HomeMy WebLinkAboutchat09:03:15 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message) : You may want to remind those in attendance that hearing testimony for the two hearings will be held later in the meeting
09:22:36 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message) : Shellie has her hand raised
09:27:04 From Chambers to Hosts and panelists : I'm bringing Wendy Davis over as a panelist, as she likes to see who is in attendance
10:29:21 From Mark McCauley to Chambers(Direct Message) : bring josh over and barbara
10:35:33 From Kate Dean to Chambers(Direct Message) : FYI, I might be out on Feb 12 for NACO, not sure about Heidi...
10:36:02 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message) : oh okay. We could move to the next week
10:37:24 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message) : I suggested closing oral testimony today, and extend written testimony through the Friday before the final BOCC deliberations
on subject
10:49:16 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message) : If oral testimony is to be extended, would the public only get the one opportunity to comment? Or would they get to speak again
at deliberations? That should be explained. I will need to keep track of people who spoke today
10:49:24 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message) : Also need name and address of speakers :)
10:49:50 From Kate Dean to Chambers(Direct Message) : Can people only testify once/ hearing?
10:50:58 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message) : That is usually the case. And usually the oral portion is closed and only written is extended.
11:00:22 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message) : Will written testimony have an earlier end date? So you'll have time to review comments before final deliberations
11:03:14 From Kate Dean to Chambers(Direct Message) : Yes, but I think we will wait to set a closing date til we know what week we will be considering the ordinance.
11:03:45 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message) : perfect
11:09:04 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message) : A majority of people have not been accepting promotion to panelist. I will just unmute them in the attendee list
11:58:07 From Chambers to Hosts and panelists : SMP Deliberations: January 16th at 1:30 p.m. and January 22nd at 3:30 p.m.
11:58:50 From Josh Peters, DCD to Chambers(Direct Message) : Thank you, Carolyn, for the times.
12:03:39 From Josh Peters, DCD to Chambers(Direct Message) : https://gisweb.jeffcowa.us/LandRecords/
12:03:46 From Josh Peters, DCD to Hosts and panelists : https://gisweb.jeffcowa.us/LandRecords/
12:04:09 From Chambers : https://gisweb.jeffcowa.us/LandRecords/
12:05:26 From Chambers to Josh Peters, DCD(Direct Message) : Kate noted that she and possibly Heidi will be away at NACo September 12
12:07:16 From Josh Peters, DCD to Chambers(Direct Message) : Feb 12, right? Then should we say Tu, Feb 20?
13:37:24 From Josh Peters to Hosts and panelists : Statute for CPPs: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.210
13:39:20 From Josh Peters to Hosts and panelists : Tribal participation in county planning -- see sub (8): https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.040
13:43:14 From Chambers : Statute for CPPs: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.210
Tribal participation in county planning -- see sub (8): https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.040
13:59:05 From Josh Peters to Hosts and panelists : Sub (2): https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.070
13:59:17 From Chambers to Josh Peters(Direct Message) : We've been getting in the habit of calling special BOCC meetings concurrent with ICG anyways due to quorum. We'd just have
to make sure that GMSC decisions would be listed as an action item on all agendas
13:59:31 From Chambers : Sub (2): https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.070
14:00:06 From Chambers to Josh Peters(Direct Message) : I made it so that you could send chat info to all participants now
14:08:38 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message) : During ICG, you had mentioned potentially adding schools and fire districts.
14:20:02 From Josh Peters : CWSP = Coordinated Water System Plan
14:20:10 From Josh Peters : WUCC = Water Utility Coordinating Committee
09:00:35 Recording. Okay.
09:00:45 Is everybody ready to go? Okay. Good morning, everyone. Call this meeting of the Board of County Commissioners to order.
09:00:57 And in progress.
09:01:00 Usually have all the things dialed in. crappy day, but hope everybody stays warm.
09:01:08 It's going to be a rough week. Everybody please stay alert with Big weather storms coming through.
09:01:15 Might be worth announcing next week. Monday is a holiday. Dr.
09:01:20 Martin Luther King. Holiday it will be observed. So we will be meeting on Tuesday instead.
09:01:24 Anyone have anything before we jump in? Nope, I think the, or the worst part of the weather, supposed to hit on Thursday, right?
09:01:35 20 to 28 degrees that day or something. How to take the team going, folks. Yeah, look after your We are older neighbors and anyone vulnerable.
09:01:50 Yeah. Okay, let's start off today with public comment. We welcome input from the public on any range of issues.
09:01:58 We ask that folks keep their comments to 3Â min. There is a timer. It is green or the room for the majority of public comments, the last 30Â s or yellow light red light is an
indication it is time to stop.
09:02:12 Realize that folks online aren't able to see that but we will tell you when you're at a 3Â min mark it is helpful if you state your name and where you live though it is not
required.
09:02:20 So, open up to the room first. Anyone in the room wish to provide public comment?
09:02:25 Ms.
09:02:31 Normally say good morning, but. I am testing negative at least. The most fundamental question that should have been asked.
09:02:41 First is what would it cost to repair and upgrade the existing Mountain View pool? Did we consider that option?
09:02:49 It sure doesn't look like we got the chance. Why was that decision made to build an entirely new facility without an answer to the most fundamental question?
09:02:59 How many times have we been told by city staff that the Mountain View pool was approaching a catastrophic failure and beyond repair.
09:03:06 Parts just cannot be found. Yeah, that doesn't pass the smell test.
09:03:13 Why has this critical data not been presented to you by your own staff or city staff instead of by a group of citizens and considered as an integral part of the conversation.
09:03:26 Perhaps the most revealing question is why were the CGI and WTI reports withheld and by whom?
09:03:33 What else is being withheld from you? What other decisions are you being pushed into based on inaccurate misleading and shoddy data.
09:03:41 I can't help but notice that if the steering committee meetings had been open to the public that we would have avoided this obvious mispeasance.
09:03:49 Hasn't this deception and manipulation shown us again that we cannot rely on the accuracy of the final report or the consultants who are really just high-powered salesmen or
on anything produced by the secretive steering committee which has been complete has completely shut out the public and misled us throughout the entire process.
09:04:09 How can the public ever come to support a project which has been plagued with the lack of transparency, chronic trust issues, and an utter lack of integrity from the major players.
09:04:21 How can the public ever rely on the accuracy of the final report or vote to fund the project when we continually find misinformation inaccurate data, errors, omissions, and
deception.
09:04:33 Why should we expose the county to the potential consequences of this ILA and the ensuing Department of Commerce Review under these conditions with a history of a complete erosion
of trust and lack of integrity with the party we are expected to enter into a partnership.
09:04:50 This whole thing is very discouraging.
09:04:55 I, in the room would like to provide public comment. And just as a reminder, we do have a hearing later today and.
09:05:05 It's like, Mister King understands that might be, that might be a better time to provide testimony, but you're welcome to do both, of course, but hearing testimony will be taken
at the, 1030 SMP hearing.
09:05:19 That's a reminder. I'm Jim Scarantino hearing today on behalf of the growing all county citizens alliance.
09:05:28 Tom Tearsh and I have been preparing a package to go to Mr. Harvey. It is our interest to have a thorough competent exhaustive feasibility review.
09:05:40 We've been diving into the Ballard King study and we're finding out that what we may get is a garbage and garbage out.
09:05:46 Result because Mr. Hoby is going to review what he's being given. The Ballard King proposal is impenetrable.
09:05:53 It throws out data without references or citations and we are finding that it's suffers from the same lack of integrity and transparency as we've seen with holding this the
the cost estimates that show the Mountain View, can be modernized and completely redone for about 4.1 million dollars.
09:06:12 Contra what we've been told. For instance, the participation rate that is used for Jefferson County, when you dig into it, it comes from mid-Atlantic.
09:06:21 Region data. Let's take hours to find this, but we don't know what that data is.
09:06:27 They claim in here that projecting from that data that Jefferson County has hundreds of members who participate in LA fitness and planet fitness. Where does that come from?
09:06:36 It's not in here. Jefferson County is painted as a very wealthy county with lots of disposable income and pent-up demand to spend more and more on recreation so that hundreds
and hundreds of families in this poor county will only up $900 a year for the membership.
09:06:52 Where does this come from? King County data. We're looking at 2 reports a 2.5% unemployment rate for Jefferson County.
09:07:01 No citation no reference. That's King County for this year. We're about 3 times that.
09:07:07 It reports a median household net worth. For Jefferson County of $205,000 no citation no reference all we know is that 65% above what the Washington Office of Financial Management
says is the statewide level.
09:07:20 No citation, no references. It's so bad they even used the King County data for our rainfall.
09:07:26 Now we found this by digging and digging and digging. Mr. Hubby, I don't know if he's going to do this.
09:07:31 I mean, he's reviewing what he's been giving. This goes on and on and on.
09:07:36 So we run the risk as I said of wasting $18,000 on a garbage in garbage out review.
09:07:43 Mr. Hub is very competent. I've looked into him. We're both alumni at the University of Pennsylvania.
09:07:47 He which was a great school back then. I know he'll do a good job. But Look what he's being given.
09:07:54 So I really think Mr. King who wrote this should provide the citations and references for all his claims, all his data, and answer all the questions that have risen here so
that it's not citizens that are correcting this and it's not Mr. Hubbie spending hours and hours and hours trying to find out where this comes from.
09:08:11 It was their job to provide that data. They didn't do it. Before this goes further, Ballard King should complete this study and provide support for the statements it makes in
this.
09:08:20 Report. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else in the room wish to provide public comments?
09:08:28 Alright, let's go online.
09:08:33 Thank you. Great. Mr. Teersch. I have 3Â min when you get unmuted and then Ms. Cochran.
09:08:45 I'm next. Yes. Hi. I'm Julia Cochrane.
09:08:51 Let's see, I was gonna go to Mr. Tears first. But let's see, are you able to get unmuted, Tom?
09:09:02 Oh, I am. I didn't assume Miss Coffin was going to speak.
09:09:08 Alright. Can.
09:09:00 Not hearing you yet. That's true. Oh, there, let's see. Will you come back out and see if we can hear you?
09:09:13 Yes. Thank you.
09:09:15 We cannot. You look unmuted. Hold on just a sec.
09:09:22 Give us a minute as we troubleshoot.
09:09:27 Can you hear me now?
09:09:30 I can hear.
09:09:30 Hello.
09:09:32 I still can't hear you, but. We're working on it on our end.
09:09:34 Apparently, Miss Cochran can hear me. I don't know why you can't.
09:09:39 Yeah, I think we hear each other. Why aren't you hearing us?
09:09:39 Yes, that's Okay. Looks like Tom and Julia can talk to each other, but we can't hear you.
09:09:54 I say check support is on the job.
09:09:49 Oh right, maybe that's. Let's be That's right. Okay, we can hear you now, Tom.
09:10:02 Go ahead and then we'll go to you after Julia.
09:10:02 Okay, I would I would defer to Miss Cochrane if you don't mind.
09:10:09 That's fine.
09:10:09 Well, lovely. Thank you. Go ahead, Miss Cocker.
09:10:11 Okay, my name is Julia Cochran. I live in the city of Port Townsend.
09:10:16 And I am part of what runs the winter welcoming center and my comment is about that is that It looks like that starting Thursday and possibly going until Tuesday.
09:10:27 There's going to be pretty extreme cold and other things. Happening in 4 towns in Jefferson County.
09:10:34 And emergency management approached us to be a warming center since the American Legion slash only cap will not be fulfilling that role this year.
09:10:45 So we've been hustling and I think that we are prepared as best we can to do this.
09:10:53 We will be open for people to stay with us. 24Â h. Right now actually part of us is talking to the city.
09:11:03 So it's a little weird, but I mean, my announcements a little odd, but that's fine.
09:11:06 I have confidence. And, emergency management is going to give us cots. We have a call out for blankets from the community.
09:11:15 And we're trying to deal with food because we don't have a kitchen so you know everything's gotta be individually wrapped and not Cool, And, yeah, so we're about to start a
great adventure.
09:11:31 Starting most probably Thursday and go until possibly next Tuesday and, just want you guys and the public to be aware that.
09:11:40 You know, when we were asked, it's our moral responsibility to say yes, we're not gonna, we already have people banging on the door saying, please let me in.
09:11:49 So it's, yeah. Yeah, we are doing this. Okay, thank you.
09:11:54 As you know, we don't normally do it back and forth during public comment, but is there a place where people can go and find information on what the needs are of the winter
welcoming, but is there a place where people can go and find information on what the needs are of the winter welcoming center if they're interested in donating food or items.
09:12:09 We have a Facebook page also First Presbyterian Church has a page for the winter welcoming center that has a donation button.
09:12:17 And anybody is willing to find me and I have an email address, willow tree. At only 10.
09:12:28 Dot com. And willow tree is just like it sounds.
09:12:31 Military@ulypenn.com. Okay, thank you, Julia.
09:12:33 You're welcome.
09:12:37 Good morning, Mr. Teersch.
09:12:42 Good morning commissioners. I have a few more comments about the the Mountain View pool. 4 towns and full, whatever you wanna call it.
09:12:51 And I just have to read what I wrote. Doesn't want to get it done in 3Â min.
09:12:54 Okay.
09:12:55 The board of County Commissioners was told a few weeks ago by the healthier together project that refurbishing the port towns and pool would cost 21 million dollars.
09:13:04 That's the number that DCW documented in their Mountain View pool renovation cost that he dated December fifth.
09:13:09 You've just heard that 2 engineering reports have surfaced which show that the existing pool at Mountain View can be refurbished at a much lower cost.
09:13:18 In fact, the total cost should be less than 8 million. That is 4.1 million from the 2 reports plus other costs that have been provided by an expert in that field.
09:13:27 I say these reports surfaced because both have been in the possession of the city for months and yet were not presented to the healthier together committee.
09:13:36 I obtain the reports through public records requests. One report from WTI is dated September eighth and the other from CG engineering is dated October thirtieth.
09:13:46 I know that all 3 of you commissioners have now been provided with copies of those previously hidden reports. Now, why those reports were not disclosed to the members of the
stering committee is a separate matter and it should be investigated, but we can talk about that some other time.
09:14:01 Given the slipshod work evident in the Ballard King and other parts of the healthier together final report and the fact that 2 important cost estimates have not been considered
by the steering committee or by the council or by this board, I'm recommending that you commissioners put the brakes on this project before any more money is wasted.
09:14:19 Nothing should be submitted to the Department of Commerce until first, a thorough unbiased review and analysis of the 2 new cost estimate reports has been conducted by the steering
committee and then Both the city and county governments have been presented with a new set of findings based on that analysis and then an updated final report has been prepared.
09:14:42 Based on facts and finally both governments have approved that revised final report. Now them and only then should a package be sent to the Department of Commerce to begin the
$18,000 independent financial feasibility review that's required required before a PFD can be created.
09:15:04 That's it. Thanks very much.
09:15:07 Thank you, Mr. Teersch. Anyone else? On line wish to provide public comment today?
09:15:12 If so, please hit raise hand at the bottom of your screen or if you're on the phone you can hit star 9.
09:15:23 All right, not seeing anyone, but we will leave. A public comment open for a few minutes. And, any commissioner responses?
09:15:34 No one else in the room? Yeah. I can start. Did receive those 2 studies on I believe Friday and spent some or Thursday and spent some of the weekend reading them.
09:15:49 And did the math myself, got the 4.1 out of that so Yeah, it was immediately curious about how we got from 4.1 to 21 million in a estimate to repair the pool.
09:16:00 So I I'm sure there are pieces of information that haven't been shared. Because that seems like the name of this game, but.
09:16:07 I would be very interested in making sure that what ever comes from commerce is reflective of the complete story.
09:16:14 And all the information that's available. So. Yeah. That's basically my Tina, Tea leaves on this one this morning.
09:16:24 It's been an interesting road. It's been again probably. You know, 8Â h this weekend, having a weekend having conversations about the pool.
09:16:32 So it's
09:16:33 And not with these guys. So, you know, it's, it's a A burbling pot right now.
09:16:44 Okay. I appreciate everyone making a comment today. I'm Curious, he's that a little, maybe this is a question for Mark.
09:16:53 I'm not sure, but the, the independent financial review I thought was pretty independent of this.
09:16:59 Work by Ballard King and the daring committee. Bond readiness of the county and I don't know, Mark.
09:17:11 Do you shed any light on how associated the work of the steering committee in the healthier together has to this independent financial review.
09:17:16 I have not seen the statement of work from commerce. So I don't know. How he's gonna perform his review and what materials he might use to reach a judgment.
09:17:28 Whether he'll look at the Ballard King report, other materials prepared by the consultants, whether these reports will figure into it.
09:17:37 I just don't know. We should know very soon, however, and I suppose I could request a statement of work from commerce.
09:17:45 Have a look at it and make sure that it addresses some of the concerns that we're hearing. I think that seems worthwhile.
09:17:52 Yeah. And I also received the 2 reports. Appreciate it. And, you know, Not everything aligns.
09:18:00 I mean, those reports also did recommend that it was not. Really economically feasible to rebuild the end that they bully both recommended.
09:18:08 A new poof is pool facility as the most. Cost efficient fast moving forward. But Yeah, it's there's There's lots out there, I guess I'm still.
09:18:20 Feel fairly confident that this independent financial review is the best way to get really solid information to inform whatever that next step is, you know, I think.
09:18:31 I haven't exactly been in favor of the plan as presented. So far I don't think it would pass a vote of the people.
09:18:39 So we're still, I would say. Early into this conversation. I'm still committed to continuing the work that we've.
09:18:46 That we've set up. In our path, I guess the work plan seems. Appropriate now. It was interesting to see the, you know, the report did talk about being able to repair the pool
and even putting a new tank in there.
09:19:03 Still be a one tank pool, but I think it could be a you know, 25 meter pool.
09:19:08 To Julia, I'm really appreciative that you guys are stepping up to fill this gap in the community.
09:19:15 It's critical so Tudors and and really appreciate the announcement and People check out First Presbyterian to see if there's a way they can help.
09:19:25 This is a Yeah. This is the holding up the social fabric. So thank you to the Winter Warming Center for grabbing hold and holding on.
09:19:37 And yeah. I guess that's my big question out of the comments today or what are the data sets that the independent financial review.
09:19:44 Are going to use. Yeah, but I appreciate it. The last thing for Julia, I know we're not supposed to go back and forth.
09:19:51 I was thinking I'm happy to make gallons and gowns of soup and I have a huge crock pot I could bring down there.
09:19:56 So I will follow up by your email and find out if that's logistically feasible.
09:20:02 Thanks. Thanks everyone for public comment. Few things. So the, steering committee has not had a chance to meet since the December eighth or December fifth report came out.
09:20:18 So we have not discussed the specific reports. That you referenced and and provided and I'm not sure if we have anything on the calendar next steering committee meeting.
09:20:30 It's been a number of, you know, rolling vacations around the holidays that have just made it difficult.
09:20:35 So we have not. As a group discussed or done. Heard any analysis done on those reports.
09:20:42 So look forward to that. You know, I think there has been concern for many, many years that throwing good money at a 60 year old facility that was never exceptionally well built
to begin with is quite a questionably good use of public funds.
09:20:56 So I think that That question still exists. And there is a lot of uncertainty even in the engineering reports that were provided, which is part of what led to the ultimate conclusion
that building a new would be better because It is unknown what is underneath the pool.
09:21:13 It is not safe to even do that. Exploratory work. To find out. What the actual conditions are there.
09:21:23 So again, we can throw a lot of. Good money that frankly nobody has. To continue doing that analysis.
09:21:32 Knowing that it's a 60 year old facility that has been pieced together over those 60 years.
09:21:38 And, you know, I think we'd have as many critics saying, why on earth would you do that for millions of dollars so We'll see.
09:21:46 I mean, we've been certainly been interested in that question and doing again just more due diligence.
09:21:56 So I don't I don't relish. Back and forth you know being in a position of being defensive and refuting claims that were made.
09:22:07 But I do have to say there have been a number of opportunities for the public to engage to provide input.
09:22:14 Throughout the last year. In person. Virtually through surveys. This is not a prior secretive process that has shut out the public.
09:22:25 Information has not been withheld. This has been a part of the process documents have been on the city's website.
09:22:32 And so that is. We are still in the public process. This is it. This is how it goes.
09:22:38 We are doing that work of. Of doing the public portion of this process and there are. Number of good caring people who just want to try and get something nice for this community
and have tried to come up with a proposal that we think is the best path forward for that, but it is not.
09:22:55 Secrets being done in back room deals. This is. Analysis of information and we welcome other good information coming forth too.
09:23:08 As for the Ballard King study, I agree that was very high level. That was largely done when we were at the very beginning looking at all of the financing mechanisms.
09:23:20 The kind of market trends and analysis that they did is kind of industry standard. I agree it's not super helpful, especially for the PFD.
09:23:32 But you know, and looking at kind of demographics who's moving to the area property values some of those things yes it is more regional it is more high level I think that would
have applied more perhaps to an MPD.
09:23:44 PFD it is of of less value and of less. Well be interesting to see where commerce lands that the independent financial analysis from commerce has so far been fairly opaque.
09:23:59 They were not very clear about exactly what. Information we would be providing maybe that's because the contractor also gets to determine what information they want to look
at so it's been somewhat frustrating that they just haven't been.
09:24:14 It's not formulaic and maybe that works. Yeah, maybe that's for a good reason, but,
09:24:23 Yeah, so, you know, it's clear that there are that there are concerns and like I said, nobody has ever said this is the one clear path.
09:24:34 So we keep chipping away at at these pieces and do you look forward to digging into the engineering reports with the steering committee and hearing some of the rationale behind
it and happy to report back just as I have done along the way.
09:24:51 Okay. We do have some more opportunity for public comments. Shelley will bring you over.
09:24:58 You have up to 3Â min.
09:25:05 Good morning. Yes.
09:25:05 Can you hear me? Okay, so I wasn't gonna talk this morning because I felt like what we needed to say was being covered by the previous speakers.
09:25:15 But I have to say I'm really dismayed by the what looks to me the justification of what has appeared not being such a bad thing.
09:25:26 I think it's horrific that there's these details that were kept away from everybody by potentially people who are being paid to do this.
09:25:42 The reason that there was not a lot of county participation, I think in this was because originally this was a city thing, not a county thing.
09:25:52 When the city didn't have enough money, all of a sudden the county comes important, but there wasn't lots of follow-up after that.
09:25:59 So I'd like to know what's gonna happen when the city can't hold their people to their $400,000 annual commitment to the pool.
09:26:11 And the county has to take that over as well. And you can bet that's gonna happen. So I don't think there's even any reason not to have a plan working forward to that.
09:26:24 Objective because that is gonna happen. I just am like I said, dismayed that there seems to be not a lot of.
09:26:35 Surprise and indignation that this is what you're getting from your committee who's trying to give you facts about the poll.
09:26:44 And you're not getting them. And I think that that's terrible. And that's basically all I have to say today.
09:26:52 Thank you. I will direct folks again to the city's healthier together website, which has had from day one.
09:26:59 Copies of all of the reports and information we're talking about. I don't think the engineering reports are up there yet.
09:27:06 Again, the Steering committee has not had a chance to talk about them. There have been a number of holidays and vacations that have gotten in the way of that, as with many things.
09:27:17 Any other? Responses. Seems like these reports that were delivered to us last week are reports that were completed earlier than a number of the documents that are on the city
website.
09:27:33 Cause I've been directing people to the city website. For information and then they come back and say well they're There was earlier reports and so I'm just.
09:27:40 I'm constantly curious about how the path has unfolded on this project. And it feels like along the way there have been conversations and materials.
09:27:53 That haven't been shared. So it just, it's not clear to me what the.
09:28:02 Transparency around this project has been. So you're talking about the October thirtieth. Yeah, engineering reports.
09:28:12 Ones that were delivered to us last week. So I know that the, maybe you can help remind me, Mark, we last met at the beginning of December when, an engineer was completing a
report.
09:28:34 And that was the December. And I'm not gonna get, I don't have the doll in front of me right now, but
09:28:41 We were waiting on a final report then and you know, and there are a few reports that need to be kind of reconciled and.
09:28:51 So yeah, like every individual. There was a December fifth study that was performed by DCW cost management and December fifth.
09:29:01 Redesign cost plan and that's the one that Estimates 21 million. But the 2 studies that were shared with us last week and this morning.
09:29:10 Tom Church provided them to me. I don't see those on the healthier together website. I'm looking at the moment and I.
09:29:19 I don't I don't see a link to those. There is a form. Should I get that?
09:29:27 I mean, my only question was like there's we've received some studies but not the others.
09:29:32 And we're not, we're not getting the full picture. And I think the information when it's presented to us is not presented that we've done 3 studies and they've shown that there's
this $500,000 cost and a 3.5 million dollar cost.
09:29:44 When 1 million dollar potential cost it's been it's 21 million dollars. Yeah, and again, the steering committee has not had a chance to do all of this analysis yet.
09:29:56 And I think like in almost any process we work with on the many, many boards and committees we work with, that is the case.
09:30:02 We, the staff and. You know, whoever else is working on it, like to do some analysis before bringing it forward.
09:30:10 You know, we have not looked at every single engineering report of the Tadlock sewer because it is of a detailing report of the Tadlock Seer because it is of a detail that is
largely not super beneficial to the public.
09:30:20 It is of course available when requested. But then staff does the analysis and provides the conclusive.
09:30:28 And salient points to the commissioners and to the public. So this is not out of the ordinary for how we do projects.
09:30:37 Right. And a quick review of the 21 million dollars study that. Is not simply a renovation of the existing facility to just replace deficient.
09:30:49 Rebar or pumps or what have you. The 21 million involves an expansion of the pool and an extension of the building.
09:30:59 Okay. To make it regulation length. Yeah. So the increased cost in the 21 million has to do with the additional amenities that would be provided.
09:31:09 By network to make it regulation so that schools can use it for a competition take part in the. District.
09:31:19 Big grab. Finneapolis. Right. I mean, I have one possible suggestion.
09:31:29 I'm sorry. Nature of our job. We can't really talk about this offline or anything, but I mean, what about shaking up who's on the steering committee as we go forward?
09:31:39 I mean, I feel like Heidi is really, you know, devouring the research, would you be?
09:31:45 Amenable to that? Yeah, and I think there's a big question as to what is the next step with the staring committee too.
09:31:53 And that's you know, part of the. Kind of next steps. We haven't we haven't discussed what's next.
09:32:01 So I don't know that the steering committee as is going to continue or if we want to change the.
09:32:06 Kind of the way in which the partners are organizing themselves. So certainly willing to entertain that.
09:32:13 Yeah, I'm sorry, volunteering. You, I'm still the biggest list of committees.
09:32:19 So I'm, to take on another. Based on the public comment received, someone finally realized how much.
09:32:26 We can't focus on the 30 things that we're responsible for that I'd be reticent to take on another thing.
09:32:35 Kate's been doing a good job and I'm just asking questions because this is the only time I have to ask them so.
09:32:39 I feel like You know, you should. If there's if there's a proposal to change the way that it's going or to shake things up or wanting more.
09:32:49 Broader county representation because of the PFD structure. I would be totally open to that, but I would say, you know, stick with it and Let me know if there's a proposal to.
09:33:01 Change the makeup as you just said. And so many of the next steps are in our hands.
09:33:09 So I think this is where a lot of this will play out. Is sort of in the BOCC structure.
09:33:15 But. Yeah, I mean, I think if we could also brainstorm ideas for how that.
09:33:22 You know, what the body might look like going forward that's going to be distilling.
09:33:28 And certainly open the suggestions on that.
09:33:35 Maybe a workshops in order at some point. No, totally. Yeah, kind of working on the system of how we're going to approach it.
09:33:41 I think that's worthwhile and fruitful even if we ended up with the same mechanism. But it feels like there's a lot of public.
09:33:49 Sentiment about this and an emotion I would say as well and so just Taking our time and being methodical is the way that we approach it, you know, even while this the study
is going on and I really do want to know what's.
09:34:01 What's the data that's gonna go into that? Independent financial review. I'm not doing airports or an independent There's a lot in the area.
09:34:11 Yeah, I think one question we should think about too is if there is a. An interest in exploring a port Hadlock site.
09:34:22 What does that look like? Who's going to fund that? You know, what's the Shelley's right at the city would definitely not pay it $400,000 supposed to be for a $48 full.
09:34:31 I'm presumably, although we could say, Hey, this was a regional project. Oh, we just think it was the right.
09:34:39 Yeah, I mean, those are important questions we need to be, having as a community and you know, the steering committee as well.
09:34:48 So. I am meeting with John Moore at lunchtime today and this is top of list for next steps and.
09:34:57 Certainly carry that message forward. We're ready for kind of figuring out the. The how we're gonna, where we're gonna go from here.
09:35:08 Yeah, anything else Mark you want to add? That's a pretty good load. Alright, after 9 30, so.
09:35:20 Public comment is closed. Let's take a look at the. Consent agenda. Sir, I closed public comment.
09:35:33 Were you hoping to provide public comment? Are you here for one of the hearings we have later this morning?
09:35:38 Yes. Alright, okay, I'll go ahead and open it back up and you're welcome to come up and speak for up to 3Â min.
09:35:49 We do have a hearing later on the shoreline master program. Okay, great. It would be best to save that for the hearing if that's okay, which, that starts at 1030.
09:35:59 All right, we have a consent agenda in front of us and maybe I'll just mention at 1015 we have a short hearing on an emergency supplemental budget extension.
09:36:11 Followed by a much meteor 1030 Shirley Master program. Curing but We have time to get through our consent agenda.
09:36:20 Anyone have any? Questions, comments to call out. Good stuff, you know, I'll say as I do every time I feel like we can.
09:36:30 Move the 25% discount on food permits for nonprofits to an administrative action that I'm fine yes I reminded Apple that she was to do an ordinance change and that is now on
the schedule hopefully for February.
09:36:46 Great. And other than that, you know, Good stuff. Great to see the funds going to Caswell Brown from the Housing Fund Board and And the Kon continues to grow.
09:36:59 Okay. No. I move to approve and adopt the consent agenda as presented today. I'll second.
09:37:09 Right? Any further discussion? All those in favor please indicate by saying aye. Alright.
09:37:16 Aye. A consent agenda is approved. Alright, let's do some commissioner briefing before our 1015 hearing.
09:37:25 You don't want to look back at last week. Sure. I can go. Let's see.
09:37:33 Calendar. For a short week. We're with you guys on Tuesday. At the Housing Fund Board special meeting on Wednesday.
09:37:46 Appreciative to have the 2 members reappointed. Vicky and Peggy, who contribute a lot to that group.
09:37:51 Sad to say, we still could not just spend all the money because we only had one application for half of it.
09:37:57 A little surprising. A lot of work last week on the recompete grants. So we had our first, but not our first, a continuing strategy meeting with the compete coalition on Wednesday.
09:38:11 Mike Friends, the Calm County Commissioner assigned is the chair and I'm the vice chair and we're.
09:38:16 Working on expanding the coalition so invitations have gone out to all 4 cities in the 2 counties as well as I think the whole tribe Maria who was at our community conversations
has expressed interest in coming in.
09:38:30 And then both ports and then.
09:38:35 Y.M.C.A. for childcare. We're still kind of working out that governance structure a little bit at this time like the Wooden Boat School that has a project on our phase 2 list
has not been.
09:38:47 Invited to be on the coalition but will be invited to be like a project manager. There's a We compete coordinator is a required position that is now posted on Flowon County's
website and has you guys gotten the, yeah, yeah, know any.
09:39:05 Qualified people would be great to get someone in that role as soon as possible. The $500,000 comes at the end of January and a meeting on Friday as well with.
09:39:17 Mark and Josh and Amanda talking about how we're going to spend the 60 K of that 500,000 that's towards the Glen Cov readiness basically.
09:39:28 A lot of that money goes to the recipe coordinator. We'll start to be able to spend it out in January and I think the 3 things that we Josh is going to revise the scope of work
that I drafted.
09:39:40 But essentially we're going to use it for public outreach. For developing an agreement between the city of Port Townsend and Jefferson County.
09:39:52 And one other thing. The actual development. I forget the third thing, but yeah, working that how does that nest with also the pip funds that could go towards developing specific
infrastructure design and feasibility but this will largely go towards
09:40:12 Outreach, I think. Consultants that are lined up. Oh, the I think Josh talked about maybe none of the consultants that we have would be absolutely appropriate.
09:40:24 So maybe an RFP for who would do that specific planning work. But had lots of meetings. We also had 2 recompete webinars on Thursday.
09:40:35 After I went to the EDC meeting and great to be part of that group and then Sandy and I left halfway through to.
09:40:43 You have to go sit on the first few webinars. And it's a very strange.
09:40:49 Like they really are asking for a lot of advocacy about the recompete grant from the participants, which was something interesting, you know, like they talked a lot about.
09:41:01 And about how we want to help. There's lot of technical assistance grants that are actually or technical assistance.
09:41:05 We're having a meeting with our recipe project manager. There's like 4 assigned around the country.
09:41:12 This week and it's a real 2 way street like tell us what's what needs to be adjusted.
09:41:19 They even talked about housing a little bit and about how yeah, recognizing that this is a new program.
09:41:26 Tell us how we can improve it as we're going along. So it seems like a very flexible program perhaps that has a lot of I don't know.
09:41:35 Political, well, that's to do with the budget being negotiated in DC right now because those funds can be clad back.
09:41:44 Yeah. From chips and science unlike bipartisan infrastructure. So, trying to really make the case for the value of those dollars.
09:41:52 Right. Or you can see in the distribution of where they were awarded even. I mean, a lot of projects in the Midwest and everything.
09:41:59 So it's, it's definitely a political animal, this, Grant, but Feeling good about our chances still, you know, one of like I said we were one of 22 out of 565 but actually there
were 240 phase 2 applicants and a lot of just we're looking for the strategy grant.
09:42:19 So we actually did better getting the strategy, the strategy grant dollars than we did with phase 2 invitation.
09:42:25 But still less than 10% got through and it looks like, you know, up to 50% might get through now.
09:42:30 So we're Yeah, positioned well. That's going to be a very involved.
09:42:37 And very dynamic process as we go forward. So great to have Amanda on the team. She's doing really, really good work.
09:42:43 Kind of. Bringing different, players together and we're, already really well with the ports.
09:42:51 Yeah, I mean, you have to port about recompete on Thursday or Friday morning as well.
09:42:54 And. You know, I think that we recognize that we are the coalition as a team and within that team, Jefferson County needs to be a.
09:43:05 A team with a vision. So just the same way that we're trying to look for a Concise narrative for the whole application.
09:43:13 We're also looking to make sure that Jefferson County is moving. In one way, which your longboat, metaphor.
09:43:20 We're all pulling in the same direction. Oh, yeah. We're gonna try to adopt a Heidi's metaphor as our, 10 ores.
09:43:30 Yeah, it sounds like a work is there any. Efficiency to be gained by like. Weaving in.
09:43:38 Some of this work into the EDCs or the NODC or some of the existing.
09:43:43 Bodies so that there's, yeah, I don't know, I just, it worries me that it's both ways and we're trying to you know like the BDA was talking about braiding other funds together,
you know, the same way that we're doing with the Piff and everything is really valuable.
09:44:01 And I think one of the things that we're trying to do as a group is making sure that the work we do on this isn't wasted that it can move these projects forward, you know, or
getting ready even if we don't get those phase $2.
09:44:13 So trying to make the work. You know, it's on benefit. Yeah. And I would just add that Amanda, Amanda, reached out to me about.
09:44:23 Forestry. Like a forestry subgroup in terms of workforce development and so She and I have convened a meeting with the EDC, Cindy Brooks and.
09:44:35 Scott Freeman and Mallory Weinheimer and Cory who has the sawmill to talk about what infrastructure is needed there and kind of what what their business plan is and how maybe
business planning for that.
09:44:49 Forestry cohort could be part of this. So, yeah, I mean, a man is doing great work and, and, you know, I'm hopeful that we can move the ball on some of the stuff that.
09:45:00 Has been has been talked about in multiple conversations around the community for a long time. How can we bring that energy together and focus it with this opportunity?
09:45:12 And I think that Amanda's doing a good job of being the the for that. Probably.
09:45:21 And natural resources and maritime are kind of the 2 themes that we're pursuing. Also we heard from EDA was that Hmm, don't change the projects too much.
09:45:28 You know, which was something that we've kind of gone back and forth and not had really clear information on before, but they reserve the right.
09:45:35 So like they, the program, the, the grantees were chosen because of the programs as well.
09:45:43 You know, it's like there's there's not just, okay, now start again.
09:45:46 But they also reserve the right to select or deselect specific programs within a particular grant application and say this, this, this, they're worthwhile, this one not worthwhile.
09:45:58 So we'll see if they actually do that, but it seems like it just it's a very dynamic process.
09:46:02 So. Well, a natural resources and maritime are fairly broad. Yeah. Yes, they are.
09:46:09 So yeah, more work to come on that, but yeah, I had. Literally.
09:46:15 5 out of 6 meetings last week. About that. KPTZ. Cindy Brooks join me on KPTC on Friday for the County Connections and we talked about it as well.
09:46:24 And played out she chose the song it was 30 reasons by by the poker dogs which is like a polka no, they're very, they do a lot of pokas.
09:46:37 It's like, it's very, I could I could have chosen the band, a lot of banjoes and kind of you know poke a poker style.
09:46:46 And, kind of, you know, poke a poker style. No, Cindy is mute.
09:46:49 30 reasons. She thinks it inspires her to think about it's kind of. I'm setting goals and everything and it's about how it's hard to get off the couch and so she thinks about
the pegs, the prime age employment gap.
09:47:01 We usually call the people that are in the prime age employment gap, himself. So she thinks about them when she hears that song.
09:47:11 It was evocative to me too. Also had my first Jefferson County AI salon on Thursday.
09:47:22 I think it was good. We have 8 people from around the county and we just got to together on zoom and our icebreaker was just sharing how I've used it or not used it.
09:47:34 The pursuit of our county jobs. I did my little presentation from school which was basically my literature review of AI after the date and then I proposed a an AI policy for
people to review so we're gonna meet next month if it continues to adjust date and improve we'll have a policy that we can run through.
09:47:54 And part of that policy suggests an AI review committee and so that group could turn into an AI review committee that this kind of helps us.
09:48:05 Stay abreast of how Generative AI is gonna be used within the county. Outside of the county that interfaces with the county and it's, we talked a lot about risks and opportunities
challenges and opportunities you know.
09:48:22 Lot of concern about OPMA and how like if you use AI to, you know, as an example, scrape your emails to be responsive to public records requests.
09:48:34 You are creating a new public record and creating that and doing that research. So it's just like it couldn't be a slippery slope with some things and cause more work as well
as less.
09:48:45 I did a little bit of reading myself on AI in the last week. So everyone. Yeah, I think it was in the New Yorker.
09:48:51 I saved it. I've set it aside. And I put it with your name on it, but.
09:48:54 It was saying it was a bunch of people talking about how they're using AI and and people in over the course of this article generally feel like It's good for our first draft
of written materials, but when you try and get it to like compile a data or, you know, give you a summary of data or it often comes up with errors.
09:49:18 Not very truthy. Yeah, yeah. Big copyright stuff too, you know, New York Times, suit open AI about, using training their models on New York Times.
09:49:28 Lots gonna come out. Copy that stuff, you know, among the top of it. I did notice the National Association of Counties Conference in DC next week has a section on AI for counties.
09:49:48 Maybe, maybe, maybe. Can I just send my AI bot to take notes? Maybe. Can I just send my AI bot to take notes?
09:49:53 And then I could rely on those notes. So yeah, a lot of recompete all week.
09:49:59 Met the new ED of the food bank as well. Had lunch with Patricia and she's great the first, you know.
09:50:05 Real staff member basically of the Jefferson County food banks. And with you know Shirley's retirement at the Port Townsend one I mean there's there's gaps and there's a lot
of issues going on.
09:50:16 The We'll see in food bank construction is going, but. Maybe as one more 0 than they were expecting when they started that project.
09:50:25 So a lot of scope creep. I'm just naturally in building. Let's see.
09:50:32 And then the village council meeting. I rushed in and out of. But, everything moving along there.
09:50:41 And that was my week or the high points.
09:50:44 Short week for me. Even shorter than your guys this week, cause I took Friday off, but I.
09:50:54 Tuesday evening after our BOCC. Meeting I attended the Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee meeting and it one day I don't know if I mentioned to you guys that's really
exciting to me is we've formally added a youth seat.
09:51:08 The MRC. Do you have someone in the UC? Not yet, but it's pending.
09:51:11 So it's an exciting order. It doesn't have to be shorter. They are tight restrictions, Greg.
09:51:18 So Gordon and I will be looking for youth representatives and the rest of the MRC members to join us and we had a One of our interns was made a presentation and Ask him, how
would you reach out to?
09:51:30 Youth to fill the scene, social media. Social media is the answer to, you know, where how youth are communicating.
09:51:38 You probably know more about this. I don't, they're fickle. They, you know, they're, they're using some social media we've never even heard of and by the time we heard of it
it's pass it.
09:51:49 Right. If once become the lead. Exactly. Yeah, I thought it was cool.
09:51:56 And I got a discord channel, but oh, that's so old. Yeah. So anyway, good MRC meeting.
09:52:00 And then Wednesday morning, I did it. A walk and talk with Aaron Berg in the port and Just, the ports.
09:52:08 Oh, they're, they're always great because I think everyone knows by now that the Boat Havens one of my My favorite place is in the community.
09:52:19 And so walking around is always. Fun there for me and I was asking them what's new in the port and had heard at the MRC meeting that the port was going to be doing.
09:52:27 Booie tests for some of the boats that are in the the harbor down there. Which is basically both of them and sitting in the harbor and not being used as boats.
09:52:37 You know, saying can they still get out to a boo and back. Oh, and then, okay, liverboards or was?
09:52:44 No, they're just there. Okay. So maybe actually asking them to relinquish their slips.
09:52:48 And I guess this has been done in a number of other marinas around Western Washington, but, are probably around the country. I'm sorry.
09:52:59 The test is a number of other marinas around Western Washington, but, are probably around the country. I'm sorry.
09:53:02 The test is can you get your, this thing that's in Washington, but, are probably around the country. Oh, I'm sorry.
09:53:05 The test is can you get your, And our boats can't pass the swimming pool. That's the communities fair warning that the port, you know, if you get a notice, yep, you got to move.
09:53:11 So I'm sorry, your bush. I'm your boat can move under its own accord. Anyway, lots going on down in the port.
09:53:20 It's always fun to see it. It's not full right now. And I, you know, did ask for updates on the.
09:53:28 Sims Gateway project and it's still PD first port second, you know, the next work needs to be undergrounding the electric and I don't have a clear sense of the time the timeframe
for that, but.
09:53:42 We said goodbye to dear Troy server, middle of the day. Talk about a community servant for most of his career.
09:53:52 Sad to see him go, but. Glad to have Gordon with us in the courthouse now.
09:53:57 And then Thursday morning I went to my first meeting of the Olympic area on aging, council of governments and.
09:54:06 They welcome me warmly and I'm now our person there. So. Seem like a good group and it was mostly if, you know, first meeting of the year approving a lot of contracts and I'm
gonna meet with, Commissioner Osias next week.
09:54:24 To talk to him about a couple of forestry and O 3 A and other boards that we share. Oh, that's changed too.
09:54:32 Randy Johnson. I just say I think it's interesting that until very recently we all all 3 of us had aging parents in the county.
09:54:42 We're all interested in the last. I know my parents are still aging. Yeah. Let's see.
09:54:57 Then I had a call about the Northland store and DCD and trying to help them navigate the communication channels there and it sounds like.
09:55:08 I just patched, I patched, one of the staff over DCD and on a call I was having with Jim Narn.
09:55:14 I'm like, let's just ask. So Greg Ballard, I'm like, can I patch you into this call?
09:55:20 Okay, they pick up the phone on my answer. They do it worked. And so, you know, they got a meeting at a meeting the next day and now they have a path forward.
09:55:26 So I was relieved to help. And stick that wicket. Setting setting up an expectation by talking about it here.
09:55:35 And then I did miss. Did you go to the Salish? . So meeting on Friday There was.
09:55:45 I sent you the agenda. Did you? Yeah. Okay, well.
09:55:48 I will attend the next one. I did not attend, no.
09:55:54 There was. I swear I looked in the first one on the calendars February and then. No, I sent you an email about it.
09:56:02 That's okay. I did not go. So I did not attend that even though I gained that seat last week I did not attend that first.
09:56:12 Did not say you didn't send it.
09:56:15 Okay. That's it for me last week. Alright. I had a busy week.
09:56:23 Obviously off Monday with you and Tuesday. Wednesday I rejoined the Governor's round table on the riparian work group.
09:56:32 Again, this is trying to come to some consensus on. Hi, either voluntary or regulatory frameworks for riparian areas and Was that terrible meeting for me to rejoin, even though
this is the first of a new series.
09:56:49 So I missed series 2 when I was out last summer, but this was all.
09:56:56 Technical habitat biologists and it was like a it was a 2Â h meeting and it's like all totally over my head.
09:57:07 So good to be reminded that we're very lucky to be. Totally over my head.
09:57:17 So good to be reminded that we're very lucky to be surrounded by scientists who love that is site specific tree hides still one of the sticky wickets.
09:57:22 I have a whole conversation. Yep, yep and disagreement as to. Where you know WDFW considers that best available science.
09:57:29 Other agencies don't so it's yeah and whether that should be the regulatory yeah prescriptive regulation or not so still a lot of disagreement and you know, with each series
more and more.
09:57:46 Stakeholders come out of the woodwork. So there's a lot of participation from egg, all the, you know, potato commission and the dairy commission, federation, and you know, just
get more and more representatives from from egg concern that it will head in a regulatory direction.
09:58:01 Which makes consensus more typical. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, so it probably be some dissenting. Or Yeah, number of opinions that come out of it.
09:58:10 Also attended Troy's servers farewell party here, much well deserved retirement.
09:58:16 Housing fund board special meeting Greg mentioned, right, able to distribute. Good chunk of our remaining funds.
09:58:24 We'll be glad to have them roll over to next year. And we have. Projects in the pipeline for those dollars.
09:58:31 It's prep work for my board of state. Board of Health meeting, which is Wednesday and Olympia.
09:58:39 So getting ready to. Do the hearing on the new septic code. Big deal. That's exciting.
09:58:46 Yeah. Yup. And, had a transit advisory group meeting and, really glad we have one new members in attendance.
09:58:55 And He's been a transit advocate, mobility impaired, transit writer. So really valuable to have his input.
09:59:05 Thursday morning took a call, Pewdetown Partnership, in my new role as the vice chair there, I participate with the Tribal Co-management Council.
09:59:17 So. Now as we know, tribes can manage all the natural resources. In the state and so.
09:59:24 Mostly listening in in parts I was driving, but. You know, new to that structure and learning how to, how to work most constructively with the tribes at the state level is new
to me.
09:59:40 Let's see. Calendar still a little bit of a mess then, was down at Wassac Association of County for the rest of the day, long day.
09:59:50 Getting ready for session, which is being gaveled in, as we speak. So first legislative steering committee meeting and not sure how where we'll build into the agenda legislative
updates, but that's probably something we should think about.
10:00:07 And I have some updates there, but maybe we'll hold off on it. For now, or see how much time we have.
10:00:14 Friday had a good meeting with Josh Peters on number of things SMP, some legislative items.
10:00:24 Fair grounds executive committee meeting. Always any number of exciting things happening at the fair.
10:00:34 To troubleshoot had a good meeting with Wendy Davis. Kenny communications. And then went to the Centrum Open House at Fort Warden really, great to see.
10:00:45 The new building and the new KPDC studio. Have you guys been down there yet?
10:00:50 I've been down there last year. Yeah, yeah, it's a cool, cool space.
10:00:58 Yeah, do you do? Are radio shows from there now? No, they're not broadcasting at the recording there, but not broadcasting.
10:01:01 But it is impressive. Oh, it's a nice space. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I'd see it throughout, but like it's now.
10:01:06 All built out and just really exciting to see. So, I mean, that the whole building, sit 305.
10:01:12 Is, impressive and, Just an FYI. It sounds like the Yeah, the business models at the fort are struggling and, you know, it's been.
10:01:30 An experiment and tenuous all along and continues to be. And so, something to. And the hope was really getting longitudinal investment from those tenants would.
10:01:42 Allow them to invest more, right? Yeah, yeah, but it's interesting. There's a lot of parallels with the fair grounds too.
10:01:48 Like tenants leases generally don't cover both operations and capital needs and so you know they're just there need to be of other revenue streams and having those be consistent
and year round is a huge challenge.
10:02:07 So especially with costs increasing and utilities, you know, those buildings that we're not. Built well to begin with.
10:02:15 Surreal challenge. So, Just stay tuned, something to be aware of. There's.
10:02:22 You know, nobody wants the fort to fail or shudder or go back to how it was.
10:02:28 Previously, but it's not, there's not a clear path for how that to be successful.
10:02:36 That, that was my long week. So it is 10 o'clock now. I'm going to need a quick bio break before our.
10:02:47 Our 1015 hearing but maybe not that long is there any interested in talking about legislative stuff for 5 or 10Â min.
10:02:55 Yeah, let me see. Yeah, and we haven't done calendar in course as well. Right. You can do that. Yeah.
10:03:00 Either one. We could look ahead. Might be a just a rate amount of time. It seems like the right amount of time though.
10:03:07 5Â min or. Yeah, 5 or 10. And then we can do calendaring.
10:03:13 Sure, I'm sure that your worlds are being inundated with various legislative things as well.
10:03:23 I'll start with the Association of Counties. Probably the most time sensitive one. Said, Josh has probably kept you in the loop with this UGA swap bill.
10:03:38 And sounds like Association of Counties will be supporting that and. You know, it's interesting.
10:03:45 We aren't quite sure where that bill came from because it seems like it was made for us for this timing but the senator knew what it's it's clarifying the swap rules right I'm
fine.
10:03:58 I can't. Yes.
10:04:01 I'm not sure exactly what it's. Changing. I think that it makes it part of the annual review process.
10:04:09 Of, of the count plan instead of needing to. It does have something to do with the Countywide planning policies.
10:04:18 So I think there's a little bit of confusion. And as our attorney pointed out, it changes one part of GMA, but not another parts would be in conflict.
10:04:28 So there's another section that would need to be revised. So it's still very much.
10:04:31 Remember it is 58 34. Yeah, so we will. Likely be needing to provide input on that in.
10:04:42 Various ways. Like I think Josh is probably in a good position to provide some of that technical input as well as Barbara Ehrlichman.
10:04:52 But as Josh says we,
10:04:56 It should be streamlining, not making more complicated. That's great. The way it's currently written, it's it's not entirely clarifying.
10:05:12 See. Already been 600 as of Thursday 600 bills have been prefiled. And that isn't even necessarily all the ones that carried over from last year.
10:05:23 So yeah, Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. the North Olympic Legislative Alliance, there.
10:05:36 Top priority bill is for this data sharing. For economic development purposes requiring state agencies to report their data in a consistent timely fashion and that bill has
a hearing on Thursday.
10:05:53 So. A couple of folks, perhaps myself included, will be testifying on that. So maybe I'll keep that, level.
10:06:04 Yes. And, Colleen, Mackayer largely wrote the bill and. Senator, excuse me, representative Chapman is.
10:06:13 Sponsoring it and Senator Van Away has a companion bill in the Senate so we've got good support on that locally.
10:06:25 A couple of other things that I heard about in the last week was at the O 3 A meeting there's a nutrition bill.
10:06:26 It's also being sponsored in the house by Chapman and in the focus, on senior nutrition, but.
10:06:37 That's something I guess I've been trying to get past for a number of. Also I saw that the rewrap build that dropped on plastic packaging.
10:06:47 So they're moving and trying to move that forward again. There is septage capacity funding. I don't think it made it in the governor's budget, but it's, One of their top 3 priorities.
10:07:00 So we'll hope to get that threaded in and I think there may be actually a lobby day coming up that Pinky and I go down for to talk to our delegation about that subject capacity
issue.
10:07:16 There are in the governors budget, there's funding for 5 additional trustland transfer projects.
10:07:21 None of them being in Jefferson County, but it's the balance of the remainder of the legacy TLT list.
10:07:27 So it's great that it came up in a supplemental session and that we could start the next biennial funding round with a full new list of TLT projects.
10:07:38 And take care of these ones that have been literally hanging chads for some of them. So those were 3 things that I just.
10:07:46 I'm a legislative friend. I can share. Thank you. Great.
10:07:51 Have a couple more I could mention. Nope. Alright.
10:07:55 The governor's budget did include. Additional 10 million dollars for corrections training. So, you know, we have certainly experienced this and statewide huge problem.
10:08:10 Corrections officers not able to get through the pipeline. So nice to see the governor's commitment to that and also.
10:08:17 He included the extension of the 90 day Medicaid waiver post incarceration. Yeah, so That it's a bit of an administrative.
10:08:27 Task more than anything to sign on to that federal waiver. There is a Bill Gregg, an AI task force establishing an AI task force, 58 38.
10:08:39 Make recommendations regarding standards for the use and regulation of AI systems. The task force does not include a cutting representative as it's written, so.
10:08:48 Yeah, might be of interest to you. That's how I'm ended. Yeah. The producer responsibility bill that Heidi mentioned, Association of Counties is unlikely to.
10:09:01 Support that which I think is a real shame. But, the rewrap recycling one.
10:09:06 Yeah, given that, I think it was wrapped before. So that was really bad. Yeah.
10:09:14 Given that the Association of counties doesn't have a legislative agenda that frees up. Our county to take a position on it that might be separate from.
10:09:22 Wash X position, I cannot do that unfortunately as, yeah, so, we can. Yeah, exactly.
10:09:31 I think we good for, us to stay in touch with Al on it and I mean I'll get updates on it.
10:09:38 Touched by it last time, right? I mean, like we're small enough that impacts of it. I mean, like, we're small enough that impacts of it.
10:09:47 It almost feels a little. Yeah, I can check out the way and the way it's been rewritten though.
10:09:50 The way it's been rewritten though I think is would be beneficial. That was the part of the intention, right?
10:09:54 Yeah. The, the way it's been rewritten though, I think is would be beneficial.
10:09:56 That was the part of the intention, right? Yeah. So, yeah. And just more funding to support.
10:09:57 Is there real challenges associated with? Rural counties, especially for it. So this named after all the ferries that have been rewrapped with Coca-cola merchandise.
10:10:10 Lastly, there is a rank choice voting bill. Oh, that must make you happy. It does.
10:10:15 And but it does not make much of legislative standing committee happy. So we'll see about that. Another public records bill that was largely behind to eliminate vexatious and
harassing public records requests.
10:10:30 D and disincentivizing. the kind of benefit that some people get from you know, large financial settlements for public records.
10:10:40 Okay. Oh, there is a, a bill that would clarify. That point 0 9 funds, our PIF funds.
10:10:49 Can be used for nonprofits and land bank owned property for workforce housing. So as it's written now.
10:10:56 Those funds can only be used for workforce housing publicly owned. Facilities so that it would expand it to not available.
10:11:04 L, it's a land bank. I'm not sure. I have to dig into it.
10:11:09 I don't know. It's 1987. Although most land trust would be interesting to know. It's 1987. Although most land trust would be nonprofits.
10:11:18 It doesn't apparently there is a a lammered bill that was prefiled, but I cannot find it.
10:11:26 So. That's, I think that's a. Primary ones for now, so I'll be in Olympia every other week for 2 days.
10:11:36 Starting now. But only for 2 months, which is nice. Right. Good good.
10:11:41 Yeah. Seems I'm optimistic about the this lead so far. Good, me too.
10:11:47 That's although there's only 2 3 weeks for. For bills to be heard and committee to get voted out of committee.
10:11:56 It's a very Like it's gonna be all about what gets a hearing and very limited time to do that.
10:12:02 Yeah, so your optimism might be lessons in 3 weeks. Okay, can we do a quick bio break?
10:12:13 We'll come back at 1015 for our short public health hearing. And then our 1030 hearing on the SMP, which I'm guessing many of you are here for.
10:12:24 Quick recess.
10:15:55 Yeah, I used to sit on one of those balls. Oh, yeah. And they were good.
10:16:02 Not like they were good. But then I if it wasn't during zoom time, but if it had been during zoom time, it would have been.
10:16:07 Hello, this makes people see sick. Yeah. Okay. Just make sure.
10:16:17 Okay.
10:16:20 We're coming back into session. Sorry, I need to stand back as bothering me. I'll be up and down a little bit.
10:16:28 So we have a hearing for an emergency supple. 2023 budget appropriation and extension for fund 127 with public health.
10:16:38 So who am I handed it off to? Hi. I'm Jen Mitchell, Finance Manager for Public Health.
10:16:44 And I'm Apple Martine. I'm the director at Jefferson County Public Health and our deputy director, Vernica Shaw, could not make it today.
10:16:55 So we are here today to represent the situation going on in public health and we first and foremost extend our apologies for the oversight that we made and then the sort of
abrupt need to do an emergency, emergency request here at the end of December.
10:17:08 So we're going to talk a little bit about sort of what happened that caused it and then you got some documents in front of you with the numbers.
10:17:17 And essentially I wanna just. You know, sort of state the obvious, which is that we should have gotten a fourth quarter appropriation in for this and that by and large covers
the medical benefits that got drastically increased over this last year with the increase in our salaries.
10:17:35 And there was an administrative sort of communication error that happened in our own team that we get that oversight. So we talked with you all about this about 2 Fridays ago
in anticipation of today's meeting.
10:17:48 And Veronica is not here as she was then, but I brought Jen and I wanted to have Jen sort of explain.
10:17:52 What it is that we intend to do to make sure that doesn't happen in the future is something that I don't know has ever happened in public health history, maybe once in the past.
10:18:03 Yeah. So it is very rare and we do apologize. Maybe if I'm just while there's a break I'll go ahead and open the public hearing and we will have an opportunity for the public
to provide testimony.
10:18:14 Only on the issue at hand here we do have a hearing next for the Sherland Master Program.
10:18:19 So, Mark, do you want to anything? No, I do have on a screen a summary of what they were requesting today, and it was already discussed the personal benefits.
10:18:32 Are the most substantial chunk of the request and then our steadily increasing insurance premiums from the Washington County's risk pool.
10:18:41 Public health share increased somewhat significantly as you can see there. And And so I think the request speaks for itself.
10:18:48 And I think you explanation that that Apple provided regarding what occurred in the department. Says most of what we need to hear this morning.
10:18:57 Unless 10, you got more. I do not have more to speak to our actions going forward though.
10:19:04 We do have a plan in place for better review, more accurate review, and a more regular basis.
10:19:10 So we have been a little,
10:19:14 Behind on our monthly budget reviews with our managers and individual divisions of our department and those are going to begin again starting this month and we will do monthly
and quarterly updates to make sure when those appropriations come, everybody is on the same page.
10:19:32 I want to give a kudo to Jen as she's come into our staff as finance manager of a hole or a vacancy in our staff for nearly the last 5 years though Veronica our deputy director
has also served as our finance manager duly as Jen has come in and gotten situated and dealt with working through the budget this summer, you came in in July, this fall has been around
sort of
10:20:00 coalescing and bridging together all of our, you know, budget and finance data in a way that's more consistently presentable to our division directors and managers so that this
monthly way to do these bottom lines.
10:20:13 And sewing out of budgets is more succinct. We did take kind of a break from doing that in a regular way through the pandemic.
10:20:24 Not that we didn't do it, but it wasn't as formulaic as it had been in years past when we had a finance manager.
10:20:28 So I guess the blessing really is even though we've had this misstep. That we have someone in our staff now who's, responsible for.
10:20:37 Making that transparent and very accessible to our managers so that we can be in better communication with one another overall.
10:20:47 And just to clarify, this is not a request for additional funds. You have these funds. It is simply request for the budget authority to expend them.
10:20:56 Correct. Judy, anything you'd like to add?
10:21:00 Thank you for the explanation. I appreciate it. This too is kind of it is first time it's happened.
10:21:07 It's since I've been here. But I think it just causes us to pause and also make sure even those funds that we normally don't have to pay a lot of attention to that we're looking
more because more money is flowing through them.
10:21:24 And so, I think it's, my part as finance manager for the county, something I'm gonna be looking at a little more closer to those funds that just kind of have a way of taking
care of themselves just to make sure that we don't have to have these emergency appropriations.
10:21:41 So that's something I'm going to be working on in 2024.
10:21:46 Any questions before I open up the hearing? So we did not do a. Fourth quarter supplemental.
10:21:54 So that's okay. Yeah, there was just none at all. I just couldn't remember if there had been any.
10:21:59 Yeah, there was just none at all. I just couldn't remember if there had been any. Bringing that back to front of mind.
10:22:07 Great. All right. I will open it up to the public. There's anyone interested in providing testimony on this issue only.
10:22:17 Please hit the raise hand button at the bottom of your screen or raise your hand in the room here.
10:22:21 I'm guessing many of you are here for the SNP. The huge crowd you guys have.
10:22:29 Okay. Anyone in the room or online wish to provide testimony on this emergency appropriation?
10:22:39 Do one final call.
10:22:43 Right, I will close the hearing and open it to the commissioners for deliberation.
10:22:49 Close testimony rather. Yeah, I don't have a lot of deliberation, you know, is not a time for recrimination, you know, there's not a time for recrimination.
10:22:58 I think just appreciate, you know, there's not a time for recrimination. I think just appreciate, you know, that we caught it.
10:23:00 You guys caught it and you know, I think everyone's kind of on high alert now for the next year.
10:23:05 So no stress from my perspective. I appreciate the way it's been handled, you know, so.
10:23:09 Yeah, just keep working on the processes and I think we will.
10:23:14 Totally makes sense to me and Yeah, yeah, I'm supportive. So I'm happy to, move a resolution.
10:23:23 Is it a resolution? I think so. An order. Emergency, 2,000, and 23, supplemental budget appropriation for fund 127 personal benefits insurance professional services as presented.
10:23:32 Second. Any discussion? I'll just say that, you know, in relatively short time we've seen public health.
10:23:41 Budget balloon through COVID and some of that will be sustained. But, you know, I remember being amazed when it hit the 5 million dollar mark and that was not that many years
ago and we're now over 8 million dollars.
10:23:53 So it's a the complexity that has been added. Significant. So I think that.
10:23:58 Contributes to this as well. Another half 1 million in the Concon today. At my immediately prior to becoming a commissioner job.
10:24:09 I was chief operating officer of the maritime center and we did monthly. Finance check-ins with all of our departments and they were super beneficial.
10:24:17 So I think it's a really, useful practice to get in and look forward to hear how those are going.
10:24:23 Thank you. All right, all those in favor of approval of the resolution. Emergency order, supplemental budget appropriation for fund 127.
10:24:31 Please say aye. A motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you.
10:24:39 Oh gosh, no hearings are so easy. I know, and I'm sure the SNP on well.
10:24:46 I told you more people had things to say. Hey, we've been offered 6Â min before the hearing starts.
10:24:53 At 1030. I can start. Okay. Out of December into January.
10:25:06 So let's see.
10:25:09 Here with you today. Tomorrow I'll be out in the morning. I'm going to a Medicare open house because my husband turned 65 last week and I do all the paperwork in our house so
I am going to learn what I don't know and I do all the paperwork in our house. So I am going to learn what I don't know.
10:25:28 And I. Not yet. And then the afternoon I'll be back in the courthouse and we have the, behavioral advisory committee meeting first one of the year tomorrow.
10:25:41 Wednesday most of the day I'm doing my Washington DNR carbon and forest management work group. It's our third of 7 meetings.
10:25:50 I believe so. It will be interesting to see if we can actually get some rubber on the road this time.
10:25:59 Wednesday evening. I will be attending the Peninsula Trails Coalition full board meeting.
10:26:06 Which has a standing conflict with my Chima and Grange meetings, but I'm just. Juggling those and attending whatever I can.
10:26:16 Thursday morning or Thursday the only There's now beginning a lot of work done because the only meeting I have is in the afternoon, a celebration of Jefferson Land Trusts.
10:26:26 Chimicum Ridge Project, which is a project that was like a seed of an idea when I was with a land trust so many years ago.
10:26:35 And it's come to fruition and they raised all the funds and so they're celebrating the completion of that project and it's.
10:26:42 Super exciting. You're on Parks and Rec now, aren't you? Yeah. There's also a Parks and Rec meeting at 3 30 on the 11.
10:26:51 Oh, it's not on my calendar. They come in like the week before but I thought that we had passed that off but I thought that we had passed that off but yeah we did okay I'm free
that I could attend the parks and record.
10:27:04 Board meeting if the other is the priority right now. So. Well, just. Juggle away.
10:27:12 We'll see what happens. Well, tight. And then Friday morning I am, convening a discussion.
10:27:21 I constituent reached out to me about a super productive. Service, I'm more oriented constituent reached out about hoarding.
10:27:29 And the interest in developing the idea of developing a hoarding task force for Jefferson County. And so pinky and Becca and This constituent and I are meeting to have the first
conversation about what a hoarding task force could look like for Jefferson County.
10:27:47 I know there been a number of. Other attempts at hoarding task force and there have been some successful.
10:27:54 Use of that, isn't it, as a strategy in counties around the state, so.
10:27:58 Dip my toe in that into that pool. Cornated community response meeting, middle of Friday.
10:28:09 Public Land Steering Committee, Federal, NATO, National Association of Counties, monthly meeting Friday afternoon.
10:28:17 And that's my week. Great. Alright. I can be super fast.
10:28:23 With you guys today, do the second half of today from home, cause I have my first in like lab class and graduate studies.
10:28:33 Research methods, the program R, which is a data mining program, open source. So be with you virtually for the second half of the day.
10:28:41 So I can drive down to Olympia for the 6 o'clock class tomorrow meeting with Brent Butler from DCD talk about coordinated water systems and the, Brennan Empower Teams coalition.
10:28:51 Wednesday I have the clean air agency finance meeting and regular board meeting. Oh and I should say I followed up on the ecology.
10:29:01 Study on the port towns and paper mill and a subset of the CDC is doing that study.
10:29:09 It's not been published, but they anticipate publishing it in early, 2,024.
10:29:14 So I'm in touch with Emily, the department of ecology staffer that's associated with that.
10:29:17 2,008 study that has been done that did not. Really have inclusive, results. Give you any indication which, if the report is.
10:29:28 Leaning one way in another. Emily did not have information about the upcoming, I forget what the acronym is, I could find itself, agency of,
10:29:44 It's a long ATDS tomorrow. I can I can find it for later, but. She said right now they've odors aren't necessarily don't have health impacts and I the my basic summation would
be saying no some people are particularly sensitive to them but they haven't and able to document health impacts of the odors of the milk.
10:30:06 They obviously thought there was enough questions that do just. To do more. Onboarding committee with the Board of Health on Wednesday Thursday.
10:30:18 I have the WASSAC broadband advisory committee. We have our individual meeting with our recompete project and analyst on, Thursday.
10:30:27 I'm, I've just signed up for a webinar that Mark forwarded me about industrial areas in Jefferson County and then.
10:30:35 Potentially would do the Parks and Rec meeting on Thursday of the eleventh. Then Friday we have another recompete meeting.
10:30:43 And those are the high points of my week. Okay.
10:30:48 Okay. Alright, I will hold off on doing my calendaring and mark yours as well, because it is 1030.
10:30:58 And we are going to have a hearing and Mark yours as well because it is 1030 and we are going to have a hearing on the shoreline master program, because it is 1030 and we are
going to have a hearing on the shoreline master program.
10:31:08 So sorry, flip in between screens here. Do we bring Josh over? And Brad, there's anyone else?
10:31:13 Ask Josh when he gets here.
10:31:16 That's it. It is exciting to be, finally taking action. I'm gonna say a airline master program is one of the most important pieces of legislation for land use in our very shoreline
heavy county.
10:31:30 The other thing we love most about living here is the incredible natural beauty and access to Justine waters.
10:31:39 Hey, go ahead and open the public hearing. Again, this is on the proposed shoreline master program amendments for the periodic review.
10:31:47 There will be an opportunity for the public to provide testimony.
10:31:52 But first we will have a presentation, short presentation by staff. Okay, there's Josh Josh, anyone else we should be bringing over?
10:32:00 Yes, Lisa Greeder from Berk Consulting. And Amy, sumi from Shannon and Wilson if she's there too.
10:32:09 I know I touch base with Lisa today. I know she's prepared to. To be here with this.
10:32:14 Great.
10:32:15 And Lisa has some slides to share.
10:32:18 Alright, maybe while everybody is getting settled in and welcome to Barbara Ehrlichman, our deputy prosecuting attorney.
10:32:25 Josh, can we talk a little bit about just setting some expectations for today in the timeline for moving forward?
10:32:31 Yes, we can. So at your pleasure, Chair Dean, do you want to go over the process?
10:32:36 First or have the brief presentation to catch everybody up from from Lisa and then talk about the process before accepting comments.
10:32:45 Sure. I think it might just be worth mentioning to folks that we are not planning to take action today.
10:32:52 Just to set expectations accordingly but we're certainly being having holding the hearing but I'll hand it off to you, Josh, and you and your team can.
10:33:02 Can go in whatever order you see fit.
10:33:05 Okay. Let's yeah, let's do that then. Let's talk about the process.
10:33:10 So
10:33:15 So first of all, as we as we know with shoreline planning in Washington state, the final decision on A shoreline master program for local government is actually at the Department
of Ecology level at the state level and that's under the shoreline management act so eventually when we through your action and adopting an ordinance that amends our shoreline master
program takes action then that, that proposal will be sent to the Department of Ecology.
10:33:43 They will have their own public comment period. My understanding is that is a written public comment period before they make their final decision on whether everything that
we've done at the local level.
10:33:53 It's consistent with the Charline Management Act. So that's the step that's going to happen later.
10:33:57 In terms of our steps. Where were at is, we had a planning commission recommendation that we forwarded to the board.
10:34:07 The board decided to hold a public hearing. That is today. We're holding a public hearing to accept public comments.
10:34:11 On both written and verbal about about the proposal as it stands right now. And the port of course could choose to eventually accept this proposal as it is or change any aspect
of it and then meanwhile in the background staff is working on the ordinance that would adopt amendments to the Schorland Master program.
10:34:32 So we're, Barbara is here and we're, we're, a collaborating on that effort and, We think it's gonna take a little time though to put that together and also, because this is
a complex issue with a lot of moving parts and it's we don't know.
10:34:48 Of course, which way the board's gonna go on on several of the issues. So therefore, you know, we're drafting it, but we're getting ready to essentially have that ordinance
reflect exactly what or we think your direction is going to be in terms of.
10:35:00 Of adopting it. So what we're thinking is that Now we worked with Carolyn, of the boards to identify February twelfth as an ideal date to actually have an ordinance ready for
adoption.
10:35:12 And what we were thinking is that, you would. Have, you know, open the hearing today, start the hearing process.
10:35:20 But because there could be changes and we've already spotted some something some technical aggressions essentially that we would like to address as well.
10:35:29 Things that I would I would postulate are not substantive matters but more like consistency matters in code in terms of definitions and things like that that we could add those
to whatever whatever policy direction the board sets in terms of or directs us to to move towards and that way we'll prepare an ordinance and there'll still be opportunity for the public
to comment on.
10:35:52 On the ordinance itself as essentially part of the process. So what we're thinking and certainly open to insights from from Carolyn and Barbara about exactly how to do this
but essentially an option would be that the chair could keep the hearing hoping until all the way until February twelfth.
10:36:10 And that way, we'll, publish the, we'll make the coordinates available to the public as soon as it's ready.
10:36:16 Well ahead of time from February 12 that's why we're sending it out that far. Then that'll just keep the keep the public involved all the way to to the to the very end if that
indeed is the date that the board takes action on an ordinance February, the twelfth.
10:36:32 Also it gives us a chance to for you to schedule time for deliberation like today since we only have this time between now and noon essentially on your calendar, we were thinking
that that would be principally.
10:36:46 A lot of people here.
10:36:42 Time to accept all the comments. I'm not sure how many people are there or how many people were going to get online, but sounds like we'll get a fair amount, right?
10:36:50 So that'll, so I was thinking that you would simply, you could start a conversation afterwards if there's time, but you could start a conversation afterwards, if there's time,
but otherwise today is just listening to what the input is, if there's time, but otherwise today is just listening to what the input is and then we'll schedule time to for deliberations.
10:37:03 That could be Tuesday, to what the input is and then we'll schedule time to for deliberations.
10:37:06 That could be Tuesday, next Tuesday, on Monday being holiday. It could also be the 20Â Si think is the next, regular Monday so we could have deliberations.
10:37:13 We can go back and forth. We can answer questions. We can see if our consultants are available or we can come back to you with responses if they're not available at those particular
times.
10:37:24 And then, meanwhile, we'll be prepping the audience and then we'll.
10:37:24 Draft the audience specific to. Essentially where we think we're going for, a February twelfth decision.
10:37:30 Any questions about that?
10:37:32 No, about. Okay. And I am thinking, Might be nice to provide an opportunity after hearing testimony this morning.
10:37:48 Maybe we'll leave a few minutes before noon to be able to outline any questions. Or follow-up that the commissioners have first directing staff and consultants on.
10:37:57 Excellent.
10:37:57 That's okay with you. Okay, and we are going to get to the staff presentation in a minute, but, would be helpful for me in doing some planning.
10:38:06 Could I get an idea of how many people plan to testify today if you're online, please hit raise hand in the room.
10:38:14 Okay, and. 1112 13. And how many hands?
10:38:26 12 hands up online? Oh yeah, okay. The caller, 25. So, okay, we want to leave.
10:38:37 It's just a little, give you fair warning. Might need to go down to 2Â min testimony if you have 3Â min prepared.
10:38:41 Maybe start crossing stuff off. Sorry. We just want to be sure to hear from everybody today.
10:38:47 Okay, thank you. So Josh, if, let's say we leave an hour.
10:38:54 You could do a little less than an hour. Would, 10Â min and sufficient time for a staff presentation.
10:39:01 I believe so. I've told Lisa and Amy that, you know, we've already briefed you on this.
10:39:06 Overall big picture. So this is just to make sure any, any parties that are new to the process or just to make sure we're on the same page that they said just a few slides right
Lisa so go ahead take it away.
10:39:15 Thanks.
10:39:15 Okay, thank you. Good morning, commissioners.
10:39:25 Yes.
10:39:23 Are you able to see the slides? Okay, great.
10:39:29 Just a brief overview of the purpose. And that the county started this process, and to fulfill.
10:39:36 Stay requirements to do a periodic update. To look at any changes necessary since 2014 so that would be basically anything that's changed in the law or rules.
10:39:51 And then other local circumstances, the county chose to address. And then the county had identified a goal of looking at the changes through the lens of regulatory reform.
10:40:05 And all of this to be done in terms of the capacity and resources as well as legal framework for the county.
10:40:16 So our components. And that Josh and team posted. For this hearing include the revised shoreline master program.
10:40:27 There's been an addendum to accumulative impacts analysis. That ecology requested. When we submit, there'll be an updated periodic checklist.
10:40:40 There's a version online. And then the SEPA review has occurred and we've there's been a revised DNS issued.
10:40:51 And then the hearing comments and responses to the planning commission have been provided to the board.
10:40:58 Josh went over this timeline just but just briefly the county started this process in 2,020 forming a SMP task force.
10:41:12 The recommendations and of areas of focus went to the planning commission. Along with draft amendments. And the planning commission completed their first round of recommendations
and fall, 2,021.
10:41:22 Ecology took about a year to review and return an initial determination of consistency. And the county secured a grant to do more work on the SNP itself plus a shoreline user's
guide.
10:41:34 In the spring of 2023. And there were some draft responses developed over the summer and some engagement in the summer as well.
10:41:43 And then the Planning Commission took it back up and came up with a recommendation. From summer through November and then it went to the board in December at your briefing and
now it's here.
10:41:55 Before you at your caring.
10:41:59 So this reflects what Josh was just mentioning. So this, this may morph a bit as he mentioned.
10:42:07 So today's the public hearing. There's potential for deliberations on the sixteenth or if you choose a different date And then there's a potential for bringing the ordinance
back in mid February.
10:42:19 For for action.
10:42:23 So after your Process is complete through the first quarter. And then as Josh mentioned, it goes to the Department of Ecology through a standard process.
10:42:35 With a state comment period and then ecology determines whether to accept the proposal or require changes. So that's the process side of things.
10:42:46 We wanted to just briefly touch on key issues, which we also touched on in your briefing in December, but we have higher level, overview.
10:42:58 So as we mentioned, we started off with a focus on required and recommended changes that ecology brought back in September, and recommended changes that ecology brought back
in September changes that ecology brought back in September, 2,022 as well as bringing forward the engagement process comments through the task force.
10:43:19 And we had a survey and other avenues for people to make comment. As well as hear the the testimony that went to the Planning Commission.
10:43:27 Aquaculture was one of the key issues. And secondarily, less so, but, more in buoys and marinas.
10:43:36 Generally there we're matching federal and state guidelines. Amy will touch on aquaculture in a minute and then the other category of things for buffer modifications and so
we'll touch on and some of those key changes on following slides as well.
10:43:53 Amy, would you like to speak to aquaculture?
10:43:56 Sure. So kind of moving quickly through it. As Lisa already mentioned, there was a task force convened in 2,020 and the focus at that time as far as aquaculture is concerned
was just to make those minimum.
10:44:10 Requirements necessary to meet state guidelines. And then when it advanced to the planning commission, that's when a larger group of, the public became involved and submitted
a lot of written testimony and oral testimony as well.
10:44:30 Raising concerns about aesthetics, ecological issues, and associated impacts and that sort of thing.
10:44:38 And as part of that process. We receive direction to look at other county regulations around a GUI.
10:44:45 Duck aquaculture in particular and to incorporate Kitsap counties and sort of fill some of the gaps that were perceived in Jefferson County's regulations.
10:44:56 And at that time it was switched so that GUI duck aquaculture, all, aquaculture, whether it was an expansion or a new use, required a standard CUP with a kind of an automatic
hearing.
10:45:11 And then it kind of continued through planning commission in 2023 and addressing those 2022 ecology comments and continuing to receive a testimony and information from.
10:45:24 Neighbors and other property owners as well as industry. Representatives.
10:45:32 So kind of in summary, the some of the more recent input has acknowledged that aquaculture is a water dependent industry and so there is an interest in supporting that.
10:45:45 Aquaculture industry for economic purposes. But still trying to make sure that you know net loss of ecological function standard is still met.
10:45:54 And then also trying to make sure that we weren't having unintentional adverse effects on other types of aquaculture and as we tried to focus in and put appropriate sideboards
around the GUI DACA culture.
10:46:10 And then finally, just I think this came mostly from. Tribes and in industry but just a recognition that the aquaculture is important for local food production and can also
be an element of restoration projects.
10:46:22 For shoreline ecological function.
10:46:26 And so our kind of final approach was to apply a mix of standard and discretionary CUPs for new conversion or expansions of GUI DECK aquaculture depending on the environment
designation.
10:46:41 And that touch point with the environment designation kind of follows a pattern that was recommended by a pattern that was recommended by a Department of Ecology at that time
to acknowledge a pattern that was recommended by a Department of Ecology at that time to acknowledge that certain areas activities in those are.
10:46:54 Have kind of a different lens that we should look at them in in terms of their potential for harming high value areas.
10:47:01 And we created a table of some middle requirements and this was based on I think both tribal and industry input.
10:47:08 That tried to tease out what application requirements were important and relevant for different types of aquaculture whether it was fin fish or gooey duck or other shellfish.
10:47:21 And we did, after a lot of discussion, maintain a requirement to include an aesthetics analysis.
10:47:29 But the whole table of seminal requirements is kind of prefaced by a state that if something is just demonstrably not applicable to a particular aquaculture proposal that that
information didn't need to be included.
10:47:44 And if the county thinks differently than it can, it can request that information.
10:47:51 Thank you. Amy. So the other. Key areas of change were, regarding buffers and nonconforming development or existing lots.
10:48:03 And so just to highlight there's 3 pathways to modifying a buffer. Particularly for single family homes.
10:48:12 You can follow the standard buffer. Or there's a process for reducing or averaging the standard buffer.
10:48:21 That has been fine-tuned a bit, but is, has been in place. And then there's a modest home provision and ecology asked us to clarify the differences between modest home and common
line.
10:48:34 And so in the clarifications we made, we're identifying modest home provisions for non-conforming lots.
10:48:41 And spent some time defining what a nonconforming lot depth was. And then put in some additional parameters about the minimum buffer width.
10:48:54 And retained building and footprint sizes that were in the code. That added some standards around geologic hazards and and enhancing 80% of the shoreline frontage.
10:49:04 Common line, we're clarifying that it's now applicable to conforming lots. Non-conforming lots would follow the modest home provision.
10:49:14 Common line it's meant to accommodate shoreline views. And so we spent some time addressing what are the appropriate standards for if you're matching your, neighbors, existing
homes.
10:49:29 And that you would also have to do the enhancement of 80% of the shoreline fridge.
10:49:35 So these next slides just reinforce what I just. Mentioned. So modest home for non-conforming lots.
10:49:44 This is a standard buffer setback of 150 feet. Modest home would allow you to move closer because your lot depth doesn't meet the minimum lot depth of the zone.
10:49:56 So your home would be closer, but you would. Enhance 80% of the shoreline frontage.
10:50:04 Sure.
10:50:02 And Lisa, can I ask a question? Just. Enhance. What does enhancing 80% of their shoreline frontage?
10:50:12 Yeah, it generally means to, You, you could, improve the, function of the buffer with native plants and Amy can speak to this.
10:50:32 Okay.
10:50:25 We added a provision, a requirement based on some earlier tribal and other agency comments. And discuss that.
10:50:38 Amy, do you want to describe the? The enhancement.
10:50:42 I thought that was for later. Yes, so I think Lisa already said it was it was just a requiring that you vegetate the remaining 80% of the buffer to provide improved shoreline
ecological functions to sort of offset the fact that you are reducing the depth of that buffer.
10:51:02 So it's intended to sort of balance instilled meat, no net loss of ecological function requirements.
10:51:09 And it's focused on budget, pre vegetation or vegetation. Okay. Thanks. Thank you.
10:51:18 Yes, thank you. Common line is again declare to accommodate shoreline views and recognize existing development patterns while still achieving no net loss of shoreline ecological
functions.
10:51:30 So we clarified the text. It's for conforming lots with either one or 2 homes that abut the vacant lot.
10:51:41 You can used to be looked out at homes within 300 feet. We're suggesting shortening that to 150 feet to meet ecology guidance and based on looking at examples sites.
10:51:55 In Jefferson County. Then before they go through the common line provision, they need to go through path one that I showed in that original chart.
10:52:06 Can they meet the buffer averaging a reduction standards? Before they move to the common line provision.
10:52:12 So it's kind of a hierarchy. Try there first. If not, you go down the common line path and you demonstrate it's the minimum necessary and it's it's addressing the need for adequate
views.
10:52:23 And then again, you would enhance 80% of the remaining buffer.
10:52:30 So those are highlights of the major changes. This is just, bringing that one slide back that your processes.
10:52:39 To be complete in the first quarter and and then it would move on to the Department of Ecology.
10:52:47 That concludes our slides this morning.
10:52:52 Thank you. Lisa.
10:52:56 Josh, anything you want to add before I open up the hearing?
10:53:00 Nothing unless or any other questions from the commissioners.
10:53:03 Me clarifying. Kind of specific clarifying questions that could be addressed later, but I appreciate the presentation.
10:53:10 And I'm sure we'll talk about. A lot of these issues later, but I just reading through it again yesterday, you know, some new questions come up.
10:53:18 One is that I saw the price limit on what a substantial development is, followed the state's guidelines to move up to roughly $8,500.
10:53:31 And I was guess I was curious, does that apply to anything like I know that buoys are under this new plan, SDP.
10:53:35 If the buoy cost less than $8,500 would it still require an SDP? I guess I'm just trying to understand that the play between that.
10:53:44 That price limit and SDP a little better.
10:53:49 Amy, do you wanna take that on?
10:53:52 Yeah, I think it if it is underneath that cost threshold, then it would be Charlene exempt. It still would need to meet all of the standards of the SNP though.
10:54:04 So it's not an exemption from, it still would need to meet all of the standards of the SNP though.
10:54:07 So it's not an exemption from compliance just from the SNP though. So it's not an exemption from compliance just from having to pay for that permit and go through that process.
10:54:09 Yeah, and the other thing I would add to that is that that's for. Being exempt from the requirements of substantial development permit or an SDP.
10:54:18 But it's irrespective of, a variance or a conditional use. That's more of a use, requirement.
10:54:27 So that's not, my understanding is that it's really whether your example from SDP and not, conditioning, for variance.
10:54:31 And in Jefferson County, the difference for us is especially if this new program gets adopted at least this section as we've proposed an SDP as a type 2 process which requires
public notice, but.
10:54:45 But not a hearing, that would be a type 3 process. And then, an, an, is a type one process.
10:54:52 But as Amy said, you'd have to. Be consistent with the requirements and there could be SIP involved.
10:54:57 So that would be the wild card and for an. State environmental policy act. Review.
10:55:03 Thank you. I got a couple of questions. We wanna hold off on. Questions? Well, I'm happy to.
10:55:15 That's what I'm trying to think of how to best use our time. So we have an hour today typically.
10:55:20 People are only only testifying once in a hearing, so we're trying to decide how to best use the public's input and when we will close oral comment or oral testimony on this.
10:55:32 I'm happy to defer. I don't think I have any questions that are going to inform the test.
10:55:34 Okay, and we will have a number of opportunities for. Questions for staff, some of which I think we could outline today.
10:55:42 We leave a little bit of time. Like, like, crafting or anything, you know, if you have any questions that we think might need to that.
10:55:49 It would be great to deal with those earlier than, you know, on the day of. A couple of touch points before we get there.
10:56:01 And so one of the questions, in terms of process is, do we want to close oral testimony after today?
10:56:08 Or would we do we want to keep that open? So that people could also testify. When the ordinance comes before us.
10:56:16 Again, that's typically one testimony per person per hearing, although, you know, we're not necessarily tied to that, but be good to be able to tell the public this before we.
10:56:27 Close then if they're close good sense to provide another opportunity. We have we have that to provide when we're considering the ordinance to have.
10:56:37 An opportunity for. Public testimony, but because there may be changes. Between now and then. Yeah, sure.
10:56:49 I mean, you know, on it, but it's fine. What's that? I think you probably know how I sit on it, but yeah, that's fine.
10:56:53 Yeah, what's that? I think you probably know how I sit on it, but yeah, that's fine.
10:57:04 I think, opportunity for the public to weigh in again. Okay. Great. Alright, should we go ahead and take testimony?
10:57:13 Yeah, alright. So the board welcomes testimony from the public. Like I said, you'll have up to 3Â min.
10:57:21 No, excuse me, up to 2Â min. Is the timer can we change the timer to work?
10:57:28 And that is us will be signaling when you're 2Â min is up. For a hearing testimony, you are required to provide your name and where you live.
10:57:40 I think I will alternate between the Zoom room and the room here and I'm gonna I'm gonna alternate between the Zoom room and the room here and I'm gonna I'm gonna go in order.
10:57:46 I'm gonna start in this corner and kind of weave our way through this room and people can be kind of prepared and ready to go as someone's wrapping up on Zoom, the next person
can be up here at the microphone, okay?
10:57:56 I know, we'll need your name and, address. Do you have any documents to pass forward?
10:58:03 Please hand them to me. Also there's callers on the line they'll have to hit star 9 to raise their hands Great.
10:58:10 And if everybody online who plans to testify, could please hit the raise hand button will have a ongoing list for you.
10:58:16 So, I'll go ahead and start. I'm sorry, I won't know everybody's name, but in the purple sweatshirt and then Jonathan Davis, you will be next.
10:58:24 Good morning, everyone. My name is Lisa Carlton Long. I live at 500, and 75, I work for the Steel family that owns and rent Brock Point Oyster Company.
10:58:38 We've been in business since 1921. Myself and the steals have been tracking and engaging the process for months and doing the best we can to keep up with the process and even
as we manage our operations.
10:58:52 We are asking that Jefferson County SNP should stay in line with the conditionally use permits requirements established by the state for going up.
10:59:03 This would mean a conditional use permit would only be required for nuclei duck farms permit. Permit.
10:59:15 Exemptions or conversions would not and would not require a conditional use. Had to go through this sometime ago.
10:59:25 When we did had to make sure that we did not go over the 25% of an already existing older, farm area.
10:59:35 It was, it was a lengthy process and took a lot of time away from other priority projects.
10:59:42 Larger small, big duck areas are not harvested all at once, creating a huge impact on the ecosystem.
10:59:51 It's just like a farmer where we are just like farmers. We rotate out our crops.
10:59:56 Whether it is oysters, clamps, muscles, kelp, or goy ducks.
11:00:01 We don't go out and fire to solve our oysters at once and empty the bay.
11:00:06 We harvest what we can sell. We don't go through a whole acre of goy ducks and harvest them all at once.
11:00:14 We only harvest what we can sell so it doesn't create a huge impact on the environment or the ecosystem.
11:00:24 Since you're down to 2Â min, I'm going to.
11:00:27 Also, there's so many other points that I want to talk about, but I also want to talk about.
11:00:33 The shop fish industry. We are a group of people that are tightly met. And I, this is the reason why I like working in this industry.
11:00:42 I was in the,
11:00:48 Building homes and stuff. The building industry. And if I need a question from any other farmer, they're there for us.
11:01:00 TCSCA, they're here for the farmers. Thank you for your time. I just really appreciate.
11:01:05 The work you're putting into this. Thank you. Give us your written comments too, Lisa, if you want to.
11:01:10 Give those to Carolyn. So we will get them. And as a reminder, please do speaking to the microphone.
11:01:24 So folks at home and the recording benefit from your testimony.
11:01:27 Carolyn, do you want to bring a few folks over? Great. I will still call on you in order, but.
11:01:35 Jonathan, yeah, when. Please, if you're on Zoom, please accept promotion and I will call on you when it's time to unmute and speak.
11:01:45 Anyone online? Please accept promotion so we can have you speak. I'm gonna start, I don't see.
11:01:56 Oh, I'm gonna start with Peter Grero because I don't see our first speaker.
11:02:01 You know, you can unmute and you have up to 2Â min, please state your name and where you live, your dress.
11:02:07 You'll hear a, sound when your 2Â min is up.
11:02:11 Thank you. I live in Port Townsend. I'm commenting today on behalf of the 1,200 members of the North Olympic group of the Sierra Club.
11:02:23 And we have submitted written comments. Which I would appreciate you enter into the hearing record today.
11:02:33 On behalf of the 1,200 members of the North Olympic group, we are requesting that the update of the shoreline master program require a standard conditional use permit.
11:02:43 For all proposals to call. Gooey ducks are tide lands and estuaries of the nucleus of our marine system They are wear ill grass, spawning fish, young salmon, marine birds.
11:02:57 Native selfish crustaceans and an entire food chain interact. Modern geodoc cultivation involves extremely intense use of plastics.
11:03:05 Some 7 miles and 11 tons of tubing per acre. Each tube fast fosters for about 2 years the growth of 3 or 4 GUI ducks wholly our natural density of a very large clan that feeds
on marine organisms.
11:03:23 Circulating in public waters. Then after 5 to 7 years, they're harvested using hydraulic hoses.
11:03:28 That liquefy the substrate down to 3 feet. This liquid liquification also destroys marine life in the tideland.
11:03:37 It's conducted over and over every square foot until every, duck is harvested. Then the whole process begins again.
11:03:45 So we are asking for each proposed site before any permit be issued. These concerns and others deserve a thorough review including the cumulative effects of the proposal.
11:03:58 And the appropriate process for doing this is the standard conditional use permit. I wanna thank you for your time and the opportunity to comment.
11:04:07 It's an important issue to us. And I also appreciate the County Commissioners. Leadership on so many important environmental issues in the past.
11:04:16 Including net pens and preserving our legacy forests. Thank you.
11:04:20 Thank you, Mr. Right, we're gonna get so efficient. Oh, mine is gonna be pretty short and easy.
11:04:30 So, my name is Alex Gallioti. So my name is Alex Gallioti.
11:04:33 I live in Swim, but I'm, I live in Swim, but I'm here representing the Jamestown, I'm here representing the James Sound, S, Tribe.
11:04:36 And I'm an environmental planner for them. I just wanna express my appreciation to the county commissioners and the planning commission for acknowledging and acknowledging and
accounting for the interests of the James Towns Club and tribe.
11:04:53 On the many revisions of the S and P and for implementing many of the suggestions provided by Jamestown staff.
11:05:00 The treaty rights and tribal consultation are well represented and we're supportive of sending this November first version of the SNP along with the November fifteenth planning
commission.
11:05:13 Suggestions to ecology as written. If there's any further revisions, we, yeah, request to be notified, but the tribe is supportive of it as written for now.
11:05:24 So thank you for your time. You. Oh yeah. LIOT Ti.
11:05:32 Thank you. Yeah, thanks. Thank you very much. Alright, so let's go to Bruce Morse.
11:05:43 Hi, can you hear me okay?
11:05:45 Yes, please state your name and your address and you have up to 2Â min. To testify, please.
11:05:48 Okay. Bruce Morris, I live in South Puget Sound and I'm involved with the, Canal Environmental Council.
11:05:56 I support the use of the standard conditional use permit for all new and expansion of GUI dug farming.
11:06:02 As well as the conversion of other shelfish to gooey duck. Each site is unique. But each site is connected to the entire Puget Sound environment.
11:06:13 So you have on record the types of impacts caused by intensive, farming, plastics, use of water canons, exclusion of other marine life, etc.
11:06:23 So I'm not going to go into those details. But, a conditional use, a standard conditional use permit would provide the decision makers with an unbiased accounting of all facts
and involved and a fair and open process.
11:06:37 To allow the the participants, including the voting public. To make the best decision for its citizens. And the health of Puget Sound.
11:06:46 So I encourage you to require the use of the standard conditional use permit. Thank you for the time.
11:06:52 Thank you, Mr. Morris. Okay.
11:07:00 Hello there. My name is Dave Fitzpatrick. I live over on Monday road on Marlowstone Island.
11:07:06 And I'm here to just talk about aquaculture in the county and in the state in general.
11:07:12 And then a few specific points with respect to the SMP. Just to begin, I'll say that over the last few years, we're shut down now because of labor issues and other things, but
we ran an oyster farm.
11:07:24 Over on Maristone that was quite stressful at our peak. We had about a million 200,000 moistures in bags and a bag on bottom approach over there.
11:07:34 It worked very well and we ultimately were sort of crushed by demand, not by anything else along with a little bit of.
11:07:41 You know, labor resource availability. I've learned through that period. Just how important aquaculture is to The food supply and to the environment and I point to Dr.
11:07:54 Ray Hillborn at University Washington Fisheries School has done a whole series of studies over the years pointing out that aquaculture and its ability to produce a pound of
protein for people to eat.
11:08:05 Uses between 2 and 3% of the resources that is required to get land-based protein like beef.
11:08:14 Or you know pork or chicken. You know, they don't have the gas, we don't have to plant corn to feed the cows and so on and so forth.
11:08:21 So it's a very, very. You know, ecologically on the large scale global scale.
11:08:26 Way to produce food and in the process of doing so you know it cleans the water it doesn't really pollute in my estimation and my personal experience in our farm.
11:08:38 We had, if you look at the way oysters filter water every day, we filtered enough water every 2 days.
11:08:44 To float the aircraft carrier the Nimitz. We did that 365 days of the year.
11:08:50 You know, for 5 years. So that's a pretty good thing. You know, for the environment, it works against eutrophication.
11:08:57 And it also captures carbon, cause half of the oyster is the shell and half of the shell is carbon.
11:09:04 And when that's harvested and goes to shore. That's a way to capture carbon for a much longer period than a tree, for example.
11:09:11 Okay. Okay. To say my biggest concern of the several is that we want to eliminate redundancy at the county level with the state requirements, things like having a county level
water quality requirement or study that's completely redundant to what DOE does.
11:09:29 And it's an expensive and burdensome thing for the farmers. I'd say That's my biggest concern.
11:09:36 It's just try not to be redundant to existing requirements. Thank you. That's Patrick.
11:09:42 Miss Olson online
11:09:50 Yes, yes, I'm in.
11:09:47 If you're able to unmute, you have Welcome. Okay.
11:09:56 Hello, my name is Bernadette Clawson and I live at 2460 chick you hold in Seabeck.
11:10:05 I've made some comments before but today I'm speaking as an officer of Hood Canal and your mental council.
11:10:14 And on behalf of over 300 member. Which also live in. Jefferson County. We support a conditional use.
11:10:26 Permit for, I mean, standard conditional use permit for all GUI. DAC application in Jefferson County.
11:10:36 Including expansion and conversion for manuscript shellfish to go.
11:10:42 K. Operation can have a significant impact on the water of Jefferson County. And what canal. Guitar farmer planted with about 43,755 60 PVC tubes per acres.
11:11:00 That is over 100 ton of plastic. Mr. Gavrov already has talked about all the restriction it will imply.
11:11:10 Over the years. But so I will just. I have to mean it's right. You know, Jefferson County residents.
11:11:20 Should have a chance to speak up and be heard before any decision is made on That's what a standard.
11:11:32 Cup is 4. Kids-up and Kalum counties both require a cup to convert from non-Guidoc aquaculture to Buy.
11:11:43 Aquaculture. Jefferson County residents and U-cadar dessert no less.
11:11:47 Thank you. Thank you.
11:11:48 Thank you. Mr. King.
11:11:56 Okay. My name is Gordon King. I live at Bell Street Port Townsend. I've been in the county for 32 years.
11:12:04 My children were born and raised in Port Townsend. I've been making my living from growing shellfish for more than 40 years and proud of the Royal Marine farming plays and sustaining
the economy of rural communities producing sustainable seafood and the efforts the industry has made and continues to make to protect clean water.
11:12:22 Shellfish agriculture provides many real jobs in this county and has done so for over a century. The marine environment is special and valuable to our local community and to
the well-being of our fragile earth.
11:12:34 We need concise and sensible regulations to protect and govern its use. The current draft is an attempt to do so, but the aquaculture section is now verbose, complicated and
repeats requirements already administered by other agencies, both state and federal.
11:12:51 Jefferson's update draft aquaculture section is 16 pages in contrast to Thurston County's 5 pages.
11:12:58 And Mason County 6 pages. I was on the SMP to update task force in 2,020 and have been involved since then.
11:13:07 The county told the update task force that the DOE had requested the counter reviewer's high use compared to other counties of CUPs.
11:13:16 Well, I think the draft, SCMP does not meet the direction ecology task that Jefferson County worth.
11:13:22 To decrease the, to decrease the excessive use of CUPs. It is a version that will still allow some opportunities to farm in our encourage you to pass it through to ecology.
11:13:32 If you're intending to reopen the language, I encourage you to slim down the excessively long aquaculture section by deleting regulations already administered by other agencies
and also reverting to the DCDs.
11:13:45 2,000, and, 21, GUDAC permitting standards have admitted, Stiff, CUPs for new farms and no CUPs for limited expansions or conversions.
11:13:54 For it to find legal and regulatory perspective. I encourage you to carefully read Jesse Denny's letter, letter written on behalf of Taylor Shopish.
11:14:02 Thank you. Give you. Lewis Guetelman. Online.
11:14:14 Hello, can you hear and see me all right?
11:14:16 We can hear you. We can't see you, but that's all right. Go ahead.
11:14:20 Okay, you're missing out on a lot if you can't see me. So, I, okay.
11:14:23 That was.
11:14:24 Okay, sorry, I apologize. Yeah, I just wanna say thanks for letting me join and, yeah, I live here and, I'm in Dover, New Hampshire is where I live.
11:14:35 I'm from Boytowns in Washington. Yeah, as a kid growing up in port towns in Washington, I worked in, shellfish aquaculture and stuff.
11:14:44 Really good to help me learn how mechanical skills and then as I got older, needed to pay a few bills that helped me with that a lot.
11:14:50 Those mechanical skills have helped me to, you know, study physics and. And now I'm studying ocean ocean engineering.
11:14:57 I'm hoping to Ideally returned to Washington state and get involved in working in aquaculture.
11:15:04 I don't know if that's yeah, I'm a little concerned about like some of the permitting load and if aquaculture is really gonna be a good fit for me.
11:15:12 I, yeah, I mean, about the, conditional use permit. I'm a little concerned about that just because look like if you're a, you know, 30 year old, something like me and you're
trying to get involved in aquaculture like.
11:15:23 Maybe if somebody like a large organization is concerned about aquaculture, maybe they would have, you know, better legal resources, more people, more time.
11:15:32 To you know maybe stop you in the conditional use permit so i'm a little concerned about that Yeah, I think.
11:15:40 Yeah, again, you know, Aquaculture is, been.
11:15:47 Yeah it's
11:15:50 Yeah. Yeah.
11:15:58 We can still see you and hear you.
11:16:00 Okay, sorry. Yeah, look, I think, aquaculture, it's, Probably it's like building a house or a windmill or a road.
11:16:09 It's not got 0 environmental impact, but it's probably got like some, but, the question is, is it a better way of producing food than like, maybe higher carbon input like systems
like cultivation or maybe.
11:16:23 You know feeding large mammals and stuff and I think it you know It seems like it is a better way.
11:16:31 And you know, I think is that, is that my time? Okay, perfect.
11:16:37 Thank you.
11:16:32 I'. It is, yet. Thank you very much, Liz. Thanks.
11:16:42 And Jonathan Davis will be online after our speaker in person. Good morning. My name is Ernie Wald.
11:16:49 I'm director of regulatory affairs at Taylor Shellfish in Shelton. I've got some prepared statements but I'm going to be reading those from Jesse Denike who's our general counsel.
11:17:00 In response or follow up to the comments that were already previously submitted by Gordon King. And it goes the GUI get duct specific provisions in the SMA guidelines were developed
before the Washington C Grant concluded its legislatively directed field research program.
11:17:15 At the time, ecology recognized expansions of GUIDE farms or conversions of other shellfish to GUI DUC should not always require a CUP.
11:17:24 The guidelines also do not require a full CUP, even for new, new GUI Duck Farms.
11:17:30 Since these guidelines were adopted, the Sea Grant Research Program wrapped up and the findings indicate that GUIDE farming does not significant affect aquatic species.
11:17:39 Additional subsequent analysis, including the National Marine Fisheries Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service, programmatic consultation for shellfish, farming in Washington
state, concluded that well-managed farms have minor impacts to species in habitat.
11:17:54 Therefore, given research indicates goodacraming has insignificant impacts and it is the policy of the SMA to foster appropriate uses like GUI DUC.
11:18:04 The county should exercise its discretion to allow expanded or converted GUIDE farming without a CUP and new GUI duck farming pursuant to a discretionary conditional use permit.
11:18:14 Thank you for your time. Thank you. You bet. Hey, go ahead, Mr. Davis.
11:18:21 Hi, good morning. My name is Jonathan Davis. I reside at 1 5 4 by small line Bayage Island.
11:18:29 And I have been operating a shellfish. Farm and Thorndyke Bay in Jefferson County since 1990.
11:18:38 I'm also more recently a combined seaweed and shellfish farm off of hoodhead, also in Jefferson County.
11:18:45 I'm I'm testified today just to simply reiterate some of the comments that have already been made regarding the necessity or not of a CUP requirements.
11:18:56 They they seem to me adequate as provided by the state. For and it's it seems redundant and not necessary for expansion or conversions.
11:19:08 I was actually part of the research team that investigated GUI Duck aquaculture back in the day and We as it's been just testified about the 3 Dr.
11:19:23 Providing the system services that are incredibly important at harvest you have a significant amount of carbon and nitrogen that's removed.
11:19:31 They are good for water quality. They filter vast amounts of seawater as you've been hearing.
11:19:38 They are very similar to oysters muscles and clams in that regard. They are ecosystem engineers that that are capable of providing significant ecosystem services to mankind.
11:19:51 On the visual analysis, point that I would just briefly say that The, these, these requirements also seem to be redundant, especially unless perhaps they're in areas of active
residential development.
11:20:07 So in general, I would agree that there are redundancies and unnecessary requirements. That are plant that are planned for incorporation with these new with these new requirements
and that I feel that they're unnecessary.
11:20:23 I've been a marine farmer for 40 plus years and feel that there's a great deal of regulation already put onto shelfish growers.
11:20:33 And that it's it's just not necessary. It's there's actually in my view a social equity component.
11:20:39 Your time is up.
11:20:41 And, I thank you for my comments.
11:20:44 Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Davis. And, we'll go to comment in the room.
11:20:49 Are you gonna go, sir? We go to the background. No pressure. You can also think about it.
11:21:00 Okay, great. And then, Kim Thompson online will be following our in person speaker. my name is Nell Swipple.
11:21:07 I'm the director of, of farming for Taylor Shellfish Farms and I would just like to say that Yeah, it's a extremely heavily regulated industry already.
11:21:18 Any future redundancies I would like to see, you know, minimal or at least a eliminated.
11:21:23 And yeah, it's. A couple acres of Guitar Farm provides. Jobs that provides income, you know, we provide.
11:21:33 Entry level living wage jobs in rural communities. In a way that a lot of industries don't and anecdotally, I've seen a lot of good if it come out of it, both environmentally
and economically.
11:21:47 And, I'd like to extend an open invitation to anybody who wants to see. Well-managed.
11:21:54 At farm that's operate under current regulations and see what the reality is out on the farms. Thank you for your time.
11:22:02 Cheltenham, Washington with 3 lunch road. Yeah. Thank you. Ms. Thompson.
11:22:09 You have 2Â min.
11:22:12 Hello everyone, my name is Kim Thompson. I am the executive director of the Pacific Coast Shelford Schurs Association and we represent Waster Klan, GUI Doc, and muscle farmers
on the Pacific coast with the majority of our membership here in Washington while I am based in Olympia we do have several members in Jefferson County who provide important sources
of well paying jobs and economic activity that help to
11:22:37 diversify and strengthen the local economy. We really appreciate the work that has been put into the document by the Planning Commission.
11:22:44 The current version well complex is workable for the growers and we do recommend that you move forward with the draft as is however if you do decide to make changes we recommend
the following.
11:22:54 Specifically we are concerned about the visual analysis recommendation in the application requirement table. It's part the on page 160 and the track changes version.
11:23:07 As written it is very very subjective. If more prescriptive language is added as a result of additional review, we would request an analysis to review the efficacy of such requirements
and identify solutions that county staff and rows can realistically navigate.
11:23:22 Well, remaining consistent with and not duplicating other processes. Additionally, the conditional use permits should not be required for GUIDA conversions or expansions, given
that the legislative would be mandated, see Grant study and biological assessments conducted by NOAA and the US Fish and Wildlife Service were a best scientific analyses.
11:23:44 They found that GUIDF operations have insignificant impacts requiring these onerous and resource intensive processes are unnecessary and again redundant.
11:23:55 Washington shellfish farmers do provide important economic and job and and economic benefits for local communities. They also provide nutritious food with a lot less impacts
on the environment.
11:24:05 This has been shown scientifically through highly regarded group. Including universities, the Nature Conservancy World Wildlife Fund.
11:24:13 They're also actively engaged in ongoing efforts to support healthy water quality and ecosystems that benefit not just their livelihoods but also the communities in which they
operate.
11:24:23 Can you wrap up, please?
11:24:22 We highly urge you to consider. Yes, we argue to consider the many benefits that they provide to the county.
11:24:31 PCR written comments for more information on existing permitting requirements and our specific requests. Thank you very much.
11:24:36 Thank you, Ms. Thompson. All right, in the back of the room. And online after in person speaker will be Rose.
11:24:46 Hi, I'm Trisha Markey, 1662, Shine Road, in Port Ludlow.
11:24:53 And I'd like to say that both my husband and I support the process. We have both, we're both very concerned about plastic pollution on our tide lands, ill grass and marine life.
11:25:08 We both witnessed broken plastic tubing on our beach as we walk along Shine Road. And we're very concerned about the effect.
11:25:19 Yeah. Okay.
11:25:17 So again, we support the cup process. Thank you. Can you please spell your last name? Sure.
11:25:27 Thank you, Ms. Marquis. Rose, go ahead.
11:25:32 Hello, my name is Rose Goodman, GITE LMMM MANI was born and raised in Port Townsend, Washington.
11:25:44 And in my teenage years, I worked on both GUIDE, and in my teenage years I worked on both GUU Duck and Oyster Farm.
11:25:48 This provided an excellent, and oyster farm. This provided an excellent, and oyster farm.
11:25:51 This provided an excellent, and accessible early job that allowed me to support and accessible early job that allowed me to support paying for my college and accessible early
job that allowed me to support paying for my college degree, and my early adulthood.
11:25:59 Allow me to support paying for my college degree, and my early adulthood. For myself and other young adults in the community, and my early adulthood.
11:26:08 For myself and other young adults in the community, this was one of the young adults in the community, this was one of the highest paying and flexible jobs available, that allowed
hours when home from college, this was one of the highest paying and flexible jobs available, that allowed hours when home from college, and to kind of come and go. I felt pride in
producing a sustainable product and working in a unique industry.
11:26:16 I think that is really important to support shellfish growers in Jefferson County and be cautious about regulations that may make it too difficult for shellfish growers to operate
in our community, particularly any regulations that are duplicates of state and federal regulations.
11:26:36 Thank you, Ms. Kitelman. Is Rosa currently a resident of Portland?
11:26:36 Thank you very much for your time. I currently live in Portland.
11:26:41 Alright, close in the back room.
11:26:46 Hmm.
11:26:50 My name is Bruce Case. 5 3 one Shine Road. In February, 2020, I walked my beach on Shine Road.
11:27:00 Collected over a hundred. Good to have tubes. What was interesting in collecting these tubes.
11:27:08 There's one piece that was missing. And that's something really addressed today. They plant these tubes down.
11:27:17 They put a thin plastic cover over the top of them, obviously to protect them. The GUI dunk itself.
11:27:23 Birds, etc. That's a micro plastic. So if I can collect. That number of tubes.
11:27:34 You can imagine how many tubes are still folding, maybe out in the water. Maybe the tubes are not a major concern, but the microplastic is.
11:27:42 Not only in the water. But also on a short line. Birds, wildlife, etc.
11:27:49 We live in a unique stretch of Water and shine road. And I'm not against the agriculture industry whatsoever.
11:28:01 We're exposed to something called the South. In the winter time we have severe storms. And those two's.
11:28:10 Many of them obviously can't survive with the tubes. You just have to drive down Shine Road and look at the banks.
11:28:17 Through erosion. So I'm definitely support. The CUP plan, Just because of those reasons.
11:28:26 And I think that that point of microplastics is not obviously unique to us. It's everywhere in the world and it's a huge concern.
11:28:35 It affects our lives as well. Thank you very much.
11:28:39 Thank you, Mr. Case. Let's see. Brett's beer.
11:28:47 Online, you can unmute and have up to 2Â min. Welcome.
11:28:53 Hi, good morning. My name is Brett. I'm the principal, of ocean strategies.
11:29:01 We are a public affairs firm. Focused on fisheries seafood and marine resources I am based in Seattle.
11:29:11 I am testifying just to share results. Of some recent Washington resident polling that we completed in 6 shellfish producing counties in the summer of 2,023 We received.
11:29:25 500 responses from residents in Pierce. Thurston, Mason Kitsap. Pacific and Gra's Harper County.
11:29:34 We did not. I want to, be clear. We did not survey residents in Jefferson County.
11:29:40 But we think that our results may be of interest to the county commissioners because the results pounding by county showed very little variance.
11:29:53 And we also surveyed equally across party affiliation. In summary, 81%.
11:30:03 Of residents in shellfish producing counties. Support shellfish farming and 82% support clear and consistent policies that support shellfish farming.
11:30:20 From our experience kind of like in summary very few issues whole so well very few issues pull in the eighties.
11:30:30 I think most issues would help for that. So that's, was interesting, from our polling, but what was even more fascinating was the responses when we asked about the benefits.
11:30:44 Of shellfish farming so to local economy and good paying jobs. Had that favorability ratings at 90 and 88%.
11:30:59 That's too much.
11:31:00 That's, with something as high as shellfish, we would hope. But Yes, yes, yes, yes.
11:31:03 Can you wrap up, can you wrap up please? Sorry.
11:31:08 Water quality and the benefits to the marine ecosystems equally. Have high favorability ratings.
11:31:18 So we thought that that was very interesting and was consistent across counties and we hope that that information is helpful to the county commissioners.
11:31:28 Thank you.
11:31:28 Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Anyone else in the back row there? Alright, and then we'll go to Sue Corbett next online after our in person speaker.
11:31:43 Hello, Martian case. By 3 Wenshine Road. And my neighbors will speak far more eloquently than I will.
11:31:53 But I support them wholly. We have lived for 17 years next to the existing GUI duck production area and.
11:32:04 We witness every day that the impact of the plastic tubes. And we get oyster cages as well.
11:32:14 And we're concerned about the liquification. When it went in production. And.
11:32:27 And I think that's it for now. Okay, in your last name.
11:32:35 Go ahead, Miss Corbett.
11:32:37 Thank you. I have lived on Churchill Lane and Shine for 41 years. I walked the tidlands and I know where the native eel grass is.
11:32:51 And where there are large beds of sand dollars I know where the sand lance and herring spawn I know where wind surfers surf over a proposed greeduck farm.
11:33:01 I wouldn't expect the county stop to know all of those conditions and squamish harbour. Or the conditions of other tide lands in Jefferson County.
11:33:10 The people who spend time on the Titans have observed the marine environment. And would have knowledge to share about a proposed Greek site.
11:33:17 That's why it makes sense to allow the public to be heard at a public hearing. Before a hearing examiner and to have a standard cup.
11:33:26 We're all proposed. GUIDEK operations. I have first-handed experience of how a GUIDE farm can affect native ill grass.
11:33:35 A biologist showed me how to identify native ill grass. In July of 2,014, tubes were in a dense native illgress bed.
11:33:42 That bed of dense native illgress has never recovered. The research that the shellfish industry uses to say that eaggress recovers is flawed.
11:33:53 I have taken many photos over the years and I have 2 to share. One from 2,014 and the other from 2,023 both in July located the same spot.
11:34:06 I hope you can see this.
11:34:09 So the top one is the, 2,014 and the bottom one is 2,023.
11:34:16 It is, it's honestly never recovered. I did stand. Hard copy of this so you should have the picture.
11:34:22 To to view closer. Thank you.
11:34:25 Thank you, Miss Corbett. Alright, let's go to the back of the room on this side.
11:34:31 And then, An online will be after this, gentlemen. Hello, my name is James White Camp.
11:34:40 Hello, my name is James White Camp. I live at 6 41 Shine Road in Port Ludlow.
11:34:44 I'm supporting of this. Of a standard conditional use. Permit. Sure in Thailand are natural resources of the county and the public deserves to have input on shellfish development
and continued use.
11:34:58 A standard CUP provides parent open process for that. Thanks. Hmm. Online?
11:35:14 On mute you'll have up to 2Â min please.
11:35:17 Good morning and happy new year. My name is Anne Dutton and I live, in Jefferson County and I'm here to support my friends and neighbors of shine and Discovery Bay.
11:35:29 I urged the commissioners to adopt the standard C. For the SMP. For new operations, expansion, conversions of other shellfish and glue deaths.
11:35:44 I think there needs to be more oversight. More clear and transparent process.
11:35:51 Which will eliminate any type of conflict of interest. With the neutral party making some decisions and also the public weighing in.
11:36:03 What we're witnessing. With these forms. So again, thank you for your time, and I appreciate, You're doing your due diligence.
11:36:14 And. We look forward to. Your decision.
11:36:19 Thank you.
11:36:20 Thank you, Miss Dutton. And, Linda will be after our in person speaker.
11:36:27 Hi, my name is Michael Abramson, ABRA, MSN. I live on Shine Road.
11:36:33 I'm here today to encourage you to require the conditional use permit for expansion or conversion of shellfish operations.
11:36:42 My understanding is that this is already required in neighboring water basins and a consistent approach would seem to be the logical thing to do.
11:36:50 And finally, I'd just like to add that. Comments about increasing regulations being burdened, some, but just getting a little tiresome.
11:37:01 As a society, we use regulations to keep us from exploiting weaker members of our society. As well as the environment.
11:37:12 Hmm.
11:37:08 Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Abrams. Go ahead, Linda.
11:37:15 Good morning. My name is Linda Lowe and my residence is 10 Woodman Road on Discovery Bay.
11:37:23 My property is just north of the Taylor shellfish goydock farm that recently has been put into place.
11:37:30 I, I am here to support the standard CUP for any new and expanded GUI DUC applications.
11:37:39 I'm not going to go into. My feelings about the adverse environmental impacts that people have already talked about today.
11:37:49 I have the same concerns. I do have concerns about granting a discretionary CUP. I'm wondering who would be granting the CUP what influences go into making this decision.
11:38:04 I just feel that the standard See you P is the best way that we can have a good sound decision made on any any GUI duck farm.
11:38:17 A lot of us love oysters here in the United States. I'm not sure how many of us actually eat gooey ducks.
11:38:28 It's my understanding that a most of them are exported. I may be wrong about this, but as far as I know, For food, I don't know if we can really count that.
11:38:35 As food for. The local people in in our country here. And as far as jobs go, I've watched the farm.
11:38:47 Going in and I have never seen more than 4 people working on the beach at this farm. So I don't really have a lot of information on how many jobs could GUI duck farming industry
generates.
11:39:03 So again, I just, am in support of the standard CUP for any GUI duck for me.
11:39:11 Thank you.
11:39:12 Thank you. Ms. Lowe. Santiago.
11:39:21 Good morning. My name is Celine Santiago, 3 2 2 9 state route 20. I've lived have the privilege of living in, Jefferson County for the past 9 years and I've spent countless
hours of the last 6 years trying to navigate and learn the roles and responsibilities of the various Washington State departments, the Army Corps of Engineers and Jefferson County with
regards to the
11:39:43 shoreline management act and shellfishing. And every email and every conversation leads back to the county's role and responsibility in managing our Sherlines through the shoreline
master program.
11:39:54 There are well over 30 permitted operations in our Jefferson County backyard today and from my conversations with the State Department it is it is maintained that the county
is ultimately responsible for the oversight of those operations since the county has its boots on the ground.
11:40:09 In the time that has passed since an unauthorized shellfish operation showed up in my Discovery Bay backyard.
11:40:15 It became apparent with verbal and written communications that Jefferson County Department of Community Development did not want to take responsibility.
11:40:22 And allowed shellfish operators to dictate the rules of operation. With community intervention and unauthorized operation became permitted 6 years later.
11:40:33 The citizens who walk the shores of Jefferson County have their boots on the ground. We, the citizens bear witness to the shellfish activities in the county.
11:40:41 We need the county transparency and accountability to understand the activities that we witness. A standard conditional use permit is a necessary tool providing a layer of protection
to the environment as well as providing for the flow of information to tax paying citizens.
11:40:57 If the shellfish industry is following the regulations of the Washington State SMA and has the proper permits, providing the same information as evidence of compliance to the
county for any expansion.
11:41:10 New operation or conversion is one more step for the privilege of doing business in. The County of Jefferson.
11:41:18 If the county has no standard CUP, there will be no transparency and you leave us citizens powerless.
11:41:25 A standard CUP is needed. So that we have a voice. Please help us. Help you by giving us a voice regarding shellfish operations in our backyard.
11:41:37 Thank you. Mr. Adam James. Welcome.
11:41:42 Yeah, well, hello, my name is Adam James. I appreciate the opportunity to step out of the rain today.
11:41:48 I'm in my car and it's kind of poor service so I'm not joining by video.
11:41:51 I reside at 6 10 North Eaglewick Road in Lilywap, Washington, which is in Mason County.
11:41:57 I work for the Homahama Company. Which was established around 1922. Our business employees over 50 people, many of whom who live in Jefferson County.
11:42:06 Our operation hub, yeah, is in Mason County, but we have been farming. Shellfish in Jefferson County for over 2 decades.
11:42:22 Yeah.
11:42:15 We grow timber and oysters and I guess I have a few comments on kind of the general state of things, you know, not too long ago.
11:42:26 Historic dairy in the heart of the Chimicum Valley was purchased by new owners and turned into an apple orchard inside.
11:42:34 And so I think most of us come from the perspective that we're farmers and if if you have an existing farm there's lots of things that are out of your control control market
demand changing climate those types of things If you want to convert an existing farm to a new species, maybe you're growing flowers that you're cropping and you decide to turn it into
hay pasture or grain production.
11:43:00 You know there's a big discrepancy between what's allowed terrestrially and aquatically for specifically existing farms.
11:43:06 And I just would like people to think about that. The other thing has to do with visual analysis, you know, obviously as a farmer, you know, we all are have our own biases,
seeing timbered shorelines is my favorite view, maybe not houses.
11:43:23 I understand that there's going to be conflicts with neighbors and I'm hopeful that Down the road, Jefferson County residents will start to see Jefferson County for The hub
and center of aquaculture, which it actually is.
11:43:38 You know, I've gone to a number of Jefferson County Farm walks and I don't even think any aquaculture.
11:43:42 Operations are part of those. Farm tours which occur every September and I'd like to see that changed.
11:43:51 There's a lot of aquaculture that goes on in Jefferson County. It's a big revenue generator, a big employer and think there's a lot of shared interests we have with everybody
in the room and yeah.
11:43:59 Do you do you mind wrapping up, please?
11:44:02 Okay, yep, that's it. Thank you everybody and have a great day.
11:44:05 Thank you, Mr. James. Stay safe out there. I'll just say if there's anyone else online who would like to make a public testimony hit the raise hand button or star 9 if you are
on the phone and thank you.
11:44:22 Good morning, commissioners. Thank you very much for host. Holding this hearing. It wasn't a done deal.
11:44:29 And I'm really glad to have my say today. My name is Marcia Swindeman. I live at 23, Longmeier Lane, Port Ludlow.
11:44:37 Which is just a short distance to the shoreline of Scottish harbor. I'm urging you today to adopt the standard conditional use permits for future GUI deck applications.
11:44:51 And support the members of my community that have spoken before me. And appreciate what they had to say.
11:44:58 I'm a member of the Shine community and I regularly walked that shoreline for the last 20 years.
11:45:04 Observing the changes in the harbor. And the GUIDEK operations. So I concur with much of the observation that have already been made, especially those of SUC Corbett who has
even longer tenure on the beach there.
11:45:19 The ill grass is diminished. It's not just to do too good at farming, but in the areas of the GUI duck farms, there there's no eel grass, there's no continuous shoreline for
the fish to fish.
11:45:32 To grow in or the little fish to grow and the big fish to eat them. There's also the all the things that are under the ground.
11:45:44 And when you liquefy. An area in order to plant or harvest, you end up killing everything, killing their environment.
11:45:53 And that does not promote a shore wide. A good ecological system when that's being done. Those are not part of any of the comments I had written down here, but it's my response
to what I heard today and I listen carefully so anyway, I want you to pay attention to what the people from the Shine Discovery Bay neighbors and supporters have sent to you and the
work that they've done over the
11:46:19 last 7 years. I think they provided a lot of good data and information about what it's like on the shore.
11:46:26 So I appreciate that. One last thing, please adjust the standard cup and I thank you for listening and as a former city council member for 6 years in Kenmore, I know that you
can have a big impact on this issue and I encourage you to take that opportunity.
11:46:43 Thank you. So can you spell your first and last name? Thank you, Miss Swinderman. Alright, let's go to Miss Wald online, please.
11:47:00 We'll have 2Â min.
11:47:02 I'm Jan Wold and I live on Shine Road. 20% of all Washington tide lands were under permit to shellfish farms 10 years ago.
11:47:11 According to the Army Corps of Engineers, increasing to around 30% now. GUIDE farms are usually located in estuaries that are extremely important ecologically.
11:47:22 For the marine food chain and for supporting or feeding forage fish, salmon, orcas, and many threatened and endangered species.
11:47:29 I can think of no other county project that would be more negatively impactful. I urge you to require a standard conditional use permit with a hearing before a hearing examiner
for a new GUI duck farms.
11:47:41 As well as all conversions and expansions. There are shellfish farms of a hundred 28 acres in size and hood canal.
11:47:49 Now that could be converted or expanded. 91 of my neighbors and neighbors from Discovery Bay signed a letter to so strongly support this permitting approach for GUI ducks.
11:47:59 This allows for everyone to be heard. To share their knowledge and ensure sufficient scientific data is in the record for a hearing examiner to make a site-specific decision.
11:48:09 This also keeps our GUI deck permitting consistent with the approved S and Ps of neighboring Kitsap and Clowe counties.
11:48:16 Contrary to what you may hear, biological opinions completed by the federal government a decade ago. Do not prove there is no damage to the environment.
11:48:26 These opinions are outated. Grossly underestimate the acres of shellfish farms and only looked at threatened and endangered species, not all species.
11:48:35 Nearly 10 years ago the Army Corps found that there would be adverse effects to essential fish habitat for Pacific salmon and other fish species.
11:48:44 There certainly is a cost to local citizens in damage to estuaries, loss of commercial and residential fishing and tourism.
11:48:52 Due to these activities. Thank you.
11:48:55 Thank you. No real? Please. I should send this back in.
11:49:09 The current GUIDE farm that's there. 2 minor comments and then the main one basically I support the CUP for all 3 categories.
11:49:17 And don't see that there should be a differentiation between any of them. First minor comment is if the commission is going to consider.
11:49:28 Food production as part of your decision. I'd ask you to look into how much of the GUI ducks are kept here locally for local food.
11:49:36 My understanding is, 99% goes to China. But I would ask you to validate that with the GRIDGE industry.
11:49:44 First thing. Second thing. Promoting jobs, it may be true for other parts of the aquaculture industry that it produces a lot of jobs.
11:49:53 My observation living immediately next door when they go to plant there is maybe a team of 10. That are out there for 3 or 4Â h during low tide.
11:50:02 They only have a low tide window. 3 or 4 days and that's it for 5 years.
11:50:08 So that's not many labor hours. There is a time when they gotta put the nets on.
11:50:13 That's maybe another day. And put the, in there and then 2 years later they take the nets off or a year later they take the nets off.
11:50:20 So before you include. In your thought process, how much jobs, it's the GUI deck industry as opposed to the rest of our culture.
11:50:29 Please look in, ask the greed at the industry, what is the labor hours per production cycle? You know, every 5 to 7 years.
11:50:38 What is that? My observation is it's very low. And I don't think they're high paying jobs.
11:50:43 So I think that's differentiating factor. And the biggest thing I want to say today, different than what I've said before is
11:50:53 Having the 3 categories broken up for, CEO standard CUP only required for new. Makes it way too easy.
11:51:05 For an existing farmer to skate around even more regulations and more public input and more public view. Makes it way too easy to skate around that.
11:51:16 I forgot an existing farm. I think Jan mentioned how many thousands of acres are currently planted in one of the other.
11:51:23 Aquaculture to make some that's that's a that's a loophole big enough to drive a truck through you know for these bombers.
11:51:38 Trying to be fair to everybody of the same amount of time. Let's go to Mike Patterson online, please.
11:51:45 Can you see me or hear me?
11:51:45 Mike, when you get, can hear you, you've got 2Â min.
11:51:49 Okay, my name is Mike Patterson. I live on Shine Road. I concur well. I support the CUP.
11:51:58 And I concur with Miss Low in Discovery Bay and what Mr. Dipar just said.
11:52:04 I think it's very important that that we look at plastic that's disintegrating. In our water.
11:52:14 Gets ingested by the seafood life. So now we've got oysters.
11:52:19 So we've got gooey ducks that are ingesting plastic, which eventually we eat.
11:52:25 Doesn't sound good to me. So. I would certainly consider that.
11:52:32 And. Really comes down to a few in the industry that are protecting their money interests. Versus the majority of people that live in the Northwest, particularly on the peninsula,
Jefferson County.
11:52:50 They're really Enjoy having a pristine environment and now if we start putting tubes all over the sand it's just gonna degrade the whole area so That's my thoughts.
11:53:07 Thank you.
11:53:08 Thank you, Mr. Peterson. Who else do we have in the room?
11:53:17 Hello, I'm Marilyn Show Walter. I live on Shine Road on property. I've owned coming up on 48 years.
11:53:24 I want to make 3 points. The first is that a standard CUP is not redundant for the public.
11:53:32 There is no other proceeding that allows a public hearing before the decision is made, state or federal. There is no other preceding, state or federal.
11:53:43 That has the decision made by a neutral decision maker. And there is no other. Proceedings, state or federal that has the decision made solely on the record.
11:53:56 Second point. If shellfishers are not engaging in gooey ducks, This issue does not affect them.
11:54:06 If a shellfisher wants to expand by 10 or 20 acres. In Jefferson County, they're still only going to be subject to a discretionary CUP.
11:54:16 The corollary, of course, is if Shellfishers are concerned about this issue of a full CUP.
11:54:24 It must be because they are planning on going ducks. That should be of great concern to the. Commission because there is a vast acreage in Jefferson County that could be converted
or expanded.
11:54:38 To for goi ducks. My third point is that the Planning Commission and the staff have offered no justification for this line between discretionary and standard CUP.
11:54:56 You will read the report in vain to find any reason. You, it's a chronology of then and then and then.
11:55:03 And we listen to everybody and here is a what we decided. There is not a why. You did hear that this is a meeting in the middle.
11:55:13 Which is a very misleading term because 100% of shellfishers get discretionary CUP.
11:55:21 And there's been one.
11:55:26 One new proposal for Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Walter. In the interest of time, we will not take any more testimony today, but we are going to leave it open for testimony both
written and oral in the future.
11:55:42 I hope is we can identify some questions that we would like or requests of staff to bring back for our deliberations.
11:55:50 Which Guessing that'll be next week. Josh, could you come back with us? Thank you.
11:55:59 Would you anticipate doing deliberations? Next week or the following.
11:56:12 Yeah, I get my iterative.
11:56:07 Chair Dean, I would say it's. Either or both. I think I said the 20Â s would be in a good time to hopefully wrap up the discussion so that we can have time to prepare.
11:56:20 An audience based on the direction that we're getting from the board, but, we could schedule time for both the sixteenth and the 20Â s.
11:56:28 And you're a pleasure.
11:56:29 That might be desirable, I'm guessing. So thoughts, questions and I'm trying to be a little conscious of time.
11:56:38 I actually cancelled my new meeting. So became obvious that was not going to be realistic.
11:56:44 I appreciate all of the comments today and I was the one who jumped up and down about having a hearing because as in the newest commissioner on our board.
11:56:56 We've had very few issues that have been heard before us and I also feel like it's very important to hear from as many folks as possible.
11:57:05 On these issues that affect. Then, in which we live. So I appreciate all of you being here online and in person and.
11:57:14 Sorry for all the extra logistics I may have caused people but I really appreciate it hearing from all of you.
11:57:24 Yeah, appreciate the testimony from everyone and, some new perspectives as well as reinforcing a lot of things that we've heard before.
11:57:34 So I really do appreciate it and everyone's testimony is really valuable as we work through these. Challenging issues, you know, and in the As always, it's the balancing that
is the really challenging part and where exactly do you draw that line in the sand?
11:57:46 So, will be ongoing work. I'll definitely dig more into that Sea Grant study that I haven't really read.
11:57:54 I mean, I had a couple of other questions that aren't related to the upper culture section.
11:58:02 Let me, you know, I think maybe bringing those up next week just to dig into a few of the definitions and I'd still love to see a definition of a modest home.
11:58:13 2,500 square feet, way less modest than any. Yeah, what I heard, I heard what it was and I was like, that's ridiculous.
11:58:22 Yeah, not extravagant. I don't know. But no, it's, I learned a lot today and I appreciate it.
11:58:32 But yeah, no, no, no questions. Anything you would like, DCD to bring back to us.
11:58:39 To help our deliberation.
11:58:43 I don't know. I feel like we've been. Yeah, overrun with information. It just means going back through this whole Well, thank one more time.
11:58:52 I, no, I, I don't have any further questions. Okay. Josh, I have a few things that I would love for you and, your staff and perhaps the, consultants to, to work on and, also
thank you to the public, great input.
11:59:10 It's, It is challenging to hear such divergent views of, you know. That's bad.
11:59:16 Greed is aquaculture is good for the environment or it's terrible for the environment.
11:59:21 Like where do we fall? So few things that would be helpful for me and where I've gotten a little bit hung up, Josh.
11:59:29 I'm wondering if we have a Jefferson County map of the shoreline types. Is that something that has been typed and mapped?
11:59:37 County wide? The list was at the end of the SNP, right? That list of all the different SNP impacts.
11:59:44 Okay, but I would just be interested to see that on a on a map. Is that something that we have that has been created or is available through our GIS department?
11:59:55 Go ahead Lisa.
11:59:56 Yes, Commissioner, there is an online map that's available on the Jefferson County shoreline. Master program periodic update.
12:00:07 There's a story map. It's one of the elements of that.
12:00:10 Okay, okay, thank you. That would be helpful. Thank you.
12:00:13 And I would add, Commissioner Dean that on our. On our GAS tool that we use as on the planning side to review development proposals.
12:00:22 We have all the shoreline environment designations mapped out as well in plus critical areas and other important information.
12:00:27 Okay. And is that a layer that is available in our the county mapping tool? All of those that a priority aquatic natural.
12:00:36 Conservancy. I can. Okay.
12:00:38 I believe, I believe so, but I will confirm, keep going with your questions and I will, meanwhile be looking that up to confirm what it looks like online.
12:00:46 I know there's some subtle differences between what we see and what the public sees and that's because of trying to protect certain information according to agreements with
state agencies.
12:00:54 Right. Okay. Well, one of my one of my questions pertains to that, which is this the priority aquatic shoreline designation and.
12:01:05 You know, it states that it is meant to I don't want to get the language wrong here, but.
12:01:13 Protect salmon habitat and shellfish as the primary purpose as stated in the the draft SMP.
12:01:22 And does that include a commercial aquaculture? So is that meant to protect the natural resource for aquatic, excuse me, for commercial aquaculture as well as naturally occurring.
12:01:35 Shellfish.
12:01:36 That one I am also gonna defer to Lisa on my hunch is that if you're talking about that particular Charlene environment designation we're talking about natural natural set which
of course is an important resource not only for recreational and ecological uses, but for tribal treaty rights.
12:01:52 But I'm gonna refer to Lisa, perhaps that's, that's more complex than that.
12:01:58 Josh, we will re-review the language, but, we were not proposing to change that original approach and I concur with what Josh's languages that it was meant to address the ecological
protection of particularly sensitive areas, but we'll double check that language.
12:02:17 Okay. Let's see.
12:02:26 I don't want to get too far into the, grass here as they say. I guess I am curious the, you know, are there opportunities to further reduce redundancy with other agencies?
12:02:42 They say, I guess I am curious the, you know, are there opportunities to further reduce redundancy with other agencies. You know, are there opportunities to further reduce redundancy
with other agencies?
12:02:47 Because I know how frustrating that can be and then I guess. You know, this question of the science is a little bit baffling to me and the, you know, I think really the big
question for me is, you know, can commercial go a duck production?
12:03:03 Not contribute to further net loss. Can it meet the standard of no net loss of shoreline ecological function.
12:03:13 And, you know, like we've heard. Disagreeing science on that today and that's you know, if you could help provide any clarity, you know, we've heard some references, some citations
today, but I think kind of deciding on the best available science that we are going to use to make policy decisions based on that is important.
12:03:37 I will say that under, on our GIS, there is under shoreline permitting an SMP with shoreline environmental designations that breaks out priority aquatic and aquatic and conservancy
and high intensity.
12:03:49 Oh, great. Okay, thank you. I will be able to access it there then.
12:03:51 Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that, Commissioner, brother. And I did, I found this thing the same time.
12:03:56 Yeah, he's good.
12:03:56 You just found it faster, which doesn't surprise me. So yes, and I just I just put the link in the chat.
12:04:01 I believe it's available to everybody. Caroline can correct me if I'm wrong. So people can access and information through there.
12:04:07 And just on your last point we did do with the consultants I should say did a cumulative impacts analysis for this planning process.
12:04:14 So I believe we've addressed the question as best we can from a programmatic policy perspective about Baku-i-doc culture, but I would.
12:04:23 Defer to Lisa and Amy for any additional insight on that and we can come back as well to talk about that more.
12:04:30 And I have a question. Not for staff. And I'm can we let Lisa, I wanna respond and then I'll come back to you.
12:04:36 Thanks.
12:04:36 I believe our cumulative impacts addendum is focused on specific activities and uses that ecology requested.
12:04:45 I don't believe aquaculture was one of those, but basically our charge was to incorporate the state rules.
12:04:54 On. Culture that did come out of the best available science and stakeholder process.
12:05:05 Well, and if I could just point out something that I that kept getting tripped up on last night, that in the staff report, you specifically call out 2 different wax.
12:05:16 One. See if I can. Quickly identify it.
12:05:23 You know, one which discusses. Well, basically one says, you know, aesthetic qualities should be considered and then you know, a couple sections later it talks about the irreconcilable
differences between water dependent shoreline uses.
12:05:42 You know, I am consistently frustrated that the state's clarification on some of these issues isn't greater and that and I will say too I would love if industry were doing more
to be to demonstrate concern around the plastics in the marine environment and but so we end up doing that at the local level which feels backwards, challenging and so Still looking
for ways that we can right size this and, you
12:06:13 know. Site this important industry and the right places and mitigate the impacts. Accordingly. Any other thoughts before we wrap?
12:06:26 Only question. I'm looking at my Taylor friends and colleagues. Is that a lot of comments were made about the economic impact of GUI Doc and how many jobs and How much is exported?
12:06:37 You can just tell me to Google it if that's the answer, but. Is there an easy answer to that question?
12:06:42 How much what's the percentage of GUI duck that's exported and then. And.
12:06:48 How many jobs are actually created through the GUI DECK? I mean, and follow up with would someone follow up or you know off the top of your head?
12:07:00 Basically the question. You'll need to come up to the micro. Sorry. You know, exciting things.
12:07:12 I was like, what's the truth? Thank you for the question, Commissioner. My again, my name is Ernie Wellld.
12:07:18 I'm with Taylor Shellfish, and I can't speak to the industry as a whole.
12:07:20 However, Taylor endeavors to, sell 50% of its products domestically, 50% internationally.
12:07:28 They've done quite a bit, significant work on. Sales to retail, sales to wholesale, and restaurant direct and consumer direct.
12:07:37 As an industry wide, Taylor sells approximately 1 million pounds per year. However, that is a very small fraction of what is actually sent over based on the the state sales
of GUI Duck of Wild Harvest subtitle.
12:07:56 Subtitally harvested goy duck, which is about 10 times more. So, as far as an industry wide, you're looking at Most of those are going to be exported, whereas the farm side
is basically we tried to create as many markets as a available as you might be aware there was a ban in China as far as several years ago, which shut down several GUIDE.
12:08:28 Farmers. And so since then we've really tried to diversify that market. As far as jobs go, I would have to defer to.
12:08:36 Okay. Thank you. So, I can, again, I can't speak for the entire industry, but, for Taylor Shelfish, we currently have 56 employees, full-time employees in the GUIDA department.
12:08:53 I can't speak to that and those are all, yeah, those are all from entry level up to senior management.
12:08:59 Those are all full time jobs. That's throughout the Northwest. Yeah, out of our Shelton base.
12:09:09 So I mean, and of that, at the moment, 11 of those are directly in Different County, 11 of those are directly in Different County, the Discovery Bay specifically.
12:09:15 Thank you. Thank you.
12:09:19 Alright, anything else before we wrap up? You know that. Aesthetic issue, super, doesn't seem super, that's seem super, that's seem super super, but I looked like to dig into
that one.
12:09:37 Yeah, yeah, agree. I don't have a specific question. Okay. But maybe, we could.
12:09:37 Ask Josh to kind of be prepared to speak to that a little bit better and the I can do a better job of pointing out the conflicting wax, but it is in the staff report.
12:09:47 It's not, yeah, putting my talk process for a moment. Yeah. Make sure I understand.
12:09:51 So we're talking next next week about deliberating and maybe that's where if we have any other maybe kind of non go weed up questions that we could wreck them and we'll still
have time.
12:10:01 Staff or still have time to make any small adjustments before. And it might even be more of a workshop than deliberation.
12:10:06 Because I think there's still some clarification. Yeah, I hesitate to get into other topics right now.
12:10:12 But yes, that would be great. And maybe not take testimony. We'll get into other topics right now. But yes, that would be great. And maybe not take testimony.
12:10:18 Not take testimony. Take testimony. 20Â s when we've got process changes that we're talking about.
12:10:21 Okay.
12:10:22 If I could jump in for a second, I've heard from Caroline that there's some schedule issues with February twelfth.
12:10:27 So in that light, I guess. Of course, however you want to handle future input from the public, but I was thinking that a workshop format for next week is great and then perhaps
a deliberation format for the 20Â s and that's when In theory, we could receive direction from the board in order to put the finishing touches.
12:10:49 On an ordinance and then put it out for public. For public consumption and comment and then we would schedule perhaps Tuesday, February, twentieth month that Monday being a
holiday.
12:11:00 For the for the potential action by the board and then you would have essentially the hearing part 2 except it would be focused on the ordinance and any changes if that if that
makes sense to everybody.
12:11:12 Sounds good to me. Okay. And stay tuned because we're still working on scheduling.
12:11:18 I'm not sure if I'll be at NICO on the twelfth or not.
12:11:21 So that's the potential conflict. Okay, so workshop next week, deliberation, following week.
12:11:31 And we will. Try to keep the public informed of when there'll be opportunity. For additional testimony.
12:11:39 Sounds good. Okay. Thank you to the public for your robust participation. Thank you to DCD staff and consultants.
12:11:48 I was highly allergic to shellfish before and I'm maybe I'll be even more so now.
12:11:55 I love you, you can have my share. We should try some. We should try. I feel like that.
12:12:04 I've, I've, I've got a couple, they're so different, the soft and the country part.
12:12:05 But You're good. Thank you. I will. No, there's like, there's a here.
12:12:17 The chewy, no. There's like, like a foot, I think is super cheap. That's like a foot, I think, is super cute.
12:12:24 That's like the foot I think is super cute. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So everyone thinks I'm talking about in the shell.
13:30:55 Alright, good afternoon everyone. I'll call us back into session. Everybody ready to go?
13:31:04 Alright, great. Let's see. Sorry. Back to my agenda here.
13:31:13 We are starting off this afternoon with a workshop and a request to reconvene the Growth Management Steering Committee.
13:31:20 Is this Josh or Joel?
13:31:22 I'll start us out, Chair Dean. My name is Josh Peters. I'm the community development director.
13:31:28 Apologies for you having to see me again. So, so soon, but here I am. But this is it.
13:31:31 Okay. All day.
13:31:35 Yeah, we have a lot of stuff going on important things and this is just one of them. Joel has prepared a short slide presentation.
13:31:42 That'll go over and. For many of you, it'll be a trip down memory lane perhaps and for others, some new information.
13:31:50 About our obligations. Under the Growth Management Act. For allocating population. Projections that we've provided by the Office of Financial Management.
13:32:01 That's the essential rule of This growth management steering committee that we're going to discuss as an advisory body for.
13:32:07 The board account commissioner's decision. In coordination with cities and we only have one of course, 4,000.
13:32:13 We also have our county made planning policy that we first adopted in the 1990 s in preparation for our first GMA compliant.
13:32:23 Comprehensive plans both the county and the city. And there's been talk about revisiting the countywide planning policy for amendments to catch us up to speed, especially as
we embark upon joint planning efforts with the city of our towns.
13:32:34 And with that, we think we this will take about a half an hour or so of discussion, but of course we're open for Any questions and I'm not seeing anything else in the genus.
13:32:46 I don't know if you have a hard stop at any point, but this is a complicated issue that we're just starting just scratching the surface on.
13:32:50 And I'm gonna turn it over to Joel and then we'll see where we go from there in terms of next steps.
13:32:56 And there is no timeframe. So take the time you need. Okay, thank you and thank you for allowing us to provide this update to you and and then.
13:33:07 As Josh mentioned, we're going to discuss reconvening the Growth Management Steering Committee.
13:33:13 And then I'm going to give you a little bit of background on the Growth Management Steering Committee, what it does.
13:33:19 And provide some changes to the composition of the growth. Management Steering Committee. From, changes in the state in the the process that the state state legislature passed
in House Bill 1717.
13:33:36 So, to index slash should I just say next slide? It'll send next slide, please.
13:33:42 So, the growth management steering committee. Has 2 primary tasks and I wanted to bring these up through our attention again as we discuss reconvening the based during committee.
13:33:56 First is, as Josh mentioned, to allocate projected population figures among urban and rural areas for planning.
13:34:02 So we typically have 70% for 70 30 split between rural and urban and then among the urban or Townsend has typically taken 36, 36% of that allocated growth.
13:34:16 And then we have some master planned resorts, which we consider urban that we allocate some population to, and the rest is allocated to our rural areas.
13:34:25 And so this gives us a chance to. Look at how our capital facilities and transportation systems are meeting the needs from our population figures.
13:34:36 The other thing is to review our county wide planning policies and we haven't done this in many years.
13:34:43 I think the last time they were Being reviewed was around 2,004, but no amendments were made at that time.
13:34:50 The original Okay, wide planning policy document is in a resolution. Joint resolution between city and county in 1,998 when we had our first.
13:34:59 Growth management act comprehensive plan. The next slide, please.
13:35:07 And, just to give you some perspective of our planning that the Story Committee will do. We have a projected increase of 5,900.
13:35:20 Persons from 2025 to 2045 so in our 20 year planning horizon we'll be allocating an additional 5,900 people from the, this is taken from the office of financial management.
13:35:34 Middle range population projections. And then just to point out another aspect of our county and planning considerations. These.
13:35:46 Histograms or these stacked cohort charts. Show that most of our increase of this population, 5,900 will likely be due to migration.
13:35:58 And this is following trends that we've seen over the last 10 years, maybe 20 years. What, you see is, a cohort of population about every 5 or 10 years.
13:36:13 Starts from birth at the bottom of this chart. To death or over 85 is what I should say at the top of the chart.
13:36:21 So we can see every, 5 years. We get, different projections and it shows that our elderly population is going to be increasing.
13:36:32 But it's probably most likely due to in migration. And so these are some, this kind of tells a graphic story of some of the planning.
13:36:41 Considerations that we'll have. The next line.
13:36:47 So our counterweight planning policies, we don't often look at them and you might ask, well, we have a comprehensive plan with our policies.
13:36:53 Why do we need caddywide planning policies? And. This as the slide says is a policy framework from which the county and city comprehensive plans are to be developed in adopted.
13:37:06 It gives us a broader framework for our planning. Including other entities. So we have 10 Kadoy planning policies.
13:37:16 Quickly there to how we will implement urban growth areas. How we're going to orderly develop and provide services to these urban growth areas.
13:37:28 And then how the city and county will coordinate within urban growth areas. This is different from number one.
13:37:34 Number one is just general. Development of urban growth areas. Number 3 is how we're going to plan among our existing urban growth areas.
13:37:43 How we're going to cite public capital facilities. And we're going to plan our transportation facilities.
13:37:51 Our policies talk about provisions of a affordable housing. What percent the city, what percent the county should be working on.
13:38:00 Countywide economic development issues, policy on rural areas. On fiscal impact analysis. This is to look at primarily capital facilities and, economic development impact analyses.
13:38:14 And then last policies on use and review and monitoring and and how we amend these countywide planet planning policies.
13:38:22 So this go around with the growth management steering committee. We're going to be looking at these again and see if there are some items under this policy number 10 following
the process in policy number 10 that we want to modify.
13:38:34 Or add. Next slide.
13:38:38 So, a change that the legislature made last year and in House Bill 1717. Has to do with tribal participation in our county, in our counterpart planning policies as well as our
comprehensive planning policy.
13:38:52 And it touches 6 areas of the growth management act. The first is, is just, including tribes in who must plan and participation in the jurisdictions planning.
13:39:03 The second is collaborating with cities and counties and tribes and ports is mentioned in that part of GMA.
13:39:11 Commerce when they review our comprehensive plan. There will also submit it to the tribes for review, which is a new process for commerce.
13:39:20 In our UGA, this legislation specifies tribal input on coordinating growth to UGAs. And then number 5, this is something that.
13:39:32 Josh will probably get into more. Detail as we get to the. Meat of our discussion is technical assistance.
13:39:39 Procedural criteria, grants and mediation services. This is from Department of Commerce. And Josh and I have talked to a Department of Commerce representative.
13:39:49 Who is assisting jurisdictions in working through the process of tribal outreach and involvement in planning.
13:39:58 The last one. This new legislation. Specifies how tribes can participate in our catwide planning policies through in invitation and opt-in.
13:40:11 And so those are new pieces of legislation that we'll be looking at. Next slide. Good question on those.
13:40:20 Yeah. Do each of these require government to government consultation or are there different degrees of Okay, tribal participation and planning or invitation, tribes participate
in countywide planning policies.
13:40:38 Or some of them kind of. Kind of optional check-in, they participate if they want to.
13:40:45 That's a great question. I'm glad you asked that because not all of this participation needs to be government to government.
13:40:53 We already participate with tribal planning offices. Some more than others, depending on. The issue or proximity of the tribes to planning process.
13:41:06 Also the legislation is specifying. A difference between tribes with either reservations or seated lands versus you usual in the custom.
13:41:19 Tribal area. So You'll note that the Slalom tribes, James Towns, Kalam and the Port Gamble's clam are not in Jefferson County.
13:41:28 Yeah, they're quite involved with our planning process. As a coast sailors tribe with U. Right.
13:41:35 But this is geared mostly towards probably the Coal and Hoe who have reservations in Jefferson County.
13:41:44 And but we, usually reach out to all the tribes within our area. And try with usual and custom, but there won't be the same level of involvement.
13:41:56 Or interest by the tribes probably. So there may be a government to government meeting to finalize decisions, but I think most of the Groundwork is going to be done on a planning
office level.
13:42:09 Okay, Josh, did you have something, Dan?
13:42:12 Yeah, thanks. I mean, Joel really just laid it all out, but I guess I would.
13:42:15 Okay.
13:42:16 Say that with the caveat that we're still learning about house bill 1717 and all the implications and as Joe mentioned we met with the tribal planning program manager at Commerce
Bridget Ray already and we expect to meet with her again, hopefully next time in person she might visit with us.
13:42:35 If anyone's interested, you can participate if you like and that that meaning to learn more. But essentially, my read of the statute is that there is no obligation for government
to government meeting there could be eventual governance to government meeting depending on the request from any given tribe.
13:42:54 But Essentially it lays it out in 2 different ways and I put some links in the chat too if you want to look at that.
13:43:00 But the first one would be for countervide planning policies, we are required to invite tribes that have seated lands.
13:43:05 So more reservations. So that would be the 2 that Joel mentioned on the West End. And then for.
13:43:10 For the tribal participation in our planning processes in general, our legislative planning processes. Then there would be.
13:43:19 Bye request so our understanding according to where the statute is written is that if we get a resolution from a tribal council that they would like to participate at that level,
then we'll respond to that accordingly.
13:43:31 But I don't think there's like sort of an automated mechanism that it would be considered government to government, but I think these maybe it's minutia in a sense and how we
would do that but as Joe mentioned we already do have a participation program essentially with with with tribes that have expressed interest so far and our planning processes and you
can see from this morning just we had a triple participation in the SMP hearing.
13:43:52 So just adding a little detail to that. Thank you.
13:43:54 Thank you. This is the last slide I'm going to speak to before I pass it back to Josh.
13:44:03 And this kind of sets up some of the considerations. And history of strength. I say joint growth management, steering committee out of habit, as it was referred to in the past,
but, The growth management steering committee.
13:44:18 Typically has had the city county port. And then later added the port hadlock representatives. And.
13:44:27 The as a product of COVID and this intergovernmental collaboration group has been a very effective group to.
13:44:36 Consider some of the planning issues perhaps. So I've got that in another box. That includes Jefferson PD.
13:44:46 On in that group. What we might see as as a reinstated growth management steering committee would be Jefferson County the city of Port Townsend in the port.
13:44:58 Representative from Court Handlock and then establishing some process for participation of interested tribes and as Josh was saying there's there's some nuance here and We're
still learning all the details of how we would.
13:45:11 Implement that participation. So, but there would be some, tribal input. In the Growth Management Steering Committee.
13:45:19 So we have some choices to make about membership and participation in the process. And. And that's, what we're coming to you today for is to.
13:45:32 Be directed to have a resolution next slide please And. Iify your Needs the concerns or ideas about.
13:45:44 How that. Process or the membership in light of other committees and groups from your perspective might be most effective.
13:45:55 So I'll pass it back to Josh at this point. To facilitate this discussion.
13:46:01 Thank you, Joel.
13:46:04 So as, Joel just mentioned. Our next step we believe is to work with Caroline and the prosecuting attorney's office to draft a resolution that would replace or supplant all
previous resolutions around the growth management steering committee.
13:46:20 As part of the agenda request, we put in a chronology that starts in the nineties.
13:46:27 Pre GMA comp plan ours was 1998. And then in 1999 we added the port as a as a voting member if you will at the time.
13:46:36 And then there's some, there was an interest express at the last intergovernmental collaborative group meeting, ICG meeting, late last year about adding the PUD.
13:46:47 And a stroll mention as well, it's morphed over time at 1 point. We added 3 representatives from our port headlock, UGA to go along with 3 board members.
13:46:58 And then 3 city counselors. So I think there's a few choices. One thing I would advocate.
13:47:04 We consider strongly is, just to change the tenor perhaps of the resolution, the original joint growth.
13:47:12 Management steering committee between the county and the city, you know, I think had a formality to it.
13:47:19 Okay.
13:47:16 And, And I'm not saying we go completely informal, but I think voting, so the idea of a voting member versus a non voting member.
13:47:24 Starts to get more complicated as you add more parties. I would say that based on the statue, ultimately, it's the county's responsibility to manage the countywide planning
policies and to in coordination with cities to allocate population and establish growth targets.
13:47:39 So I would say in that light. The Growth Management Steering Committee in that perspective is an advisory body in the sense that it's a good forum to have a conversation to
get input from stakeholders and then that information goes back to the board for a decision.
13:47:54 So and that and that view I would say that in this resolution we were proposing to steer away from.
13:48:02 Differentiating members in terms of who votes and who doesn't and so forth the second thing would be to consider whether you want the full board participation.
13:48:09 I know that the city council I believe already has 3 city councilors selected to participate in these conversations. But if we for example decided that we just wanted one board
member to to be assigned to that committee.
13:48:22 We could tell the city that we're looking for one city counselor. Plus, of course, staff from the city.
13:48:27 And, and for the same for the port and the PUD, of course, one elected official from each of those boards and commissions is less than a quorum.
13:48:36 So that's we want to avoid the quorum problem in a sense or challenge I should say.
13:48:40 But we could also just say 3 all 3 commissioners. It would be a board accounting commissioners meeting and then we'd get traditionally like always the 3 city counselors from
the city that would be less than a quorum for the city council and then one elected official port commissioner and a PUD commissioner for those bodies plus you know staff would be there
to support the committee.
13:49:00 So that's some, those are the types of things to consider. And then as Joel mentioned, there's this other piece about I would say that the tribal participation with respect
is really directly rel, directly related to the counterweight planning policies and not so much related to the population.
13:49:19 Yeah. Okay.
13:49:17 But of course we could we're still thinking about that question and interacting with commerce on it on how to, interacting with commerce on it, interacting with commerce on
it, on how, interacting with Congress on it, on how, how to, invite that participation, how to signify to, participating tribes or interested tribes of that opportunity.
13:49:39 And what our obligations are versus what we believe is, in the spirit of cooperation that we've, we believe we've, practiced lately and that we'd like to do.
13:49:39 Okay.
13:49:41 In other words, want to air on the side of inviting more participation but we're also wary of what that might mean we've seen examples from other counties where they their countywide
planning policies ended up being amended significantly but it was really between one tribe and the county working out an issue and what i'm picturing or what I'd like to see more is
definitively a policy on collaborating with tribal
13:50:04 governments. But more of a broad policy in the countywide planet policies themselves, which we would perhaps take a crack at drafting in an early version and then send it out
to tribes and engage their interest, invite them to participate, participate, and then end up with language.
13:50:18 Hopefully that would be agreeable among different tribes. As you know, if you try is quite different.
13:50:23 It's a different government, different interests. So rather than getting into that in the nitrogen, when we, as Joe mentioned, the 2 tribes that have reservation territory in
our in our county.
13:50:33 The Quality Nation and the whole, the, the.
13:50:54 Okay.
13:50:39 They might be some issues there, especially in the corner outside of things where we've had some long standing issues that we need to work through and Mike, I guess my the opportunity
there is to work through those things, but my, consternation would be how that fits into the 2025 periodic company because that could be an a whole endeavor in and of itself which you
How's the has a chance to sort
13:51:03 of, derail the schedule, if you will. So just I'm throwing it out there as a as a sort of a cautionary note on how we how we together manage this process.
13:51:10 So I'm thinking the Growth Mission Stering Committee the first order of business is got the thing going and then concentrate on the population allocation, allocation question
so that way the city can march off and do their comprehensive planning the county can march up and do hours.
13:51:24 And then the second step would be to tackle the county wing planning policies, which we could we could once that population decision is made in a joint resolution which it has
done in the past, the county resolution in the city makes a resolution, then we can insert that in a sense.
13:51:38 Or, that would be just one piece of the puzzle that, would then we work on with the county my planning policies, which would be going, be going a little bit further.
13:51:55 So I anticipate maybe, 3 months of activity and something like that Perhaps on the week before the second week in February, the week before the next scheduled ICG meeting I've
been talking to Caroline about scheduling a Growth Mission Steering Committee meeting and that I think is February, the eighth it would be that Thursday.
13:52:07 That could be the first meeting and we've already asked the port if we can borrow their facilities.
13:52:12 And then so we're kind of used to meeting there on Thursday evenings and then the next week we could report out to the ICG about what happened at that first meeting if we can't
pull it all together before then then we could just tell the ICG where we're at with it and go forward.
13:52:24 So I'll stop there and see if there's any questions, discussion, thoughts.
13:52:29 Greg, you have some questions.
13:52:31 Yeah, thanks, Josh. And Joel, really clear. First of all, I'd be really interested in helping it as as much as I can with tribal engagement, the meeting with Bridget Ray.
13:52:44 So please try to include me if possible. I'm Russell, a match with Heidi and Kate.
13:52:48 And I think what you outlined makes a lot of sense, the timeline, composition, I guess the one.
13:52:56 Countervailing idea I would throw out is you know we talked a little bit about this at the last ICG meeting I think there's a lot of interest around the county.
13:53:04 It makes more sense after this description now to consider. Even making the ICG into the growth management committee.
13:53:14 As you know, more people, but if we're looking at an advisory body It just would actually make less work to to do that work in ICG, I guess.
13:53:25 I just wondering about your, your, initial thoughts on that kind of idea and whether that would be more work or less work if we just combine the 2.
13:53:34 Okay, thank you for the opportunity to respond to that. That was the impression I got at the last ICG meeting that there was some interest in having that body be the forum for
these conversations.
13:53:46 And I guess I would I would answer with a hybrid answer. I think that the level of detail that we're going to be diving into.
13:53:54 Is better dealt with with a smaller, more nimble body, if you will. Plus you wouldn't have the.
13:54:03 Seemingly perpetual challenge of the chorum factor whenever you get that ICG together.
13:54:08 You know, whether there are meetings or not and and because you need all those bodies to participate. And I would think that, but the hybrid approach though would be to then
have the ICG be the sort of next test case.
13:54:19 For example, if we were to somehow, magically work out a population allocation proposal a week before the ICG, then that.
13:54:29 Proposal could then be presented to the full body for input. So I would say that an input and discussion and that kind of approach would be preferable and perhaps logistically,
then having that body be a decision making body and then that input then could go to the board and then your next board meeting or a board meeting shortly after an ICG meeting where
you solicited that input would be when you would
13:54:54 take action on something.
13:54:57 You've talked me out of, I just wanted to make sure we broach that idea.
13:55:01 I also appreciate that. Succession of meetings that Josh just talked about because I feel like they would generate more conversation and better outcomes.
13:55:16 You know, if we had a smaller group really digging into the work of whatever topic, whether it's population allocations or whatever, and then maybe that even needs to be 2 conversations,
who knows.
13:55:27 That smaller group could get that work done and then the ICG would be a great forum to have a kind of a broader conversation about the outcomes of that work.
13:55:36 I think that that's a really good. Progression in my mind.
13:55:39 Now to give one counter veiling a point to my own point. My own, Devil's Advocate here.
13:55:46 Is another variation of that would be once we settle on things whether it's kind of my applying planning policies or population allocation.
13:55:53 If you wanted to sort of document complete. Consensus among all participating parties. Then some kind of action at an ICG meeting where all the elected officials are there with
their quorums and can take action.
13:56:08 I know that Caroline's probably going, oh my god, now, but, there is, I suppose the possibility it's been done before, even to establish the ICG, right?
13:56:16 So there could be some sort of final action. Maybe, maybe at the next meeting or 2 down the road, if that's what you wanted to sort of memorialize that, that would be a way
to kind of combine both of ideas.
13:56:32 I know we have to get back to that question, that kind of timing and role of the ICG, but if I could ask a couple of questions first, which I think will affect my thinking on
that later question.
13:56:45 So there's the new affordable housing allocation that is required, right, for the count plan. And is that so, you know, different AMI, levels of AMI and distributing the housing
requirement?
13:57:01 Or housing need within the housing element? Is that correct? That way that will live in the comp plan?
13:57:07 Yes. So is that. Would we hope to be doing that with the in our case just one city luckily?
13:57:19 Doing that with the city as part of the growth management steering committee like do we want to come to agreement on all the different population allocation that we need to
do.
13:57:31 And is that also part of concurrence with our account plans?
13:57:37 I believe the, allocation can be done first and outside of some of the the housing needs though we do have one cataway planning policy addressing.
13:57:50 Affordable housing specifically that may need to be amended. I have some difficulty. Still at this point and I hope to resolve this soon.
13:58:01 Of understanding which tasks are going to be city only and which apply to counties. There are some things in that.
13:58:10 Housing bill that just apply to the city. We have successfully received a grant from commerce for middle housing and we're going to be reviewing the port Hadlock.
13:58:21 Iron Dale Urban Growth Area specifically with that middle housing grant. And so as part of that, we'll be looking at our.
13:58:31 Our population and dwelling unit holding capacity of the UGA. And then the the next step would be to look at affordable housing options.
13:58:40 So. I'm not, I guess just off the cuff. I think the allocation can and should be done first.
13:58:49 And then we start working with our middle housing city and County urban growth areas are going to be a little different.
13:58:57 Depending on how that builds parses out between. Cities and and our unincorporated UGA.
13:59:06 It's interesting this is a 2025 update right? And our, UGA won't be fully turned on until 26 or 27.
13:59:18 But it feels like we should be factoring that in, cause it's so. 20 year plan.
13:59:22 It's current, you know, it's current business. And the affordable housing pieces. A big part of, I mean, It would be, it feels like it would be good to have a conversation with
the city and the county.
13:59:35 About affordable housing targets because We already know there's gonna be up to 200 units of affordable housing coming to Headlock in the next 3 years.
13:59:44 So, you know, it's. How do we, how do we dovetail all these?
13:59:51 Nuances. Into the conversation.
13:59:56 Well, I think that there's a question too as to whether it's required. So I think it's Has Bill 1110.
14:00:02 You're talking about Joel the Yes. Yeah. And maybe still need clarification. And so we will have the AV requirement, for example, in the UGA.
14:00:16 That is either city or county, UGA. There are some other provisions of house bill 1 1110 that I don't think apply to our Yeah, Yeah, Josh.
14:00:30 Yeah, thanks. So we will get clarification on this question. Of course, but my, impression is that there were several bills in the last few years that relate to housing.
14:00:40 And that's part of that GMA checklist that we're working on right now with with Joel and with one of our consultants.
14:00:47 To kick off the process here.
14:00:50 But that said, and some of the things are really related to cities. There's just a few things that are related to counties in that regard.
14:00:57 All that said though, the new housing element requirements, I'm pretty sure our county requirement as well.
14:01:05 To me it's interesting because we have far fewer tools in the toolbox. If you will, in the rural area for dealing with housing as opposed to cities, sort of naturally I guess
if you think about urban services and so forth.
14:01:18 And density and real character. However, we have our poor headlock UGA like Commissioner Eisenhower just mentioned.
14:01:26 And of course we're planning on to 2045 in the cycle. So I would say, yeah, absolutely.
14:01:29 We need to consider that. And we have started the conversation with the city staff. At the staff level about these various, new things for us, which are these income bands that
we have to plan for.
14:01:43 And there's a tool that commerce put out, for example, that we've already or the city already took the, took the step of plugging in information to see what it would spit out.
14:01:52 And of course it didn't quite work for us. You know, we only have the one city and we're just We're unique, I suppose, right?
14:01:57 We're only planning for in theory for another 6,000 people or so. And the next 20 years it seems like maybe we'll get more but then again we thought 20 years ago we'd have more
now by this time.
14:02:07 So. Anyway, I guess there's a lot of conversation around that and we'll have to figure that out and it's sort of a lot of conversation around that and we'll have to figure that
out and it's sort of like there's a waiting period to get all the information together.
14:02:17 I know that there's housing period to get all the information together. I know that there's housing fund discussion, housing fund board discussion going on right now that's
very applicable.
14:02:23 There are housing proponents. In fact, I would ask one of the commissioners is most engaged with that to report out to us really like where are we at with that because that
information is going to be crucial.
14:02:32 So I guess I'll go back to Joel's recommendation, which I agree with, which is that We start out with a somewhat simple question, which is back in 2015.
14:02:42 What did we do to allocate the population in terms of percentages between the city and our UGA in terms of percentages between the city and our UGA in Hadlock and the rest of
the county.
14:02:50 And then just see if does that still make sense or not? Should we essentially propose to stick with that or tweak it a bit?
14:02:56 And then we actually make a resolution to do that for planning purposes and then we continue the conversation including this new requirements under the under the GMA which I
posted in the chat by the way I'm it's in our housing element section right there.
14:03:09 And then when if we find that We, our initial assumption is not gonna work for whatever reason because the UG is coming on because of the habitat project because of Evans Vista
because of the conversation around a UGA swap, any of those things, then we can always turn around and make an adjustment well before June, thirtieth, 2,025, because that's when we
actually have to finish
14:03:34 this whole thing. But in order to even start it and go down the road towards planning for a certain population, I know the city's been asking me.
14:03:40 How far are we on this conversation? Because they want a number that they can work with. And I think we do as well.
14:03:47 Well, and I think the I think This is gonna be one of the trickier. I mean, specifically the housing allocation.
14:03:58 Population allocation to some degree, housing, the income bans. I think it could get a little tricky with the city.
14:04:06 I mean, we have competing interests. They want density in the city. We would love to see density in the UGA.
14:04:13 I think we probably will be questioning the formula. Because I think we all understand better now the importance of of creating density and we have a UGA where we can do that
now in the county.
14:04:26 So I guess I would lean towards a, a leaner group, not the ICG, which I think maybe we took off the table already anyway.
14:04:37 And then just being careful to balance the membership so that it's you know really representative of the county and not to city heavy I realize it's advisory but you know, just
wanna be.
14:04:53 Be aware of the. The population dynamic as it is. Yeah, I think those are my feelings.
14:05:03 I think towards a small group seems a little So you have 8 F 3 county commissioners and 3 city councils, city council members.
14:05:12 I might lean more towards 3, 2 city and then one port one PD, something along those lines.
14:05:17 Just throw it out there. And then we.
14:05:17 I didn't wanna bring up just that on that very point, Commissioner Dean that. As Joel mentioned, we had a UGA representatives, the last go around.
14:05:26 Yeah.
14:05:26 I think there were 3. My understanding is those particular parties either have moved out of that, you know, being within the UGA itself or might not be the best fit.
14:05:36 So. That's another puzzle. I like that idea of inviting 2 city councilors and then we can the board should select perhaps the district 2 commissioner would select someone really
sort of recruit someone try to get them interested to participate in this committee this at maybe the short term part of it will be attractive, but of course we don't know how short
it would be.
14:06:00 Cause if we as we go into this, we should probably be commitment all the way through all the way through spring of 2025 but I like that idea 3 2 and one in a sense it's our
I do believe it's the county's decision to do this but I know that we've been in contact with the city's decision to do this but I know that we's the county's decision to do this, but,
I know that we've been in contact with the city.
14:06:15 So certainly after this, we've been in contact with the city. So certainly after this discussion, we would tell them what, direction we received and we would tell them what
the city. So certainly after this discussion, we would tell them what direction we received and we would certainly give them a chance to comment on any kind of draft
14:06:21 And you say 3, you mean through us 3 commissioners? Yep, 2 to city council, one part of UD, port and Port Hedlock.
14:06:34 And the, tribal participation to be determined.
14:06:40 I'm fine with that distribution. I'm I'm wondering last time. I mean the reason there were 3 I think is because there were 3 in the previous incarnation and Does your historical
research Joshua Joel lend any, rationale for that?
14:06:56 And also I like the idea of having a UGA, you know, citizen. On, on the growth management board.
14:07:03 I'll differ to Joel, he's got different information, but. My, I guess educated guests would be 3 commissioners.
14:07:10 3 city councilors because it was below. Hello, Quorum and it would, you know, then we didn't want for city councilors to outnumber the commissioners and then we just added 3
UTA reps so that they would all sort of be an even playing field of like a baseball team of 9.
14:07:27 But then of course you add the port commissioner. So, that does lend itself to sort of bringing things down and trying to get a smaller, more nimble, committee, although even
2 county commissioners, of course, would be a meeting, as I'm sure Karen Carolyn will remind us.
14:07:44 Yeah, I think having all parts of the county represented or it's really valuable. The 3 districts personally.
14:07:52 I agree.
14:07:51 I do too. Joe, did you have anything to add on the historic composition? No, the history of those decisions come composition of the steering committee isn't really available.
14:08:04 We also had concurrently history with involving Port Hedlock, UGA representative on the infrastructure board.
14:08:13 And as we were working on the sewer project, there were representatives. For the sewer, so sometimes it was the same person.
14:08:20 On all of these and so. Those are overlapping. Positions at that time and so it's not clear.
14:08:30 What, how that decision was made in the, in the last iteration of the steering committee.
14:08:35 And another detail that I would pass on that Carolyn, and I discussed and was her suggestion that This time the resolution would be preferable just to state the composition
in terms of the entities being represented rather than names.
14:08:58 Hmm.
14:08:52 I think we ran into trouble because we had specific names and a resolution before I think it'd be Again, the, the, the, the, the, the, it leads back towards just a decision
of, let's get this community together to have this conversation and not dwell on the names and such and it that way it could actually maybe last a little longer too.
14:09:10 That's another thing to discuss is do we wanna convene this and then end it by the end of this update or just want to keep this body, for whatever purposes we need in the future
for our continued discussion.
14:09:20 Well, I have a couple more questions about kind of scope. So the Kenny Wide planning policies, how do we envision the timing of those being done visa v the comp plan?
14:09:36 I was thinking that back to that kind of, take that first step, which is the basic population.
14:09:43 And just revisiting 2015 and seeing if we need to if we what would like to change that allocation that division.
14:09:52 Right away or not and perhaps we could get to an agreement on that. Perhaps not.
14:09:59 Maybe that's more of a complicated question like, like, like you're suggesting it could be.
14:10:03 But let's just say for a moment we do pick an allocation for planning purposes and that that enables the city in the county to kind of march off and continue to do the work.
14:10:09 And as we reconvene, we have these touch points. During the process to make sure that we're in coordination and our planning efforts are consistent.
14:10:18 Plus we have this ongoing conversation. Around a potential urban growth area swap from the for the port towns and UGA.
14:10:27 We're just embarking upon that. And as you know, we just, we're awarded some grant funds to to start to.
14:10:32 Dive into that a little deeper. So I guess I would say that, There could be those touch points where we come back and during this process.
14:10:40 And end up doing a reallocation based on what we learn in the next say 6 8 months by the end of the year or something like that or the early next year and that would just allow
us to put the finishing touches.
14:10:51 On the 2025 periodic update again all in theory that we're gonna make that deadline.
14:10:59 Yeah, I was pausing too to think of some questions of. How important is the consistency and finality of countywide planning policies to go forth in the comprehensive plan.
14:11:11 And I thought, well, there, there probably be some feedback mechanism where We're going out to the public.
14:11:19 We're starting to share all of the work done with the steering committee. There might be. Some feedback from there that.
14:11:26 Would change catawy planning planning policies. But also as Joshua saying, if we can to get to the point of having the structural policies of where we need to go in the future
and not try to answer or finish all of the problems in this year and a half, that would be a good position to be in.
14:11:47 And so those would be less prone to be modified and kicked around. So that's kind of the 2 directions I went in my mind with that question.
14:11:57 And that reminded me of course the original question and commissioner team was really around the county by the planning policy so I would say that I think there may be some
counties in Washington in which those policies have been revisited more frequently, perhaps every time they do an update or something.
14:12:11 But obviously in our case, We haven't touched them since the 1990. So I would even say that.
14:12:17 Absent any new statute or some reason to touch them. We don't really need to do so now as Joe mentioned back by round 22,004.
14:12:26 I think I have some policies that are some draft amendments that I believe it or not I compose when I work for DCD at the time.
14:12:33 And we had these kinds of meetings with the partners. And, I know the city kind of gave them back to me and said, look, look what you did in 2,005.
14:12:42 So we proposed amending them, but we never did. And yet we still went through a couple of periodic updates.
14:12:48 So From that standpoint, I don't think we necessarily have to change them now. I would say that because of the 1717 requirements, I do advocate.
14:13:02 Okay.
14:12:57 Following that and working on some kind of policies that that set the tone for, tribal participation and involvement in county planning.
14:13:09 And that would be then the overall framework then that we can use to whether it's a tribal element or whether it's just introducing policy language someplace in our confidence.
14:13:19 So that's a whole question there. And then the other thing would be any conversation around, around the port towns and UGA.
14:13:26 I do think that would benefit from having a counter wide planning policy to again set the framework to sort of say what are we trying to do?
14:13:34 What are we analyzing? What question are we trying to address and how are we how do we propose to get there?
14:13:39 And then, and then there's that just sets us off and, and then we, then we do the planning necessary.
14:13:44 So in other words, if we are jointly pursuing something in the port towns and new GA, which happens to be coincident in this case with the city.
14:13:52 Municipal boundary, again, kind of a rare situation, but it is what it is. And so are we going to think about that with respect to Caswell Brown or any other any other reason
and then having account when I'm planning policy would be important.
14:14:05 In fact, I just learned recently and I think I remember our just Notice that the board here discussed.
14:14:11 That one pre file bill. That would adjust the language in the RCW for the UGA swap provision.
14:14:19 And, there's some input from some, some interested parties. I think the planners in the state of saying that any UGA swap should be.
14:14:33 Okay.
14:14:28 Predicated by, Countyway appliance policy. Stating such. So in that sense, we may end up if that bill passes and if that happens, then we may end up having to amend them anyway.
14:14:42 So I guess I would see in terms of back to your question of schedule. If we got the growth machine, and communicator soon, the first point of business would just be catching
everyone up to speed of course and then focusing on the initial population allocation first of all choosing.
14:14:55 One of the bands, low, medium, or high for the OFM population projection as you can as you heard from Dave Anderson from Commerce at the ICG meeting, he strongly suggests sticking
with the medium.
14:15:08 But anyway, that's what we've always done, but that's an open question. And then the next thing would be the percentage allocation.
14:15:13 Between the UTAs and the percentage allocation between the UTAs and the rural lands. After that, then that committee could be working on the side on the on counterweight planning
policies just Maybe picking up the pieces of what was proposed back in 2,005, seeing what we need to update, what we could update, asking the travel policy question.
14:15:30 And then, seeing where we go from there, I can picture that being a 2 to 3 to 4 month exercise and maybe around summer time we would be it would be coming before the board with
proposed amendments to the calendar and planning policies, which again, which only just buttress in a sense what we've already been working on because we can't just wait for that to
happen in order to start doing our compound work, but
14:15:53 at least we would know that, okay, we would, it would be like a consistency checkpoint in the coordination aspect of the city county planning process.
14:16:01 And does it feel doable in terms of capacity to do those 2 concurrently? That can you add planning policies while?
14:16:09 I mean, I think it'll be largely staff working on comp plan at that point, but I know there's a lot that's happening behind the scenes and I think this board will probably want
to engage.
14:16:19 You know, it's public outreach and. Does it seem doable to do those both at the same time?
14:16:25 That's a great question. I'm sorry to chuckle. I guess.
14:16:32 The glass half full part of my personality says, yeah, we can do all of this all the 20 or so long range planning projects that we've got on the table right now.
14:16:43 And that's only a 20 like time sensitive ones. Right before us and we can figure out all out and get it all done by June thirtieth 2025.
14:16:51 The glass not so full part of me is like. The whole thing seems. Precipitous.
14:16:59 But the good news is that we just hired, you know, we just got a new, planner on board.
14:17:04 In fact, I think Vince is listening right now, perhaps out there in the in the hinterlands or over in this cube I should say.
14:17:14 Sounds great.
14:17:22 Great.
14:17:10 Vincent, is here to help us as well and we've got consultants on staff and as I mentioned, probably in previous Previous, meetings were gonna be going out for an RFP for additional
consultant services, which are all, are hopefully all paid for by The 3 commerce grants that we've got going for this, the periodic update grant itself, which is an allocation.
14:17:31 The middle housing grant, which is an award, and then the climate planning grant, which is an allocation.
14:17:36 Yeah. Okay. Can I add just one more complication? Did we talk about at the ICG potentially this group also, taking on the, is it the consolidated water plan? Coordinated water
plan?
14:17:51 What's the? Okay.
14:17:51 Coordinated water system plan Brett Butler is working on that right now. And that's another piece that we're hoping to.
14:17:56 Okay.
14:17:59 Hoping to work with partners on. He had a meeting last week with Department of Health officials and chemistry, the general manager for the PUD and Lisa Hsburg from Environmental
Public Health.
14:18:10 And so that is a project. He's going to be coming back to the board with an agenda request with the scope of work.
14:18:15 So that is also happening, but that we were hoping that. Consulting can be can be contracted with to take the bulk of that and run with it and plus we have partners to work
with in that.
14:18:28 But you're absolutely right. That's another piece. The thing is it's All of these things tied together as you know from your work.
14:18:43 Okay.
14:18:34 We're hoping to actually tap into the climate planning funds for for our portion of that and I've gotten the the okay from commerce to do that that is a use for that money and
the whole idea would be that we're looking 20 years out to the future for our water resources as a whole.
14:18:53 And so it's not just you can't just, I guess the exercise would be not just coloring the map with different land use designations and then just assuming it's all gonna work
out.
14:19:03 We're actually looking at that question more closely. What's the situation within stream flow rules or any other limitations that we may have visa being water resources and
then having that be part of the conversation.
14:19:13 So ideally we would get the coordinated water system plan done right around the time that we'd be finishing up the 2025 period update and again the glass half full party says
it's all gonna come together very nicely.
14:19:23 Hmm. And meeting with Brent and Josh on this, we're probably going to propose a smaller, more nimble group for the, I think it's called the look.
14:19:36 And certainly the IGC can be consulted or advised on what that work is, is doing, keeping them approach the progress and so on.
14:19:46 But the larger, group gets the difficulty of finishing a project. Comes exponentially more difficult. And So that's why we're gonna recommend.
14:19:58 A much smaller. Nimble group for that.
14:20:05 Thank you.
14:20:08 Gordinated water system plan. Well, Josh, I'm thrilled to hear that Vince landed on this part of our team because I was hoping he would end up at the county.
14:20:22 Okay.
14:20:20 So welcome, Vince, if you can hear me. Heidi and So what just thinking about recruitment of a UGA, Port Hat like UGA citizen representative.
14:20:33 What is the time frame for that? You were mentioning a meeting on February. I didn't write it down.
14:20:39 Yeah, February eighth. So. If the board is comfortable providing us. Specific direction on some of these questions we're discussing now.
14:20:50 Then our goal was to get a resolution. Into the hopper this week for you to consider this coming.
14:20:59 That your next board meeting, this coming Tuesday, I think that is because of the holiday.
14:21:03 So So, if we're able to do that, I mean, you could, if you wanted to, you could start to, contact your folks, the folks that you know they're interested in this.
14:21:16 I know that they're There are folks obviously that are interested in. And the soul growth management idea, community planning in the had like area.
14:21:22 So. Just, rely on your judgment in that Heidi and if you wanted to start putting out the feelers and then if we got if we finished the resolution on Tuesday, then we would put
out like a formal invitation to all of our partners, including the individual or individuals that selected.
14:21:40 Hey, sounds good. In Carolyn's, typical infinite wisdom, she reminded me that, at the ICG, we talked about the potential of adding school districts or fire districts to the
steering committee which you know I think we probably all worry about the group getting too large.
14:22:03 I wonder if there's kind of a consultation process that the steering committee could commit to with some of those important stakeholders.
14:22:10 Alright.
14:22:10 Thank you. So much for bringing that up. I totally I'm sorry that I forgot that piece.
14:22:14 I mean, I remembered it. I just forgot to mention it today. Absolutely. So.
14:22:20 I think that the school districts fire jurisdiction. There might be other districts that. Or other stakeholder groups that would be interested in participating.
14:22:30 I would advocate just like you said, Commissioner Dean to put those in the category of stakeholder involvement so that you have a nimble steering committee and then the the
meetings are advertised and the invitations and the solicitations are sent out.
14:22:45 That would include those districts. And perhaps this is something we can consider, can't consider for the resolution itself just to stay state examples of stakeholders.
14:22:54 Yeah, so we don't get we don't constrain ourselves too much. That also goes into the whole idea of there, you know, the difference between a voting member and an non voting
member is becomes a move point.
14:23:02 And because again, the other piece would be the travel participation. We haven't quite sussed out exactly how to do that.
14:23:08 I think that'd be wise to. To inform. Tribes with which we've been engaged previously that we're doing this process.
14:23:16 And to kind of give them a heads up that at some point in this process. This committee could be considering Amen to the counterweight planning policies in which case we would
actually invite them per statute.
14:23:28 Yeah. So maybe I can recruit a Port Hadlock, phase one sewer boundary resident who's also a Chimacum school superintendent.
14:23:40 Live in the phase one sewer boundary. But he can see it from his front porch.
14:23:47 Anyway, just. That might. Yeah. Let's say he wants all the students in his district.
14:23:58 Alright, so are we. Just giving you guidance today.
14:24:07 Yeah, so what I've heard so far from you is that in terms of membership. That you would agree with the idea that we'd have a smaller committee and move away from kind of the
voting non voting issue.
14:24:23 That all 3 county commissioners want to participate. We would invite 2 city counselors. And pick a UGA representative.
14:24:33 We would also invite one PUD commissioner and one. Port commissioner and then we would list some other districts right now I have school districts and fire districts.
14:24:43 We would list districts and tribes. In the list of stakeholders that would be invited to. Participate as they wished during the process.
14:24:55 Yeah, I wonder too, you know, maybe we could include that, you know, especially because these will be.
14:25:04 Open public meetings, the commissioners will all be there that we make an attempt to have meetings around the county to make it easier for those stakeholders to participate.
14:25:18 Yeah, there, as you wish. Carol and I were talking about some of the advantages of Scheduling of using that same port facility where we have these kinds of joint government
conversations, intergovernmental collaborative meetings.
14:25:33 But that said though, scheduling some for other places fits in with the overall planning commission outreach.
14:25:41 That's the other thing too is Meanwhile, as you'll learn more when we have our joint board planning commission meeting on January, twentieth this month on a Saturday as a reminder.
14:25:52 Saturday afternoon that is. We have it in mind to work with the outreach committee, the planning commission to set up some meetings around the county.
14:26:00 So we'll just have to figure out how that all fits together. Those might be a little bit later in the process perhaps and we'll do some of these earlier but I also don't anticipate
kind of depends on how How much we bite out to chew and how complicated it gets but I'm trying to back to your question of can we pull this all off I'm hoping to achieve.
14:26:17 Some kind of magical efficiency in the sense that we have maybe 3, 4, possibly 5 meetings this year of this group.
14:26:26 But again, we'll see what, see what the group wants to do.
14:26:32 The Marine Resources Committee has found that the Triarea Community Center has the best zoom audio quality of any facility in the county.
14:26:39 So just putting a plug in for that one. The Try area community center.
14:26:45 Well, we certainly use that one every time we have a
14:26:47 Yeah, yeah. I haven't finished reading the statute for the countywide planning policies. But does the planning commission have any role in those?
14:27:04 Good. I don't believe it.
14:27:02 That is a good question. I wasn't around for the first round so I couldn't tell you whether they did at the time and then we haven't edited them since the since the 1990.
14:27:14 I would my guess would be not statutorily mandated but running them through the planning commission could be something that we choose to do.
14:27:26 I know that it's I don't I guess I don't it's I would differentiate it from the planning commissions more formalized role for amending our comprehensive plan.
14:27:32 For our development regulations. But that said, if you want it, if we wanted to choose to do that, if we have some amendments, you wanted to have a touch point or something
like that.
14:27:41 I don't think it's the case where, for example, I don't think we have a 60 day notice to Department of Commerce just like we would for a comprehensive plan or a development
regulation amendment.
14:27:51 Josh, did you? I mean, Joel, do you have anything? Right, I agree with Josh that there is no precedent at this point or statute that the planning commission would be involved
in this but the board at their will can task the planning commission for recommendations from from their perspective as our community liaisons.
14:28:11 But, haven't been in the past, but if we could. Have them provide you with a letter of recommendation of how they see things from their perspective.
14:28:21 That's helpful to you. In your decision making process.
14:28:27 Alright, we don't have to figure that out. Just yet. Any other guidance we wanna.
14:28:43 It's exciting.
14:28:36 Yes, guys. Feels like a big adventure. We're about to embark on together.
14:28:46 Alright, do you have what you need, Josh and Joel?
14:28:49 I believe so. Yes. And we'll work with Barbara and Caroline. To draft up a resolution.
14:28:58 And I could see we the commissioners might like to be able to get a look at it before it's finalized.
14:29:07 So I wonder if perhaps. That could go through Mark or Barbara to just. You know, get it, get some feedback from the commissioner separately before it comes before us as a board.
14:29:18 See after.
14:29:18 Sure, we'll draft it and just pass it along to Caroline and Barbara to work from there and before we get on the agenda.
14:29:24 Yeah. Great. Thank you. Okay.
14:29:28 1Â s.
14:29:32 Okay.
14:29:31 Excellent. So that was 30Â min that lasted 60. So. Good, excellent.
14:29:36 Okay. We have we have the time today and obviously it's of interest. Okay.
14:29:43 Yes. Yes, and that was important. So, and I'm, Being facetious really.
14:29:51 No.
14:29:48 So, the next topic. If, Caroline, if you could pull over George Terry, I believe he's he's zooming in with me.
14:29:58 Bring in
14:29:58 And I'm asking George to join because he has been tasked with taking the lead on implementation of the site development review program and so just I just want George here with
me in case there's questions about it that he might know the answer more than I would about the day to day implementation.
14:30:20 As you know, since we hired a development code administrator, I've tried to step away as much as possible from the day to day permit making role and been much more focused on
exactly what we just talked about the policymaking aspect of community planning.
14:30:34 So I'll just kick it off very briefly. Then go ahead.
14:30:34 Thank you. Hi, John. Just saying goodbye to Joel, he's leaving us.
14:30:41 Okay. Thank you. Okay, so I will just.
14:30:53 Okay.
14:30:47 Kick us off and briefly summarize the contents of this 4 page. Status review report, which I characterized as a summary to Mark, which I think made him chuckle because it's
4 pages worth of bullet points.
14:31:03 Doesn't sound like a summary. Sounds something in between. It's not quite a thesis, but anyway, what we thought the reason why we wanted to come back to the board is The last
time I remember being in front of the board talking about SDRs or site development review, there was some thought about, yeah, let's come back and keep talking about this or, you know,
give us
14:31:22 a status update. So it's really just a proactive reach out at the beginning of the year.
14:31:25 Hmm.
14:31:26 And I calling in a milestone report because.
14:31:31 We really reached the end of the initial. Anticipated contract amount with our principal consultant at the Aquale group.
14:31:42 For this effort. And so we've gone over that amount as I described in the report itself and in the agenda request, but for good reasons.
14:31:50 And so in a nutshell. Back in, as you know, I mean the program launched in the fall of 2020.
14:32:00 There was at the end of a one year development moratorium. For a lot of reasons that we've gone over with you, but of course we can revisit as you wish any of the reasons or
why we got ourselves into a whole, if you will, at the time.
14:32:14 The pent up demand, then the integral transition, we turned off the tide mark, the old software, and then waited for Interg to get turned on and then did that and all the sort
of database issues that came along.
14:32:27 With that, which by the way, I believe is there's gonna be a workshop schedule with the board later this month to talk more about that.
14:32:34 And anyway, those challenges coupled with us. I would call. I was gonna say the word significant, but I think that lost its meaning.
14:32:43 So yeah, maybe I'll be more dramatic and say drastic staff turnover. Between the fall of 2022 and the spring of 2023 And then, department reorganization, including me taking
over as, director on June first of 2023.
14:33:00 Bringing in new staff. And also hiring land use consultants to help us. And At Well was the one, formerly known as Blue Line, a Seattle-based group, or at least preacher sound
base group.
14:33:17 Helped us out in significantly and George has been in the driver's seat in terms of managing.
14:33:21 Yeah.
14:33:25 That consultant contract and working with them on a weekly basis. Every week they have a meeting to check in on things.
14:33:29 We hand them a batch every week or 2 and we get the batch back and so forth. And the bottom line is that that's after some, you know, what you would expect to be some ramp up
time for them to get up to speed, just like same thing with training new staff, right?
14:33:43 They've come back, in. Produced a lot of products and given us a lot of decisions and, analyses that then we've turned into the final product for SDRs and issued them.
14:33:54 So, and they've also helped us. In analyzing the process itself and trying to improve the program.
14:34:01 And of course now we have, senior planner, Multi Lindblad doing the same. We've got Greg Ballard, development code administrator, doing the same.
14:34:10 We've got other new staff, working on, working on, on the process as well.
14:34:15 So it's kind of, it's a team effort all the way through. And in the bottom line is that we are.
14:34:21 Oh, we're so close we can taste it to. Getting through the backlog, at least on the DCD side.
14:34:29 And so, and what that means is not like all the way down to permit 0, there's no parents at all the queue, but more like we kick the queue that was in the hundreds and it's
down to you know, I don't know, 2030, whatever, whatever that number is.
14:34:40 And the only ones left would be the ones that are just puzzles, no matter what. Well, no matter what the rules are in a sense or the process, these are the hard to develop properties
or the properties to just have questions that just need to be answered and so we can't just issue those or work through it.
14:34:57 Immediately. But what I Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
14:34:57 Joshua, before you butt. I just wanna like ask for a moment of like. Silence and recognition of that huge accomplishment because last year we spent as commissioners probably
a quarter of our time feeling.
14:35:13 Or, you know, in the last a year before, the year before June sixth. You know, an enormous amount of time fielding questions and complaints and issues and trying to, you know,
note figure out who to call over at DCD and and you just, you guys have really.
14:35:30 Gotten your head around the issue and In such a masterful way, now my phone, when my phone rings, I know who to call.
14:35:38 First of all, that's really important. And there's someone at the end of the phone line that answers.
14:35:44 And takes the football and Sees it to completion. So I just wanna. Thank you all for your leadership and diligence.
14:35:54 And I mean, it was a slog. I know it was. And I just appreciate it. I mean, I've talked to so many people who've talked in the last 6 months about how great things are now.
14:36:04 So it's the tone of the conversation is completely changed in my experience in the community and just wanted to say that before.
14:36:14 Too much went by, too much water went under this conversations bridge. Thank you.
14:36:20 Well, I certainly appreciate that, Commissioner Eisenhower and I am ready to pretty much ready to wrap up.
14:36:26 I was I was going to say. Tempering expectations here a little bit. We're not quite there to the point where we're down.
14:36:32 You know, completely through the backlog, but we can, like I say, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
14:36:36 We're really hoping that at least by the end of the first quarter of this year will be at a point where where we initially wanted to be, which is that an applicant comes in.
14:36:46 Applies for the permit and we can actually look at it like right away or the next day or something and then within a week or 2 if it's a simple case, just get it out the door.
14:36:54 That was the original idea. You might remember that from the fall of 2022 and we're at the point now where we finally work through that slog to get there.
14:37:02 It doesn't mean we're completely out of the woods. There's still policy questions to answer.
14:37:06 There's still logistical things. We're working on. We're going to send a couple more staff to the lean training.
14:37:11 That's offered by our local, experts and so we're still continually looking at at improving the process but we're a lot better as you said where we are I agree that we're completely
a lot better than we were before and it really it's a testament to just everybody who's been involved.
14:37:26 I mean, I. I just. Put pieces in place and everyone else did the work. So really all the all the credit goes to the new development code administrator and his team and then
to George and George if you want to jump in and say something at this point you're welcome to do so in my book anyway just to any other thoughts that I might have missed in terms of
the summary here.
14:37:48 Thank you, Josh. And it's a pleasure to be here today. Commissioners. Thank you and and I appreciate the kind words, Commissioner Eisenhower for sure.
14:37:56 And Josh said it best that it has been a fantastic example. Of a collaborative effort. I'm so grateful for my team, the team that Josh and his leadership team have assembled
for us and it is a very, very exciting time at DCD for sure.
14:38:12 Thank you.
14:38:18 Alright, so, Great, go ahead.
14:38:23 Yeah, I'm not sure if you're looking for action, but I have to say kind of in line with what Heidi said this document, this bullet point progress report is giving me more joy
than any other document this year.
14:38:37 Okay.
14:38:42 Okay.
14:38:36 So I mean. Pile onto the kudos. It was a definitely like a Herculean task and you really The only the only bittersweet thing was seeing former staff members working for Atwell
on the other side.
14:38:50 That was the only thing that kind of gave me a little bit of shot in Freud, self inflicted shot in Freud.
14:38:55 Okay.
14:38:55 I don't know. But really good work, glad that it's going together. And if you want feedback, I think you want your kind of, we're looking forward to kind of finishing this out
with that well and it seems like it's definitely the most efficient.
14:39:07 Course and a little bit more you know even general funds dollars I appreciated the the price breakdown you know that has been and the projections of the price breakdown as it
goes forward as well.
14:39:18 So again, really good presentation and the package, you know, the the packet in our packet was answered all my questions before we even got to today.
14:39:29 So thank you very much for all your work.
14:39:31 Thank you, Commissioner Rothstein. I know that all of you have been patient with us as we work through this and supportive and so the board and the county administrators office
and and Judy Shepherd and everybody that's involved with the budget question have been very supportive about our.
14:39:50 Our plan essentially to to invest in this in solving this problem and hope and part of what I was trying to describe in this bullet list is just a emphasizing that we hope it's
just this one time investment in that regard and then we have to come back and make some decisions.
14:40:08 About fee recovery and will be coming back to the board. In a few months or maybe several months this year.
14:40:17 With the results of the fee study that we've undergone and the policy questions that'll be before the board about fee recovery as I hinted I think in this document that The
initial results are such that at this time, even without these additional expenditures, using this third party consulting services that even just internal staff, which is cheaper than
using consultants.
14:40:38 We're still not we're still not at a hundred percent fee recovery so that will be a policy decision for the board do we want to do that or do we want to supplement the the permit
program through the general fund as we've been doing, perhaps.
14:40:50 Without full knowledge about the consequences of that. So all those, all that's gonna come your way soon.
14:40:56 Yeah, I just, I didn't have any, specific, question for you other than just presenting the information and see what questions you had really.
14:41:03 And now that I know that it was this. 4 pages worth of bullet points was your favorite. Greg, I'll make sure to make it 8 points, 8 pages worth of bullet points next time. It'll
be even better.
14:41:12 The year is young. I mean, the year is young.
14:41:12 Okay.
14:41:12 Okay. Yeah. 4 is good, Josh. Okay.
14:41:23 Yeah, I'll just say I have to say when we started this process, I expected that we would be seeing legal challenges long before now and we haven't and to me that's a huge marker
of success and knock on wood, you know, I'm scared saying it, but yeah, but it's, I mean, I think it's a sign that we're on the right track and
14:41:44 doing this in a fair and transparent way. I know it's been a sign that we're on the right track and doing this in a fair and transparent way.
14:41:50 I know it's been painful for everyone involved great to see progress and, remarkably little blowback.
14:41:57 Right, anything else you need from us on this Josh?
14:42:01 No, I, one final comment in regard to what Commissioner Dean just said.
14:42:08 We also have to acknowledge that though. Public's been very patient as well. I mean, the applicant community has been has been challenged at least as much as we have.
14:42:19 And so we just wanna acknowledge that and, we're thankful for. For the patients of those folks and We're hoping that, you know, we continue to work together in that, Interesting
and sometimes tense relationship between the regulated and the regulators right and we're trying to strike that balance to give the best customer service we can while Well, accomplishing
our our goals and
14:42:42 objectives that the complain lays out. So that's what we're trying to do. It's not always easy.
14:42:47 And of course, you know, even more than we do because you're dealing with so many other issues besides just the community development issues besides just the community development
issues that we deal with.
14:42:53 But that's it. Thank you.
14:42:55 Well, and also I'd say we're also trying to provide more certainty and less risk in the future on development proposals.
14:43:03 So that's, I totally appreciate their patience and know that it has come at a cost to some projects and some contractors.
14:43:11 That the hope is that we have a better system for them to move projects through in the future.
14:43:19 Alright, well. Thank you, George. Thank you, Josh. Is this our last?
14:43:28 Agenda item with you Josh. Just seems like you'd be here all day.
14:43:33 Yeah.
14:43:31 I can stick around. Okay.
14:43:38 Okay.
14:43:33 Probably have other work to do. Alright. Anything else, Greg or Heidi or Mark? No.
14:43:40 Thanks. Thanks.
14:43:42 Okay, good. Thank you.
14:43:48 Okay. We have nothing else on our agenda, but Yes. I have one letter of support.
14:44:00 I wanna discuss, we have a little more calendaring. A couple of. Great. Challenging wrap up items.
14:44:06 Okay.
14:44:12 Do you want to go first, Heidi? And, I'm waiting to hear back, on a detail.
14:44:18 For the letter of support. So let me look through my email, see if I got that while you're going.
14:44:23 So just because I was. Wrapping up my calendaring when we were last together. Couple of items.
14:44:31 So after we met last week. I remember that Al Cairns had asked Greg for both of us to stick around for the.
14:44:41 Capital facilities planning process. Because he thought that would be. Beneficial so He also said that Carolyn would hate him for suggesting this because then that would be.
14:44:54 He thinks it'll be 2 or 3 more meetings. Is this for a will it be enjoyed? It's a solid waste facilities task force.
14:45:06 And Greg has been sitting on it, but. Over the course of the last couple months. Al's seen the benefit to having the solid waste task force facilities task force.
14:45:18 Combined with the solid waste advisory committee. For the next few meetings. So it would be, I guess, public noticing.
14:45:28 Well, talk to Al.
14:45:29 It would be a joint meeting because we'd form the VOCC.
14:45:32 Right. Would it be helpful if maybe They join a workshop with the VOCC in the afternoon and then they call their special needs to order.
14:45:44 With the BOCC.
14:45:47 We wouldn't have special meeting. They would have special meeting with us. No, we can talk about.
14:45:52 In detail later.
14:45:52 They wouldn't even have a special meeting. We would just do the task force in the afternoon session.
14:45:57 I think that's a If it's workable for the calendar, I think that's a great idea.
14:45:58 Yeah. Yeah, for them it would be special meetings. But for
14:46:03 It drags Kate in, Alas for Kate not to be included, right? Not.
14:46:07 No, he didn't. But, He was imagining. Sorry, cough. He was imagining that these meetings would occur when the normal solid waste advisory committee meetings happen.
14:46:23 I, I could talk to him. Okay, that would be great. Would be great, Caroline, if you could talk to Al and figure out what needs to be done that so that Greg and I can.
14:46:34 Well, I'm the Swack member now, but Greg's been participating in the task force.
14:46:39 And we'd like to continue both participating tell the task forces. Done, which is 3 meetings. Okay, and then the second thing I had is that you'll remember that we received
a letter from the Department of Natural Resources.
14:46:57 On December eighteenth. With the good news that we were. That they were proposing protection of. 670 acres in the day Bob Bay area and 281 acres and elsewhere which we later
learned were on the base of Mount Walker and at Notch Pass both in district 3 and they also And in that letter said, we would love to meet with you to talk about, you know.
14:47:29 Disallocation of acreage. So I reached back to them and I said. I coordinated with Carolyn and found some blocks.
14:47:39 On our calendars on Monday afternoons and asked them if they could join us. On any of these 3 Monday afternoons in January.
14:47:49 1, one being today though, so one's already passed. They haven't gone back to me yet.
14:47:53 I'll follow up. But just wanted you to know because we'd all received that letter that I am tracking that item.
14:47:59 And hoping to get. Probably Dwayne Emmons here to talk to us about. Especially the acreage that they added because those 2 parcels, the parcels at Mount Walker and the Notch
past parcel.
14:48:16 Have not been on our radar. As legacy or older forests or unique plant communities and.
14:48:23 It's sounding like from some of our colleagues that they're probably not really structurally complex forests.
14:48:32 And so I just kind of want to hear Dnr's rationale for suggesting those 2 tracks. Per addition for Jefferson County.
14:48:41 Maybe they have. Harvest constraints, maybe they're steep slopes. Maybe there's some reason that DNR would like to get these off of their timber base, but It would be nice to
hear from them what that is.
14:48:54 So anyway, just wanted you to know that I'm still tracking. That detail and. Hope you need that conversation scheduled in the next couple of weeks.
14:49:03 You said those are part of the proviso not trust land transfer or not trust land transfer or not pressing that NCS funding, the 83 million dollar proviso the 2,000 so acres
of structurally complex forest.
14:49:17 So the fact that the proviso said that they had to be structurally complex acres and then we went and looked at the acres that they're proposing.
14:49:24 In Deba Bay. Yes, legacy for us. Lots of structurally complex and those 670 acres.
14:49:31 But the other 180 acres don't feel structurally complex to us so we're just kind of wondering why.
14:49:37 They were proposed and would like to hear from DNR, like for all of us to hear.
14:49:44 So.
14:49:45 So, those were my 2 hanging chat updates. So you'll work on getting that. Yeah, scheduled.
14:49:52 Yeah. I'm gonna follow up with them right now again.
14:49:55 Mark, do you wanna go through your? Calendar for the week ahead. Okay, I didn't.
14:50:06 You didn't do the looking backward. I didn't. I was gonna start with that. I apologize.
14:50:08 Oh, that's fine. And I've got kind of a frog in the road anyway.
14:50:12 So last week, of course, the first was a holiday and then on the second met with the board.
14:50:18 And it was kind of a late week. Wednesday, Tories of retirement, of course.
14:50:24 Sorry to see him go, but happy to welcome Gordon on board. Then I had an afternoon meeting with Judy Shepherd to talk about a variety of budget issues.
14:50:34 And then nothing scheduled on Thursday. And then on Friday. I met with Brent in the morning followed up.
14:50:43 I, an update with Apple and then Kate and I and Caroline went over the agenda for today.
14:50:50 Then a quick update with Josh and then the grant coordination meeting that. That Greg talked about.
14:50:57 With Josh and Amanda Christopherson.
14:51:02 And then Friday afternoon. I went out to the shop and picked up our new fleet manager Josh Montgomery and took him to Castle Hill.
14:51:10 First to the sheriff's office to meet with Andy Prinsteiner and then to Castle Hill to meet with Josh and Apple and Monty.
14:51:17 Since those are the principal customers that Josh is gonna have to make happy and his tenure as fleet manager.
14:51:24 And so I think that's a good way to get Josh. Started in his new role here at the county.
14:51:30 Anyway, those meetings were. Welcomed and I think productive. Continue on to this week.
14:51:37 Sure. Okay, well obviously today we're Meeting tomorrow, 18 meeting. And behavioral health advisory committee.
14:51:47 Oh, pop in on that for a short while. Wednesday. Meeting with all the intergov staff to put together the workshop agenda and materials for the workshop on Intergov that we're
planning.
14:52:02 For the board later this month. I think it's a 20Â s.
14:52:10 Then on Thursday. Cindy Brooks has put together a meeting of the port, the county, the city, and a couple of others to talk about.
14:52:22 Opportunities for commercial and industrial development in the county and I sent that invitation to Greg due to the recompete grant and the the Piff Grant that he got for Glencove.
14:52:34 I think he's emerged as the county's commissioner on that topic. Then of course agenda review with Kate at 4 o'clock.
14:52:45 And then on Friday, just a couple of meetings with staff. Yeah, and I'm gonna have lunch with David Timmons.
14:52:51 So. Anyway, that's, that's my week. And I just said that the forestry conversation got scheduled for the 20Â s so it'll be on our Monday the 20Â s agenda.
14:53:03 With DNR. Good. Okay, I'll go through my week.
14:53:13 Tomorrow I have a meeting with Brent Butler. Short term rentals, we're still trying to chart out a path for.
14:53:22 Taking on that sticky wicket this year. I just found out I have a canvassing board meeting, which was not on my calendar tomorrow at the same time as the Maritime Washington
advisory board meeting.
14:53:35 Unfortunately, I gotta figure that conflict out. Doing some agenda setting for our local board of health meeting Followed by a Jefferson Transit Authority climate action plan
kickoff meeting.
14:53:54 Planning team for that. I have a leadership council, P just on partnership executive committee meeting. I have so many meetings tomorrow.
14:54:03 Roll into a climate and board of health subcommittee meeting. And then the riparian work group.
14:54:12 A governance round table. Meeting tomorrow afternoon. I'm a little concerned about the weather, supposed to be starting a state board of health meeting Wednesday at 8 30 and
Olympia, which to figure out how I'm going to manage that.
14:54:28 So relish the idea of driving down the canal at 6 in the morning. Flood warning was added to the list of emergency.
14:54:37 We go weather to go the other way. Yeah, maybe go tomorrow night. I'll just have to check the forecast.
14:54:45 But long day in Olympia on Wednesday with the State Board of Health. And back on Thursday when Brent and I'll continue our conversation about the short term rentals.
14:55:02 Later day on Thursday, luckily then a gender review with Mark Thursday afternoon. And then it gets cold.
14:55:10 Right. Yeah. Right then. After agenda review.
14:55:14 Okay, good to know. They have a board meeting with the fairgrounds Thursday nights. Friday relatively light day, WASAK starts its weekly Friday Zooms at noon or legislative
updates.
14:55:32 And then, but I'll be doing the. Keep it easy show on Friday afternoon.
14:55:39 Right. It's hoping to do an MLK theme, but not had much luck on that.
14:55:46 So. Undecided. Then just another. We are not here on Monday the fifteenth.
14:55:52 Sorry, the OCC meeting will be on Tuesday the sixteenth and then next week I start the, every other week down in Olympia, so I'll be less.
14:56:01 Around a little less, starting next week.
14:56:07 That's should we do a. Proclamation around MLK day, we don't usually do a proclamation.
14:56:17 Don't think we have. Okay.
14:56:21 Yeah, and not that I can. Okay.
14:56:26 I have a letter of support. Request. Find it excuse me for a sec.
14:56:38 Good.
14:56:43 And Susan O'brien reached out asking for a letter of support for the. School based health clinic for blue.
14:56:52 I believe applied for a state capital budget. Community project funding request, although I'm not positive.
14:57:05 I will share my screen. I reached out to her asking if it was. Better for the whole board too.
14:57:13 Do.
14:57:17 Provide this or if it was
14:57:20 She wanted it just from one commissioner and I have not heard back, so. I apologize, but.
14:57:28 Guessing this letter would be agreeable to the 2 of you.
14:57:49 Yeah, I mean. The no brainer in my mind.
14:57:55 Yep, no objections at all. Hope they get it.
14:57:58 Alright. Anyone interested in making a motion?
14:58:03 I move that we approve, collectively signing this letter as presented.
14:58:07 I'll second. To open it up for public comments.
14:58:22 It's hard when you're screen sharing to, view the public, isn't it? Alright, one more call.
14:58:30 Anyone like to provide public comment on the draft letter of support shared here today?
14:58:36 Seeing none others in favor, please indicate by saying aye Aye, aye. Okay, it's unanimous.
14:58:40 Hi.
14:58:45 I'll be sending this to staff for formatting.
14:58:50 Alright, anything else we want to cover today? We talked about maybe doing a little bit of.
14:58:58 Annual planning work goals. Are we prepared to do that today or do we need another week?
14:59:05 I admit I've not done a lot of brainstorming, but we can we can start the conversation.
14:59:11 It might help brainstorming. I wouldn't mind taking a few minutes.
14:59:14 Alright, I love to brainstorm. Okay, I need just a minute to send this.
14:59:22 Email to staff to get it formatted.
14:59:26 Can I just say to Carolyn, I'll be I'll be back in the office in the morning to sign all the do.
14:59:31 And I'm turning on a few minutes for a car appointment. Okay, can you send it to ADL?
14:59:39 Okay. Sorry, if you just give me a minute.
14:59:55 And not the monster selves.
15:00:02 Oh, should I be sending a draft? If we need a letter, format it should be sending it to Wendy instead.
15:00:08 You're going to be here. If it's urgent, yeah. It's not.
15:00:12 It's not urgent. I'll just do both of you.
14:59:30 We can see you anyways, I can see the whole walk in.
15:00:30 I was hoping that she crawling, we get the slow, and as she crawled across.
15:00:27 Yeah. She tried to wear her invisibility cloak. Okay. Okay.
15:00:39 Love it.
15:00:43 Hmm.
15:00:54 Alright.
15:01:01 Okay.
15:01:05 I'll admit I also have not. Given a lot of thought, I think last week was a lot of.
15:01:12 Kind of getting re, We adjusted to the new year, different committee assignments and such.
15:01:23 So I don't know if we want to think about any sort of structure for this or. Just maybe set some general themes or or goals but anyone have thoughts on how we might.
15:01:36 I mean, Now, we might.
15:01:38 Well, I mean, I think there's, there's, you know, personal commissioner goals and there's you know BOCC goals and I assume we're talking more BOCC goals.
15:01:50 I think we did a good job last year having more. Workshops and interface with a myriad of departments and I think more of that.
15:01:56 It really helps me. I mean, I, you know, the biggest example, just the budget process and the Additional transparency that we have to that budget.
15:02:04 Process. I would love to find other ways to
15:02:09 Make sure that we are. If not engaged, aware of really what's happening on the front lines of the, minute departments that we serve and try to represent.
15:02:19 Here as well so More of that, I guess. That's what's one idea.
15:02:24 Yeah, well, at the recent meeting we discussed whether the board wanted to have our department work plan briefings and you said yes.
15:02:34 With a slightly different format, maybe 15Â min of
15:02:39 You know, presentation by the department directors and then 15Â min for discussion. And so we're scheduling those.
15:02:49 Great.
15:02:51 Yeah, no, is it what does the executive breakfast that does the 5 things? I'm just trying to think of a format that keeps things kind of concise and easy to track and, Anyone
have any clever ideas for?
15:03:11 Elevator pitch or yeah you got like 25Â s to get your your story out how do you do it Do you remember what I'm talking about, Mark?
15:03:20 The Was it called 5 Things?
15:03:25 It's not triggering a memory, no. I think that was the. Executive Breakfast with EVC.
15:03:35 I don't know if they, still building that would ask everybody to commit. Just 5 things.
15:03:46 Sort of update the group on what's happening and typically that's what I do, you know, the big things.
15:03:59 Hmm. That's a good. Yeah. 20Â min or 30Â min.
15:03:54 Are you talking like, what is it? Pronouncing that correctly. That's the quick, there's a whole Yeah.
15:04:06 Yeah, or even shorter than that, but you know, yeah. Super, super fast PowerPoint presentations just like.
15:04:12 Delivering an essence.
15:04:15 Yeah, and if you have to narrow it down to what are the 5 most important things you're working on?
15:04:19 And need the public or the commissioners to know what are they. Or in our case, what are the 5 things we want to hold ourselves to and we think are most important for the year
ahead.
15:04:30 5 big ideas. So it's a, you know, one of the catchy management. Thing.
15:04:41 Okay, well it doesn't sound like there's a too much interest in in a catchy format so I'll well I mean I yeah I love Kenji but I don't I'm not feeling like I have the tip of
my time, but if there's something that comes up.
15:04:57 Bring it. Yeah. Okay, I like the idea of 5 things. I think I often say 3 things.
15:05:03 Give me your top 3 things. I mean. You know, that can focus. Instead of just, you know.
15:05:09 I mean, when we, did you guys read our public comment from the gentleman who said, We talked about pickle ball this week.
15:05:18 No.
15:05:18 Hmm. Did you see that one? And he, you know, on that one, Peter West, it was came to BOCC, GPSC.
15:05:27 Anyway, this address to you and Greg, is that? No, it's Kate, Heidi, Greg.
15:05:33 And so he was talking about pickle ball and just, you know, he's having.
15:05:34 Consternation about pickleball and but on a positive note, he likes to congratulate, would like to congratulate, congratulate us for the Permit Ready ADU work that we're doing
with the city.
15:05:46 And then he said, my last comment while I might still have your attention has to do with my reaction when I looked at the county website and looked with astonishment the list
of responsibilities that each of you have.
15:05:57 It made me think about the time that I spent working very closely for a few years with Steve Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft.
15:06:04 He used to say, I can only do 4 things. Leaders can only really do a few things.
15:06:09 But they need to do the right things. I find myself wondering who thought it would be reasonable to give each of you such an extraordinary list of responsibilities.
15:06:17 You are being held to a rather daunting standard if electors think that you can do all that you were asked to do.
15:06:23 I hope you cut yourself some slack. My advice for which you are not asking. Would be to list your responsibilities in order of importance, pick the top few and delegate the
rest.
15:06:38 That kind of gets at that prioritization and that I mean how we you really can only Focus on a few things at a time, but I frequently look at this list and go, oh my god.
15:06:49 You know? And luckily there's great staff doing so much of that work. You know, hopefully we provide a vision and the leadership and strategy that they can implement it.
15:07:01 I mean, one thing that I've talked with, vision and the leadership and strategy that they can implement it.
15:07:05 I mean, one thing that I've talked with. I know I've talked with Mark about this and.
15:07:07 Adial and Carolyn. The idea of workshoppping around our funding. Committees so that we can figure out the best practices that are happening at LTAC and at behavioral health
and at Housing Fund Board and at PIF.
15:07:22 In terms of organizing that work. So that there's consistency amongst our funding programs. So that the community knows what to expect.
15:07:30 And we can promote those more broadly. And I just think it would be great to have an unstructured, more meaningful conversation.
15:07:38 Than just an agenda item where we talked about, you know, what, what are the best practices in terms of how the agendas are organized for those and how the funding decisions
are made and.
15:07:48 How the committees are recruited. So that would be one thing that I would love to workshop with you all.
15:07:55 I think a workshop on all those granting. Organizations that we sit on. Would be really helpful too.
15:08:04 I think both Heidi and I as kind of serving on the brunt of them, I think the last couple of years have seen some places where a lot of clarity could be had if we're saying,
you know, hey, we're gonna take take these things that are automatically assigned out of the out of the competitive RFP as an example or you know.
15:08:22 Yeah, I think it would be great.
15:08:24 For example, with the, that's with El TAC. The Tourism Tourism Coordinating Committee always gets funding from LTAC.
15:08:32 And it's always a certain amount or you know a general amount. And, you know, I've noticed that other counties with their LTAC funds.
15:08:41 Have kind of a budget for that amount. So they just automatically give that chunk of funds to TCC.
15:08:50 TCC doesn't have to do a whole grant proposal and an application process. To receive that so face support from the counties.
15:08:59 Yeah, we did that with the the behavioral health advisory committee when we funded therapeutic courts.
15:09:06 Yeah. So that's a budgeted item. And they don't have to compete year to year.
15:09:11 And then the city does some. Can I just ask? Yeah. In a case like that, you still have a scope of work in the contract that provides deliverables.
15:09:20 The benefit of them having to apply is that they're saying this is what we're going to do.
15:09:24 We're going to be held accountable and it's going to be talked about in front of the public like all of the other applicants.
15:09:31 So that you still have that accountability. Reporting requirements, I think, are still a really important part of the process.
15:09:37 Right, reporting requirements I think are still a really important part of the process. But I don't know if we're all consistently doing that the same way for all these buckets
of funds.
15:09:41 So. And then with us moving committees around somewhat, now there's gonna be different commissioners.
15:09:48 I'm on LTAC and tourism or, now that they go together. Anyway, so it just would be good if we kind of had a a unified or at least a, you know, a set of best practices that we
agreed on.
15:10:02 And that we can help carry those forward as leaders of those committees. Cause they, what my, what I found with sitting on, I mean, last last couple of years I've sat on LTAC
behavioral health.
15:10:12 And piff is they really do look to the county commissioner as the, you know, holding the process piece.
15:10:18 And so. When I learned what the city does with their LTAC funds. I was like, oh, they just budget most of their LTAC funds out to.
15:10:28 City activities and don't give out grants. You know, and I thought, well, that doesn't, I don't necessarily want to see us doing that, but it might make sense to budget.
15:10:39 Some of the LTAC normal LTAC. Programs as a budget as opposed to having it be.
15:10:46 A grant making process.
15:10:50 But I didn't want to just decide that I wanted to have a conversation with him about it with Yale.
15:10:55 Yeah.
15:10:55 But then it also creates strange downstream impacts. I remember when I was Back when I was a new commissioner, height 8, and was put onto the BHC.
15:11:06 And, you know, there was this, you know, this money automatically goes to therapeutic courts and you know you you need to document that clearly as to the reasons why because
what we're talking about doing also is potentially.
15:11:19 Holding on to some of the authority as the BOCC instead of you know, really asking an advisory committee to make those recommendations.
15:11:28 So they just, we, I'm, I think we should have the conversation. I think we should make those restrictions and budget.
15:11:35 Specific amounts of some of these discretionary funds. With a lot of care and with a lot of clear documentation so people understand the rationale behind it.
15:11:51 Okay.
15:11:44 I mean, and it housing fund board too, you know, we've talked about. Whoever runs the emergency shelter should we set money aside for the emergency shelter which you know.
15:11:55 Has real social fabric implications that we might want to prioritize as a municipality over what a an advisory board.
15:12:05 How they interpret a series of VRPs.
15:12:10 Yeah, I think it's a can of worms and I'm not afraid of a can of worms.
15:12:17 But you know, so using that example then is Just a house also get emergency shelter funding because they are an emergency shelter for a different population.
15:12:24 That's, you know, equally vulnerable. And it just, I mean, it's.
15:12:31 Yeah, I mean, there's each board has so many stakeholders and different statutes and different cultures and different authorities and we have authority.
15:12:43 Differently with each board and so I think I think finding consistency will be a challenge. And then getting all of the members of these.
15:12:59 It's going to be a challenge and then getting all of the members of these body into it. It's going to be really challenging.
15:13:01 It'll be a multi And then whichever commissioner has which of these funding boards. Takes it to the next meeting and says, here's what the board the BOCC is thinking of doing.
15:13:08 And then you fight it out or debate it with that group. And then bring it back to this board.
15:13:18 And it may be that that they won't be synchronized after all. But I think I feel like I've never received a I never, coming into being a commissioner.
15:13:26 I was just given committees and watch previous meetings, you know, recordings to understand how it was done, but I've never known what the givens were about like.
15:13:36 You know, all the things you just rattled off that there's different this and there's different that and there's I just feel like getting that all kind of outlined would be
super helpful.
15:13:45 As we recruit new people to these boards and get new staff for them. Their staff turnover coming too.
15:13:51 So then the commissioners will then be the. Most knowledgeable one left. And so I feel like just.
15:13:58 Buttoning things up a little bit before things transition too much is going to be important. And it might be that that means that there's a different.
15:14:07 Kind of cheat sheet for each of those.
15:14:12 You know, most of them are advisory to us, but. You know, Piff has a number of statute and county policy about.
15:14:25 Yeah so yeah, Anyway, we're looking at the 20Â s of January of the fifth of February to have that workshop.
15:14:36 Okay, great. That was just one idea I had in terms of. That would be a priority of mine that we.
15:14:42 Do that this year. And the funding cycles too. So how's it time to do it?
15:14:50 And do we invite the staff? All of the staff leads for those. Or maybe at that meeting the first meeting of the commissioner is talking about it, we develop a list of questions
for the staff.
15:15:01 I mean, I don't know if we need all the staff sitting here, you know. Right.
15:15:06 Yeah, I just think it's also different like conservation futures operates in this totally unique way.
15:15:10 They love kind of like. Being nimble and changing they don't have a commissioner on it you know it's just they're all so different.
15:15:23 It's yeah, I've seen so much change over the years based on who is represented and.
15:15:27 Who the staff person is and Okay. That was my one.
15:15:31 I mean, I, I wouldn't include, I would not include conservation futures in that group, I guess.
15:15:38 Largely because we don't have a commissioner on it. So.
15:15:42 I don't know. I guess which groups are we talking about? We're talking about LTAC.
15:15:47 HAC Hey.
15:15:47 Okay. Housing Fund Board.
15:15:52 How's your fun board?
15:15:55 I mean, I think conservation features can be on the list. We just wanna. Kind of. Describe the current state, right?
15:16:03 What are the current?
15:16:07 But would they have any baseline expenditures that would automatically be funded? I don't know if they ever have.
15:16:14 Always project by project. They have operations, stewardship funds that they fun for projects. There are sometimes requested.
15:16:26 That aren't part of the acquisition funding for a specific project.
15:16:32 The other purpose of specific. Land protection projects.
15:16:37 And I would have to revisit that. Statute too, that it's very unique.
15:16:45 Like I wonder if it says that no commissioner shall sit on that. Yeah, board. I don't know.
15:16:50 Yeah. But it works well. It's, you know, it's a highly empowered, highly effective group.
15:16:57 So I wouldn't wanna like in for like impose change on it unnecessarily. Suggesting change, I would just like to kind of know the universe of.
15:17:07 The statutes in the. I mean, Anna McKenna is may retire this year.
15:17:16 That's huge for behavioral health. Yeah.
15:17:19 Then we should bring staff on if the way that you're framing it.
15:17:25 To the workshop.
15:17:26 Or at some point ask them to fill out maybe a template. Here's the statute, this is how the membership works.
15:17:35 This is some of this we have in the binder. Literally, you know, hard copies in our office of What are the terms when do they expire?
15:17:43 We're not keeping hard copies of those anymore though, right? We're only keeping digital copies.
15:17:49 Okay. Does the binder not exist anymore? Nope. I still still rely on this finder.
15:17:59 So it's all in laserfish under the words and committees, Okay. I'm just saying like I did a sheet for ferry advisory committee where I put out, you know, I put the statute in,
put, kind of how we interpret that.
15:18:15 How the terms expire, how they get refilled, you know, it's all on one sheet.
15:18:22 Okay. Yeah, okay. But we could, that could be a part of that is creating a consistent template so that all of those are in one place.
15:18:33 You can easily find. Yeah.
15:18:38 And staff could be filling those out and we could be. Reviewing them. So that was just one thing.
15:18:46 What else? And that's a very achievable goal to. Clarify. Boards and committees.
15:19:04 I'm still interested in. Figuring out our. County communications.
15:19:11 Seeing where there's room for improvement and Wendy is doing a great job. Not just focused on her, but you know, website improvements.
15:19:21 Easier access to information.
15:19:29 I think another one is strategic plan implementation.
15:19:35 Yeah.
15:19:39 And community wildfire plan implementation. We're gonna have that soon too. I'm not sure.
15:19:45 There's much implementation to do, but I feel like it's gonna be. A lot.
15:19:51 I don't know, that's just in my mind.
15:19:53 And we've started talking to WCA about that. What other entities have done towards implementation?
15:20:01 Cause a lot of really good activities came out of that process. And so how do we make sure those trains stay on the track?
15:20:12 Hmm. I would still love capital facility planning. Oh yeah, that'd be great. County, you know, thinking about.
15:20:21 County building at some point.
15:20:24 No one is trumpet today, but we do have a new central services director, right? So, it is time to you know, maybe not on day one.
15:20:33 But I think, yeah, swinging up the capital facilities committee again.
15:20:42 Yes, let her get settled.
15:20:49 She'll be here what February fifth mark. February fifth. Yeah Okay. No, we have a signed contract.
15:20:59 Excellent. So excited.
15:20:59 Oh good. It's.
15:21:07 Alright. Well, it sounds like we've got a few things outlined here and we can think about if we want to formalize it in some way.
15:21:21 But I think I actually have 5. I do too.
15:21:25 Better connection with departments, clarifying boards and committees, strategic. Oh, that was 6. We did strategic plan and community wildfire plan.
15:21:36 Funding. Okay. Communications and website and then capital facility planning. And did you have the funding committees?
15:21:44 That's sick. That's part of just clarification on boards and committees. Okay.
15:21:52 Funding on that.
15:21:56 Okay, well let's revisit and see if anything else percolates.
15:22:03 Alright, anything else we want to get to today?
15:22:08 Hopefully we won't be having any emergency meetings due to inclement weather. Oh, we just got a message, right?
15:22:15 From. Mark, Willie, Lanmark, right? No. Yeah, that message I got from Willie.
15:22:22 Looks like we're going to be spared the worst of the. Near term winter weather. And he included a couple of maps.
15:22:30 That's what National Weather Service says the coastal flood wash will likely be downgraded to an advisory here soon.
15:22:36 We're good. Greg, you can be the guinea pig driving to Olympia day before me.
15:22:43 Happy to do it.
15:22:48 Do you always, check the washed out map for? Landslides.
15:22:56 I never do, but now you've got me feeling like I'm going to regret not doing it.
15:23:01 It's worth it's worth, that you have the app, the watch that app. It's pretty easy to look and see if there's any red.
15:23:07 X's on the map. You don't take one on one. Yeah. Yeah, he takes 101.
15:23:09 Check it out. I did load it one time when there was one to confirm. Oh yes, there's a slide in front of me and then I.
15:23:17 You take one on one, don't you? 100, and one so much faster. But.
15:23:19 Oh yeah. Oh, So much faster, especially for me living on one on one.
15:23:28 Yeah, I followed you coming home.
15:23:29 But I'm doing, I'm going to Olympia today going to Tacoma on Wednesday.
15:23:33 Coming home from Claylock, Greg, you were behind me and when there was a nice Straight stretch of road.
15:23:45 Sorry about that.
15:23:42 You blew by me like I was standing still. Yeah. Okay. Hmm.
15:23:49 Legally, it must have been going 45 or something, dotddling down the road.
15:23:54 I'm not gonna.
15:23:52 Oh no. No, I was in a Nissan Pathfinder and you were in a rocket.
15:24:00 Electric cars, it's just hard not to go fast. They're so smooth.
15:24:04 Alright, anything for the good of the order? No, thanks everyone. Happy to finish early today.
15:24:12 Okay, last call. Great. We are adjourned. Just see you next Tuesday.
09:03:15 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message):
You may want to remind those in attendance that hearing testimony for the two hearings will be held later in the meeting
09:22:36 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message):
Shellie has her hand raised
09:27:04 From Chambers to Hosts and panelists:
I'm bringing Wendy Davis over as a panelist, as she likes to see who is in attendance
10:29:21 From Mark McCauley to Chambers(Direct Message):
bring josh over and barbara
10:35:33 From Kate Dean to Chambers(Direct Message):
FYI, I might be out on Feb 12 for NACO, not sure about Heidi...
10:36:02 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message):
oh okay. We could move to the next week
10:37:24 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message):
I suggested closing oral testimony today, and extend written testimony through the Friday before the final BOCC deliberations on subject
10:49:16 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message):
If oral testimony is to be extended, would the public only get the one opportunity to comment? Or would they get to speak again at deliberations? That should be explained. I will need
to keep track of people who spoke today
10:49:24 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message):
Also need name and address of speakers :)
10:49:50 From Kate Dean to Chambers(Direct Message):
Can people only testify once/ hearing?
10:50:58 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message):
That is usually the case. And usually the oral portion is closed and only written is extended.
11:00:22 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message):
Will written testimony have an earlier end date? So you'll have time to review comments before final deliberations
11:03:14 From Kate Dean to Chambers(Direct Message):
Yes, but I think we will wait to set a closing date til we know what week we will be considering the ordinance.
11:03:45 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message):
perfect
11:09:04 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message):
A majority of people have not been accepting promotion to panelist. I will just unmute them in the attendee list
11:58:07 From Chambers to Hosts and panelists:
SMP Deliberations: January 16th at 1:30 p.m. and January 22nd at 3:30 p.m.
11:58:50 From Josh Peters, DCD to Chambers(Direct Message):
Thank you, Carolyn, for the times.
12:03:39 From Josh Peters, DCD to Chambers(Direct Message):
https://gisweb.jeffcowa.us/LandRecords/
12:03:46 From Josh Peters, DCD to Hosts and panelists:
https://gisweb.jeffcowa.us/LandRecords/
12:04:09 From Chambers to Everyone:
https://gisweb.jeffcowa.us/LandRecords/
12:05:26 From Chambers to Josh Peters, DCD(Direct Message):
Kate noted that she and possibly Heidi will be away at NACo September 12
12:07:16 From Josh Peters, DCD to Chambers(Direct Message):
Feb 12, right? Then should we say Tu, Feb 20?
13:37:24 From Josh Peters to Hosts and panelists:
Statute for CPPs: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.210
13:39:20 From Josh Peters to Hosts and panelists:
Tribal participation in county planning -- see sub (8): https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.040
13:43:14 From Chambers to Everyone:
Statute for CPPs: https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.210
Tribal participation in county planning -- see sub (8): https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.040
13:59:05 From Josh Peters to Hosts and panelists:
Sub (2): https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.070
13:59:17 From Chambers to Josh Peters(Direct Message):
We've been getting in the habit of calling special BOCC meetings concurrent with ICG anyways due to quorum. We'd just have to make sure that GMSC decisions would be listed as an action
item on all agendas
13:59:31 From Chambers to Everyone:
Sub (2): https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=36.70A.070
14:00:06 From Chambers to Josh Peters(Direct Message):
I made it so that you could send chat info to all participants now
14:08:38 From Chambers to Kate Dean(Direct Message):
During ICG, you had mentioned potentially adding schools and fire districts.
14:20:02 From Josh Peters to Everyone:
CWSP = Coordinated Water System Plan
14:20:10 From Josh Peters to Everyone:
WUCC = Water Utility Coordinating Committee