that they think would be
appropriate to take on. And we had a, a spirited conversation about, uh, I don't
know, dog, dog tails wagging the dog. But, um, that's where we left it. And then,
uh, we had got the apology after that, I got the, not from the person who was prompting
the conversation but from the chair. Um, my answers were not taken. Well, I guess,
and then we had our final, uh, pool task force meeting Thursday evening and, um,
we will have more stuff later about that. I'm a little hesitant to give you all their
recommendations, but everyone was agreed at the last, the ban. This is when I could
play the banjo, but let's get through it. We still got a record or two o'clock. Um,
but if anyone wants to do a sing along, that's really my takeaway is that, uh, one
of the big recommendations is that everyone needs to sing off the same music. And
that, um, so they're suggesting that first we make the presentation, there's a, a
powerpoint slide deck and a report and a press release that we're working on that.
They've all, they've agreed on the, the, the details that go in it and we think that
it should, um, first go have this steering the healthier together, steering committee
come to a chambers meeting like we do the healthier together, which is, you know,
only in person, only the invited participants, but it would be on Zoom and open to
everyone to watch as a, as a, as an attendee and then followed by a joint City County
uh presentation where we can have a conversation and then, and then the Jefferson
Aquatic Coalition. Um And then we all, we did all sing a song together at the end.
Uh Jim Scarin on guitar, me on the banjo, everyone singing. So uh that's hopefully
the kind of, I won't say harmony but working together that we can achieve because
I think that's gonna be the big thing to get a pool built. Um I had lunch the next
day with John Morrow and he thought that early September would be a good time to
have that joint meeting. Um in anticipation of uh the budget stuff happening in the
month after that. Probably that's like us going to a city uh evening work session
or something on a Tuesday night and, and having a special meeting with them too.
So we can have both the presentation and the conversation about it and with, with
both bodies there able to contribute. Also met with uh Owen Rowe, the chair of the
city's LT A uh board uh committee to talk about different processes there. And, you
know, talked a lot about um them taking destination marketing basically into their
own staff member position. And it's actually a conversation that gave up a couple
times. I'm going in a week or two to pos bow to look at their new sign that has the
uh welcome to Poulsbo, the roundabout as you come through. There's a lot of desire
from the tourism master plan to put a welcome to the Olympic Peninsula sign at the
roundabout at the bridge and that DNR parcel right, right there. They want to put
it right in the roundabout. So what would have to happen is irrigation Conduit or
Conduit would have to go in um as they're building it and that's what so we're going
to go learn about and coming back to tourism. Uh Shelley Levins who is the city's
marketing person has already been in contact with them. So as we're talking about
this, they say, yeah, we've already been talking to public works about how this would
get uh done. I'm like, oh, I didn't know that public works had been spoken to. Oh,
no, city public works. And I, that's just an advantage of having your, your marketing
team in house is that you can have those conversations with staff to staff before
they uh go out. So I will be bringing our public works department into that conversation.
Um And uh that was last week. So, um
Mark, how was your last two weeks? So I'm going back to, right. Yep. Ok. So two weeks
starting with the 22nd, of course, of board meeting. And then on the 23rd, 830 finance
committee meeting followed by a weekly with Josh Peters. Um and then embedded in
that was a, a meeting to prepare for the il a discussion with each Jefferson fire
uh later in the day which occurred at 230 then 24th, 25th, 26th. I attended the
wrist conference in Shelton. Um, major development out of that conference was, um,
two things. Um, one is, uh, the wrist pool wants to shift from 1 October 30
September fiscal year to 1 January 31 December. So this fall we're gonna be billed
for 15 months of insurance premium. All right. So, um, that's gonna be a, a financial
hit and then of course, the rates are going up 20% increase in liability premiums.
Uh, no increase in property or crime or Cider. Uh But I'm reckoning that we'll
need another 300,000 in budget to handle that. So, um I love going to those conferences
and filled with delightful news. Uh Next week, 29th, 30th 31st. I, I was in Maple
Valley. Um Now my daughter's gone so no more Fridays off. Uh Then Thursday, August
1st, um sat down with Teamsters Central Services and we
can agree on a couple of items. Uh They're gonna take what we're offering to their
employees for a vote on it and that's if it fails, then we'll either sit down and
continue negotiating or go to mediation. Um Then the issue is the retirement plan
that they would like us to take part in. Um Then um a gender review
with Kate. No, I'm tried in a second uh routine meeting with Apple Martine and then
the point no point consultation meeting that uh the K talk now, then met with uh
Renee Talley and Sarah Mellinson and discuss um, an employee issue and then a biweekly
with Mike to talk about it. Great. Ok. Um, the coming week.
Oh, Kate or Heidi, you want Kate? Are you prepared to go?
Sure. Um, all um, health dependent, of course. Um
Let's see tomorrow. Um, have another consultation, government to government with
the Point no point Treaty Council to finalize um, the agreements we discussed today.
And
Wednesday, I will be at a State Board of Health meeting in Seattle all day. We have
a uh repeated some partnership special meeting in the middle of that day too. So
I'm not sure how I'll manage that. Um Thursday back here for Board of Health Agenda
Planning meeting or local Board of Health uh planning meeting. Um And then I
believe we have um representative Kilmer coming on Thursday. Did, did you all get
that invitation um for a a reception kind of I, I think he's probably starting to
make the rounds for um his starting to say his goodbyes. Um So I, I got a brief notification
of it but no details, but I'll, I'll fill you in when I hear more. Um Then a gender
review with Mark uh Fairgrounds board meeting and then Friday, I just have uh the
uh celebration of Bob Wheeler in the evening. Great. Um I'm of course here with
you today and then tomorrow morning I have a meeting with uh constituents regarding
emergency response. Um in the afternoon, I have a community foundation
committee meeting and then we have our, our trust land transfer tribal consultation,
special meeting at three. Um And then I have the Marine Resources committee meeting
in the evening and had luck Wednesday morning, I have a community foundation gathering
and then I have the PIFF board meeting um at 10 and
then I have time actually probably completely conflicts with our incident management
team if anyone wants to go to that on Wednesday at 10.
Um I just got the agenda so I can forward it through. Ok. And then maybe my first
occurrence of Barstool bingo for Echo Wednesday evening at the hilltop. Um
Thursday, I got an email that there's a Granicus short term rental legislative webinar.
I don't know if you're planning on going to that Kate. I did share it with Josh and
he said he would send somebody from D CD. So we've got coverage there, but it looked
like it was gonna be interesting, high level coverage of short term rental policy.
Yeah. Do you know if it was specific to Washington or if it was like a legislative
update? But I couldn't tell if it was like all states or? Yeah, I couldn't either.
That guy who's giving it is awesome. He's so knowledgeable and um I'm sure it'll
be valuable. Are you able to go to that or not? Um, remind me I saw your, your email
but I, I didn't have time to check the timing against my calendar. Thursday at nine.
No, you know, I, I am available. Seems like it might be something right up
your alley. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I will plan to attend. Ok. And then at some
10, I have a Peninsula Trails coalition meeting at F River, our kind of local trail
extension committee. Um And then in the afternoon at one, we have our forestry monthly
check in with Mallory. I have a community foundation event that evening. And on
Friday, I have the county fair at some point during the day and also the Bob Wheeler
celebration, which I intend to be at. And then the weekend is the County fair, of
course. And our my trust line transfer project rankings are due on Friday as well.
So, but I think I'm pretty much done with mine, right? Thank you, Heidi. Uh Let's
see for me. Um I have the Northwood Canal Chamber meeting uh
after we are done here today at 430. 01 thing I didn't mention on the update is II,
I think I said I, I sat down with uh Philip and uh George Terry and um
Christina Hayworth, our our consultant that is uh kind of staff on the uh master
plan resort. You remember we, we heard about the uh the gravel leveling of the gravel
uh platform. So turn around the bus, turn around like seven acres, you know, large
enough that it is I know exactly. Pretty significant. You drive it anytime you go
down 101 and just kind of real high level. We talked about a couple things and, you
know, there's a big, uh, the water management, best management practices that need
to get turned in. I've seen all of that. This was not part of their project. Initially.
They were going to deal with this when they did, uh, intersection improvements and
everything far, much further down the line. So, um D CD is looking at as a separate
application and determining, you know, under Greg Ballard's uh administration, whether
a, a permit is required for that separate from the other plan, just slow it down.
And, you know, the D CD was kind of unaware that they wanted to do this until honestly,
until we receive the public comment. It was a, it was just, it, it kind of came in
perhaps fed by something else, but they are looking at that particular um issue separate
from the, the Master Plan Resort, uh Waterman at some point. So that's probably enough
of that since we don't have a lot of time. Uh tomorrow, I'll have that Shelter Management
meeting with Bayside and Mark and Judy prior to the Shelter Coalition meeting to
talk about the RO I and then we're going to propose that we have regular meetings
with the kind of the contracted stakeholders that is the American Legion Bayside,
probably Melanie Jackson from New Life. Church who are coordinating the food and
the county. So we'll have regular figure out what the cadence is for those meetings
tomorrow as well. Then I have the Shelter Coalition meeting. Then I'm in lunch with
the planning commissioner to talk about some South County issues. I'll be with you
guys for the special meeting tomorrow at three. Then the uh second Empowered Genes
Coalition meeting with our new uh coordinator mckenzie on Wednesday. I'll go to the
it and directors meeting for this facility. I'm interested in that and I'm interested
in the incident command meeting. I'm just looking at high points, the Behavioral
Health Consortium Thursday afternoon. Um LT A, we're gonna be um trying to write
a mission statement in LT AC and then I will be running out to the, the Hook in Port
Angeles for the celebration of the, the Recompete award with uh lots of people and,
and just say we got $35 million of the 50 that we asked for. Unfortunately, the Port
of Port Townsend Boatyard expansion was one of the projects. They specifically excluded
a couple projects rather than like a summary of what? Yeah, I'll forward it on the
sum. But there were six projects. We were the only West Coast project I think Kentucky
maybe was the the nearest other project, one of the most rural areas as well. So
six got funded um most for 20 to 30 million. I think one got funded for 40 million,
100 and 84 million all told is out the door as well as the Boatyard expansion. They
also trimmed the uh Clown Ed CS uh North Olympic uh Resource Innovation or North
North in R Yeah, Natural Natural Resource Innovation Center conflating that and that,
that we can be coalition. So unfortunately, both, both of those are really strong
projects but both have, you know, some funding from other sources already and other,
other avenues to pursue. So, yeah, like Glen Co even the projects that didn't get
capital funding, uh We're still going to keep pushing for it, but there's a lot of
work to do with Peninsula College and the Boat school and, and team Jefferson E DC
and no DC. There's just, it's gonna be probably even more work than applying for
the money to uh start, start spending it out. So we'll have more updates as those
things hit the ground. But it's really, but you have will do and I know that uh we're
talking to Wendy Davis too and putting her in contact with the great recompete coordinator
una work about. Um So yeah, that'll be a fun celebration. Um And then I will try
to make it to the, the, the Wheeler celebration as well and that's my week mark.
Can you do yours in 20 seconds? So we can get to our two o'clock item. I can try,
of course with the board and tomorrow um Senior management team and the shelter management
zoom meeting. I might have to jump off a half hour into that to attend the risk management
meeting. Then the pe uh point no point uh Treaty Council meeting with Kate mentioned
and then of course, the special meeting with the board and then I'm attending a county
energy audit session with Mossack and for fly the seventh, the it
directors meeting for the courthouse board meeting at 10 and then a public sector
cabinet meeting in the afternoon and then a meeting on Tyler EPL to discuss cost
allocation. And then on Thursday the eighth uh CEO breakfast with E DC and then going
to meet with um Nicole Gautier from object in transit to talk about painting the
parking lot at the visitor center um at the gateway visitor center, the gateway visitor
center. Um And then the 43 meeting that I mentioned and then a meeting with Monie
and his staff to talk about Road Fund liquidity and then a general review with Kate
and then on Friday the ninth, uh my regular meeting with Josh and then a meeting
in the afternoon on Behavioral health advisory committee membership, right? Is it
we can I just say um the purpose for that um meeting with Jefferson transit is that
the um the straight shot bus would consider stopping at um the visitor center if
it paved with the new roundabout. So it's, it's really exciting. We might have another,
you know, so Jefferson transit could connect with the, uh, straight shot, which I've
been hoping for for years. Yeah, that would be fantastic. That's a great opportunity.
Ok. Um, now, uh, we'll welcome Samantha and Monty. We're back for the third. Little
bit of delay. That's, that's a few moments late. Oh, my God. My neighborhood is so
lively lately. It's never perfect when you're digging up and building stuff. Right.
Do you want the usual backup? Oh, ok. It was, it wasn't the sewer? Ok. Not the sewer.
Do you know who it was? I assume it was the work going on on that corner road? That's
prepping for the wash that bridge.
They're moving the utilities now to get the right bridge project. That makes
sense then. That's my assumption. And we want our, our visual aid. Oh, I think,
let me put that. Can we grab? I'm gonna grab the easel.
All right. I just go right there
our middle age.
Mhm.
Just say um where Sam starts that we've been working with on soccer a lot on, um,
incorporated the comments we received from these workshops on the connecting
policy. I think we're working towards uh it's not changed much but just clear
language. So we will come back when we're done going all the way through the ordinance.
We'll come back with another workshop that to um talk about any updates we've made
to it uh based on these sessions. Uh and then talk about our next steps, like, going
out to, um, special we need or something.
I just wanna get one of those sewer team, uh, passion. Well, the, uh, soccer had
these made, I trade in one of our golden oil. Ah, ok. Ok. And, uh, the box is
out at the, uh, at the job site. So you should stop by there and see
if. All right, I mean, I might have a gold to, I can go. No,
not finan. I know, but it looks good.
All right. Take it away, Sam. Ok. So we are just going to jump in where we, I think
we kind of left off. We're gonna start with the revenue part. So we went over fees
a little bit last time on both the residential and on the residential side. And so
we'll jump into where the revenue goes um, in the operations and this is our estimate,
um which has been refined a little bit um, as we move forward here. And so we're
just gonna go down the line of the top part is the initial, er, us, which we talked
about last time. It'll take for our connection map that I know everybody remembers
in their sleep. Um, it'll take us maybe 2 to 2 and a here to connect everybody on
the map. And so we guessimate what that first, er, use would be for the connection.
That's what you see in the top middle column there. And then the top right is all
the connections of people who are interested or properties I should say and the next
part is operation ok. Wait a sec. So that top right is 287 is who's interested. Um
Yes, equivalent residential units like 200 customers. It's
sparkling, you know about that.
And so going on for annual budget is we're doing the operation and maintenance. So
labor which includes um the water reclamation plant as well as the collection system.
And it provides our estimate for wages for the positions and operators. Um The power
for the plants excluding the grinder pumps. As you know, the grinder pumps are being
paid by the property owner as the proposal, um chemicals for the treatment plant
maintenance for transplant charts and supplies, lab testing. We are going to um have
our lab on site be accredited so we can do some of the testing um on site. Can I
just clarify something? You just said the grinder pumps are being paid for by the
property owner, the power? Ok.
Um And then solids handling is the next part which we need to pick up on our inter
local with the city of Port Townsend. And then just the other on cost that we have
there to give an annual cost. And then um we have administrative fees to both the
pud and ourselves for process the um customer service and items like that. And I
know a little bit. We talked about last time for the equipment replacement reserve
and also build up emergency reserve. Did you want to expand upon that, either mark
or, or um last time? And the budget guidance that the board approved, um We talked
about making 2 $250,000 deposits into a new fund for equipment
replacement and emergency reserve. Um Hopefully we can afford to do that. I I know
this project is generating a great deal of sales tax revenue. Um But then we also
have a million in general fund money that we advanced with the super fund to provide
liquidity. I think that that funds need for that money uh for construction is probably
gone because you have a lot of credit. So that would be an option for populating
the, the new fund as well. And, and so that would not be uh an ongoing annual cost
uh to the treatment point.
Can I ask is, do you, I mean, like that, this includes the PV DS administration as
well, right. But that's gonna be, and I guess that's part of the operation cost is,
is their administration. So I'm just, I guess I'm really asking about the class three
operator. I'm sure that that 50 K is, you know, half or less than half of the, the
FTE where does the rest of that level three operators time though, I would say um
that,
well, first of all, I've, I've been talking to the beauties director for working
on the local. And the agreement was set, the sewer would pay half of the group three
operator and PD would
use that person for their other needs than that to, um, then there'll be staff
for, you know, responding to call outs on grinder pumps and things, um, bill at cost
based on whatever they put on their time sheets or having to respond. And then there'll
be backup staff that again, he feels are already there at the PD. Um
So
the labor estimate is possibly on the low side in this. But uh also the uh
the admin JQ, the admin 64,000, um it's probably high based on what he's told me,
they talked about enough, you know, charging us $800 a month for billing services.
So, uh you know, overall, I feel like this budget is in the ballpark, but the wine
items may be high or low in some places. But, and I, I would treat that.
We've talked about the equipment reserve and the emergency reserve being covered
by sales tax revenue from this project to build up a fund, but that still might be
like contingency. And so, I mean, I do feel like it's probably uh 450 to $500,000
a year system to run. Um Public works is
in the county is gonna continue to handle new customer inquiries. Means we have to
have staff at the county being paid for sewer work and that annual administrations,
the whole thing pretty much our staffing for that afterwards is pretty much the admin
line. Yeah. Um, insurance don't see that here.
So that could be an additional cost. Um, any other costs that are allocated regular
costs cost, things like that. Um, so again,
it's not unrealistic to think 500,000 a year budget to operate this sewer, this small
sewer project that would be in line with some of the other small sewers. I've seen
it's really hard to get that information. Uh But uh and I think later in this
presentation, we talked about the amount of revenue generated by the number of dr
us and how much subsidy that would generate. So, um um, so I'll leave that for
now. Uh The 87,000 that's been covered by if, as annual. Um So that's not a
cost that has to be forward by the user. 2000 of it will be. Yeah. Right, because
it's 85,000 after the this agreement. So, um, so again, you know, 460 to
500,000 seems like it did develop and there have been so many eyes on this in a different
way, but I tell Ronald Sewer, it's gonna be, it's hard to know exactly what that
will be. Great. Thank you. I have a question
and I've got, I need to call cabin again this week. We, but they seem very interested
and very fair what they're proposing to do to run the Semer and keep it affordable
for the users in the county. So that's a, that's a good thing to build on the, you
know, the existing staff that they already have and build the system and everything.
So we're not having to, you know, recreate a uh we could but, and is it better to
take the economy of scale that already exists that you be a partner of family? Was
Kate? You had a question. Yeah. So um Mark um you discussed the
possibility of um of funding those reserves. Um Are those the two included here?
So if we were able to do that with that, then lower that annual operating budget,
right? Ok. Um The 45 6 for equipment replacement reserve and the 50 for the emergency
reserve would come out of the annual operating budget because populating the new
fund for equipment replacement and emergency reserve would would come from uh either
from new sales tax revenue or from the million that we advanced the super fund for
liquidity purposes. So that's significant is. Mhm.
Yeah, it reduces the operating budget by about like 95 96,000. Ok, thanks.
So does that actually reduce the what the ratepayers have to pay?
No, no, it would reduce the subsidy required from the general fund. And again, I
view that as contingency money that could get easily absorbed by other costs that
aren't shown here yet. Like insurance. Mhm.
Right. Right. Because the wrist pool has not a appraised the sewer treatment plan
because it's not yet built. But they will eventually, and it will be added to our
property values and we'll increase our premium, uh, which we will then pass on to
the Severin.
Ok. Ok. I made it through the first slide. Yes. Yes. We're going in the second.
All right. There's other question. Let's move on. Ok. Grab, grab the rain. Ok, here
we go. Um So this next slide goes over and breaks down. We talked a little bit about
this last time as well. Um And what category so far we're seeing the interest um,
to make up the customer or er u volumes. Um So those are listed in the top in the
green slides and then, or the green table. Um, and then we have the estimated revenue.
We do have some in there as you see. Um, we're guiming um low income versus um paying
for the base rates. Um, and then we come out to the $300,469 per
year. And then that is compared to as of right now, we compared it to the 547,500
from the slide before uh minus the 300,000. So roughly $250,000 subsidy is what we're
assuming right now. Yeah. And if you, if you back out the 85 that you're gonna get
from the sewer fund, then you take out the emergency reserve and equipment replacement,
that subsidy shrieks substantially. And then hopefully we can afford more customers
too. You know that too. Yeah. Ok. But, um, does this factor in
a gradual growth in, um, people who are paying for sewer, like in year one,
you're not gonna generate 300,000 in year one. We will not. This is, uh, this is,
this is steady state after all 287 U are on board and pay
their consultant before she retired, ran a model that went for 20 years, looking
at, you know, additional connections, the annual increase in the fees, the
annual increase in costs and you know, trying to project out where, where
that even point was. Yeah, it's way. Yeah, don't, don't worry about that. Yeah, and
it might be something like 500 cr
at at which point we'll need to add on the super treatment plan as well, right? So
I we probably need to h about how much budget to put into the budget for 2025. And
I guess the budget,
you got any questions about the sliders when we go to the next one? No, Kate, of
course, speak up. I can't always see you. So just uh unmute and speak up if you have
a question. That was a quick slide. Yeah. So the next one is the development charges
and So these are collected um at the time that somebody develops, we are not proposing
to collect them with this initial start up. And also um within the slide bullets
here, we're also using it as an incentive to defer system development charges for
the first three years. So they would start in 2028. Um And then phase in from that
point, we have a $3000 proposal for system development charges. So the fourth year
would be $1000 the fifth year would be 2000 and the sixth year would be 3000. And
at some point, um a new rate study would be done as we move forward with this project.
So, uh that's just a little bit. So system development charges go, um, once they're
paid, they go into the capital fund for expenses. And we talked about the deferral
part. Um system development charges remain with the property. They cannot be sold
and bought and transferred. Um, um What do you mean they stay with the property?
Yes, you expound on that a little bit. Um I there's been some interesting ones. So,
um when I, I know it for a low um local utility districts, um when you divide properties,
you can divide through a process that goes to a board, you can divide um the assessment
that was put onto the property as well. Um This is not one of the system development
charges is not a mechanism when you can divide or I want to move and then move it
to a vacant property. It stays with the property that was originally given to. And
can I ask you for? So you were talking, I think last time we were together about
if someone wanted to hook in the phase one that was outside of the phase one, but
they were, they, and they, they're willing to, you know, to develop a property put
in the lines or whatever pay for those. Would that, how would that hit this system
development charge? It's deferred until 2028. So there'd be kind of no charge for
that. They would just have to do the work basically, correct. There would be no in
this proposal and how it's written currently, there would be no charge if they connected
in the first three years. That's a big incentive. And
how far could they be from the phase one boundary
inside the overlay? I'm sure.
So as far as they have money to run inside the UG A. Yes. Yes. But there's also the
need for us to
determine whether there's capacity of the plant or what they're proposing to do and
what's already been proposed in this area we're at and things like that. So, I mean,
if you run a line out to some massive development, this is hypothetical because there's
nothing like that
really possible and we, that luck and you could eat up a bunch of the treatment plan
capacity and then there'd be none left for habitat or some, you know, or whatever
later. So each, each application like that has to really be closely looked at. I
mean, running sewer to a house is not a big deal. I mean, it's one guarantee, but
I mean, that's a big investment to do for just one house.
There's been people in chimi asking me what if we could get the money to run a line
to Chimi. They need to build another $5 million worth of the dream on the plant infrastructure
to increase the, you know, the capacity of the plant. But it's not, it's not in the,
there's one boundary anyway, so have to be added to the earth through the, through
all the process for that or I mean, it's not out of the question that that could
happen someday. The growth patterns and plans support that. So could I
ask a separate question when it says deferred until 2028? So that means that if
somebody say that someone buys a vacant house, someone who has declined to hook up
to the sewer, but in 2027 sells their house and the person who moves into that house
wants to hook up to the sewer, their SD CS will be covered. Ok.
Well, it depends on when you connect. If you make that connection in 20 28 you're
gonna have to pay that S PC. Right? I was saying before at 2028 and
for our folks, um on the left hand table, it kind of goes through the years and we
are assuming we, we have to plan in 2025. Of course, yes, that's what we are. We
are,
feels like it's gonna be next week with the rate of construction. And so this is
a pretty, as I think the next slide might even show pretty, pretty generous policy.
But um the reason there's not ISTC is right off the bat. I
mean, you know, Carlborg, it's $8000 right now. Bill Ferrets 16,000 in Bainbridge
Island, it's 25,000 something in that neighborhood. I don't know what the city of
port towns it is right now. Um They tend to be, we're just hungry for people to do
that like you. This money is for either paying off debt from construction
or for building a fund for future capacity of the plant. So we have no debt
because of people who worked hard to get this project entirely funded through grants.
We have a small low interest loan that's being paid off through p so starting up
a small sewer with no debt. Otherwise it wouldn't be happening because you'd have
to add that on to that, that uh user charge. But you know, there will be a need
for expansion in the future. And um you know, these SP CS won't come anywhere close
to paying for a full surgery, it's treatment plant expansion, but it's a, it's a
recognition that, you know, you should be planning for future capital. Uh, and as
the next slide shows, the SD six could be much, much higher
if you like to go to the next slide. And, and as it was mentioned before, it's also
an incentive for getting more, obtaining more customers for the system. So this,
um, I guess you just go to the orange. So you find us, we are the orange S DC. Um,
at your six, that would be the $3000 and how we compare to our neighboring
cities and counties across the peninsula and even off the peninsula all the way to
Bainbridge Island, which is at the very top.
My brother just built a rental house in Bellingham and uh buying water sewer SD saves
$25,000. It says 20 in purple at the top. It says 2023 sewer facilities charges and
it says 3000 for Port Ack. It still be zero. Is that 2020? Yes, that would be zero.
Just so we didn't show zero. Yeah. And then we put, estimated that in six years.
Um, I guess the main point of that is that in case people uh or jurisdiction increase
their system development charges. It's just a moment and everyone else was 2023 charges
and in our 23rd charge.
Yeah. So
that means that the county would be relying heavily on
future grants for expansions. We did very well with this initial construction and
we need to do so again to expand the plan that you. Mhm. Ok.
Ok. So we're gonna go walk through incentives. Some of this will bring us back to
our very first workshop which I even forgot my paperwork for. But um this walks through
what the incentives are for connecting our phase 14 area properties only. So the
counties were paying, we're proposing and paying for on site work. Um As long as
it's funded and adequate, um I, we have to keep reiterating that because we want
to hook everybody up, but we might not be able to. So, um and what that includes
is the grinder pump um connecting to the, the control panel that drives the grinder
pump and the, the disconnecting and reconnecting the building drain to the grinder
pump, the piping from the grinder pump out to the main line in the roads. Um And
then the Decommissioning of the septic tank itself and then paperwork items, not
to forget, um application fees. Um We're reporting the easements on properties. Um
and then we are also paying for the disconnect itself and then we're proposing a
property owner reimbursement for up to $2500 for the work that the property owner
needs to do from their meter to the disconnect. So that in a nutshell is all of the
incentives that we are providing in this, we're proposing to provide this phase one
area, a lot of incentives.
And then um the after the connecting is the, the low income program is a huge incentives,
the phasing of the SEC program. And then also, and I I didn't go over it very well.
We also are proposing a deferral of SD CS for low income housing programs as well.
There's a section 1305 regarding that Sam was that you and Bob worked on that. Um
I think you
going to the Cities Program. Of course, there was discussions with habitat, but basically
you're not waiving the S DC, you're deferring it. And uh if the housing remains in
an affordable public type system for what is it? 20 years at that point for the overall
becomes a waiver
built an incentive to
I
and keeps me working, working like that. Yeah, because you know, 100 and 50 units
even at $3000 per year, you would really add up for SP sees land.
And so this is a flavor of other fees um that are um being adopted by, as we may
have spoken about before, are being adopted by resolution in the fee and charges
schedule and their hourly fees, connection application fees and inspection fees.
I'm sure you've seen these um similar through D CD um labor equipment and materials
um for a latecomer processing fee, marine vessel holding tank dis chart. We have
a gallon rate, greater pump damage um delinquent payments and then reporting fees
and this is just um not inclusive of every single fee, but just a few of the probably
mo more used one.
And that is the end of official, official, official end of our presentation in just
three workshops. We made it through your slide deck. That's great. I feel like we
will come back, like I said, in another month ago, probably mostly over the connection
policy. We're gonna finalize those discussions with D CD and, and Phil on sucker.
I mean, again, it's not gonna change much from what you saw. It's just gonna be better
uh clear language. Um Not multiple references in title 18 and 13 that
have a chance of becoming out of sync with each other and stuff like that. A lot
of the questions and comments made by the board help us uh go back and read them
and thank you for not bringing those half baked things back to us now. But wait until
you have a few, a full draft to, to bring back to the P A Os office. So I think that's
great. I see you're not asking for anything today though, right? There is a public
comment period on the agenda, but both Kate's still with us. She's got her screen
off and she's a little under the weather today, but I'll ask book Kate and Heidi
if you have any other questions or comments, if people have individual property questions.
Um, they should just, yes, they have called the office so far or emailed our to padlock
sewer email and it goes to the whole sewer team. What's the port, a sewer email?
Um, Port Hadlock Sewer at co.jefferson.law.us. It's pretty easy to remember. Ok.
For ack sewer. And we do it a lot of people asking you. Great. Ok.
Wow. I really appreciate the process so far and the ability to kind of weigh in when
it's been thought about before. You know, we're at the hearing. So I, I think this
process has been great so far.
You might go ahead. I don't have any questions. Ok. You have something to add Monty.
Oh, I just wondered if we could go back to. Well, I, they don't have the property.
No, I, I remembered
we talk about the costs for the $80. 0, ok.
Or he's right. Should be like,
thank you. Thank you.
Um,
besides the connection policy which we talked about and coming back with who has
to connect and when and most of this, the meat of this organs boils down to what
will people pay and, and what will it cost to run the sewer? And so again, we're
proposing $80 for a single family residence that's not discounted for low income.
Um, you can see where that, uh, fits in with kind of the regional coughs there. So,
I mean,
we're not looking for action from the board today. But the, the board was
concerns the amount of subsidy the county is going to have to provide to operate
sooner. That's where you can affect that. So, I mean, I just came back to this because
I think it's a really key element of the whole sewer or that said this presentation
is, is that number right there and what it generates compared to what it costs to
run. So, uh, I just didn't wanna wash over that.
Ok.
Take that as a film, reasonable point. We thought to
start the sewer at knowing that it would require the county subsidy to operate in.
But uh because that was public works using all the information available to us. But
the discussion do we have an estimate of how long we, we are gonna tolerate subsidizing
it at that rate. It
as that because when your cost go up
somewhat, you're hauling more solids away who you're maybe you're using a little
more power, maybe a little more chemical. But your fixed cost, you know, you're not
gonna really have to add more staff just because 50 more people. I mean, you might
get a few more calls or your health service or something. But, you know, I, I would
say that with any sewer connections are the key. It's an economy of scale thing.
Again, you know, the more connections, the more customers you have to strike cost
through. So that's really, uh it's really
early in this process. A couple of years ago, we were talking about phases like a
phase two, phase one B and there is different naming conventions. Is there
still thinking about areas like the old alcohol plant? And I mean, they were, they
were for a while on, on a map sometimes that map shows up. Yeah. So the sewer, the
sewer facility plan from 2008 that was updated in 2021
hypothesized that the alcohol plant could be a follow on to the core area and
then Rode Drive would be a follow on that. That doesn't mean it has to be that way.
But those are Roadie Drive and the alcohol plant area of the two kind of, uh,
next phases that the county would wanna be thinking of about. And it's, it's planning
and it's on seeking. But, uh, we're so busy just trying to get this sewer built
for you. It's kind of hard to think about those futures, but we did put a dedicated
line in from the treatment plant area to UFC. Well, to Ky Center
for the future alcohol plant connection. So that when that line is run, they will
ebay someone would only have to go from if we send down the highway to alcohol plant.
But it's not, it's more than just a line. It's a full pump station that would be
needed down on the alcohol plants in the elevation, but at least you won't have to
be digging up the shoulder of Ness's Corner road again to put it tight in. We also
have a not that, that we have an extra line in that could serve the
roadie area. It's a question of how we would get there. Uh Whether it would be on
corner road or via another route across the creek, which is a major barrier between
the two.
We were not able nor was the beauty able to get washed out to how many
utilities on their new bridge that they're building um
for a variety of reasons. So that remains to be seen. I think those conversations
aren't to bad yet. But anyway, um so there has been OS to
future bases and we're doing what we can to set ourselves up for that. Uh Also at
the treatment plant, we've located stuff but actually Samantha and are
other team members
caught the fact that our consultant had some stuff located where biological expansion
would occur at the treatment plant. So we re located some of those elements before
they got put in so that there would be room to expand the treatment plant. Uh Extra
conduits will put in and things like that again. Uh because we have people on our
team that are paying attention. So how many er U could the system as configured with
the one MBR process 500 I could? Ok. So can one of these
expansions is probably within the realm of, of that before I guess, I think, you
know, I'm thinking about swimming pools a lot. Right. So, thinking about that chim
cream Chimi Park area and if, and bringing, bringing the sewer over there to the
school district and Jimi Park and, and, uh, um, so that's something that would be
within the realm of possibility without getting a new, another unit already. I'd
say habitat and an aquatic center with push the,
that the system has. And I know I pointed out to one of those MVR uh units on sale
cheap somewhere. I mean, can you just grab anyone off the government auction page
and hold on to it? Are they kind of specifically? Very specific? Ok. There's a reason.
There's something. Oh, really?
Yeah. Yeah, I won't buy it either. I was looking at it too,
Greg. I'm not really looking for
big nods to affordability and building within our means. Uh, and, you
know, as we started the design process, we didn't have the money that we have to
pay and you never know when you're gonna get it. If you're gonna get it, you have
no guarantees. So you're designing to, uh, value engineering, you don't even have,
except people telling you it's gonna be really hard, almost impossible to get that
kind of money and then suddenly COVID hits and there's all this infrastructure money
suddenly that haven't existed for the last 20 years, but we've been working on it.
So, but even at that, we're, um, as Sam mentioned, we are going to be
able to hook up many, maybe the word is most of the customers that want
connections in the core area. But I mean, we're pushing the limits. Um, we've gotten
some great bids from our local contractors. Were you guys pretty happy with the grinder
pump uh contract? Yeah, I can't remember what the difference was. You're saying that
the MBR has capacity for 500 US. But on the slide before this, I think
there was 2 38 82 87. So there's still room
there is but you know, 100 and 50 unit of housing are they not at 100 and 50 us?
Because some of them are multi, it could be, there could be 100 US or 90 right there
and then a swimming pool is so that's not in this number habitats, not in this number.
This is existing. Ok. That's interesting. Existing. Um
And we tried to eliminate irrigation water use like that.
Do we have an habit? Er 100 50.7? You know, it could be 100
uh swimming pool. I think
somewhere I have in my mind looking at the maybe it was the wing pool or something,
it was like 30 something like that. Um So yeah, there's, there's capacity, it's
unlimited. I mean, it's not on
and uh it is surprising, you know, because all you're talking about sewer, there
weren't all these big plans happening and then as soon as we start building sewer,
suddenly everyone's got a big plan. I know that happens. It's funny how that happens.
Isn't so, uh I think we right sized it. We were two years ago, we were worried about
having enough flow even. I remember that whether we would be able to really even
run it. Uh Those were the conversations Bob and I were having with folks if we can
get enough VR us.
So it will need to be expanded. It's set up for expansion, but it, it will be all,
you know, $5 million to add additional um MBR screens head works and things like
that to, to run a parallel unit out of the pond, which isn't really a pond. It's
again, they trade area for uh uh I say reclaimed water um is certainly big
enough. It's, it's as big as we could fit on that piece of property and, and it definitely
has a lot of past there. Um So that's good. Yeah. Ok. Well, not that it's on our
radar and in our, in our plans, but I know that Chimi is interested in being including
the school, but some of the businesses in that Jim core are noodling over how to
get the septic capacity to do what they need to do. And there's not even the area
to build the drain fields that some of those businesses need just to meet the their
current demand, their grandfathered in at really low. So. Right. I don't
know if we'd ever do anything there like that, but it would be cool. All right, Kate.
Any last thoughts or questions?
Well, I'm, I'm listening in. Sorry, I'm having a hard time staying upright. Um, no,
I, I think this, um, I'm excited for the public meetings, um, start getting some
feedback. Um, and I guess maybe I would ask public works to, uh, coordinate with
us knowing that, you know, probably each one of us will want to attend one of those
meetings would be great to coordinate dates if possible.
I think our idea was to
potentially do a, like a special meeting of the board or something as to roll through,
cleaned up and final version of this presentation, we maybe pair it back so we done
at a meeting or something. And, uh, and we could do more than one of those but, you
know, like evening or something, but it just seems like a
efficient that in a way to run through something like an ordinance rather than,
and then, you know, there's, there's lots of opportunity for public comment and something
like that. That could, yeah, that could be. Yeah, I mean, there's other ways to do
it as well. It's hard to bring people out for discussion about, you know, we sometimes
other times it's not. And we have had lots of meetings on one on one basis with property
owners I per day of the meeting. But, but yeah, so I guess what I'm saying
is we fully intend to coordinate the for one way or the other for because future
themes? Excellent.
Have you started as your team started to think about some, I mean, some of the properties
of the phase one boundary are gonna be complicated site development, long driveways.
Yeah. Yes. So, um how we're tackling them now, um aside from
stage one, which will hopefully be awarded later today. Um Stage two, we started
from our maps here and our targeting is the remainder of the commercial properties.
So property 116 on the maps was showing stage three. It will actually be done in
stage two that's um should um and cotton cause it's so close to a commercial
industrial place. Um And then, so we're working on those preliminary designs. Currently.
Um um Tetra Tech will be out on Wednesday with the electrical team to go over one
of the properties that we need a little bit more electrical in. So we will be going
over that property on Wednesday with Tetro techs electrical engineer. And then once
we get stage two going, we hopefully you'll see a contract for another engineering
firm. We have to go over a wooden boat and be an arm will be our next two bigger
ones. Um And then we're gonna keep going with stage three and four. Preliminarily
we do the preliminary designs in house. I'm John Black and gray. Go out and look
at all the properties and do the preliminary review and then we hand them over to
our design engineer and it's been going very well. So that's kind of how we're approaching
them as we forward my system.
All right. So when you see John block at your house, you know, you're up to tell
you why did you go to? My, my husband said two people came walking down the street
the other day. Ok. Yes, Greg and I Greg and I went around the neighborhood to let
people know we were coming into the neighborhood with, with the collector lines.
Yeah. Many people had questions about where their stuffs were. So it kind of turned
into a dual purpose meeting. So it was good. I hope he didn't move or stick around.
I don't know. No, I did not. No, there's, there's, there's people that don't, someone
who doesn't have a stick who might want to stick. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Anybody who
can stop great jobs for I to move there. And what are the sticks based on? Are they
stick? Are they based on where they're based on? What was um bid out in the collection
plan? No, but I mean, what, why are they located where they are? Some of them were
popular line. Some of them we knew septic information. So we put them where we thought
they might need to go. Some of them were at the, we want to make sure every property
had one. So we put it on the plan and then we knew we can do it later. So there's
a variety of things. I mean, do you guys use water witches at all? Like the dowsers?
When they were doing the fiber we had, you know, the, the people came out to track
the lines and then when the, like the manager of the contractor came out, he was
there with like a little, you know, wish thing like a water witch in the, with the
lines. I don't know that I think
they were coat hangers but coat hangers. Ok. So there's a scientific basis which
my mom's well on her property on Martone and it was a, it's a very productive, well,
we had someone which are well and did not work and then someone else said, how about
over there? And that was funny.
Did it work for you? Sam? Sam? Sam. It did work for you and irrigation a long time
ago. Yes, I contracted that it to find irrigation lines through farm. Yeah, I, I
did it once and it was, it was amazing. I mean, like there, the, you know, feeling
that movement, it was so strong. There was like no way that I was, you know, making
them move. It's really interesting and they would be on Ouija boards. Wait, that's
not scientific. That's magic that, yeah. Uh I'm just following up on Mr Eisenhower's
question about lots that are difficult to access. I would say that, uh that's one
of the upsides of the system. We're using the grinder pumps. The pressure sewers
is that you can, yeah, you can into existing infrastructure without worrying about
grade snake, these flexible two inch lines through stuff around
stuff. Uh, you know,
sewer layout would drive how development happens, but we already have to develop
so developments driving how the sewer line happen, sewer lines happen and this is
particularly well suited for when you have an area that's largely built out with,
you know, and again, septic systems are off and out the back of the building. Whereas
the traditional sewer line should be out the front of the building towards the street.
So, um, that's one of the upsides. Again, there's pros and cons of both systems.
But, you know, we're able to get to some of these difficult places, wooden boats
to properties are probably some of the most complex to serve. But we've already,
we have a lift station. Huh? Right. Yeah. And, and we've already acquired a bunch
of the easements from them, needed to make that happen because those lines won't
be just serving them, but also a couple other properties down there. So, coming up
behind the boat school, then up to Curtis Street. Um, so that's happy. Uh,
so pretty complicated. But yes, and each of the properties is its own little project.
So I would say the line is flexible within reason, there may be vegetation that does
need to come out to put your line. So I just, I do want a pair, especially once we
get on residential property impair people's expectations and keeping everything just
as it is. Uh because you also have to get equipment in there. It doesn't magically
go on the ground. So, um so I agree. Yeah. So I just, I just wanna make
sure that um but archaeologically speaking, in 100 years, when someone's digging
up our streets and saying, why are these sewers building all over here? They'll be
able to understand that the development pattern happened first and sewer went in.
Yes, or we can leave the time cap. But yes, we might find some cool stuff. Yeah,
like we may so, but yeah, so um we try to accommodate where we can and it's a two
inch line that is going to go on to properties. But there are boxes vally now that
for check files which are not and how deep um we're running between
five and 3 ft 42 in somewhere there. And then the whole free grinder pump is significant.
It's 92. We have a base of 92 inches not wanted to go in there. Ok. Well,
thanks. Obviously, we're fascinated by the topic and excited that is to, you know,
be uh turning the dirt dirt over and, and really making this happen. So thank you
guys for this work on the ordinance.
All right, thank you. It is. It is there. We'll open it now for public comment. If
anyone would like to speak to the sewer ordinance that we've been discussing today,
you can hit the raise hand button or star nine if you're on the phone and we'll bring
you on over.
All right, make one more call. Anyone that would like to make public comment, we
would love to hear from you. You can hit the raise hand button or star an eye if
you're on the phone. Yeah. Fun questions for our experts in the room. Your opportunity,
water witching experience, all sorts of things. I think that would be legitimate
public comments since we talked about it. But no. Ok. I'll close public comment and,
and thank you guys for your time and your work and we will uh look forward to communications
about the next step, whether it's a special meeting. I think we can accommodate something
that makes it convenient to make sure we can get good public interface at the same
time that we're digging into that ordinance.
But some are larger than this. So, yeah, probably. Yep, some are larger than this.
Do you have any other public works questions? I heard something about a
sign of stuff you touch base with me off. Uh You know, I was, I just heard about
it late last week but there, there is talk about coordinating with uh Wasto about
uh you know, a welcome to the Olympic Peninsula in that Paradise Bay roundabout.
Um Yeah, love, love to bend your ears. And I've got a uh just was invited this morning
to uh visit the pos B one. So if, if you or someone from public works would like
to go
at all. I strong and caution about anything that needs me that's like land or something.
That's what they were talking about is Conduit for irrigation and stuff like that.
Well, there's no irrigation system out there. Right. Well, there is a shy, I guess
but, and it, it's a freeway getting into the middle of, I mean, you see, like when
the city does maintenance on the roundabouts, what it takes, you can't really do
that a place like that.
Pretty challenge. You can maintain the media. It is. Yeah. Well, I'll make sure to
include you in the conversation that would be
undertake. So like, like as Heidi said, it might be easier to put it on ad nr partial
or something just off the road that uh doesn't signs one thing. It's terrible. Start
talking about landscape maintenance like landscaping, watering.
Appreciate that. Any other public works questions. Uh Monty opened the door. No.
Um tribes were involved in the one in Paulsboro, at least it looks like it. Um And
it could be potentially another funding source if they were interested in, in having
some financial. So,
yeah. Yeah. Oh, ok. Well, great, thank you, Samantha. Thank you, Martin. Thank you.
I mean, at some point we need to ask him about the pool about the pool. Yeah. What
about it be and pulling and black? Oh, I can ask him now.
He laughs. No, I'm not.
Well, I mean, the whole task force is proposing or seems to be leaning towards a
tri location for a swimming pool, aquatic facility. Go, go check on that. Um,
yeah, in the sewer area. And that's, that's the, you know, when they looked at sites,
they, we looked at, uh, three sites, several, most of them in the phase one sewer
area, one of them out of the phase one sewer area. So that's why I was asking about
connecting Jim Park, which really came out of a conversation with Bob Wheeler as
he was kind of helping me think these things through. But, um, your question is generally,
I mean, is it good to have a pool on our new septic system or is that like nutrient
deficient water? A challenge for a big sewer for a small sewer system?
We looked into that a little bit and thought it was, it was, it was ok. Um, generally
when you drain a pool, you don't do it to the sewer system, you can do it through
a storm drain or a storm water pond or something and they neutralize the chlorine
before they do that from when we discovered, um, So, really the effluent you're looking
at, from the aquatic center is gonna be locker room effluent, which is no different
than any other. Well, it's a lot of showers but it's a bathroom that fluid, which
is, I'm gonna guess, easier to treat the kitchen as the one. Yeah.
Um, more predictable, more predictable. So, I mean, pain that flows where
somehow I got the number that was equivalent to about 30 us or 35 us or something
like that, which again, we, we need that information but the system certainly has
capacity, um, for it. So from a sewer standpoint, it
seems doable. Hm. Um, you know, many other things to think about sighing
and pool. Um, I went to the, I was invited to go to that task force that you,
the South would be with the South would be presenter and I thought, um, the information
he had at that meeting was really formative. Obviously it was a wealth of knowledge
and of course they're doing theirs on a
large outside septic of some sort of, it's large. Uh, but if you can do it on septic,
you could do it on the sewer like ours for sure. Uh, you know, so, uh,
like to take the cost down a lot to do it on sewer versus the loss. I mean, the,
the south would be, it's a million nine for the septic, a large unsafe septic as
well as a significant delay. It's been three years to permit it through the Department
of Ecology. So I think there's both time, uh, time savings as well as well. I don't
know how much would it cost to, to bring the sewer over? So, is it, if the property
were in the core area where we've already run sewer lines, then, then, um, you're
talking the power and the grinder, but probably a quad grinder oft station you're
looking at,
I mean, I don't, people will pin me down if I say something, you don't want the magnitude
100,200. You know what I mean? Let's say, um, it seems reasonable.
We were just for this election, not for the conveyance. Yeah, for the, for the on
it was got and the, you know, the pipes already get the, in the, in that is on the
road. So it already goes whatever. So if you're talking about a site where, you know,
I have to run to, depends on how far away that, but that is from the area that we're
currently serving. How do you get there from there? I know there's been discussion
on property across from H shaped Barrel, which isn't in the growth area. Uh, but
that's a, a good mile on the other side of the creek. Get fairly
expensive around right there. But there's, and it's also state highway right on that.
And she,
yeah.
Yeah, I mean, there's, we could talk about other opportunities if you wanna call
it, like, you know, running a parallel line to irrigate HD, parallel fields with,
with class a wastewater is part of that same effort to run a sewer line over to that
area or something. But again, we're talking, um, I think that is, you know, easily
cost $100 to do or maybe even two or something by the time. Hi. But, but, but we
have some pretty good benefit too. Right? And you're talking about a $1.9 million
our sites for the South will be projects
maybe for that kind of money to get sewer connection and all that. Yeah, a lot to
think about. There's no site that's been selected for store. Yeah. No, I was just
noodling on sewer noodling on sewer opportunities.
Well, you haven't heard anything about, uh, the qoc, whether they're planning on
changing anything? I haven't, didn't that
wasn't there some delay in finalizing that antitrust lawsuit? Yeah.
Ok, great. So, well, we could probably keep talking all day long, you know. But,
uh, I appreciate you guys' time and all the work on this. I know that it's, it's
big, big book to work. Yeah, I can, it's hard to blue sky thinking it's hard to put
a san and others are doing distraction going on.
Yeah, I appreciate you guys. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Are you gonna take your giant
map this time? Ok. You can leave it here. Ok. Ok, good.
Could we, um, consider the, um, Quinault request? Yeah. Did a letter come in? It,
did some language. Um, so, uh,
I, I think we were all originally included in the correspondence from, um, the Quinault
Federal lobbyist. And so I'm not sure if any of you have any other information or
have had contact with them that, um, that I, that I'm not aware of. Have you Greg?
Oh, ok, great. So, um, the, um Quinault reached out through their lobbyist to
us um to request that we issue a, a letter of non protest
to a transfer that uh Congressman Kilmer is proposing. Um this
would um provide land that used to be uh reservation land of the kalt, but that was
at some point sold off uh to private owner. Um The property uh was meant to
be uh they must have uh uh submitted a request to be able to harvest the property.
I'm not sure through DNR or what. Um This is quite historic at this point. Um And
it was found to be old growth habitat for spotted owl. So they were not allowed to
harvest it and it ended up in um ownership of the forest service. And now uh Congressman
Kilmer is interested in uh helping the tribe uh get that land back from the forest
service. Um And they have asked us to write a letter of um either support or um
no objection. So, um I do have additional background information if that would be
helpful. So again, it's it's old growth. Um The tribe would not be harvesting it.
Um It is part of an effort to of the Quinault to get number of their former reservation
lands back. Um So happy to give, provide more information I I
have sent to you and also John Loving sent to you some, some additional background
information um or I could share the uh non opposition language that was sent to
me. I, I don't know he did you have a chance to review the, the PDF S that were sent
out with lunch hour and no briefly, I mean, G 72 acres, one partial write off 101.
And I think Kate represented it. Well, I mean, so II I don't, I, I feel like I have
a sufficient background to start looking at the letter.
Um So here is the language that they have uh requested it. Very simple
and it's right off of 101 but they just, they, it's not right out. I mean, look here.
Oh, so there's one on one. So it's that 1157. Yeah, it's, it's awesome. Really, I
guess. And everything yellow is tribal land. I believe so. Yes.
Really good over there. And probably a legend at the bottom.
It was, yeah. Yellow National Park. One Qin. But um Oh
yeah. Yeah. Right. It was ok. Yeah, it's an in holding to make to
surrounded. Oh, wait So, why is this? I didn't see right there. Right.
Just this bit here. I don't know what the white is.
Ok. Well, I mean, that language is, uh, pretty innocuous.
Yeah. So, um, I'll make a motion that the, uh, Jefferson County Board of Commissioners
sends this letter to President Capone. Am I saying that correctly?
Not sure. Not sure. Apparently it's the new, uh, tribal president for the Quinault
Indian nation who I've not met. I haven't met them either. I'm happy this second.
All right. This, since this is not on our agenda, I will open up before we take action
on this to anyone in the public. Anyone that would like to make public comment on
this letter, we are considering signing um to support the Penault Nations, uh this
uh this land trade, um uh raise your hand, you can hit the raise hand button or Star
nine. If you're on the phone, if you'd like to comment on this letter before we sign
it or agree to sign it,
make one more call for public comments. Hit the raise hand button or star nine. Ok.
See no hands raised. I will close public comments. Do we have any sense what they
intend to do with it? Did you say sorry if I missed that? Um Yeah, let's see, sorry.
I just closed that document. Um Take me a second here.
Um The Quinault Indian Nation Plans for allotment 1157. The Quinault people consider
this land a sacred place that must be protected and maintained for the next seven
generations and longer. Qin will never commercially log the land allotment 1157 has
remnants of cedar sticks and other debris left in place by ancient carvers to safely
slide canoe hulls into the salmon river. Um Once we regain ownership of the land,
we'll be able to take members to the site to teach them how our ancestors work to
preserve our culture and heritage. The Quinault Nation plans to utilize this land
as a living museum for educational purposes where students and college in learn interns
will learn how to preserve other historical places. Yeah, I would jump up and down
and supporting that. Do you want me to, do you want me to jump up and down Kate?
I'm certainly not going to today. So, thank you. I'm done up and done bully and support,
right. All right. Um With that, I will call the question all in favor of uh us authorizing
and signing this letter of, of support or at least a non objection indicate by saying
II I OK. The motion passes. Thank you for bringing that Kate. Sure. I'll send it
to um office staff to have formatted for our signatures. Thank you. And we, is that
pretty? Uh they need to get that ASAP is just another quick one. Yeah, they're um
apparently I don't, there was some miscommunication they were expecting one of us
at the reservation today. Carolyn tucked the state lobbyist and I was like, um, I
don't think any of us would have planned to come on a Monday. Um, so yes, I'm not
sure what happened. Ok. Hi, Kate. Would you like to, to uh have us fix your digital
signature first? Um Greg and uh how you sign? Sure. Yeah,
just in case I'm um, I'm planning to come in tomorrow, but just, yeah, maybe good
to not wait on me in case I don't feel well tomorrow.
Thanks. Right. Is that for the whole packet or just for this? Is there what else
time critical? I would have asked that to. Yeah, I mean, I can do it uh approved
telephonically for all the consent agenda items unless you plan on being in here
to sign physically. Um Yeah, I just don't know how I'm gonna feel tomorrow and then
I'm in.
Ok, thanks.
Ok. Well, it is 320. We have a timed item on our agenda talking about the open space
tax program. Many vacancies. Oh, gotcha. Yes. Um I also
wonder about the radio show. I feel very out of touch. I was thinking about uh let's
see. Let's open up. The old festival season is almost over,
please.
Mhm.
The one where they, I can find that preempted this seven
hm The last week was the last preemption. So yes, we have un we are unscheduled but
uh someone should go in this Friday I'm available this Friday, it,
get down, you know, who you're gonna bring it off. No. Uh, uh, I was thinking it
would be good to have Doctor Berry just the, this COVID thing about the fall vaccine.
But who knows? I, you know, I don't know who's available on Friday in summertime.
How sick you are too. You don't want to go on the radio with Doctor Berry hacking
up a lung or anything. No, I mean, kind of, you know, subject appropriate and
that's 89 is Kate. Mhm.
The 16th.
Um.
Mhm. Ok, let's see.
I'm just saving it, putting it back in my calendar.
I'm available on the 16th if we need it. Need, if we need one, we do need one. Let
me look at the 23rd.
Um, yeah, I can do the 23rd
and then I cannot do the 30th 30th. That's a bit tough one. Friday before Labor Day
cater you around on August 30th. Yeah. All right. Ok. And for
830
and then, um, sir, that I have a conflict on the sixth when
I can do the sixth
Friday the 13th. I'll be in at the o the sanctuary meeting. Sure. You will Friday
the 13th. I can do that. Oh, wait, I'm sorry, I'm not looking at the right date.
Uh, I, I'm supposed to be in Seattle that day but I, I could do it virtually.
Um, it's not great. Not great. Uh, it's, you know,
uh, it, it's open for me. We can, we can pencil me in and then someone else comes
up with something. I'm always, you know, Friday the 13th. I don't know why the DJ
OP opportunities are great. I will say DJ was after me last time when I did my kind
of ad hoc here, the songs that I'm learning that he wanted to see more, uh, disc
spinning from the commissioners. So interesting. you know, throwing the glove, the
gauntlet down for you guys. Well, he's got the Taylor, the station manager who doesn't
want that. Oh, well, that's why he talked to, you know, our cohos sometimes. Um,
I can't do the 20th of September, but I can do the 27th Kate. Can you do the 20th?
Yeah, I've got the coord meeting, but it seems like one of us often has to leave
that early anyway. But we're not all there. Right. Right. This time it's all
right. All right. Ok. And then I'm at a straight here in meeting that day. 927. You
guys plan things on Friday. I was trying not to plan anything on Friday 927. 927.
How do you can Adel's birthday? 00, wow. Calling it out. Yeah.
Well, he turned 31. Right. Ok. That's probably far enough to the end of September
gonna save this. That's something I usually forget to do. And you guys can always
access that on the drive.
Yeah. Ok. I think she's calling.
Ok. Said she sent it, sent it again. Ok.
I got, I got, I just two. I have a lot of things on Fridays. Oh, yeah. Well, maybe
we can go a little farther. We still got a few minutes left. Do you wanna take the,
uh, October 1? I can October 4th 24th.
And for good buddy, the nineties doubling up there.
Um, I'll do a two parter then 1011. The volunteers were kind of all over the place.
Let's see, Kate done in the next section here. 123 there on 123.
I done 123. We're all, we're all good. So, um ok. How does Friday the
11th of October? Look? Yeah. Sounds good.
Can't believe we're talking about October. I know the summer is almost over. Does
that mean summer is over now? Mhm. No way
that 2.5 months of the year, right? 18th. Um I have a, I, I can't, cannot
do the eight the 18th. 0, yeah, that's the big P RT po executive board and retreat
too. Right. The Community Foundation board retreat too. Uh
And that's, that's the county coordinations of either the 18th. Is that a quarterly
one? That one? That's the monthly one? Ok. So Kate can't do it. I can do the
18th list. I can do the 2750
maybe. All right. Three South. Who's, oh, no, it's not
Halloween. I thought it was gonna be Halloween. It's not, it's, uh, what's the 31st?
Is it All Saints Day? The first Friday, November 1st. Isn't that all? I think it
is. Yeah. Uh, ok, we will. We'll leave All Saints Day for another day.
Right. Great. Well, we're just, we still got a minute or two. Any other items folks
need to a dress walk on?
Mhm.
I will say I just got, um, probably kind of advanced notice of a, um, the local board
of health training that the state has been putting on the last couple of years. Um,
and it is gonna be October 2nd and third in Leavenworth. Mhm. For consideration.
I think anybody can go. Well, is that what I went to last year? Yeah, you're the
only one that's been, I went the first year in Spokane. Yeah. Say October or September
October 2nd and third.
I'm sure Apple will be getting it out. But just for our advanced planning Wednesday.
Hm. That's after 1/5 Monday as well. Hm.
Very good.
Ok. Really? Like talking about October right now. I'm with Kate on this. Still want
to enjoy the summer. Ok. Um, well, we're still two minutes before our
330. Talk about the, uh Open Space Tax program and, uh, a new resolution excited
to see it. It was, yeah, it, it really feels like the, uh, regulatory reform, uh,
resolution come to life. So I, I appreciate resolution. Yes, indeed. It's Good to
see you, David. We take it serious. Yeah, appreciate it. Oh, board and committee
vacancies. Let's maybe we can have that open. Mm, I
still, as I told I gotta push my neighbor to apply for the weed board.
Yeah, the Behavior Health Advisory Committee. I mentioned this earlier. We are kind
of chewing up what, um it says in the law that we're supposed to have on that committee
and what we have on the committee and it does say we're supposed to have a Salish
behavioral health administrative services organization member and we don't, we haven't
for a while. So um might be a behavioral advisory committee discussion on that one.
Yeah, but isn't there a, is there still staff from count if it's on the advisory
board? I know and was on it before, before you on the Behavior Health Advisory Committee
on the uh bhaso Advisory board. Oh, I'm not sure. Uh Laurie Fleming is on it. Ok.
So, yeah, Laurie Fleming might be uh Yeah. Yeah. Possibility. I have a meeting. I
have the BHC meetings this week. I can, I can push it a little bit see if she's interested
or, and there are, there are new, um I think there's a one or two other new Jefferson
County representatives on the Salish advisory board as well that just got appointed.
So I'm not sure if they would be interested in taking on anyway. And I should say
um the Port Ludlow drainage district. Remember we accepted the resignation of Gary
Rig Rigmor. One of the uh um applicants, they've been, I think they have a meeting
on the eighth this week where they will consider candidates and then make a recommendation
to us about who should get uh appointed to that interim position until the next election
for the remainder of that term.
Um
Housing Fund Board. I think we have somebody on the data and needs assessments. Yeah,
Vicky and Julia looks like we have four, but we, we're supposed to have six
or, well, there's some members from the Housing Fund Board and there's some members
of the public on it. I, I'll double check. I feel like that's inaccurate if there's
two openings for housing fund board members is accurate. There's one space for a
housing fund board member on the Community conversations Committee and the funding
opportunities committee is pretty much, uh, it's, uh, hasn't been doing anything.
It's pretty, uh, fallow.
All right. Yeah, re resignation on district two for Suite board.
And of course, that left retirement disability board. It's impossible to find a,
just a community member. I've had many retired police officers or, or, uh, firefighters
uh interested, but it has to be a member outside of those, those, uh, um, jobs that
are, are served by the left board.
All right. Well, we've, uh, gone past our time as we, uh, prevaricate. So why don't
we, um, put that aside and jump into our discussion and potential action regarding
a resolution uh regarding amending the resolution, adopting the Open Space tax program
and public comments. We're joined by David Wayne Johnson and it was great joining
us online or let's see. Uh, let's see if she's here.
It's not gonna take like, right. Ok. Um, well, I guess it's all on your shoulder,
David. Ok. Take it away. Thank you. Uh, well, good afternoon commissioners. I know
you have a long day today. Uh David Wayne Johnson, associate lead planner for the
Department of Community Development, also known as D CD. And joining us also today
is Sherry Scholl, the deputy assessor from the Jefferson County uh assessors department.
And we're gonna talk to you about open space tax programs and I think this is a good
opportunity to, to at least talk about that program because some of you may not be
aware of what it is or how it works. Like most of what we do, it's pretty convoluted.
So we're gonna try to simplify it as much as we can without confusing you any further.
You're gonna simplify it for us and you're gonna simplify it for everyone. Right?
Well, that's what we're trying. Ok, that's our goal. Um So how do I advance this
just down here, use this, we, I'll get this quote towards you. So we do have a, a
powerpoint presentation we'll go through. Um, let me start with the agenda. Uh We're
gonna cover the requests that we're making today, which is basically uh asking you
to review a resolution that will amend the Open Space tax program. The, and uh we'll
also cover the background and history of the Open Space tax program. We'll look at
regulatory reform which we're basing this request on in part. Uh And then we have
a summary uh of the request or basically what we're trying to accomplish. And then
we'll go into next steps which uh you know, there's quite a few. Uh And then finally,
we'll have questions for you to ask when I just ask that you save your questions
to the end because you may have your questions answered during the presentation.
So we'll try, we're a bunch of cats though. So I apologize. I been watching you guys
for a long time. Um So let's go every Monday actually.
Um So the request is, is this and this is verbatim what I put in the agenda request
that you, I'm assuming you've read and reviewed that D CD is requesting the board
of County commissioners amend resolution 8291 to remove the requirement for a hearing
examiner, public hearing on open space tax applications for regulatory reform resolution
1719. And we'll go into more detail on what that involves. So let's
start with some history. So you understand, uh where all this started, basically
Open Space Tax Act was enacted in 1970 by the Washington State legislature and in
essence what it does, it gives a uh tax, property tax rate or benefit um
to landowners uh in exchange for preserving resource land. So, in that sense, it's
a lot like G MA and this is 1970 which G MA is 19 nineties. So this may have been
the beginning of the idea that we need to conserve our resource land. And as an incentive
to do that, we're gonna give you the tax break of the tax. So that's essentially
what it does in the most simple terms, I can, I can convey. Um
So how do we administer this tax act? Well, it's, it's in the RCW 1884
34. It, it empowers counties to set up their own open space tax program. In this
case, we have what's called a P public benefit rating system where we evaluate the
value of the lands in terms of re uh resource conservation. Um And this resolution
adopting this program for the county was made in August 12th, 1991. So 33 years,
um it served as a guide for us in processing these applications which we also refer
to as cur current use, open space. The knowing pla gets a little but
um it was also amended in 1995 to include shorelines, tidelands and buffers.
Uh And that's in the, the rating system which will show you the, the worksheet for
that, right? So it's, it's been re it's been uh amended once already and we're asking
you to do that again.
Ok.
Mhm.
Oh
yeah. Ok. So there so continued without admitting through this, there are three categories,
as we just mentioned, there's open space, uh there's AG and its forest land and we
used to refer to open space. Open space is processed by D CD. Open space AG is processed
by the assessor and open space forest used to be come through our office D CD, but
now it's administered by the assessor exclusively. And the open space part is because
it's under the open space program, but there's three different categories, open space,
which is anything which isn't ag or forest land, but it's open space. We want to
preserve that and then ag enforced. Um So is there anything I'm I'm sorry, anything
you wanna uh chime in on just go? Oh, ok. I just wanted to clarify that the open
space Timberland originally was for parcels five acres and above. Um and designated
forest land is 20 acres and above excluding a one acre home site where now the law
has changed for DFL and five acres and above can be AD DFL. So we hoped um hopefully
by the end of the year, we hope to do a resolution converting all of our open space
timber parcels and ad FL because they're managed as DFL to begin with and uh many
of the counties around probably about 20 out of 39 at least have already done that
conversion. So we hope to have a resolution to you to the commissioners by the end
of the year doing that as well. So, yeah, the interesting part about this is the
partnership we have with the assessor and processing they serve. It's uh it's kind
of dicey, but we'll talk about that. So go ahead to the next slide. So how do we
administer this? So, um, like I said, D CD refers to this as a current use assessment,
but it's really open space, open space. And um so they apply through D CD. We
evaluate the property based upon this public benefit rating system. We'll look at
the checklist here in a minute and then the assessor determines how much property
tax reduction uh they should receive based upon the number of points they get on
that rating system. So, together with D CD and the assessor, uh we recommend approval
or denial for an application. Um And we determine what the tax benefit might be,
uh or the owner would receive. And then uh the board makes the final decision based
upon a recommendation by the hearing exam. Uh that's essentially how that works that
slide. So here is the open space current uh use tax assessment, public benefit rating
worksheet. So we give this to the applicant and there's instructions in the uh the
program about how they would qualify for each one of these. And you can see the number
of points that you potentially could get for each one of these subcategories. Uh
high priority resources, low priority access. So if they're offering the public access
to enjoy the property, they get points for that transfer. Development rights county
policies, there's the Tidelands shorelines and buffers that I mentioned were added
in 1995 and then we add all these up and there's a maximum of 12, you can't get more
than 12 and there's a minimum of five. So I don't know, what's your experience? Most
of them have been more than 10 to 12
and that the
10% of market value. So that's what I get. Um
ok, I think let's uh let's move on to the next part. So uh the hearing examiner uh
public hearing and recommendation, our program specifies that the hearing examiner
shall hold the required public hearing, make a recommendation to the board of commissioners
based upon staff report and testimony. And really, they're looking to make sure that
the application complies with the program. Now, it's an important distinction here
to make because this is not a land use application, it's not a land use decision.
Most of the urine examiner decisions, in fact, all of them through D CD are decisions
that you guys have no part of and that's an appealable decision uh either through
superior court or in cases of. Yeah, I think it was all if you're an examiner said
you would go to severe court. Um So they make a recommendation to the board
after hearing the, the case in the public hearing. And then you guys basically decide
whether you want to accept that recommendation or not. And you as the legislative
authority enter into a tax agreement with the property owner for that reduction.
Um Over the years, we've processed quite a few of these. I think the last time we
actually had a conversation with the urine examiner, Sherry and myself and I'm somebody
raised the subject are these really necessary. It's not a land use decision. Um It
seems like an extra step uh that we don't really need, nobody shows up for these,
but the applicant, it's not a land use decision where they're doing land use development,
they stop doing it. Yeah. And the neighbors aren't gonna care because you're just
preserving the land and you're getting a tax break it, you could object to that.
So, um, I bet you get a lot more fives and sixes applying though, if you don't have
to go through a hearing process. Right? You might have more marginal applications.
I don't think so. I think so. Yeah, that's not been our experience. Um I guess sometimes
though if, uh we've advise people to have a pre app to get a sense of how much tax
value reduction they could get before they apply because in some cases, the application
fees are more than that reduction. Right. So, I think our last uh few applications.
Actually, I believe most of them that we're waiting to clear are transfers from open
space where they're no longer longer farming. Um Root Canal Salmon Coalition and
Quill. Uh and, or Waterfront that's backed by DFL. I believe that's uh at least two
of the applications. So the last ones have been um trans
and uh so we'll talk about the pending applications, the process, so necessary, the
regulatory reform, we're kind of using this as a justification in part. Um as you
made out, uh it was passed in 2019, resolution 1719. And it's, it is
about making government more efficient or less expensive, easier to understand in
terms of the code, uh streamlining the permitting path, uh facilitating economic
development and so forth,
right?
So when I look at this, I, I take, like I said, I do take this serious. I've got
these six bullets which are within the resolution itself. So I just, you know, take
it right out of there and I've got it posted on any opportunity I see to uh do one
of these six things. I make a recommendation to management that we, that we look
at it closely. And I, I'm confident um that our management team now takes this seriously
as well. We're always looking for that opportunity. It's kind of like the Japanese
High End, right? And constant improvement. Um We really want to demonstrate that
we're serious about that, but I think bullet number five is what I would say. This
falls into as far as one of those streamline, the permit review process making it
easier, quicker, less expensive. Um, because these hearing exam, we're now charging,
we're proposing to charge $1400 for, um, we could batch them together, you know,
and do them at one time. So they differ some of it across, but still there's a, there's
a time consideration as far as staff to do these and the hearing exam as well. So,
and that adds time on too, right? They've got a pretty busy schedule as well. So
getting into the doctor and getting the the the response as well. So that, so when
I started looking at, how can we, how can we amend that resolution of the program
to take that out of there as an extra step? We don't really need. It's extraneous.
I looked at the new hearing examiner code that we passed in 2019.
And this is interesting because this is uh this is the duties that the, the scope
of the duties of the hearing examiner. This one applies to non Landy's hearing and
there's some of those that he would hear. Um and then any other non land use proceeding
not prohibited by law signed by the board of penalty missions through inordinate,
not a resolution. And this is was adopted to resolution. And though we didn't broach
the subject with the hearing examiner on whether or not he thought he could hear
these cases. We just decided that this is another justification for uh amending that
resolution to take the requirement for the hearing examiner to hear the public hearing
out of there. Um So yeah, there's just no resolute, but our legal council who we
worked with on drafting the subject resolution recommended that we, we really should
codify this somewhere in Jefferson county code. Probably, I don't know if it's gonna
be title 18, maybe title five where the taxes are. We don't know yet, but we'll talk
about how we get how we figure that out in the next steps and then we adopt that
code by ordinance. So that's their recommendation. So this summary is what, you know,
the most concise way I can describe what we're asking for or, or trying to do, trying
to accomplish. Jefferson County has an opportunity to advise the open space tax program
to eliminate an unnecessary step in the permit review procedures for current use
assessment and that, you know, will be open space, open space applications for guidance
and resolution 1719 and thereby incrementally implement regulatory reform. The revision
simply requires a review and signing of a new resolution that amends the adopting
resolution 1891 to remove the requirement for the hearing examiner to hold a public
hearing and make a recommendation to the BOCC for either approval or so, I hope that's
clear. Uh Next slide now the next steps uh would be now
for you to re review or either sign or not sign. I mean, that's entirely after you
uh whether you want to sign the revolution to do this. Uh But that would be the first
step and then uh staff would continue to process the backlog that we have and, and
a lot of the back the applications for the root canals and enhancement group were
because of the staff constraints. We had a couple of years ago. So we just folded
them over into the next year. But then I saw the opportunity to, well, this might
be a chance for us to take out that hearing examiner requirement. Um And so we had
a couple of others that we wanted to fold into that too. So, uh I would, I would
then proceed if we get the resolution. And even if we don't, if, even if we need
the hearing examiner to hear those, I would start the next phase of the process,
which is to write the staff report, which would include a site visit to confirm whether
or not the things they said they had on the property to give them those public benefit
points actually existed on site. So that's my part of the job right is, is to evaluate
that and, and uh confirm that. That's right. And uh so we go through that process
and then we would schedule, uh assuming we, we passed a resolution before we would
schedule a public hearing to hear those four cases on a Monday morning regular meeting,
which isn't unusual for you. Um And then you can, you can at that point, uh make
your decision to approve or deny based upon the staff report and the testimony of
the applicant and our recommendation. It's a lens its like.
So we're also considering revising the program. I mean, it's over 30 years old. So
I think it's due for beauty and a loser, uh, through our strategic plan process which,
which we've already proposed. The assessor has proposed, uh, expanding the public
benefit rating system to include two new categories. You wanna talk about that historic
farms as for some of the big farms, um, that the, the owners are, they just can't
farm anymore simply, um, and that would preserve them still under this program. They
wouldn't have to cut out and pay compensating tax which thousands of dollars, um,
that would hold it. Uh, some counties I believe have put a restriction on the number
of beers that can remain in, um, historic farm. And, um, we may want to also look
at the historic farm being maybe a size. Um, you know, like the big dairy farms hunting
for Bishop Browns. Um, you know, those are ones that we're thinking of, um,
looking at, looking at a minimum size is what you're saying. Yeah, maybe have a minimum
size. Um, you know, and maybe number of years it's been in but not sure to look at
the statue a little bit closer seeing those are all possible. Um But that's our target
was for those and the other one is for um Timberland is some of the um
conservation easements that have been purchased, uh land trust and some of the other
conservation areas they'll do um some harvesting. It's very limited. So it doesn't
really fall under DFL in a forest land. So we would like to see a, a category for
those that they do very selective harvest and they're still within the law and the
frame of the program, they would have to transfer into this program under open space.
But if this is passive, it's gonna be an easy transfer.
Yeah. And part of this process too is to look at the overall program and see if there's
any opportunities to make it better. I did have one other thing, I'm sorry. And we
have some historic open space, open space properties that really need to be reviewed.
They started to review them three years ago and it is pretty onerous. So only a few
of those were completed. So those really need to be reviewed. So everyone is on the
same level playing field.
So that process would be, uh we're thinking I now I revise this because it doesn't
necessarily have to go through the Planning Commission. That's only title 18 regulation.
It could be codified in Jefferson County. Uh code somewhere maybe title five, but
it would be adopted as an ordinance instead of a resolution. And then finally, you
may decide that it is more appropriate for the urine examiner to review those applications
than the board. Um But that may require us to amend the uh hearing examiner regulations.
So that's, that's good. I think. Um, do you have any questions we endeavor to answer
those? Right. I saw a couple of typos. Oh, on page one, page one in the
2nd and 4th. Whereas is, um, to same thing. Board of County Commissions. Board of
County Commissions in the resolution. Yeah. So I, I had a question, uh, look at that.
My computer is that she should be Board of County Commissioners, not Board of County
Commissions. Ok. And the 2nd and 4th, whereas is
same thing, yeah,
we typically don't amend a previous resolution. We start a new resolution and it
says it repeals and replaces the last resolution. So I was wondering if you had Phil
Hans second review this, what, what he thought of that. Yeah, he didn't say anything
about that because in assigning I wouldn't be assigned a new resolution number. I
would be given the old number and updating it. Um, we haven't done that. I haven't
done that before since I've been here. So, um, I've seen in the audience, I was wondering
if you wanted to do on that. It would be nice if you could throw a child in there.
Right. Because when uh we added the waterfront portions in the family, it was a new
resolution. Yeah. And then I typically would not assign an old number to a new resolution.
So might be doing something else up there. It comes. I know we recently changed this
uh process. So I was just wondering, Mr Hanser. Well, you'll be happy to know that
Laura and Rasmussen responded to our um our agreement. I've been working on the,
um, on what she said. So that's, so I'm a little, I just heard my name being called
in connection with what was being going on. So I'm, I'm coming up now and I, I was
hearing Carolyn say something about something inconsistent with what David was talking
about and how we do things. That's what I think is being discussed. Am I, am I getting
it right? You wanna try one more time? I can recap. Um, typically we don't, uh, we
typically repeal and replace the previous resolution and we don't assign the same
number. And the title of this one is saying to, um, amend sections of a previous
resolution. So I was wondering, um, if we should change the title and, um, have it,
have it, say this repeals and replaces the resolution from 90 from 91 and then assign
a new number. Yeah, if it, I agree. If it's a brand new language, then it was definitely
has to be assigned a new number either way. Um, and if it was on there when I reviewed
it, I don't, somehow I missed that. Uh, so that, that might not be on David. Um,
but, and then, yeah, I agree with you that if it's completely replacing something,
it ought to say, repeal and replace it doesn't completely replace it though. Sections.
13 and four.
well, so there, so it's just amending, it's just changing part of the whole, the
whole resolution. Then it, then we're, then we're amending it, which we typically
haven't, I haven't seen that. I mean, we usually, uh, in there some ways and it said
we usually say we are repealing it and we have a fresh version with those changes
in the new resolution. Are we, are we trying to get it approved today? Uh How David,
how time critical is this? Um No, not necessarily to do. We want to get it right.
Phil, we don't have to, we don't have to get it. It could be next week or whatever.
Ok. Yeah, it's not urgent. Yeah. Yeah, let's get, let's make sure we get it, you
know, we get this right. I don't, I don't think it's, uh, it's gonna require a lot
of work to get it right. And then it could be prepared for consent agenda on the
12th, you think? Sure. Yeah, no problem at all we can discuss and see if there's
any other issues today, you know, but Yeah, I guess that would be fine. Excellent.
All right. Thanks for that Caroline. Thank you, Philip. Yeah. You bet any other questions
or comments, Kate?
Yeah, a couple things. Um sorry, I'm not there, David and Sherry. Um um it's, I
actually can't think of one of these that we have done. Am I just forgetting in the
last 7.5 years? I was just asking Greg that. Yeah, I guess they come in a kind of
in a book every year or two. Is that how we get them? Usually, I think we submit
for what's right after it's been approved, um, in the hearing examiner has proved
it, we've got the meeting. It's usually after the agreement is signed by the taxpayer,
then it's presented to the board consent agenda because it's all through the hearing
examiner, everything. So we would likely take a more active role. I guess it would
be, it would be an actual hearing that we participated in when right now we're just,
I mean, like, how many of these do you think have been done in the last seven years?
Like 10 or maybe two or three? So, there's not that many, I think I've done half
a dozen of my 20 years. Yeah. Oh, half a dozen in 20 years. We've got four pending
right now. They're just, but we have more in the queue right now that have been there
for the past decade because I don't remember doing any of these either. Yeah. Yeah.
And I, I mean, I know forgetting things but, um, like this, I, I would notice because
I've, I've been through this process with Sherry many years ago. Yeah. I thought
about doing it in my own property but it's a lot of, especially going through a hearings
examiner everything, you know, if we got a wetland that doesn't have much tax value
anyway, it was pretty marginal for us. But yeah, um I'm wondering the question looking
at the uh resolution. Um So it, excuse me, it makes reference a
number of times to um to an ordinance. It does talk about ordinance uh from 91.
That's the hearing examiner. Um But I'm, I'm just wondering, I if this affects
an ordinance, um can we, can we do that by resolution? And it was replaced
with uh our Jefferson kind of code? Ok. So, um but
section section seven says the ordinance becomes effective upon adoption. Um So I'm
just curious what, which ordinance that's referencing? And if that's, do we have
the authority to, to do that via resolution versus ordinance? It started to move
up over to the 10 US back over. We don't have to make he's, he's, yeah, we can, we
can take a look later so we can process his questions and ask. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he's
raising the hands. Oh, ok. We'll bring him back over giving him whiplash you guys.
So, yeah, section seven. I see, I was looking at the whereas, and so, and section
eight refers to this ordinance, right? Se section eight is, is the last uh
what do you guys have it up? I'm just because I'm just thinking there's a typo it
should say resolution instead of ordinance. And that's because I heard you heard
what you guys said. Ok, section seven as well then. Ok, so we're not, we're not amending
any ordinance with this resolution. I just wanted to be sure. Missing. Oh, I see.
Ok, so that section seven probably should be the resolution. Yeah. Yeah, that those
should say this, this, this resolution and 62 under severability. Yes, that's,
that's an artifact of the, of the template probably I was using. I think that's probably
on me. Mhm. Mhm.
Thanks. Ok. But in general, I, I fully support this and um, yeah, it's
like I said, I, I have been largely, I'm very aware of the program but largely unaware
of that process because I have not even noticed when they have come across our desk.
Um So, yeah, it seems crazy to have to go through an expensive lengthy process for
something that is, you know, largely administrative and um, you know, whatever value
the hearing examiner brings. I'd like to think that the commissioners could bring
instead and save a landowner some money. Yeah. And I mean, who's gonna object to
people not developing their property? I don't understand. I think nobody anytime
anywhere but you know, now I'm gonna be proved wrong. I get five emails about uh
that was you mentioned. Yeah, it does remove and replace. Did you guys just say that's
an ordinance? Uh Which one where do you see that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. II I mentioned
that but then it, it, it just in the, not in the, whereas, but in the appeals, the
ordinance to be to the Jefferson kind of co Yeah. Yeah. Ok.
But I mean we'll take D CD and assessor and, and, and uh and the P A Os office can
take one more look through and I think we're all totally in favor of this and we
can avoid a hearing exam or process and we really make more people engage in this
program. It would be good for everybody. So even though you're not taking action,
you do have public comment. Oh, thank you, Caroline. Ok. Any other questions or comments
before we open this up for public comment? Ok. Well, thank you very much David Wayne.
Good to see you, share it and we'll open it up for public comment. There's no public
in the room. But if you're with us and would like to comment on this agenda item,
you can hit the raise hand button or star nine. If you're on the phone, we would
love to hear from you
one more call. If you would like to make comment on this agenda item regarding the
open space program, the myriad ones, the open, open space and open space, open
space and timber DFL. Ok. I'll close public comment and uh thank you guys very
much, really appreciate it and we'll look forward on the consent for next week or
even the week after it's coming. Ok. Thank you so much for continuing to look for
ways to uh streamline the, the regulations DAVID extracurricular activities are just
full and that's good. I appreciate it.
Broken brain.
Ok.
Ok. Anything else that we need to discuss today through the letter or not?
Maybe just um, could we ask Hunsucker since he's still over here um, for any sort
of update if, if um would we need to think differently about our plans for the special
meeting tomorrow? No, that's what I expected. I wasn't going to get back. Yes, this
is perfect. Ok.
Uh There was one, there's one sort of big misunderstanding that I have to fix but
um uh so the other stuff is, um, it's kinda normal
negotiating stuff. So, uh but, but we um
uh yeah, we're, we're gonna be talking about language in the one o'clock meeting
tomorrow for sure. Uh and see him and because there's only so much Lauren and I can
do right. And we have to get the principles involved. I think that's what's up next.
I mean, she wrote me back a funny note about how she didn't have, she was doing this
without authority as well. So, um uh so yeah, so I think we'll be talking about language
tomorrow at one. Maybe we can get it, you know, the language closed up in that meeting
at one and then, but I, I don't think it's likely to be finalized before three o'clock
tomorrow at, before the special session tomorrow.
Yeah. Ok, thanks. Yep. You bet.
Ok. Any, anything else for the good of the order? That was a woozy, uh, whoop, doozy
woozy of a day. Felt like a full day. Thanks for sticking with us Kate. I'm impressed
you. You're still vertical. Yeah. Yeah. I, I laid down there for a minute. Ok. Well,
thanks for sticking with it. I hope you feel better and, you know, take the time
in, in recovering and if there's nothing else we are adjourned for the day, we'll
see you next week tomorrow actually tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.