And I was driving in and I realized I left my coffee cup at home feeling a little
you can get some.
I uh I'm gonna have to restart my computer. I don't know. I, I gotta go get my phone
real quick
information.
How was your weekend? I was at the uh, so Saturday and Friday and
then Sunday I spent working on my presentation for the website content. Oh, good.
You feeling ready?
Yeah, I guess. Mm.
I've not looked at that agenda at all.
Let's see. It's gonna be such a shit after that. My focus lies.
All right, you might go ahead and start a V capture. I'm gonna have to restart my
books.
Look at the, are you getting that now? You're on?
I don't know.
I don't know the answer. Can you switch
screens? Sorry. I'm in a little technical issue. One moment.
Hm.
My thing and protect it. Mm. Oh, I hate that. I've never seen that on screen.
Whatever.
Are you on county public or do you play?
Come on. Great. It's true that,
hey, Mark, I can't get online. Would you mind um asking it a if they could come grab
my computer or I could go drop it if do you guys need a minute still?
Ok. I can go, I'll just drop it over there.
Yeah.
Sure. Your head.
So let's plug them down there.
Mhm.
Would it, uh, be honest, so she'll be on this tab or somewhere else? Ok.
I'm looking at this
recorded and so
if you're with us on Zoom, we're just having some technical issues and we'll be with
you shortly.
I just,
no
to get stuck on this end point security.
Mm,
I can, I can run it over there if you want. Thank you. I had to restart mine too.
All right. Well, there are a capture. We, we're only getting on the wrong screen,
not sure what's going on, but Monday morning, Monday morning. Yep. All right. So,
uh can you record the Zoom meeting too? Just hit record on the Zoom. Ok. Um All right.
Good morning recording in progress. Now we're recording. Ok. Uh I will call this
a November 6th meeting, the board of County commissioners to order. Thanks for being
here. We're having a few technical issues. So you might only be able to get audio
if you're on a V capture this morning, but you can check us out on Zoom. Um And we
will start today as we do all days with public comment. So we have some folks in
the chambers. Anyone that would like to make public comment? We'd love to hear from
you? All right. So please come up to the podium, make sure you speak into the microphone.
And uh you can, you don't have to identify yourself, but you can and you have up
to three minutes to share anything you like. Good morning commissioners. Is this
ok? I just need to get there. It is. Thanks for giving me this time to make a brief
statement. I'm Doctor Sarah Heer and I'm here today as a member of Trinity United
Methodist Church in Port Townsend. I'd like to deliver a final comment on an unpleasant
series of events following the board of commissioners meeting on September 11th this
year. At that meeting, a member of the community made a statement opposing a Washington
State Accessible Communities Advisory Committee grant via a Jefferson County sub-committee
that had been approved by them to go to our church for some public accessibility
projects. The gentleman indicated that he felt this was a blatant violation of the
separation between church and state. Your board then decided against signing the
grant instead sending it back to your legal team for fu further study as the originator
and writer of that grant. I unfortunately was traveling at the time of the September
11th meeting and was unaware that we were on the agenda after later reviewing its
caption recording and communicating with my church. I sent a letter on September
25th to MS Anna mckenna mckenry, excuse me. Our county's ac ac coordinator withdrawing
our request for the grant. I then forward a copy of this letter to the board as I
believe she did as well. In addition, at the County AC A CS request, I attend their
October 23rd Zoom meeting also attended by Mr mcauley. I there reiterated that we
were withdrawing this small grant request out of a desire to avoid dealing with that
member of the public, with whom we were familiar based on a similar event last year.
Unfortunately, I believe that episode may have had a bearing on the board's lack
of enthusiasm for our subsequent small grant. Our church will continue in years to
come to have business and other issues that may come before county departments and
your board. Trinity's kitchen, for example, has just been approved pending inspections
to be a member funded donor kitchen so that we can continue to cook for the homeless
shelter without being limited to cooking at their facility, which became a problem
during the pandemic. We are very careful to ensure that in all our interactions with
the many community organizations we support. We operate not just by the letter of
the law but also by our Christian faith called to charity and service. In
closing trinity members, lay staff represented today by the head of our board of
trustees and pastor represented by Pastor Tony Brown. Today feel it is important
to get it on record that we are a community of faith, not a political entity. Our
desire is to share the joy of our beliefs, not impose them on anyone. We are not
grifters, gas lighters or con artists. What we are are open-minded, constantly learning
individuals and families from all walks of life and innumerable, varied backgrounds.
We are embedded in uptown and throughout the county. Many of us are or have been
employees of Jefferson County.
Our church has a loud sign outside of our 150 year old entrance in rainbow colors,
stating all means all and we do. Thank you so much for this time. Thank you, Doctor
Heiner. And um as is our custom, we'll listen to all public comment. When, if there's
a break, we'll respond to public comment, but we'll hear we'll listen to others first
and respond on en masse anyone else in the room that would like to make public comment
today?
Hi, I'm Tony Brown, the pastor at Trinity United Methodist Church, um Vashon United
Methodist Church on Vashon Island just received a grant last year from the Washington
State uh to put solar panels on their church building as long as the church was open
during times of emergency, Washington State recognizes that churches are an integral
part of our community and provide uh needed services. And so was Washington State
partnered with Vashon Island in order to make that happen, the federal government
itself uh during the COVID uh outbreak provided PPP loans for churches. The federal
government sees that uh churches are an integral part of our community. Unfortunately,
we feel like Jefferson County doesn't feel that way. Um as a result of the grant
that was denied and the fact that we are doing so many things in the community, not
to evangelize people. Um But to just simply provide a safe place for people to be
able to meet that are offering services to our community. Uh What really saddens
me is that after receiving the last grant, um we were defamed as a church, uh a member
of this board here today um at a meeting where David Engel, former superintendent
of schools was present, uh said that we fold or manipulated the county into getting
that grant and that rumor has spread around. We have a great reputation in this community
uh for offering childcare, for offering safe places for teens, queer teens to meet.
Um and also for offering recovery programs. We've given over $100,000 to local agencies
here in this county, including uh icap and the Food bank and um habitat for humanity
among others. So, um I, I would appreciate an apology uh for that. Um If that's not
possible. Uh So be it, but I would also like the county to understand that we are
a partner. Uh We're not trying to push anybody away or into a particular segment
of religion. We are trying to support this community and the needs this community
has. Uh specifically when it comes to childcare, which is a terrible uh crisis in
our community. Um So I would hope you would consider supporting the church in the
future and understand that we don't use grants, manipulate people, fool people uh
in order to evangelize people or make them Christians or whatever, but simply to
offer uh love to everybody equally. So, thank you.
Thank you pastor. Anyone else in the room like to make public comment today,
Gordon, come on up.
Um Good morning as you know, I'm Gordon King. And for the record, I live on Bell
Street in Port Townsend. I've been following the S MP for over a decade. Sure. I
master program for over a decade and started attending meetings around 2011 when
the current SNP was written, I've been involved with the update process since 2020
when I was part of the SNP update task force with Greg Brotherton. Uh Regulations
are important for the fair and efficient running of our community, which is why it
is important that they are concisely written and, and are easy to understand. The
Shoreline Master Program is in place to ensure that we protect our marine environment.
A part of our resource that is precious to many. And in the case of the shellfish
aquaculture industry, essential the aquaculture section in the latest iteration of
the update is poorly written and has generalized requests that are difficult to understand
what they're asking for and duplicates, duplicate requirements for information that
is already in place at other levels of government when applying for a shellfish farming
permit. This document is confusing, confusing and not good regulation. It was created
by borrowing most of Kitsap County's SNP and was not written by Jefferson County
staff or consultants. Kitsap is not a county supportive of aquaculture and has three
times the area of waters closed to shellfish harvesting in the coming weeks, the
board of county commissioners will be tasked with deciding what the SM SNP update
will be. I ask you to ensure that it is precise, effective and based on facts, not
opinions. I will endeavor to provide you with information back by references and
peer reviewed studies so that you can make an informed decision. So the update serves
its role of allowing safe use of our marine and marine resources while still protecting
them. Thank you. Thank you, Mr King. Pleasure. Anyone else in the room that would
like to make public comment or online, you can hit raise hand or star and I if you're
on the phone, if you're with us online, I'm not quite there myself, but we'd love
to hear from you. Any hands up Adel. Ok. Uh Anyone like the kick off responses
today? Sure, I can. Um Thank you all for being here. Um Start with the Shoreline
Master Program. Um I have not looked at the draft rule yet but I know it will be
coming before us soon. And um um I'm very curious to see. I'm curious if the, do
we know if the MRC is gonna be providing any comments? They did provide written comment
to us? Ok. Two was considered in the process of developing the draft rule. Ok. So
they have not responded to the draft because the draft isn't really finalized. Yes.
Ok. It's still at the Planning Commission. Well, really there's a little bit has
been happening behind the scenes. So at the last Planning Commission meeting, they
were unable, they only, they were missing two members, they were unable to come to
a conclusion. There are a few issues including the aquaculture section that were
I think, challenging to, to come to a reconciliation consensus on. So they did not
have a recommendation for it. We're going to get a workshop on it today, but I spoke
with the Planning Commission chair as well as Director Peters from D CD and they'd
love another chance to, to make a firm recommendation. Ok. So uh Mr Mcauley said,
um encourage them to take it back and do one more one more attempt. So they're going
to try to get more participation. Uh They have a couple of new Planning Commission
members too, one of whom has been pretty involved in the process, um and one of whom
is fairly new to the process. So I believe abstained. So they'll go back and have
a special meeting, I believe this month and just uh delay it by a month to, to return
us hopefully a recommendation. And did you say we're having a workshop on it today?
No, we're, we're not going to have it. We, we're talking about that as a way if we
were going to send it back or if they didn't. Um But you know, they, they like another
stab at the chair would like another stab. So we're just not going to address it
until they look at it one more time. Ok, great. Thank you for the update. And um
I know this is a very important piece of legislation that we adopt and take it very
seriously. And um so please know that we will be given it a hard look and um appreciate
your input consistently on this Gordon over many years. Um As to Trinity United Folks.
Thank you for being here. And um I'm sorry that um that uh I, I feel like there's
been a little bit of a misunderstanding, at least from my perspective, I, I was not
concerned about the separation of church and state uh public comment that was made.
I know that public entities fund churches to um serve a number of functions across
the state of Washington. So that was not the why I thought we were sending it to
legal review. I was interested in. I think we talked about and I'm getting a little
rusty here because it was a while ago and I didn't pull up. Um The, it would take
me a while to pull up and to find and read the request again. I was a little concerned.
I thought the, the list was um the list of, of users of the space was perhaps out
of date. I was curious about the um previous funding that, that we had provided.
And um I think at one point that was, that was considered not sufficient to finish
a project. So I was just kind of, it felt unclear of the, the status of the previous
grant of um if that work had been completed. Um So I had, I had other concerns. Again,
I would need to spend time to go back and look, but it was not the church and state
um issue that you mentioned that was um I, I completely agree with you that it is
all right to use public funds uh to fund things that are to the public benefit and
especially that serve the um uh what are the terms infirm and uh indigent? Um
um I'm, I'm saddened to hear of the defaming inc incident. I'm I'm curious
about that. I hope that wasn't me. I do not think that was me, but I'm OK. Thank
you. I was thinking the same thing I'm like, did I, I did not. So um we won't speak
to that. But um yeah, so I, I hope that um as opportunities arise in the future,
we don't have these challenges. I know that you, you gracefully withdrew, but I thought
we did send it back for legal clarification. Um Not to, you know, not to say that
it wasn't possible or doable just that we wanted to get some more input and that's
what I remember. And maybe I was the one that said I would just like a final word
on whether this is an allowed use or not um from legal so that I felt like I could
support it. I didn't want to support something that was illegal and I, I honestly
didn't know if it was or wasn't. So I wanted the thumbs up. Oh, yes. Yeah, I guess
we can talk about that. I'm sorry that, that uh that you guys felt the fame. But
I think my statements, I think what David was probably referring to is we have had,
I believe three requests for funds uh from Trinity method. The first was the $20,000
arpa that we funded. Um After that funding, I went with uh county administrator mcauley
to and I would not have brought this up again, but I'll just explain what the, the
defamation was, I guess since that you broke the subject to a lovely lunch or brunch
after service in the basement and was, was told, I thought quite clearly that the
main use of that space that we had funded was accessibility for the congregation.
And that the downstairs was used by the congregation almost solely. And so at the
uh um the second time that this came up, I did, I think we had, had the, the, the
uh constitutional challenge and it's, we fund all sorts of religious religious organizations
uh habitat for humanity. I mean, Y MC A many have a lot of clear public benefit.
I think the issue with Trinity Methodist um is partly we have, you know, very limited
funds and, and, and lots of asks, um and how much of this goes to the public
benefit, how much goes to the benefit of the congregation? And that distinction was
a question that I had and had it with the last one too. And we had not made any determination.
But I think the second grant, I, I am really sorry that you guys were offended, but
that was uh my uh my understanding was that it was so I, I think I represented that
$20,000 as less public benefit, more congregation benefit. And that's what I represented.
Um I mean, I, I wasn't saying anything untrue that I, that I knew. So I, I'm sorry
if I, I did. Um And that was the same question I think that we asked this last time,
you know, what is the relevant public benefit versus congregational benefit? And,
and that is really a constitutional issue, I think. Um And that's pretty much, and
it was just a question we were looking for guidance on. Yeah, we hadn't said no.
And we were, we were looking for, for information and I think the, um, well, yeah,
sure, go ahead. You can come up and have, have a moment. I wasn't, excuse me. I was
not, uh, in involved with the $20,000 grant. I think at that time, I was still working
at Jefferson, but I will say speaking to your concerns, Mr Brotherton. First of all,
it is very unfortunate that I, I was not aware, we had just come back from being
up in Alaska for three months. I was not aware that this was coming up that day or
I would most certainly have been here and been able to address that at the time,
the process of the AC AC Grants as you may be aware is, is, is pretty specific as
it should be. And as a physician who's interested in disability access and has an
adult, disabled child of my own, I was very careful in presenting first to the county
sub-committee headed by ms mchenry and then to the state committee which was, you
know, they asked a lot of questions, this was back in March and April and they were
satisfied with the results I gave, I, I have an up list, updated list for you if
you would like it, I can give it to Mr mcauley of the groups that used that fellowship
room in the basement. Um Can't speak to what you heard at that luncheon. I do know
that the gentleman in question, um, who came and spoke in September has also toured
the church. I'm not sure if he was there with you at the time or not. Um, and our
educational building, which is where we give a daycare space for a whopping $330
a month for use of that space to pay for electricity. That's all they have to pay
us. And I had that written down, but he was heard to say that it wouldn't make any
difference. But anyway, my point is the state of Washington, your own county
sub-committee. During a prolonged questioning of me as a grant writer, we're, we're
happy with that and I understand that um you as the board
would want to know the details, but at some point, I guess because of the incident
uh with Mr Engle overhearing and also because of the gentleman in question, who we're
all perfectly aware of who he is. Um I think we felt that somehow or another, you,
I personally felt you thought that I was putting one over on you and as a physician
and as a professional that really bothered me and I was insulted and that's all I
have to say about it. If you are, we are not going to reapply for any more ac ac
grants. You are right. There are many deserving organizations. Um I am the one who
started this all in process as the enormous construction project at Trinity has drawn
to a close as I had more time to deal with it. That's where this has come in. There
are things that need to be fixed end of discussion. Thank you. Thank you doctor.
He, if I could, I, I would encourage you to apply again. And um you know, I think
the, the um we have to do our due diligence. That's these are public funds that we
are responsible for. And so, you know, I think we were trying to do our due diligence
and um and then the, the application was withdrawn, but I, I would encourage you
to um to, to take this as a, a lesson learned. It is for me as well. Um And, you
know, the I'm not involved in that committee so I, I can't speak to that process,
but I know that at every point there are, there are uh check ins and due diligence
that are an important part of that public process and we were, we were doing ours.
And um so I think there's an opportunity to, to consider that again.
Yeah, I, I would second that I, you know, I'd encourage you to, to apply again, you
know, II I think I've outlined my concerns. I'm sorry if I was laboring under false
false impressions. But um it is uh it's, yeah, just due diligence. I mean, we have
granting organizations and, and many different funding sources that often end up
not qualifying. And sometimes, I mean, we left grant dollars on the table because
none of the projects qualified for them in the last uh in the last housing fund board
uh round. And this, it's challenging, we take our role seriously but did not meet
any offense. So really sorry, I wasn't trying to say that you were pulling one over
either. Really just asking what was the ratio of public benefit to congregational
benefit was the question I had.
Ok. And you know, it feels like it's your prerogative to withdraw your application,
but we were still seeking information and that is our, you know, our prerogative
to get more information when issues are broadcast. So um I hope it
it would be uh as someone who's done a lot of grant writing and fundraising in my
professional life prior to being a commissioner, it would serve you well to take
another look at I think the issue is um the other issue that I brought up that we're
just don't wanna get into a legal game. Mhm. Yeah. Well, coast does great
work. Good to hear you guys are part of coast and and really appreciate all all the
different things that you do for the community. So um I hope that was not uh um yeah,
the last thing we want is less people in the community providing services to people
who need them.
Hm. Ok. I'll make another call to anyone else with us on the Zoom room. If you'd
like to make public comment, we have three minutes left and hit raise hand or star
nine. Thanks guys.
My computer is on the fritz. So
I need to get restarted. I can't type. Oh no, everything's broken. Sorry, folks.
Um All right. Well, we have just a moment or two. We have a couple of proclamations
that will be uh team up here. Try to get back into the uh agenda.
So Kate, you're able to see the proclamations, Heidi, you're probably not
and are captures looking good. Nicely done. Ad L alright.
Oh, let let's let's ok. We'll bring do bring Kate over.
Ok. So let's see for our first proclamation. We can just get set up for that. Let's
see if Apple and was Anna in the room as well. We do consent first. Oh yeah, we can
take a look at consent. Yes, we have two minutes but go ahead and see if Apple and
Anna would like to come over uh questions, I think number one item, number one is
we've did not make it through legal and contract review. Is that right? So maybe
we should pull it and hopefully approve it later in the afternoon. Well, it's in
contract review now and I've approved it and I emailed Mr Hucker asking him to give
it a look. I know he's looked at it. It just didn't go through the formal process,
I think because it was such a simple, simple matter. Do you think that we should
approve it? And if there's a problem bullet or is Philip on the call?
I don't know if he wants to chime in. Hm.
One thought I had in looking at that and I was gonna talk to the sheriff about is
that, um, it would be great to ensure that the deputy assigned to that contract has
some tribal training. Um, uh, you know, the, the governor's office offers a great
training. Um, you know, just be great to know that, that we're, um, taking seriously
that relationship and, you know, pretty, pretty significant cultural differences,
um, be nice to demonstrate a willingness or a desire to, I don't think this is gonna
trigger any staff changes. No, I, I think just one of the two out there will be designated
as a lead, but certainly that's a, that's a good suggestion, Kate. And, um, if, if
you have specifics on that trading, I'd certainly like to learn about that. Ok. Good.
Some good risk management too. Avoid absolutely missing. Also want to keep the contract.
Right. Yes.
Um, oh, Mr Hucker. Yes.
Yeah. So there's not gonna be a problem with, uh, with that, with approving that
contract. So I, I'd recommend you just wait till this afternoon and, uh, I'll look
at the, the, uh, the document and process. I've looked at it. It's fine, but I just
have to sign it. Ok. So we'll just uh do everything on the right. We'll pull number
one and, and, and approve it this afternoon. Yeah, sounds good. Ok, thank you, Philip.
You're welcome.
Uh There, didn't I, I feel like I insisted that whenever the National Association
for city and county health officials is in there that we use the acronym just because
I like it so much, but I guess not show it's am show uh association, not
association.
Um
good stuff though.
I'm happy to move that we approve the consent agenda minus item number one, which
we'll consider this afternoon for November 6th 2023 2nd. Ok. It's been moved and
seconded to approve and adopt the consent agenda. M minus item number one. All in
favor. Indicate by saying III I All right,
great. Let's try to bring Anna and Apple over and we'll um we'll get going on
our, our first proclamation.
I'm still, I'm restarting again for the time. Your keys work. Yeah, I can.
All right. Welcome Anna. And you don't see Apple yet.
I wonder um Adel, would you mind changing the view on our, on the screen or is that,
does that risk if they turn on their camera? I think they will show up too, I believe.
Let's try it. Yep. Hello, Apple. Good morning.
Great. And Anna to now. Uh Good morning, Anna. Thanks for being here to help us celebrate
National Family Caregiver month. So, uh as, as our custom, we'll, we'll go ahead
and read the proclamation, adopt it and then uh turn it over to Apple and Anna first
for, for comments on, on the importance of this. Sound good. Sounds good. Ok, let's
go. Uh let's go tenure as commissioner today, Kate Gray. Ok. Well, and
this is obviously an important issue for me this year. Yes, a proclamation, National
Family Caregiver Month. Whereas during National Family Caregivers Month, we recognize
the important role of our family caregivers and thank them for the invaluable and
instrumental care they provide. And every whereas every day, millions of Americans
provide essential care and medical assistance to their loved ones. These acts of
love, commitment and compassion enable their family members to receive the support.
They need to live a life with dignity. And whereas at some point in our lives, each
of us will likely need to be a family caregiver. But the burden falls especially
hard on those who cannot afford support. And whereas the opportunity to provide care
to a loved one can be a blessing and a source of connection. It often requires sacrifice.
And whereas workers, their families and our economy suffer when workers are forced
to choose between their jobs and their caregiving responsibilities or between putting
food on the table and caring for a relative. And whereas too many Americans who need
caregiving support, struggle with the high cost of caring for a family member in
need or providing long term care for people with disabilities or older adults. And
whereas their work is a profound service to their families and to our county, our
state and our nation, but they are still too often unseen, undervalued, unpaid. And
whereas we understand the struggles family caregivers face and the importance of
the care they provide this month, as we continue our fight to expand access to caregiving,
we recognize our caregivers who wake up every single day to do this physically and
emotionally demanding, yet vitally important work. Now, therefore, the Jefferson
County Board of Commissioners hereby proclaims the month of November 2023 as a National
family caregiver month, we encourage all Americans to reach out to those who provide
care for their family members, friends and neighbors in need to honor and to thank
them proclaim the sixth day of November 2023. I will happily
move to approve the proclamation is red. I will second. Ok. It's been moved in second
to approve the proclamation is red all in favor. Indicate by saying hi, hi, hi. All
right. Now let's turn it over to Apple and then Anna, I guess, and I'd love to hear
too about, I guess the landscape of this as, as we're moving forward. I feel like
legislation is starting to recognize this importance, but I'd love to hear what you,
how you see it. Thank you, Commissioner Brotherton. Good morning. I'm Apple Martin,
director at Jefferson County Public Health and we do appreciate your proclamations
and this one in particular today, recognizing family caregiver month as November.
Um It's with great meaning that I feel it's um it's public health ability to sort
of extend um Our thanks and honoring uh the people in our community who um love and
hold up those in their lives who are um struggling with mental illness, disability,
or chronic health problems. Um We in public health do work with a lot of folks in
the community who are living with these um these various situations. And we also
work with many people in the community who are caring for these people, people that
they love. Um I wanna just make a nod to, you know, the vast array of folks who are,
who are doing caretaking and caretaking can mean a whole lot of things as your proclamation
um States and thank you Anna for working on this, especially with your great wisdom
about um engaging, supporting and advocating for folks with disabilities and on the
um challenges. Um I think it's just very important to recognize what it takes of
us, of all people who are watching out for others and making sure that this is a
safe landscape in which to live. Um Even if you're struggling with illness of one
kind or another. Um And that there's dignity brought to the process for that particular
person in your life that you're caring for. But also that we recognize that caretakers
um are on a great deal of strain. Um a great deal of dedication given to the work
of caretaking, um which, you know, can, can very much modify all the other things
in life that um may be going on. At the same time, I wanna make mention to, you know,
our colleagues, friends and neighbors who may be caring for a spouse with cancer,
maybe a parent, uh We're caring for that has Alzheimer's um may be a child adult
or, or young um of ours who's um living with a special healthcare need. Um And perhaps
you have a sibling um who is struggling with mental illness and you are there to
um support, provide dignity, find resources and dedicate such an enormous amount
of um heart compassion and your time um to the well being of that person. Um I just
wanna make sure that we center the well being of our caretakers in our community
that we reach out that we know who those folks are and that we allow them to know
that we see them in the great effort that they're making to, to take care of their
loved ones and that we talk openly about it, but we recognize it and um and check
in with those folks in our community uh to be sure that they also have a, a support
network from the rest of us. And Anna does quite a lot of work with folks who are
in this position. Um And she has some, some really great uh additions to add to our,
our discussion today. Go ahead, Anna, thanks Apple. That was very heartfelt. Um A
few thoughts. Uh You're right, President Biden shared recently, quote, the cost of
care in this country is too high and the pay for care workers is too low. And that
a majority of Americans struggle to find affordable, high quality care for themselves
and their loved ones. And more than half of long term care employees and nearly 20%
of childcare workers leave their job every year. And also many Americans are forced
to leave their own jobs behind to care for loved ones. And it looks like there could
be some legislation in the works on that which would be good. Um The following information
is from caregivers action dot org website. The theme for the 2023 National Family
Caregivers month is pound. Caregivers connect and the caregivers connect campaign
highlights the importance of connections as a way to get information about your loved
one's disease or condition to share experiences, get support or form a closer bond.
And that website caregiver action dot org has a link to something called a caregiver
help desk which you can contact experts by phone, email or a live chat. They have
a family caregiver toolbox that provides information on different types of caregiving,
how to stay strong and caregiving for a loved one with a specific condition. They
also have a depression screener and how to ask for help, where to find respite care
and life after loss and um caregivers connect us on Twitter and also on Facebook
locally. We have a wonderful resource at 03 A senior information and assistance.
Uh You can just Google the website senior information um for the Olympic region,
03 A and the local phone number is 3852552. Another wonderful resource is the
local DD A or Division of Developmental Disabilities Office. And that is uh right
here in town at 2507 East Evans Vista in Port Townsend. We just want to remember
that National Family Caregivers Month enables all of us to raise awareness of family
caregivers issues, to celebrate the efforts of those caregivers to educate family
caregivers, to increase support for them and reduce feelings of isolation. So
when caregivers connect, whether it's for support to get information or to just talk
to someone who understands what they're going through, it can help those caregivers
feel less isolated. And just remember if you're a caregiver, you're not alone. Thank
you.
Thank you, Anna. Thank you, Apple. Other thoughts. I don't know Kate, as you say,
personal for you this year.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's just so important and I know many of us have and will
again uh be caregivers to a loved one. And um mine happens to just be very fresh.
Um And you know, I, I had the flexibility and the support from my team here at the
county to be able to take a leave of absence to be a caregiver and, and also an incredible
amount of support from this community and from a friend group. And I cannot imagine
having done it with any less support. It was still really hard. Um So I just really
encourage folks to talk about their experience, to ask for help, to accept help.
Um And thank you for pointing out those those resources, Anna I felt incredibly lucky
in going through something very challenging with my husband's illness. Um And still,
it, it, it was hard even in the best of circumstances. So, you know, I, I would love
our county to be in a position to be able to provide flexibility. Um I think the
state has, has continued to support that further. But um you know, we'll point out
too that the, the impacts of caregiving fall uh uh disproportionately on women who,
who often quit their jobs more readily, who pass up more responsibilities and advancement
in their career. Um Certainly that's true of, of parenting as well. So just wanna
acknowledge that um we live in a system that doesn't make this easy and the impacts
are disproportionate. Um So thank you for bringing this to, to the attention of the
public. And um thank you for all your work, public health and uh and promoting this
important work.
Yeah. The only thing I would add is I, you know, something I'm struck by, from my
past personal experiences is the, the grief of the loss of the caregivers and the
need to support people, not only while they're caregiving, but after they've lost
their beloveds. Um And that's, I think for me personally, even more profound um
than in the process of the caregiving itself, which may be ir ir irrelevant to this
proclamation, but it feels important in terms of us being a caring community is not
to, not to forget. Yeah,
I, I'm not sure if I have a lot to add to what you, what you all for, you have said,
I just, it's, it's really important and I think uh how we care for those in need
really is a reflection of our society. And I think um supporting, especially family
and friends as caregivers is a way is, is one of those clear ways that we can raise
the, the social floor. And I, I think that it's uh really incumbent on us to do everything
we can to protect those. And, and as you say, Kate, you know, if you're a caregiver
or if you need care, asking for help from your, your friends and family is not an
easy thing to do. And it's uh it's really critical and it, it needs to be done and
held in the collective. You know, I think that's the, the my takeaway from a year
of very intensive caregiving is that. It's, it's too much for one person to bear
alone and the, the collective should support that. And that's the social fabric you're
talking about too Greg. But, you know, at the, at the county level, at the personal
level, it's, it's really, really helpful to share the burden.
Absolutely. Ok. Well, go ahead. Apple. Oh, were you, did you have something else
to add? Apple? I'm sorry, I was no. Ok. Well, thank you guys so much. We appreciate
you guys. Thank you, appreciate you. See you soon. And it looks like we're gonna
have to do our operation Green Light uh proclamation after our uh um uh
monthly meeting with, with Doctor Berry. So let's bring uh Doctor Allison Berry over
and uh say hello to everyone at KPTZ. Do we have Willie with us today? Let's bring
Willie over too. He's got a question this week. So it's ok. That's fine. Um Great.
He reported out that he's ill. He's gonna join us and he's gonna try to keep it brief.
Ok. Sounds good. Um Great. Well, uh hello to the listeners of KPTZ. Thank you for
joining us today and I'll, I'll pass it off to, to Dr Barry for our, our monthly
health update. Hi there. Uh Nice to be here with everyone this morning and I was
glad I got to listen in on a little bit of uh the last point of discussion, um particularly
with all of the violence. We are witnessing around the world right now. It is uh
it can feel uh one can feel powerless. Um And uh one hope is our ability to build
community and kindness and Nonviolence here. And I think actions like what we're
discussing today um really go to further that. So I was glad to hear that. Um So
nice to be here with you all. Uh just an update on kind of the big three respiratory
viruses today and then take some questions from the commissioners and the listeners.
Um on the COVID front. Thankfully, we are finally starting to see a downtrend in
COVID-19 activity both at the local state and national level. Um Nationally, we're
seeing hospitalizations downtrend at the state level. We're seeing the same and locally
we're finally seeing in our wastewater detection a downtrend in COVID-19 activity
as well. We are still seeing hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and we had quite a
few. Uh we had about three per week in the last month. They ranged in their ages
from their forties to their nineties and the vast majority of folks were not up to
date on their vaccines at the time of their hospitalization. Unfortunately, we do
have two deaths to announce since the last time I was here. Speaking to KPTZ in Jefferson
County, which brings to us a total of 43 deaths uh so far in this response, um there
are two individuals, one in their sixties and one in their eighties both had underlying
conditions and both were not up to date on their vaccines. Um In neighboring Clallam
County, we're seeing uh hospitalizations have come down quite a bit uh as they had
uh gone up a bit earlier in the season. Um with about 1 to 2 per week in Clallam
and a total of 179 deaths in Clallam County so far in the response. Um I think the
biggest thing we're seeing when we look at severe disease is uh being up to date
in your vaccines. Uh is the biggest driver of how well folks are doing. We did see
hospitalizations in folks as young as their forties. So making sure that you're up
to date is really critical. We do have much better to the COVID-19 vaccine at this
point around our counties. If you haven't gotten your updated booster, I would encourage
you to do so. It is an excellent match for the current circulating variants so it
can reduce your risk of getting sick altogether. Um This fall and winter and certainly
reduce your risk of severe disease. Uh But thankfully, we are finally starting to
see things come down still with us uh but less uh less frequent than we saw before
and that's hopeful. Uh Unfortunately, right on the heels of that is, we are starting
to see an uptick in RSV activity locally. So this is the beginning of the RSV season.
We're seeing a rise in emergency department visits locally and at the state level.
So RSV is coming to our community. Quick reminder, RSV, in most people will feel
like a cold but in the very young and the very elderly can lead to severe disease.
Um particularly when we think of our, our very youngest citizens, um, kids under
one year of age are at the highest risk from RSV. Um So if you have folks who meet
that criteria in your life, being particularly cautious to avoid being around them
when you're sick and masking up. If you have any question about your illness status
when you're there, uh We do thankfully have new vaccines available for RSV though.
Uh we have heard of shortages already starting to develop in those vaccines, particularly
when it comes to the youngest um nurse, which is actually a monoclonal antibody,
but which is acting like a vaccine um is approved for Children under eight months
of age. And we encourage uh all families in that group to seek out nurse eab. But
unfortunately, we are starting to see shortages arise. So check in with your health
care provider to see if they've been able to access some at our end, we're working
hard at the state level to push for equitable distribution of that nurse IAB all
throughout the uh the county and the state. Um And throughout the country. Um So
more updates on that coming forward, but we are hopeful uh to make sure that nurse
IAB is available to those at the highest risk in our community. If you are pregnant,
bris fall is the name of the RSV vaccine that is approved for folks between 32 and
36 weeks gestational age to protect your infant when they're born from RSV. So if
you're pregnant right now and moving into that gestational age, definitely talk to
your doctor about accessing a Bris B. It's a really good way to protect your baby
through this fall and winter season. Uh Thankfully, we are seeing nothing like the
uh amount of severe activity we saw last year from RSV, but it's the very beginning
of the season. So it's a good time to shore up your protection and reduce the likelihood
that we see a surge like we saw last time on the influenza front. Um We are still
seeing minimal flu activity in Washington State, but we are starting to see flu uh
develop in the South, particularly in Florida. Uh Georgia, Alabama, we're starting
to see flu start there and it usually starts in the south and then moves into the
rest of the country. So we expect to see influenza right here probably in the next
month or so. Um So same thing there if you haven't gotten your flu vaccine yet now
is a really good time to do so, so that you'll be protected once it arrives here.
And remember that all three of these viruses are well, prevented by masking. So if
you're in a crowded indoor setting, if you're feeling at all ill or if you're meeting
up with high-risk folks, either the very elderly, those with significant underlying
conditions or the very young, think about masking in those spaces through the fall
and winter when we're seeing circulation of these viruses. And with that, I'm happy
to take any questions from our commissioners. Questions for Dr Barry, I don't have
any. I have one doctor Barry. Um Is it important to get tested for RSV if someone
has a, a particularly nasty cold? Is it helpful to get the a viral panel done at
walk in clinic or something? Excellent question. And the answer is no. Um the main
reason why we don't test for RSV is because there is no specific treatment for RSV.
So unlike COVID, unlike flu, uh who, which have medicines that work to treat them.
RSV doesn't really. Um And so, uh and the RSV test is not widely available, we don't
have at home antigen tests for RSV. Um It's an incredibly expensive PC R test and
so the bill you're likely to get is quite high. Um And RSV season usually involves
a surge of healthcare demand which is particularly taxing on our pediatric providers
and our emergency department. So seeking those places out to get tested only further
strains that system and takes those doctors away from the kids who really need their
care. So I don't recommend seeking out RSV testing. It's not gonna make a difference.
It's super expensive and it takes a doctor away from someone who needs them. Um But
I do recommend if you feel really sick. Um If you're feeling poorly, stay home, um
avoid contact with your very, very high risks folks to the extent that you can and
you mask up in, in those congregate settings if you can't. Um That's, that's the
biggest thing you can do for RSV. So, is that true as well for the elderly, the very
young and the immunocompromised or RSV can be severe for all three of those. I think
last year we talked a lot about children's hospitals when it comes to RSV. Um the
RSP can be severe for all three groups. Um They're very elderly immunocompromised
and they're very young. So they, they would still be seen if, if they were having
severe symptoms, but the testing is less important. Yes. So if you are, if you just
want to get tested because you're feeling sick there, you know, not, not a good indication
for testing, but if you are having severe symptoms yourself, absolutely, you should
seek medical care for those things. Um RSV, in generally the, the way that it shows
up as a severe disease for those who are high risk um is difficulty breathing. So,
if anyone is having difficulty breathing, you should absolutely seek care for that.
Um And know that as we move in the RSV season, if you're in one of those high risk
groups to make sure you have a safety plan available. So for instance, kids with
asthma, make sure you've got some inhalers at home, make sure you've got what you
need to respond to an asthma attack. RSV is a big trigger for asthma flares. Same
thing with our elderly folks who have COPD, make sure that you're in as good of condition
moving into this RSV season as possible that can help you do well as we move through
the fall and winter and of course, mask up in those congregate settings. So you're
less likely to get RSV. Thank you. Thank you. Good, good clarifying question. I appreciate
it. And I think also just acknowledging that those groups are high risk and it is
hard going into the winter knowing that you're high risk. Um And so as the rest of
the population, every step we take to reduce that risk by staying up to date on our
vaccines by masking in those crowded public places is something we can do to support
folks who are feeling nervous going into this season.
I have one quick question, Doctor Barry. I know we have lots of, lots of questions
from the listeners today too. I don't want to take too much time, but I, I was just
wondering, I guess how is the slack doing? I speak specifically about Pax Avid. I've
heard a couple anecdotal stories with some people that really have to advocate, you
know, one person who is over 70 that did not get prescribed, uh, uh, Pax Avid and,
you know, was fine but, you know, dealt with COVID for, you know, 10 days because
probably, you know, it could have been much shorter, I think with facts of it is,
is my impression and then other people that were more successful, you know, like
pushing their own agency who were, you know, below 50. And I'm just, I guess I'm
curious how the system is and, um, what should people say if they're in that, um,
you know, over 65 age and, and trying to sign up for pa of it or something and, and
curious about other systems too. And the slack board. Yeah. Good question. So, as
far as kind of the system as a whole, it is strained going into this season and that,
that I think is the worry from one of the big worries from our end is that our health
care system is, is worn out from the last three years and is short staffed. Um, and
so our ability to surge to meet demand is limited, um, as we go into the fall and
winter and I think that's just important for us all to be aware of. It's not something
we can fix it quickly. Uh, we lost a lot of folks to the profession in the last few
years. Um, primarily due to burn out from the care. Um and sometimes uh violence
people would get uh while they were trying to provide care. Um So that mixture puts
us in a rough spot going forward. Um But we're also at this strange time where the
declaration of emergency has been lifted and things have become privatized. And so
some of the things that we, some of the tools we used to be able to use to, you know,
rapidly increase access to treatment and testing is gone now. Um Or similarly, we're
grappling with this with the state when it comes to nurse aab back in the day just
last year. Uh At the health department, we actually had the power to move vaccine
through the county. So we'd find places where it was short. Uh We'd find places in
the state that were getting too much and we would move the vaccine here to make sure
that it was equitably distributed outside of the declaration of emergency. Some of
those authorities and some of that logistics um is less available to do that. Um
And less transparent. So we don't, I don't actually have a window into where all
the vaccines are. I used to know uh like every pharmacy has this many and all those
kind of things. We don't, they just order what they want now. Um And so people are
already experiencing that it's less coordinate uh the roll out now. And that's just
true because there is no central coordinating body doing that work. Um So to get
back to the specifics of your question when it comes to P little, but we did have
a critical shortage about a month ago where folks who really qualified, it just wasn't
there, there was nothing you could do. Uh We do have it now. Um And so you should
be able to access it if you, if you want to talk to your provider about getting it.
Generally, you're saying your high risk should be enough to get it done. But if you
know, definitely advocate for yourself, uh I think many folks don't know, you can
push back against your doctor, but you definitely can. Um we're generally actually
pretty open to it. Um And, and can be challenged on those things if you can't get
it from your doctor, the States. Uh the state packs of the prescribing is still available
and they can send a prescription locally. So that's a good option for uh for treatment
there. Um Yeah, that's the biggest. I have late breaking questions. Sure. Thanks
to my uh friendly Apple watch. But um so I had one actually that I forgot to ask
initially, which was um uh test ex expiration dates. So a
number of older folks in the community, you know, I heard the news that expiration
dates were extended and I've got, I've gotten a deluge of tests from
people. I have their names written on them to give them back if I can find out if
there are expiration dates. So, II, I think I'm doing the right thing, but I just
wanna check with you. So I found the website that gives you the, you know, extended
expiration dates. But my, and I, and I probably had 25 boxes. I checked over the
weekend for f for folks. I appreciate you doing that community service. I
know
it's a good question and I'm like, I, I'll, you know, I'm, I'm happy to log onto
the computer and figure this out. So anyway, but when I was doing it, I was, you
know, you can check the um serial numbers on the boxes and um the, the actual extension
of the expiration wasn't often very long. It was like sometimes three months. It
felt like it was just a few months and I'm just wanted to double check with you,
Alison. Is, is it really just what, what the um extended expiration is or is there,
is there more leeway because it, it feels wasteful to throw away all those boxes
that are stacking up in my kitchen table right now. Good question. So, uh as a part
of the lifting of the declaration of emergency, some of the um some of the flexibility
we were able to offer on expirations went away. And so that was really what drove
the sudden change in policy um was that now we say you can't use them after they've
expired. Um And I think as a public health entity, we can't technically advise you
to use something that's expired. Um That said it's not like expired milk, so it doesn't
become dangerous after a certain time, but the risk is a false negative. So you may
get negative when you're actually positive and you got to take that into account.
Now, I can say from my own family, did we toss out all our tests? No, we didn't.
Um We plan to look and see if they have a control bar, but I would take it with a
grain of salt. Sometimes we are starting to see false negative. So particularly,
you know, if you got a test back in like beginning 2021 that one might be one more
world letting go and getting something a little more fresh. If you have access to
the funds to buy new tests, they're available at um at pharmacies and we do still
distribute them through our libraries and fire stations for folks who don't have
access to those funds. So my, my official advice is uh is seek out some new tests
so that you have them available because at the very least then you could check your
old ones if you happen to have used them. Ok? But Dr Barry, you say that if there
is a strong control line on a test, that's also a pretty good indicator generally.
Yes, but we can't technically I advise you to use the old ones. But do I sometimes
use my old ones? Yes, I had some with a really faint control line that I then throw
them away and then we've had some control lines that I had one that showed like a
half a control line. I was like, that's not good enough. Let's try again. So it can
be a good indicator and just be aware that false negatives can happen. And so the
same things you would normally do if you're ill, staying home, if you can masking,
if you can't, can still prevent transmission of COVID, even if you're not quite sure
of your status. OK. So last late breaking, this should be a simple one maybe, maybe.
Um So person has had three moderna shots. Should they switch for their, their current
booster? The guidance as far as uh the vaccines for adults is really, they're interchangeable
at this point. Um We did see some early data um of the possibility of benefit from
mixing um switching your your types. And I think there is still that possibility
of benefit, but it's really at the level of possibility, we don't have strong data
to support one way or another. So I would say take the one your pharmacy has if you
have the option to switch, go for it. Um But if not, you know, if you're going to
a pharmacy that only has moderna, which is quite common because pfizer is hard to
store. Don't go search around for pfizer. Just get the one that you can get. Ok.
Thank you. And a and a good update for the littles. Um, kids up to the age of four
have not historically been able to switch vaccines and still the preference is to
not switch. But if you're in a situation where you can't get the other one which
is happening more and more now that uh individual private businesses are deciding
which one they're gonna order. It's OK to get the other one, it's OK to mix so that
you make sure that you are uh c
great. Um I'll, I'll move into the listener questions. Um We got several good ones
today. Um One was from a listener who said they got their COVID booster on Tuesday
and tested positive for COVID on Friday. Uh Was it the COVID booster that made them
test positive? And unfortunately, no, what happened to you there is you do need two
weeks since your vaccine for it to be fully working. So, unfortunately, it was just
a little bit too late um to protect you against uh the current circulating variants.
And so that positive is real. Um the COVID vaccine cannot give you a positive test.
Um It's uh it doesn't lead to a positive antigen in your nose. Um And so it, it can't
do that also the, the part of the, the, the teeny part of the virus that's in the
vaccine um is not the same as the one that's tested for on the antigen test. So if
you test positive, you've got it unfortunately. And I hope you feel better soon.
Um How long after having COVID, do you wait to get the booster? I recommend waiting
at least two months after you had COVID before you get your booster, you can officially
get it as soon as you feel better. But the benefit to you is relatively limited at
that point because your body just got an immune boost from having uh been exposed.
So give it two months and then you'll be better protected through the rest of the
winter. Um This person says I applied for a free at home COVID test and never received
them. Is there a way to tell them that? Um I'm not entirely sure but um on COVID
dot gov forward slash test, which is where you ordered the test, there is a 1 800
number to call if you're having trouble. Um I think that's specifically around having
trouble ordering tests, but if they didn't come, that sounds like trouble to me.
And so I would give them a call and see if they can send you some more. Um Another
uh good question that came in is why are we only recommending a COVID vaccine annually
and not every six months? And there's a couple reasons for that. Um One is that we
do suspect that COVID is gonna start moving into a more seasonal pattern. And so
getting it in the fall will protect you through the spring and we're less likely
to see the summer surges we've seen in the past just due to the sheer amount of us
who have been exposed. Um And how widely it's circulating, that's not guaranteed,
it may come back this summer. There's we never know the future. Um And so these recommendations
could also change. Uh But most likely it's gonna stick with annually because the
other big reason why they moved to that recommendation is we're seeing much more
persistence of viral variants. Um So I'm sure many of us remember going through the
original variants and then six months later, delta came out and then Omicron. Um
and that was the big thing that drove the need for new vaccines was these new variants
were just dramatically different from each other. And so we lost the immune coverage
we had from our prior vaccines. Um That thankfully has seemingly stopped happening.
Um At least with that level of frequency this last year, it's really been just BB.
Um And it's really pretty well permanent for the year. And so getting a vaccine that's
targeted to BB, should provide more durable coverage to the v the current circulating
variants as long as those variants stay the same. Um The other big reason why they
moved annually was honestly to reduce vaccine fatigue. Um Every time we come out
with a new vaccine, slightly less people get it. Um And so it was getting to the
point of diminishing returns and confusing the public to see how often these vaccines
were recommended. And to some extent diminishing returns as far as protection too
because we have so much accumulated population immunity. We we are we get benefit
from our additional boosters. We get protection coming into the fall and winter,
but the additional benefit of another one after six months is not that high. Um So
that's, that's all why. Um There were some related questions there about uh why we
would do that. Um And one question I thought was important to answer, which was six
months after getting the COVID uh vaccine is natural immunity superior to vaccination
and no actually immunity from both states over time. Uh But your protection against
severe disease tends to persist in the vast majority of the population. Um So we
see less and less severe disease. It's not perfect. People who are immunosuppressed
um don't have that persistence of immune suppression. Um And so people who are immuno
suppressed actually do have recommendations for more frequent vaccinations. So if
you're in that group definitely talk to your provider about how frequently you should
be getting vaccinated. Um And I am mindful of the time. Um So I will just do a
couple more. Um Said one question was, is the risk of developing long COVID symptoms
from a breakthrough case lower than from getting a booster shot in six months. Um
And I would say a uh there's no risk of long COVID from the booster. Um But certainly
there are rare side effects. Um, soreness, fatigue, all those common symptoms that
can happen after your vaccine, which can be really bothersome to people. Um And then
there are very rare severe side effects which we want to minimize. But the biggest
driver for moving to annually over six months wasn't any concern about vaccine safety,
but only uh being mindful of the variant and the the changing picture of the virus.
So I don't think we need to stay getting vaccinated every six months. I do think
that we are likely to see an annual vaccine with our flu shot in the coming fall
and that's all I have. I can pass to Willie before we run out of time. Oh, but he,
if he is here. Yeah, I think Willie is on the phone so he won't show up on the screen.
But uh um Willie, how are you doing? Thanks for being with us. Even though you're,
it sounds like you're under the weather. Yeah, good morning everyone. Um testing
negative for COVID. But I think I might be in that first wave of RSV. So having fun
with that right now. Um Real short and sweet for me. Just wanted to um talk about
how we had the Great Washington shake out last month. We trained about just a little
under 100 attendees over the course of that week, mostly from um our in TRP neighborhoods
as well as our radio operator volunteers at all. Stimulated Thursday with the shakeout
itself. We had a radio exercise with our volunteer emergency communications group.
Um We had a, a demonstration of a emergency evacuation hub for our m prep members.
We had about 40 folks attend that. And then we practiced the, uh we tested the tsunami
sirens at point Wilson Point Hudson and in the boat yard. And that was actually the
question for me this week. Um Another person asking about, you know, if we use those
sirens for anything other than a tsunami alert. And so technically, those sirens
are called ahab is the acronym for all hazard alert and broadcast and they can be
used in really any kind of disaster or emergent event. We actually do have the capability
to broadcast via a microphone instructions depending on which event is taking place.
However, those specific sirens are placed for folks to here who are
outdoors and who are immediately in the vicinity of the tsunami inundation zone.
And all of our pre recorded messaging is for a tsunami evacuation and they're really
not designed or meant to be heard by folks who are in their homes. Um, that's a question
we get pretty frequently. Um, I was, you know, inside washing dishes and I heard
the sirens go off, but I could barely hear it. I couldn't understand it. And that's
not really the intended purpose nor is it intended for folks to hear who are outside
of the inundation zone. It's really for those folks who are outdoors and don't have
another means of notification that a tsunami is incoming. So we have that capability,
but we've mostly trained and kind of condition the general public and we've really
positioned them to be specifically for tsunamis. We have lots of other ways to communicate
with folks outside of that. If there is a tsunami or another emergent event, obviously,
if the ground shakes and there is a large earthquake, that is your notification,
that a tsunami is potentially incoming and you should get to high ground then and
then you obviously have KPTZ. We have our Nixle subscription text alert system which
folks can sign up for on our website. And then we do have the wireless, the alert
system and the emergency alert system where we can send push notifications to every
phone in Jefferson County as well as every television and radio broadcast system
to get the word out that way. So long story short, those sirens are specifically
for tsunami tsunami alert so that we have the opportunity for other things. But in
other events, we would look to use some of our other means to get the word out that
way. Um Other than that it is, we're moving into winter weather season. So we are
starting some of our preparations for power outage season, potentially snow season,
that kind of fun stuff. But, um, I can talk a little bit more about that, um, at
next month's freezing.
All right. Well, uh, well, thanks, thanks for, uh, um, crawling out of bed to talk
to us. He get back in bed. So really appreciate. Yeah, we're pulling for you. Thank
you. I appreciate it. All right. Well, we'll let Willie go and um, and I appreciate
that any last questions for Doctor Barry before we let her go. No, no, thank you.
Ok. Get a, a few minutes early. Good to see you, Doctor Barry. We'll see you next
month, first meeting of, of December for another uh health update and great to see
you. And we will let the, uh listeners of KPTZ return to uh the regular scheduled
program. So, thanks a lot. See you later.
All right, we have an, I think the next item is on time, so we probably have time
to go back to our operation Green Light Proclamation and then, uh, get to our, do
we know if Bob and, and o'malley are coming in person or are gonna be online? I think
they're gonna be online. Ok. Ok. And I think we have anticipated 1045 is the time
when, uh, when we're gonna get there. So we will uh pause that and return to the
operation green light. So I always think is talking about like green lighting movies
for some reason, but it's not
veterans health and well being very important. And we get lots and lots of questions
when we change the, anytime we change the clock tower lighting, we get, uh, I get
a flurry of Texas. Um, so I'll, I'll be better prepared.
So has everyone got the proclamation handy? I just got on my computer and I'm responding
to emails fast and furious, but I will go back there.
Oh,
do, do do
all right. Why don't we uh invert the order? So we'll go, Heidi Greg Kate this time.
OK.
I'm ready. I don't think we have any guests to bring over for this. Ok.
Proclamations supporting operation green light for veterans. Whereas the residents
of Jefferson County have great respect, admiration and the utmost gratitude for all
of the men and women who have selflessly served our country in this community, in
the armed forces. And whereas the contributions and sacrifices of the men and women
who served in the armed forces have been vital in maintaining the freedoms and way
of life enjoyed by our citizens. And whereas Jefferson County seeks to honor these
individuals who have paid the high price for freedom by placing themselves in harm's
way for the good of all. And whereas veterans can conti continue to serve our community
in the American legion, veterans of Foreign wars, religious groups, civil service
and by functioning as county veteran services officers in 29 states to help fellow
former service members access more than 52 billion in federal health disability and
compensation benefits each year. And whereas approximately 200,000 service members
transition to civilian communities annually. And whereas studies indicate that 44
to 72% of service members experience high levels of stress during transition from
military to civilian life. And whereas active military service members transitioning
from military service are at a high risk for suicide during their first year after
military service. And whereas the National Association of Counties encourages all
counties, parishes and boroughs to recognize operation green light for veterans.
And whereas the Jefferson County appreciates the sacrifices of our United States
military personnel and believes specific recognition should be granted. Now, therefore,
be it resolved with designation as a green light for Veterans County? Jefferson County
hereby declares from November 6th 2023 through Veterans Day, November 1220 23 a time
to salute and honor the service and sacrifice of our men and women who wore the uniform.
Be it further resolved that the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners do hereby
proclaim November 6th to the 12th 2023 as operation green light in Jefferson County.
And that an observance of operation green light encourages all citizens in patriotic
tradition to recognize the importance of honoring all those who have made immeasurable
sacrifices to preserve freedom by displaying a green light in a window of their place
of business or residence approved the sixth day of November 2023.
I will move to approve the proclamation as red. I will second. All right, it's been
moved in a second to approve the proclamation as red. All in favor. Indicate by saying
II I, all right, we've approved the proclamation. Um Mark, I think
you're the only veteran amongst us. Um You want to say a few words? Well, I can attest
to the stress that people feel when they transition from military service. Um, yeah,
I looked and looked for employment and, and very few bites. Um, looking principally
in Portland, Oregon and I'm not sure that community appreciates military service
as much as this one does. Um, so fortunately, um, I did land a job with Clark County.
Um, finally, and, uh, anyway, the military is a great place to work. Uh, it's filled
with, uh, tremendous people. It's the most diverse organization I believe in the
country. Um, and, um, anyway, I'm just grateful for the recognition. Um,
uh Operation Green Light is a relatively new, um, way to recognize veterans and I,
I think it's just tremendous. So, thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you
for your service. Will you be passing this along to central services to make sure
we? Oh, yeah, Matt's got it. Ok. Yeah, he bought a kit in preparation for last year's
operation Green Light. And, yeah, so he's, he's got it all set up and shine the green
light until the 12th. Is that the, until, until November 12th? Yes. Ok. Great.
Well, yeah, it's credible service veterans offer. And I've, I've known many that
did struggle to transition back too. So, I mean, it's, we need to be really cognizant
of making sure that a warm landing. Yeah. Well, the military is very structured and
when you transition to civilian life, that structure has to come from other sources.
And, um, yeah, some have a difficult time finding that structure.
All right, I don't see a time on the agenda for the No, that was that, I think Carolyn,
I can't recall the time, but we talked about 1045. That's, and I think that's what
we let Bob know. I think I didn't know that Mallory was coming at that point with
us. We want to stick with that because we said it out loud. Yes. Ok. Well, why don't,
why don't we take a, a, a 10 minute uh recess come back at, at 1031 refill your
coffee or uni anything and we'll, we'll see you back here at 1031 and plan to hit
the uh the next agenda item about the day about Bay National. Uh uh TLT at 1045.
Sounds good. Recording stopped.
See if I can.
Excuse me.
Still don't see anyone. Well, don't see Mallory or Bob
got a B Yeah. Did you get a new one? Yeah. Ok. What's the
range? 200
Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's plenty. Right for. Yeah, you like it nice. Uh
huh.
Yeah. Yeah, you get the tax rebate. Was it under 25 K? You get 4000,
504,000, if it's under $25,000 not if it's over.
He is the one who she was
the instigator. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, nice. I mean, I believe she's the third bolt in the parking lot.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, when, uh, affects their solid state batteries.
So it's 750 miles of range. And this one I'm gonna,
because you're always driving 750 miles in a day
and if they're not lithium ion. Oh, yeah, we just have to start taking the batteries
apart when we're done and we usually she's here. Oh, no, I don't see her. I think
she might be in the wrong meeting. I mean, all the names are clear and they're not
her. Huh?
Right down. Um,
she might be in the line meeting. They can go ahead and start the recording will,
recording in progress. Gets back. All right. I will call this meeting of the Jefferson
County Board of County commissioners back into session, uh, a moment late here and
we're, we're still anticipating starting the, uh, review with DNR, uh, about the,
uh, day Bob Bay Trust Land Transfer and Intertrust Exchange at about 1045 which was
when we told, uh, uh, Mr Winslow from DNR that we were planning on starting. Um So
let's return to some previous business. We have, uh we heard back from Mr Hunt Zucker,
we have a new signature page but we can approve the uh item one from the planning
Commission. Let me just start planning commission. Um Well, from the consent agenda
is what I'm trying to say. Memorandum of understanding between the Jefferson County
and Teamsters Local Union number 589. Regarding the mou with uh with uh the, the
whole tribe
you between Jefferson County and the Teamsters Union. Yes. Yes. To, to create that
kind of additional position of the lead over on the west. I'm happy to move that.
We approve the memorandum of understanding between Jefferson County and the Teamsters
Union local number 589 for the sheriff's office, commission deputies a second. Ok.
Uh All in favor indicate by saying II I, ok, that passes. We do
a, you saw we have a new uh signature sheet for that in the email.
Ok. So, um
no problem. Um Well, we've got 10 minutes until uh 1045. Does anyone want to take
a look back and uh do a briefing for the last week, last two weeks, I guess since
we weren't uh in regular session last week? Sure, I can go for it. He start off here.
So I'm going back to the 22nd, right. So, um
started off the 23rd with you all and
our regular meeting, which these days are always really long and it's funny how many
people go. Do you guys do anything on Mondays? And I'm like, yeah, tune in, tune
in folks. Um, and then Tuesday morning I went out to the HJ Carroll Park
for a tour of the jump playground with the recreation and conservation office funding
board. And it was fun to see a new group of folks get as excited as we are about
the jump playground. So that was a great tour and they use the toys or did they?
Oh, yeah, I, I again told them to try the merry go round, of course. So, um and,
and then, let's see in the evening, I had a community foundation event um on Wednesday
and Thursday, I was at the Washington Association of Counties County Planning Conference
in Olympia on the 25th and 26th. And those that was a really worthwhile use of time.
Um It was kind of a, you know, 101 on planning, but it was also a all the updates
and recent legislation and really well attend, attended. And um is it mostly planners
or, or planners elected who got been involved in different components of the planning
process? Planners who become elected, you know, uh the full mix and then state agencies
and um other subject ma matter experts on planning in Washington. Commerce,
of course. Um And then, let's see on Friday,
I um had a call with Pinky in the morning to talk about the number of our septage,
septage capacity issues and, and um kind of the upcoming legislative session. And
what also is again, uh pursuing uh funding for the capacity study for septage capacity
in uh Washington counties. So anyway, the list of priorities, legislative priorities
too.
And we'll talk about that later. It's one of those things I know Kate said we'll
get that back on the list. So I'm counting on my seat mate for, um, then I went on
KPTZ for our regular 1230 to 1255 slot with, uh, Amanda Milholland from the farmers
market. Um, John Bellow from Spring Rain Farm and Chim corner
store and we did a good kind of debrief of the season and to brief talk about the
Tilth Conference. Um, so I felt like, yeah, I felt like that was good and I asked
John Bellow, the question is the season over and it's clearly not over. They're still
out there harvesting and, and he's putting up more greenhouses. So anyway, um,
then we had an alum encumbered lands, county round table about an opportunity that's
come before was a and DNR regarding some of the encumbered lands issues that we have
been dealing with over the last couple of years. And, um, and the funding that came
through the legislative session for purchasing replacement lands. And so there's
a proposal on the table and we're moving forward with that. And then um
oh, I always want to tell you about my, my personal, like, super inspiring things,
but I'll skip it. Super inspiring. Well, there's a, there's the circus, the, the,
what's it called? The jump circus? No,
no, no. At the, at the old um fast all building out uh on the turn to Irondale road
where they do pop up. Thank you. Pop up. It's not jump, it's pop up and they did
their performance on Saturday and it was just fantastic. And so if you ever get a
chance to go to one of those, I highly recommend it. It's like our own little cirque
Du Soleil right here and had luck, Jim. Um, let's see, last week, I wasn't with you
on Monday and, and on Tuesday, um, we, uh,
I'm participating in the Carbon Friendly Forest Conference this week with Washington
Environmental Council and we did our dry run of that. Um, had my first meeting of
a new committee that I'm on Department of Ecology Model, um, ordinance committee
for, um, organics disposal and recycling. And, you know, all the,
I think it was house bill. Was it 1799 or 90 that, um, is kind
of dictating the development of ordinances for local jurisdictions to adopt around.
We're too small to even have to do it right. But we're still having a work group
about it and, you know, diversion is the word of the day. So, anyway, I was asked
to participate in that. So I am is Elizabeth Court staffing that yes, she is. Um
had a number of conversations in the afternoon about forest issues, County Forest,
DNR forests um had a meeting with rep singer about some funding opportunities around
forests. Worked on my presentation for the upcoming was a conference about the county's
forestry program and the work we've been doing collaboratively with DNR. Um had the
Jefferson Transit Authority Finance Committee meeting Thursday morning. I participated
in the in-person Olympic Peninsula Tourism strategic Plan leadership round table
at the uh cedars at Dungeness in Swim. And that was a, a big full room full of interested
stakeholders and a very good conversation. Um Then we had our budget workshop.
Um Then I did a meeting in preparation for testifying at the Board of Natural Resources.
Next, tomorrow, last Thursday for tomorrow's uh testimony about this encumbered lands
opportunity that we have. Um Then I participated in was A's federal issues um legislative
strategy meetings with a number of other counties. Developing the legislative agenda
for the for federal issues at was a and have been contributing again to the housing
issue. And um it's, it's a really, for me, it's a really good uh
zoom room to be in because the conversations are spicier than a lot. Yeah. Yeah,
I appreciate, appreciate the candor of my fellow commissioners and county leaders
around the state. And then Friday and Saturday, I, both days I attended the um Northwest
Straits Initiative annual conference at the Maritime Center here in Town and felt
the collective exhale in the room of being together in person again. And these are
very wonderful 77 counties around Western was around the Puget Sound Sailor Sea that
have marine resource committees and they just do a lot of sharing and networking.
And it was a really wonderful event. And Kate participated on the um legislative
front, climate change talking because I, I asked Kate to participate because she's
been, you know, our leader on climate change for the county. Um And it was great.
You did a great job. It was wonderful to have you there with us. So, um that's, yeah,
that's, and then yesterday I spent all day working on my side show for the was a
conference. All right. Thank you very much, Heidi. Busy times. Um We are just about
at 1045. Just give uh one quick. Yeah. Um Heidi, um I had a meeting last week with
uh Sarah Martinez from the Housing Authority, um and Peggy Webster from the Housing
Fund Board and they have some really specific federal policy asks that might be good
to talk to them as you develop positions for the uh federal issues panel. Um, always
increasing the, the, the rural portion of tax credits is um valuable
although uh uh Senator Cantwell doubled them in the last few years. So it's um a
little hard to make the case, but they would have some very specific ideas. So I'll
send them a message. Great. All right. Thanks for that, Kate. Ok. Um, well, let's
uh, invite Bob uh Winslow up to the table here. And uh do you have a slide show or
what do you, what do you got there? Uh If you got your own computer, we can get you
into the meeting or I can help you. Uh, if you wanna give me a, a thumb drive. Yeah.
Get ready. Mhm. Nice to see you in person. Bob, you're in person.
Yeah. Thanks for making the drive up. I really appreciate it and all your good work.
I thought we talked about Day Bob Bay. We need to bring Mallory over as well. Is
she not there?
I'm here. Oh, ok.
And then it's the, which is, what do you know what it's called? It'd be the powerpoint
at B in our presentation, right? It'd be a November 6th date. Ah, there we go. Got
it.
All right. I, too, along with Commissioner Eisenhower was doing some work yesterday.
Hm.
So many fronts to work on right now, right. Bob. It's a busy period. Well, I get
it all done before Christmas. That's good. All right. So just you give me the nod
or I'll try to anticipate. All right. Uh, thank you Commissioners. It's my pleasure
to be here to talk about Day Bob Bay, two different transactions. And my name is
Bob. Winslow. I work for the State of Washington Department, Natural Resources. So
we'll just start off with a beautiful picture. Day Bob Bay uh taken by a local Connie.
Anyway, it's Nick slide. So I gotta get to my controls here. So it would be two different
transactions that we put in front of the board. The first would be the day Bo Bay
Intertrust Exchange and the second would be day by Bay Trust Fund Transfer. They
both action would be taken on the same day by the board for their consideration.
All right, we'll talk a little more about both. Overview is uh you know, right now,
I've looked at uh all different public feedback. Uh you know, a little bit later,
there's, you know, a couple 100 folks that uh either attended meetings in person
or submitted written testimony, two different public hearings. But uh most, everybody
overwhelmingly wanted to go with a larger transfer and transfer all the trust to
existing trust lands. Uh In order to do that, since most everything was State Forest
Land Trust, we need to switch it to common school. This is old money. There's a new
law passed last session, but this was kind of set in with the uh previous uh uh process.
All right. And the, the option a that I'm putting forward today for your consideration
and to answer questions about would be to transfer all the existing trust line transfer
located within the boundary. We need to use all the existing funds that we have.
Um In addition to the stuff we've really got from the legislature, we've got a supplemental
appropriation. We also got later on, uh some RCO funds we hope to use. We need all
the that money to uh transfer because it's about 10 million. Uh, you know, the trust
fund transfer, uh need to be a common school at the time of transfer that's in trust
exchange. So that would move some uh existing state trust land around within the
county. Can I ask you just one question just about the, the timing and then the new
legislation that's come out, you know, since then, and the new rules because this
was appropriated before those rules were in, in place. Is that, that's the rationale.
Can you just a little bit part of it was the, the public, public meeting and public
process kind of predating some of the laws. So it's, um, uh, anyway, Dnr thinks it'd
be best if we just went with the uh pre existing laws and rules on this one because
that's the guidance I've gotten to date. Ok. Uh And then DNR has got uh within DNR,
there's some RCO money available for Day Bo Bay for the existing approved boundary
which applied towards part, a portion of parcels of A through G
and with trust and transfer the lets save money or other funds dear, gets, buys out
the existing state trust, you know, on it. Uh You know, basically the timber value,
historically, it go towards building schools, the land value, historically, it go
towards buying replacement property, irrigation with the new legislation, 100% of
the money can go towards buying replacement property. So that's, it's a blessing
moving forward. Uh So this is kind of the diagram of the way it used to be almost.
Yeah. And counties cannot actually request from 0 to 100% of the timber value come
to the counties, I believe with the new legislation. So it's uh I don't think it's
100%. I think it's a lower percentage. You know, they, they can, everybody can request
everything whether it's a different thing by everybody. So, is this, this, these
transactions are under the old program though, because they were initiated before
the new legislation just because the original money was a 2019 money and was felt
that uh and the, the first notice of the first hearing felt it'd be better to uh
just go with that process. But moving forward, there's a lot more flexibility. Um
All right. So uh on it, once on the noncom school trust, the State force land, you
know, we look for nearby eastern Jefferson County, uh other trusts and Common School
is, you know, the most applicable. Um So we valued a whole lot of the Eastern Jefferson
County Common School Trust. In fact, just about every one of them. Um all of the
properties except for parcel G our State Force land Trust. Now. 01 trust is what
we call it for coding and therefore need to intertrust exchange to occur
on the intertrust exchange of the equivalent market value. So that's what was basically
under appraisal. It's important to note that appraisal just looks at force practices
that doesn't look at DNR policy or other things. So there's several of these parcels
uh later on as I meet with sub tax districts, I'll discuss that more in detail, but
some of them, they can't be harvested, but they would get uh compensation uh for
the timber as if it could be harvested because it, it was owned by a private party.
They could just uh there's some uh unique plant communities, older plant communities
are the things that under DNRS policy procedures we wouldn't harvest, but we don't
want to penalize the trust uh because that policy procedure could be changed at any
point in time. Uh So anyway, uh frequently when we have projects like this, we try
to go uh what would it be similar to a private party? So my understanding is that
that's what you just stated makes it actually better for the junior taxing districts
than um if these transactions were not happening, right? So, you know, in part, if
we never harvest any timber, they get zero money, right? Uh You know, basically,
if we could harvest something in the future or harvest more net acres in the future,
they'll make more money through time by having more net operable acres. Right. Uh
So for each sub tax district, it's complicated and there actually, quite frankly
is enough data for me to fully evaluate it. I'd have to have the assessor do work
with us or for us or for me uh to get at it, maybe every question. But uh w we can
get to that at the end. Um But Dnr looks at the location, soil timber revenue, potential,
many factors just to try to look at is in the best interest of the trust to do this
transaction. And uh I said, I believe uh both these transactions would be in the
best interest of the trust. And once again, the appraisal results are used. So go
to slide eight. So basically you can see uh the two different people. Well, what's
the land exchange is kind of a uh swap of lands between two parties kind of equal
value? And it would be to uh basically properties within Jefferson County, the state
retains ownership of all the properties at the time, just manage it on behalf of
a different state trust beneficiary.
So this is starting just to show some of the properties. Um the northernmost properties.
Uh It's common school, 123 or north uh north end of the Quiver Peninsula. Uh But
for the transaction, the ones that be involved in the Common School Intertrust Exchange,
it's common school parcels, one through 10 and 12 through 15. Uh We did not, you
know, use common school parcel 11 because there's some um plant communities that
there's likely there'd be uh impediments to timber harvest. So we felt that it was
in the trust's best interest to not use that one and use the other properties. You
can see that we had to use the whole stable of properties that we valued um in order
to have enough money. So it's not all in the same junior taxing district. No, it's
not all the same juniors. And, um, there's about 12 different taxing districts. But,
um, and, and I'm still in the process of analyzing, but I've analyzed for the school
and for the fire district, but I haven't had time to do the hospitals and veterans
district and cemetery district and road one, school one and school two and just goes
on and on. Um, the, there's a lot, there's, there's a bunch of different fire ems
ones. Uh, so part of your work is to do all that analysis and see what the, the,
the breakdown is or is trying to understand it better, you know, so I can answer
the questions. Uh, but in part, since the state doesn't pay property taxes, uh, on
a bunch of the properties, there's a print out of all the different sub tax districts,
but it doesn't print out the tax number since the state doesn't pay property tax
about, there's a lot, about seven years ago. So now that data doesn't show the state
trust lines where it might on a private party. So that's some impediment for me to
uh analyze the uh the next level is that to work with the assessor that you were
talking about, you'd have to dig into, you have to do uh work with assessor uh and
give him a uh or them a homework assignment maybe to perhaps help me. Uh But anyway,
so there's the all those parcels. Um Here's the properties a little bit further south.
Uh on the left, you can see the ones uh basically just north of Quill scene and north
of Day Bob Bay on the far, right. It's the Coil Todos Peninsula. You can see some
of the other parcels. It's a little bit harder to scale. But anyway, that's uh the
southernmost one is CS 14. Um and it's not labeled, I guess. Uh uh Anyway,
CS 15 basically should be that Beaver Valley one. And,
and do you know like that 16? Is that wil school district and fire district is 104
kind of the the and one of them we did, we didn't value that. Uh basically just uh
didn't have enough money in time, but the one right there along highway 104. you
know, in section 16, we didn't have the ability to value that one. Anyway. Got you.
So it's not included
but the one in Beaver Valley on, on the far right, uh upper right corner is clearly
Jim and East Jefferson. Ok. Onward. Yes, please.
So, yeah, the ones I said that uh didn't have the ability to show you anyway. So
there is um Beaver Valley one on the left CS 15. Anyway. Uh So the one on the right,
I should have taken that slide out. But anyway, that, that won't be included uh uh
C 16
like 12. So part of it, uh you know, basically DNR to consider the interest exchange,
you can see a bunch of parcels. It's kind of a broader view. In addition to that
uh to balance the values, it's kind of hard with uh you want to try to get it to
close to the dollar you can between the trust beneficiaries make it as equal as possible.
So it's just a lot easier just to use cash to balance it. Uh Plus that gets uh the
sub districts in Jefferson County more land, which is kind of the purpose uh really
moving forward uh with the 2.5 million. So, uh it's a little more than I thought
when I anyway, uh I didn't do the math correctly when I'd sent, you know, kind of
a draft but be $941,801 of the 2.5 million would be needed to uh transfer all this.
Um And so basically, we'll switch in the tail transfer to go in the green shaded
area. So that's doesn't show the outer perimeter of the boundary, but it's in a general
local. So just because this map is up here, I'll point out that CS one CS two C S3
and CS 15 are all parcels that we just submitted trust, land transfer applications
for and they'll be state forest transfer trust by the time those applications move
through. Perfect. In the lower circle, you can see it's a little bit hard but trust
I transfer ABC DEF. Uh GNH that's the ones that be transferred uh and extend the
day, Bob Bay, NRC, the green area to the south A slide 13.
You can see the parcels better now that would be transferred uh A through eight that
are proposed uh you know, using the full $10 million we'd be able to transfer all
that property into the NRC A and the eastern boundary of CND is uh basically the
main Coil Highway.
Okay.
Next steps is uh today, I'm here to talk to you uh about, you know, the preferred
plan at least at this point in time. Uh And we don't have a whole lot of time uh
just because uh I want to take this to the Board of Natural Resources. So we're just
gonna try to do a real intensive outreach uh next few weeks cause um the RCO money,
we only have it through December 2023. So if we don't act, don't move forward, um
then we won't have enough funds to transfer everything. And uh so basically the project
scope and scale would have to be reduced. So anyway, that kind of throws you back
to the drawing board, doesn't it? When you, if you lose that, that would put us back
to where almost we were buying him ago. Uh which, you know, everybody said go big,
trying to go big but then we couldn't uh uh because we didn't have enough funds and,
and other factors. Uh So we don't want to go there. But uh at the end of the day,
um uh it'd be your board and uh the input of the sub taxing districts will be the
input of the board of Natural Resource will make the final decision next. You're
going to reach out to those junior taxing districts, is that the idea and try to
reach out to as many of them as possible? Um And I say, and uh you feel free to notify
him to uh after I finish here today, I'm gonna try to get more information about
the different sub tax and districts. Um Anyway, because it's hard to find some of
them online. Uh And, and how and who to contact. Well, let us know. I'm sure I can
certainly help you with many of them. And I know Heidi can too, so we can help act
as liaisons for you if you want and, uh, you know, basically, uh, prepare, uh, presentation,
uh, and we're gonna bring it early in November. We'll talk a bunch of sub tax districts
and others. Uh, we have to put on the board agenda for us, you know, basically about
a month in advance. So I'll be trying to schedule it for the first Tuesday in December
would be the board action that we try to basically close by the end of December.
And if, I mean, the BNR meeting on the fifth is the only meeting in December, I assume.
Right. Yeah. So it's kind of that or where it's scuttled. So the board just meets
once a month unless they call a special session and they don't intend to call a special
session in December in all likelihood.
Uh, so the last bill just talks about needing to close before December 30 or the
funds would go away. Uh, the RCO grant funds, which is about 1.7 million. Oh, wow,
that's pretty significant. But it's, it's kind of important because all that supplying
towards the land, uh, DR is already paid down a bunch of the timber. So what's critical
is the land? Uh, we can't buy the land and timber, we can't transfer the land. Um,
and when you talk to the junior taxing districts, are you gonna talk about the encumbered
nature of some of the DNR lands? Now, I just, it seems like an important point. You
know, like, yeah, so I believe that one slide here shows where some of the uh uh
the rare plant communities are the kind of impact current properties. Um And I say
I can get into better detail, you know, almost kind of offline. Uh And when I meet
directly with the junior taxi districts, uh such as Quilcene Fire helped to meet
with them in person and the Quilcene school district uh because they, they have just
uh especially the school district. Uh uh basically every properties within Quilcene
school district and a good portion of them uh that would convey um the transfer.
We are in the closing school district. A lot of the replacement lands are also. So
um yeah, they, they're affected more pay more than some others. There's a bunch of
minor general taxing districts that uh aren't conveying anything but they're getting
land. So they're kind of what you might call a net gator. Yeah, appreciate all your
work on this, Bob. I know it's, I know a little a little bit about how much work
has gone into to put your arms around all of it. So, thank you. Do you mind going
back a couple of slides? I'm looking at the one you sent me, Bob. But um yeah, that
one. So um and I'm the least educated even with all of Peter Bale's efforts and Mary
Jane's. Um So do you mind just talking me through? It's helpful that step number
two parcels shown in blue outline will become perpetually conserved that I get what
will happen to the pink parcels. And I know you said not all of them are included.
Yeah, most all of them are they'll become one trust. So basically state force, land
trust will be managed for the benefit of Jefferson County and its sub tax district.
So, ok. That's why I was pointing out CS 123 and 15. Yeah. Ok. So all those up
here, um our traditional colored it, it common schools, our traditional color is
pink and then it switched to light blue, which is our traditional color for uh county
uh State Forest R lands. OK. And, and so they are being traded from common school
to State Forest.
OK, great. And I see it says that in step one, I realize that, but it's helpful.
Yes. And I've so appreciate it that the two of you have wrapped your head around
it and I dabble in it. And when, how does that process happen? The moment the Bodin
Natural Resources uh votes on if they approve it, then the moment that resolution
is signed, that it happens. So uh it basically be the day of the Bodin Natural Resources.
Uh It affect the switch between trust and then, then that sets up the stage where
uh if the other transaction of transfers uh approved, then basically we just work
towards closing the bringing the funds and buy out that land transfer it. Uh So,
uh yeah, I say the day the board approves that suddenly there'd be a kind of a net
gain overall for Jefferson County in regards to acres. But a couple sides down the
road, we see those numbers and can I can I ask the, the two that are up top? I know
there are two that we and the, the head of the dragon there that would be and obviously
not in the Quilcene school district or fire district. But these are two properties
that we asked in our letter to DNR for to consider for, you know, trust, land transfer,
some other other mechanism. I mean, I guess can you talk a little bit about the process
that you went through to look for properties for the exchange? Because I, I mean,
I know that they're gonna see it as suboptimal and in some of those junior taxing
districts and I it feels like there was, wasn't a lot of options. So I'm wondering
if you can just dig a little bit into that process, right? So looked around and basically,
um uh tried to value all the different uh basically federal trust, you know, basically
common school trust actually, that need to be common school with the old language
in East Jefferson County. So we want to keep it within the Quilcene uh school district
in Quilcene fire to the degree possible. So we kind of focused there but had to move
out a little bit broader because some other properties that seem to have real high
value to the citizens of the county. Um, you know, such as the ones, the C 12 and
three on the north end. Um, you know, basically originally wanted to go towards Mount
Walker, but, you know, that's basically outside the quilting school district, a different
school district. So, uh, and we kind of focused our scattered properties and that
one's kind of a larger contiguous block. So it's still working reasonably well for
common school trust. The smaller scattered ones aren't working as well, but uh they
fit well in the integrated uh county management and planning. Um And you can even
see CS 89 and 10, there's a few different common school, small pieces within a large
01 landscape. So this just makes it contiguous uh 100% 01 in that area. So this makes
for simpler management uh moving forward. Uh And 01 or the county land. Yeah. 01
is the county state forest land uh transfer land. And then uh so that was the original
tax default stuff from the twenties and thirties. That state's been me in since then.
Ok. So how does this nest with the um uh sorry Bob? More question for these guys
with the, you know, our kind of priority of, of um and I kind of
shifting commercial harvest from north of 104. I think those ones Well,
I mean, it's why I said what I said earlier that those CS 12 and three specifically
are parcels that we have submitted trust land transfer applications for because they're
in more populated portions of our county and the, the south portion of, I mean, I
think it's C S3 um is actually the Quimper loss wilderness that's in there. So much
of that actually can't be harvested because it's been found to be old growth. So
it's consistent with the letter, I mean, it's gonna, it's gonna end up in State Forest
Board, but we probably with some of them still look for other mechanisms uh to replace
that revenue, right? This is like the first of first two or three dominoes, but there's
a few more dominos. So some of the southern ones will just be uh harvested. I would
presume, and I think more of the northern ones will be pursued with other options
to um
and that going through this process doesn't preclude no, the other processes it's
supported to our other processes. And this supports the conversations we've had with
the DNR region about how they would like to see us work together in the future. It
seems like an expensive and complicated transfer and then to have to do it again,
right? But that's just how the system nothing happens basically, right? I mean, at
this scale, I mean, it's like, it sounds like 20% of the funds are coming from that
RCO grant that will evaporate at the end of the year. Right. It wasn't initially
allocated for this project. So we're, it's like a bonus and we got a supplemental
appropriation legislature to which we didn't originally have. So, uh and one thing,
uh right now, there's a lot of work going on behind the scenes. CS 12 and three.
But when it becomes, 01 trust, the State Force Land trust, the county have a stronger
say and how it's managed. You know, if it's uh you know, no harvest, light harvest,
you know, full harvest, you know, basically the county has a lot more say in it because
uh it directly affects the county and the subtext districts and the local community.
You know, there's a bit of inherent conflict when it's common school because that's
managed for statewide so well, you know, locals may say no, but at the end of the
day, uh the trust beneficiary might say yes. So then, you know, then it might be
in conflict perhaps with uh some of the local county uh desires wishes. This gives
us much more flexibility to the county. Uh And to say on that land. Thank you.
I forgot what slide we were on. Shall I go back? Uh Yeah, let's go forward. OK. We'll
stop there. Uh You know, the uh approved natural area. It's hard to see. It's a light
green boundary. Uh You know, it heads to the east, you know. And anyway, uh goes
through uh the estuary there uh to the east uh Tar Bay. Uh and then it goes up north
uh into some of the existing protected areas. The areas in blue are rare plant communities.
Um So, basically, that's the polygons been mapped and looked at by heritage staff
that have uh uncommon and rare plant communities. Uh Under dinner's policy, then
basically, we wouldn't harvest it uh at this point in time, you know, so basically,
there's no revenue. Uh those portions that are within the boundary, there would be
no revenue coming in. Uh Unless that policy procedure was changed down the road for
those trust beneficiaries. So let's say there's a, there's approximately um over
$2 million of timber, they wouldn't see a dime of that, you know, it wouldn't be
harvested in addition to that. Then there's the land value too that, that trust beneficiary
will get land and timber value where really it's, it's great if you have the land
value. But if you're not gonna harvest the timber was gonna build a school or build
the get to build a fire truck is cash revenue. So, basically need a revenue source.
Uh So by relocating some of those lands to um areas with less encumbrances uh in
East Jefferson County, they'll have a better opportunity to produce revenue over
time. So uh next slide, but parcels uh let's go back, I guess I should say uh parcels
CF and h all have those, um, older and rare plant communities and that's the road
for us. We've all seen and up, up close and personal. And I'm gonna give you a hand
out today where I'll talk a little bit about the, uh, appraised value. But then there's
a couple of special footnotes that anyway. Well, that's appraised at that. The trust
beneficiary wouldn't necessarily get that. So I kind of noted what the approximate
uh you could call it fall down in value could be uh under the current procedures
and policies. OK. Slide 16.
So the transfer of all parcels A through H A little over 10 million bucks. Um Then
you can see the four different buckets of money. Uh DNR has already made a payment
towards the timber of 4.6 million. Uh We basically have a little bit of money from
the original 2019 appropriation 1.6 million. We got a new appropriation last by and
M. Um So anyway, that was great uh from the legislature and anybody that advocated
towards that, so that 2.2 million goes a long ways towards making this happen. Um
Then, you know, one of the things is the timber kept growing. So, you know, you need
more money. Uh the longer you wait anyway, on a transfer and lastly, uh the RCO funds
at 1.7 million. So now you get, we have a little over 2.10 0.2 million. So that should
be uh more than enough to transfer the property eons. Uh We make a decision and can
complete it by December 30 so that timber payment made where transaction
happened. It's the way the legislature writes it. They basically, when they ran historically,
when they transferred TLT funds about the last 12 years, they said we want you to
transfer that estimated timber value right away even before you praise it. Uh just
go with the uh estimate because um we wanna build schools, we want to build them
as soon as we can. So if we build it the beginning of the I by am uh inflation hasn't
happened for construction, inflation. So we can build more school and build it quickly.
So, um uh and you know, the whole trust I transfer a lot, it was set up for school
construction. That's why it's set up. It needs to be through the K through 12 trust.
So the payment is from the legislature to OK. Yeah. So the top three is just direct
appropriation to DNR from the legislature. The fourth one was legislative appropriation
to RCO. And then basically DNR did a competitive grant, then DNR uh special kind
of my peer group obtained a grant and they're gonna basically help us try to transfer
the whole thing because they also uh see the value in having a um basically uh all
the trust land out of um trust management and that of boundary. Uh and Dnr, the former
commissioner approved the boundary expansion. So already said we feel that all these
trust lands uh could and should be in the boundary and it benefit the natural area
through time.
Ok. Slide 17. So the value of all the transfers, the intertrust exchange value,
all those parcels, it's CS one through 15 less uh 11. You know, love is not included
total of 1660 acres. So you can see it go from 787 acres to 1660
acres in aggregate. Um, you know, and then a little bit of that, you know, is, uh
the cash I talked about which is another legislative gift, the part of the 2.5 million
for the encumbered lands. So, uh, but anyway, trying to use some of that for this
to just balance it simple. That's where some of that was going. Yeah. Um So that's
the 941,000 out of the 2.5 million. Uh, you know, basically would buy additional
forest land and then help to balance the transaction that 2.5 on the bottom is in
Cumberland's funding. That's the $10 million proviso that happened two sessions ago
from Kevin Vanderweig for five counties, 5 million coming to Clallam and Jefferson.
So about half each for each of us. Yeah, so we'll work out the assumption that both
counties, ultimately, we can't split it perfectly but to the degree we can, we want
to try to get it uh equal between Jefferson and clown counties to the degree we can
anyway. So when I tell you, there's no more room left in my brain, this is sometimes
the reason why. Mhm.
All right. So slide 18. So some of the past public outreach we started in 2019, uh
I actually sent a notice to the county commissioners. Uh, no contact the tribes legislature.
A lot of folks and followed up, you know, then we got in the heart of uh uh COVID.
So that delayed things for a little bit. Well, how for a while, we couldn't hold
a public meeting and finally, we could. Um, so we held that in May 2021 and quill
scene. Then basically, uh we got a bunch of feedback from the folks. Um Folks are
real prescriptive, you know, when they testified, everybody was in support of uh
a larger land exchange and a larger transfer. But uh they started stating, well,
trade, this don't trade this and that. And then, uh it was basically impossible to
kind of comply with both wishes they had stated. And because the pastor time, we
felt it was important to go back out again to the community pr did uh with the second
hearing and quill scene and on that one, once again, it was overwhelming testimony
in support of, in favor of it. Uh And basically, uh folks um got a little less prescriptive
on kind of telling dinner really what needed to happen with the parcels. But they
spoke passionately about just uh trying to transfer it and transfer as much as possible.
Uh Was uh the overwhelming majority of the testimony I think, weren't we all, were
we all there, Greg and Greg and I were there. I wanted to spoke in slide 20
uh oh I guess we're there. Uh 19. So future steps for me, uh and for the department
is to continue to do outreach between now and the board of meeting to uh now that
have a kind of a preferred proposal, we have basically something to speak about.
Go out and tell folks what it is and what it isn't. And then uh listen to them and
uh basically, and prepare towards talking to the Board of Natural Resources uh in
December. So, um
and I'm gonna ask your question later today. Then once I get feedback, you know,
basically need to make the final proposal. I need to get that in front of the board.
I say, and then mail it for me is uh a couple weeks from now. I'm sorry for the Board
of Natural Resources. Do you need something from us? Is there an action that we need
to take? Don't need an action. But I say if you're in support of it, it would be
great. Uh If you wanted to somehow switch it um and wanted to parcel switch then,
then basically it'd be important to let me know and I'm gonna leave you guys with
a handout that has the different individual partial values and, and some other information.
But um yeah, just uh just call me, email me whatever of support would be helpful
though. Yeah, it would definitely would be and then, um and, and, and any testifying,
you know, too, it can be uh remote, it could be in person. Uh, but a letter, uh letter
speaks a lot, you know, it's uh almost equivalent for the Board of Natural Resources.
Then, you know, basically, if we see something that we feel uh works for the community,
uh works for the county and basically works for the citizens, we'll put in front
of the board Natural Resources for them to vote on it. And should they approve both?
And we just move towards closing them in the month of December.
It's a lot of work between now and then Bob and then if, if somehow, you know, uh
so there's a $10.2 million you know, and we need a little over 10. So, and if there's
any remaining funds, then basically that would apply back to RCO if there's a RCO
funds. And uh there's a little bit of legislative funds in the other buckets. Then
we basically, uh at the conclusion, give that back to legislature. So, uh they funded,
they, they support the conservation in the natural area. Um They always take money
back but that, that wasn't the intent, you know, that uh we spent a lot of years
to uh put forward something, you know, and, and uh I think this would be a good proposal
side 20. So just another uh picture by uh another local anyway of the spit
their day, Bo Bay and Olympics behind it. County Park. Yeah. And w we do one more
slide, one more picture, then we'll call it a wrap. Yeah. All right. So any, any
questions or any additional information you want me to uh kind of birddog for the
uh county commissioners or, or anybody else really appreciate the presentation questions
for Bob. Gosh. I pity you having to explain this to junior taxing districts that,
you know, I've been hearing it a little bit at a time for many years and can kind
of piece it together but how to put it into really plain speak for um for folks who
have less experience with it and, and are, are, are a little anxious about uh these
transactions. Um Good luck to you. Really, I'm sincere in my offer to help if you
want as a liaison. Um you know, you can reach out to either Heidi or I, you know,
we're happy to go down and, and help or make connections for you. Um Yes, my own
one question is you said if we wanted to change up the formula or something we should
let you know. But is that actually practical in this time frame to make changes or
that settle it back? That's why I said it's gonna be robust outreach. Uh So robust
alternative and robust outreach would be the name of the game just because uh yeah,
there's, there's a little bit of time but um not that much and I can consider, but
you can see there just wasn't that many options by the time. Um You know, basically
we got the new valuations we needed every parcel, everything we valued. Um The only
we didn't use is one that had a kind of a late uh excuse me, the um rare rare plant
communities. So um on, on 11 and then 16, I say just with the first bite and
we ran out of money to do appraisal. So I say we haven't had money for the appraisal
for a while. Um I mean, a lot of work has gone into this and I would be hesitant
to suggest any changes to the recipe. That's what I was getting at is, you know,
I think you've been pretty conscientious about the desires and I know it's not quite
perfect but it's, you know, is anything ever and and the junior taxing districts
come out ahead on this. So
and with the Cumberland funds, uh you guys can, we'll put proposals in front of you
with that, you know, hopefully sooner than later. Uh But we've, we've been busy on,
on this and some other projects, but we'll get refocused on that uh real soon. But,
uh you know, and, and truly, uh I think we'll probably try truly be trying to look
for stuff in the Quilcene school district to degree we can. So anyway, moving forward
um and hopefully be some opportunities and willing sellers out there at a reasonable
price. Uh And, you know, I say that is one of the, the better uh timber areas within
the county. Uh You know, it's kind of hard uh north of Port Townsend to get viable
commercial timberland. So it would be, I think highway 104 and south, that's where
we'll be targeting. What's the time frame on finding the replacement lands. So the
uh with the interest chain, so that'll take care of most of the near term, but with
the, with the rest of the 2.5 million, um Basically, it's this, by having said that
the legislature would probably do a re appropriation, but we don't want to, we'd
want to actually acquire it. The sooner we require it, the cheaper it will be the
more lands we'll get. And the sooner it's working for the county, plus, um we demonstrate
success now and that sets up the opportunity for perhaps uh uh the legislature to,
to look back again at uh this county along with the others. Uh and perhaps appropriate
more money because uh this wasn't, you know, be all end all in the ES A. It was just
kind of a step towards addressing some of the past fall down from uh some environmental
regulations that have occurred. And there's also the $83 million proviso 70 million
of which is targeted at replacement lands. And we're already identifying parcels
for that funding as well. Not, not currently inside our county, but there will be
news on that at the B and R meeting tomorrow, I believe. Yeah. So the next two board
BNR meetings there can be a lot of transactions. Uh a lot of things discussed.
Hm All right. Um Well, super helpful. I really appreciate all the work that's gone
into this. You know, I know a lot of, a lot of hands have touched it too and I, I
don't think you're gonna get any bulking from us as the timeline is so short
comment. We've got some public. Sure. Let's let's open it up for public comment.
If anyone in the room or online would like to make. Well, we'll turn to Mallory first.
Who's with us still? I think I don't know, Mallory, anything to any questions or
comments. Uh Just comment. Thanks for the update. It's great to hear more detail
about this and I'm looking forward to digging in more and learning how this process
goes. It's a big one. So, yeah, thanks Mallory. All right. Anyone else online you
can hit raise hand, we'll restrict public comment to three minutes, but we would
love to hear from you Star Nine. If you're on the phone, we'll bring you over anyone
in the room like to make public comment.
No. Yeah. Ok. We just need to make you a mic here. So, yeah, Peter. Peter. Peter
often has some of the important fine print.
Just you can
write to Mike over there or you can sit here. Yeah, just, just sit down. Oh, sure.
Thank you. Thanks Peter. Thank you.
Ok.
Ok. Start by three minutes. Take it. Uh um Dale's uh director of Northwest Watershed
Institute. And um we own quite a bit of land, our organization in, in quill scene.
So we care a lot about making sure there's fire trucks down there. And um uh also
really happy to see this conservation project moving forward. Uh Thanks Bob Presentation,
County commissioners. Thanks for your patience all these years and your work of support
for this starting when we uh commissioners uh talked to the legislature about getting
funding way back in. I think it's like 2018 or something. Um This has been a long
TLT, I've never seen one this dragged out this long, but let's get it done. Ok. That's
the main thing. Um I just wanted to highlight, I looked at Bob's data on the parcels
that you have and um I just wanted to mention this is a great deal for Jefferson
County Forest Trust Lands. Um and it's a good deal for quilting. So, um, if you look
at it in terms of what Bob was mentioning, uh parcels, CF and H that are gonna be
protected, uh have encumbered lands. They, they have the globally rare forest, they
can't be harvested. Uh Anyway, there's between land and timber value on those encumbered
parcels. It's 3.5, it's uh 5/5 million dollars. Um So this will compensate the county
those $5 million in um, quills.
Well, overall, um,
if you don't include those parcels, CF and H in other words, they're gonna be protected.
Um, so they're not part of the existing timber value and you look at the current
condition vir versus the transfer, there's a gain of $2 million in timber and there's
a gain of 1000 200 acres in land. So you're tripling the acreage, Forest board acreage
in the county and you're, um, y you're doing a lot for timber value to the 2 million.
Um, in quilt, uh Without those three parcels that are encumbered, um, with this transfer,
you'll gain 1.4 million in timber, nearly double the timber value available and you'll
gain 481 acres. So you're near uh more than double the acreage land value. So, um,
yeah, this is, this is, uh, oh, this is a long term game, but it's working out well
for the county and it also helps the county with uh having forest trust lands in
these other parts of the county now um with more control over that. So, so thanks
a lot. So can I get one more copy of it, Peter?
Thank you, Mr for the packet. Mhm.
Can I get one more of those too?
All right. Anyone else like to make public comment today? Love to hear from you.
No. Ok. Uh I don't see. Oh, we got one hand in the, in the audience. Let's bring
Gene over. Hello, Miss Paul. I'd love to hear from you. Once you get yourself unmuted,
you have three minutes. Good morning, everyone. Um I'd, I'd just like to thank Bob
for his presentation and his ongoing work on this massive mind numbing project. Um
We're all very grateful for your participation and your briefing. Uh Special thanks
to uh Steve Theer who came up with the funding for the budget shortfall between the
initial appraisal and the, you know COVID backlash effects and all of the adjusted
timber values and that type of thing, Steve really pulled a rabbit out of his hat
on this. So, uh right on Steve. Um this, these proposals give
us more money for the taxing districts, not less money. Uh We have a lot of land
value locked up due to encumbrances. I'm not gonna go into that. I think that's you
guys get that. We've heard all about it. Um It makes no sense for us to sit on encumbered
land with no value to, uh for example, the Quilcene Fire district or schools or that
type of thing, we're gaining value by engaging in these types of transfers. I think
that we'd be derelict in our duties to fail to act upon this and to do it in an expedited
fashion because as Bob mentioned, we lose this funding next month if we don't act,
uh this is a benefit to us all. And I think it's, it's really, it's a tremendous
opportunity. We should take advantage of it. It's, it's in the best interests of
the trust. Um We had, you know, we had two public hearings that were
very well attended and we enjoyed near unanimous support for these proposals which
included um tribal member support and support from the residents. And I think that
really speaks volumes to the proposals.
Yeah, I don't want to get into the spreadsheets, but I think, you know, that the,
the devil's in the details and if you, if you take a look at the numbers, what you'll
find is that this is a tremendous opportunity and um it's a smoking good deal and
I encourage you to issue that letter of support for the BNR so that they understand
that we support this and we want it and uh please act upon it immediately. Thank
you very much for your participation. Uh Thank you to Peter Heidi and Mary Jean for
all their work.
All right. Thank you, Miss ball. I'll make one more call. Anyone else like to make
public comment. We'd love to hear from you. You can hit Star Nine if you're on the
phone, the raise hand button or if you're here, raise your actual hand.
Ok, see no one else. I'll CC clues, public comment and we don't have any action to
take today, but I, I think you get the gist of our, our support, Bob. So, um, thanks
for all your work on this and we'll be in touch soon and, and, and probably have
a draft for you in the next couple of weeks to uh facilitate your work and please
let us know how we can help you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Yep. All
right. Good to see you all. And uh yeah, well, I guess onward. Do we need to consider
a letter of support at this point or? Well, you might as well, I mean, yeah, sure.
Do you wanna, I'm happy to draft? So I wanna ask K to draft a letter we all back
up from the table and I'm happy to draft a letter of support. Great. Uh I move that
we authorize Commissioner Eisenhower to draft a letter of support for the trust land
transfer and intertrust exchange as discussed today.
Ok. All in favor and to keep by saying hi, hi, hi, raising my hand for my work. All
right. Yeah, in support of the support of good stuff. I mean, this compared to all
that's leading up to this, this is easy. This is the gravy, isn't it? No, this is
awesome. Yeah, that's good. Awesome work everybody. All right, great. And I'm sure
we'll talk about, um, opportunities to testify at the BNR meeting in December too
and see if we wanna double up or what. But, ok. Um, shall we return to cal our briefing?
You wanna take it away, Kate? Sure. Take me a minute to get there again.
Hm. Don't drive too fast in that car beater.
All right. Um, let's see on, uh, Tuesday, October
24th, um, had a meeting with the Municipal Research Service Center,
um, recruiting some new board members there, which is always tricky. We try to balance
a lot of elected, nonelected city county east west, urban, rural. Um, but they're,
it's interesting. It's, it's an easier board to recruit for because everybody uses
and loves MRSC so much. Yeah, exactly. Um, the, the value is very clear. So, um,
that's always nice that we end up with a lot of people interested in those positions.
Are you still chair? I'm not, no, it rotates annually. So I'm, uh, I'm not even past
president anymore. Yeah, just a year. Yeah, I think the term limit is 10 years and
I'm almost seven and I think so. Yeah, I'm an old timer. Um, Economic Development
Council finance Committee meeting, um, uh, zeroing in on some budget, uh,
revisions in support of trying to create a more realistic budget for next year for
the E DC. Um And, you know, again, just the same existential challenges we've talked
about E DC. Not, not being sure exactly how to finance itself if it, you know, should
rely on grants or membership or um you know, they don't want to just rely on public
funding but what is the other uh kind of sponsorship, other models?
Yeah, they are doing both membership and a sponsorship model. Um and trying to rely
less on grants. Um So, but, you know, they have to have a lot of value to get folks
to wanna sign on to a membership.
Um, had a meeting of the healthier together, the aquatic center steering committee
and, um, let's see. Um They will be coming before us on the 20th.
So two weeks from today to consider whether we want to approve putting it on the
ballot or not. Yes. Yep. Um And the, and I think the, the kind of
response to your concern Greg about the additional skin in the game in the city is
uh somewhat addressed by the fact that the, the city has designated um over $400,000
out of their and their general fund annually to subsidize um the operations. And
so, you know, the, the county is not bearing equal brunt of that cost. That's about
a, between a third and a quarter of the total um uh annual revenue. So it is born
more by the city in the, in this structure. Um, the city's government, you know,
I, I know, you know, I mean, I'm not sure if that is a palliative to the people of
the county. Mhm. Yeah. I mean, it's general fund dollars. So it's taxpayer, you know,
that's either property tax or sales tax almost entirely.
Um, so, uh, that will be in front of city council, I think the 13th before coming
to us on the 20th. So more, more to come there trying to think, Mark, if there's
anything else we discussed in that, that would be pertinent to share. Um Not sure
if we, if I told you that the Y is now the presumptuous operator. Um
And um, yeah, it, it, at some point, we'll need to, you know, get some real clarity
on how we uh differentiate, you know, how to, how to not, I don't know if it's, once
we decide to put it on the ballot, but at some point, we'll have to stop using any
county resources, uh you know, towards, um towards the campaign. Yeah. So can I ask
the ridiculous question that I keep getting asked? Um, is that decision we're
being asked to make on the 20th, um,
predicated on the location being
Townsend. Yeah. Ok. Yeah, because all the feasibility work has been done there and,
you know, that's based on some market research that was done many years ago. Um,
you know, that just didn't show that, uh, that, that shows and it's, it's like you
see with, you know, when Fred Meyer does a market research or something like it there,
it just doesn't pencil to put stuff like that outside of, um, densely populated areas
where there are other services. Um, you know, it's, that's arguable. Um, but, you
know, I think there is AAA reason that that market research exists across the public
and private sector. Um, you know, just, it would be riskier to put it somewhere else.
Um, I, I just keep getting the question. So IJ Car Park half the time,
which is, um, you know, a legitimate question, the original plan for HJ Carroll included
it. But, you know, if you talk to parks right now, they say there's not, there's
nowhere that there's a property across the street. Yeah. Yeah. Um, which is not served
by sewer, you know, it is not on the sewer service area, um, which complicates things
further. So,
Yeah. The, if, if indeed the best time to have done this was 20 years ago and the
next best time is now it's, that could put it off. But, you know, that might be what
the voters are. We going to be a pain for the. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, we're working on
that and we have been clear that we are not going to foot the bill for the election,
but you would consider cost share potentially. Again, that would be a decision that
this board would be considering. Um, had a, had a number of fairgrounds meetings.
We're really trying to get our new, um, agreement over the finish line with the fairgrounds.
Um, there's some bylaws that um, need to be cleaned up. So Hunsucker has been really
helpful with that. So just a lot of a lot of business at the fairgrounds.
Oh, right here. Sorry, I got it out. Yeah. Yeah. How did you get the
good job?
Uh Wednesday the 25th, we had a, a budget meeting and, um, you know, we still have
strong sales tax revenues. It's interesting actually today at the was a call at noon
is uh talking about uh budgets, county budgets. And um, do we notice that? Do you
know ad L? Ok, because I wanna go this week. Ok. Um, and, and it'll be interesting
to hear how many counties are seeing their sales tax drop and we're seeing our increase
and I think it's partly because we, we are, um, you know, we just don't have the
same retail, big box, retail retail establishments. And so when people started buying
online, carving out during COVID. Yeah. And they've just got in the habit of buying
online and so we're getting more of that destination to, I mean, that's, I'm assuming
that's what's happening because so many jurisdictions I know are facing budget shortfalls.
Yeah. Decreasing, um, sales tax. Yeah. They're eating into their, um, reserve. Oh,
really? Yeah, I think they had a $2 million deficit. Was it in the paper a week or
so ago? Yeah. So, um, yeah, we're, we're lucky, um, had a conversation with about
short term rentals with Brent Butler, which we'll be talking about today this afternoon
with him. Housing fun board meeting, challenging. Um, yes. Uh, frustrating.
Yeah, making funding decisions. And, um, we had, uh, our, the, just the way the
funds are structured and allowed uses. We had extra money in one of the pots of funds
that will not end up getting allocated and overprescribing for the other funds. Um,
and I don't know if we need to do a better job of getting word out about how those
work or priorities for it, but it seems like people didn't get the message that,
like, construction of new units was, um, 60% of the 1590 which is the sales tax.
Yeah. The strong revenues. Yeah. So, so very frustrating. This feeds into my desire
for a workshop on our grant processes for all of our, the funds we allocate and how
we can be more communicative and transparent and uh efficient. So let's, let's put
a pin in that thought. Yep. Yep. Um Let's see. I had a great meeting with Brent and
Peninsula Housing Authority and Peggy Webster. Um just trying to, to encourage them
to be thinking about opportunities in Jefferson County um and reminding them that
we are here too. Um lots of challenges to, for them to build here, which is frustrating.
But um I think they appreciated the outreach and I'm glad that grant thought to pull
them in. He was uh presenting that, you know, opportunity that the chip grant presents,
but they were not prepared. They are starting a strategic planning process and they
promised that they would be kind of thinking about Jefferson County through that
process. And um we're glad to know that that the county would support them, especially
as we look at, you know, the, the urban growth area coming online in Port Hadlock.
Did we, did you hear that habitat also wasn't ready for the chip opportunity? No.
Yeah, shoot, because that was like, I was like habitat and they're like, no, there
we talked, check with them, they're not ready and I'm like, what the time frame is
really challenging on our grants. I I can see why they wouldn't want to commit to
its annual or bi annual Right. Hopefully. Yeah, if it gets real allocated.
Um let's see. So I feel like I'm moving kind of slowly uh spent a fair amount of
time with Jefferson transit last week. Um uh interviewing the uh consultants for
the climate action plan and we did uh decide on one, but I we still have to negotiate
with them. So I won't announce yet who was chosen for that um North Olympic Development
Council meeting. Um Nicole Gauthier was the um featured speaker of the month. So,
yeah, it was nice to be able to support her in talking about the update on what,
what they're up to, which we're all familiar with. Of course, being on that board.
Um I did not go to the um Naval Air Station would be community forum. It was just
the fairy times didn't line up. It was not, didn't seem worth the hours and hours
it was gonna take to be talked at for a short time. Um It's a fair amount of time
spent with was a and the legislative steering committee recently trying to figure
out this bylaw recommendations. Um So I don't know if you guys are interested or
available, but uh Thursday morning is the general membership meeting where some of
the um amended bylaws will be discussed and yeah, yeah, or virtual.
Um I think we get one, we only get one vote as a county guessing we do which
actually don't know how we do that. I don't know if we've ever designated a voter
on those person that's gonna be there. We're both gonna be there. I, I will be, I'll
be joining that session virtually. Yeah, I think I'm back then too because I have
meetings here. Yes. And that is also the day, um,
Renee and I have been looking for a time to do a memorial for Chris Goy and it sounds
like it. That day is the best day, the 16th from 1 to 230
not confirmed, of course not confirmed, but that's the working um,
working date at this point. I will confirm when, when I'm able to. Ok. Does that
still? Yeah, that's the plan. Although I haven't confirmed that with the city yet.
I'll start working on that. Um ok, sorry to move a little more quickly here. I had
a great meeting with our lobbyist in DC and I pulled Amanda Kristofferson into that
conversation. Um Our lobbyist who is very much on top of
things. She, she says expect a shutdown on November 18th. She's quite certain that
there will be a shutdown, which is interesting. I mean, I've heard other analysis
saying not, but um her report was chilling. Yeah, just about many, many
aspects of the ability of the federal government to function. Um Some of which I
talked about in the budget meeting, I guess. Um But uh yeah, she's was not optimistic
that they're gonna be able to complete the work much less the, you know, negotiate
any sort of compromise before the 17th, even if the House can pass their, um, the
rest of their appropriations bills, they would have to reconcile with the Senate.
Um, so, you know, I guess question of whether they want, just want to do a continuing
resolution or not, but even that, I think it's gonna be hard for the majority in
the House to come to agreement on that. Yeah, you wouldn't know it. Um
uh Let's see, childcare um center. That project is going well. Um
waited a long time for a report from the city but it came in late Friday um of the
some of the requirements uh for permitting. So we haven't, I haven't taken a look
at that yet. The architect got it on Friday night. Um But moving ahead and Amanda's
doing a great job managing that uh transit Advisory Group meeting Wednesday evening.
Um uh they're still looking for new members. They seated new member. But um yeah,
they changed the meeting time to the evening to better accommodate volunteers so
little shift there. Um Thursday morning last week, uh spent a few hours
new responsibility with the Puget on partnership as a, as the vice chair. Now, I
have to attend a quarterly um tribal consultation meeting which is um Yeah, yeah,
it is. Um And mm I wouldn't say any real takeaways. It was more kind of check ins,
but we parting words from the tribal representative was you guys screw stuff up.
But we still like you.
Yes. Yeah. Uh, we were all together for a budget workshop. Um, Friday had a
special MRSC board meeting. Um, MRSC is purchasing a building in downtown Tacoma.
It's, it's interesting. The new Puget and partnership offices are there too. So that
seems to be the, um, downtown Tacoma seems to be the place, although there's no car
chargers which drives me crazy. Um, my parents' house, it's good. They have a car
charger. Well, I'll have to spend the night then just a couple of hours.
Um, Friday afternoon, participated in the, um, MRC conference panel speaking on climate
change, which um people were very kind polite saying that they could have listened
to that all afternoon or something, which was very nice. But, um I thought it was
a, a good conversation. The panelists were uh someone from Department of Ecology
myself and a tribal representative from Jamestown. Um, and they put a ton of work
into planning that session and it was so valuable. It was so great to have had all
this rich conversation leading up to it. Um It's lesson learned like it's worth worth
doing that
work for that conference was really well done. Yeah, I was, I was impressed. Um,
and then didn't, didn't work much this weekend. I was at the fairgrounds um for the
Halliday Craft Fair. Um So nice to see events are still happening in there and holding
things together, the manager, he's doing a great job. It's a very challenging job.
There's just, you know, it could consume every minute of someone's time. Um And
so trying to prioritize and avoid, you know, kind of upset stakeholders and it's,
it's a very hard job and he is, um I think he has a good personality for it and it's
hard with the volunteer board that we, you know, none of us have the capacity to
support him enough. And so we really need to figure out how to give him more feed,
more feedback, you know, both directions um regularly so that he feels supported
and directed instead of kind of off by himself. But yeah, yeah, Linda Noble still
spends a lot of time there. She's a board member. Um but it's just a ton of a ton
of work and hard to know, you know, where the, where the focus should be. So the,
the board really is committing to doing a master site plan um in the next year so
that we're working more strategically, you know, capital projects is a business development
where, where should the emphasis be? Can we really be bringing in more business when
um the facilities are in need of a lot of repair? And, but how do you repair them
without the revenue? And is the pumps, pumps track still moving forward? Yeah. Yeah,
we have a meeting this week and the mou for the pump track is on the um on the agenda.
So I'm not sure, you know, they have a big RCO grant um for the next phase. So they,
they, they did. Yeah. Yeah, for um uh design and engineering. Yeah.
Yeah, that's, I think that's all. Ok. Um It'd be great if we could get to calendaring
too, so I'll go pretty quick and hit high notes and that is a, a mark here looking
back um
um High points. Uh I also worked a lot with Amanda
on, on the Brennan issue, the Brennan uh Wastewater white paper. Um Getting closer,
I think then I, I filled in for Kate at E DC which was uh great, good to, good to
see those folks again. And I also touched base on Monday, the 30th with uh DUA and
went over and talked about opportunities and challenges in the health care industry.
Very kind of interesting to hear like how dependent they are on, on private insurance.
And, you know, I think something else on that legislative agenda was uh Medicaid
reimbursement and it seems like Medicaid reimbursement bringing that up higher is,
is pretty critical for, you know, not just O MC, but all hospitals and health care
providers. Um Yeah, that was what I know less. Yeah, yeah. Um Then uh
of course here with you guys for the budget workshop on Thursday and uh new board
was seated at PLVC. The Port Little Village Council went over there. They're not
in favor of the pool in general, at least. Uh There are many questions about it.
Of course, we're right there at the beach club next to two Pools. So, um on Friday,
I uh we had a follow up on uh the North Olympic uh Peninsula Recompete
Coalition, Amanda put the Zoom together and, and we're gonna kinda keep probably
not add more stakeholders to it yet. But, you know, I, I think I share there are
556 applicants for it out of the 20 in Washington. II. I don't know, Colleen somehow
figured out we have a 9% chance of, of uh getting awarded. Um But, you know, we have
a strong coalition, not many other development uh organizations put it in. So there
were some that looked like they didn't even qualify. I don't know, we'll see, but
we're basically going to try to keep working on the projects and the coalition um
just to be ready for it. So we're not caught flatfooted as we were, you know, once
the no folk came out in June, um Amanda Kristofferson also joined me on KPTZ. It
was their fundraising drive. So I just had her out to kind of talk about her new
role and fundraising and, and, you know, meshed nicely and we did money by the drums
was our play out song. Um But that was good that, oh, you gotta check them out. Yeah,
the drums are great. And then was I on the previous week? Oh, wait, yeah, then.
Oh, yeah, I did last week, first, uh, other, the week before
I didn't get to do a lot of tilt, but I did, uh, go on one of the field trips out
at the, at Finn Rivers. Green field and got that whole, uh, trip, which is really
great to see it from, you know, seed to bread basically and, and love the new stuff
they're doing for food. Resilience Jeff K. Um costs are going up. That's really the,
the long and the short of it, there had a meeting with Brent Butler about urban growth
areas and uh with the city as well, had a couple of me meetings with uh Matt Tyler
and, and public works about the quilting skate park and they're looking, we're gonna
meet this week again. There's a new type of RCO grant that nonprofits can apply for.
That has no match. Like it's brand new. It's a million two total grant award.
Um I think February is when they have to get it turned in a million two is the total
pot. No, a million two is the top award. It's an awards up to 1.2. I don't know what
the total pot is. Um But you know, Madden public works don't have capacity to apply
for it, but they do have capacity to kind of help stronger towns. Is now the official
fiscal sponsor of the skate parks project. So with stronger towns, we're looking
to see if we can help facilitate them applying for that, which would, you know, fully
fund the, the project, which it's like 400 to $500,000 kind of back of the napkin
just looking at square footage and current costs. So that, that's exciting. Um, met
with a couple. Yeah, housing front board was, was challenging. Um,
and I think those were my high points.
Mm
Yeah, I'll, I'll stop there. Mark anything you want to report from the last two weeks,
last two weeks. Sure. Starting um on the 23rd, of course, that was a board meeting
day. Uh Then on the 24th we had quarterly finance committee meeting and then I ran
over to D CD for an inter gov meeting uh with all the key players. Um and Heidi that
was a follow up from our meeting with Sherry Mullen to address all of those issues
with staff. Um and then I met with it went well, we all agreed
on things that needed to happen. Um But then subsequent to that, I've got an email
from Sherry expressing concern that what we all agreed should happen hasn't started
to happen. So I'm gonna have another meeting with her this week. Um And then I met
with uh uh Ken Huguenot and uh Mikey from it to talk about Barracuda. We're gonna
migrate to the cloud um at some point in the near future um that I met with um
with Judy to talk about budget a little bit. And then of course, the healthier together
steering committee meeting and then I met with Sarah to review um our negotiating
position with public works teamsters in preparation for a follow up negotiating session,
which happened on Wednesday and I'm happy to report that they are going to take an
agreement to their membership for a vote. Oh, good, which should occur 1516 November.
And so I'm hopeful that they will uh vote to accept the agreement as negotiated.
Um
Went on uh Thursday, I met with Brent Butler in the morning. Um I skipped the jef
com meeting but Greg you attended. Thanks for that. And then I had a budget workshop
uh with Stacy and Judy um in preparation for uh the budget workshop that we had
the following week. Um On Friday, I met with Cliff Moore to um review the status
of our recruitment for the central services director position. And then I had lunch
with Monie um that afternoon. Uh next week uh was pretty light.
Um I had a lot of opportunity to do central services director type work uh and meet
with uh with my directors and do work on contracts. So just a couple of highlights
from um from that week, um I did spend three hours out at the shop, uh
interviewing mechanic candidates and I'm happy to report that we're promoting um
one of our mechanics from 2 to 3 and we're uh are bringing over uh a young man from
and, and Monty's not happy about this, but from, from the transfer station over to
the shop. And so, um we're gonna work an arrangement where uh his name's Colby, where
he can still work at the transfer station while Monty tries to solve his, um his
manpower problem. Um So when uh when Josh Montgomery joins us as fleet manager in
mid December, um the shop is gonna be in, in fine shape and I'm really happy with
what's developed there. Um And then of course, budget workshop with, with you three
in the afternoon on Thursday. Um And then just a meeting with Josh uh Peters on Friday.
All right, busy, busy. We are at 12. I'm just, let's take a quick look. I'm, I'm
afraid we're not gonna have time to get into calendaring. So maybe we should just
prioritize. Are there any conflicts things folks need uh coverage help with at all
this week?
I might need help with the county co Ordination next week because, well, I think
there's a tour with uh director Fong from Commerce that I'm gonna participate in
next on Friday. What time is that? What time is that? It's 1130 on the Sunday?
No.
Mm. It's gonna be hard. I have an in person meeting that goes till noon.
Ok. Well, I work here. I have a conflict for the Behavioral Health Advisory committee
next week because I'll be at the wat conference. When is that? Uh, yeah, you'll be
there too. Um, Tuesday at three. I could probably do that. That'd be great.
That's one LC, legislative steering committees. And I'll just let
TCC know I'm not gonna be there this week next week because that, that conflicts
with baby health as well. Oh, really? Yeah, you have a built in conflict. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I can only cover one. I think I'll let Anna know. Ok,
I'll be gone the next couple of days tomorrow in Tacoma. Uh, Wednesday in Olympia.
And is the courthouse closed on Friday? The courthouse closed on Friday Veterans
Day? I don't see it on our calendar.
Ok. I'm doing KPTZ talking about teenagers on Friday with Power, teens, Teen Center,
Y MC A, maybe the nest. I'll ask my wife, my daughter. I hope your wife's not a teenager.
Ok. Hm. Yeah, I don't, I don't have any. I've got no other big conflicts.
No. Hm. Ok. Well, if we have time we can come back and go into more details. But,
uh, if we take a look at any other conflicts over the break and, uh, let's recess
for lunch and we'll return at 130. Ok. Recording stopped.
Excellent work this morning ad l solving problems.
So, the audio going, I will. Good afternoon. I'll call this meeting of the board
of county commissioners back into session. It is 130. We've got some. All right.
All right. We got a little sound coming from he's computer tree. We're all in different
meetings over lunch. So. All right. And up first is uh a couple, couple um,
presentations with some potential action on at least one of them with Brent Butler,
our chief strategy officer, but I do not see him here yet. Is he in the zoom room?
Nope. Nope. Speak of the devil.
We've just, we've just begone, Brent. Please. Welcome and have a seat. Yeah,
manifested our Chief strategy Officer. He is for getting some last minute information
from some of the uh uh resources in the community. Oh, excellent. We got some good
calls this um this afternoon just to enable us to ensure that uh what's
presented today really is the latest and greatest. Great. All right. Um So it looks
like we have one timed item. I know you have uh one guest with you for the coordinate
water system. So I'm wondering if you want to do that one before the short term rentals.
We should probably take care of the UG A conversation first since it's timed. Ok.
Um Yes. So the first of the agenda item, I thought it was short term rentals. That
first is UG A land exchange at 130 then short term rentals and then coordinate water
system plan. Ok. So then let's uh I have a little brief powerpoint for the UG a,
I'll pull that up right now.
Mm
I was connected earlier but you know when you leave, you know, you gotta go to um
we get a good calendar
for a moment to get into the meeting. Share a screen.
No. Oh, not that one. Thank you.
Uh Thank you. Ok. Coffee. Thank you. Hm. And you saw the note from, from Barbara
this morning, Brent. Yes, I can see that. I didn't have a chance to respond. Ok,
I did see it
recording in progress. We can just leave the audio,
go to a V capture and go to Chrome
and I was going, oh, are you on Zoom now? Oh, there we go. Ok. Launch meeting
and I can get rid of my uh volume here and kill that. Ok. You want me to promote
Brent over and could you bring Brent over as a journalist, please?
Yeah.
Yeah, this is
likewise.
Ok.
Here we go. Here. Click on, there we go. There you go.
So I um my name is Brent Butler and I'm serving at the pleasure of the board and
uh as the uh chief strategy Officer, I'm glad to be here uh this afternoon. Um and
we have a, a brief topic uh uh about what we call the land swap and quite frequently
it's known as land exchange. And so, um and this arose out of uh um a earlier briefing.
That's why I've labeled this briefing number four because it almost is a continuation
of, of, of three other briefings that we've had the most recently um was on the uh
16th. And so this is a brief overview of the issues, the outreach, the ESB and then
the next step and then um just to reflect on the past on October 16th, this is a
copy of a slide that I provided uh the board at that meeting. And, and at that meeting,
I mentioned this as a potential um area um of accelerating um some of
the um uh of permitting and, and funding uh for that site. And I just wanted to briefly
make sure that everyone understands what I I have here. That uh um as a part of the
connecting housing to infrastructure grant program program, we applied for $5.5 million
in three separate applications. And uh uh one of those applications um was to um
the, the sponsor of that uh being the county was supported by Bayside Housing. Uh
And they actually go by the name Bayside Housing and Services uh 501 C three. And
they had envisioned a 60 unit affordable housing uh development adjacent to the old
alcohol plant. And so we did submit an application uh on behalf of, of Bayside Housing
uh for that by the timeline, a second application that we did submit um was also
related to that and it was um uh uh on behalf of public works and that really was
to connect uh and extend of services down that direction toward the old Alcohol plant.
We did recognize that there was a uh at least upon a review of the preliminary report
by Kerk that it was gonna be approximately $5 million to get that down there. And
so um between the two applications, it would decrease that budgetary gap uh
significantly. Um The third application which um had a lot, has a lot going for it.
Uh Primarily the meeting that readiness um factor um of, of commitment of funds um
was proposed by um Olympic uh um community action programs known as cap another 501
C three. And that organization uh proposed to address what has become a critical
need in the community. Uh We have um through the 10 year plan on housing identified
that many minors are homeless in our community. Um not only older adults, but we're
seeing that the fringes of our community uh have significant need. And that uh uh
fly Caps approach is to address um the most significant of that need by uh proposing
um an expansion of what is now a, a permitted tiny um uh village, tiny shelter
village which has 40 locations for tiny shelters with an emergency
shelter and that emergency shelter would also have permanent supportive housing.
And so, um because this site is outside of the city limits um and it's adjacent to
the city limits, it does meet, uh, uh, the, uh, preliminary requirements, um, associated
with the Engrossed, uh, Senate Bill, uh, 5593. And
so, um, there were a few issues that were identified in that and I'm gonna bring
those up to you. Um, one of them was standards, is this, is this specifically related
to 5593 the swap? Ok. And so, uh, one of them is standards and I'm just gonna um
talk about some of those and there are others that are more detailed. It's pretty
warm in here. So, did you get your swim in? I did not. And Brent, just so, you know,
I've been receiving calls from property owners who are interested in being donors
like county, property owners who would like to have some of their property um added
to the county instead of in the urban growth area. So swapping the other way. Ok.
That's a critical component of it, right? And so thank you for that. And so, uh,
one of the, um and, and the proper approach is for them to go to the city. So I would
recommend. Ok, good. Thank you. Ok, because, uh and so, um, and in this topic, uh
one of the most important things, uh according to that bill is that it also be the
same land area. Ok. So we have to make sure that whatever we're sizing it meets the
specific land area requirements. And so, um uh that would be commensurate with
what would become de annexed. Another critical aspect of this is that um if
in fact, we are doing this, the um the way to do it without triggering a
required vote and all the costs associated with the vote, which can be significant
uh for the taxpayers is to have uh our agricultural land identified as what becomes
part of the county. And I think that serves a community interest and in having ag
there's been such a strong outpouring of community support for local ag in the community.
And so that would serve that purpose of, of protecting that. And, and that is pretty
consistent with what we've seen in, in many communities across the state of Washington
is the loss of AG has become such a significant concern. Uh Bainbridge Island is
enacted programs to protect agriculture. Um The Tax Act, the Open Space Tax Act identifies
that as one of the areas of protection uh within the state. So I I feel that that
standard could also be met when looking at the, the uh the border between the city
and the county, there are farms that actually are on that border. And so there is
a potential there. And so there are other aspects of it. And one of them, as I indicated
was uh A K A is a critical area, um critical aquifer recharge area. And we have just
identified that the parcel that would be exchanged, meaning the parcel that is within
the county is susceptible, it is not AAA. So we've also avoided that critical concern
that no more than 15% of what is to become part of the city um is not a critical
area. And so there are other components of it uh that would require more significant
analysis and without going into the details of that. Um and, and, and I, I just wrote
and others and so that that would be part of, of the charge uh by adopting a resolution
today would be directing us to do that analysis necessary to bring a uh a recommendation
to the board, other areas have to do with timelines. And so we're looking at timelines.
So, uh can this be accommodated in the regular uh comp plan cycle? Um And the
cycles both in the city and the county, that's one of the areas that we would look
at first, that seems to be the fastest if it could be incorporated within the uh
the annual cycle of the Comprehensive Plan for both of our jurisdictions. And so
that's gonna be my first level of analysis. And um then I'll report back to you with
my findings upon that. And then uh the third area um is sort of what um Commissioner
Eisenhower has already started with identifying parcels and it's so much nicer when
we get willing property owners uh in the county coming forward because I know that
uh I sense that uh the parcel owner and we're the parcel owner, unfortunately, of
the parcel that we wish to become part of the city. Uh I sense that the board is
eager to see that parcel become part of the city, part of the urban growth, part
part of the urban growth, excuse me. And and I wanted to make a distinction because
uh uh unlike um in other communities, um most frequently, the urban growth area will
include areas that are a part of a city. Um We have the unique distinction of having
our urban growth area ending at the same location that the city limits ends. That's
not common throughout the state. Often an area that's designated as the urban growth
area will also include areas that the city will acquire sometimes as far as 20 years
into the future. And so, uh our uh urban growth area is unique in that it does not
have future areas. So I just wanted to point that out and I thank you for that correction
uh Commissioner Brother too. So the, the proposed land swap would just be the parcel
that, oh, we still own um and go into an urban growth area and not be annexed by
the city. Is that correct? Well, I think, I think that is a question for the board
uh because uh we own um more than one parcel there, I think we five. Yeah, that's
correct. And I think our proposal would be that all five be swapped. And how much
acreage do those five parcels? 3540 I think. Yeah, I'd have to look, we look at that
because that's a critical component. Can we find a um um equally matched parcels
um within um the city limits? And so that's gonna be um uh a critical question. And
so if the board is um eager for us to move ahead with all parcels, um that would
be something to, to note in today's session, ok. But this isn't including um Glen
Cove or any, any it just the parcels for the emergency shelter in Caswell Brown.
Yeah, I mean, it's really to, you're talking about this to facilitate the chip application.
Is that correct? Well, I'm talking about it to really the the overarching reason
is that we are in a crisis. Um The the center uh for uh real estate is identified
uh the city of Port Townsend as one or two in terms of least affordable in the state
of Washington, there's only one other city uh that is seems to be neck and neck with
us and that's the city of Mercer Island. Um with regards to contiguous counties.
If you do not consider San Juan Island County, we are the least affordable county
uh of all 39 of all 38 contiguous counties. Uh and I'm excluding San Juan Island.
And so I I am recommending this out of the, the concerns that that has indicated
in terms of the community. Um And in, in the past, this board has adopted an emergency
declaration as a consequence of those concerns. And so in the time that that uh emergency
declaration of 2017 was adopted by this board. So the situation is only um reached,
uh um uh I would say it is worsened just to be. And why do you need a resolution
to, to continue to investigate this? I mean, we're just looking into it. I feel that,
um, uh, the Department of Commerce, uh, would need to benefit from a, a, uh, what
I consider to be, uh, a strong, um, show of support to, um, uh, to the extension
of urban levels of service outside of what is currently the city limits to support
an application before it. And so a resolution by this board would show that, uh,
this board is quite serious in extending those urban levels of service either through
a more comprehensive analysis that would typically come through a sub area or if
it were the lynchpin for funding, what is, uh, um, increasingly, uh, an emergency
in the county, uh, through a land swap?
Got you. Ok. Um, and you included 5593. Was there a
particular part of it that was the underlining yours in that in the law that was
included? I mean, would you repeat the question, Commissioner Brothers? And I'm not
sure if you included, uh, the substitute Senate Bill. 5593 and the packet. Yes. Oh,
those were the updates. Oh, thank you. Right. Right. Those were the changes that
enable this type of land swap. And so that bill um when it was adopted um as current
legis uh legislation, um you have to do, we do this the same. When we come to the
board to change the municipal code, we will identify the new language as underlying
text.
Ok. Um
I am, yeah, thoughts questions. So under this bill, the land swap is
required you can't just expand the urban growth area without removing that is correct
and by square footage or what's the my assumption is acreage?
Thank you. Total surface area says so that could be square inches.
Um I wonder if we got one note from Barbara. I wonder if Barbara wants to weigh on
this? You want to see if she wants to come over? Yeah, I think Barbara actually drafted
the um resolution or modified the one that Brent had drafted. Mhm
D
mm
I'm in favor of the concept. Barbara. Ah Welcome Barbara. I was wondering if you
wanted to to share your your thoughts on this idea in front of us and it was only
listed as discussion. So we'll have a public comment before we take any action on
it as well.
Are you with us program? I'm here. I'm just firing up. Let's see. There we go.
Uh Yeah, I think there's a number of you know, very specific requirements that we
would have to comply with as a part of this um procedure. But it is uh an
exciting opportunity, I think to correct some of the older, you know,
maybe some of the parcels that shouldn't really have been in the city, allow them
to come out and then allow, you know, this opportunity to extend sewer um, to
Caswell Brown, et cetera. Ok. So you don't have any objection to this resolution
today?
No, I do not. I I've reviewed it already. So, yeah, where is the city at on this?
Would they welcome this resolution? I this morning, I checked in with him and um
and he's like very supportive. Yeah, and that's I had a meeting with Brent and, and
John Morrow and Steve King and, and they're very excited about the possibility. Ok.
Yeah, it um great collaboration between two jurisdictions to make something exciting
happen. Mhm.
I'm happy to make a motion. Let's we can make a motion I will since it was listed
in the agenda as just discussion, I'll just open it up for public comment after we
uh after we take the motion. So welcome. I'm happy to make a motion in the matter
of a resolution authorized authorizing investigation of an exchange of land zone,
rural residential within Jefferson County for agricultural lands within the city
of Port Townsend. Pursuant to RCW 36.70 A 0.130. During the review of
urban growth areas within the county. And I see John Morrow has raised his hand.
I'll take a second, a second. All right. Open for, we'll open for public comment
and conversation. So why don't we bring Mr Morrow over and see if he has a comment
to make.
Hi, sorry, that's clunky on my end. Um uh I just wanted to weigh in, I think what
was already said and, and both uh appreciate the dialogue here today and um just
reiterate the really positive collaborative meeting we've had um to discuss some
of these items with the planning team and with Commissioner Brotherton and a lot
of that is encapsulated in a support letter that we put forward uh as part of the
application process for ch so thank you for the collaboration. All right. Thank you
very much John. Anyone else that would like to make public comment? We would love
to hear from you. You can hit the raise hand button or star nine if you're on the
phone.
OK, seeing no one else. I will close public comment and call the question all in
favor of approving the resolution on the floor. Indicate by saying iii I All right.
Good work, Brent. Thank you. Take it on. So do you mind if we go to the the water
supply, the coordinate water system next? So we can uh it's fine. I was going to
uh uh uh take uh our, our colleague, Ben Majors over to the environmental health.
But I think you, if, because I think the short term rentals might go a little bit
long. So do you know how to get there yourself? If we move this up, I can find it.
But I'm also, I blocked out the whole afternoon so I'm here. Oh, ok. Ok. Ok. You
want, it's up to you if you want, you want to do short term rentals first so you
can continue with your day as planned. Yes, if we did short term rentals first, then
I can go over with him and introduce him to the team that he's going to be working
with and I was only trying to make it more convenient, so I'm happy to go as scheduled,
so I am probably have to stop share and reshare for the next one. Going
stop share. If you do that, stop share short term rentals. This is a very interesting
one.
We've been talking about this for a long time. Yeah.
Ok. So here we go. We gotta find the powerpoint Amy. Would you bring Josh Peters
over to
just waiting to get there presentation up? Yes, I'm gonna put the presentation up
right now.
Perfect. Mhm. Welcome Josh
or or Zoom. There it is. Ok. Let me share a screen and then there we go.
Sure. Ok.
Mhm.
Wanted to thank the board um uh for giving us an opportunity to talk about uh uh
what are increasingly and commonly known as short term rentals. Um And we're gonna
talk about the regulations, policies and procedures. Uh um And my name is Brent Butler.
I serve at the pleasure of the board as the Chief strategy Officer and I'm joined
by the Director of the Department of Community Development.
As always, our mission is to preserve and enhance the quality of life in Jefferson
County by promoting a vibrant economy, sound communities and a healthy environment.
And in keeping with that um this ordinance or excuse me, this uh um the regulations
in place uh embody that. And so as part of the agenda, um we're gonna look at the
statement of issues. Uh um And then we're gonna look at the different types of, of
short term rentals, uh those with structures, those without and then some of the
other issues. And I did want to point out that I did uh correspond with the, the
assessor and the treasurer today uh because of the tax issues that have been identified.
Uh And I also did speak with um Kyle Solange with granicus to get some uh updated
information today as well. And then I'm gonna circle back regarding policy approaches.
Um And then um next steps. Mm
So, one of the first things I want to point out is that the community and, and even
staff is amazed by the proliferation of terms. Um We are consistently learning
new things. So what is it? And so I put on the, on the right hand side, a list of
terms of that. Well, when we talk about short term rentals, uh well, it could be
known as Transient accommodations, hip camp glamping, which is often known as glorious
camping I saw on your thing, but I think it's glamorous, not glorious. Oh, glamorous.
Thank you. Thank you. Oh, glamorous. Thank you, Gloria Gloria is is glamorous. Thank
you. That is correct. Uh Airbnb uh R uh hospitality accommodations uh which is a
term that we primarily use uh home sharing, flip key and home away. And so those
are just a few and I want to point out that there's even now a foot uh an attempt
by others to um rent homes uh never to occupy them, but
to make money by airbnb them. And so that's the newest trend that I'm I'm seeing.
Um And so this really applies to rentals um with or without structures and I want
to point that out. Um And so I'm gonna first explain um our approaches
and, and that's on there broken into two different categories, those with structures
and those without and then um who reviews the permit post intake. This is current
current regulatory for those to go through the process right before, right, we wanted
to make sure we all understand where we are right now.
And I want to point that out that out that also as a part of the Washington Ratings
and Bureau Service uh we're supposed to provide this level of overview about our
current codes on a regular basis for a certain number of hours each year to get the
highest rating. And I just wanna let you know Stacy did join as a Panelist if you
have any questions or? Great. Thank you. And I have she asked me a bunch of questions
that necessitated a call with um uh Granicus today. So I really want to thank her
and I'm, I'm we'll have an update for her.
And then uh oh, I went, I think I went too fast. I can't think we're going. Ok. So
I'm gonna go to the next slide is so short term rentals right now, we're looking
at it as a type one permit. Ok? Type one. And so as you see the arrow on blue, um
that's what we call transient rental of residents or accessory dwelling. And you
can see we have ag forest commercial um uh and then all of the rural
residential zones including one which is our rural village center which is outside
in our lads. So we do have broad uh we have broadly allowed that as an administrative
permit.
I also want to point out that um we also do have a second type of approval for bed
and breakfast and we have two different types of bed and breakfasts. Now, this is
one of the few areas in our use table where we do have a conditional use permit and
that's in the rural residential zones. Um And you can see that, uh, clearly that's
only for 4 to 6 individuals, 4 to 6 rooms. So the intensity increases. So
as the intensity increases, sort of like Pomona words, we increase the level of review
and increase the ability of people that abut it to weigh in. What's the difference
between a bed and breakfast, residence, 1 to 3 rooms and a short term rental that
you showed on the previous day. So, uh, and I wanna pull, I, I without, I, I should
probably pull that up from the code. So if you bear with me, I'll come back to that
because I do believe, um, that is, um, uh, a factor of food and Josh, if you are,
um, able to just pull up the code on the definitions, you might be able to chime
in. I'm not going to have this fast access to that more than five pillows on a bed.
It's a bed and breakfast.
I've been no bed and breakfast with no breakfast before. I'm not sure if that's
what you get a kind bar or something.
So he'll, I'm sure Josh will pull that up and then I'm gonna move on and just share
another area that we often forget about. We do also allow it in, um, the Master plan
resort Port Ludlow in the N PR RC and CF zones. And if you can see the, the
purple zone. It says N Pr RC and CF that's also where uh the hotel is. So that's
the only place that we allow. Um that type of use. I think the HO A doesn't allow
it in that space. Um Well, we don't have control over. We have one opportunity to
input or impact the hoas and that's upon the subdivision and we review it and then
if we have reviewed it and we didn't allow it, then it's, it's, it's, that's something
we don't have control over, but our codes do allow it in those, in those zones. And
what's the, oh, the RV Park is the other one that you have. That's the other pink
zone is the RV Park. The RV. OK. That would make sense. Yep. And what's
that red thing? Right up in Maths Mass,
the red. And I didn't, I'm sorry, I've taken some of the map out. Yeah, that's probably
at the Royal Village Center. I didn't include, I only included the part of the map
relevant to this N pr put this nail
and then if you look at uh Port Hadlock, uh the urban growth area. So uh we do allow
this, we don't have um a similar term of uh tourist or transient. We just have bed
and uh bed and breakfast. Oh, and it looks like I have, I may have accidentally cut
off one other area. So I think there are two levels of bed and breakfast No, I, I
think this is correct. This is just one. And so that's where it is allowed in the
urban, uh, commercial. And this, and I should point out for those viewing, um, uh,
remote today that these regulations are not yet in place. And I'm referring to regulations
that will be in place once the sewer is available. And so once the sewer is available,
uh, bed and breakfast would be permissible in those areas.
Um And from Josh, he sent us a definition of bed and breakfast, which I'll read real
quick. Let's see. Bed and breakfast inn means a hospitality commercial use containing
4 to 6 lodging units without cooking facilities which provides overnight accommodation
and meals. I guess it does get meals in a proprietor occupied or owner occupied existing
single family residence and additional legal structures or up to 10 lodging units
in an existing historic structure. Bed and breakfast residence means hospitality
commercial use containing 1 to 3 lodging units without cooking facilities which provides
overnight accommodation and meals in an owner occupied existing single family residence.
So the cooking facilities seems to be the can't have, can't have a stove or anything.
Yeah, and, and there has to be a meal provided and the inn looks like it. There's
some additional structure. Yeah.
Hm. Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to. Oh, that's great, Josh. Thank you. Thank
you, Josh. Yes. And so in the Port Hadlock UG A um, this is what that looks like.
And uh, the areas that it would be permitted. And I just wanna make sure you see
that again. You can see the zones that are identified where it says bed and breakfast.
Yes, urban, commercial, visitor oriented, commercial, urban, low density, urban,
moderate density, um, urban, high density, the only areas not allowed is industrial.
And so this would be after the sewer is installed when the UJ is activated. That's
correct. Yeah, because half of those don't exist until it does.
And then, um now when we look at um what we call hip
camp or uh glamorous camping thing, graphing, um we are and, and
some of these others will be short term rentals. So when I say short term rentals
you can and, and I've seen this before. They have an Air BNB in a boat, air BNB in
a tent. So, um although I've highlighted those two, I wanted to make sure that they're
not exclusive um to those two. And then, so with a conditional use permit,
um that is the approach we've taken uh specific to um sites that do not have a structure.
And I wanted to explain that um um in this as well as the other permit, uh meaning
uh a short term rental that's in a structure, the staff planner and EPH review it
in step one. But in this case, there's a significant level of difference because
um structures are designed with the septic capacity envisioned. And so there would
be a significant step to determine how are we going to do that um from a septic standpoint.
And so I don't have um anyone here from EPH. So I, I don't want to wade into that
um without their um technical expertise, but I just wanted to suffice it to say that's
a, a component. And I did speak to pinky uh just before coming over here. I mean,
I think it's a big issue. Yes, it's a big issue because I think the solution usually
is like a five gallon bucket.
And then uh and I'm gonna get to that because, well, we do have an example that um
is the um akin to a five gallon bucket, but that's been permitted elsewhere. So why
do you bring that on the slide? Um
And so then, and then step two is we have the life safety aspect which the board
recently approved. Um So that um we're in being assured that um we're not
creating a hazard for those that occupy those sites or in the worst case scenario
um surrounding areas. Uh One of the big concerns I hear from community members is
campfires and potential wildfire outcomes of that. I think there was a close call
with the hip C this summer too next to airborne, right? And so. Mhm And
so this is where it is currently um permitted and you can see under uh small scale
recreation and tourist uses. We have camping and camping facilities and, and I wanted
to note that we consider an RV, um even one a camp or a camping facility and that
was uh litigated and recently identified as uh appropriate. Thanks for putting that
in the packet. That was good review. So that NRV is still considered camping. It's
not a structure, that's correct. And so that was uh I think really important to note
that um um our regulations say that. And so um we do have a process in place and
that process um would essentially um identify the septics and, and address that aspect
of it. And so, um and, and we could always revisit that at the board's uh direction.
So rentals for less than 30 days. So in the article that I shared with you, there
were three critical areas of concern identified. Uh One of them was the lodging and
sales tax, another was the surrounding neighborhood impacts. And then the third was
life safety. Um Through our existing processes, we've addressed items two and three
um to uh being surrounding neighborhood impacts. There are some areas and I did highlight
this in the staff, the agenda request that that might not adequately be addressed,
even if you um you move into, you use a house. And I and someone uh uh the code
of the uh development, the development code administrator pointed out, wow, that
person who's renting that doesn't know about the off leash areas where they're gonna
allow their dog to poop. That's one of the issues that it is really hard to address.
So I just wanted to point that out that although we do have processes in place, it
may not capture everything and then uh life safety um uh this board just recently
adopted provisions that ensure that we have annual inspection so that the um uh the
life safety provisions, essentially the sprinklers or if there aren't sprinklers,
the fire alarm or smoke detector. Um, and also the egress is not blocked on our regular
uh I in, in my role as a fire marshal in Thurston County, one of the things that
I saw was that frequently we would go to a, a business that we've uh reviewed and
inspected the previous year and they would have put uh boxes or, or, or belongings
blocking the, the means of egress. And so, uh they didn't aware that they, they weren't
aware of that. No, they can't block that. But so these annual inspections make sure,
especially for um, those residential interests now closed in the public, um, or commercial
use that, that they, they may not be as cognizant of that need. And so, um, now I
wanted to talk about the lodging in sales tax. So I did, um, contact um,
our uh Granite Kiss and I, I did share with them that, um, we, um, were
concerned about. Well, well, are we receiving funds um from
what is known as uh um the occupancy of the lodging tax. And they s and they shared
with me that there have been typically two different approaches taken. One is that
the state will go ahead and do enter into a voluntary collection agreement. And
with, in the case of Air BNB, that has occurred, the state has entered into a voluntary
collection agreement since uh 2015. And so, but I want to point out that if you see
the list of, of different groups up there, I don't know if the states entered into
a voluntary collection agreement with flip key or, or um IP A, they have
done it with Air BNB, which is one of the largest, so I, I can't speak to others.
And then the other approach is that uh a community uh um a jurisdiction can enter
into that uh voluntary collection agreement. And so what that means is that the community
that the uh the state is now collecting um those funds on our behalf.
And I, I wanted to um just pause for a moment and, and see perhaps the treasurer
might have a question or uh um or something that she would like to add Stacy. You
wanna? Sure. Um Thanks for that, Brent. Um Yeah, there are, if you look
at certain websites for those programs or, or um companies that
do the um basically they do all of the scheduling and co
ordination. And so like your airbnb. If you go to their website, you can see that
their arrangement is that when people pay Air BNB collects the money and then they
do their reporting and that goes to the Department of Revenue and then comes to us
other companies on their website, you can see that they say the person doing
the rental is required to uh do their own like small business reporting, like any
small business. This is just another one of the sales tax items that gets reported
to the Department of Revenue. And some people have monthly arrangements, quarterly
or annual. So some people only pay once a year and it's just another component of
them operating a business and, um, collecting and forwarding funds. So there's a
couple of different types. Um, but, you know, if they're on the ones that
collect the funds and then send it, you know, uh, we're getting it and if it's on
another one, it would be that it's up to the business owner to, to do that reporting
and submit. So I often get, um, questions from people wanting to know, well, you
know, who's paying, who's not paying. And, um, let me just pull up my
email and, um, so I apologize if this is, um, repetitive, but I do think it's
important to keep saying that, um, we receive funds and we s uh, in the treasurer's
office to obtain data. We are required to sign a secrecy clause in the confidentiality
agreement with Department of Revenue that we will not provide or disclose any information
that's not publicly available. We can provide data on categories of businesses,
but we have to make sure anything we disclose is um three or more businesses
um so that you can't, you know, reverse the engineer how well they're
doing and what um what the market looks like. So, you know, the things that we can
disclose are there, na I CS code, a mailing or physical address or their opening
or close date. But we can't disclose the amount of sales made by a business, the
amount sales tax, a business reported or whether they report it. And that's one that
is the one that makes it tricky because I can't even tell you if someone has paid
or not. But that again, they may be paying annually or it might be under another
type of business. You know, you have real estate offices doing short term rentals
and they're 30 day rentals that are not paying the hotel, motel, lodging tax. So,
um, those are the types of constraints for it in terms of one off questions to
my office. Can I ask one question, Stacey. So the, uh, the larger
platforms are Air BNB and vrbo. It's all gonna come from department of Revenue for
the smaller ones. You know, assuming everyone's, let's just assume everyone's reporting.
Is that still they, they, you know, report how many, uh, units they sold at what
price pay their taxes still to department of revenue and that still comes to you
in the same way. So is it, is it pretty, is it, can you see whether or not you can
disclose the different differentiations between different platforms in that revenue?
There's not a uh a consistent form of, of reporting
that shows that type of thing. So, you know, some real estate offices, they're reporting,
um you know, as someone who's so in the 50 threes, I think you have
the 50 threes and 50 sixes, you have the companies that are doing the reservations,
the collection and forwarding money in the seventies, you have the companies that
are providing accommodations. So how they choose to put it on there isn't
necessarily consistent um for whether they are your local person doing
this or, you know, like a, like a real estate office is a good example of where they
might be lumped in the same with one of those large platforms of um doing reservations
and advertising and that type of thing. Um And you know, we have state parks,
we have all kinds of businesses that are providing overnight lodging and, you know,
we're a small area and um it's pretty hard to, to tease these out
and, and not uh
you know, violate the secrecy clause consistently in um monthly reporting. I have
provided some reporting that um you know, segregated the who calls
themselves hotel, motel accommodations and the others that are,
um, you know, the reservations and managing the business side of things. And I shared
that with um, Mark and um Kate and then some people in the, in the public who had
requested it. Um So, you know, I keep looking at it to see what would be useful,
but I just get concerned when the, the statement is made that people aren't
paying. And, you know, if you really think someone's not paying, then you really
want to um, report it to the Department of Revenue. But as we all know, with
compliance and enforcement, I think it really needs to be done at a programmatic
level with consistency and not just neighbor wars.
If I could Greg, I think that part of the challenge is, you know, when, um we get
data from Granicus or like Heidi just pulled up the hip camp site and there are so
many of these being advertised and it does not seem to line up with the revenue.
Um So it, it feels like there's just a lot that are getting missed in that process.
Well, I just noticed in Brent's report that that there were no, at this point, the
county has not received any application to establish a hip cam and then I just went
to hip camp and then 100. So, you know, I just, there's at least 30
there's a disconnect.
All right. Thank you, Stacy. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm gonna move on
and just look at some of the pathways. And so, um one of the pathways and I and I
have to um share that we are really just beginning of the process. And so I look,
I rely upon the Planning Commission often to identify things I've missed. And so
I, I want to point out this is likely not comprehensive. Um but these are the ones
that preliminarily have been identified. What I tried to do was to look at or identify
what are the tourist destination counties in the state of Washington because those
were the ones most likely experiencing um uh spillover impacts and then uh a need
to regulate. Um And so uh one of those is uh San Juan Island and they've identified
geography and what that means is each island has a certain uh quantity that is allowed.
Um And it's an island uh wide decision. Um The Chelan County approach has
been really uh tiers based on residency. So, um and I wanna point to our, our staff
report our agenda request. Um Tier one is uh the short term rental is owner
occupied and has an occupancy limit of no more than eight people. And uh they do
not have any caps on that, meaning that, that it can be done without any limitation.
Uh um In terms of numbers, uh tier two is the short term
rental is non owner occupied and has an occupy limit occupancy limit of no more than
12 people. Then they do have caps on that. And then uh the third tier, it can be,
the short term rental can be owner or non owner occupied and has a limit of no more
than 16 people and caps do apply.
So, um so that is the, so uh Chelan County model now, uh Clallam County um
has uh a different uh provision um where they have allowed and this refers to uh
more of the hip hip cap style that they have allowed uh some primitive campgrounds
where um the proprietor is required to get um uh portal potties or, or some type
of equivalent to the uh five gallon bucket. Um And so, and so,
um I just wanted to point that out and, and uh that's just the beginning of that
and I haven't had uh as, as a consequence of that, it really would require a significant
amount of environmental, public health time to quantify and identify if uh and what
uh would move forward.
And so I'm gonna uh break at that point uh for questions and, and the goal today
is really to get direction. And so, um at this point, I, I would go to the, uh the
um county uh planning Commission. And if there is uh anything that you've seen in
this presentation that you like that you would like us to further investigate, uh
would be very helpful to, to identify that
Well, I know. How do you, like, done some, uh, had some conversations, at least with
Chelan County about that, that system. Right. And then my last interaction with Chelan
County, they said they were adjusting their regulations, you know, that they had
learned something from the regulations they put in place and they were adjusting
them. I'm not sure what those adjustments are going to be but, you know, they've
learned from what they first put in place and are drafting something different or
an adjustment to them. And that's the only update I have on Chang County. I mean,
I think that they probably are an example of, you know, extra credit folks. I mean,
they went above and beyond the call in developing their ordinance and it was a huge
effort. And another path we've heard from, from UK is, is, you know, going with Granicus
and outsourcing kind of enforcement of, you know, it could even be existing uh regulations
and policy, you know, and how does that work? Outsourcing enforcement? So, Granicus
and probably other companies to offer a suite of services, like a menu that you can
choose from. But they can do, you know, I mean, they have so they're a platform for
government so you could get your permit, you know, on that platform, they will even
like take um complaint calls from neighbors will be directed to them. Um And then
they decide whether or not to call the sheriff. Um I mean, they, they offer quite
a lot. Um obviously that comes with a cost and you know, I think one of the policy
decisions that we need to decide here too, not today, but um is, you know, do we
want to use this as a revenue source for um for, you know, offsetting other housing
impacts that short term rentals make or just to cover the cost of a program? Um I
will say in talking quite a bit with Granicus over the last couple of years about
this, they really advised a very robust public process around this because it is
um yeah, it's controversial, you know, affects people's ability to pay their own
mortgage. Um You know, there can be some real unintended consequences so to be very
um thorough and cautious. So I even think like giving Brent um direction to move
forward is great, but that's still with very much an open book of what the options
are and how, um how we want to go about exploring the options, um and not, not putting
too many sidebars on it yet because I think we're gonna hear a lot uh through the
process and, you know, probably starts with the planning commission. But Brett and
I talked and it's a bit of a chicken and egg, you know, do we give more direction
to the planning commission or um for our, of our policy goals? Um or let them do
a, a pretty broad um, analysis and come back with some ideas. I, I think it's
probably beneficial either way there's, there's tradeoffs to those, um, you know,
starting, starting broad or narrowing it down and getting some reaction. I don't
know. Yeah, we're meeting with them in January. Right. I mean, we could, I don't
know, it does seem like a, involving the public in this, at the outset before we,
uh, get too far down a path would be good. I guess I also wonder about um the, the
flip side of short term rentals, which is long term rentals, which have really been,
I'd say dis incentivized with legislation that is trying to protect tenants. Um And
I'm wondering if there's incentives that we can do to encourage long term rentals
as, as a use, you know, free conversion or I, I don't know what, but uh I think that's,
that's the kind of the, the underbelly of this uh problem that I struggle with is
that, you know, every, every short term rental is, is, well, most short term rentals
um could also be envisioned as a long term rental and that is something that we have
a huge dearth of in this community. So, uh throughout our communities, and if there's
a way to just encourage people to, to take that tack instead, is that something we
can consider as part of this conversation and what would be an incentive to do that?
It was interesting at the um when we were at our Olympic Peninsula um tourism strategic
planning kind of final meeting a few days ago. Um It came up short term rentals came
up relative to Clallam County. And one of the people on the at the round table was
talking about how it was. She'd heard this supposition that short term rentals take
away from long term rentals. But she was arguing very adamantly against that and
saying that um short term rentals in Clallam County are very much, sometimes people's
sole source of income, not just additional source of income and some really serious
concerns about the regulation of um rentals short term rentals.
So it was interesting to hear kind of someone arguing the flip side of every argument
I've heard, you know, counter to that. And it would be interesting to kind of know
across a broader set of counties, what the realities are and what are, what, what
is Shailene County deciding they kind of need to undo about their ordinance because
they put so much effort into it and they hire a consultant. I mean, they went kind
of the whole distance. So it might be worth reaching out to their planning department
and ask, you know, what they, what ad adjustments they're making to their ordinance.
But I think MRC has some good uh has compiled some good information from various
counties on this too. San Juan completed a couple of year long public process last
year, I think Um uh Okanogan and these are all kind of comparable counties, tourist
counties. Um They linked uh so in their, you know, land use table, they uh vacation
rentals were only allowed in certain zoning types and they even created a recreation
tourism zone. Um ocean tourist too, they're allowed in some areas and not in the
others inside the city.
And that seems tricky to pick kind of winners and losers. Um in terms of it was one
of the approaches, you know, regions where they would be allowed or not, that's going
into the geography.
I mean, a cap, a geographical cap is different than a prescriptive. Yes. No, of course.
So it's different, you know, there's a lot of varieties that I don't think we're,
we're reducing those varieties for you. I'm sorry.
But I, I don't know, are we aligned that this is something we want to dig into? You
know, it's, I certainly do and I know we have a limited amount of time with Brent
here. Um, but, you know, depending on your availability, Brent, I would be great
to advance this um, as far as we can and, you know, be a great graduate student project
for an Evans school student or something, you know. Yeah, it's, you know, the challenge
and the reason we've been talking about this for a couple of years without a lot
of action is just that D CD has not had the capacity to, you know, dedicate much
staff time to it. So, um I worry a little bit after Brent leaves, how do we, you
know, keep it going knowing that D CD is still going to be playing catch up for some
time. Well, I guess, I mean, I think about Granicus again too and maybe if we can
have someone that can helm the process in collaboration with them and do that public
part, you know, before March, then maybe it's something that we can hand off at that
point just to be uh you know, clear, my objective was to conduct some outreach
and to come back uh to the Planning Commission with uh development regulations and
to bring those to you uh before uh the j before April 1st, that was my objective.
It's ambitious. It's a bit ambitious. Well, and the, the board should know that Brent
and I have been talking about an arrangement that would extend beyond March 31. Um
And at the appropriate time, we'll let you know what that is. Great.
Well, so there's potential action listed on this agenda item, but really, it's to
continue this track of thought or not. Is that the question? Yes. And if we are going
to go forward, I, I was, I've already had preliminary discussions about uh putting
something on the Planning Commission agenda for December. I was gonna move ahead
immediately and, and that would also be advertised. So people in the community to
come and share their concerns before the planning Commission. I mean, it seems like
closing that gap between the 76 and the, the, what was the numbers? I saw the 404
100. I mean, like, really understanding what the scale of the issue is, would be
really meaningful to me. But, um, I really have obviously no sense of how big this
issue is. Mhm. I don't know if anyone does.
Yeah. Ok. Well, I, I, you know, yeah, I think I don't, I don't think we need to take
action but we're all interested in, in uh seeing where you can take this, right?
Yeah, definitely. Thank you. So, yeah, get it in front of the planning commission.
And I think, I think too maybe not just like having it as an agenda item at the planning
Commission, but really like trying to do more meaningful outreach to get the right
voices at the table. Um So I don't know if that's a workshop, um the realtors and
you know, places that engage. Well, there was two different approaches I had in mind
and I, I welcome your input was one is that we had a really fruitful uh district
three meeting. And so one of the approaches is to just go by districts um and then
have a meeting in the in each district and, and elicit comments and input once you
go to those districts about short term rentals, just specific to that. And then we
would come back um to the board, I think, um, the um, and, and, and to do that, I
would want, before I went to any individual district, I would want to just touch
base with the commissioner for that district for some input. Yeah. And to make sure
we're doing outreach to the right folks. Exactly. So, I would, if we were to do that,
I would have to liaise with you um in advance of those. Yeah, lie is away.
Yes. Thank you, Brandon. All right, thanks. Yeah. No, we're really excited to see
this movie for you. All right. So I and I have to um indicate for the final um agenda
item. I do not have a powerpoint. What? That's all right. You have a guest. I do
have a guest to better than a powerpoint. I really have a
so um to open the topic, I'm just gonna pull up my uh um my um here we go.
This item on the agenda um is a coordinate water system plan and I
wanted to thank the board um and also to welcome um our Department of Health um representative
um Ben. Why don't you screw the chair up here?
Hi. Uh I'm thankful for the board and to Brent as well for inviting me here to be
able to um provide some um answers to any questions that come up about um coordinating
water system plans, the background of it and the pros and cons behind um coordinate
water system plans. So thank you for, nice to meet you, Van. Thanks for being here.
So, just to kick off, I wanted just to cover the history of our plan. Um It looks
like it's been done in conformance with what I've seen across the, the state. And
so, uh the Water uh Resources Act of 1971 sets forth and I indicated this in my agenda
request uh uh the fundamentals of water resource management um in that um
process of managing our water supply, it's very significant to note that um uh Jefferson
County in 1997 adopted a specific declaration, identifying uh
critical water supply service areas um in Jefferson County due to
um uh the need for an adequate supply of potable water for domestic commercial and
industrial use uh vital to the health and well being of, of those in the county that
um uh critical water supply service area uh was built upon uh to establish our
first um coordinate water system plan. And uh Ben, do you want to make any comments
about the that? Yeah. Um So in the research of leading up to this meeting that um
I went through declaration 9783 that designated the whole of Jefferson County as
what's called a critical uh water source area. Um That's usually the first step in
um writing and establishing a coordinate water system plan. Um And a what uh a water
utility coordinating council or A W was established and some work was done. But the
um coordinating water system plan was never fully adopted. So it's kind of a, a 26
year old item that has, that started and never finished. Um That was actually news
to our department that, that the uh process was never finished. Um So Department
of Health is um very interested in helping Jefferson County um to, if the board chooses
to support this action to get a coordinate water system plan put together, um that
typically will allow um big water providers throughout the county to provide consistent
service um and adequate fire flow throughout the whole, throughout the whole county.
So that's those are two major components of um coordinate water system plans and
as questions come up, um I'm happy to answer them and if I don't know the answer,
I'll go to the, to my bosses and get answers. 11, just a bit of clarification. I
think this is for you, Ben. So the coordinate plan would get more granular than our
basic where we are one water system. And then it's about potable water and fire flow
are the two primary thrust of this coordinate water. So every group, a public water
system, so that's uh typically 15 or more uh residential or commercial connections
um has to have what's called a water system plan. And those documents can look very
different from um from each other. Um for the counties that I represent for Department
of Health. I'm the lead reviewer of those plans and I can tell you they look vastly
different from a small ho a owned community to a large city. They can be anywhere
from 75 pages to 2500 pages. Um And what a coordinate water system plan for a county
can do is provide some consistency between all those plans so that when you have
cus customers or residents that have questions about um fire flow or water quality
or things like that, there are um procedures set within that coordinate water system
plan on how to answer those. Another major component of a coordinate water system
plan are, is establishing um service areas, service areas are um designated legal
boundaries for a water system to serve. And with that, there's a lot of disputes
between systems and that's a lot of what we see throughout the state is um and why
coordinate water system plans are created were to attempt to end a lot of these disputes
and to create a channel for which these disputes can be settled. Um Because multiple
water systems might access the same aquifer, I mean, is that yeah, or can potentially
serve areas on, you know, we've seen more urban areas, we can see water systems that
serve one side of the street and then the other side of the street is a whole other
water system with a different rate structure. With a different um water source. Um
So that's a lot of um so the service area is a critical component of those water
system plans and ironing those out with neighboring water systems um provides for
a lot more consistent service and a channel for which disputes can be settled um
between systems. Got thanks. Can you help me understand the um nexus with um
the water resource inventory areas and instream flow rules and some of the limitations
that Department of Ecology put in place here. And was that early two thousands? Um
And how does that intersect with? Yeah. So water resource inventory areas are typically
um relevant to water system plans if the um system, if an individual water system
has a surface water source. Um So about 85% of the state of Washington is served
by groundwater. So that's through wells well fields. Um things like that. Whereas
um surface water sources, uh the largest within 75 miles of here would probably be
the city of Bremerton um City of Port Angeles would be another example. Um They're
served by either directly pumping from a river or from a rainy well. Um And, and
get some more details that the board would like. Um But those instream flow rules
and the water resource inventory areas are mostly relevant to surface water um sources
here, they are tied, our wells are tied to them also, I think because there's a lot
of continuity between our surface water and ground water. Yeah. So that, um, so whenever
those water system plans do come to Department of Health, there is a memorandum of
understanding between Department of Health and Department of Ecology that those plans
are reviewed by both agencies, uh, for compliance, for compliance as well as to,
uh, because there are, there are certain fields of expertise that one agency has,
the other doesn't, um, if you ask me to evaluate water rights for a system, I'm gonna
run out the door. Um But that's something that Department of Ecology, they are the
ones that write those certificates. They're, they permit writers. So it's their permit
to enforce. I don't know if that answers the board's question. So there's a check
where the um you know, because here, like I said, we have quite a bit of restrictions
and certain sub basins for water quantity withdraw. And so that would be checked
while uh uh
water system plan is being developed. So that so that we know that they are in agreement
with one another. So every, every water system plan that's submitted is required
to submit what's called a water, right? Self assessment. It's this great big Excel
form table that goes through every single water, right that the system has um and
their usage based off of meter readings. Um If we don't receive that form, we send
the plan back and we don't review without that about exempt twelves exempt walls
are typically, uh, private water sources, so they're not regulated by Department
of Health. Um, and Department of Eco II, I can't speak for Department of Ecology
Regulation, but, um, typically coordinate water system plans. Um, touch permit exempt
wells in establishing whether or not a permit exempt. Well, can be drilled within
the service area of a public water system. That's a large portion of the, of where
those disputes can come from, are from, you have a developer or homeowner that, um,
feels that drilling their own permit exempt well, would uh be cheaper than connecting
to the uh public water system. Um But that public water system has what's called
a duty to serve. So they're legally required to, if they have the capacity to serve,
um, that, that property. Um But the uh systems only
required to do that if it's directly asked if there's an application put in by the
developer, the property owner. So there's a lot that's a because of that gray area
that's created because of um the associated regulations. Um with uh what's called
municipal water law and with the water rights associated with uh public water systems,
coordinate water system plans can kind of fill in that gap. Um So I was uh when I
was at a public health conference like six months ago, I heard about a water system
that went into like was going into default, like, um, and I heard that there was
more and more water systems that were on the edge of kind of solvency or can you
talk about that much? Yes. So that uh typically what um, Department of Health will
uh do with public water systems that are, are struggling to coordinate with, um,
the county that, that, that, that system is located in to, I'm really trying to rehabilitate
the system. Um, and if there's continual managerial financial or technical
um incapability, um, the Department of Health or the county can file for uh
what's called a Receivership in which the um either a pud or a county can
take control of that system to get it to. I don't wanna say forcefully rehabilitate,
but to push the water system in the right direction and um not return permanent ownership
to the system until that system is fully rehabilitated and can go into the hand into
um viable uh management and ownership. A lot of counties are ending up with responsibility
for. I was hearing there was no perceived pathway to that kind of restoration of
the viability of the water system. So it just seems like a bigger issue. Unfortunately,
for counties, the counties are what are considered what's called the receiver of
last resort. There's not a pud or another large water system that could act as the
receiver for a system. The county by default becomes the receiver. And so it presents
a great liability to a county if that, if there's not coordinating with these large
water systems. So again, another benefit to a coordinate water system plan, you can
have those procedures in place for, you know, when a smaller system is struggling,
where does it go, where, where, what systems can act as a resource to that smaller
system to um in hope for the county's interest to prevent uh having to take over
that massive liability. So, Pu Ds are big, big stakeholders in these coordinate water
systems. Yes, they're typically some of the most interested stakeholders because
Pu Ds are the most common receivers that aren't the county. Um So Jefferson County
Pud would be a critical partner in this. What about private utilities that report
up through? Like they kind of uh under the UTC is that they still private systems
that are class A systems just would be part of the coordinate water system. That's
like a geographical designation. Is that right? So the coordinate water system plan
would cover all of what's considered the critical water supply area. So, in the,
in accordance to, with declaration 9783 that's the entirety of Jefferson County,
Olympic water and sewer would be a part of it as well. Uh Typically with counties
that have done this in the past, in the recent past. Um Any system with uh any group
a system with over 50 connections is invited to be a part of the Water Utility Coordinating
Council that writes the water system 5050. Correct 50 sorry, one more nexus question.
Um Is the new um climate resilience goal and growth management that requires some
coordinations on water supply, I believe, will that, you know, have any sort of nexus
with the, our, this plan? That's an ongoing uh topic of discussion in, in my agency.
That's actually a, a state board of the State Board of Health is addressing that
tomorrow. Um Wednesday. Yes, I'll be there. Uh, the state, excuse me. So, uh that
is something that is on the agenda that is to be addressed and it's still an ongoing
um development. As soon as there is more information I can, I'd be happy to reach
out and provide that information. You have it. Yeah, I'm on the Board of Health.
I haven't looked at the agenda yet. It's not till Wednesday days, days to go. Um
Great. Um I think we, we haven't even gotten to your pres or your topic. Yeah, go,
go ahead, Brent. Sorry. We, we've, we've, we've hijacked here. I, I think that the,
the overall question that the board is, is left with today um is probably the most
significant one and it's uh uh the really the request is um after listening to the
concerns and there were quite a few concerns. I think you've identified one just
in the conversation that came up among our discussions with uh water uh uh utility
purveyors and uh and in internal meetings at Receivership. Um And so there were others
in our time, how do we connect or should we connect if uh different disparate systems?
And so there were a host of questions. Um And also our existing regulations are not
being um you know, uh our existing plan not having been modified to
reflect changes in water law. And so um the question for the board is I I, this is
a really interesting project. I would say that we do have fortunately um uh a knowledgeable
uh partner who would help us and guide us through this process. Uh uh Mr Majors,
um and um his position has only recently been filled. And so we have a unique opportunity
to move ahead. And so, uh the question is whether or not the board uh desires us
to go ahead and convene our first meeting in many years of uh w which is the
Water Utility Users Committee. I, I kind of insisted we call it woke. But is that
all right? What's, what's that? What are you to make that acronym? Acronym? I just
like, it sounds like an O I just like it better. I like the sound of it. I don't
have to change the letter just woke. It was just pronounce a little. Uh We'll just
get more interest is all. Uh So what are the requirements of that committee? Did
you already? I'm sorry if I got lost in the So, um this board, we did establish one,
this board did establish um the um the process. And so, and I want to refer to um
some of the, the fundamentals that this board has the uh municipal police power to
establish new boards. And so um to really initiate this process of this board um
should open up uh a call um to invite um individuals uh primarily
uh representatives of water utilities, water purveyors uh to sit on um a newly established
work. Um And I just wanted uh ben to comment on that if you had any. Uh I, I believe
that that would be the, the, the process. Um And if it, if the board would prefer,
um we could come back to the board with specific steps outlined and dates and timelines
um and uh identify how we would move ahead with that after additional conversations
with some of our, our, our, I call them thought partners. Uh But the pud being one
of them um and then uh identify sort of a AAA plan of action. So this was just a
preliminary uh overview and then we could come back with a more detailed uh step
by step uh process including um how a board selection of members would take place.
Or alternatively, if we could just reactivate the existing work uh was established
in 97 by the board, bring all the wies back. Um And I assume environmental public
health is on board with this. Um And I want to point out that the coordinate water
system plans, the review and the processing of the development of that has been led
by different uh department agencies. I've seen, um for example, public works lead
it. Uh Watin County, I've seen public health lead it. Um And so there doesn't need
to be a designated uh uh um uh team member at this point. Um I
would fear that if we were to rely upon environmental public health, there's a capacity
issue right now and we would have to kick this down the LA kick this down the road
now, especially with losing both Linda and Susan in the last year, so much institutional
knowledge. Um but certainly want their represent public health, environmental, public
health to be represented because it's such a yeah. And, and I would point out that
behind the scenes, I, I did speak with environmental public health, Alisa um has
retained um uh assistance uh sort of the assistance that Commissioner Eisenhower
has identified uh in turn to help and they've identified um additional class a water
users. Uh They've just updated the GIS so there are behind the scenes work um underway
with environmental public, tell them they'll always be involved in the process. It's
just in a lead role that would not be uh they would not be able to take on a lead
role. How many do we have? Uh 60 was the 60 class A was
identified but those don't all have 50 units that's a different question. And I have
to, I have to double check that 5051. Ok, thank you.
I mean, it seems worthwhile and also like a a capacity issue, right? Yeah, and I
mean, I would also really like us to be um thinking about this for the Comprehensive
Plan next year, you know, this kind of planning I think is critical with climate
change and growth. And um so I think it's good timing that it could also inform some
comp plan language. And just into that, uh I'm glad you mentioned that I did. I think
I mentioned that in this, in the agenda request that typically this uh plan would
be adopted in in the comp plan. And so beginning it now uh would be wise if we were
hopeful to do that.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Any other thoughts? No, it sounds good. Just be warned. I,
I, after the instream flow process, which I was quite involved in, I represented
agriculture um on that throughout that process, I almost quit and went to law school
to study water. I really like waterloo, but you said you'd leave the room, but it's
I, I'll, I'll hang in. I've had the same thought myself too. It's a fascinating topic
but just not something that I have the expertise in. So I know just enough to be
dangerous. Ok. Well, I think you've got encouragement to continue down the path,
you know, see what we can do in a timely way, especially to incorporate into the
Comprehensive Plan. It would be great to have a, and a willing enabled commissioner.
It sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Congratulations. Heidi. You just volunteered
someone else that is a critical skill. I think you just, I think this is the moment
that you are not a new commission, right? That is the, you just passed. Um, ok. Any,
any last thoughts, Ben, Everything? Ok. And, um, you'll maybe keep in touch with
mark on the, um, requirements for setting up the new committee. And yes, I will.
It doesn't work hard. Here's the whole issue, state health, local health and then
the pud uh, districts, they have more than one.
yeah, so not a hard thing to put together to live here. And I want to point out that
if you look in the, um, the agenda request under analysis, I do, I indicate the W
A is listed there that's, uh, identifies the composition that's required. Ok. Well,
thank you so much, Brent, lots of work today and I just reflected more than today's
work. Of course.
Yes. Uh All right. That is a priority thing. Yes.
All right. Do we need a little break or anything? Ok. Well, thank you, Brent. Nice
to meet you, Ben. And we'll, we'll dive in next to our legislative priorities and,
uh, Kate, you're gonna lead us through this. Yeah. So there are, um, a number
of nesting conversations that, um, all fall into those buckets that I'm not
sure, kind of where, which thread to start pulling on. You know. So, um, as you know,
we participate in o a legislative steering committee, um, they of course, did not
adopt a legislative agenda this year but have some overarching kind of goals. Um,
and, and values statements. Um, yep. Yep. And so I sent you the draft, um, a
copy of that language which will get approved probably at the LSC meeting next week.
Um We have participated in the North Olympic Legislative Alliance. We have paid for
that. Um Our lobbyist for Nola is asking if we're going to be renewing that contract
for next year and at the same time, um uh uh Colleen mcaleer has asked us to start
paying more. Um We have been paying a third of it and she would like us to split
it 5050. So she's suggesting that that amount increase. Um And what's the amount
again? It was about 1000 a month, I believe uh for the whole, for the total or for
our third, our third, so total for the year. Ok. So just over 1000 a month. So a
third of 15. So it's 45 total. So it would be yeah, 20 maybe. Um So
we need to decide if we want to re up that. Um We have a Nola meeting next
week, this week later, this week, next week. Um where we would be kind of finalizing
priorities. And I, I sent you some of the draft issues that we are looking at there.
Um So if you, you know, discussing kind of the, the value of Nola, do we wanna keep
doing that? Um Does that have, have value for us? Um Is one of the questions, there's
the question of um our own legislative priorities for the upcoming session as well
as our kind of more overarching goals. Um And how we want to work with a
lobbyist to implement those. Um And we are putting out the RFP for uh lobbying.
Um Yes. Yeah. Um So there's some kind of, how much did we pay
for that?
Um Do you remember uh what it currently paying strategy? 360 like 150 a year. It's
a lot. Yeah. Isn't it? About 150 a year
is 360?
Um Like not, I don't know the annual amount. I know that we just recently did a contract
amendment. I can look it up. Yeah, because, and it was being paid through the sewer
previously, but they were taking it out of public works, but it's, it's a lot that
we, yeah, I mean, maybe it's closer to 100 but it's, it's quite a bit. So that contract
is expiring, going out for bid for new contract for lobbying services mark. And I
were working on the RFP last week and I, I just kind of came up with some blanks,
um, that I wanted us to, you know, kind of come to a little more decision on how
we wanna frame our legislative priorities moving forward. So it's probably more than
we can cover in 27 minutes. Um, but I think it's a really important conversation.
It's a big, a number of big expenses. The was a, um, fees are also gonna go up probably
double or so. The total contract amount, uh, ended up at 168. How long was that contract?
And that was from March of 2020 through the end of this year? Oh, ok. So that was
a total per year. All right. So, yeah, 50 years per year. Ok. Um,
so, uh, like I said, you know, I don't know if the place to start is what are our
priorities and then we build around that. Do, does you know how does was a no
value there? I think so too. Um We will be losing, um, uh, a, a
voice there. So, however, we decide to restructure, um, and it's really unclear right
now how they're going to restructure the voting, weighted voting, but we can expect
some sort of weighted voting which means that we will have like, yeah, like less
than 1% of the vote in that King County, all of was a will be restructured to give
more power to those with larger populations. So, you know, King County has paid half
of the dues of was a and had two votes out of 45 or so. There's six counties that
have an additional, no four counties that have an additional seat. Yeah. What comes
to home? And did some of this come up in the pure and natural resources process?
How they waited the selection process? Yeah. So, um we will be losing. Say there.
I would say we don't have much of a voice because we don't really have a caucus.
Um You know, there's not a lot of counties that vote similarly to, to us. Um Our
interests are a little bit niche. San Juan. Yeah, sometimes island. Um You know,
and we have, we share different values with different counties, you know, sometimes
we're very interested in rural issues. Sometimes we're really interested in progressive
issues. Um So, um we're a little bit, I just say we don't have a voting block
um as it is. So I'm not sure how concerned we are about losing that. Um I do think
there's a lot of value in wack and would not suggest we want to pull out of that.
Um But I think the question of, you know, do we want to participate in Nola, which
is really kind of do our issues align with theirs with columns. Um And again,
that is both public and private entities. Um There's other business
interests represented there. So it's diverse. It really is meant to be a regional
um legislative need a voice through nola nola. One of the issues that you've had
in the past is that maybe as a result of us paying less, there was less Jefferson
county representation or less uh emphasis on, on uh issues that might be a priority
to us. Do you think that's something that would be kind of rejiggered if the payment
structure change? Like the, the constitution of the nola, I don't know because it's
really up to like whoever shows up to, to be engaged and have a voice. Um
So, you know, we could like, I was sure to invite Jefferson healthcare to participate
because Olympic Medical Center had a, a strong voice. So, um they are now participating.
Um But yeah, I mean, we should maybe take a look at their because II I agreed with
most of that agenda on the Noah Noah schedule.
I mean, yeah, it's very um colum centric. Well, kind of, I mean, the seismic retrofit
project that, you know, quilting, they got definitely got kind of pushed to the bottom
of the list. Um
The, the ami, I don't know, I think you talked a little bit about how, how that's
probably
unrealistic as a goal.
And we like the, I mean, that's, I assume that you put in a lamer flexibility for
housing. Yeah. Yeah. Which didn't, didn't get a lot of um traction with our legislative
delegation. Um But I think that's uh an idea that's gonna take years of socializing
and refining. So I'm not, I wasn't expecting it to be adopted. But, um, but I love
pushing the Medicaid reimbursement rates and allowing small schools to access common
school trust revenue. I think that's, and I think that the, um, Chris Reichl's
working on that, isn't he? He wants to decouple school funding from coming school
altogether. What would that look like? Well,
I, yeah, I don't know, I don't know how well, um, developed his, his proposal is
but, um, I heard something though it was like to fund the schools where the revenue
is generated. Well, that's the problem. Yeah. So maybe to decouple it from the bonding
process, that's the problem now that you, it's only the rich districts that can pass
the bonds to take advantage of the common school funds.
Yeah. I, I would like that. Um, but that's, it was a little, a little, um, hard to
tell, you know, last year. Um, well, for the last four years, the 0.09 was such a
big push for us. Um, and, uh, so having, we had nola working on it and we
had our lobbyist and we had, was working on it and it's, it's hard to know who got
that over the finish line other than Jefferson County of that. Um, but who, you
know, who gets credit does, you know, did that happen? Because Noah was on board
or sometimes it's, you know. Yes. And so sometimes many voices are, are, are stronger.
I guess my, my knee jerk reaction would be try, try the nola for another year with,
with, you know, an expanded, you know, play, play ball. Ok, for a year. But I don't
know. Do you have a recommendation? I would, I would definitely, um, I think we should
be mindful of, um, what happened in the recompete process and, you know, do we have,
um, enough goodwill and trust and to, to have a good working relationship? And, you
know, I was not involved in those conversations with a lot of the same players. Um,
and, you know, is that going to kind of mar the ability to, to work together? Well,
I, I don't think Jefferson County and Clown County sparred or anything in the recompete
process, there was some hard feelings, I think, but not. Uh, Colleen is the coach
Colleen and I co-chair nola currently. Um, and I just haven't, we haven't met, but
I've, I've wondered if that relationship has deteriorated in a way that's gonna be
and then they came back asking for more money and like, I wonder if that was part
of, you know, a response to the wanting more money out of recompete. And I mean,
even that it could be like E DC offered pro E DC offered uh to pay for the consultant
that guided us through that. And, uh, that generosity has been mentioned many times
and, and I think so, there might be a build up of a desire for reciprocity that,
that came out of that. But I wouldn't say that we have a bad, I mean, we had a meeting
last week and it was civil and, and like, how do we work together moving forward?
Um, I mean, and I, I think also aspirationally to continue to work together and recompete
we need to make sure that we're building bridges in other areas. So, even if there
is some weakening, I think supporting this to support that, you know, it might buttress
that relationship too. It is a little bit duplicative, you know, so because we're
planning to pay for, this was no, well, it could be, but to us, to us having, um,
to our own lobby, I mean, 0.09 maybe it's additive. It's hard to know for sure. I
think the own, our own lobbyist is the one I'm less sure about, like, really what
impact other than the federal sewer stuff. Right. What brief
me on what? Yeah, tell us, we, we've talked more about, uh, Nola and Woak than what
our lobbyist. Right. So, in our lobbyist that we've worked with for many years, um,
it was Paul Baron. Right. Yeah. And they have offices in both Olympia and, um, DC.
So we have worked on both state and federal, um, issues. So I would say, um, you
know, I mean, that's, that's partly why this is coming up like without the sewer
and, um, Upper Hill Road, the big Flat project. Those, those are both projects that
I'd say our lobbyists had a really pretty big hand in getting funding for us. Do
we have other things like that that we want to pursue? Um, they are very helpful
with appropriations or the, uh, earmarks. Um, they are good about and just today,
Crystal sent me, um, something that shows we are eligible, uh, for F MA Ed A and
USDA, um, uh, emergency funding because of the storm that happened a year ago. Um
And so there's, you know, she said there's just large pots of money that are not
getting, um, expended and that we're on a relatively short list for, um, do we have
storm damage identified? It doesn't have to be storm damage but yeah, it isn't, it
isn't necessarily for repairing. It can be for resilience. Yeah. Yeah, that's the
Ed A want is to build economic resilience. It's a total pain in the butt. We got
rejected for it. Um, I was, I was to put some context on this. I was involved in
a project at the Maritime Center. Um, when we had that storm damage in 2017 from
the December 27th, I think it was the storm, the big King tide. And, uh,
the process to get reimbursed for that damage was so onerous and complicated that
they just six years later just got reimbursed. So, um, you know,
it's just if we, if we're investing in something with the anticipation of it being
easy money, easy money, it's,
it's a
certain federal agencies tied. I mean, I don't think those flat are easy either.
You know, all those things are pretty challenging, I say. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so we,
you, are you asking with our own lobbyists, do we have big projects that we wanna
move forward? Yeah. What are our priorities in writing the RFP? You know, we, we
have a spot to list our legislative priorities and I, I didn't want to write those
without, um, you know, really connecting with you guys. And we did this a few months
ago and we identified a few, you know, categories, housing, so specifically housing
outside of cities. Um, and our lobbyists keep sending, you know, any, anything that
comes across her desk, um, mostly stuff that is, well, the next phase of the sewer.
I mean, sorry, but, you know, I mean, we've always talked about the next phase in
all the community meetings, right. So when do we start crystal balling that? Yep.
Yep. Um, you know, potentially Aquatic Center, you know, that was on our list a few
months ago. Uh, the trail project, you know, these are things that have a federal
nexus. Um So, you know, I, I think large overarching which is different than our
legislative agenda. Um And yet, you know, ideally there'd be some overlap because
we're looking, putting out for a lobbyist to do both of these, you know, near term
and long term.
Um, I mean, there's other big projects, you know, Glen Cove is another big project
and, uh, I think that pool is another one. Getting that money. Yeah. Um, I don't
know. It's been so effective in the past, I guess. I, I feel like infrastructure
in Britain, you know, um,
the whole kind of lamer issue. Um, that would be a good one.
So, some of, I mean, if you look at the three different buckets, like our own generated
list for our lobbyists, the wack list and the, um, nola lists or some areas of overlap
landlords, housing. Mhm. Seems like the trail could be something that nola could
get behind, get behind.
Yeah. I think people feel like they're, uh, gonna be maxed out in the near term with
the raise, you know, jurisdictions helping out with the raise grant and the, like
we have construction starting on our next segment and, and then the state park section.
So, but I do think it is a, but this crystal balling phase is like, ok, like, because
it takes so many years to get to the next thing you start doing this for the five
years out. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I, I mean, I guess,
are you not suggesting not doing this? RP? No. And I, I realize that I have had the
most contact with the lobbyists so they, it feels valuable to me. Um, or so Kelsey
Hulls took over from Paul. Um, you know, she just checked in to see if we were gonna
be at wack and wanted to get together and, you know, we can update together. Yeah.
Yeah. Um, uh, I gave her a tour this fall the same day as the, um, sewer
groundbreaking, um, to, you know, just kind of show her what we're up to. And, um,
so I think, uh, we don't know who will, who would ultimately be successful. I think,
I think it's a valuable relationship. Um, the, you know, being able to connect with
Crystal in DC. She always has good intel. Um, like I said, with earmarks, she's been
super helpful. Those aren't going anywhere. It would be really good to be able to
keep getting a few million bucks a year for some priority. So, no, I think it's,
I think it's, I think it's worthwhile. Um, there's definitely value in having more
eyes and ears on the ground, especially in Olympia and DC on our behalf, you know,
and the more specific we can be in what we're asking them to do, the more value we
will get out of it. Um,
so,
um,
if you, if you can't nail down the legislative priorities for the RFP, certainly
by the time we contract we could. Oh, so for the RFP, you have some blank. Should
we address those questions or Mark saying we could leave it? Out and there is, there
is language in there about, oh, funny. I've not noticed the radiators getting
going. Yeah. Uh, um, I do have language in there about, you know, being a
progressive rural county and, um, you know, so I think it's, and I also have a, um,
pretty much, I also have a, I, I proposed, I don't know if you saw Mark but that
one of the scoring categories is kind of cultural and values fit. Um so that we can
kind of flesh out if it feels like uh they get us because we are, I think we are
unique, federal and state. Yeah. So looking for, uh we do state preference for
someone with a presence both in Olympia and DC. Um we strategies 360 will
apply as will uh Gordon honey. Well, Thomas the Nola Josh and
Noah lobbyist, they have expressed interest. So we know of at least two bidders
and they, they offer the price. I mean, we, we say what, how many hours we're looking
for? What's the, how, how is that? Uh Typically you give a not to exceed amount?
Ok. And then they quote that number right away. Ok. So if we spend 100 and
68/3 years, what is that? 55 a year? Roughly? Right? So we could, we could set
a a not to exceed amount at 50 or 60 um and then play it by ear,
the soft expenses is really hard and I've been so uninvolved in it. I see the fruits
of it though. So I, I feel like it's, I don't have a reason to bulk on this investment.
I know when you look at $30 million you can come in. It's 100 and 68 doesn't sound
like much,
but it was 1015 years before that they, you know, they brought in a little flap.
It was pre well, around the time I came on. So they were very helpful with
federal roads. So strategy is 360 is 60 ish a year. Um Nola is, um,
we could expect it to go up and also they're gonna, um, put a price escalator in,
um, for next year because of inflation. So, so 25 maybe. Um, actually I'm looking
at the contract, it was 39 5 48 nola was, which was the total and, um, that two
year contract a third. Ok. 13. So say, say
25 a year for us, 60 a year for strategy 360. And we think was a could go up to,
it could go up to as much as like 25. Ok. Yeah, and that's, that's all
of them. Um, yeah, but, uh, no, that's from 19
total to 29. I mean, but I know that, you know, our sheriff and our treasurer, everyone
gets a lot of benefit from those, your organizations, you know, I think I would say
lobbying is a, the portion of the value that we get back and half of that
fruit,
half of the 29 that would be due is going up to about 14,000 space dues and then
the other 15 are the other postal caucus also a solid waste. One
based on the return on investment. It seems like this is a prudent. All three being
involved in all three is a, is that too much work for you? No, I know I love it.
Um and I really do think supporting Nola and going above what we've done before is
is a way to build those, build those. Ok. Ok. So we'll need to put that in the budget
mark. That was the biggest adjustment, right? That all the oh, just thinking back
to our our our dues, you know, there was an increase in the dues budget that 527,000,
it was like half of the uh ongoing increase was the non departmental dues and everything.
Risk pool like 6.5 million now. Yeah, you know 10 grand is not much. So
Kate, if you get me the particulars on, on the no, what is it? No, Honeywell. It's
a three way. If you give me the particulars, I'll do a contract amendment for a brand
new contract. It's for 24. Yeah, get that done before the end of November.
Ok, great. Also on the RP or have you decided to put in priorities or
what do you think to begin with? Well, I mean, capital projects is obviously a category,
if you could say rural infrastructure funding and land use. Um And
what about behavioral health or childcare? I wanted to say operations. That's just
the, the challenge that I see in all of these different fields. I don't know how
you, I don't know what I'm, I'm so removed from this. I don't know what to ask for,
but that's the problem I see is that everything? Yeah, I mean, it's easy to get capital
dollars and then we end up not being able to pay for the operations. So it's like
uh it's like a foundational operations as a foundational service.
Yeah, I'm trying to think how we would capture that capacity building. I wonder if
anyone else has captured, you know what I mean to start asking strategy 360 with
their other clients. What are the areas of specialty operations, gaps,
gaps or?
Mm mm.
Yeah.
How to capture that? Ok. Um
It's the hardest stuff to get funded. That's why like financial sustainability, financial
sustainability. These are broad. OK. I will incorporate these. I would like us to
talk about legislative session priorities since was a doesn't have any and we're
gonna have all these lobbyists. Um It would be really nice if we had a few things
we were working on. I will say too that um students for sustainability at the high
school approached me asking, I act in all honesty, I suggested that maybe we could
work on an issue with them, which would be fun to be a present, you know, have a
united front on us. Yeah. Or uh or producer responsibility for cycling. They could
get me in there. So um maybe what does next week look like in the agenda? Is it pretty
packed? Um Got budget. Not like today. Yeah. Yeah. Ok. If, if there's
time next week, it'd be great to drill down on our own legislative priorities, state
legislative priorities of the Yes, I think we, we have a lobbyist maybe bring them
back in for another workshop. We should review our strategic plan and also the wildfire
planning document that just got produced as, as sources for
priorities. Ok, great. Yeah, sounds good. Ok, thank you. I got what I need for now,
legislative priorities that we are there already bills that are we know are gonna
come. Yeah. Yeah. And any bill that didn't pass last year comes back, it's still
alive this session. Um So we can, you know, those are probably gonna come and, and
maybe it's just, you know, a year where we do some education or like I said, kind
of socialize the idea of the la flexibility and try to get some more champions and
more input on what that could look like. I do think um Brennan a ton of opportunity
there. Um Like that alone could be a, our legislative priority. Brennan.
Ok. Sounds good. I need to run to my desk and grab a file and I put my shoe on because
my foot hurt. I gotta wear comfortable shoes. This is a comfortable shoe. Ok. I have
an orthotic in. You're not old. You're the youngest. Yeah, the young, one, little,
one. Caroline used to call me little. And then everyone after she passed away was
like, why did Caroline call you little? And I'm like, because I was the youngest.
This is no, that's not shorter than her. It was because I was the youngest of the
trio.
This is the new signature page.
Mm. All right. Well, we'll, uh, we're going to, um, go into executive session
now.
Um, and we're going into executive session to review the performance of a public
employee. No discussion of salaries, wages and other conditions of employment to
be generally applied within the county. No final action on the hiring setting, the
salary of an individual employee or class of employees or discharging or disciplining,
disciplining an employee exemption is outlined in the open Public Meetings Act RCW
42.3 0.1 10, parentheses, one parentheses. G um, and we are going in at 330 we're
coming back out at 430 is the plan and we are joined by our human resources director,
Sarah Mellen song.
All right. So you can, yeah.
Oh, yeah, I know. It's hard to find on that. One, but
go ahead,
we are coming out of executive session, there is no action taken, so no public comments.
Um But as a reminder, we are in executive session to review the performance of a
public employee, no discussion of wages, salaries and other conditions of employment
to be generally applied within the county and no final action or the on the hiring
setting, the salary of an individual employee or class of employees or discharging
or discipline and disciplining an employee exemption is outlined in the open Public
Meetings Act RCW 42.30 0.1 10 parentheses, one parentheses. G and we were joined
by our human resources director, Sarah Male. So, uh, with no action to be taken,
we'll not take public comment and that reaches the end of our agenda. So I will adjourn
us for today. Uh, the courthouse will be closed on Friday and observance of Veterans
Day and we'll be back next on Monday the 13th. Have a great week are adjourned.
Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Heidi. Thank you. Both. Recording stopped.
All right.
How are the reviews coming in for Nicole?
Glowing? IE. Oh, really? Yeah, until the 17th.