HomeMy WebLinkAboutchat13:56:09 From Chambers to Greg Brotherton(Direct Message) : For my minutes, do you know when you arrived? I didn't see you. If you don't remember, I can put 1:55pm
13:56:32 From Greg Brotherton to Chambers(Direct Message) : 1:52 PM
13:56:51 From Chambers to Greg Brotherton(Direct Message) : Thanks ð
09:03:07 Is she had it in it? We still wasn't working. Try restarts.
09:03:14 I'll pass it on. You guys can ride with that run of that. Okay. You can see.
09:03:31 Good morning, everyone. I'll call this meeting of the Board of County Commissioners to order.
09:03:37 I'm happy Monday everyone or having little technical issues so sorry that we're a couple minutes late.
09:03:43 I wanted to start off this morning by welcoming our new Central Services Director. Welcome to Trinity Coleman.
09:03:48 We have been eagerly awaiting your arrival and Mark, maybe you could introduce Tracy. Yes, thank you very much, Kate.
09:03:56 I'm delighted to have Tracy here this morning. She's a distinguished professional with a great track record.
09:04:06 Her experience includes 2 years with the city of Renton 9 years with Warehouser 7 years with Pacific Corps in 6 years with the city of Woodland.
09:04:17 Which is close to my old stomping grounds. It's actually in Kellich County, but just north of Clark County where I spent almost 17 years.
09:04:27 She, got a, a great deal done there, capital projects, and all kinds of great work, and she brings to this county a great suite of skills that we're excited to see her put to
use.
09:04:42 So. Tracy, you wanna say a word or 2? Sure. Well, first of all, thank you for hiring me.
09:04:49 I appreciate that and I'm excited to work for the county. I just moved in here yesterday and just driving around just here in Port Townsend which is part of the county is absolutely
wonderful, beautiful and I cannot wait to get to work.
09:05:05 I guess I just wanna say that I'm honored that you guys would hire me for the position and I hope that I don't like you now.
09:05:11 So thank you very much.
09:05:13 Thank you. Central services is such a critical role, touches every department. It's central though, that one.
09:05:22 Anything, I do, Greg, wanna shine out? I would just say it was fun to be on your interview panel and I loved your energy and spirit and I'm really excited that you chose us
as well and that you're coming to work here and I look forward to working with you.
09:05:38 For a long time. Yeah, I'm really excited to have you, Tracy. Look forward to, the, impact that you can have and so many critical, I mean, central services does impact all of
our different departments.
09:05:51 So really appreciate you having here and you know reach out anytime if we can be of assistance and you know letting you take off quickly. Thank you.
09:05:58 Thank you very much. And my computer's not working. You'll hear from us often from this station.
09:06:10 Alright, we will start off this morning with public comment and we welcome. Public to weigh in on any issue at our our 9 a. M.
09:06:20 Public comment period we ask that folks. Their name and their place of residence, although it is not required.
09:06:29 And you'll have up to 3Â min. The light will be green for those of you in the room.
09:06:33 Turns yellow and there's 30Â s remaining and then we ask that you end promptly at the red light that gives everybody an opportunity to participate equally.
09:06:41 And the public comment. If you are online, you'll hit the raise hand. There will be a brief pause when we bring you over.
09:06:50 And I think we'll start today with folks in the room. So who in the room would like to provide public comment?
09:06:57 Mr. Walter?
09:07:02 I'm Marilyn Show Walter from Shine Road. I think I'm gonna try to get 3 points across.
09:07:09 First is a little show and tell. This is HDPE, which some people think is better than PVC that I picked up on our beach.
09:07:19 I don't want to have discussion on which is better. I think they both have problems.
09:07:25 My point is Citizens want the right to. Present such things and discuss such things before a hearing examiner.
09:07:34 I think you can tell it's a little different for you to have see me. With this, versus, you know, maybe a photograph in a written comment.
09:07:46 The second point. Yeah, the second point is, Commissioner Dean at the last meeting, you said that with existing shellfish operators who are all kind of familiar with them.
09:08:02 So it maybe requires a different. Threshold. But we are the citizens are in the dark. We can't get information about their permits and requirements.
09:08:15 You would think we could, but the Army Corps of Engineers won't give you any information.
09:08:21 Except through a foyer. Which can take a year. If I had more time, I would tell you how a simple question that I posed, which was, the eel grass buffer on this plot 10 feet
or 15 feet.
09:08:36 Under an existing permit. It took 2 and a half years to get a non-answer to that question.
09:08:42 And only after a lot of correspondence. But of course the shellfishers themselves, they do know a lot more.
09:08:53 They don't have the permits. And here's my proposal of the day. Why shouldn't the county Require existing shellfish operators as a condition of being here.
09:09:07 To submit they their publicly public information excuse me the their permits, which is public information. You just can't get it on time.
09:09:17 It would take about 2Â min to Press a email button with a PDF on it. To get to you.
09:09:26 I don't, there's something like. 10 or 15 operators in the county? I'm not sure. You don't know?
09:09:33 I don't know. But 2 of them, Taylor and a gunstone are the lion's share.
09:09:39 They each have maybe 3, possibly 4 permits since 2,014. The new permits are given out for 10 to 15 years.
09:09:50 So this is not a big ask at all and yet it would give us and you a lot of good information.
09:09:55 I'm running out of time, so I wrote you a letter yesterday, but I want to provide you hard copies in case you would like to track during this afternoon's discussion. Thank you.
09:10:09 Thank you Mr. Walter.
09:10:12 Well, us in the room. Finger pointing. We're good at that here. Usually us doing the fingerprinting.
09:10:23 Good morning. I am sure you remember me from last time. My name is Maggie. And I was here on behalf of Harold and I'm here on behalf of Harold and all unhoused people again.
09:10:39 As you know, the fire department It's a real team. And the police department came in.
09:10:49 She the warming center. To relay that they had had. The call from the governor's office telling them not to move Harold's home.
09:11:03 And they did it anyway and so we are saying that the governor and the, attorney general are saying it's possible that they committed fraud deceit and trickery and violated the
Fourteenth amendment and sub substantive due process as well as a couple of executive orders and because they knew that it has been had already been told and they lied to him.
09:11:42 So. Is the, is it conspiring together that, makes it Rico violations.
09:11:55 You know, that's the question up in the air of those agencies. Also, I've looked at, your collective budget for 2024 and 2025 and you have no housing advisory committee.
09:12:15 So there's, no entity that's advising you on housing, no budget for housing within Jefferson County.
09:12:26 So at this point, Harold's got his lawyer. And he's going to be trying to get his his ban out on the 20 sixth of February at 9 a. M.
09:12:40 In the courthouse here. And we encourage anybody who believes in the Homestead Act and believes in the Homestead Act and believes that you know life should be preserved during
a declared emergency over toing park cars.
09:13:03 Then please come down to the courthouse February, 26, 9 a. M. And join us and hope to see you there. Thank you.
09:13:11 Thank you, Maggie. And we will respond after everyone has provided public comment.
09:13:19 Mr. Gordon King.
09:13:27 Thank you.
09:13:32 Thank you.
09:13:38 Hmm.
09:13:47 Okay. There. My name is Gordon King. I live in Bell Street, Port Townsend.
09:13:57 Showfish farmers have been and continue to be stewards of their environment. In the past fighting to restrict the doubling of toxic milk if flu up into our waters.
09:14:07 And continuing to participate in organizations such as the MRC and Clean Water District. Of note the Clean Water District's main task is limiting the damage to our aquatic environment
caused by upland development.
09:14:22 The commissioners have been presented with a storyline concerning the permitting of GUIDAC aquaculture that somehow at the eleventh hour of consideration of the SNP update,
the Planning Commission grossly liberalized the GUIDA permitting language.
09:14:37 The table I handed you tracks how the update dealt with GUIDAK Farms. And CUPs at various stages of this process.
09:14:45 You'll see that by July, 2,021 at the direction of the Department of Ecology.
09:14:51 To decrease Jeff and Jefferson County successive use of CUPs. The DCD had suggested there be a discretionary seat, they be discretionary CUPs for new farms and no CUPs for expansion
or conversion.
09:15:06 To the shellfish industry shock by October the twentieth, excuse me, by October 2021. This had converted into full CUPs for every GUIDAC iteration.
09:15:18 When I was finally able to listen to recordings and minutes from the Planning Commission meetings, they were posted months after the actual meetings.
09:15:26 I found that the Planning Commission had been presented with inaccurate information. From GUIDAK farming from property owners living on expensive waterfront properties and decided
to adopt Kitsaps very negative aquaculture SMP language.
09:15:40 The October, 2023 version coming out of the Planning Commission is significantly more restrictive than the original, 2,021 draft.
09:15:49 Suggested by the Giffson County Planning Department. Demanding more full CUP as considerable expense to the regulatory process.
09:15:59 This will ensure that it is out of reach for smaller growers. Trying to get a toehold in the marine farming industry that produces aquatic food and economic development.
09:16:10 Jiffson County. There are any of the call for more expense, expensive excessive regulation does bring promulated by those that have chosen to live in a shoreline environment
grossly changed by their roads, houses and lawns.
09:16:25 And that doesn't that only does not escape me. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. King.
09:16:32 Let's go online.
09:16:37 In order to can be Julia and. Great. We'll start with. Kim Thompson and go to Julia Cochrane and Gene Ball.
09:16:45 So please accept promotion of panelists and Miss Thompson. Feel free to unmute yourself and you have up to 3Â min.
09:16:52 Welcome.
09:16:53 Good morning and thank you for this opportunity to comment on this lovely morning. Monday morning. My name is Kim Thompson.
09:17:02 I'm the executive director for the Civic Coachell Fish Guard Association and we do have multiple members in Jefferson County.
09:17:09 First I wanna draw your attention to a comment letter that we submitted on Friday, February the second.
09:17:16 If we did address the debris question I think it's important to note that while there are certainly bad actors most shellfish farmers do understand the need to maintain and
to the extent practicable reduce the risk of gear loss.
09:17:31 For one thing, they are part of the communities in which they operate and they do not want to compromise the health of the watersheds that they do rely on for their livelihoods.
09:17:39 For another gear is expensive. That said, as with any form of food production and farming, sometimes gear will escape.
09:17:48 And in those cases, there are already requirements in place for the US Army Corps to address the brave.
09:17:54 And I included those requirements in the letter. But perhaps a more reasonable solution here rather than finishing all of the growers, work with the Army Corps to improve enforcement
to address the bad actors.
09:18:07 And reduce some of the gear to breed issues that have been brought up. I also wanna point out that we are, concerned about some of the items that were listed in the staff report
that was posted on the website on Friday a week unfortunately have not had a lot of time to look at those items.
09:18:24 And see how they might impact our growers, but you know there are a few items on that list that could have some significant impact.
09:18:31 So we do ask for more time to take a look and provide thoughtful comments. And we welcome the opportunity to work with the commissioners to find workable solutions here.
09:18:41 I know it's a tricky world to navigate. You know, we all want to get through this as smoothly as possible.
09:18:49 So please in the future, if there are significant changes like this, we would welcome the opportunity to sit at the table with you and and work with you to find those workable
solutions.
09:18:59 Thank you for your time.
09:19:01 Thank you, Ms. Thompson. Ms. Cochran.
09:19:09 Hello, Julia.
09:19:10 Good morning. With the restructuring of the administration of Olicap. We the community have an opportunity to have our churches, our civic organizations and our community collaborate.
09:19:22 To ensure that the Jefferson County will have a shelter for the homeless. We must quickly work together to make sure that these geriatric and disabled people who are in the
American Legion and the people who are tenting in our forest and living in vehicles will have the possibility of an emergency shelter after March 30 first.
09:19:41 It is our moral responsibility to not lose the progress we've made in the last couple of decades. We, the winter welcoming center will work with the government.
09:19:51 Nonprofits and the faith community to make sure that starting April first There will continue. There will continue to be.
09:19:59 Somewhere for people to go every day to get warm, dry, fed, and be able to find clothing and other resources, as well as Wi-Fi, electricity, and most importantly, community.
09:20:11 I believe your role is to set that stage and start that conversation. Thank you.
09:20:17 Thank you, Ms. Cochran. Ms. Ball.
09:20:23 Good morning, can you hear me?
09:20:24 Good morning, Gene. Yeah, go ahead.
09:20:25 One never knows. Welcome to the team, Tracy, wherever you are out there in cyber world.
09:20:34 We know the steering committee met on the thirtieth. I hope that Kate will provide a briefing on that meeting today.
09:20:42 I hope that she will tell us that she strongly advocated for all future meetings to be open to the public and that the committee enthusiastically agreed to her very reasonable
demands.
09:20:52 I want to tell you why I think it is important that you understand what transparency can do for you and what secret meetings do to you.
09:21:02 The citizens have a right to information about what our government is doing. Openness not only strengthens our democracy, but I would also argue that it is an indispensable
requirement of good governance.
09:21:14 Francies promotes efficiency and effectiveness in the functioning of government. Transparency in leadership means keeping the public informed and welcoming honest feedback.
09:21:26 When you are transparent, you Trust grows and the strength of the relationship between the public and the government also grows.
09:21:33 The absence of transparency foments distrust yields poor outcomes and produces a lack of accountability.
09:21:42 When government processes are transparent, it is difficult for corruption to thrive and easier for citizens to understand why our government is doing what they are doing.
09:21:52 Lack of transparency is deadly to democracy. Data produced by our government is public and should be easy to access as a normal and ordinary practice.
09:22:03 We shouldn't have to beg for it or make FOIA requests to discover basic stuff. Which should be made readily available to us.
09:22:11 We should be allowed to attend meetings and we should be provided with briefings to keep us updated. There is an obvious interest in this issue and there have been glaring problems
with the current and past protocols.
09:22:24 I do not see a public facing correction to the invaluable and actionable feedback we have brought to you.
09:22:30 I know we helped to dodge a bullet for our county, but the work is not done. I am convinced there is a viable and productive path forward if we work together.
09:22:42 We have shown that the outcome is always better when we have more eyes examining the data and the documents.
09:22:48 Nobody on the steering committee is an expert in any of the stuff you are reviewing and so many things have been overlooked.
09:22:55 Ignored and obscured. I hope you will pivot and pull this thing together so that we will see a county full in our lifetimes.
09:23:05 Democracy, equity, and inclusion are your friends. Thank you.
09:23:11 Thank you. Miss Ball. Anyone else online wish to provide public comments? So please hit raise hand at the bottom of your screen.
09:23:22 Going once. When twice. Alright, go ahead and close public comment and Commissioner, is anyone here to respond?
09:23:35 Oh, sure. I can start off. I appreciate everyone. Contributing to the record this morning.
09:23:44 Regarding the SNP you know we're coming back at 2 o'clock today so the Significant deliberations will be done then and hopefully I disagree with Miss Thompson.
09:23:55 I hope we can wrap this up today. That's just my, my, you know, at least move it to the next step.
09:24:01 What I will say is thank you to show Walter for identifying the gap that happened in the. In the drafting, I thought Burke's explanation for how it happened and the resolution
was pretty good, but I appreciate your your contribution to that and an idea for that as well.
09:24:16 And we'll consider that. Not sure I have a lot more. Yeah, you know, thinking about this a lot, read through everything again.
09:24:27 I thought Burke's presentation though the document today was really a really good distillation of the conversations that we've already had.
09:24:30 So I don't think there's a lot of new stuff in there just. Stuff made manifest that we've talked about.
09:24:37 To Julia, thank you. I really appreciate that. I think she's yeah, we wanna make sure that we do continue to have a place that people in emergency shelter functioning in April.
09:24:49 So I really appreciate the the tenor ever note. I'll get to it a little bit more too, but I think she had.
09:24:55 Kind of indicated changes that only cap and I do want to acknowledge that our EDF only cap resigned on Friday.
09:25:05 We accepted that resignation and Sunday and. Charish will be working. On transition through the end of the week on the ninth will be your last day.
09:25:16 So. Big changes at only cap wanna make sure that we don't drop balls as we go through that leadership transition though.
09:25:23 It's yeah it's big. Hey, Greg, is there, talk about, any solution for the post March thirtieth?
09:25:31 Emergency shelter closure. I have not heard one. So I think it's an important conversation.
09:25:37 I appreciate bringing more people to the table. You know, I think, yeah, we need to have that sooner rather than later.
09:25:43 And then let's see to to Gordon too. Appreciate it. We'll appreciate the the history and we'll dig into it.
09:25:53 And thanks, Miss Paul, for, you know. The comments were still working. I look forward to hearing how the steering committee went.
09:26:01 I think we're maybe talking about checking that up a little bit on our side. Yeah. And I think that would be to the benefit of the process, but you know really we're playing
a waiting game right now for that independent financial review to get back.
09:26:13 As contracted by commerce. So but I will say that many much of the work of the county and any municipality happens.
09:26:22 Not in an open public meeting. And there are many meetings. I mean, if we had to. Invite the public to every single time we sat down with someone it would be unworkable and
there is where to define that line is something that we constantly struggle with and happy to have critique and conversation about.
09:26:39 I don't think the steering committee has been a series of secret meetings. It's been a working group that goes and comes up with the product and brings it back and I think it's
been.
09:26:49 I don't think anything untoward has been happening in those meetings. I'm confident the integrity of all the people at the meeting.
09:26:56 So I do feel like. Our process isn't you know it's never perfect. That's why it's a process, right?
09:27:01 So keep getting it better. But thank you. Thank you. Well, there seems to be a couple of themes today.
09:27:11 Maybe I'm just gonna ask specific questions or call out what we can do. I mean, Harold and Van, I feel like, can't we do something?
09:27:23 I'm sorry, I forgot to respond to Maggie. But, I met with Maggie last week when she was here for our fifth Monday and we didn't have a meeting but we did talk but after 2 weeks
ago I did connect.
09:27:33 Daniel from the real team who has been working with Harold. With Jefferson Associated Counsel and talk to district court.
09:27:40 I mean the process now is towing companies have. A form that goes to district court, which is free for the indigent.
09:27:50 So hopefully it was a free application, but it takes 3 weeks and that's kind of rushing it through.
09:27:55 So to options that were available to Herald where that district port so that 225 will be district court.
09:28:03 And I think, you know, on the 20 fifth, I think I'm, I'm a.
09:28:12 And so, you know, just being there, I think, you know, court watching is something that I've heard from the Jefferson Associated Council can be very effective just to make sure
that.
09:28:20 Everyone is is getting their due. But it is it is moving forward. I mean, it's just frustrating the pace, right?
09:28:32 Yeah, there's you can't speed up the court system. There's Things happen when they happen.
09:28:35 So 3 week delay was what was expected from district court when I spoke with them. So. That is that is moving forward.
09:28:40 Okay. Thank you. We've talked about housing. Like a housing advisory committee, we have the housing fund board, but we don't really have like a policy committee.
09:28:51 On housing. I mean, it's something we talked about having a housing office of the county. We've talked about a lot of structure around housing.
09:28:59 Yeah, we had we had the contracted staff with the housing fund board for several years. We don't right now.
09:29:06 It's kind of on the backs of our. That's subsidiary nonprofit agencies that are doing the housing and, and our staff and.
09:29:13 And elected capacity. In fact, there's a lot of volunteer work that goes into that too, but the conversation is fairly vital, I would say.
09:29:23 In the limited funding we have for housing. There's been a sense that we don't want to use more of that to fund.
09:29:29 You know, yeah, staff and and infrastructure instead of having that actually and by infrastructure, I mean, you know.
09:29:36 Governmental infrastructure to be that housing office versus putting that money into projects. Priority has been getting that money on the street.
09:29:46 Put to use so. Potentially somebody. In a position could focus on bringing more capacities to the county.
09:29:56 Yeah. To leverage some resources we do have. I don't know, I'm just.
09:30:00 It's a worthy conversation. It was the day I walked in the door and it still is, I think.
09:30:06 We do have it regularly at the housing fund board. Which was one committee I'm not on and I'm not looking for more committees, so.
09:30:18 Let's see on the SMP issue, I appreciate all the extra work that staff and our consultants have done to answer all the questions we've had and.
09:30:27 How many deliberative meetings have we had to date? But I look forward to the further conversation today and.
09:30:33 I've been a little distracted with personal matters the last week and, I did read all of the SMP briefing document for today and staff's done a good job and I.
09:30:48 Still feel Kind of where I was last week that expansions should be anyway. We'll talk about it later, but I really appreciate the extra work and I appreciate Gordon bringing
the table and Kind of over time what's happened.
09:31:03 It's helpful to have it on one piece of paper and instead of 50 pieces of paper. Anyway, so, I look forward to the conversation this afternoon and I'm still like, I was thinking
last night after I read all that stuff.
09:31:17 I'm like, I don't think you could find 3 commissioners anywhere on the planet. That are as equally committed to our aquaculture industry in Jefferson County and our marine environment.
09:31:27 I mean, when I think about each of the 3 of us working with you guys the last few years and knowing Kate for over 20 years.
09:31:33 You know, you've got a good set of commissioners here. We're doing our best and It's taking a while, but we really are supportive of.
09:31:43 Making the right decision on this. And gene secret meetings.
09:31:51 I mean, I I pulled out my list of committees the other day because There's a suggestion that some of my colleagues here might be willing to take a couple of committees from
me over the next.
09:32:04 Few months while I'm dealing with family matters and You know, we said on a lot of committees, a number of them are noticed meetings, Board of Health.
09:32:14 I think that MRC is noticed. You know, public open public meetings. And then we sit on a number of task forces and work groups and you know, subcommittees and We don't have
the staff capacity to have.
09:32:29 Those meetings all open public meetings and I mean I'm sure I'm gonna get comments about that later but some of this work has to be done more, you know, expediently and I don't
feel like there's any, I don't feel like the steering committee for the Aquatic Center.
09:32:47 Has been doing anything untoward. I just feel like the issue has drawn a lot of interest and ideas and opportunities that maybe weren't seen in initially.
09:32:58 And we're in the process, as Commissioner Dina said, a number of times we're in the process right now.
09:33:04 And at some point, I think it would be good to have an open meeting just to hear. From folks.
09:33:09 I mean, I've been criticized for saying I'm complaining about all the comments I'm getting.
09:33:14 I'm not complaining. I'll say it again. I'm marveling at the nearly 500 comments.
09:33:18 I've gotten about the aquatic. Center and how they've gotten more thoughtful over time.
09:33:22 And so I just feel like we are in the midst of the process and. I am. Historically, if I think about myself, I am.
09:33:33 Somebody who likes to do things quickly, expediently and efficiently and in this case, that's not really an option.
09:33:41 So anyway, I think that's the end of my.
09:33:45 Commentary today. Sorry about the Lots of Kleenex that might be here for a while, folks.
09:33:51 Okay, we all take turns. Thanks everyone for, meaningful public comment as usual. Few things obviously we'll get much deeper into the SNP later today but interesting Michelle
Walter your suggestion to include the the other permits in the local permit was actually a recommendation.
09:34:18 Told to me by someone in industry saying that that would be a practical way to be able to reference all of that information.
09:34:30 And this was actually for the so that the local decision makers would have all that information at their fingertips.
09:34:37 But you're right, when it becomes part of our public record, it's much easier to access as well.
09:34:39 So hearing that from both sides, which always feels like a bit of a win. So let's.
09:34:44 Keep tabs on that idea.
09:34:51 I'm gonna add there. I do agree that the Army Corps has Well, I'm not sure if I'm agreeing.
09:35:00 I will say it does seem as though getting the Army Corps to do enforcement is really challenging that we need to create a system whereby there's a way for for our department
to keep tabs on what's happening locally and to have the authority to be able to.
09:35:18 Effectively enforce our SMP and and the permits that we issue and that's always a challenge but one to keep.
09:35:26 In mind while we're building the. The process right now.
09:35:34 Let's see, few things. We generally talked about how housing, again, just the challenge of wanting to.
09:35:45 Provide more capacity for housing in general, but when we're deciding between funding a staff person and having another say $100,000 to put into keeping the emergency shelter
open, you know, we end up putting it into operations, not into our own staffing.
09:36:03 And, those funds have continued to diminish. In this case because of high interest rates are.
09:36:10 Real estate transactions are down. So the recording fees for real estate and are way down, which is what funds operations for very low income housing.
09:36:19 So big challenge and one that we don't see. Being remedy at any time in the near future, unfortunately.
09:36:31 Hmm. The stream committee did indeed meet for the aquatic center and.
09:36:36 Would it be helpful for me to jump in to that now? Just while we have some folks who are interested.
09:36:45 Okay. Let's see, I just wanna make sure what do we have on our calendar?
09:36:49 We have, Dr. Barry at 9 45. So. Okay, great.
09:36:57 I will quickly go through our steering committee. Meeting and then if there are follow up items we could come back to it.
09:37:03 And we will be doing SMP at 2 o'clock also today. You know that right?
09:37:10 Bye bye. Alright, so where we landed in the steering committee meeting. Was I'll just kind of run through my main points here.
09:37:20 One is as suggested by I think Greg originally brought it up, I could be replaced by Greg originally brought it up, I could be replaced by a commissioner from a different district,
think would be helpful.
09:37:32 The group decided to create a task force so have each commissioner a point 2 people from their district who are open-minded.
09:37:43 Curious. Knowledgeable, pro pool of some sort, but without a kind of, agenda in mind about exactly what that should look like.
09:37:54 And that is in large part because we are going to task that task force with doing an assessment of the plan that was currently approved by the steering committee taking a look
at other instruction types and, Sprung who we've heard a lot about is coming to town this week.
09:38:12 So that's something to be taking a look at and doing some analysis of. And to be taking a look at and doing some analysis of and consideration of another site.
09:38:21 Port headlock being the obvious one. So the task force would be gonna test with reviewing a number of options and, you know, ideally come to a recommendation or at least flesh
out the, you know, kind of pros and cons.
09:38:36 Of various avenues before us. That's one question about that. It sounds like a great idea.
09:38:44 Is the idea that this would could form the nucleus of a PFD if that comes to pass.
09:38:50 I mean, we're going to need at some point assuming it comes back from commerce with, you know, Rosie financial numbers.
09:38:54 Yep, it could. I think we are afraid of politicizing it and the the public facilities district board, you know, that's part of the ballot and like I think we want to keep this
relatively deep politicized but you know certainly building up the kind of knowledge capacity of a number of folks it would be really helpful.
09:39:14 Sounds like a great idea. Yeah, there's certain skills that we would like to have on the PFB board, knowledge of construction techniques, financing.
09:39:25 Things of that sort, just, to make sure that, when the PFD.
09:39:30 I mean, they'll be managing the facility. They'll be handling all the financing and so we need to work on defining what skill sets we would like to see.
09:39:43 The task force would be. Daft by Mark and Kerry Hyde from the city as well as Wendy Bart as a technical advisor.
09:39:56 And I think maybe that's the topic of. How those meetings should be conducted is something that we should give some thought to it that hasn't come up previously.
09:40:09 So, We will. Give some thought to that. In some ways, we helpful to have the test for seated and, you know, kind of decide how, how it can best operate, but I have to give some
thought to it.
09:40:20 So I can't answer, Ms. Ball's question about that specifically right now, but good, good, call out and we will.
09:40:29 Do some talking about that. Wendy Bart knows the person who did the market study in 2,004 that identified port hedlock was not a viable site and she is going to ask if there
are ways that we can affordably update that, you know, is that kind of a formula that we could plug new data into and come up with some, you know, different scenarios.
09:40:56 So we'll have to see you looking for an inexpensive way to get that market study updated.
09:41:00 Because we know that obviously things are changing quickly and port headlock right now. The city has created a memo.
09:41:09 That's, I can't remember if it's gone out for public distribution yet.
09:41:16 It's, I think it's going before city council tonight. So should be public and it is describes the various reports that were done that there's been a lot of concern about these
reports that were not made public.
09:41:30 So it really summarizes the. Does an analysis on various reports that have been done and talks about the the feasibility of improving, updating the current pool.
09:41:44 So I actually haven't read it yet. I will admit to that we got it this weekend and but If it's not on the website yet, it probably will be soon and I look forward to digging
into it.
09:41:58 Anything I've forgotten, Mark? I think you covered it well. Thank you. So we should talk about.
09:42:04 If we're gonna switch out one of our positions and then also, the meeting with Sprung is this coming Wednesday and it would be nice.
09:42:12 So that could come. Okay. Great. I know we need to leave time for consent, so can we put hit a pause on that?
09:42:21 Okay. Alright, sorry everyone. Don't mean to give whiplash, but.
09:42:27 With consent agenda before us that we need to get passed before 9 45. Anyone wanna call anything else?
09:42:35 I can, there's a couple of great things and one or 2 questions that I have.
09:42:39 It's great to see the bid come in. All the bids come in for the sewer infrastructure significantly lower than the engineers estimate, you know, kind of offsetted that last one
that was so far above.
09:42:49 So I gig out on a bit opening. I was here for that one. It was quite exciting. Yeah, totally.
09:42:58 Yeah, no, it's really exciting. And I just again and again appreciate public works kind of break in that project into smaller component pieces so we could get local bidders
which really seems to be bearing fruit.
09:43:08 So really props to public works, for being ahead of the curve there. My question on number 7, the forestry contracts.
09:43:17 I mean, I want to keep going with with a chickadee and all that, but I mean, I've had contract with the county before.
09:43:26 I've never seen a unit of work a month. And that's that was pretty with a red flag to me.
09:43:30 To make it work a month. Yeah, it's a retainer contract much like we have with Bob Ron, but we don't have any prices for what who's doing what, how much do they build per hour.
09:43:41 I mean, it's still like they're gonna build a similar contract with our lobby lobbyists firm where we just pay them a fixed amount per month for a body of work.
09:43:51 I don't know. And there, there was a price per hour factor. Figuring out the amount per month.
09:43:57 And Mark and I've had a number of conversations with Mallory over the last year about this updating our contract.
09:44:05 So. Seems pretty squishy. I think that we have kind of called on Mallory to jump in and provide guidance on a number of initiatives.
09:44:16 Mostly the Heidi's working on, but that we wouldn't have foreseen to put in a contract, you know, but like an hourly rate and everything.
09:44:24 She's got a team of people. We don't know how many of them. Well, and then advisors.
09:44:32 They've jetted. Okay, so one of the contracted one I just, you know, I mean, I don't want the word to stop if you guys are both comfortable with it.
09:44:41 To see some just rotation for how we got to that figure, Mark. I mean, just the way to follow the contract.
09:44:50 It just seems like difficult. Not a great control. It's not a great control. So it's like difficult.
09:44:53 It's not a great control. So it's 33Â HA month at a hundred 80 an hour.
09:44:55 So for 2 people that's Listen, 17Â HA month. And there's 173 work hours per month.
09:45:03 So that's not a lot of work. So do they just get that whether they do the work or not?
09:45:08 And no matter if they do more, they also get that much. I don't. In some months they'll they'll work 60Â h and some months they might work 10.
09:45:18 But it eliminates all the administration necessary to, you know, clock your time on this task and on that task.
09:45:28 Right, we wanna spending the time on the forestry activities and that's why we have, you know, it's a retainer contract and we have 3.
09:45:38 If this is approved, we'll have 3. If this is approved, we'll have 3 contracts of that nature.
09:45:41 Our lobbyist firm is 2 and then this would be 3. I remember the Bob Brown contract and it's not quite as vague as this.
09:45:49 I wonder if we can, table this and approve our, the hearing notice. Sure. I can maybe we can pull this and just talk about a little bit more if we have time critical stuff.
09:46:00 I want to move forward. Other than that, great stuff going, glad to see. You know, money going to rental subsidies for Woodley Place, the last of the 1591 at the last.
09:46:12 Okay. Advisory board. Appointments and Exciting. More jabs.
09:46:20 I swear we just did a jabs thing last week. You're the 2 different courts.
09:46:26 2 different ports. Now was there was there was a district court? This one's spirit for last week.
09:46:32 Feels like every week. I'm happy to move that we approve the consent agenda for February fifth, 2024 minus item 7, which we will pull and discuss later.
09:46:44 Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Bye. Yeah.
09:46:54 Aye. Thank you. The consent agenda is adopted unanimously. And see, we always have this 2Â min discrepancy.
09:47:04 My phone even says that it is 9 45. So. We will, yeah, we will welcome Dr.
09:47:14 Barry and. Director of Emergency Management, Willie Bence for our monthly briefing on What are we calling it these days?
09:47:25 Our public health and emergency management update. Handed off to you, Dr. Barry. Welcome.
09:47:32 Hello everyone, nice to be here. Thanks for having me. Looking at the respiratory report, nationally we are finally seeing COVID-19 hospitalization sound trend as well as flu
and RSV.
09:47:49 So all are moving in the right direction but are still elevated compared to where we usually see them. We are in the process of moving out of flu and RSV season, but we likely
will still be in that season for at least one more month.
09:48:04 We tend to see moving out of that in the spring time. The big question mark that remains is whether COVID.
09:48:12 19 will follow a seasonal pattern going forward. And the answer to that appears to be that we are going to continue to see COVID.
09:48:23 19 with us in higher rates than we normally see flu and RSV in the summer months, but we do for the last even for the last 3 years we see our most severe activity in the fall
and winter.
09:48:34 We see our biggest surges of hospitalizations and emergency department visits from about November to April.
09:48:39 And so we expect that kovat 19 will continue to move in more and more of a seasonal pattern like flu and RSV with some continued activity and some continued risk in the summer
but our biggest activity in the fall and winter.
09:48:54 Locally in Jefferson County. We are seeing about one hospitalization per week for COVID-19 and unfortunately we have had one more death due to COVID.
09:49:05 19 since our last meeting. Which puts us at a total of 44 deaths so far in this response.
09:49:10 We do unfortunately have one long-term care facility outbreak for influenza and COVID-19 at the same time.
09:49:17 We're working very closely with that facility because the risk of those viruses mixing at a high risk population is very real.
09:49:25 But the facilities working closely with us and doing a great job at minimizing any spread to the extent that we can.
09:49:32 In neighboring Cloudham County, we have had a total of 2 deaths from COVID-19 so far this year and a total of 24 in the last year.
09:49:41 Column has had more deaths due to COVID-19 than Jefferson County by a long shot.
09:49:49 And so we have started counting them by year in part to acknowledge the difference between what we saw in 2020 and now.
09:49:54 And we'll get some more into this as we move into the listener questions. But COVID-19 is less severe now than it was in the darkest days of the pandemic when we were seeing
the shutting down of government facilities we were seeing you know in some parts of the country morgue trucks in the street.
09:50:15 It was a catastrophic event. 3 years ago. We're not in that space now, but COVID-19 is still serious and is still more serious than any of the other respiratory diseases that
we currently monitor.
09:50:27 That have seasonal patterns like flu and RSV. When it comes to COVID-19 you are 3 times as you are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID.
09:50:38 19 than for influenza. Even today in 2,023 and 24 data it's still much more severe than the flu and you are 3 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than from the flu.
09:50:51 So it's not the flu, it hasn't turned into the flu, it is still more severe than the flu, but it is much better than it was and we are likely to see it become more and more
like the flu in its characteristics but it's worth taking seriously as we move forward and remembering that those there are individuals in our community who remain at high risk.
09:51:09 Those over 65 those who are very young and those who are immunosuppressed or others at the highest risk of COVID.
09:51:16 19. But we've got good protection available, which didn't used to be the case 3 years ago.
09:51:20 If we do, if we access those protections, we can do well and we can move more into the normalcy that we saw before this pandemic.
09:51:34 And so with that, I'm happy to take any questions from our commissioners before we take listener questions.
09:51:35 Okay. Sorry, we don't have public comment as part of this. Section. Questionnaires, any questions?
09:51:44 Yeah, I'll reiterate people can send questions and for this section to KPTZ beforehand and then the good doctor can respond.
09:51:52 I guess I. My only questions are kind of process questions. I'm wondering if we should. Start counting like Calm does here as well.
09:52:05 Okay.
09:52:00 I mean it's starts to lose its meaning, you know 6 years in we have you know how many?
09:52:08 I know my wife and I have an ongoing ping-pong game and every once in a while we got to start scoring over again. You know, all right, you won that set.
09:52:15 Maybe it's time for a new set. And then the, look like, what do you mean?
09:52:18 Well, Clem County does a monthly report of how many, I mean, maybe it's every 6 months or since.
09:52:23 Hmm.
09:52:27 Hmm.
09:52:24 You know, 2020, you know, 2, 24. I had to look at my computers to what year was.
09:52:31 Something like that. I, I don't know. You want to respond to that and I have 1 1.
09:52:33 Yeah, I think that would be really reasonable. Is to start counting Jefferson County depths by year.
09:52:40 So just like, our worst year was, 2,021. It actually wasn't 2,020.
09:52:45 And we did so well in our COVID-19 protections that first year, but the Delta Wave hit us really hard.
09:52:51 And I think that would be interesting folks to track that annually over time. One of the challenges is we often are, there's some guidance from the state on not sharing numbers
less than 10 because it could potentially be identifiable but I think annual death counts are not identifiable and I think that could help people understand how things have changed
over time.
09:53:13 Great. And my other point is just that the great questions that we have won't actually listen to questions, but provided by the radio station.
09:53:22 And I'm just. Are we still sure this this you know we take time out of Dr. Barry's time and at a willies as well.
09:53:29 And I'm wondering if we want to make the intervals even less or whether this is still adding value for everyone.
09:53:36 And I guess I'm I don't have any questions. You know, that's really what it is.
09:53:39 Yeah.
09:53:41 I used to have 25 questions at the beginning and you know understand it good to see the stats would report.
09:53:46 Give the same benefit.
09:53:49 Yeah, I think I was actually having that same question too. Is that we're having less questions from the listeners and some of that might be that folks are, you know, folks
have actually come to understand COVID better.
09:54:04 We've been doing this monthly for years. And so people have a better understanding of these viruses than they used to.
09:54:09 And we do have other places to have this kind of conversation. We have our Board of Health meetings, which are also public.
09:54:15 And so I think it would be reasonable to consider either spacing these out or actually taking a pause from from radio briefings now that we're moving out of the emergency state
and potentially bringing them back if things change, the new variant happens or some other infectious disease element needs to be brought to the public, public attention.
09:54:36 And that's not to say that Kovat is gone, or that we don't care about it.
09:54:39 We do, but there are other ways to potentially get that information across. We do a weekly report on the respiratory.
09:54:46 The respiratory viruses on our website. It's not there this week because there was an issue with the with the data elements.
09:54:54 The state essence dashboard that gives us all those emergency partner visits that then we build our graphs from is down right now.
09:55:02 It's not there this week but it will normally be there. But I'm open ideas on that on what would be most helpful for folks.
09:55:08 Hey, I can just follow up with one more. I mean, this is kind of nothing to do with a good doctor, but.
09:55:13 You know, Callum County has been inviting wash dot for a monthly update, you know, and maybe the same space still on KPTZ could be responsive to other acute things that people
are really interested.
09:55:28 There's road closures and ferry work. I mean wash dot would be something that people would really be interested in.
09:55:33 So, I don't know, just we could maybe keep the slot and, and, program to what is more acutely interesting to our public.
09:55:42 And we said that last year when they invited us to participate and we did that joint meeting. We said maybe we need to do our own update with Washington because we have different
issues than, That's a good idea.
09:55:54 Well, my comment related to that is in the form of a question also, which is, I read and I think I generally read reputable sources, that, somebody had had predicted that up
to a third of Americans would contract COVID by the end of February that there's a anticipated surge.
09:56:19 You know, my guess is that's not coming to be. But I believe are we still seeing an uptick in our numbers in the wastewater here in Port Townsend.
09:56:31 Like do we anticipate a surge? Or is that, you know, I think the maybe finishing out this kind of flu season with our monthly updates, if indeed we still expect those numbers
to continue to increase, could be helpful and then reconsider for summer months where we're likely to see less activity.
09:56:53 What do you think?
09:56:53 Oh yeah, great question. As far as COVID-19, transmission, yes, we're still seeing a lot of transmission in our communities not going away.
09:57:04 The one that we monitor the most closely is those kind of more severe outcomes. The emergency department visits the hospitalizations and those have been down trending nationally
and down trending to some extent here though we're seeing a bit of a plateau.
09:57:17 In Jefferson, that is likely due to our local long-term care outbreak. I mean, those folks who are most, most likely to get severely ill when you have such a small population
that really affect your numbers.
09:57:29 And so we're kind of taking that out of our counting locally because it doesn't mean that everyone is like to get hospitalized but those who are at highest risk certainly could.
09:57:38 One interesting thing we are seeing is that not here yet, but in the Puget Sound region, they're actually seeing a second rise in flu cases.
09:57:48 So they came down and then they're seeing a second I'm starting. Whether or not that will be a full on search really remains to be seen.
09:57:56 But I would say as far as behavior, we should all expect. To have blue RSV and COVID for the next month or so.
09:58:06 You know, February, March is really when we would likely see all those. Continue to downturn and behave accordingly.
09:58:14 So that means make sure you're up to the on your vaccines. Keep masking and you're crowded in your spaces until we get properly into real spring in the northwest we're very
familiar with false spring which is what we have right now it will likely get colder again and the viruses will behave accordingly.
09:58:30 But when we get to really proper spring March, April, we should see all of those things down trend.
09:58:37 But COVID will stay with us. And so those of us who are at high risk. They'll need to need to think about it, but we see our biggest surges in the winter.
09:58:51 And whether or not we want to continue this for one more month, totally up to y'all. I'm I'm happy to be here if it's useful to y'all and if it's not I'm happy to go do some
other important public health things.
09:58:58 Well, maybe I would suggest. I always think of, Jennifer James Wilson, our long longest standing, county right now saying, this is a community that doesn't startle well.
09:59:14 Yeah.
09:59:13 And so maybe keeping, March in place with Dr. Barry and then. Can consider at that point and maybe look for other.
09:59:20 You know kind of partners that we think would be interesting to fill that radio slot. See if we get, we get a huge amount of.
09:59:30 Yeah.
09:59:34 Yeah.
09:59:28 Resistance to the suggestion. Yeah, people a sense of. A kind of assurance that they're being cared for.
09:59:42 Reports and I. Came today with a question because I'm dealing with a sick person in my family.
09:59:49 And some friends of ours came last night to visit them. And. They just came from, this is kind of fun.
09:59:59 I could write a short story about this. They just came from a YouTube concert in Las Vegas where they were like I don't remember the magnitude it was at 18,000 people are 180,000
people in that new sphere.
10:00:11 Hmm.
10:00:13 And they're like, do we, do you want us to mask up? And I was like.
10:00:16 And I, should have just said yes. But it was like this moment where I'm like, I'm not sure.
10:00:24 And just tell me, Dr. Barry, I should have just said yes, right? Okay.
10:00:28 Yeah, probably, yes. I mean, particularly if they're there to visit a sick relative. It really the biggest determinant is the risk status of the people who you're joining.
10:00:40 So if you're hanging, if you're coming home from a YouTube concert and you're hanging out with a bunch of twenty-somethings who don't have a bunch of underlying conditions.
10:00:52 Right.
10:00:47 If they get COVID, the probability of something super severe happening as well. But if you're visiting an infant, if you're visiting a sick elder, taking that extra step to
reduce the probability of bringing something home to them is worthwhile.
10:01:02 Well, they're not. Yeah, it, it was that one of those moments where I was like, oh, what do I do?
10:01:02 But it can be awkward. It can be awkward to ask people to mask. But it is, it is helpful to the extent you can.
10:01:09 Yeah.
10:01:09 And, you know, person is not presenting as really sick yet but you know the prognosis isn't good so I was just like I felt really stuck in that moment and I was like, well,
that's Dr.
10:01:21 So yeah, when I
10:01:20 Barry tomorrow. He's offered. Yeah. And one of them did mask up and the other one didn't.
10:01:25 Yeah, Yeah.
10:01:28 So you know, there you go. I mean. But it felt like I needed as the advocate for the person who's going to be sicker.
10:01:38 Yeah.
10:01:37 As time goes by, just that, you know, I needed to know I needed a, my head did not have the quick answer.
10:01:43 All and we've
10:01:44 So I was, I thought of you. So that's also my answer. Do I want less visits with Dr.
10:01:51 Yeah.
10:01:49 Barry and no, but I understand that. And you know and I like the idea of.
10:01:56 You know, transitioning this time to other information that would benefit the community if that's what we all agree.
10:02:03 So. Thank you for that.
10:02:04 And we can always come back if something weird happens. So if, you know, if AV influenza turns out to be a bigger issue or you know some other new bug shows up work over it
gets weird and does have a crazy new variance that's problematic.
10:02:17 Yeah. Yeah.
10:02:17 We we're always around. We can always come back. So as far there were a couple questions along that line.
10:02:25 So one of the questions that we got was about, you know, whenever folks travel, they seem to come home with COVID.
10:02:31 Why is that? Is that from the plane? Is that from gatherings when they get there?
10:02:36 And it really depends on the person. The plane is really high risk. People travel whether they're sick or not now.
10:02:42 You can you can assume that people have something on the the plane with you. And so if you wear a high quality mask on plane, you're not probably gonna get anything from the
plane, but a lot of us don't, a lot of people don't, I do.
10:02:57 Like, my message, I don't want what they're sharing on the plane, but a lot of people don't mask on planes anymore.
10:03:01 So that's certainly a risk factor. The airport is a risk factor. But the biggest one we often see if you are a good plane masker is that as soon as you get there, you're there
to be with people.
10:03:11 You're there to have a family reunion or a big Thanksgiving dinner and you have a lot of people inside with masks off and that's usually how they get sick.
10:03:18 We value being together. We value those critical family gatherings. And so people are willing to go well ill now in a way that they weren't before.
10:03:30 And so I would just say, you know, if you're high risk yourself, it's okay to ask people to mask when you're there and it's okay to ask them to stay home if they're sick.
10:03:55 In my family, we have a dear family member with a significant heart condition. And so we don't bring sickness around him, including my toddler who's sick most of the time right
now.
10:04:02 And so we have to wait until she's well to go hang out with grandpa and still travel, wear your good masks.
10:04:06 Yeah. Yeah, please.
10:04:04 Dr. Berry, can I follow up just to. Playing mask protocols, I usually put my mask on when I get into the airport.
10:04:15 Yeah.
10:04:13 And take it off once we're in the air. So once that ventilation starts, is that is that can you evaluate that compared to a different strategy or is there one you recommend?
10:04:21 Yeah, so the most dangerous time is your airport. And then boarding, while you're waiting to get to cruising altitude.
10:04:40 All the way up at cruising altitude, they do have good good HPA filtration in planes, so it's safer to take your mask off then.
10:04:47 If you're very high risk, it's reasonable to keep your keep your mask on to the extent that you can keep your keep your mask on to the extent that you can but if you have a
long plane flight and if you're flying from here to New York you can but if you have a long plane flight and if you're flying from here to New York it's hard to stay messed for that
entire chip you want
10:04:59 to eat you want to relax so your highest field times it's hard to stay mast for that entire chip. You want to eat, you want to relax.
10:05:07 So your highest field times is boarding takeoff and landing. You want to eat, you want to relax. So your highest field times is boarding takeoff and landing.
10:05:10 And then if you want to take it off after that, you're probably pretty safe because that filtration is quite good unless your neighbor is like sneezing.
10:05:14 If you have one of those situations, mass to the extent that you can. And that's how we do it.
10:05:19 Keeping a toddler mask for 5Â h in a plane is not entirely possible. But masking and take up and landing is.
10:05:25 So that's what we do. Couple of quick questions. So if someone is, one of the questions was if someone has symptoms they think it's just a cold and then they get a lot sicker
and they test later.
10:05:40 How do you know when to count? Your infectiousness? And basically you count by your first symptoms.
10:05:46 So even if you didn't think it was COVID in the beginning and then your symptoms got worse as soon as you started feeling ill is the beginning of the days that you count for
your infectiousness.
10:05:53 So that's the beginning of your 10 days. As far as, when you would get packs a little bit, you do have to get back sloven within 5 days of your initial symptoms onset.
10:06:03 So say you were feeling a little bit ill, didn't think it was covid, and then on day 6 she felt a lot worse and said, oh no, I need to test.
10:06:09 You are unfortunately outside of the PACs loaded window. The reason why that window exists is because it doesn't really work after day 5.
10:06:19 It really needs to get in there when the virus is just getting started in order for it to work. And so.
10:06:23 That at that point you wanna Do all your good symptomatic treatments if you have any underlying health issues like a heart condition or a lung condition, definitely engage with
your doctor to make sure that you're getting the care you need.
10:06:34 Beyond Pax Lovat, there are other things that we can offer to help take care of you.
10:06:39 My patients with asthma, there's other treatments we can do. To help them get better and keep a close eye on them to make sure they don't get worse.
10:06:47 One question was, do we still want folks to report positive COVID tests and we do not. But we no longer count individual cases.
10:06:55 At this point. We primarily work on preventing outbreaks in high risk settings. So there are a couple places where we do so want to know if folks have COVID long-term care facilities
being the number one other high risk congregate settings like jails, where things can get bad pretty quickly, shelters, and schools.
10:07:14 Because while kids are overall lower risk, there are some kids who are very high risk and we want to protect them and reduce outbreaks in that settings.
10:07:22 So that's most of what we do. Individual cases, we don't care anymore.
10:07:26 We do count emergency apartment visits and hospitalizations. As far as Paxlova, there was another question about, kind of if there's anything new about how we use it.
10:07:36 And not really. Same, same rule supply and there's not a shortage right now. We have intermittently had some trouble getting Taxslov into our QFCs.
10:07:46 That's the one pharmacy that's been struggling with that, but it is available in the rest of the county.
10:07:50 And so if you're having trouble getting at an individual pharmacy you usually use ask your doctor to send it somewhere else and you should be able to get it.
10:07:57 We do still recommend it if you're high risk. Even if you've had COVID before, even if you've taken the pack slot before because cumulative cases can still cause problems.
10:08:06 It's worthwhile to minimize your best. one person said, anecdotally, I think there are more cases out there right now, but they seem milder.
10:08:18 Is that true? What's the overall trend in severity of COVID cases. We talked about this a little bit at the beginning, but yes, there's a lot of COVID circulating right now.
It's the winter.
10:08:28 It's the time when that usually happens. But it is less severe than it was in 2,020 and 2,021.
10:08:35 And that's not because the virus is uniquely less severe, but because we have a accumulated population immunity.
10:08:41 We have prior exposures. We have vaccines and all of those things are making each individual case less severe.
10:08:49 We also have much better treatments than we had then. You know, it's hard to remember, but in 2,020, we had no idea how to treat this thing.
10:08:56 We didn't know to give folks Dex and Methas on when they got to the hospital.
10:09:00 We didn't know any of how it worked within the body. Now our medical systems do. And so it is easier to treat cover than it was back in the day.
10:09:09 All of those things contribute to less severe outcomes. But again, still a severe bug. Still 10 times more likely to hospitalize you than the flu.
10:09:17 So it's worth taking seriously, but it's not the catastrophic level of serious that we were dealing with a few years ago.
10:09:24 And for Selma can still be incredibly serious for those in our community who are getting chemotherapy.
10:09:29 Kovac can still be deadly for them and keeping that in mind even though it's gotten better for everyone else.
10:09:36 It's important to still take care of those who are highest breath.
10:09:40 Couple other quick questions. Let's see that's one we cut. Oh yeah, so this is a really good one.
10:09:48 I've gotten the latest booster vaccination for COVID. But I find myself dragging my feet.
10:09:53 I'm getting more shots. What are the relative risks of contracting COVID versus the flu, how does that relative risk change with age?
10:09:58 We talked a little bit about that risk of hospitalization and death. One thing that I think is worth considering is as we see this move into a more seasonal virus is that we
aren't gonna be seeing consistently having to get additional COVID vaccines every 6 months or so.
10:10:15 Many of us get our food vaccine every fall. We know that's a thing that we need to do.
10:10:20 It's a norm of the fall as we move into the flu season. Kovat's gonna be the same thing.
10:10:25 So as we move into the fluid the winter virus season, I guess is what we'll call it now.
10:10:31 It's going to be important for all of us to get our flu shot and our COVID shot. It's going to be an annual thing that helps us get ready for the fall in winter.
10:10:39 It's going to be an annual thing that helps us get ready for the fall in winter. And it's the time to dust off your they they are more severe in the fall and winter they both
have good vaccines to prevent them they both are prevented by masks and they both cause their most severe disease for those who are very elderly, very young, and immunosuppressed.
10:11:01 But the big difference is actually severity. Flu does kill people every year. It kills our elders, it kills people with underlying conditions, but COVID even today, even right
now.
10:11:11 Still kills about 3 times more. So it's, it's a significant bug, but better than it was.
10:11:15 So as it comes to next fall. Get your flu in COVID shot. And if you're in a particularly high risk group, there may be an RSV shot as well.
10:11:25 So the very very young. Right now it looks like RSV is gonna be a one time vaccine.
10:11:32 So you don't have to plan on getting an RSV vaccine every fall, but COVID and flu is going to be an annual tradition going forward.
10:11:39 The
10:11:38 Did I follow up on that Dr. Barry?
10:11:42 Sorry, just to follow up on what you just said, if RSV is a one time. Vaccine, do you think that the eligible?
10:11:49 Oh, sorry, do we lose you?
10:11:51 I lost you for just a sec, but I think I'm back now.
10:11:53 Okay. If RSV is a one time vaccine, do you think that the suggested group that takes that vaccine will change and intervening years as we, you know.
10:12:04 The same people won't have to take it so we'll get it to more people or will it be the same population are very old and very young.
10:12:10 Likely it'll be the same population for most of us who are not Very old or very young. RSV is relatively mild infection.
10:12:19 It's an unpleasant cold. It's very, you don't like it if you get it, but it's very unlikely to kill other folks.
10:12:25 I think there may be some consideration of spreading the RSV vaccine to immunosuppress people generally like we do with these other vaccines.
10:12:33 But I don't expect to see an RSV vaccine for all of us.
10:12:38 And that is all the respiratory questions. We did get an interesting question about Selmanilla.
10:12:44 Just another infectious disease that we work on at the health department. That's a food born illness.
10:12:49 This person said I have been surprised by the rise in salmonella infections reported from even processed foods.
10:12:56 Raw chicken is a known vector but cantaloupe and lettuce, boxed foods.
10:13:01 What, basically what's going on and how do we prevent that? So yes, most of us grew up thinking of salmonella as something that's exclusively on chicken.
10:13:11 Salmonella is what's called a fecal oral bug. So it comes from species.
10:13:16 It comes from poo that in a small amount has gotten on your food one way or another. So it's not actually unique to chicken.
10:13:22 We get, we had a large salmonella outbreak in Colombia last year that was related to pork.
10:13:27 So it's not unique to check in. It justice from feces getting on your food. And so unfortunately, it's a little bit of animal feces gets on your cantaloupe, that can cause a
problem.
10:13:38 The way that that happens, it's not a naturally occurring thing that we see in the soil, but it comes from fertilizing that swim.
10:13:45 So places will apply manure including chicken manure to their soil and then that can get on your vegetables.
10:13:52 And you can think particularly about your vegetables that are close to the grounds. Cantalope grows on the ground, spinach, grows on the ground.
10:13:58 And some of these large agricultural operations were using not very safe practices. They were using pond water that had been contaminated by feces and then just sprang it over
all the spinach and you can imagine that that doesn't go well, which then you send nationally.
10:14:13 So what do you do to reduce that risk to yourself? So we have a lot of fantastic local firms where you can ask them about their agricultural practices and the things that they
do to keep you safe.
10:14:24 And that's always a good option. When you get the food to yourself rinsing it before you eat it if you're dealing with something that cannot be heated or is not going to be
heated like cantaloupe.
10:14:34 One common thing that we don't realize is we know that we're not going to eat the outside of the camel and so we don't often rinse those and that's part of how it causes problems
but what happens is there's a little bit of salmonella on the outside and then your knife cuts through and brings that salmonella into the cantaloupe, which you then eat.
10:14:53 So rinse all your fruits and vegetables even if they have a peel that you're going to take off and that's going to make a huge difference to keep you safer.
10:15:01 Your spinach when you get it home and that can make a huge difference as well. And then if you are dealing with meat, making sure you cook it to the right temperature.
10:15:11 So for your poultry, that's 1 65. It's a little higher than a lot of us do, but that will kill the salmonella.
10:15:17 If you're dealing with a cut of meat, like a steak, it's about 1 45 to make sure that you get that taken care of the various bugs that you might get.
10:15:22 Those are the biggest things you can do. The one other thing is that we usually see most of our salmonella in the summer and that's because it's warmer and people go camping.
10:15:31 And so what happens is people bring Romi into the forest and they don't adequately refrigerate it on that journey.
10:15:38 My family loves to camp. We bring meat with us, but you gotta make sure it's refrigerated. Keep it cold.
10:15:43 And then cook it. If you do both of those things, you should do just find and not have to come out of this.
10:15:51 And that's all I have for today. Any questions from our team?
10:15:55 I have one question, Dr. Barry. And, I hope I don't sound alarmist, but I'm more curious kind of the process here.
10:16:06 So I live in Uptown, Port Townsend and on my block, one block we have had 3 young deer die.
10:16:15 Hmm.
10:16:15 For unknown reasons. And, you know, there's fear around, is this chronic wasting disease.
10:16:24 Who is tracking that? Like should we be reporting it somewhere? Just what's the is there a public health risk?
10:16:31 I'm just curious what that process is. It's been very difficult even figuring out what to do with the carcasses.
10:16:37 Sure.
10:16:39 So just any, guidance you can give on kind of should we be doing anything about this.
10:16:45 Yeah, great question. So a couple, a couple different folks you can contact when that happens.
10:16:53 So you can call us, the public health premise is happy to help you investigate and connect you with the people who need to be in involved, but probably your best agency when
it comes to wildlife is WDFW or the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
10:17:13 And they can help, help you understand whether or not this is something that you need to be concerned about, talk about how to properly and safely dispose of those carcasses
and those those are going to be your folks primarily but we work with them a lot and we can help connect that.
10:17:21 There's a lot of possible sources for dear death, certainly chronic wasting disease is one. Covid thankfully is not usually fatal in deers.
10:17:29 It's probably not COVID in this situation. But there, there's a lot of options.
10:17:35 The other thing could be maybe they're getting into some kind of toxin, you know, was their pesticides that they got a hold of.
10:17:41 There's a lot of things that could be going on. And so worth talking to the pros to see and to reassure folks so that we can get to the bottom of why this is happening.
10:17:51 But at least at this point, I wouldn't be worried about a human health concern, but, but it's worth connecting with the proper folks to make sure that we're not missing something.
10:17:59 I will say I did contact fish and wildlife. They were not concerned or very interested. I mean, we got a lot of not my jurisdiction.
10:18:08 Rest week.
10:18:11 Oh. Hmm.
10:18:20 Yeah.
10:18:25 Thank you.
10:18:09 Yeah, I didn't call public health, but, even just getting the picked picked up it took days for the carcasses to get picked up and so it just our neighborhood is all kind of
scratching our heads and so now, now I have informed you, done my duty, and let's, although I did see a fourth one and they're all like year links all the same age a fourth one with
10:18:30 Hmm.
10:18:32 really bad diarrhea on a walk in Uptown too. So it's there's Interesting.
10:18:36 Hmm.
10:18:38 Yeah, potentially something brewing.
10:18:40 Alright, thanks for letting us know and we can reach out to our colleagues. Yeah, if you're ever contacting a state agency and not getting the response you need, your locals
can sometimes help you get the response.
10:18:51 You need so we can check into that.
10:18:53 Great. Thank you. All right, welcome, Mr. Benz. Thanks for your patience today.
10:19:00 Are we going to get spared the atmospheric river that California's? Suffering under.
10:19:05 Yes, certainly, won't be looking as worse here as it is in California right now.
10:19:10 I did read this morning that, the city of Los Angeles got more rainfall in the past 48Â h than Seattle got for the entire month of January.
10:19:20 Now.
10:19:20 I'm so some extreme weather taking place. Down there right now, so we're certainly keeping an eye on that and wishing them, the best of luck if they're struggling with that
extreme weather.
10:19:32 We have to be careful though about jinxing ourselves up here though as last month at this meeting we did talk about how we hadn't had our first winter storm and I think it was
Commissioner Dean specifically, we did talk about how we hadn't had our first winter storm.
10:19:46 And I think it was Commissioner Dean specifically who mentioned we could use a little bit of snow to help build that snow pack up in the mountains.
10:19:48 And so we did have our first snow to help build that snow pack up in the mountains. And so we did have our first snow event in January.
10:19:52 And it was a particularly, difficult one to PIN down. Some of the models, as the system was coming our way, one of the more, conservative models had us actually, to receive
no snow whatsoever.
10:20:09 I thought it was going to be brutally cold, but dry. Another model pinned us at 6 plus inches over the course of the event.
10:20:34 I'm, and, actually, 11, a, As folks know, though, it's hard to predict the weather that system ended up hanging, farther north than we thought.
10:20:37 And we got hit pretty hard with several inches over the course of a couple of hours. And then that combined with warmer temperatures that then dropped pretty rapidly.
10:20:45 I'm created those icy conditions that made travel difficult to impossible for a lot of us around the county.
10:20:52 So huge credit to both city and county road crews for dealing with a very difficult situation. They did quite a lot with very limited resources and as I said with the models
all over the place the speed with which that snow fell followed by that temperature dropping was a very very difficult situation for everyone so I can credit to everyone involved for
I'm doing their best with what they had during during that event.
10:21:21 A good reminder for us though, we often talk about checking in on your emergency kit having a kit in your car is just as important as your home.
10:21:29 A lot of folks were taking quite a while to get home or a lot of folks ended up abandoning their vehicles, especially if they had, gone off road.
10:21:38 So having a kit in your car, some snacks, some water, some warm clothes. I can make all the difference in a situation like that when the weather changes really rapidly.
10:21:48 A mix, travel all but impossible. Also, very important to check in with your neighbors.
10:21:55 Doing events like that. My wife and I moved to a new place just a few months ago so this was a good opportunity for us to check in and get to know our neighbors just a little
bit better.
10:22:04 As again, many of us, we're stuck at home over the course of a couple of days.
10:22:08 Last but not least, I do want to give a shout out to the folks who ran the winter welcoming center.
10:22:13 They were open overnight for a number of days. That's 24Â HA day. Volunteer run.
10:22:19 I'm absolutely fantastic job. I'm helping keep our most vulnerable, safe during those brutally cold temperatures.
10:22:25 So a huge thank you to that group as well. My question and thank you to KPTC for giving me at least one question to deal with.
10:22:33 I was concerning how much FEMA reimbursement we got during the COVID-19 pandemic.
10:22:38 And the answer to that is about in terms of cash reimbursement about $250,000 over the course of the couple of years of the response.
10:22:47 Early on, there was, a lot of conversation about what FEMA was actually going to pay for.
10:22:53 Since this pandemic required so many folks to work at home, FEMA didn't pay for work at home equipment.
10:22:59 So now none of the Zoom subscriptions or laptops or anything like that. This was mostly for a equipment, as it related to our vaccine clinics.
10:23:07 And so that was everything from the facility rental to, the chairs to, all of the equipment and, consumables that we used, during those vaccine operations.
10:23:19 That doesn't include a lot of the PPE that the state provided us and other partners over the course of the pandemic.
10:23:28 So a little over a hundred $1,000 worth of in kind and PPE that we got over the course of the pandemic.
10:23:33 And that doesn't include the time that was donated by our volunteers. And we actually had received so many volunteer hours in support of our operations.
10:23:45 We stopped counting in January of 2022 since historically FEMA uses those. They consider that as part of the local match for their reimbursement.
10:23:54 They consider that as part of the local match for their reimbursement. But our costs were reimbursed at a hundred percent rate.
10:23:57 So we actually didn't really need to be part of the local match for their reimbursement, but, our costs were reimbursed at a hundred percent rate, so we actually didn't really
need to count those for that purpose anymore.
10:24:04 But over the 2 year period between January of 2,020 and January of 2,022, we actually had about 12,600 volunteer hours, that were donated to Jefferson County and the way, FEMA
accounts those, it's a little over $30 an hour.
10:24:16 So that was about $400,000 in value. Volunteers provided Jefferson County. And again, we actually just stopped counting those because the number was overkill at that point for
potential reimbursement purposes.
10:24:29 So. Coming in to answer the KPTC question. We received about 250,000 or so from FEMA and that's actually still ongoing and we just wrapped up one of our project submissions
a couple of weeks ago and have one more of about $25,000 or so before we close out that aspect of our pandemic response but I'm again always wanna say thank you to our volunteers.
10:24:50 It was an absolute team effort. FEMA did reimburse us and did help out the local response quite a bit but couldn't done it without the hard work of all of our volunteers.
10:24:59 So thanks again for that. Other than that, happy to, take any questions.
10:25:03 Can I follow one question? I heard that even after that snow and then the warm spell that came after the cold snap.
10:25:12 That our snow pack is back to as bad as it was before. Do you know kind of the status of the snow pack in the Olympics?
10:25:18 Yeah, I don't know. Last I heard it wasn't as bad as it was before, but it wasn't as good as one would have thought given the amount of snowfall.
10:25:28 So don't have those exact numbers with me, but we again knock on wood don't want to, cause another issue like we had last month, but we could, we could definitely use some more
snow by the end of the season.
10:25:37 I got an email from the National, the Olympic National Park saying that our snow pack just in the last couple of days was at 29%.
10:25:45 Of what it is normally and so they're concerned about water in the park. So think that. We can extrapolate that to us pretty easily.
10:25:54 Yeah. Yeah.
10:25:56 Well, and I think it's worth acknowledging that that post is a, wildfire risk and also water access issue for our folks and we should start planning ahead for that.
10:26:06 As we go into the summer and how we use our water, to keep it available for drinking, most most critical place we use it.
10:26:13 You're saying there's significant downstream impacts?
10:26:19 Pretty good.
10:26:20 Thanks.
10:26:17 Likely. Yeah. That's, that was pretty solid. Solid dad joke moved there.
10:26:23 Okay. We also got an email from our one of our fire chiefs saying that the East Jefferson Fire and Rescue is scheduling.
10:26:34 Presentations in the spring with various community groups through their fire district to discuss preparedness measures. And review the community wildfire protection plan that
we're just in the process of adopting.
10:26:46 Because they're concerned about you know the water issue and wanna get the word out far and wide.
10:26:54 So. Look for those and we'll try and. Share those on Facebook and promote those as much as possible, but It's important that we all have the current information.
10:27:07 I'm not ready to think about summer yet. Can I go back to winter? Well, I remember years ago hearing a story about a family that perished in a winter storm.
10:27:19 They got stuck in a mountain road and I think the Oregon cascades. And the thing that stuck out to me was saying if they had a candle in the car that would have provided enough
Heat to potentially keep them alive to melt water like And so I have carried a candle in my car in a metal container ever since.
10:27:41 Is that silly? Is that dated? Is that? I mean, I'm sure there's risk associated with that too.
10:27:47 But do you recommend that as part of a winter car kit?
10:27:50 I've actually never heard that before. And typically when we are talking about, you know, kind of building out an emergency kit, we recommend against candles specifically because
we usually have earthquakes in mind and an aftershock can knock that over if there's a gas leak candles do represent an inherent hazard but they do make those mitten and boot warmers
that you can activate that
10:28:13 do provide heat. And there are other likely safer methods like that. Those space blankets as well, enough to use your own body heat to help warm you.
10:28:25 Those are about a quarter apiece. And honestly don't provide the same risk that a candle would but that's an interesting thought.
10:28:32 I've just never heard that before. And again, we typically shy away from kind of open fire sources, especially in a potentially confined space like that as well.
10:28:39 But thinking along those lines, I'm very certainly with wow.
10:28:43 Hmm. Alright, anything else for Dr. Barry or Willie Bs? No, thank you very much.
10:28:50 Okay, yeah. Thanks you guys. Thank you both. We'll see you next month.
10:28:52 Thank you.
10:28:53 And in the name of love, right? Something about that YouTube concert. I remember how many people were in the crowd, but nice.
10:29:03 Okay. And I remember how many people were in the crowd, but nice. Okay. Kristener Eisenhower will take the word out. And the worst thing.
10:29:10 I mean, no, that's you too. Lap bug in the name of love. Yeah.
10:29:17 But KPDC could pull up in the name of love now. Alright, thank you all. Thank you to KPTC as well.
10:29:20 Okay.
10:29:25 All right, we have Sophie, with us here. Maybe Sophie, while you're getting set up, we will take a quick recess.
10:29:34 We will buy a break and get, you can get set up and we will be talking. About, noxious weeds control.
10:34:57 I can talk weeks without Zoom. That recording but snow the 80 captures fresh Okay. Alright.
10:35:09 Hey, we are coming back from a recess and. Apologies to anyone. We might have lost on EV, which seems to be crashing, although none of you can hear, but I think they know to
come and find us on Zoom.
10:35:24 So we have a presentation by our not just weed control coordinator. So if you, thank you for being here and pass it up to you.
10:35:34 Thanks for having me. I think I was here exactly one year ago as my as a brand new little breakfast coordinator.
10:35:45 I think I was here exactly one year ago as my as a brand new little breakfast coordinator. So I'm glad to say that I survived the year exactly one year ago as my as a brand
new little breakfast coordinator. So I'm glad to say that I survived the year.
10:35:57 So I'm glad to say that I survived the work we completed last year and hopes and dreams for 24.
10:36:00 Well more like plans for 24 it's a bit more solid than hopes and dreams but and then talk a little bit about our new noxious weed free gravel certification program that the
Weed Board is really excited to institute in Jefferson County.
10:36:14 So I did just pass a weed list around to you guys and that is the updated 2024.
10:36:22 Lead list and it just is it's a list of the statewide noxious weed list.
10:36:27 The state weed board publishes the class A and the class B weeds. The class A are the same in every single county.
10:36:36 So even if we were lucky, we don't have most of those weeds, but we keep them on the list because if they show up, we want to get rid of them as quickly as possible.
10:36:43 And then the B list is a bit different in every county depending on. You know scotch broom as a bee but it's not on our list because it's it's too widespread it's naturalized
we can't spend all our time and money getting rid of it.
10:36:59 Whereas other counties, they may still have Scotch room on their B list. So. That one is just specific to Jefferson County.
10:37:03 And the weed board uses that list as regulatory guidance or like the law to control access weeds in our county.
10:37:14 So, yeah, you can go to the next slide. So just I'll talk about the highlights from 2023 2024 goals and then our noxious free gravel program.
10:37:24 Next slide. So in 2023 we controlled just over 150 acres for noxious weeds across.
10:37:34 That's just public lands. That doesn't include private. Noxious weed projects.
10:37:42 We surveyed over 200 miles of road, which is a pretty significant increase. From the past years.
10:37:51 And we sent a hundred 56 outreach letters. So that's everything from Hey, you've got this noxious weed in your backyard that I can see from the road and I want to help you control
it.
10:38:03 We're gonna be using herbicide or hand pulling adjacent to your property. Or there's a new weed that showed up and I just kind of sent some mailers out to the general neighborhood.
10:38:16 So, I think that will that will definitely increase this year. At least. 500 outreach letters will be sent.
10:38:26 Now that I, you know, know what I want to tackle. Are they actually physical letters that you're mailing?
10:38:33 Okay, you find that more effective than I find it to be really effective, actually. I found it to be really effective, actually.
10:38:37 I was pleasantly surprised that I found it to be really effective actually. I was pleasantly surprised that by sending a letter, which is a standard protocol across the state.
10:38:44 I was pleasantly surprised that by sending a letter, which is pleasantly surprised that by sending a letter, which is standard protocol across the state, just sending a letter
saying, you know, on a routine survey, I saw this noxious weed.
10:38:49 Here's a bit about the weed and here's how you can control it or businesses that you can hire to control it.
10:38:52 People, they don't even necessarily get back to me, but when I go check up on it, it's gone.
10:38:58 So I was pleasantly surprised at how effective that was. And with the herbicide letters, we send letters before we treat adjacent to the property and give people the opportunity
to say we don't want the use of herbicide adjacent to our property, but then they have to assume that control themselves.
10:39:15 And we had minimal responses of people wanting to assume control themselves. Some people just want to be notified the day of, which isn't something we can necessarily offer.
10:39:28 To every landowner, but you know we can do that when someone reaches out. So, yeah, I thought that was surprisingly effective in this day of age where everything's on the internet.
10:39:38 And then outside of those outreach letters over 400 landowners. Either came into the WSU extension office or called or emailed or we talked to them at a market or a home show
or a presentation, school, whatever it was.
10:39:54 We have 5 contracts with public agencies, so the city of Port Townsend, the public utility district.
10:40:02 Solid waste facility, public works roads division and Fort Warden, which is a contract through the friends of Fort Warden.
10:40:12 And we worked with 2 Americorps crews, WCC, the Washington. Conservation Corps and Earth Corps.
10:40:20 And we also partnered with Kalam County. Weedboard. Next slide. Can I ask some questions?
10:40:25 So you said that 200 miles was up from what had been previously surveyed. What about what's conservative in the past?
10:40:32 Just curious. There was really no record. Great. But just from looking at the general program, survey like just road surveys. Great.
10:40:45 But just from looking at the general program, survey like just road surveys, we're not.
10:40:45 Very high on the list. And so, 200 miles surveyed at least once. So a lot of those roads I was going, I went back to 3 or 4 times over the course of the year.
10:40:55 And for one person to do 200 miles was a lot. Surveying wise. So I, don't have a number for what it was.
10:41:05 I'm pretty certain that it's more. And with the second person we will be hiring.
10:41:09 It will be even more. And I'm curious about the Americorps crews. I remember when we were in your hiring process and there was some conversation about you know, what kind of
crews we'd worked with in the past and it felt like at the time we were in COVID and it was there were a lot of questions like Would there be America Corker is available?
10:41:33 Would there be WCC crews available? And so I'm just wondering, what's the state or the availability of those crews at this time?
10:41:40 Are you having a good good luck finding people to do the work? I historically the weed board only worked with WCC.
10:41:47 And they would get about 12 to 15 weeks of crew time and we had I wanna say 3 or 4 last year.
10:41:55 And so that's why I sought out Earth core, which is a private organization that hires, Americorps, so it was much more expensive, which I was not pleased with, but it was like
kind of the only after it was cheaper than hiring other contractors to do the work.
10:42:13 So this year we have 8 weeks of Americorps of WCC. Which is a significant amount.
10:42:22 And I think with a second, noxious, we board employee, I think that, that feels like good coverage right now. I think that that feels like good coverage right now.
10:42:29 And so I think 8 to 10 weeks with a second employee. I think that that feels like good coverage right now.
10:42:34 And so I think 8 to 10 weeks with a second employee would kind of be the sweet spot.
10:42:34 But yeah, I, did. 1,000Â h of control myself. Which is not what was historically.
10:42:42 Use the position time for and you know, not necessarily like how it should be, but. We had weeds to control.
10:42:50 So thank you. Yeah. For doing that work. It's important work.
10:42:54 I just remember a lot of conversation about that capacity issue in the hiring process. Yeah, I just wonder.
10:43:05 Yeah, WCC, I guess, yeah, going back to that, they were really struggling to hire people and I don't want to speak for that organization.
10:43:07 I don't I certainly don't work for them, but they COVID nationally we're having trouble hiring.
10:43:14 Members. And I think because we got more time, it doesn't seem like they're quite as stressed out and great thing with that.
10:43:22 So hopefully they're finding their footing again. Fingers crossed. Yeah. So I just, have a few slides highlighting a couple of things that we did in 2023.
10:43:33 So Fort Warden felt like a really successful project to the friends of Fort Warden fund that, half of that contract and the wheat board funds the other half.
10:43:42 And there is just great to work with them and the whole parks. So we controlled 25 acres for noxious weeds in the park.
10:43:50 We got some employees trained to do noxious weed control, which just means there can be more control throughout the year, which is really helpful.
10:44:00 So that is a photo of Elliot Spring, some poison hemlock. And that was the main focus, Poison Hemlock, just because of the number of.
10:44:10 People walking and kids and dogs. The campground and the trails were really the focus. And when we, when the season was kind of over and we felt like we had sprayed as much
poison hamlock as we could.
10:44:22 We started focusing on Holly, which is not on the noxious weed list, but it is a very invasive and threatening tree.
10:44:31 And Fort Warden, I believe this year is doing more to remove. Some of the bigger holly trees, which, yeah, so hopefully we'll see some good control poly over the coming years.
10:44:41 Next slide. The county roads. So we definitely expanded, the extent to which we controlled in I believe in 2,019 and 2020 and 2,021 the focus was mostly on West Valley Center
Valley.
10:45:00 An eagle mount predominantly, at least from what I could see. And so we, those, the red is, hand pulling of Tanzi Regwart and the yellow is hand pulling of wild turtle or spotted
napweed and then there's a orange spotted dual weed spot.
10:45:22 And down in the Dosei Wallops was also Tanzi Regwart. And so, 150 miles of county roads of that 200 miles, 150 was county roads.
10:45:35 And we, I guess the biggest weed for us on the county roads is Wild Turtle, which is a carrot.
10:45:42 It looks a bit like Queen Anne's lace and it is Not really in Kalam County or Mason County.
10:45:49 So I believe that Hey, it came in on some hay, to old ego mount road and has since just been expanding from there.
10:45:58 Clem County found their first. 2 very isolated like just a few plants last year. So that's why we have a partnership with them because they're as invested in helping us get
rid of it as we are.
10:46:10 So. It's great to have them on board. Can ask one question about this map?
10:46:14 It's great. It's very instructive. You said earlier Scotch brand which is what we hear about all the time of course is just kind of off the list we keep we don't have the capacity
to manage it's just like endemic out there.
10:46:25 So is that and it's not on the B list anymore. So when when we hear, when I hear about folks saying, hey, there's a bunch of Scotch broom, the appropriate response is.
10:46:34 We've lost that battle. It depends where it is. Yes. So there is some good news about Scotch group.
10:46:45 I don't know. Yeah. I've never been so excited. I've been, but typically along roadsides it's just not a priority.
10:46:51 And it's really hard. It that's it's a bummer like I'm not happy about that but it's It's just a enormous project.
10:47:00 The Sea Bank lasts for 50 to 90 years. So. Truly if we said we want to get rid of it in Jefferson County, we would need to come up with like a 50 year management plan.
10:47:11 And that just you know, feels close to impossible. So controlling Scotch broom in the right areas, like the weed board is more than happy to help with that.
10:47:21 So private properties, the PUD corridor. That's just kind of an ongoing project.
10:47:27 Scotchroom is it does have volatile oils in it so it doesn't pose a fire risk so controlling it under power lines is important.
10:47:35 So yeah, it's not, we recommend it for control, but it's not required.
10:47:40 The way the weed list works, if there's a list, a weed on there, you're supposed to, we'd boards are supposed to be able to control all of that plant within one calendar year.
10:47:51 And if you can't do that, then you have to take it off. You can't you can't force people to control that.
10:47:57 You can't do it yourself. And so it is a little bit we've lost the war.
10:48:01 I think the WSDA has classified as all hope is lost. But. Kind of unofficially, but yeah, in the right places, like with Blackberry.
10:48:11 In the right places, we want to try to control that. So. Yeah. Cool.
10:48:16 Thanks for digging into that. So this is just a little. Anecdote about some successful early detection rapid response, which is a theory behind.
10:48:26 Getting rid of those class A weeds if we can detect them really early on and we can get rid of them.
10:48:33 They're not going to become a problem. So, milk thistle is a awesome herbal plant that people use.
10:48:40 You can use every part of the plant for, various herbal remedies, but it does create cause nitrate poisoning in cattle and you can see that flower is about as big as a fist.
10:48:54 It's pretty huge and those spines like will break off in your hand and hurt for weeks. So it's not something that we want to just have everywhere.
10:49:05 The seeds they get all fuzzy and then they float away on the wind so you know you could easily very easily have a problem on your hands but this was a homeowner in Port Townsend
who sent a photo of some poison hemlock on their property, which you can kind of see.
10:49:21 In that photo. It's not a great photo of the milk thistle leaves, but the poison hemlock is off to the left.
10:49:26 Or sorry, the right. And I, you know, was like, well, I can help you with your poison headlock, but I'd really like to come help you get rid of the milk this all and within
a few days myself and the neighbors and the property owners were there.
10:49:40 We cut off all the seed heads just to definitely remove those. And you know, we'll be following up with them.
10:49:47 Some soil was removed from that property, so it presumably has some seeds that went somewhere into the world. But just knowing that is a really helpful, helpful thing and keeping
your eyes out for it.
10:50:00 So early detection rapid response with those weeds that are not Scotch broom the ones that have not yet got a footing is really powerful.
10:50:08 Next slide. So to get to 2024, this is a great photo of our WCC crew.
10:50:16 We have the same 5 contracts with public agencies, but we've added a sixth one, which will just allow us to do work in all the state parks in Jefferson County.
10:50:25 So the Fort Warden contract is through the Friends of Fort Warden and our new contract will be with state parks.
10:50:33 So we'll be working from Fort Flagler down to we will be nice work yeah yeah we'll be hiring one additional staff member we do have the job posting for that out now so we'll
be starting interviews next week.
10:50:46 Hopefully, and hiring in the month of March, they'll start. That's the plan.
10:50:52 We'll get over 200 acres controlled, more than 400 road miles surveyed. And we're definitely on track to have more than 600 landowner interactions have already given some public
presentations that have put us like almost at a hundred 50 so we're looking good as far as outreach goes.
10:51:12 And though we don't have contracts with the school district, the port authority or the county parks and wreck, there are projects on their lands that I am working with.
10:51:23 Control their noxious weeds, possibly, help them. And just keep building those relationships, maybe have contracts in the future.
10:51:32 We'll work with the WCC crew again, like I mentioned, and then partner with the, county, weed board just to get some better control with that.
10:52:21 Yeah. Part one because it's pretty. Huh. That's gotta be a full other. Oh, I think psychology.
10:52:26 Yeah, there you go. How to get people to. Yes. Butterfly bush.
10:52:30 Totally. So yeah, notable new ads to the 2024 weed list. Spurge laurel is a.
10:52:44 So yeah, notable new adds to the 2024 weed list. Spurge laurel is a class B weed that has been undesignated in Jefferson County for some time, but the weed board has chosen
to re-select it for control.
10:52:55 So that does mean it's required for control with the understanding that in the first few years you are surveying, you're trying to bring attention to the plant, and you're trying
to help people understand, not to continue planting it, help them decide on something to replace it with in their yard.
10:53:03 We have a great booklet at the WSU Extension Office that has a noxious weed and then 3 other options that are similar either in appearance or flower color or growing habitat.
10:53:16 So if you are thinking of planting Spurs Laurel, come talk to me and I can help you.
10:53:21 I can provide some other alternatives like the beautiful native rhododendrons that we have. It is similar, but as you can see in that bottom left-hand photo.
10:53:32 It's like Holly, it's a secret. You don't notice it until it's completely taken over the understory and it is really hard to get rid of the tap roots even on small plants are
just insanely deep.
10:53:44 And you need to use PPE when you remove it. It does have, like some milky white sap that is toxic, if you get it on your skin.
10:53:54 So definitely a noxious weed. Pretty blooming now. Got the nice little light green flowers, but definitely something we're going to be.
10:54:02 Getting rid of in Jackson County. What about the other spurges? So like Euphoria, that one.
10:54:09 Yeah, so euphorbia. We have a weed board member who would love to have it on the weed list.
10:54:14 It is not a noxious weed in Washington state, but because of our weed board members interest I have reached out to all the county coordinators and it's interesting.
10:54:24 None of the county coordinators, some of them are like, I have it in my yard, but, Walkcombe County, San Juan County and Clowham County also have like parks and rack people
who see it as an issue.
10:54:34 So it's definitely like maybe on the coastal ecosystems where we've got like.
10:54:40 Cool, damp, wet. Whether it's worse than it is like even just a bit more inland.
10:54:47 So it's not an options read, but it's a problem and Myrtle spurge, which is kind of looks like euphoria, but it's like more ground cover is a noxious weed not controlled in
Jefferson County.
10:54:58 It's not a huge issue, but yeah, any spurge. Which just signifies that Milky Sap.
10:55:04 Is toxic and you want to be careful. Yeah, euphoria, people have it in their yard but even if you're just trimming it back you want to make sure you're wearing PPE for sure.
10:55:15 It's hard because dear don't eat it so it's attractive. Yeah, it's very pretty.
10:55:21 Yeah, and so the other important noxious weed, that we put on the 2024 weed list is scotch broom within a hundred feet of aggregate piles and storage facilities.
10:55:34 So, we are not going to be, you know, having a huge effort to remove it all across.
10:55:41 The county roads unfortunately but we will be helping storage facilities and so we'll get into that a bit more with the weed-free program, but.
10:55:51 You know, gravel, even soil, mulch all of that scotch broom seeds when they they burst and they can jump.
10:55:58 10 feet. And so then you're just buying a new load of gravel or wood chips or whatever and you're bringing back to your property.
10:56:07 So. We can't necessarily get rid of all the Scotch room that we have. Now, but we can stop it from spreading.
10:56:15 And so, yeah. Will be starting to inspect pits and hoping I know about that.
10:56:23 Mark, you remember our road trip? . Mark got a call about a Scotch broom growing next to someone's house and We jumped and that little blue.
10:56:31 Well, and drove out there and looked at it and sure enough, Monty was like, we don't, we don't know all the right away rights away, but I'll go mow that one, you know, it was
a moment in time.
10:56:43 Yeah. Yeah, it's a, interesting plant for sure. Unfortunately, that we have to deal with, but, and we should say that if people have scotch broom on their property, you can
borrow scotch broom pullers. Yep.
10:57:00 From the weed board. Yep. At WSU in Port Hadlock at the Kibbly Center.
10:57:08 Yeah. So you can, wrench, weed wrenches are going to be one of the only ways they're going to get a big spurge laurel. And how many, wheat ranches do we have? We have 4.
10:57:16 Great. And the, it's a 2 week rental period. So I think only like at the height of spring rental period.
10:57:22 So I think only like at the height of spring is it like all 4 out of spring is it like all 4 out of spring is it like all 4 out but we can create a wait list pretty easily,
all 4 out, but we can create a wait list pretty easily and make sure that people get them in time.
10:57:31 Is it like all 4 out, but we can create a wait list pretty easily and make sure that people get them in time.
10:57:33 I know they're a popular item, but yeah, just making another PSA for them. Yeah.
10:57:36 Great. Next slide. So then our new state parks contract. I talked about this a little bit.
10:57:39 But that's just some yellow archangel down at Dosei Wallops. And it's, it's just really great to have these contracts, especially with state parks.
10:57:48 A lot of the Park Rangers are really interested in this and they're just kind of hobby citizen scientists, you know, they're always looking, they want to be looking for weeds
and reporting them.
10:57:58 So it's really great to be getting to work more closely with them. And you know, the weed board will be doing a lot of the control, primarily where chemicals are involved.
10:58:08 And the state parks will be, you know, kind of doing the brush hogging and the mowing, the timely mowing that can help us keep things down.
10:58:16 So, just a great partnership to have. Can I ask when you say you check your web certifying aggregate sites fantastic.
10:58:24 But I mean, it's also the tools that are used and best practices like, so are you working for 8 parts?
10:58:29 You know, every time you take it out, you got out of the hose it off. We get back.
10:58:34 We talked about borrowing a mower from Fort Flagler to Mola Anderson Lake, some noxious weeds and making sure they know that they need to, you know, hopefully wash it down at
4 Flagler and wash it down at Anderson Lake before they bring it back.
10:58:47 Because that wild turtle, like, we definitely don't want to see that for a flight or so.
10:58:50 Yeah, it's totally about the materials that are used as well. I mean, even your boots, even just walking through.
10:58:57 A place that you could pick up grass seeds and then you take them home with you and they fall off your pant legs.
10:59:03 So yeah.
10:59:06 Great. Next slide. I think this is the, yeah, so this is just a bit about the noxious weed-free program.
10:59:14 So I think you guys received the packet, which has the standards that I wrote. Based on.
10:59:22 The Kalam County, they have a very similar program and the North American andvasive Species Management Association, which is like a nationally.
10:59:31 The national program. And they do hay and forage and gravel and mulch.
10:59:39 But here in Jefferson County, we just want to have a program in place. That can help us stop the spread of noxious weeds to areas where it doesn't exist.
10:59:49 You know, there's no reason to bring noxious weeds to a new place. And so this photo on the right is a beautiful pile of alder chips and there's a blooming poison hemlock just
right on.
11:00:03 Just getting ready to go to seed. And, you know, no matter how often those piles are, you know, gone through, they say they empty that pile once a week.
11:00:09 Great, but you're still the seeds are ending up somewhere. And just last year I walked past some beautiful streets and port towns and that had been freshly woodchipped and they
were just covered in poison hemlock seedlings.
11:00:22 You know, so tracking down, like, where did you get your wood chips from? Like, no one's in trouble.
11:00:27 I just want to know. I want to help unrelated to this photo possibly. But it is just important to make sure that owners of these places are just aware of that as an issue.
11:00:40 You know, I don't think there's any the person obviously wasn't trying to spread noxious weeds.
11:00:44 And once it was pointed out they very quickly cut it all down. So the inspection standards that you have there, basically will have a weed board member myself or the assistant
that we hire.
11:01:01 Going to pits and looking at. The 100 foot around the pit and then as also the entrances and exits like where the trucks are going.
11:01:12 Are they picking up noxious weed seeds on their way to deliver rock. It is a totally voluntary program.
11:01:19 You know, I'm not gonna be sneaking anywhere and trying to get people in trouble, but it is a really good thing for places like sellers to have on their resumes, I guess the
Forest Service has really strict.
11:01:38 So the requirements that there's option A, this rock source exceeds requirements. This rock source meets requirements or this rock source meets minimum requirements.
11:01:47 This is Mostly built from the forest service expectations and when they won't buy gravel. Places that are below a B.
11:02:00 And so last year the Forest Service had a small project down in Brennan that they wanted to buy some local rock from and we didn't have any pits that met their standards.
11:02:09 So they have to go to Calum. And so, and that, you know, the pits in Jefferson County, like they want that they want to be able to sell to the Forest Service when.
11:02:18 There's project nearby and there are owners of gravel pits, you know, in column and Jefferson and it's frustrating that they can have their claw and pits inspected, but they're
Jefferson County pits, you know, we didn't have this program in place.
11:02:31 And so it is it is in their best interest as well. And part of this program, what you have today is Mostly just the standards for inspections, but it is also about getting people
to ask.
11:02:44 Hey, have you been noxious we certified or not suite free certified? And you know getting everyone from the buyers and the sellers to just buy in to this.
11:02:55 It's not going to be a perfect program, you know, if someone is bringing gravel or soil or compost from another county, you know, if someone is bringing gravel or soil or compost
from another county, you know, we're not gonna be certain that that was.
11:03:06 Noxious weed free. But you know, maybe over the course of a few years, we get the sellers asking.
11:03:12 Or the buyer the the sellers asking their sellers where they if they're noxious we'd free you know it's something that can trickle out.
11:03:21 And so I think this year just trying to get, you know, the first handful of pits inspected, the ones that wanted to be and hopefully showing them, it's not, it's not that hard
to come into compliance.
11:03:36 And yeah, getting a few. Few people going to buy wood chips asking if they're not just weed-free.
11:03:44 It's a free program. It doesn't cost. Anyone, anything to be inspected, you know, it will cost them to control their noxious weeds, but ultimately that fee could be a lot or
the cost of controlling noxious weeds at the site could be a lot less than the cost of controlling them and everywhere.
11:04:02 So that's kind of hard to put into actual numbers. But ultimately. Noxious weeds cost the state millions of dollars every year so controlling it at the source as best we can
is really important.
11:04:15 And so the weed board approved the packet that you have today at our November meeting and We're hoping that the County commissioners will sign on to it as well to kind of make
it an official program.
11:04:28 The pamphlet that you have is just like a little mock-up of a poster I made just to try to get the word out.
11:04:35 We'll have these, you know, at any tabling events or any presentations that we do.
11:04:41 To help customers understand what noxious weed free really means. And how to learn more about it.
11:04:49 So I think if you go to the next slide, it's the end, but there's a picture of me doing helping with a pit inspection in Kalam.
11:04:58 So I shadowed their program for a day and we inspected 3 pits just to try to understand how best to run those inspections.
11:05:06 So I'm not coming at it totally blind. But Kalam and Naa's inspections.
11:05:13 So I'm not coming at it totally blind. But, and Naisma have been very helpful in answering questions that I've had about it.
11:05:18 So, Yeah, and yeah, you can come visit us at the WSU Extension Office for anyone listening.
11:05:23 There's my information. Any questions, Great first year, Sophie. Thank you. Yeah, I so appreciate that.
11:05:33 Just the can do attitude. Doing what needs to be done. Well, we're trying. Yeah.
11:05:40 So how's your weed board at this point? We have 4 of the 5 seats. That's great.
11:05:43 Yeah. At least for the next 2 years. Awesome. So that may be 3.
11:05:49 The only seat we're missing is the West End district 4, which extends from. The West and it does extend all the way to 101.
11:05:59 Basically, so there is, you know. People who live like kind of in that Lake Leland area can come beyond.
11:06:05 Good commissioner, I've been threatening to sign up to and I've been looking for people in district 4 again and again looking for people in district 4 again and again but yeah
I see the work that you doing and I feel like I don't have to anymore.
11:06:19 And again and again, but I see the work that you doing and I feel like I don't have to anymore.
11:06:25 I haven't been beating the drum about this certified gravel for so long. And I feel like I don't have to anymore. I don't know.
11:06:32 I's work that you don't have to anymore. I haven't been beating the drum about this certified gravel for so long.
11:06:38 And I'm, really yeah, huge supporter of it. The bragging rights you would have though.
11:06:41 I'm still going to brag about it. I guess my question is, so Clowon County has a certification program, we'll have a certification program. We'll have a certification program.
11:06:54 Are they gonna be, you know, same same to the point that like if we we would feel confident Yeah, those the standards that are in our document are you know pretty much national
standards for inspecting this kind of stuff.
11:06:59 So there's always room for a noxious wheat. You know, you do your inspection and that noxious weed wasn't in bloom, you know, you do your inspection and that noxious weed wasn't
in bloom, you know, there's always room for error in this, but compliant.
11:07:11 Follow up just going year after year, you know in a year like this where our noxious weeds are already in full swing, you're gonna see more things than you might have last year.
11:07:20 So it's just about consistency. And building the program, you know, it's it's not going to be the perfect way of stopping noxious weeds bread over 10 years we're gonna stop
a lot of knocks.
11:07:34 If we learned anything from COVID, source control can be a really effective mitigation technique. And I will say this isn't in the cards at this time.
11:07:44 And I will say this isn't in the cards at this time. But you know, if, the program is really successful and we've got like all our gravel pit signing on, creating some ordinances
that have our public works in our, and the city of Port Townsend public work signing on to, you know, committing to only buying noxious, we free gravel.
11:08:13 All 6 of those contract agencies you're dealing with. Yeah. So that's kind of the long term goal is getting like everyone to buy into this and creating a really strong program.
11:08:46 So, Scott's, brewing, with, that, in, a, hundred, feet, of, an, aggregate, pit controlling everything within a hundred feet or the whole quarry and the roads leading up, you
might not even see dandelions in that Option A, like almost nothing will meet option A and that's okay.
11:08:50 Option B is invasive plants are uncommon. And so we say invasive plants because in the note section, we're still going to be like.
11:08:57 Hey, you've got euphoria over here. Not an anxious weed, but you really should control it and if you're going to have someone out controlling this other weed, just have them
do that one too.
11:09:08 And so. Yes, we primarily are looking at weeds on that noxious weed list, but we're going to be having conversations with them about other invasive plans that are in the area
as well.
11:09:21 And so that makes it a bit more comprehensive where. We could still give them an option. You know, even though there's like dandelions everywhere.
11:09:31 It's like, you still got an invasive plant problem or euphoria, but you know, you're, you've taken care of the noxious weed.
11:09:38 So in our book, like, you've got to be, you know, next year if you can get rid of all that.
11:09:43 Horse tail, then you'll get an A. So first tail is a native.
11:09:48 It's obnoxious, but it's obnoxious, but it's obnoxious, but, it's invasive, but people really don't like it, but it's a native plant, you know, still can be invasive in the
right.
11:09:56 Area. So yeah. I could see that, you know, if there is an incentive like this that, you know, pit owners will get more proactive which is the goal is there any concern about
kind of increasing widespread use of herbicides and do you know if they are required to get a handlers?
11:10:19 Permit for. That kind of use of herbicides. So it would depend on the herbicide that they are using.
11:10:26 Ultimately, that's where the herbicide license comes in is are you using restricted use pesticide or not.
11:10:33 And I, I can suggest what to do and I can suggest what herbicides they use, but ultimately it's up to them.
11:10:41 A lot of these pits are owned by big companies that have invasive species specialists, you know, that go around to all their pits and use herbicide on things like, you know,
hopefully they are not spraying the herbicide like on the material itself.
11:10:57 Typically these the piles are getting used and moved regularly enough that you don't have noxious weeds growing on there.
11:11:05 And so the idea of like You like, yes, they're might be more herbicide use, but it's not gonna be on like the mulch or the compost.
11:11:15 If that's happening then they're doing it or you know there's something happening. That's creating a misunderstanding.
11:11:24 And on things like rock, you know, it doesn't, the herbicide won't stick around with a rain.
11:11:29 And as long as they're following the label, I wouldn't be worried about seeing increased, you know, residues or anything like that.
11:11:37 And yeah, if there's problems, then we'll have to address them for sure. And make sure that the pits are understanding what we mean when we say control and how to do it, to
address them for sure and make sure that the pits are understanding what we mean when we say control and how to do it.
11:11:50 Regulatory authority just making sure that people are following herbicide labels and doing that all appropriately and we're here to help them figure out how to do that.
11:12:00 So that was a big problem in the, I was an organic farmer for many years. And, for a few years.
11:12:05 Commercial mulch that was allowed in organic use was had highly contaminated with herbicides.
11:12:11 But it sounds like you feel fairly confident that pets have a high level of professionalism around their herbicide use.
11:12:20 I feel fairly confident that pets have a high level of professionalism around their herbicide use.
11:12:37 Yeah, and so many of them like, you know, when they're kind of like really we have to control the weeds around our pet like, you know, when they're kind of like really we have
to control the weeds around our pet like we're moving this material you know, yeah, they shouldn't be spraying.
11:12:50 They shouldn't be showing herbicides onto the, material. Yeah. That's just like.
11:12:51 You know, there, yeah, they're getting like lazy and just. Broadcasting something that doesn't need to be broadcasted.
11:13:01 So I hope that wasn't coming from Jefferson County. Much larger. Yeah, I think the bigger the operation of stuff like this, the more.
11:13:12 Yeah, problem, sir. Probably are, but. Yeah, so something definitely to monitor.
11:13:21 And just work with. Pits to make sure they feel comfortable with what they're doing and that their buyers can feel comfortable with it as well.
11:13:28 Yeah. Alright, so it looks like, and you're hoping that we would take some action and approving the, Packet letter and packet and application packet.
11:13:42 The program. Alright. I'm happy to make a motion. If you're ready.
11:13:46 Yeah. I work a move that we approve the Noxious Weed boards program standards in order to make the noxious weed in free certifications and inspections available to every bits
and storage facilities as soon as possible.
11:13:57 I'm happy to second that. Thrilled the second that. Alright, we. Should probably open it up for public comments.
11:14:06 Any members of the public, which are all online at this point, wish to provide public comment regarding the.
11:14:12 Creation of this new program, noxious weed board. It's often, it would be a startling pass.
11:14:20 Last call for public comment. A motion on the table.
11:14:27 Alright, seeing none, I'll call the question. All those in favor, please say aye.
11:14:31 Aye. Aye. Passes unanimously. Thank you.
11:14:35 So much, Sophie. Great work. And if anyone online has any questions or concerns they can email me.
11:14:42 And your slide. I think. I don't want me to leave there. Contract to continue discussion.
11:15:09 And then some. Briefing and calendaring. And Mark Mallory's been texting you and I saying she's can come in if needed.
11:15:18 Answer questions about the contract.
11:15:24 I don't know, it's about time 1 30 and 2 and discuss it. I'm not gonna be here from 1 30 to 2.
11:15:30 I'm here the whole time. I've got a recompete meeting that I have to go to.
11:15:34 Are you joining us again at 2? We joining remotely at 2 for SMP. Yes. Is there, a rush on getting that contract done or is that something that maybe Greg you could work with.
11:15:53 You know, Mark sent me an email. I, you know, I I don't know, I'm not sure how much I care about this.
11:15:59 I think the work's important. I think the work is important. I think we've got the right people doing the work. I think we've got the right people doing the work.
11:16:03 I just want to when I look at that it just seems so squishy. Well, it's so out as a former contract worker myself, I will say one thing I'll say is it's not a former contract
worker myself, I will say one thing I'll say is it's not a huge contract.
11:16:16 And when we were negotiating kind of the work. Priorities for her. We prioritize doing some more.
11:16:23 I'm revenue generating clearing harvest in Jefferson County and we know that that's a big chunk of work for her to do.
11:16:32 So. I feel like that'll be a lot of this work. But there have also been a number of items where her expertise has been relied upon.
11:16:40 At, you know, of a number of the DNR issues we've been grappling with and so we want her to be more of an on-call expert in certain situations.
11:16:52 So she will be doing. Planned, you know. Chorus health innings for Jefferson County.
11:16:58 And then there'll be times when we're like, we need Mallory to weigh in on.
11:17:04 Or we need PP. Yeah. Or we need. Well, yeah, she's been sitting on that, but she also worked with Katherine Kopis to complete.
11:17:11 Those 4 trust land transfer applications for us. That wasn't something we knew was going to needed. We were gonna need to have, to have her do.
11:17:19 So in a way, I don't want it too specific. But we prioritized revenue generating activities and then said these are the other kinds of things we'd like you to be available for.
11:17:32 But then I guess I don't know. So it says under compensation for special projects performed with prior county authorization, you can charge an hourly rate.
11:17:41 On top of that retainer. And so. May charge with an hourly rate. I'm not more of that.
11:17:52 Right. The retainer is $1,000. And then for special projects, did any of these things that we're talking about?
11:18:02 Were they any of those special projects that did any of these things that we're talking about? Were they any of those special projects that additionally charged?
11:18:06 Well, if it takes more than the time she has allocated. But, but in our conversations with her that wasn't imagined that there would be.
11:18:12 The need for it, but we just felt like we wanted it in there in case there was.
11:18:18 For example, this week there's a meeting of a new timber to Jefferson Timber Collective largely coming out of the recipe conversation.
11:18:29 And we've asked her to participate in those conversations. Building timber capacity. I mean, that's great work.
11:18:38 I'm not sure if that's under this. Yeah, it is. Go. Is it?
11:18:43 I mean, it's something we've already talked to her about. But so what I'm hearing you say is you want more specifics of what the activities are.
11:18:52 I don't know. I just it was a red flag. That's what I'm saying.
11:18:57 But if you guys are both comfortable with it, I'm happy to move on. I don't wanna.
11:18:59 Well, we'll get the same impression, like what's the work product associated with this contract?
11:19:04 You know, most. Contracts have a scope of work that delineate that.
11:19:09 Mark, your thoughts. Contract genius. Well, there's not support to approve it today. We'll do what's necessary to gain that support.
11:19:22 How about that statement of work was quite a bit more specific than what we have for Mr. Braun.
11:19:32 Yeah, and I saw that. You know, I don't know. I don't know.
11:19:38 I don't have any concerns because I'm always asking for Mallory to do stuff. So yeah, and you've been, you know, 2 days a month for her and for the young lady that she's gonna
have as a subcontractor.
11:19:53 So, and I firmly believe that if she were to charge by the hour that this will cost more.
11:20:01 Than 60, than 72,000.
11:20:05 In the last time, has it ever gone over the contracted amount? We've had to.
11:20:14 We so we have amended her contract. I think 3 times to add additional funds. And we could follow that model again.
11:20:32 Yeah, but I wonder if there's a just an opportunity to kind of be aware of. Of what.
11:20:40 You know, what work is being done and the. Prioritization going on and you know I have no doubt the idea that you're aware of that.
11:20:52 And that's why we did ask her for monthly reports. So we would see on a monthly basis what she was working on.
11:20:58 Computer much more in, 2023, 98,230. Because couple of big harvest.
11:21:07 Okay, right now they weren't harvest. Oh, that was the work. And she submitted at that time.
11:21:16 How she actually invites under like 2 or 3 different categories.
11:21:24 Yeah, and I'm fine with it with a monthly report and, just, you know.
11:21:29 See how this year goes and. Yeah, this is the right amount. You know, it's just always hard.
11:21:37 It's like the housing office question this morning, you know, like there's so many good things we can prioritize.
11:21:43 Expenditures ons. Yeah. It's great when this is.
11:21:47 You know, revenue generating because it's easy to say, yeah, let's keep generating the revenue in a responsible way and working on our triple bottom line.
11:21:59 I'm working on our triple bottom line. So I'm happy to move forward. I'm getting the revenue in a responsible way and working on our triple bottom line. So I'm happy to move
forward.
11:22:03 I like to Yeah, we'll make sure everyone gets to see those. Okay. And 1, one item I'd love to start working on relatively soon is to work with Mallory to see if we can come
up with some.
11:22:16 Carbon likely sequestration goals. I'm guessing it would be more, mitigation.
11:22:24 But, that's something we're gonna have to work on county wide. Well, I'm happy to make a motion that we approve an agreement.
11:22:32 Regarding forestry related professional services and the amount of 72,000 a year through December 30 first 2028.
11:22:39 Forward chickadee forestry. A second. Right. Any further discussion?
11:22:46 All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Bye. Okay, I'm going. Hey, shall we do some calendaring and briefing?
11:22:57 Does anyone need a break? I'm good.
11:23:02 I'm happy, cause I'll be quick on the, on the rearview mirror if you want me to go first.
11:23:10 So.
11:23:14 Last week I was supposed to be in a, but. Had a family member come down with an illness and.
11:23:23 Opted to stay home and be her health advocate, which I'm glad I did. And so I didn't attend anything, although I did write down a few notes because I did participate in a few
conversations.
11:23:36 One thing to know is that there's a large tugboat, beached on Cala Point.
11:23:42 And I'm working with DNR to get that removed, but it's a repeat offender.
11:23:46 He's the guy who owns the large Coast Guard boat that sank off of the Chimican Creek Beach Park.
11:23:52 And I'll just take 30Â s to tell you that entertaining story there. The boat that sank.
11:23:59 He, the owner attached a buoy to so he could. Remember where it was. And he came along with this tugboat and it looks like he just tied the Tugboat to the rope of the buoy.
11:24:13 This is what it looks like. Me, I mean, he can reach out and say, I'm, but this is a lot of people have we've been a bunch of conversations and so it drug in that windstorm
the week before last there was that big windstorm.
11:24:27 And the tugboat broke free. From the sunk boat and drifted onto Calapoint with the red buoy attached and the rigging of the sunk boat.
11:24:40 Yeah. So, and we can't tell, well, maybe by now DNR figure this out.
11:24:46 I'm just kind of acting as a resource for them for now. We can't tell if it's on the California Homeowners Association property or the WDF W, wildlife property.
11:24:56 There. So that's just a exciting. Vignette from district 2. Let's see.
11:25:13 Let's see. Now I wrote over. Oh, I saw that they're paving this solid waste treatment plant.
11:25:21 Add luck. That's exciting. We got an update on that. The Larry Scott Trail, they've started, putting the 15 mile an hour signs on the Larry Scott trail, which is something that
I worked with Eric on and, and, A year or 2 ago.
11:25:39 So, you know, through through the Peninsula Trails coalition there was interest in putting a you know, a speed limit on the trail and we agree that 15 miles an hour was the
thing.
11:25:52 So they've started marking, putting the signs on the trail, which is good. And they've also added a sign that, you know, good behavior on the trail.
11:25:59 Pick up who, you know, yield to walkers, you know, gotta stay on the right.
11:26:06 Why is it so hard for people to remember we do it driving? But in the trail then they're shocked when you're upon them.
11:26:12 I forget what the 4 things that the Trail sign says, but we've. Yeah, yeah.
11:26:18 I noticed that too. I'm excited. I was I was like one of the exciting things that happened in the midst of all this.
11:26:27 Drama at home. So. Announce yourself here's the here's the sign.
11:26:33 Come on. I'll be fine. I'm not on zoom Announce yourself one bullet stay right unless passing second bullet dogs unleash third bullet Pick up dog poop, fourth bullet.
11:26:46 Well, it's the horse stuff that, oh yeah, that nearly is problematic. I've been involved in a few conversations about our community wildfire protection planning process.
11:27:10 It's been. It's encountered a few speed bumps. One big speedboat.
11:27:17 Well, one big speed bump stakeholder, but The conversations are proceeding. And you know, there's some disagreement amongst members, key members of this.
11:27:27 Group. So Mark's been more on this than me because it's been over the last week, but.
11:27:35 Yeah, we had a report a little bit when it's my time but we have a path forward but we're going to need to pony up some more resources.
11:27:42 Yeah and it's because certain numbers of the group did not complete, did not review. Drafts as they were asked to apparently.
11:27:50 You know, they were getting progress. Now, it's time to review this. Now, it's time to review that and there were instances where that wasn't done by certain key people.
11:27:58 So. A little bit of frustration there, but also a path forward has been identified, which is good news.
11:28:08 I think And then just looking forward. I'm just, I'm just. Privilege of the microphone.
11:28:19 I need to be out on Friday for said medical procedure. So, but it looks like the only thing that really.
11:28:32 Help cover? I'm thinking maybe there's an Olympic Peninsula Tourism Plan review.
11:28:38 The strategic plan review that I have held in the morning and I'm thinking if you could attend that Greg. When is that?
11:28:46 It's Friday. Morning from, yep, I have 9 to 11 held, but I will confirm with Debbie Wardrop and get you information and then.
11:28:56 The only other thing. Are you not going to the housing fund board special meeting, Greg? Oh, that is this week, isn't it?
11:29:01 Sorry, I'm looking at the wrong week. I was I was going to the housing fund. Okay, I wasn't worried at 9 30. Okay.
11:29:07 Well, we'll just I'll just tell that be that. I'll send my regrets.
11:29:09 Okay. And then I have the coordinated county response meeting at Dove House at noon for an hour.
11:29:16 I don't know. The what? The coordinated community response, which is. When all that when the law enforcement and.
11:29:25 Just talking about. Sorry, when is that again? It's noon on Friday.
11:29:32 I'm on an airplane, Hetto Denaco. I had potentially I can do that.
11:29:37 I get him assuming that having fun more gets out before that. I know, forward it to you. So Greg, I will miss that special meeting, which I know was.
11:29:47 Okay, it's presentation. We have action to take. Okay. And then.
11:29:59 Well, we're gonna talk about. Are we gonna talk about the Aquatic Center and There's meetings this week relative to that.
11:30:09 Yeah, well, I mean, I kind of I step back off scheduling that because I think you're interested in taking that role but I could definitely do it if you feel like I shouldn't
take anything else on right now.
11:30:18 I'm happy to take that. I did not respond to the dual poll, I'm happy to take that.
11:30:23 I did not respond to the dual poll, but I can be flexible about when the meeting. And I know Mark's gonna stay involved with that too, right?
11:30:29 The steering committee and in fact the meeting was sprung. I got an invite from Kerry Height.
11:30:40 I think it's on the, 21.
11:30:47 It's a 30, yeah, 39, 7, month, right?
11:30:53 The spring meeting?
11:31:02 Yeah, I accepted. An invite because I was open and now I don't recall the date. There was an invite from Kerry at 2 o'clock on the seventh.
11:31:11 Okay, so that's the sprung presentation, but to help the next steering committee meeting is 20 eighth at 2 o'clock.
11:31:19 So. Who's Greg? Well, I'm happy to. Do it, but I, you know.
11:31:28 I'm chairing the housing fund. Okay, well, you know, I can, you know, I currently you can zoom into that.
11:31:34 Currently I don't have a conflict on Wednesday for these meetings with sprung. So, why don't I take it?
11:31:42 And try and hand it off if I need to. But yeah, okay, so let's put me on that.
11:31:48 I need to. But yeah, okay, so let's put me on that. Okay, I'll send you the invite.
11:31:52 Okay, I'll send you the invite. Okay, I'll send you the invite. And Greg and that share housing fun board if you end up. Sounds good.
11:31:55 Yeah. Okay, I would need a little bit of notice. Oh, okay. Okay, that's great.
11:32:03 Okay, so other stuff this week all looks.
11:32:08 I, okay. Other stuff this week all looks pretty fine. I'm still potentially interested. I just feel like I missed the Peninsula Trails Coalition meetings or in the, they have
there's the full board meeting and then there's the Jefferson County.
11:32:26 And, Wednesday and Thursday nights. No, you know, there the first Thursday is the Jefferson County one.
11:32:38 And then the first Wednesday is the Peninsula Trails Coalition. Full board meeting and they're both in the evening.
11:32:45 I'm sorry you said first Thursday. So that so I missed the one on the first. There was a meeting on the first.
11:32:54 And then there's a meeting on Wednesday evening, which I can do this week, but I just feel.
11:33:00 Like I need to not take on so much. Right. Those are ones I could take on after February.
11:33:09 Okay. During legislative session those are really hard and conflict with there's some conflict with. Fairgrounds that would be awesome.
11:33:17 Cause I can do them for February. And I realized this Friday I do have KPTZ at 1230.
11:33:21 Okay, so. The 12 o'clock I'm just gonna have to say I can't be there.
11:33:30 So. And then I think everything else this week.
11:33:38 So, so interestingly. Something I think is I'm super excited about. It's such a, I'll just go over what I'm doing this week.
11:33:50 This evening, I don't know, tomorrow evening we have. This evening I'm meeting with Jolene Crone.
11:33:56 From Salish, behavioral health just to get, cause I'm the new commissioner on that just to get a little.
11:34:02 Download from her and then tomorrow I'm meeting I have a MRC regular meeting at 6 o'clock at the.
11:34:10 I mean, and the Triarei Community Center. I think it's there this time anyway, that no problem with that.
11:34:17 Some Wednesday morning I'm meeting with Marcos to talk about some of the forestry stuff we've been.
11:34:23 All working on with Clown County and then also I think he sits on Salish as well. So that's the We're gonna just, he's gonna give me some tips on.
11:34:36 Yeah, so. And then Wednesday I'm going to have lunch. With some of the best sprung and some of the pool folks.
11:34:50 And I'm gonna attend the meeting at City Hall with Sprung. And then I'm gonna go to the out to the short farm for the first meeting of the sharp farm work group, which conflicts
with the sprung meeting, but only partially and I'll be able to.
11:35:05 Catch up with the short framework group before they. For most of that. And then Wednesday evening I have the Peninsula Trails Coalition full board meeting.
11:35:15 Haven't gotten to the thing I'm most excited about yet. Thursday the eighth in the morning I have.
11:35:23 I think it's the Second to final meeting of the Department of Ecology. Model ordinance committee for recycling.
11:35:33 And,
11:35:36 And then I have the Clean Water District meeting, Yup. I have the clean water district meeting.
11:35:45 Thursday afternoon, which has an overlapping conflict with the Jefferson timber collective meeting. And there's a great group.
11:35:53 I'm so excited about this group coming together to talk about. The local wood economy. At the old alcohol plan.
11:36:00 And, Scott Freeman's organized it, but. Really good group, a list of folks is coming.
11:36:07 And I'm hoping there's can be something that comes out of this. It will be additive to the whole recipe conversation because I think this could be.
11:36:15 An economic focus for Jefferson County. So.
11:36:21 Right, I'll be in Seattle with my mom. Let's see. Yeah, that's it.
11:36:29 That's it. Oh, and then some point this week I'm gonna announce I'm and tend to run for reelection.
11:36:44 I have a plan and it works but you know things are really inflex in my life right now so You wanna go the week before it all?
11:36:52 Is there a report? Well, I think I did because I was gone and I was supposed to be in Hawaii and I was before though. Oh, back.
11:37:04 Oh Yeah, so.
11:37:07 With you guys on the 20Â s. Had a call with Amanda Grace about septage capacity and it's exciting last I heard.
11:37:19 Our septic capacity study was proposed for funding and Our guys, they're in, we're the leading components of it.
11:37:29 So I'm super hopeful and I. Sent a letter to all 3 of our delegation. Just.
11:37:34 Letting them know that kinda outlining the issue and the work that we put into this and got great replies from all of them.
11:37:42 So I'm somewhat hopeful that it'll make it through this year. Good guys, all is also, also requested that in the budget.
11:37:52 So, you're in good shape. Awesome. That's because we've been working on that for the last 2 years.
11:37:56 So that's really good news. Met with Ken Huguenot on the 20 third to talk about.
11:38:03 My only so far complicated public public records request and I'm like he's like this is the doozy I'm like I'm sorry met with a pool supporter.
11:38:15 To talk about some of the you know, issues that have come up and just, you know, always talk in the pool.
11:38:23 Which is great. I wanna go swimming now. I got a pool bumper sticker for my car.
11:38:28 I need to wash my car. I was planning on doing that. I support a new pool. Let's see.
11:38:37 It for one walk with Stacey, the 20 third. So we had a community wildfire protection plan advisory group meeting on the 20 third and I think that's where the.
11:38:48 These questions started to, well, not started to arise, but people realized that they hadn't really been.
11:38:56 Paying attention when they should have been when as we went through the process. So We've been spending the last couple of weeks digging out from that.
11:39:05 Had a community foundation board meeting on the 20 third later. I drafted our on the 20 fourth I drafted our DNR concurrence letter and sent it off.
11:39:15 And happy. Calum County, cause they're, letters said we'd like to give.
11:39:22 150 acres of Callum County. To do that timber sale on Lake Sutherland.
11:39:27 Anyway, so then and I also on the 20 fourth wrote my septic letter which I just mentioned and I sent that to our delegation.
11:39:34 Subject capacity constraints. On the 20 fifth I had a meeting with. A deputy prosecuting attorney and public health to talk about.
11:39:46 A problem property in Port Hadlock and kind of a path forward to try and get those landowners to.
11:39:55 Clean up their act. Mark and I met with the Humane Society on the 20 fifth to talk about our support for the Humane Society and they have a new executive director.
11:40:07 And She seems great and always grateful, grateful and Pam Colisey's eyes are on something because.
11:40:13 She's a real asset. Talked with another pool supporter. Thursday afternoon.
11:40:21 Then there was a SWAC meeting. My favorite committee. I'll say that loud again. I'm gonna have this.
11:40:37 Wanted to be reappointed. Well, maybe they have to have someone from the port. I'm not sure if I've ever.
11:40:43 I think it's required. Friday the 20 sixth I attended the straight ecosystem recovery network quarterly meeting of the Dengineers River Nature Center which I always love when
we have our meetings there and I love that round table and I think I hear at that table what's going on at the Pew.
11:41:05 Sound partnership, you know, it's kind of like trying to figure out the purpose of LIOs and it feels like there's progress.
11:41:09 And bring in that conversation forward. So that's good. Yeah. And then.
11:41:18 Another.
11:41:21 Oh, then I had a conversation with the Washington Conservation Action. About they're doing a press release or a I don't know.
11:41:32 Yeah, press release about all this DNR work that we've been doing over the last. Oh, is it 2 and a half years now?
11:41:38 And so they were putting out trying trying to get some articles about all the work. Around 2,000 acres and the NCS, and what's going on in this legislative session because there's
another.
11:41:50 Proviso moving along. I haven't heard in the last 2 days what happened, but It was 64 million dollars and it was for replacement lands and now it's Last I heard it was half
that, so.
11:42:03 I think. Some climate commitment. And 8 million dollars for trust land transfer projects that.
11:42:12 I've been on the list for a long time that.
11:42:17 Carbon dense forest on them. So Chinese. National Climate Solutions to protect those.
11:42:25 That's my brief clip notes. Fresh report. Which didn't feel start. Alright, looking back 2 weeks, let's see, of course lots of recompete met with DCD on Tuesday the 20 third
Then there was a finalist webinar that was really, pretty excellent, I have to say.
11:42:49 I'm really kind of laid out the path in front of us and it's been a very responsive team.
11:42:55 The 1 30 meeting I have is with our local EDA representative. So they're really kind of working.
11:43:00 Hand in glove with the applicants to Make the best applications that can. I'll forward you the list of who's attending this forry roundtable on Thursday just because yeah, you'd
think you'd be It's like to see. Yeah, I'd love to have a little more information about that.
11:43:15 That'd be great. That's see. And then we, we did, I was at the Jefferson, community wildfire protection plan meeting and I don't know, listen to Mark, but I would say if it's
the, if we're still disagreeing about which model we use, I would continue to say we should use the model that we've used the whole
11:43:36 process, which is the, the wooy. But yeah, so I'm just one person. A housing fun board.
11:43:45 I do want to talk about that at some point. We have a question. Sounds like you'll cover it in your report, Mark.
11:43:50 I had lunch with Karen AFL kind of part of the onboarding for NODC.
11:43:55 We have a special meeting coming up this week. I can't remember anything 2 weeks ago that was worth.
11:44:03 Extra. To talk about the recompete. We also had a local. Meeting with the port and city and county DCD and everything on Thursday.
11:44:14 Jeff calm, everything's going well, my first NODC meeting, those meetings are definitely more present presentation.
11:44:22 That was a great one about biodigesters. And the round table is really, values. Yeah.
11:44:31 We, Jay Bat, the band got back together on Friday the 20 sixth. Got a little bit of a presentation from PUD on the progress and you know they've had some Contractor issues,
but they are definitely they're gonna be lighten up some folks off East Quill, first quarter.
11:44:51 So it, it is moving forward, you know, always slower than we want, but moving forward and they're catching up with hood canal communications that, you know, did the first light
up down in Brennan.
11:45:01 But nothing particular. We're gonna start blowing like the sphere in Las Vegas.
11:45:07 I know. My friends sent me a picture of the sphere in Las Vegas. Yeah.
11:45:11 It's crazy. It does changes all the time. Yeah. And inside it changes all the time.
11:45:16 Yeah, yeah, totally built. It's 4 pools for the price of that globe. I think 400.
11:45:23 Was it a hundred 1 million dollars? It was huge. I forget. I feel like it was a hundred 1 million dollars building, but Seems cheap.
11:45:34 It had to be more than half. Let's see, 2 more, recompete meetings.
11:45:40 I was on KPTZ. I took. I'm at Cecily, Planning Commissioner and Joel Peterson to talk about.
11:45:47 Planning commission we're gonna have Matt play out but it didn't mesh well with the next DJ so we played Dirty work by Steely Dan.
11:45:56 And our metaphor was about how. Steely Dan will bring a lot of session musicians in for so any particular song, you know, you might hear a different drummer at different places
of the song and that.
11:46:07 Matt came up with that. The metaphor for planning as well, you know, it's like a work of many, many hands and then stands on its own.
11:46:15 Last week was a disorienting week. I had a great lunch with, So name is Sheba Peterson Whitley.
11:46:24 Is that I'll get let me get it right the She a person Whitley who is fairly new in her role is the regional EDA director.
11:46:33 So she's got 8 states and you know Hawaii and all the Pacific Islands basically and she was great.
11:46:38 We had city and port and county representation just kind of I think she had toured. Both Haven, it was that her group that had given the, I think the support for the new lift
that the port got been announced last week, you know, the one that can get narrower so it really it's a multiplying effect on how many votes you can get under work at the same time.
11:46:58 So that was a great. Great experience. Nice to meet her.
11:47:06 Had to go to the EDC Finance Committee meeting on Tuesday, which was really a strong group. We have a new chair, EDC now, Mark Knutson from South County.
11:47:16 Ben Bauermeister is kind of a step off. That's, that's a sea change. That is a sea change. Yeah.
11:47:26 Wow. Mark is great though. Yeah, No, Mark's great. That's awesome.
11:47:36 Yeah, and it's Karen Bennett who's kind of kind of the ringleader, the chair, Jay bad as well too has been done such a good job and just kind of getting the finances set up.
11:47:40 So that's great. Yeah. And thank you to Ben for his years of service. He's gonna come up and later in my report too.
11:47:47 I had so I missed a recompete construction. Webinar.
11:47:53 And then my feeling after missing that when I saw the note sent out to our part local partners from Amanda really at that point thought.
11:48:01 Glencove was not a viable construction project. It's sort of. I don't know, I felt a little bit like Han Solo, you know, when he was running through the Death Star and Star
Wars and he's chasing all the storm troopers and then they realize, oh, there's just one guy here and they turn around.
11:48:15 I felt that moment I was on so. But, so we had an emergency meeting on Wednesday with some of the Jefferson County folks that are involved in Recompete as well.
11:48:30 And I asked for this meeting with our consultants or our representative and EDA. And.
11:48:38 I think at this point, Glen Cove is probably off the table for funding. And we compete.
11:48:44 Because of the inability to kind of finish project and then this yeah I mean So EDA funds construction, 100% construction, they also fund design and construction.
11:48:57 A lot of the requirements really looked to our grant writer as if they were really focused on construction and didn't want to get much into design construction.
11:49:06 We obviously, I mean, it's the city that's essentially. Would be building the city, but we haven't been through any of the.
11:49:12 You know, the public outreach or any of that stuff. The The port is on their project that was on this list the westward boatyard expansion.
11:49:23 They can get 30% design done by April. So they just, it's still design construction, but they're a lot further they don't have any you know public pushing back on the project
well one property it's one property owner and also they discovered in working on this as they were trying to get their ducks in a row, one property owner.
11:49:54 And also they discovered in working on this as they were trying to get their ducks in a row and start to fill out these ED forms, which also they have a lot of engineering and
brand writing capacity that is really familiar with EGA.
11:49:56 So Project? I doubt that both are gonna be on under Glencove. I mean, I mean, I'm a recompete, but yes, for sure.
11:50:01 I mean, yeah. And both all these projects are still moving forward. Glenn Cov in the airport both got final design dollars from piff or you know kind of initial design dollars
for Glencoe so both move those move forward the westward boat year expansion was budgeted at the in the phase one application of 4.4 million that was always half of the money they needed
so they've been scrambling can we even do this what can
11:50:27 we do for in a you know half the amount so they're trying to rescope it as a larger project.
11:50:32 Basically, they would kind of you know and at the same time we have more and more people at the table so like pressure to how, to cut up the pie is kind of an ongoing pressure.
11:50:41 So this is still sort of figuring out how we can. Hopefully gracefully move from focusing on Glen Cove construction to the boat yard expansion, something else that the port
had found.
11:50:53 Was they found an outfall in that area that is coming up from Castle Hill that was sort of unmapped before.
11:50:59 Oh my god, but it's a huge, so it's a new component to this project.
11:51:03 But it probably is gonna be a huge stormwater asset for Castle Hill for the hospital for, economic development up on Castle Hill.
11:51:12 So they saw it as a feature more than a bug as something that is going to require additional engineering, but that ultimately will manage that kind of.
11:51:23 Wetland, stormwater pond, whatever it is that's kind of in the site of the boatyard expansion and also probably be able to create more.
11:51:30 I mean, the city was excited about it. The hospital was excited about it. So it's it brings a lot more players into that boat.
11:51:36 You're on expansion as a. Organic improvement of infrastructure, not just building the capacity for more jobs.
11:51:45 Strategically also, the boat yard expansion ties in. Kind of it's a shorter line to direct jobs.
11:51:52 You're not reliant on someone else building the infrastructure there. Also we are You know, we have some dollars that are kind of unallocated so far for the wooden boat schools.
11:52:03 Job training for workforce development so that workforce development just nestled so tightly with the boat yard expansion that we can make I'm, yeah, I went through many stages
of brief over the last week about this, but, I think it's it's absolutely the right decision to make and the right, you know, pacing and priorities to put into our regional push onto
whatever.
11:52:27 What infrastructure we can accomplish. Okay, so the thing for Glen Cove would get rolled into the.
11:52:35 The, port, the, the, board, extension, project. Well, we haven't had this talk at the whole recompete meeting, but you know, so we're talking locally about how, how to do this
and, you know.
11:52:45 I still believe that the lack of infrastructure really impacts. Our ability to diversify our economy and to do this kind of economic development, you know, we're falling into
this kind of touristic place that is just.
11:52:58 Not gonna be sustainable long term, so both of these. Yeah, I still think building infrastructure is something we should focus on with the recompete and.
11:53:07 I'm, you know, the, your expansion is a A clear, it's easy to fit into the narrative.
11:53:15 It has clear positive impact for economic development and it's got our. Our folks that are most proficient already and in getting these these
11:53:26 Applications completed to EDAs. Satisfaction and higher priority for the port done the airport. Hi, higher priority for the port than the airport.
11:53:36 Also, again, you know, some of the feedback that we got from EDA is this doesn't all seem like it ties together.
11:53:44 So it just, it makes it for a neater narrative. I mean, we've got maritime and natural resources kind of built into that and we still want to.
11:53:51 Definitely push. Jefferson County perspective into inric. So that's a, a big part of the strategy.
11:54:00 Do you have a question, Mark? Now I'm just gonna remind you that you do have funds for doing code from Piff.
11:54:09 Yeah, yeah. So we can make progress on that front. I worked all weekend on a slide deck for our first community conversation.
11:54:16 Yeah, right. So we can make progress on that front. I worked all weekend on a slide deck for our first community conversation.
11:54:17 Housing Fund board wants to have a meeting about that as well. So yeah, no, Glencoe's not done is just where we're just kind of slowing the roll a little bit and focusing for
the construction on the project.
11:54:25 That are stronger for the, and regional. Yeah, though that that horizon is a little fuzzy if you got a project that takes longer than 5 years.
11:54:37 They are willing to listen to it, but I think if you can demonstrate we're going to be able to put.
11:54:40 30 more boats in here of this size, you know, and that these are the companies that have signed the E.
11:54:48 900 letter of commitment saying that they want to do it you know it's It's manageable and I want I want to help you get it done.
11:54:54 Okay, we're all all shoulders. And. We would still proceed with the UGA swap potentially for the.
11:55:05 Permanent support of housing a new shelter that is going already that's an ongoing thing so the small UGA swap is moving forward also as we went through this and you know I
mean we were kinda Not horse trading, but like holding projects up against each other locally all week.
11:55:24 And something that I was reminded of that we had not really been on our radar, but. Aside from adding a whole new residential area into sewer connectivity.
11:55:37 If we are just doing the industrial park that is a lambard. We can bring sewer in there without any GMA challenge or anything.
11:55:47 It just would mean. Not changing the size of that, and so A plus rentals, which we know is something that was probably.
11:55:54 Hey, Miss. I would go so far as to say, mis zoned in the past, but so it wouldn't address that issue.
11:56:03 So. In microcosm, the small UGA swap for Casal Brown and some of the southern properties of the county ons.
11:56:09 We're still trying to find a way to do that. Glencove the conversation about Glencoe is still happening there's another option on the table for bringing sewer in that would
be less monumental than a UGA swap or expansion for the whole Glencoe area.
11:56:28 We could do it with the existing Lambard and and Connecticut.
11:56:32 Positive things happening there. One thing I wanted to remember to pass on is, I met with Kilmers staff person Haley last week.
11:56:47 One thing I wanted to remember to pass on is, I met with Kilmers staff person Haley last week and she said So any infrastructure project that needs an NEPA.
11:56:54 Yeah, that's gonna be a factor. Yeah, I assume she told the port that too.
11:57:02 Because yeah, the project would trigger an EPA. I went to my stages of grief and now I'm hugely relieved that we don't have the pressure of.
11:57:10 I went to my stages of grief and now I'm hugely relieved that we don't have the pressure of trying to come up with a 5 year timeline by April for how this thing goes.
11:57:13 We can just let it kind of see the pace.
11:57:15 So yeah, busy going all over the place. A couple oly cap meetings. Throughout the week, 9 and I told you that we, there the ED.
11:57:30 Submitted a letter of resignation on Friday and they'll be here through the end of the week. Sheriff's Chron Miller appreciate all the service you've given, you know, I mean.
11:57:38 If you ride right before COVID and I feel like I went to battle with cherish, you know, for the good of the community for a lot of years and then she's done a lot of good in
this community.
11:57:50 So, yeah, wish her best in our next endeavor. 7 7 7, pretty critical.
11:57:58 Yeah, Gogo Brown too. Yeah, a lot of credit for those projects. Yeah. Advisory board meeting I was invited down to the Brennan community centers advisory board those meetings
as you recall there's some There's been some tension about community.
11:58:18 Input into how the community centers as managed by Onlycap are running. So they, Brennan has a fairly functional advisory committee this time and I was invited so I went down
and spent the morning with them as they were going through their stuff.
11:58:32 And I had our second artificial intelligence and Jefferson County meeting. The group is growing. We're working through kind of how big the group.
11:58:42 About 12 people there. All virtual, we're looking through the draft policy now and trying to come up with a policy and we had Barbara there.
11:58:54 So, you know, it was, we had more. So, yeah, the legal chops to put it through its spaces.
11:59:01 So we're still meeting, you know, first Thursday every month, any Jefferson County staff except you 2 are welcome to join us.
11:59:07 Another one of those task forces. I did have a negative AI experience. Another one of those task forces. I did have a negative AI experience that I wanted to share with you.
11:59:17 I mean, I You know how your computer, it shows you those beautiful photos from around the world just kind of as an automatic thing.
11:59:21 I always enjoy that and like oh where is that? Where are these funny places? Last week I was looking at like where is that place and oh image created by Dolly.
11:59:30 So, yeah, a little bit of the authenticity of my own peripheral experience went down.
11:59:37 Yeah. Yeah, well, no, actually, you can, on my desktop, it's been replaced.
11:59:46 Fake nature. Nature is not nature. I'm also learning program R though and it's really helpful and writing code for me.
11:59:53 So. We're not gonna get through. Are you gonna get the new Apple goggle set?
11:59:59 No. I'm not a bleeding edge adopter. I'm a, you know, second edge, but, and I don't, I don't like wearing those.
12:00:03 I've tried some of the virtual reality headsets and I can't wait to get them off my head.
12:00:08 I've tried some of the virtual reality headsets and I can't wait to get them off my head.
12:00:10 So I can't wait to get them off my head. So, yeah, no, I think it's going to take a while for that to take on.
12:00:12 PLVC went down for that at the South Bay community a whole new board. Actually didn't quite have enough for a quorum, so it was informational session, but there's still a lot
of You know, a lot of interest about the, the roundabouts going in.
12:00:31 Obviously they were talking over our details plan that I had shared with them last time as, you know, really how is this going to impact us?
12:00:39 I've heard that there's more support now for the. Roundabouts from Port Ludlow.
12:00:46 Both just, you know, time to get used to the idea and the, in, you know, additional fatalities that have happened there.
12:00:53 I mean, there's new people that are coming out of the woodwork that are like, that needs to be a public process.
12:01:03 We don't have a lot of feedback in it and there's been as much public process as you're probably going to get at this point.
12:01:08 Yes, there I would say. My impression is that there are more people, especially in Portland, where I talk about it most.
12:01:17 That are supportive of the idea that recognize something needs to be done about the safety, especially of that left turn off Paradise Bay Road.
12:01:25 That recognize it'll be good. Still a lot of concern about. You know, I'm getting calls from the other side of the, like Hitsap County afraid that the roundabout is going to
make the Westward journey even more challenging.
12:01:42 If you create another choke point. With a roundabout of, you know. Trucks having to kind of.
12:01:46 Accelerate up the hill, you know, if we talked about. I don't know. I should be worried about their own.
12:01:51 Darn stoplights. That's the real. Well, that's my response is I'm like, oh, I think that stop light is gonna turn into a roundabout too.
12:02:00 So you started talking about that. That hasn't been decided yet. That makes sense. Yes, I think that was always the plan.
12:02:07 That's what I hear. Well, I heard that was if they were doing it now. That's what maybe it wasn't always the plan.
12:02:15 But if they were doing it now that's what maybe it wasn't always the plan but if they were doing it now I've been washed out that's what they would do and that they would like
to do that on the other side.
12:02:20 Oh my goodness. Commissioner? Yes. The other day I said I need my mentor.
12:02:32 I've done the same. Okay. Therapy will start in a little while. Continue.
12:02:41 I know it's very well. Well, what, do folks have a noon? I got a head home, but I, I could go for a few more minutes.
12:02:47 I, I can speed up. Yeah, I I won't be here for that time or I'll be here late for that.
12:02:59 But, yeah. Yeah. All right. So try, I speed up or yes, yeah.
12:03:09 And I'll, I might just look through and see if there's anything I needed to so as I said, some holy cat means over the weekend as well.
12:03:13 And then today, I'm got a one o clock recompete meeting. There was a 4 o'clock meeting on on title energy systems that I will have to skip because all the cap is having 2 all
staff calls to talk about the transition.
12:03:26 One happened at 9 o'clock, but I couldn't attend. The other ones at 4 PM.
12:03:29 So hopefully we can be done by 4 so I can join that second. All staff call with.
12:03:38 Only cap. Tomorrow. I said I would bring Ben Bauermeister up again.
12:03:45 The, I was glad to see the contract for the Kelsey and Skate Park from ARPA on the consent agenda today.
12:03:52 They got some bad news from our CEO. You know, I think I told you that there's a new type of grant out that community organizations could apply for.
12:04:02 They did apply for it with with sponsorship by stronger towns and a lot of involvement from Ben Bowermeister.
12:04:04 And then they got the answer back last week that stronger towns is not does not have a history of creating athletic facilities so that they don't have enough experience in that
sector and so they are not a valid applicant.
12:04:21 Other possibilities are Jefferson County could sponsor it. Public works does not have the capacity to take on that.
12:04:30 I talked to them and said that very clearly, you know, the folks that skate park have asked can we you know, talk to our legislators.
12:04:39 I'm like, you know, in the middle of the stream is not really the time that we can give that kind of input, but helping to look for other organizations that might be able to
apply.
12:04:47 It's a short window. I think it's February, that might be able to apply. It's a short window.
12:04:56 I think it's February. Fourteenth? They're talking to the Y.M.C.A. They're talking to Jefferson Community Foundation.
12:04:58 You know, I mentioned jump as well, you know, could be still. So. We ended up applying for John.
12:05:15 Developed and a recreational facility so they might still be more qualified according in the eyes of our CO. Yeah, they were such a partner on that.
12:05:24 Yeah, that. But good news is tomorrow is we have a community meeting in Quill scene at 6 PM.
12:05:29 Is we have a community meeting in quill scene at 6 PM. Where the designer grind line is going to be getting this this brand to participate to do the design.
12:05:36 Will be having a public shred at 6 pm at the Kelsey and community center Before that, I'll be attending a 3 o'clock meeting to kind of go over strategy and help them, you know,
just get ready for that meeting.
12:05:45 So 2 skate park meetings tomorrow. We have a Is that company not a nonprofit? So they, that's my understanding. Yeah, no, they're for profit. They build skate parks all over
the state.
12:06:01 They' I'm too But no, they cannot apply. We have local, Recompete meetings as well as the regional ones.
12:06:10 So we have our weekly Jefferson County recompete meeting on Wednesday. Go to the dentist.
12:06:16 I will attend the sprung presentation at 2 PM. Run down to to coma after that.
12:06:22 On Thursday, I'm gonna try to go to the WASSAC broadband meeting, which I have not been going to, but it does like all the beat grants are coming, you know, it's kind of the
game as a foot a little bit right now to see if.
12:06:38 See how that money gets to the state. So interesting times. The monthly behavioral health consortium meeting Thursday afternoon.
12:06:46 The special housing fund board meeting on Friday morning. Will be at Fort Warden is that right?
12:06:56 Yeah, for Warden Commons A to public meeting. We're really calling the special meeting to facilitate any housing fund board members going to attend the commerce?
12:07:06 Department of Commerce, and I look at that, so, state it. Talking about the homeless system performance measures, so talking about a measurement system overview and planning
at the system and agency level using performance measures.
12:07:19 I'm studying statistics right now. I'm really looking forward to, you know. Can I do that, Brian? No, no, no.
12:07:26 I'll be there, but I look forward to, you know, everything is like, oh, it's a data set I can use and play with and find standard deviation in the mean.
12:07:34 So I'm enjoying that. And then I will be on KPTZ. I'm not sure who with.
12:07:40 Yep, I was thinking maybe bring to see if I can get some lower level roads crew folk out that are actually plowing the roads to get a first-hand account of what plowing the
roads are like, but we'll see.
12:07:50 And then, and I OPRC, we got the recipe coalition meeting, at 2 o'clock on Friday.
12:07:59 And that's my week. Sorry, it was long winded. That's alright.
12:08:05 I'm just thinking before we lose you, we talked. Well, we want to talk CWPP.
12:08:12 At length later I'm just going to lose Greg's. 2 to 4 is gonna be packed.
12:08:19 Well, let's talk now. I'd rather we talk about it than not.
12:08:22 It's I assume you're interested in. Okay. So When I was in Olympia and you know starting to find out that one of the stakeholders has had concerns about signing on and found
out that there's the Vandewa is sponsoring a bill to.
12:08:37 Fix this map and I was sent the. DNR map that is you know, distinguishes between the Wui map and the wildfire risk map.
12:08:50 Has anybody looked at that? Because I cannot, the layers do not come up on that. Wildfire risk map that's embedded in the DNR.
12:08:59 Okay. So maybe I'll send that around. Cause I think, and just to say I think that the concern that the stakeholders bringing up is legitimate.
12:09:09 Yeah. There are, about it earlier. That's all. Right.
12:09:14 But there, are, different requirements that the state is going to adopt in the building code.
12:09:24 If you know, if this risk map, which is not actually a risk map. Is adopted so you know i just and looking at their own data that the fact that the risk isn't coming up and
the map.
12:09:39 So I share some of those concerns and I think it's. It would be nice if we could and I assume the group working on the CWPP is working through this stuff, but it's just more
complex than a stakeholder, you know, being difficult.
12:09:53 And being addressed at the state level for good reason. There were valid concerns raised for sure. It was just.
12:10:00 Wait a minute, what's that? Was frustrating. Yeah, right. So there is a path forward.
12:10:09 I got a quote from Emily Jerry, 8 to 10,000 additional cost.
12:10:16 But we can come up with a different map and submit and we had a DNR rep at the meeting on Friday.
12:10:24 It was a two-hour meeting. I think we got everything out on the table and we have a plan that I think will result in a CWPP that we can adopt and that the state will approve.
12:10:35 Awesome, that's great. I mean You know, this is the first time the county's done one.
12:10:41 And it was bound and there were a lot of stakeholders at the table. And there was a lot of work in the through the process and it was there was bound to be Big questions and
I'm glad this came up actually, you know, and I just it was just frustrating timing for me personally, but There was a lot going on in my life.
12:10:59 So. I'm sure that's gonna be at the newspaper or something. Anyway, I just felt like, oh, couldn't we have, you know, addressed this in our planning phase?
12:11:09 But anyway, I guess we couldn't have. And now there's legislation changing. Potentially changing the map.
12:11:15 Right, so any any work that we agree to do now should try to meet the intent of the bill because that will you know we want to have that work.
12:11:27 Be kind of acceptable work within the new regulation that the legislature is very likely to adopt. So I sent you the draft.
12:11:36 Bill, yeah, be good to just make sure that. Whatever mapping we decide to do fits that intent.
12:11:45 Okay, that's all. That's what I just wanted to have that conversation while we're all here to chip in our various pieces of information.
12:11:52 Great. Alright, so let's adjourn and come back at 1 30. Recess, thank you.
13:32:52 Yeah. I'll make it.
13:33:08 Alright, we are coming back from our lunch recess. We don't have anything scheduled until 2.
13:33:17 That's called recess. Do we have Greg yet? Okay, Commissioner Brotherton got out of here a little bit late and had to hit the road so he'll be joining us shortly.
13:33:34 That we were gonna continue our briefing. I'm calendaring until 2 o'clock unless something else comes up.
13:33:44 I could jump in with my. Briefing. Oh, by the way, the sphere. What a great say, 100 million dollars.
13:33:56 2.3 billion dollars. When I was talking about that building in Las Vegas and I, and I was like, We're trying, and Greg said we could build 4 pools for that.
13:34:05 It costs 2.3 billion dollars to build. It is cool though. Yeah, alright. It looked at a tour. I don't know what building are you talking about?
13:34:13 The sphere in Las Vegas? Oh. We were talking about it this morning.
13:34:19 Just think of what else that money could have gone towards. Alright, so wanna look back a couple of weeks.
13:34:32 Okay. Do some highlights. One. Heidi, something for you to be aware of the.
13:34:39 Puditson Partnership Leadership Council meeting. Next meeting is here in Port Townsend.
13:34:47 Oh, on March fourteenth I've been doing some planning for that. So I'm sure that, and we'll find out about it, but you heard it here first.
13:34:57 Okay. Housing fun board meeting, week before last and I don't think we took any action.
13:35:05 There's no action on the agenda.
13:35:09 But got some updates from, subcommittees. Working towards the 5 year plan to end homelessness.
13:35:17 It's So, lot of data collection and. It's an update of the previous one. Yep, it is required.
13:35:24 I think every 5 years by Department of Commerce for a number of different funding sources. I have not been able to attend a childcare meeting for a while.
13:35:37 I don't know if you have Mark, but I it seems like I'm able to attend a childcare meeting for a while.
13:35:43 I don't know if you have Mark, but it seems like Amanda would fill us in if we were missing anything.
13:35:45 Met with David Dix, the new director of the Hood Cannock coordinating council.
13:35:50 He's going to do a great job of Let's bring in energy to that organization and a ton of expertise.
13:35:56 Yeah, really. I mean that. Dream candidate there. Yes, Let's see.
13:36:08 It's so hard to look back 2 weeks. It feels like a lifetime ago. Had a retreat.
13:36:15 For the fairgrounds all day Saturday the 20 seventh, some good. Long range planning.
13:36:23 Feel good about that, board really coming together. What's the what's the most exciting thing about the future?
13:36:31 And the route long range planning world. So I think we made some decisions. We feel like we really need to move towards an executive director.
13:36:39 Model instead of the fairgrounds manager. Really need somebody doing, you know, development and community outreach and business development.
13:36:50 So we plan have a plan for restructuring staff there. And then made some decisions about things like, you know, we get constant pressure to consider trying to get rid of the
mud drags and 4 by 4 night we decided that is there is not a interest in doing that.
13:37:11 That, that's a, you know, historic use that makes the fairgrounds accessible to, you know.
13:37:17 People in the county that might not otherwise, you know, my fairgrounds and that's the role of it.
13:37:21 So. Keep it to the 3 events a year, which are pretty consistent. The neighbors can plan around it.
13:37:25 If they don't like the noise. Let's see, some other long range use.
13:37:34 We really want to, There's some. Housing there that we an old trailer that we'd like to to decommission which the renters have known about that for some time but sounds like
there's a need to to get rid of that and an old to county shed that who knows what all is in there.
13:37:56 We need to go take a look. And really trying to keep the that what we call the null that high spot, kind of in the north.
13:38:10 Eastern corner, try to do something there for events kind of weddings and make that really pretty up that area for.
13:38:20 No, it's it's above the partner. It's where there's the single wide trailer right now. No, it's above the partner.
13:38:25 It's where there's the single wide trailer right now, or maybe, but I'm trying to make that space, clean that space up and use it for, events or something along those lines.
13:38:31 Still, still working with gathering place, trying to come to some agreement with them. So you're really wanting to do.
13:38:36 Long-term beneficial uses and be smart about where we're. Kind of allowing new buildings to come in.
13:38:42 So it's coming into focus. It was a worthwhile retreat. Well, yes. Spent quite a bit of time with Wasack recently the,
13:38:54 A couple more urban counties have threatened to pull out of WASA. And so it's a serious need for changing how.
13:39:03 Both the dw structure works as well as the voting on policy positions. And at the annual meeting in November, it really devolved into nastiness and but the the work we've done
in the last week or so the membership really seems to be coming around.
13:39:25 And have a much more collaborative approach and be willing to make compromises and come to the table. So that's.
13:39:33 I was amazed that a couple days I was in Olympia last week, there was just a massive sea change in people's willingness to work together.
13:39:42 So, so are the counties that we're. I'm just like, and I'm full out not talking about this so much anymore.
13:39:49 No, they still are. They want to see the changes and it won't be quick because any, So legislative steering committee has some flexibility to make changes and how we take positions.
13:39:59 So we will be able to make that change. But the whole membership, you know, you included has to vote on changes to the bylaws, which is the do's structure.
13:40:08 So I think until They see both the policy side, which is legislative steering committee and the. Do side.
13:40:16 I know yourself to attend the business meeting in November. Yeah, which is painful. But so the urban counties are talking that way or they the large ones?
13:40:27 So the urban counties are talking that way. Are they the large ones? Cause they want proportional representation.
13:40:31 Well, then that'll cause a number of the smaller counties. Cause they want proportional representation. Yeah.
13:40:33 Well, then that'll cause a number of the smaller counties to want to pull out. Yeah, so I really we're really trying to thread the needle of like demonstrating the benefit of
the organization to all counties and identifying where we have shared interest because we do and you know we got a report out on the 2 lawsuits that Was involved in and we are partying
to one of them.
13:40:53 The litigation we brought forth against the state and, you know, it's a great example of how Wasack serves all counties, you know, in saying that we should not be responsible
for all indigent defense.
13:41:05 It's actually constitutional. Role of the state. Right. And the, DSHS needs to be doing these.
13:41:14 Behavioral health. Interventions for folks who are not fit to stand trial and they're not doing that.
13:41:24 And that's pushing a lot of burden onto the counties then to do that work. So,
13:41:31 Pleased to see that it's starting to. Feel like it's coming around. I mean, I think we did already see a big increase in dues, for the association.
13:41:43 This year for this year. For the large county pulls out then our dues could. Quintuple or?
13:41:48 Yeah. Yes. And it's very disruptive. We, the Executive Director Search is on hold.
13:41:56 Because yeah, I mean King County isn't paying any dues and they pay. $700,000 a year.
13:42:05 So the budget is already. Impacted greatly. Have they identified an interim director? No, but they will be hiring an interim.
13:42:17 Wow, yeah. Yeah, it's really, really disruptive. And probably you know then like staff start getting nervous.
13:42:27 You know, I mean, they're too busy and legislative session to worry too much and yet, you know, that's gonna be over in a month and yet, you know, that's going to be over in
a month and yet, you know, that's going to be over in a month.
13:42:38 And, Yeah, just and being on the leadership team, you know, just really trying to hold steady and keep people coming to the table, be solution oriented.
13:42:48 Thanks for doing that work. Well, we'll see. It's good timing. Going to DC.
13:42:55 Hopefully we will, you know, have some more time together. And, be able to.
13:42:59 Continue building some trust and. We'll see. Somebody from King County is going and I don't know.
13:43:07 So. Join us for anything. So sad. It's a little bit like a divorce from the family.
13:43:19 Let's see. What else have to report on had a good meeting with Amanda Christopherson?
13:43:26 Good to hear what she's up to. Learn more about recompetes and. So glad she's on board, had a meeting with.
13:43:36 The executive director of the PDA at Fort Warden and there. Struggling. As well as hospitality and really wanna.
13:43:48 Find some way to I just hope they can find some way to pull out of this that their business has not returned.
13:43:57 They had kind of planned for so that business model. Is not. Seeming to pan out and not coming out.
13:44:08 So that's
13:44:11 Upsetting. And state parks doesn't want to take. Forward and back so they're at least coming to the table and wanting to help.
13:44:19 Offer solutions. It's a little too bad and the executive director said as much. We were not invited to take part in their strategic planning, which is going on right now, just
too bad.
13:44:30 The county. Oversight. Reported on the. Helping together already.
13:44:41 In Olympia Tuesday night through Thursday night. Had, let's see. I did.
13:44:50 I got. It didn't actually get voted on. It had to be put in front of the Senate environment committee for confirmation for my appointment to the.
13:44:59 Leadership council a year and a half ago. They're a little bit behind. Okay, met with Kelsey, our lobbyist in Olympia and she's got a good list of the things that we're tracking
and having.
13:45:15 And, and communicating with our own septage. Good. Yeah, and a little bit on forest stuff.
13:45:17 She said if there's anything you're working on, let me know about it. So I'm in the loop and I said, well, I should tell you about the 4 steps.
13:45:25 So I'd send her some letter that I sent by delegation last week. And Good. I've been coordinating with her a little bit on those 2 things.
13:45:29 That's great. Yeah, she's eager to help out. So. Put her to work as much as you can.
13:45:34 I had a. Reception on Wednesday nights good turnout by number of representatives and Senators, Senator Manda Way was there, got to talk community wildfire planning with him,
among other things.
13:45:49 Thank you, the only one of our delegation that came actually. Usually all 3 do, but, I, I didn't do as hard a push as I usually do.
13:45:57 Then in. Legislative sharing committee all day on Friday. There's any particular bills to Call out.
13:46:14 I do have some notes.
13:46:17 See if I can find it, wrote down a few of them.
13:46:21 That would be of interest. There was a public records bill that Wasack was very involved in writing which would limit the vexatious and capricious public records requests and
that did not pass out a committee so I think it was Thursday was the cut off for for a house of origin policy committees.
13:46:46 There is a bill which seems to be moving, which would extend the multi-family tax exemption authority to all counties, which I've never, Tony, that and tax increment financing,
like I guess just because we haven't been eligible for them, I have I feel totally unaware of but Need to read up on that.
13:47:08 The removing of the 1% property tax cap is still alive. Getting mixed messages as to whether that's moving or not, but you know that's been 20 years in the making and no movement
on that.
13:47:22 And the point 9. Funds being expanded so that nonprofits can access. You know, so right now our Piff funds, it has to, can only be used on.
13:47:35 Property owned by a public sector agency. This would allow it to be, the nonprofit housing providers would be eligible for those funds as well.
13:47:45 Specifically for workforce housing.
13:47:50 So, few things that. I am tracking. The, I think the. Fiscal committee cut off is today.
13:48:00 So lots more bills will die. I think I heard that radio coming in this morning. Had to bow out and share a, Putetism Partnerships Tribal Co-management Council.
13:48:14 It's a required consultation that the partnership has to do with tribes every month. I was a little nervous because 26 tribes are invited, only 11 showed up, had to chair that
which.
13:48:23 This makes me a little nervous but a lot of excitement around me. Fiftieth anniversary of the bolts decision.
13:48:31 It's very cool. Events in, I think it's the pew all up reservation in the next few weeks.
13:48:42 Met with Kilmer staff like I said just want to fill her in on recompete and other things.
13:48:49 Let's see, yeah, mostly discussed recompete a little bit about the trail. I know Kilmare is wanting to.
13:48:58 Get as many wins as he can before he leaves, but also being very realistic about what he can take on at this point.
13:49:06 Had a meeting with our DC lobbyist. She is excited that, the low income housing tax credit looks like that amount is going to be expanded so each state will get more.
13:49:22 Funds or. Credits that they can access and therefore be able to. Apply to projects in in the state.
13:49:33 See, the amount is increasing, 9% to 12. And a half percent so I don't actually know what that means yet but that is In one of the handful of budget bills, which are actually
moving, which get us closer to having a federal budget in a month's time.
13:49:50 But. There's quite a bit. You know, holding that up too. You know, we've heard the.
13:50:00 What is the, immigration tied to Ukraine and Israel? You know, these like putting the most controversial issues in these bills.
13:50:09 I'm gonna make it hard for anything to move. So Crystal, I'll see in in DC next week is, you know, thank.
13:50:17 Feeling a little skeptical that Congress is going to be able to get there, but she said they're motivated that it's in an election year nobody wants a government shutdown.
13:50:29 There was another. Very local elected official convening. So new representative representative Nance.
13:50:39 Through the Pudates and Regional Council is collecting electives from all of the ferry impacted communities to meet.
13:50:45 And put a pretty big push on a new bill in the legislature to fund a study which would analyze the economic impact of 3,000 canceled ferry sailings this year.
13:51:03 Yeah. And then also a push for, specific, trying to formulate and ask for, from the feds for.
13:51:12 Contributing to the need for more capital dollars for ferries. Then Friday midday went and did radio show with Sarah Melonson.
13:51:24 Then had a fair grounds meeting and then I was off for the weekend. Good. Yes. Mark, how about you?
13:51:35 Okay, this is going to bore you to death, but I'll run through it. Never.
13:51:41 Monday, January, 20Â s with the board of course on that. 20 third. Finance committee meeting with our great treasurer.
13:51:52 And then in the afternoon. Community wildfire protection plan advisory group. Meeting.
13:52:00 Then on the 20 fourth. Morning meeting with with Josh Peters. Then a meeting with Richard Davies from Jefferson Associated Council to review the terms of.
13:52:12 The contract with A/C for 2024. Anticipate any changes there? There's an annual escalation clause built into the contract so we just had to agree on.
13:52:25 The CPI number and that sort of thing. And we did reach agreement. Okay. Then on the 20 fifth Jeffcom admin board meeting.
13:52:37 And then the meeting that Hyde, you talked about with Pam Colossi. And Jen, the new executive director who looks like she has lots of energy.
13:52:53 And then, a Zoom Meeting with the Washington County Administrators Association. And then on the 20 sixth.
13:53:03 I had a budget meeting with Judy Shepherd. And then I had a private appointment. In the afternoon from 2 30 on.
13:53:12 Then the next week.
13:53:17 I attended there. Accessible communities advisory committee meeting with Anna Mchenry.
13:53:25 And on the thirtieth we had the healthier together steering committee meeting.
13:53:31 And then on the 30 first.
13:53:36 Phil Punsucker, I think I mentioned this to to you commissioners that
13:53:43 He had some concerns about the professional services agreement for the animal shelter and
13:53:50 His concerns were well founded because we had a operating agreement licensing agreement for the facility and now my task is to merge the PSA with that agreement so that we have
one all encompassing agreement.
13:54:05 Then on February first.
13:54:09 Meeting with, Matt Tyler and Monty on the parks and wreck budget. They've got some concerns.
13:54:16 And will likely be coming to the board. First quarter supplemental. I think you recall that they missed the boat on the RP.
13:54:26 For LTAC funds and so they typically get 45 to 50,000 a year. And I, I think, during a budget meeting, or no, the work plan, I don't recall what the meeting was, but we did
discuss that with the board and I think there was a commitment.
13:54:44 On the behalf of the board to rectify that situation. And so I'm talking with Greg Brotherton about a supplemental funding round for LTAC.
13:54:54 There's a very healthy fund balance in that fund and I think you remember during the budget briefing we exceeded budgeted revenue by about 200,000.
13:55:03 I'm sorry, Mark, I missed who you said miss the perks and rack. And then, the board did increase the transfer to parks and rack by 150, mostly to cover inflationary costs due
to labor agreements and just inflation.
13:55:24 They're not able to fund the halftime recreation supervisor though and so they'll be coming to the board.
13:55:30 In April to ask for that. Then on Friday the second. Regular meeting with Apple Martine.
13:55:40 And then we had the CWPP discussion with a number of stakeholders, mostly the city and Chief Black.
13:55:48 They were the big players in that meeting. And the result of that meeting was,
13:55:55 A path forward that most of the attendees agree to. I did get the mini statement of work from the consultant and cost estimates and I sent that to Steve King and Emma Bowen
over the lunch hour to secure their agreement that the path forward.
13:56:11 That they agree with it. And. Then weekly meeting with with Josh Peters and then a kickoff meeting for the PFT Financial Feasibility Review, the consultant that Commerce intends
to contract with was in on the call.
13:56:28 And I was impressed with the depth and breadth of her questioning. So I think we'll get a good result out of her.
13:56:34 And she works with I believe she's an independent. That's what they were contracting. Well, that's who was in on the previous call.
13:56:46 That that led us to believe that Covi was going to be The consultant?
13:56:54 And I have asked for the statement of work for that contract. And when I receive it, I'll post it.
13:56:59 We do have a link on our website now. In the quick link section where all documents going. To the consultant for that independent financial feasibility review will be posted.
13:57:10 Which was suggested by, Tom Tearish a couple of meetings ago. Right now into the current week, of course, today with the board and just so happy that Tracy Coleman's here.
13:57:26 Then tomorrow, 9 o'clock in this room, we'll have a welcome reception for Tracy.
13:57:31 I'll put out a message this afternoon inviting people to come. I've already done that with.
13:57:37 Directors and electives, but I'll probably do an all staff. And then risk management committee meeting.
13:57:44 And then at 18 meeting in the afternoon.
13:57:48 Then on Wednesday. I need to call Jean Ball back regarding the lunch that we were invited to.
13:57:57 And I'm not sure who's hosting that lunch. But I'll get the details from her when I call her back.
13:58:05 And then of course I'll attend the 2 o'clock. Meeting at City Hall. We're sprung will be making a presentation.
13:58:12 And, following that, there's a public sector cabinet meeting scheduled.
13:58:18 Then on Thursday, CEO breakfast with EDC and Cindy Brooks. And then agenda review with Kate in the afternoon.
13:58:30 And then on the ninth Friday. Just a regular weekly meeting with Josh Peters and so that brings me to the end of my report.
13:58:42 Since we have a couple minutes before our 2 o'clock deliberation if I could fill in a couple of things I forgot to mention.
13:58:53 When I spoke with our lobbyists, crystal in DC, she really wanted us to start thinking about the community project funding that earmarks for fiscal year 25.
13:59:06 And those, you know, it's a little tricky because they haven't.
13:59:10 The 24 ones yet, but they anticipate they will come back. They don't know how much and how much in each.
13:59:20 Committee or bill as they say. So but we should be thinking about priorities.
13:59:28 I, do think, that's potentially doing one for the Aquatic Center. Could be helpful, but if we have other priorities or other projects, we want to prioritize.
13:59:40 We should start talking about that soon so that when those open we are ready to go and have our ducks in a row for a discreet project, you know, and probably in the 2 million
dollar range.
13:59:52 And are they, are they limited to certain types of projects or? No, they're pretty broad.
14:00:01 Yeah, the, we did talk about, you know, we've known for a long time.
14:00:05 Nobody likes to fund aquatic centers because they're difficult to make pencil. That's a really kind of talking up the other benefits of an aquatic center and, you know, kind
of leaning on the.
14:00:17 All the services that the Y.M.C.A. provides countywide and you know talking about it as a yet another kind of hub for Y.M.C.A. activities.
14:00:27 Obviously, we won't have a location in mind. If indeed these come open in the next couple of months, but,
14:00:38 And you know get the sense that the trail you know we don't really have a next trail project ready to go yet those folks are busy with the section they're working on now and
then state parks section.
14:00:50 So. I mean, maybe checking in with Public Works about any of the trails in the try area.
14:00:55 Lots of maps of few journey rails in the try area. And that's up to this zer development.
14:01:02 And some of that will happen sooner as part of instruction. So there's like connection, you know, connectors.
14:01:10 Yeah, yeah, the library over to the ball field is connected to the sewer. So. But, you know, Greg, I don't know if we should be thinking about something for Glen Cove for that,
you know, I'm not.
14:01:24 Probably run into the same problem of kind of timing and Can you complete something? Although, we certainly wouldn't be completing anything with the Aquatic Center.
14:01:35 Yeah, 2 million dollars is kind of designed, you know, we'll see where we are, but yeah, I think keeping Keeping it in front of mine is seems good.
14:01:43 What's the timeframe that you think? When they're gonna.
14:01:53 You know, kind of a They have different applications, but, Crystal helps fill those out.
14:02:02 And then it gets put in a hopper, you know, I mean, like I said, the 24 budget isn't done.
14:02:09 So what are the chances of 25 budgets going to be done anytime soon in theory they would be adopting a 25 budget by September thirtieth.
14:02:16 And then those awards would be part of that package and announced in the fall, but. That hasn't happened.
14:02:25 It did happen in 23. That's when we got funded for the childcare center but not 20.
14:02:31 Yeah, there's anything and the other entities like the port, would they submit their own projects? Yeah.
14:02:38 Yeah, and, we haven't for since 23. So like in some ways it's nice when we kind of stagger them a little bit.
14:02:44 The city did get some for the lift station i believe for Evans vista and So we've all gotten a little bit, but you know they try to spread them around and
14:02:57 So that's something to keep in mind. And then also, Since I'm headed to DC on Friday, working with Amanda and getting a one pager for recompete.
14:03:09 Cities gonna make a one pager for the aquatic center. And then be working on a number of priorities at secure rail schools and Pilt funding.
14:03:22 The affordable connectivity program is set to expire for broadband, so that's one that we'll be working on.
14:03:31 And then also working on this, low income housing tax credit increase and finding out if there's a rural carb out for that.
14:03:37 So there's a few things we'll be working on. Okay, sorry I took us past the 2 o'clock hour.
14:03:47 Good.
14:03:42 Welcome, Greg. Thanks for coming back. Yeah, Carolyn, don't work on bringing folks over. I see Lisa and.
14:03:58 Just gonna be Lisa. Okay. So we have continued deliberations on the SMP. Josh Peters, come on down.
14:04:10 You're the next intestine. Hmm, go. Lisa, you're gonna need to accept your promotion to panelists.
14:04:22 Maybe she's.
14:04:43 I'm happy to just hand it over to you, Josh, unless Mark, there's anything you wanna.
14:04:48 No, I defer to Josh. Okay, good afternoon, Josh Peters, Community Development Director. This is the next iteration of the boards deliberations on.
14:04:58 Proposed amendments to the shoreline master program pursuant to periodic review requirements under the shoreline management act. And so we.
14:05:07 Are prepared to go over the staff report that we provided late last week, section by section to answer any questions or.
14:05:18 Ask for direction. A policy perspective, any of those individual issues. So Lisa Greeder is here.
14:05:25 With Burke Consulting to. Use her screen powers to put that staff report up there and then we'll just go over it and just hit each issue one by one.
14:05:35 And then any other issues the board wants to consider today.
14:05:41 And while she's doing that, I should also just say scheduled note. Back in January, we talked about February twelfth being a date at which you could expect to route to see and
adopting ordinance together with an entire package of proposed line and line out amendments to the Schrodinger Master program.
14:06:01 But that was before we. Essentially continued the deliberations that started on January, 20Â s to today, February fifth.
14:06:09 So in speaking with Barbara Ehrlichman today, We think that a more realistic approach would be should we reach policy decisions on the issues today.
14:06:21 Look towards February, 20 sixth for that ordinance consideration, but we would strive to post the revised documents well ahead of that generally essentially more with more lead
time than is typical for a board agenda item.
14:06:37 Just in consideration of the fact that the public hearing is still open. And we would welcome comments on that.
14:06:42 Essentially final proposal. I put that in quotation marks for those listening and not seeing. Any questions about the schedule or when I talk about that later?
14:06:51 Thank you. That's great because I still have my scheduling conflict on the twelfth. My own, my own fault.
14:07:00 I was forgetting about the holiday. And that would get moved so Okay. Alright, Lisa, I'm gonna hand it over to you to run through the report.
14:07:09 Okay, I'm sorry when seeing the top of the staff report there.
14:07:14 Yeah.
14:07:18 Some of these we've answered in the meetings or we've talked through in the meetings, but we wanted to kind of compile everything together.
14:07:28 So this first question was, what are the required findings for a discretionary conditional use permit? To become a standard conditional use permit before the hearing examiner.
14:07:38 So we've excerpted from the current code. And there's a link to the full.
14:07:43 Section, that the administrator can if they find. That the proposal involves potentially significant issues.
14:07:59 Or they seek approval of the use involving complex legal issues that can kick it up to. The hearing examiner process.
14:08:08 And there was a memo shared with Planning Commission with more information about it. The conditional use process.
14:08:15 So that's just, except there. I don't know Josh if you wanted to share any more about this decision.
14:08:23 Making process here.
14:08:26 Open open for questions. Essentially, it's just revisiting what that process is a process that we use all the time for other permits, permit decisions.
14:08:35 So I know that there's been some back and forth about this particular issue and I know we have tables and so forth later reflecting different policy choices for this particular
kind of permit for GUI duck aquaculture.
14:08:45 But. And if anyone had any questions in general about. Our sort of particular conditional discretionary use permit.
14:08:52 Discretionary use, condition use permit process that we use here in the county. Happy to entertain those.
14:09:02 No, I mean, I feel like. All the information ever seen makes it fairly clear. The process is, although it's highly subjective.
14:09:13 That's I think is the the challenge that yeah, you know for folks to trust that process.
14:09:21 Understand if I could. Offer a different perspective, I suppose, on that. I understand where you're coming from on that and certainly don't.
14:09:27 Don't argue the point that it's subjective. However, I would say that
14:09:31 Having a discretionary condition use permit process has been useful for this county I think and just differentiating between which types of permits should.
14:09:42 Should do a full procedure in front of a hearing examer, which is a kind of a time limited cost limiting factor for a lot of people and us versus the types of.
14:09:52 Permits that we decided that we didn't want them to be outright yes uses but we wanted them to be conditional.
14:09:57 However, we wanted to use a more administrative process for those. So yes, there is discretion involved in that, but I would also argue that no matter how detailed a particular
development code could be, you will always have subjectivity.
14:10:09 On the behalf of those that are administering it. Yeah.
14:10:15 So the second question here was about, whether state shoreline rules reference no net loss of shoreline ecological function. And the answer is yes.
14:10:27 And we've quoted from the Washington administrative code. Section on aquaculture rules and bolted here That the local government should consider local ecological conditions
and provide limits and conditions to share appropriate compatible uses of aquaculture for the local conditions.
14:10:47 As necessary to assure known that loss of ecological function.
14:10:52 So that applies regardless of the permit type. The rules that the County with. Provide for aquaculture would need to demonstrate achievement of no-n loss.
14:11:07 Thank you.
14:11:10 Our third question was also discussed at your prior meetings. And the question was if state and federal agencies address.
14:11:20 Culture does the county need to regulate. Such aquaculture and yes and I think Josh mentioned this last time that the shoreline management act has a number of purposes.
14:11:33 And to which it's applying and its application in the county. Would make it unique. And so.
14:11:43 You know, there should be some local. Review plus the state rules are asking the county. To address.
14:11:53 Daco culture and other forms of aquaculture. But there's provisions.
14:11:59 Both in the way the joint aquatic resources permit application is conducted as well as in the proposed code.
14:12:06 There's a language above a table of submittal requirements for aquaculture that allows, for the applicants to provide any supporting information from those other agencies that
fulfill one of the county's requirements.
14:12:25 So that that it avoids duplication.
14:12:28 We dig into this little bit for a minute and I don't know if Lisa, I'm guessing you weren't.
14:12:35 I'm not sure, Josh, if you were listening this morning during public comments. I was like refreshment.
14:12:43 So, this question has come up. Miss Show Walter brought it up. Ms. Shaw Walter brought it up that it's very difficult to get.
14:12:49 Information on any of the for example the national permit. From Army Corps just takes a really long time to fulfill those requests.
14:12:59 And that it would be helpful to understand the scope of some of those permits. And in in You know, the many conversations I've had over the last couple of months, one conversation
with the.
14:13:11 With a showfish industry representative, they said. You know, what if we just provided all of the information, you know, from our other permitting processes as part of this,
the middle process, then it would be a whole package to be able to in a way and consider and perhaps have less.
14:13:28 Duplication, redundancy of effort. And so I was saying this morning it's great when, you know, seemingly 2 different sides of an issue or asking for the same thing.
14:13:38 So, I wonder if instead of the county shall accept this could be the county. shall require supporting permit applications or something so that those are a part of the record.
14:13:53 Both for the public and for hearing examiner as well, should it come to that.
14:13:59 Yes, my first response to that would be that this particular clause, if I recall correctly, was developed in response to the industry's concerns during this process in which
they said that We often prepare special reports and other information as part of our other or other permits from other regulatory agencies.
14:14:18 And we feel it would be redundant to for you to require the same thing. And so we wanted to make it clear that, okay, if we have a requirement we're just addressing a specific
issue within our permit application requirements, if that issue is being substantially addressed in another format, why don't you just turn in that particular thing that you turned
into them and then it wouldn't be an additional burden on you.
14:14:41 And so that's why this is permissive in a sense that we were responding to them. I think that if you turned around and or if we turned around and changed the language and required
something we may, we may get additional comments from the industry, but I would say if you're focusing specifically on permit.
14:14:56 Permits that are in place. From other agencies. I think that's fair game. We often ask for additional information in any kind of permit review process and if something is applicable
we'll ask for it.
14:15:07 And we could put something in the code that that would say that. Yeah, and essentially an additional element to that.
14:15:14 Permit application information table, which again, we had pushback on. The way it's formatted currently.
14:15:21 So again, if we put something else as a required thing, we could possibly get some more push back.
14:15:27 But that said, we could say that. Any any exist permits and existing and focus perhaps on the on the armed core of engineers approval we could request that as part of a permit
application process.
14:15:37 If I understood correctly. Michelle Walters letter in the beginning. I believe if I understood it correctly, it was.
14:15:43 Essentially saying that we would put a policy in our master program that would require all operations countywide, regardless of permit status or whether they're applying for
a permit or not, applying for a permit, if they're a legal non-conforming use, for example, to supply us this information within a certain amount of time.
14:16:01 90 days, I think it was. So that is a different issue. I would suggest that we tackle that issue or talk about that separately because that's then becomes a compliance matter
and not an issue of a permit application. We would have to.
14:16:12 You essentially generate correspondence to go out to all of the identified operations and require them to provide it for information within 3 months and if they don't.
14:16:20 Then we would go to Title 19, which is our compliance. Section of the code and and start the daily finds and things like that.
14:16:27 That's a big compliance effort. So. But I think that what you're asking about, Commissioner Dean, is more around this clause, which will be to supplement somewhere in there.
14:16:36 I see that Lisa's writing notes that we would. I would I would suggest keeping this the way it is but perhaps expanding upon it to say that permit actual permits that are in
place for existing operations would be part of an application process for a new permit.
14:16:50 Yeah, and I know there are many permits. What is this one specifically for trans, What's it called?
14:16:58 The, the music materials. You know, I don't know that all of them need to be included, but perhaps it is the Army Corps one, but also as the.
14:17:04 Is it the Multi-agency. The Jarra would be the permit application form for multiple permits.
14:17:13 So if someone, someone for example generally fills out a jarper for us for a shoreline permit, so.
14:17:20 But I guess I would, I would agree with you in the sense that There's a farm registration with Fish and Wildlife.
14:17:26 I don't think we need that. I mean, I don't know how much information that be relevant for us.
14:17:30 There would be the transfer permit when you're transferring species from one location to another. Again, I don't think that would be relevant for us.
14:17:37 There isn't an HPA for alcohol culture, a hydraulic project approval, so we can't.
14:17:41 Wouldn't be any, wouldn't be worth asking for that. And the only other sort of regulatory permit that would be the clearest example is the Army Corps permit under specific federal
statute which again is different than our state statute, Chorley Management Act as Lisa described.
14:17:56 But that would be, in information. Absolutely. So I'd focus on that permit. I would be my recommendation.
14:18:01 And they are required to have that before. Applying locally, right? I would say that. Every regulatory body's requirements.
14:18:12 Are in place. Regardless of what we say about it. That said though. We, I believe that there's, there's general language in our unified development code that says that.
14:18:23 A part of compliance with our permits. Is ongoing compliance with other required state local and federal permits. So there is a nexus there and what that allows us to do to
do joint enforcement if we need to.
14:18:36 Ultimately though, those federal statutes are the responsibility of a federal agency and our Master program is joint responsibility between us and Department of Ecology.
14:18:48 Thank you. Hmm.
14:18:55 Hey, how do you feel about that change? I mean, it's, it's logical to me.
14:19:01 There's a permanent application that can be. You know, referred to as part of this process. Only makes sense.
14:19:12 Greg, any thoughts?
14:19:15 I Don't have a strong feeling. I think it's Josh pointed out there's 2 places that were.
14:19:22 We're talking about this, I think.
14:19:26 My mind reels a little bit at the compliance requirements of requiring all existing ones to start ponying up.
14:19:37 So I'm more inclined. And looking here, going forward. Produce your permits as part of the application seems a lot more manageable, but I'm I do see the advantage of.
14:19:49 And I guess I'm wondering if if Josh could talk. About whether it would be an asset to have those existing permits on file.
14:19:56 Is that something that'd be good or does that, you know, then create a body of work for, you know, if the public is curious about this particular application, that all of a
sudden means their peppering.
14:20:08 DCD with questions about ongoing aquaculture. Operations.
14:20:16 Commissioner Brotherton, I would say yes to both of the questions I think you posed, which is would it be good for us to have the information?
14:20:24 Yeah, that would be. Especially cause we already are peppered actually sometimes with questions and allegations essentially against existing operations that do not have a shoreline
permit.
14:20:35 I can think of one specific place that actually isn't on Shine Road and it's a different part of our county, Discovery Bay.
14:20:41 Where we've had a lot of back and forth. About a particular operation and even did site visits and and investigated a complaint essentially to see whether a compliance action
were warranted and a lot of the Back and forth was about.
14:20:56 Has this operation exceeded those thresholds that then would make a legally non-conforming use. Required to get a permit so additional, I think at that stage we had enough information
and we had engagement.
14:21:08 Enough information to make that particular decision. But I would say that yes, it would be useful to have.
14:21:13 All of the permits in question. You know, on file with the department. Yes, but would it would also I think your other question was would that be challenging policy to implement
completely and I in terms of every single operation that would be subject to it to be in compliance with and I think the answer is yes as I explained before.
14:21:33 It would require research and sending certified mail and following up and engaging with our co compliance officer one person and then engaging with the prosecuting attorney's
office and other apparatus of the county to ensure compliance with that and if necessary then start living fines and everything that goes with that so We don't take it lightly when
we open a cocoa plans case because it involves a lot of work even just to wrap it up even if the simple
14:22:01 one. So I guess I would just temper the expectation on that policy implementation with that's comment. And maybe go back to focusing on.
14:22:08 The trigger for this when an operation would need a permit or not, which by the way, we do have more information later in the in the talk if we want to kind of defer this aspect
of the conversation until we get into the meat of.
14:22:18 That provision that is troublesome. And I did want to say that there were 2 options in the staff report presented and then on second thought essentially.
14:22:26 Lisa and I were talking today about another way of of looking at that kind of tricky.
14:22:33 Policy that was put in place in 2014 and what we want to do with that now in terms of how a legal non-conforming operation should get a permit and when they need to.
14:22:43 I'm fine with deferring. All right, let's move on. Could you, Lisa, any chance you could, zoom in just a little bit more on what what you're looking at so we can see it there
that's that's much better thank you
14:22:57 Alright, we'll come back to this then. This question was about whether priority aquatic shoreline environment designation whether that designation refers to commercial shellfish
or to habitat for shellfish.
14:23:14 And so we talked about this last time. A bit. And the state rules refer to aquatic.
14:23:20 They don't have a differentiation. They allow for differentiation and some jurisdictions have done so like Jefferson County.
14:23:28 So we've quoted here and the priority aquatic. And then it's the criteria for where you apply it.
14:23:39 Includes things like where there's documented endangered species act listed. Marine habitats and fish.
14:23:49 Estuaries, other freshwater shorelines, intact drift, cell processes, documented forage fish.
14:23:55 And important in her title. Chef fish areas and aquatic is whatever isn't really. Designated as priority aquatic.
14:24:07 But the state rules which this county was following do. Ask that, when applying it.
14:24:16 Consider the protection of habitats and shoreline preferred uses so they don't make it exactly easy you have to look at both.
14:24:25 And water dependent uses are preferred. But as you know, you have to demonstrate no net loss of ecological function.
14:24:35 So you have to look at. Hello, allowing for uses that. Ensure that uses that adversely impact ecological functions are not allowed except where necessary.
14:24:45 Shoreline uses a modification should be designed and managed to prevent degradation of water quality. Local government should reserve shoreline space for shoreline preferred
uses.
14:24:54 So it's a balancing. But every, activity needs to show. An ecological function.
14:25:06 That leads to some of the other questions we were. Going over last time, this share of shoreline environment by designation.
14:25:15 So we broke it into 2 upland shoreline designations. Where conservancy is the predominant.
14:25:22 Charlene environment on your upland areas, so upland of the ordinary high water mark, landward.
14:25:29 Followed by natural. And then relatively less for shoreline residential and for eye intensity.
14:25:37 And then for aquatic. We showed last time as well aquatic designation is about 58% and priority aquatic 42%.
14:25:50 And at a fear of opening a Pandora's, I just have a question on page 3.
14:25:56 So.
14:26:00 Good morning. Okay, so under. Starting on page 2, there's a bulleted list, right?
14:26:11 Yes.
14:26:10 Yeah, EF and G. And G.
14:26:17 Whereas as local governments should reserve shoreline space for shoreline preferred uses. Well, such planning should consider upland and in water uses water quality navigation,
presidents of aquatic vegetation.
14:26:30 That list of things. How do we Bill, I'm opening Pandora's box.
14:26:37 Sorry, Josh. How do we ensure that we're planning for the myriad? Things in that list.
14:26:45 I mean, I used to do plant surveys for DNR and I know I wasn't covering a hundred percent of the counties.
14:26:52 Prairie soils to see if A plant community existed there. I mean, how do we ensure that were upholding that G item.
14:27:05 Yeah, I would. Ask Lisa to to tag on to this my first response would simply be that as she hinted.
14:27:15 It's a balancing act that's not easy for anyone, so We have these different goals and objectives from the shoreline management act of 1970.
14:27:24 And since then we've had the state rules change the most significant change probably in the early 2,000, s when the shoreline rules for creating Shoreline Master programs were
updated significantly based on the information that we had gleaned over 30 years of shoreline management right up until that pointer.
14:27:40 So I guess I would say I do that it's difficult to do this, but. We have done work to put us in place to try to meet this provision.
14:27:50 Like for example, we did a shoreline inventory. Actually, it was Neil Harrington back in the day when he worked for the county before we started working for the Jamestown tribe.
14:28:00 Had walked almost all of the beach in these chefs in County anyway just collecting information and all that information is part of our history of how we came essentially to
those pie charts where we eventually labeled things differently based on what was on the ground and not just, you know, the human-made aspects of that shoreline in addition to the national
shoreline.
14:28:20 And then we created use tables, which. Differentiated between when you can do something outright with a you know it's a P permitted or when you have to get a conditional use,
for example, or maybe a variance.
14:28:32 And so we tried to Do things differently based on what the shoreline, usually the upland environment designation would be and sometimes with the the 2 different aquatic differentiations
that we've made as well.
14:28:43 So I guess I would say. All that together is trying to deal with that particular clause, you know, whether we've done it perfectly or not as someone else's opinion to give,
I suppose, but you could make an argument like I think Lisa was hinting at that it's pretty difficult to both.
14:28:58 To both plan for and prefer water-dependent uses and meet all of the other aspects including the environmental protection aspects of the program but that is what it's meant
to do once it's implemented together with all the permit conditions that go into every permit that we review and issue.
14:29:15 Yeah, no, I think. I mean, I. Appreciate that. I just saw that and I was like, whoa.
14:29:22 Anything, Lisa, you've done many master programs in elsewhere. What do you, what have you learned?
14:29:27 What wisdom, if you glean from that.
14:29:28 Well, I was gonna go where you went, which is you start off with the shoreline inventory and then you work on, you know, the shoreline master program itself and then.
14:29:37 There is a cumulative impacts analysis that's done and there was one done when you're master program was adopted and then we did.
14:29:46 An addendum to it at ecology's request to say like are you sure with all these they were mostly concerned about what was happening in shoreline residential.
14:29:55 But they wanted to make sure that things were still meaning this overall balancing act and I would say sort of like the the thing that Overrides I think is the no net loss of
ecological function.
14:30:08 You can you have to balance but you also in the end have to show. That the combination of of the policies rules and conditions that you would apply through permitting help achieve
that.
14:30:19 No, no loss. So I think that is generally the the safe. Place for the, you know, balance, but then make sure you can prove this.
14:30:31 Thank you.
14:30:43 Yes, I'll make one while she, Lisa is scrolling one note that on a positive note.
14:30:49 If you look at the pie chart. And if you make the assumption and essentially that there is at least some connection between the shoreline environment designations that we have
and that inventory that we talked about.
14:30:59 Relative to other shorelines in our state. At least in some parts of Puget Sound, we're looking pretty good.
14:31:08 In other words, we have a lot of natural shoreline. We have a lot of conservancy shoreline.
14:31:11 The high intensity was just a sliver and we have some shoreline residential, which is pretty typical.
14:31:16 So I guess I would postulate that just based on That, I mean, again, we're not, it's, it's not, I'm not patents on the back in the sense that everything is hunky-dory, but I'm
just saying that We've got some of the best shoreline in the state.
14:31:28 I think you already know that. I mean, when I drive to Olympia down the hood canal, it's, Amazed at how much.
14:31:36 Intact ecosystem we have along the canal and you know get an to Mason County you see a lot more development and
14:31:45 Special place we all know. Yeah. There's turn.
14:31:51 So I think we have more pages in the appendix, but this, we were bringing back the different options for discretionary versus standard conditional use and we had gone over this.
14:32:04 In the slides last time that. Different options. And I can describe these and we can go to those appendices if we want to see.
14:32:14 How they used matrix would change. That these were the 5 options planning commission recommendation the first standard CUP for priority aquatic or Aquatic, when there's a new
GUYNACK operation.
14:32:33 Or whenever the. Proposed operation would have but a natural designation. Other than those cases.
14:32:43 Then it would be a discretionary condition.
14:32:51 Okay.
14:32:49 I guess let me jump in for a second, Lisa, because I know that this is sort of the heart of the matter or one of the key policy issues that that we're asking the board to make
and We're certainly.
14:33:01 Understand that it's a difficult choice. And so just to Just to frame this and also ask you whether you wanted to dive into this and go to the dependencies now or do you want
to go through the rustle report and then deal with this like one of the first things after we present the information to you, but.
14:33:17 So we presented a series of of options to the Plan Commission. I told the Plan Commission that staff we could live with any one of these just pick one of them and they did.
14:33:27 And then now we've added a couple based on the conversation we've had so far with the board.
14:33:32 So. So again, these 5. Options are for your consideration. It's a hard choice to make happy to answer any questions about them.
14:33:38 But essentially the staff perspective is that we could live with any one of them. So, sorry to say this. It's kind of up to you.
14:33:46 Which one you wanted to based on the record and what you've heard. So I think where we left it a couple of weeks ago is that both Commissioner Brotherton and Eisenhower were
interested in sticking with number one the planning commission recommendation is that still stand?
14:34:01 I think we were both into
14:34:00 Or number 2, which we've heard both from the residents and from the, the aquaculture industry would be.
14:34:09 Acceptable so one or 2
14:34:16 2 was the one that I remember. I felt like. Like expansion is new, ground. New Beach, whatever.
14:34:26 So, you know, I was an advocate for including. Expansion. In the
14:34:37 Standard.
14:34:38 And I'm satisfied with number 2. So we can just say number 2.
14:34:44 Those are the ones I wrote. That's what I remember, Greg and I. We're hovering around, but then we kinda.
14:34:50 Nipped our conversation in the bud at that point. And I was, I was wanting to consider removing.
14:34:59 Discretionary from. Sure. Line residential for new. Just sensing that.
14:35:07 Should should that the the discussionary decision and kind of like we saw with with marijuana should that decision you know decide to go the administrative route but that added
so much time and expense to then reverting to a standard CUP that I wish we had just that had been a standard from the get-go.
14:35:31 But. I don't think either of you are interested in that route.
14:35:38 I'm open to it.
14:35:43 Is that one listed on here? Not quite.
14:35:46 Yeah, Lisa, can we go down to the tables and pull the closest table to perhaps number 2 option 2 and If we have that table shown so we can.
14:35:53 Sure.
14:35:56 It's on page 9. Thanks.
14:36:06 Okay, so just to be clear. On what what this means so Cause I heard Commissioner Dean you say new.
14:36:15 And new would be a a standard conditional use. The the references there to the land word sections like basically that's That's in the rare case that there'd be some kind of
proposal to to to do an upland operation so Just want to be clear that new.
14:36:37 Good. And expansion would be counted as new in this option. Would be a standard conditional use.
14:36:42 It's only the conversion part that offers some discretionary
14:36:48 Ability of the administrator and that would be for the aquatic environment except in natural.
14:36:57 And I mean.
14:36:56 It's newer expansion. Except for conservancy shoreline residential and I intensity right yeah again I know this is difficult to explain and I apologize for that but GUI D aquaculture
in general.
14:37:10 Isn't aquatic use. So you really just the important columns are the aquatic columns.
14:37:21 And it would be, it doesn't matter. What the upland designation is. Or new or expanded under this option. Okay. It would be standard conditional use.
14:37:29 I see. The only discretion comes into play. When it's in the aquatic environment, which is what?
14:37:33 52, 58% whatever of the aquatic environment. For conversion and this is where the whack is clear about discretion and local government.
14:37:42 In fact, that's clear about discretion, whether it's a condition use permit period or some other permit.
14:37:47 And we've said so far that it would be a conditioned use permit just that. The application, the process would be discretionary.
14:37:54 And so that would be CD. Except if the upland designation were natural. And that's why you see the see there under the natural column.
14:38:06 I know it's difficult to explain, but it's explained better in the text that's associated with the table.
14:38:09 My missing something, Lisa, do I have that right?
14:38:13 And that is that's right in terms of how the planning commission version that doesn't have this change in Otherwise it has a similar table.
14:38:25 So the the only the only instance in which a discretionary conditional use permit would be authorized. Under this specific table.
14:38:37 Is when it's a conversion in aquatic. Not priority aquatic, but aquatic.
14:38:44 That's correct. Okay, I'm tracking. Except one little agenda would be for all.
14:38:51 Landward shoreline environment destinations except natural. In which case it would be a C, even if it's in the aquatic it would be as full C.
14:39:01 If it abuts the natural. Designation. That's what that means.
14:39:07 Sorry, can I just, yes, stay here going. So if it's, If it's a If it about shoreline residential.
14:39:19 But it's aquatic.
14:39:23 If it's a new, if it's a new GUI duck operation. In aquatic terrain, water word of the over over high water mark.
14:39:34 But it's shoreline residential landlord.
14:39:38 Then what is it? Even though it says CD. Yeah, I guess let's look at it this way.
14:39:47 The first place to look. Period. For. In water, is the 2 aquatic columns.
14:39:57 Yeah, got that and that's those that's the most and if it says see there It's a C.
14:40:01 Okay. If it says CD, then you gotta start thinking about a little bit more. And it's CD basically except for when it buts natural.
14:40:11 So I think that. The confusion I had. Is that a step too then? Is it like is?
14:40:20 Are we saying that if someone were applying? For a permit land word. Of ordinary high water mark, then all of those D's would apply.
14:40:32 In the columns on the right. Yep. We are. Because there are some of those.
14:40:37 They're rare, but like for example, Tuano's Peninsula has the Taylor shellfish operation, Upland.
14:40:43 It's still an aquaculture operation. And sometimes people do other things, you know, and we don't want to preclude people doing aquaculture.
14:40:51 And land-based aquaculture, which is a certain trend in certain parts of the world.
14:40:55 But you mean the siege farm? Where the where they grow the seed. Okay. And accessory activities, yeah.
14:41:03 Could you do GUI duck production? I'm not the one to ask. I'd say probably not, but I'm not going to ask that question.
14:41:14 That you remember you will recall from the net pen discussion that was multiple years long. That. There was a, you know, certain parties would like to see.
14:41:27 Raising fish, especially exotic species fish, be completely upland. And I think there are parts of the world where that has been tried at least commercially.
14:41:36 I'm not sure about the success rate of the commercial operation. My understanding is it's more expensive.
14:41:41 Naturally, but so, so yes, there are upland. Aquaculture operations. That's certainly a Peace Corps thing around the world is to do fish bonds, you know, parts of the world,
especially Africa.
14:41:56 Okay, well I am sorry that we have gone this long without me understanding that all of the 4 rightmost categories were for specifically for a permit applications.
14:42:09 Boy those I thought it was when the Aquatic abutted natural conservancy, residential, etc.
14:42:16 So. I joined her in her apology. I was on the same understanding. I would say you don't have to apologize because clearly we didn't have to apologize because clearly we didn't
Do our job and explaining it clearly.
14:42:26 There was some talk about trying to modify this tables to prevent that kind of super, prevent an interpretation that would be in the other way that we wanted it to be, but.
14:42:35 The the table also operates this way elsewhere in the code. So. We chose this direction, but if you look at the text, hopefully it's clearer.
14:42:45 The text that's associated with. These, these categories.
14:42:53 So Kate, does that mean that you're okay with number 2? Assuming we're not talking 30 foot lengths of PVC, you know, landward of the ordinary having watermark.
14:43:04 Yeah, so I'm just looking at these 4 now.
14:43:12 I don't I mean I would still prefer a threshold for expansion that if expansion were above a certain threshold that it can bump in.
14:43:20 And there is a 25% something elsewhere, right?
14:43:23 Actually, actually, if I could clarify that, thank you for the opportunity, cuz that's another subject in the staff report of a lot of discussion.
14:43:31 Expansion of GUI duck is a point 0 0 0 1% thing there's no percent in other words So it's it's clearly stated in the program that the 25% expansion threshold for legal non-ing.
14:43:46 Aquaculture is non gooey dug. So Kui Duck, any expansion of GUI duck is Even if even without this table and what have you.
14:43:55 Is. Would require a permit. So. That expansion language is around the current policy for and how we would extend the current policy.
14:44:07 For legal non-conforming uses, essentially those uses that were in place. Before February, 2014.
14:44:14 That didn't have to get a permit so they were legal and then they became legal not performing when the last S and P update happened.
14:44:22 But the Kui Duck has always been considered. Again, we're now required to regulate GUI D.
14:44:28 And in the program, correct me if I'm on Lisa, but it says in there that this threshold is not applicable to GUI duck.
14:44:41 Yeah.
14:44:38 It was up in the prior sections. Before we added the GUI I'd have to open it up to Get the correct location.
14:44:53 Do you mean, repeating that maybe? Josh and. So.
14:45:01 GUIDE. Expansion requires.
14:45:08 So when you said it is 0 point 0 one, you know, it's nothing what. I'm not sure what you're referring to there.
14:45:16 So. So let's go back to what the current policy is in the master program. Because they weren't permitted, there's not a anything to be able to, to identify 25% of because they
are legal non conforming.
14:45:29 Not a permitted amount of land. They still would have a we still could ascertain a percentage because they still have.
14:45:39 Extent still have an Army Corps permit and a something on the ground status condition for 2014 so let let me go back and just say what the current Policy is for those operations.
14:45:51 For those aquaculture operations that were not required to get a permit from us, But we're legally operating, meaning they had all the other required permits like the Army Corps
permit in 2,014.
14:46:02 Our prior selves said that Okay, we're gonna have it we're gonna put a threshold on that and we're gonna say that if the operations expanded by more than 25% that means not
only do they have to get a permit for the expansion but they have to come into compliance period.
14:46:20 In other words, the permit will cover the entire operation. And there was also a 10 year thing, which I want to talk about in a minute, added to that.
14:46:27 I don't know all the background of that. I didn't I didn't look into all the thought process that went into that probably was a lot not sure.
14:46:34 But we know that since 2014 actually the whack was changed prior to 2,014 but since that process that ended in 2,014 was started prior to 2,011 when the whack was changed.
14:46:45 The 2011 wack wasn't contemplated. In these changes, which is one of the reasons why we're finally now catching up with the 2,011 whack which required shoreline permits for
among other things gooey duck.
14:46:57 So now I think there's 2 things going on. One is that I just want to make it clear that of all the .
14:47:04 The planning commission recommendation, shall I say the, the expansion deal. Was the threshold was not applicable to GUI duck aquaculture.
14:47:15 Any expansion of KUI. Duck culture will be to get a permit. Now, there was some talk in the board though, I think, Commissioner Dean, you brought up the idea of some maybe some
triggering.
14:47:25 Thresholds that would have to do about whether which permit process you were going to use not. The threshold to get a permit or not, but the.
14:47:32 What kind of what kind of process were we going to use to get to that condition? News permit. And that's where we introduce another one of the options.
14:47:39 I think it was. Maybe option 3 or 4. But if I heard correctly last time, I think we were drifting away from that.
14:47:46 You know, was raised talked about and we moved away from it. But we kept it as part of the report just for the documentation and to say that we were addressing that issue.
14:47:54 So maybe there's some confusion there.
14:47:58 Fusion, what confusion? Confucius. Alright, I think there was a something of a decision point there before we move on.
14:48:12 Lisa, do you mind plan that?
14:48:16 Table up again or We definitely have a decision point on what kind of permit process we want to use for GUI Doco culture.
14:48:24 And if you're ready to. Do that we could do that now or we could hit it after we finished the rest of the presentation on the staff report.
14:48:29 It's up to you. Anyone have a preference? So we move on since it sounds like there's some considerations that are related.
14:48:39 Yeah, I feel like I think we should get through the staff report because the information that comes later may inform.
14:48:44 Sounds good.
14:48:44 How we think about. Yeah, great. Okay. All right, Lisa, I think we're going back to the staff report, the part after this, that one.
14:48:57 Yes, here.
14:49:00 Yeah, I think we haven't. There the part right right before this one is about no net loss, but I think we already talked about that but there's any other questions about known
at loss we can.
14:49:09 I mean, we already talked about it in general, but this is just more information about the about not the no-net less concept.
14:49:16 This was helpful information. So unless there's anything else, we'll just move to the next section.
14:49:30 I think one thing too that kind of comes into play too Josh is that Good. Conditional use permits are required to include monitoring and reporting requirements to verify.
14:49:42 Operations are in compliance. I think that's important to point out too.
14:49:47 Thank you. And is that captured in the submittal requirements that there's a plan for. Monitoring in compliance.
14:49:59 Is that the responsibility of the? Producer, the shellfish producer. The applicant.
14:50:06 I believe that.
14:50:09 Like with other permits, people propose what they're gonna do and In the case of GUI duck, we asked for a number of things for them to say what they're going to do and then
we Assuming that that's sufficient to meet our requirements, then we convert that into a requirement to do those things together with a monitoring.
14:50:28 Obligation. Sometimes we might have to do additional requirements depending on the permit process or if we felt that the proposal was insufficient to meet all of the requirements.
14:50:41 It's listed as a condition. But yes, then it gets conditioned. Yes, absolutely. There'll be a monitoring apartment as Lisa's pointing out.
14:50:46 Okay, thank you. Just was curious where that lived. Hmm.
14:50:50 Okay, timeframe.
14:50:56 Alright, so this this is a complicated one and we have to thank. Marilyn for pointing out that there was some There was an omission and just in the copying and pacing and moving
stuff around.
14:51:07 But that also gives us an opportunity to reconsider what this clause should even say in the first place.
14:51:12 So. I guess. Did you have anything else to add to that Lisa before we kind of jump to the chase on what we think it should say or do you want to explain anything more about
to try to get to how we got to where we got.
14:51:25 No, I think we laid out. Like the time at which this paragraph was being adjusted and.
14:51:34 Broken into 2 and inadvertently I think. The clause was. Separated in terms of the 25%.
14:51:44 But then we came up with some options and I think then also Michelle Walter has identified some other changes she would like to see.
14:51:54 So Josh, we could. Go over these or if you want, we can. Go to the Do you wanna, should we go over these first?
14:52:05 Yeah, I would say it's that the pleasure of the board. The fact is both of these when Lisa and I were talked about it today, just, you know, with, with new information coming
to light and just rethinking about it because just if you we'd have to beg your forgiveness forgiveness on this one but there was a lot of lot of information to try to formulate and
present to
14:52:22 you and and there's a lot of other things going on too this is just one however important it is so I'll say that I wish I could have thought about it a little bit more but that
said now we have an opportunity to think about it today.
14:52:35 So, Lisa, if you want to pull up what you and I talked about today. Another approach or a way to address this issue.
14:52:42 And part of it I have to admit is and some uncertainty around what our former selves were thinking.
14:52:46 In other words, the folks who were putting together the package and then adopting the package in 2,014.
14:52:53 What were they thinking? With respect to this 10 year clause or anything else. And so. Now we're just taking a fresh look at what we're thinking today.
14:53:01 We're recognising that 2014 is sort of a magical date in February because that's when all the Sunday permit was required for something that didn't need a permit before.
14:53:09 So. That's kind of a milestone in the world of the legal nonconforming use.
14:53:14 And so we were thinking that That does make sense just to go back to that day and say, Well, you had a use going on at the time.
14:53:22 And if you expand that use by a certain threshold. Then you need to get a permit and it doesn't really matter if the program is changed later.
14:53:33 The fact is if someone let's say say for a moment we adopt these changes or some of these anyway we drop something.
14:53:38 And we've completed our review and 2 years from now. One of those operation comes in for a permit.
14:53:42 Well, We're gonna go back and look and see if the threshold has succeeded from that time that they became legally non-conforming.
14:53:50 So that's February, the 20 first, 2,014. And then we would we would actually apply the new SNP requirements whatever those are so I think it's we can come up with simpler language.
14:54:00 And we started playing with that today. But the fact is We really just need policy direction, I guess questions and then direction from you on how you want this to look.
14:54:09 And then we would ask for a little bit more time to make sure that. You know, we're not settling necessarily on perfect language today, but that we have the direction, then
we'll go back to the table.
14:54:19 And we'll we'll put that language as part of the final proposal that comes to you. We'll consult with Barbara for example and just get her take on how it's worded.
14:54:28 Things like that. Rather than sort of necessarily settling on the language today but rather the principal or just to see also what other questions you have that we could.
14:54:37 We could continue to mull over as we prepare that final draft.
14:54:43 Yeah. I do. Thank you.
14:54:41 Suggest you want me to show this slide. Okay.
14:54:49 So I think on the left hand side is the current language. I apologize. This is.
14:54:56 Maybe a little small, see if I can zoom in a little more.
14:55:01 And on the right hand side, as Josh mentioned, we were trying to See how we could potentially adjust.
14:55:08 Language and
14:55:14 So here on the left hand side. And this again is just general regulations for aquaculture.
14:55:21 It is not. This preceding us coming back in and addressing. DACA culture.
14:55:29 So it's saying. When you need. You're not required to get a new permit unless.
14:55:37 The physical extent of the facility or farmers expanded by more than 25%. Or more than 25% of the facilities slash farm changes operational slash cultivation methods compared
to conditions that existed as of the effective date of this.
14:55:53 Program or any amendment there too. And if the amount of expansion or change in cultivation method exceeds 25% in any ten-year period, the entire operation shall be considered
new.
14:56:07 So on the right hand side as Josh was mentioning, when we started to insert. And we have some specific rules from the state saying any new GUI.
14:56:18 DAC requires a permit and then the state saying any new GUI DAC requires a permit and then you have discretion when you have a permit and then you have discretion when you have
conversion.
14:56:23 As to what kind of permit you have. There's no question that there is a permit. I think that's what Josh if I use.
14:56:31 Summarizing your point earlier. So really that's why this initial section says for non GUI.
14:56:38 Aquaculture. That was legally operating prior to February, 20 first, 2014. The date at which a permanent shoreline permit was required.
14:56:45 The physical extent of the facility of, you know, again, this is, you don't need a new permit unless, so.
14:56:51 You would need one if the physical extent of the facility or farm is expanded by more than 25%.
14:56:58 Or more than 25% of the facility farm changes operational slash cultivation methods that would bring this back in.
14:57:06 Compared to the drafts we were sharing with the Planning Commission. And it's tied to February, 20 first.
14:57:14 And it wouldn't shift by an amendment. So this would take out the. Language that's already in there saying.
14:57:24 When is the marker at which you would need the new? Permit. So now it's just 2014.
14:57:32 And not giving a specific date instead of having to figure out what was the effective date of this program or amendment.
14:57:39 So it's inserting what that is.
14:57:45 So basically it's about 25% from February, 20 first, 2, 14 forward. If you've exceeded that amount, you now need a new permit.
14:57:54 And again, this is for non-Guridaka aquaculture.
14:57:57 And then in this idea that we would just cross out that 10 year period thing. As you can see in the second sentence there.
14:58:05 And then possibly even in the first part of that second sentence, that's where there's this little arrow down to the bottom instead of saying all that stuff we could say.
14:58:12 For those operations required to obtain a permit. Pursuant to the subsection, the reason why I do that or propose that is because the highlighted part is the part where I think
it's really a policy call on your part on whether whether we just want to focus on the extent of the acreage or whether we'll include this concept of That's already in there, this concept
of 25% of the facility
14:58:38 farm changes and or operational cultivation methods. So that's essentially conversion.
14:58:45 Except not a species conversion. I think the other conversion that you're thinking of is a species conversion.
14:58:53 This is using different techniques. So for the same species. So that's a question really, whether you want to include that or not.
14:59:04 That's why I highlighted that section. That's but it's not for species it's just for operational changes.
14:59:15 It makes good sense to me. I'm wondering if we could hear Lisa and Josh's analysis of the verbiage.
14:59:22 Proposed by The show Walter, we talked about it a little bit, you know, the idea. I think it's the same place.
14:59:29 I don't know if you guys have the I just like to talk through all the ideas, but I'm supported with this idea.
14:59:36 I can pull that up.
14:59:37 Okay.
14:59:47 So could that 25% of operations the. You know, so say somebody is growing from ground sets to hanging bag system.
15:00:01 Will that be 25% of the production? The sold product is being changed. Obviously could be 25% of the footprint, the acreage.
15:00:15 But can you give other examples like we talked about facility? No, that'd be going to.
15:00:21 Production of spat instead of. The shell, like I'm just curious how. Each of those would require a different way of measuring the 25%.
15:00:34 So, I guess I would just. Just to kind of a quick list of pros and cons that come to mind about this policy would be that The pro is that it's more than just the footprint.
15:00:50 Now you're dealing with other aspects of the operation and perhaps There's something about that operation that if changed would trigger a new permit.
15:01:00 Visa V the type the techniques that are being used to farm the same species of shellfish just differently and the presumption would be that that's either permitted under their
Army Corps permit or they got a new Army Corps permit or had modified their Army Corps permit to be able to do the new technique.
15:01:18 I would say just thinking about it from the administrator perspective that Although I don't currently hold that title, I still have that responsibility and I've done that before.
I did hold that title.
15:01:32 So I will say that It sounds complicated to try to figure out. Then now you're getting involved in operations of individual existing farms that are operating under our federal
permit and I guess I would my question would be why like what would be the public benefit of us getting involved in that?
15:01:50 I'm just raising the question relative to the amount of work it would take to do that. So that would be maybe the con to the pro of the other side would be it's just a lot of
easier to measure.
15:02:01 It's just basically it's more of a footprint oriented thing. You've got an operations going on and now they want to get bigger.
15:02:06 And so it's just an easier thing to figure out when you get involved and when you make an existing operation go to local shoreline permit.
15:02:13 Now the con might be then We are not taking into account these other aspects that could change the nature of the how that operation looks essentially.
15:02:24 And perhaps even its impact. Beyond that, although again, if you're talking about a operation that's got an active permit from.
15:02:33 From the Army Corps for the type of use. It's not a question really, I would say that from a shoreline management perspective of whether it should continue to be preferred or
not because as ecology has pointed out on numerous occasions and if you read any of the literature that they'll continue to point to out that Aquaculture is a preferred use on restaurant
management.
15:02:51 So I think from that perspective their their concern with us. When they review our program is not going to be Are we under regulating aquaculture?
15:03:03 Their concern is going to be are we overregulating aquaculture? And so that's would be my concern.
15:03:07 I'd be I'd be curious what they think about if we kind of developed the whole set of thresholds and things to worry about.
15:03:13 But that's added. The there's it's a policy choice. Like like these others.
15:03:18 Okay, and here's Ms. Shaw Walter's recommendation.
15:03:30 And looking at this, I think the new recommendation, I still favor the recommendation from Lisa and Josh.
15:03:35 Today.
15:03:36 Even with that caveat that Josh just provided how challenging it would be to calculate 25% of operations.
15:03:47 Wow, yeah, I mean.
15:03:54 Thank you.
15:04:01 Because this issue, because we receive this correspondence, which definitely adds to the adds to the information to analyze.
15:04:10 And, and I'm even posing a question now with our own sort of, today's proposal for how that language could look simplified.
15:04:21 But the highlighted portion is the part that I'm still scratching my head a little bit about.
15:04:25 And after hearing your question, I want to think more about it if I could. So. I, from my perspective, I'd be happy with just.
15:04:33 Just a direction from the board saying that. We should simplify this section and refer to 2,014 and take out the reference to 10 years.
15:04:42 And then that gives us a chance to craft something that we put a more thought into check the whack, make sure that we're consistent.
15:04:49 Look at some other master programs and then we'll come back with that in the final proposal and then we'll highlight it in the staff report and that is something that would
be on the table.
15:04:57 For that day that you you want to take that final action whether you want to tweak that language or not based on additional analysis.
15:05:07 Cause it seems like it's now we're getting into that's like the final detail of that one aspect.
15:05:14 Alternatively, we could come back again on another day and hit this topic or any other topic if we're not ready to have full policy direction today.
15:05:20 It feels like this. Proposal here further complicates any of these tables that we have.
15:05:28 In our materials to consider. You know, like. Adoptions, the 5 options.
15:05:38 Because of the Over high water mark and You know, I guess I would say that we're talking about non, that's the difference I would say.
15:05:49 That discussion is all about other. So we're all saying we're mixing up conversations here our topic.
15:06:00 So it's getting increasingly complex and confusing. Which might be a strategy. So much. Yeah.
15:06:04 The GUI duck question is Is, so any new GUI duck requires? Conditional use and the question is How do we want to treat expansions as new or as together with conversions?
15:06:18 That's and it sounds like you're drifting towards Option 2 which would treat them the same so expansion will be treated like new And then the other question is just what kind
of conditional use permit.
15:06:27 And really that's according to this option as we talked about only for aquatic environment for conversion.
15:06:38 I'm tracking with that. I'm tracking this one. How other one? How to folks feel about, the direction that Josh just outlines where, we.
15:06:49 We say look for some Simple language. About GUI knuck or not all selfish? No, the specifically that expansion threshold for legal nonconforming. We're all shellfish. Yeah.
15:07:02 For non-GOIDA. I'm fine with that. Okay. So if I'm just make sure I heard this correctly, it will craft something will perfect this language.
15:07:12 Will craft something. That ties everything to 2014 February 2014 take out the 10 years reference And then we'll just leave it whether we'll.
15:07:22 Do some more research and and decide what our staff recommendation is on whether we're just dealing with footprint or something else, operations.
15:07:31 And then we'll explain that and then. Then we can you can make that final decision at another time.
15:07:39 Great. That good with you?
15:07:41 Sounds good. Yep.
15:07:44 Right.
15:07:48 And more Lisa.
15:07:54 Josh, I don't know if we want to go over any other part of that. We had some other.
15:07:59 Oh, year, right?
15:07:59 Sections on this management practices and.
15:08:03 Yeah, let's let's just put that put the staff report back up if you would Lisa and just make sure we provide the opportunity for questions on any of those sections or topics.
15:08:26 Okay, so we talked about that one. And now we're at the BMPs.
15:08:33 And so. So actually, Lisa, you know, we. The BMPs that were referenced I think by some parties such as those that are promulgated by the Pacific Coast shellfish growers association
or not publicly available.
15:08:49 We couldn't put our figures on them. I think that their industry BMPs that they follow, which is, which is fantastic, you know, But yeah, they're not, they weren't.
15:08:59 So just to clarify, we weren't suggesting and wouldn't suggest that. We wouldn't have a regulatory role over in implementing any conditions.
15:09:06 It was only that in addition to all of our other criteria, if the part of the proposal for any given applicant is to utilize industry wide BMPs and we believe that after looking
at them that they they would work for us in terms of meeting the provisions and the goals, especially the known at loss provision, then we could incorporate those in addition to other
conditions.
15:09:30 As part of our as part of our permits. So in other words, they become not just a voluntary subscription only basis for those members of those that industry organization but
now there are a regulatory tool that we would use.
15:09:44 To say you're not following your BMPs which are required by our permit for you to follow Hello?
15:09:51 So that's what we meant by that.
15:09:54 I'm not sure if there's any questions otherwise about that. But you're saying they're not published.
15:09:59 Couldn't, I don't, Lisa, you looked around, right?
15:10:02 I think there's maybe a wall you have to be a member of the organization to get it, I think.
15:10:09 That's what I found too. So how do we, how do we? All the best management practices if we don't or make sure that folks are following them if we don't know what they are.
15:10:20 I would say it goes back to the permit process. So the information that we the feet again coming for the feedback trying to paraphrase now some feedback from the industry was
that We already do these things.
15:10:30 We have these best management practices and. Those should be good enough. And so. Then we would have that dialogue that interaction with the permit application.
15:10:38 They would be proposing what they're going to do and should they include these set of BMPs that we're going to do in order to meet your objectives that are in your master program,
known at laws for example, being the biggest one, the most important.
15:10:50 Then then I imagine they would share those with us and we would analyze them. With respect to the specific permit application process for that.
15:11:00 Shouldn't we require that they include them?
15:11:00 Yeah, as a submit all item they could. Do so, Josh. We can.
15:11:05 I mean, We're trying to store that they're following them. We'd like to see what they think they're following.
15:11:14 No, I have no issue with that. Except for the fact that not perhaps not every entity would be.
15:11:17 And in terms of the DNR. List of B and Ps, we're talking about more than just did on aquatic land.
15:11:25 So but we could certainly get our hands on. The DNR, PNPs and I guess I would.
15:11:33 Yeah. We could we could we could add that to a list we could say it you know make it a contingency perhaps clause like if you're If you are, I've committed to industry Vmp's.
15:11:45 Please provide those as part of your application or something of that. Something of that nature in the list.
15:11:53 Which I think might be part of the. National permit too. Well, that's their own set of the.
15:12:00 That's the thing. That's their own set of conditions. A own set of practices, especially the nationwide one which has, you know, has been pointed out.
15:12:06 Is in flux shall we say yeah because it would we there was a nationwide permit for aquaculture and then it was pulled.
15:12:15 And so they're working on another one. And then don't have to, probably have to survive the court test and so forth and so on.
15:12:26 Hmm.
15:12:21 So. Try reading about that this weekend and that totally lost. So I guess we, you know, we go back to what are we trying to achieve and we have our direction under the Charlotte
Management Act.
15:12:32 We have our known at loss function, our condition, and that's and we. Regs accordingly and
15:12:41 The word BMPs gets thrown around a lot. I mean, we use them in the context of stormwater management because they're specifically part of.
15:12:48 The stormwater management manual for Western Washington that's promulgated by the Department of Ecology.
15:12:53 So we're used to using BMPs in that context, it's a little different here, I suppose.
15:12:57 And we they would be let's just say that if we're going to reference B and Ps they would be spelled out and made conditions of a permit so it wouldn't be It wouldn't be a reference
to something that could be changed elsewhere and that would affect.
15:13:13 I mean, unless we put a clause and say the most protective, like if those industry BMPs were to change, we would have a clause that say, whichever is the most protective.
15:13:22 Let's see, have the options, right? Rely on provisions and the existing SMP.
15:13:29 Or at a specific regulation that requires
15:13:34 Compliance with their industries B and Ps. Yeah, and we put this as because you know this was a topic that was brought up.
15:13:41 Till we wanted to address it.
15:13:43 Thank you. I think either one is fine. And ultimately the difference is not going to be Terrific or terrifically substantial in my opinion.
15:13:52 But. It seems like relying on. What is in the SMP to enforce the SMP makes the most sense.
15:14:00 Doesn't it? I mean, am I? But because we're setting fourth conditions for permits, I think that's where it's useful to see.
15:14:10 You know, because from my understanding, it includes things like derelict gear management, BNP.
15:14:18 So, you know, if those are already. Committed to either for membership in the Shellfish Goers Association or for the national permit.
15:14:41 They change.
15:14:27 Hold them to that language consistently. Across permits. And require the monitoring and reporting. Although they change and Yeah.
15:14:44 That's the I, my take on this or my preference would be that we craft. The clause that First of all says that if if you subscribe to a reference to be MPs in general and saying
essentially a conditions like if you're part of an industry group industry group, industry group that has the BMPs then.
15:15:07 We would we would want them to be submitted as part of the application or indicate. Because again, people are proposing what they're going to do and that general includes quite
a bit of overlap I would say with BMPs, they're getting an operations plan saying what they're going to do and ostensibly they're including their own practices in that plant.
15:15:25 But that's it. We can make a explicit reference to the MPs and then we could say a some kind of statement that you know the county would incorporate applicable B and Ps into
condition, and to interperimate conditions.
15:15:39 And which is.
15:15:42 Not uncommon really. I'm just not done quite this explicitly, I suppose, but That way we
15:15:48 It really feels like we're moving outside of our lane and Going the opposite way of regulatory reform. I don't know.
15:15:54 This just seems really hard to enforce. I would prefer I guess option one to rely on provisions in the existing draft SMP.
15:16:02 I think asking for their BMPs as part of a submittal is great, you know, get it down the record but you know, as soon as we put it into our code with the BMPs are or anything,
it we.
15:16:14 I don't think we have, yeah, it seems like a bridge too far to me. I'd rather go with option one.
15:16:23 But Greg, knowing that there's almost no enforcement from the feds. You know, this, this.
15:16:35 Gives DCD the ability to hold folks to their.
15:16:42 Direct gear management and you know things that If we don't have it written into the SMP already, like, the alternative is to put everything into the SMP, which is more burdensome,
whereas if we're just relying on something that they have already committed to at another permit.
15:16:59 Like that I think that's actually easier.
15:17:04 Than ensuring we have every protection in our own SMP.
15:17:11 So yeah No, I hear you there. So you're saying we we don't list the.
15:17:18 BMPs, but we say you have to provide your, BMPs. And they are part of your permit.
15:17:26 They might become a condition. You know. Administrator or hearings examiner could choose to list them as a condition.
15:17:37 What if they don't choose? I mean It's gonna be different for each operation.
15:17:44 And this is, outside of. We're still in all It's just all shellfish.
15:17:53 Yeah. So, you know, for ground sets, oysters. Well, sometimes there's direct gear concerns, but much less than with GUI duck.
15:18:04 So. Different intensity.
15:18:12 I like the idea of adopting
15:18:16 Other, you know, previous previous work that's been done. I think it's less duplicative and it, but it puts it within the scope of.
15:18:25 DCD to be able to. Monitor and enforce. I get, you know, it's always about the like.
15:18:33 The bad actors, right? People who are really flaunting them. Violations.
15:18:42 So this condition, it do they always pre exist? What if they get an Army core permit that doesn't have B and Ps or they don't belong to the Pacific Growth Showfish Growth Association
so they don't have a list of BMPs.
15:18:57 Does that mean that What's the what's the path? Do they does that mean an additional aspect that they have to, well, I guess we better write them down or is that just something
we always want to have?
15:19:07 Management practices written down. For this permit. Is this the places that those practices should come? I don't know.
15:19:17 They have to have an army core permit.
15:19:19 Right, but it's the Army Corps permit didn't have prescriptive best management practices as part of that permit.
15:19:25 So when they apply to us and we say, you know, as one of your required submittals send in your Bmp's and they're like, oh, we, we don't have any.
15:19:34 I mean, I don't, I mean, I'm kinda out of my lane here even talking about this.
15:19:38 That's part of my apprehension and adding additional, requirements onto the permit seekers.
15:19:47 I don't, I'm not sure.
15:19:52 As much as I hate to punt on this one too, I think that give us if you give us another chance to revisit it exactly how our code is set up in terms of the soup to nuts application
process.
15:20:04 I think that we can demonstrate that it's a performance standard. Based approach where we have these objectives that you have to meet and we ask how you're going to meet them.
15:20:11 And then the proposal is made and then we say is that good enough to meet the objectives or not and then we take the specifics of the proposed plan of operations and we put
it into regulatory language in the issue a permit.
15:20:24 That they need to stick to. And the word, you know, the term BMPs overlaps with that, but I'm hearing like there's a separate discussion about other kind you know industry-specific
VMPs that are exist.
15:20:36 From a couple different entities. So I guess give us a chance to think about how best to both take advantage of BNPs of that nature in combination with our standard approach
or performance standard approach to these kinds of issues where we do incorporate language about someone's operations plan and we essentially say that great, now you're going to have
to do that and if you don't we have compliance tools to make sure
15:21:02 that you do. Including revoking the permit. And if needed.
15:21:08 And yeah, so much of that work has been done on other permits. For other permits. It would be nice to be able to import that.
15:21:17 And like you said, if it's performance-based, it's, are they meeting with the conditions?
15:21:22 Appropriate to the. Risk or degradation. Entailed in this type of operation.
15:21:31 It just seems a little bit like a nightmare in terms of tracking when like B and P change.
15:21:38 Or if, you know. If the document or the policy that's being referred to outside of the SMP.
15:21:49 Or the implementation of the SMP. Changes who who on DCD staff is tracking. Who's who's tracking in those changes or updates to policies that our decisions are being based on.
15:22:04 I mean, is there an answer to that today or? I would say that for our permit system. We issue a conditional use permit.
15:22:12 And. Unless I mean a specific and there's actually a clause at least and I found in the SNP that talks about time extension like a substantial development permit.
15:22:23 Has a certain time associated with it because it's about development and completing that development in a timely fashion.
15:22:28 Those are extension periods. Conditional use parameters about that use and essentially it could be in relative perpetuity.
15:22:36 So we issue a permit, it's got conditions, got to follow them. If some BMP were developed or changed in the future from some industry group.
15:22:43 Is it if it's better, then I'd say great, and they can do that as long as it's even better than the condition that we put on.
15:22:49 But the condition we put on remains that floor that they need to do. I don't think that we would be unless it was some substance of thing that was really like put to sound wide
that everything has changed with respect to how people do this one thing.
15:23:04 We could modify the conditioning as permit to add that condition.
15:23:09 For similar types of operations. Yeah. I want to do a time check because Greg has to leave it for.
15:23:16 How much time do we think we need for the last agenda item that differing consideration of site specific amendments.
15:23:25 That probably be about 20Â min on that. 1520Â min. Okay, so we'll want to wrap up at 3 40 this discussion at the latest.
15:23:36 Okay. Unless, unless you want to specifically pick one of those 2, I think we're going to go with a hybrid approach approach and come up with something that will explain to
you how we got there after hearing your concerns and questions and Hopefully that'll hit the mark and if it doesn't we can.
15:23:50 Play with it then at that on that day. The next time we talk. So really like the idea that
15:23:57 We're referring to our SMP and what we're. What we're asking people to do instead of a lot of external.
15:24:07 Documents.
15:24:07 And I think that was the intent was that it would be, it wasn't. Stated that exactly but It's add a specific regulation, not, undo the other parts that we were already.
15:24:21 Going with.
15:24:22 So you're at, you're relying on provisions of the. S and and then adding. An additional regulation?
15:24:31 Okay.
15:24:32 Like maybe Lisa would help. I don't know if you have the ability just to switch screens and pull up 1825 and 4 40.
15:24:41 The proposed regulations. Yeah.
15:24:38 And just show an example of the list of provisions we are. Yeah, like that we already have in place and maybe that just just as a refresher almost to to point out that we have
a lot of performance standards already.
15:24:53 And, and I look at, you know, a set of BMPs as. A way to meet those standards, you know, specific things that you're going to do, the how of it to get to the what.
15:25:04 And so I guess. I would say we have, if you ask again, channeling because they're not here to speak for themselves, but my.
15:25:13 I could picture some industry representatives saying, well, you already have a lot of things in there and now you're adding another thing because I think there was some push
back that we already had a lot of specific things and they were arguing that You shouldn't have those things because we already do.
15:25:27 You know, more cutting edge or modern things and elsewhere because of other permanent agencies.
15:25:35 But again, I go back to we have our own. Goals and objective though that we're following under the SMA though, which is why we have these things in there
15:25:43 Is this what you're? Thinking about Josh.
15:25:47 Okay, so those are the application requirements. What about do we have a set of conditions or? Objectives like performance standards that either follow this or precede it, Lisa,
that
15:25:59 Hi, I believe we do.
15:26:01 Get into what you have to do.
15:26:05 To qualify for a conditionally. Feel like sometimes we try and find things. When we don't really need to find them.
15:26:20 Yeah, I think right here we we start to have. So here are conditional use permits regulations for And let's look at the.
15:26:36 So it's referring, it's saying conditional use permits are required for all new, etc.
15:26:44 All subsequent cycles of authorized planting and harvest shall not require a new CP. This is out of the whack, by the way.
15:26:49 So I'll say the next one. So. Yeah.
15:26:54 That there's monitoring and reporting. We talked about that earlier and then here's The county shall review the considerations in the Washington Administrative Code.
15:27:02 During development of permit conditions necessary to avoid our limit impacts. And she'd known that loss. The list of considerations are regarding impervious materials, motorized
vehicles, time period.
15:27:16 Site alterations, corner markers, mitigation measures, predator, exclusion devices, turbidity, minimization, use of barges, navigation rights, housekeeping.
15:27:26 Practices and public access.
15:27:30 And then there's signing and design. And You know, this is I think where we could modify and refer to that.
15:27:40 Applicant may submit. And the county may condition a proposal. In order to ensure you know Use the best management practices.
15:27:51 And like Josh was saying, typically you would attach that to the permit. So that when it's in the file, staff could go back and look at what were those.
15:28:01 Best management practices. And I think Josh we were discussing earlier today too that, your conditional use permits, don't necessarily have an end day, but sometimes those are
added to permits or the idea the monitoring and reporting maybe the permit continues but the monitoring and reporting.
15:28:20 Would require you know, seeing that the verifying that it's in compliance and if not, you could then go back if there was a better.
15:28:30 BMP that would avoid the problem that's being found I would imagine Josh that that is something that conditions on the.
15:28:39 Per minute around monitoring and reporting in order to meet the objective standard that they're supposed to meet. That's when you could maybe.
15:28:47 Apply a new BMP because you're trying to get them to the right. Operational level.
15:28:57 Yeah, I mean, I think it's I think it is clarifying to include here that that BNPs can be submitted to to satisfy these.
15:29:10 Requirements. Instead of them kind of starting from scratch trying to. Speak to all of these when they if their BMPs do.
15:29:20 Okay, you want to scroll, keep scrolling a little bit, Lisa? Just curious if that ends there or if there's any more.
15:29:26 Okay, so there we go.
15:29:34 This is a part if we were going to talk about the application requirements themselves, this would be probably the section we would look at here.
15:29:42 And noting that these other standards that we pass by are also from the Washington administrative code.
15:29:50 Hmm.
15:29:51 So then there it goes into application requirements and by different aquaculture. Types, says which ones are applicable.
15:30:02 So this is where that language could be added that we were. Suggesting.
15:30:10 Could it be included here where? Where somebody is part of an industry or subscribes to an industry.
15:30:16 Set of Bmp's.
15:30:22 Good here.
15:30:15 See. You look at that long one towards the bottom of what we're looking at right now. Narrative of implementation methods.
15:30:25 Blah, blah, blah. I mean.
15:30:28 Remember just as this context here we got pushback that we thought that some folks thought this table was too complicated too many things on it.
15:30:36 Although we did actually in conjunction with the Jamestown, Scal and Tribes input, create the table because they're the ones who recommended that a table be used and they gave
us a template for it, which was very handy.
15:30:49 Anyway, we're trying to clarify between the different types of agriculture and also clarify that not every one of these things may be applicable to any given application depending
on the circumstances of that application.
15:30:58 But I could see us, we'll pour through this table, Lisa and I and Amy when she's available and then we'll.
15:31:04 See if reference to industry B and Ps, the DNR B and Ps and anything else would be.
15:31:11 Worthy to put in here as part of. Just at least a reference. If maybe text associated with this table or in the table itself.
15:31:18 So, come up with an idea about how to best to include the the concept.
15:31:23 I mean to Kate's point is there a chance to make B and P streamline this particular process to say, you know, If you have an industry BMP or you know Army Corps BMP.
15:31:36 It can serve the same function as going through this table or you know, you, you can use it to check these items off.
15:31:45 Yeah, I think that's the intro here.
15:31:49 The county. Right there, the last sentence. And theize redundancies that one we were talking about earlier.
15:31:59 Yeah, what that was in response to a very similar point made that hey we already do all these things.
15:32:02 Great. Then you can give us those things. To meet the performance standards listed in this table or the issue areas identified.
15:32:10 So. We could clarify that and add language to that sentence, but I mean that was the intention.
15:32:16 So what do we need to add? It feels like we've already addressed this a little bit. I think this is, I don't know, Kate, does this.
15:32:24 And, mitigate the concerns or address the concerns that you were raising.
15:32:30 Yeah, I think calling out, calling out BMPs in particular is helpful. I mean, I have learned that they are used and relied upon greatly in industry.
15:32:41 I mean, it is something that is a regular part of the permitting process. I don't think it hurts to call it out when it's.
15:32:49 A standard practice. And do you believe this section would be the where you'd like to see it called out right in essentially modifying that last sentence.
15:32:57 It says applications and or studies we could say applications, studies, and or. Best management practices. Yeah, I think that'd be fine.
15:33:06 I do wanna take a look back at, I saw that, derelict gear section above because I didn't see much about derelict gear in the charts the table below.
15:33:20 So.
15:33:22 Do you wanna go back to the staff report there on that topic or?
15:33:28 Okay, and knowing we don't have much time, I guess what's the decision point there?
15:33:32 It was in that. It was in the staff reports, so it must have on page 8, there's a derelict gear section.
15:33:38 Here we go.
15:33:43 So I think there is just a summary of what was already in.
15:33:48 In the SMP.
15:33:52 Equipment structures. And material shall not be discarded in the water and shall not be abandoned in the upland, no garbage waste or debris shall be allowed.
15:34:01 To accumulate.
15:34:06 And then there's other ones that target predator control, exclusion devices.
15:34:13 So then the options rely on the existing draft or add something specific that's similar to Calm County's SMP.
15:34:24 Which sounds like a submital requirement here. How prevention of marine debris accumulation will be addressed and what site operational management practices will be implemented.
15:34:33 Including work. The training.
15:34:33 Yeah, I could. Sorry, I could see adding that to the chart that we were just looking at, some middle requirements, a derelict gear, some middle requirements, a derelict gear
plan or maybe gear storage and derelict skier.
15:34:52 Management.
15:34:53 Hopefully they're storing their data like gear. I don't know.
15:34:56 Oh, it's storing here though. In this, clown planning language is good.
15:35:01 How prevention and marine you can see it there right yeah but there's both the like you know there is stuff that is often on site, that's part of production.
15:35:13 That regular removal of equipment tools extra materials and always yeah I just it isn't necessarily debris you know there's what's used in regular course of production and then
there's debris.
15:35:28 There's what's used in regular course of production and then there's debris. According to someone in the industry that is a BMP.
15:35:34 That is required in the national permit. So again, I think it does exist and it's something that is already spelled out and regulated.
15:35:41 But I think we want to ensure that we're including it in. Our conditions.
15:35:50 And I think adding it to that chart, we were just, the table we were just looking at would be.
15:35:55 Sufficient. I trust you guys to come up with language. Okay.
15:36:02 All right, well, I think that hits that issue then. And so, 3 more minutes. Now we're just left with, 6Â min.
15:36:10 We're left with issue. So that's 5. Things have got notes on direction and then going back to the second item, which is the.
15:36:16 Type of conditional use. Permit or. Which of the 5 options or another option you would like to see the next draft show?
15:36:28 The support of option 2.
15:36:33 Me too.
15:36:35 Okay. Especially with the clarifying. Good clarifying work that Josh did was my head around the 4 columns on the right.
15:36:48 Yeah, I would still left my own devices. I would still keep expansion. I would still keep expansion, with conversion, I would still keep expansion, with conversion, with a,
thresholds and again it's because I I do believe that with both expansion and conversion, you have an idea of how the operation is being run.
15:37:05 You can assess that. With much more information than a new operation. I think it is actually quite different, but I have made my case for that and been outnumbered.
15:37:18 So. Looks like. This is number 2 is direction. We're headed in.
15:37:25 Well, it feels like expansion is also new because it's new ground.
15:37:29 Expansion is.
15:37:31 Yes, It doesn't to me, but we can agree to disagree on that.
15:37:43 Okay.
15:37:46 Eric. So just to be clear, the direction then is to. For the next iteration that I'll come with.
15:37:54 An adopting ordinance. And we will reflect this option 2 which simply moves the expansion into the. New category.
15:38:05 And then that'll be what that looks like. And then they'll still be like I said the public hearing is still open.
15:38:11 I think we're shooting for February 20 sixth to put it on the agenda. But we're shooting for a little extra time if we can to get that ordinance ready with the next package
to post it on the SNP update website.
15:38:23 And of course it'll be part of the agenda packet. Per the normal schedule before the 20 sixth, but it should be available before that on the S and P website.
15:38:35 That's what we're gonna be shooting for as soon as we get that ready, we'll let the board know that it's up.
15:38:37 On the SMP page. Great. So it encouraged the interested public. To continue submitting testimony and writing.
15:38:47 And then a public comment period is also a good time, of course, to verbally. Let your opinions be heard.
15:38:55 So, and then we'll work with Carolyn, the clerk of the board to make sure we have enough time on the date that we pick.
15:39:03 Right now we're shooting for February, 20 sixth, but enough time should the board want to accept.
15:39:06 Comment as part of that that actual agenda item. In addition to the normal comic parents that would be a choice that we can.
15:39:14 And if it just comes out possible to clarify the difference between the Water, word, water, word of, oh, sorry, I need my glasses.
15:39:24 Water word of, OH HWM or Landward of OH WM like shade the 4 columns on landward or something and explain what you explained to us that was.
15:39:35 That was.
15:39:39 Formative for me that was Yeah, I've changed how I was looking at. Everything we looked at before, right, like permits for operations, water word of or permits for operations
land word of.
15:39:58 We'll definitely, absolutely describe it better in our staff report and we'll look into how possibly we could describe it better in the S and P itself.
15:40:09 And, just. For. Public listening we.
15:40:16 Will have to decide whether or not we're gonna take more oral testimony or not. . Polly largely be a time decision.
15:40:26 So, Stay tuned.
15:40:29 Make decision on when to close the . Public hearing
15:40:34 Alright, like it would be good to take tomorrow. Well, if we do that on the twenty-sixth, I mean, then are we, you know, actually gonna consider changes to have staff go back
again?
15:40:45 Like what's the realistic? You're an outcome of that. Whereas providing written testimony and public comment, which granted does not become part of the record from this.
15:40:57 You know, separate from the hearing record, but that is still, I think the best way to.
15:41:02 Be suggesting edits at this point.
15:41:06 I agree. And we have taken seriously and will consider to take seriously the input that we get. From the public.
15:41:15 Alright, we have 19Â min, not bad. For our last agenda item, which is consideration of deferring site specific amendments.
15:41:26 While we were working on the cup plans. I assume that's Josh and Joel. Yeah, Joel Peterson is here, associate planner and the long range planning side of things.
15:41:38 And helping to manage this process and Joel was here last time so if there's any questions about what happened last time and he'd be the right person to ask.
15:41:47 Just in summary last time was a multi-year process and from digging into the resolution that was made at that time at which we attached to the agenda request.
15:41:58 It was actually 2 years that the county did not accept any site specific. Conference to plan amendment applications otherwise known as rezones that is a paid service someone's
talking about specific property that They wish to have rezone, not a suggested amendment per se in terms of a larger policy consideration, but.
15:42:16 So this time we are proposing being a little late to the draw on that and recognizing that there was already at least one in the pipeline and we have another consideration another
possibility or another 2 possibilities perhaps for site-specific amendment proposals this year for this year's annual amendment cycle we are curtailing that request to only count for
the year 2025 the calendar your 2025 so if you adopt this this resolution then What
15:42:44 you'd be saying is that any applications given honor before March first of this year would be considered in this year's annual amendment cycle and any applications received
after March, the first of this year would be considered in the 2,026.
15:42:58 Company has a plan amendment cycle. And again, we're going to be tackling and a number of policy issues countywide that have to do with housing.
15:43:09 As particularly affordable housing and in the UGA itself. We are looking at all aspects of the UJ including.
15:43:16 The possibility of revisiting the use table for different kinds of uses in different zones or even if necessary.
15:43:22 Changing some zones based on our land capacity analysis that we're going to be doing for the UGA.
15:43:27 So that kind of handles the UGA part. And everything's on the table. The basic reason why We're requesting this.
15:43:33 It's just from a workload perspective that. In the calendar, your 2,025.
15:43:43 I anticipate us scrambling to a certain degree to meet the requirements by June thirtieth of that year and that would require a lot of heavy focus and attention in the first
half of 2025, which is exactly when if we were to be conducting an annual amendment cycle, we would be engaged in the docketing process.
15:43:55 With the Planning Commission. So, recognizing that it'd be difficult to do both of those things.
15:44:00 Together. That's why we're. Proposing that we defer site-specific comp plan amendments proposals to be considered in 2026 rather than 2025 recognizing that we already have a
process underway now that for 2024.
15:44:19 Questions, comments?
15:44:24 I have, sorry, go ahead.
15:44:24 Oh, I don't
15:44:27 You can. I'm the chair and I say it's your turn, Greg.
15:44:34 Okay. I'm sorry. That it's hard hard to read the body languages. I should raise my hand.
15:44:39 I just we've talked a lot about this, you know, always really reluctant to, reduce the public's ability to make requests for those site specific call plan amendments, but Seems
very reasonable, I think.
15:44:53 I much it's much better than trying to bulk on it now and doing it for 2024 so I'm just generally supportive and I understand the rationale behind it.
15:45:04 And I think there's a lot that's going to be revealed in a lot of opportunities for agencies and people to contribute to what does that landscape look like when we get back
to taking sites specific compliments again.
15:45:15 So I'm in favor.
15:45:16 Yeah, I mean. I'm reticent to delay things, but I also, and I said this when you mentioned this initially, I understand the capacity constraints.
15:45:29 And the massive amount of work we're gonna have to do over the next. I mean, on all friends really, but with the sewer coming online and I live in the UGA and It's a lot of
folks out there.
15:45:41 Wondering what it's going to be like. And I would rather us be focused on
15:45:46 Communicating with the residents of the future Port Had luck, UGA. Than. Grappling with a bunch of site specific.
15:45:58 Applications. And I think that that would be good work. I guess in different words saying what Kate said it for the future.
15:46:09 You know, it'll, it'll set us up to be more prepared. And and have more.
15:46:16 Not saying this eloquently.
15:46:20 People will know what to expect. If we put our time into the long range planning for the UGA and.
15:46:28 Other important planning considerations. Then if we try and you know, make sure things aren't slide enough the table and you know, Set a path and stick to it.
15:46:39 And let people know at the timeframes are. And so I can support it. It's just. Yeah.
15:46:45 Yeah, I can support it.
15:46:48 I think I've expressed for later retreat, most recently, just a concern that we could inadvertently be holding up projects and particularly affordable housing projects that
are very dependent on time-sensitive grant funding.
15:47:04 And the unprecedented amount of grant funding and infrastructure funding that's available. It's between now and basically when we're talking about this ending, not that funding
will be done by 26.
15:47:14 So. 25 you know by the time we do 25 it's gonna We're going to be pushing it off.
15:47:19 I'd like to share the, Luckily one of our volunteers on the housing fund board did create a list of.
15:47:31 These are. The housing projects that we know are in the pipeline. Affordable housing projects. So starting, yeah, here this in construction and plans and, Greg, I might rely
on you for some.
15:47:47 Interpretation of here. These are the projects we know are coming and I just want to make sure that we're laying eyes on this and not jeopardizing any of these projects.
15:47:58 That we currently are aware of. Again, I think there are others that might come up. So we know anything in the UGA is.
15:48:07 That we can handle within the kind of planning process for looking at the zoning there.
15:48:12 And specifically Whitley Place actually applied for a site specific complement amendment of course and it will just be wrapped into that.
15:48:18 Yup, yup. But some of these I'm just not, I don't even know where they are.
15:48:24 So, you know, ones within the city obviously don't not a concern to us. Chimicum Commons guessing that would be a PRD.
15:48:34 We did just get some some communication going with the advocates for Chimacum Commons and Joel did a good job responding to them with laying out the process.
15:48:45 Our understanding was that they had some ideas, some policy ideas. For the PRRD section, the plan rural residential development section of our code and and other sections that
deal with housing like farmworker housing.
15:48:58 And we explained to them that they could propose that first of all the planning commission is tackling housing in the rural area right now period so everything's on the table
essentially for them, but if they wanted to submit a suggested amendment they could do so by March first it's a simple application and that would be considered during this year's cycle.
15:49:16 I did not get the impression that they wanted a rezone or a site specific compound amendment but we did give them the application form.
15:49:23 And told him what the timeline was. That if they wanted to consider this year, they would they would have to submit it by this March first.
15:49:29 And that the possibility that it might there might not be a chance next year but I did not get the sense that that's what they're taking but not sure about that.
15:49:36 So PRD would not qualify as a. Site specific. Yeah, I guess that's just a subdivision application. Just a type of subject. And I know you've told me that before.
15:49:48 I'm just I guess that would be a helpful column to have on this. Yeah. You know, what's the regulatory pathway for I'm just, I guess that would be a helpful column to have on
this. Yeah.
15:49:55 You know, what's the regulatory path This is all important work and a lot of people are already fundraising for and you know most of these projects and so we don't wanna.
15:50:03 Completely get in their way. Keswel Brown, anything there that's going to need to be.
15:50:09 Site specific Caswell Brown already applied for a conditional use permit. And got that permit for their next phases.
15:50:19 So there's nothing there, that I can think of that would be require a comp plan amendment.
15:50:25 UGA swap doesn't require a compliment, right?
15:50:29 A UGA swap would indeed, would indeed require a compliment, but it's not a site specific amendment of a particular applicant.
15:50:36 It's a it's a policy issue that the county and the city would be tackling together.
15:50:41 So the deferral as you wrote it for consideration today would allow a UGA swap to be considered.
15:50:50 Greg, do you have details on any of these Phoenix edition, Rody Court? Those would both be county.
15:50:59 Okay, I don't know Rodi Cord. I'm
15:50:57 Phoenix editions in the city, right? And land is south. I don't know where road chord is.
15:51:05 I don't know, but we can can always reach out to the housing authority.
15:51:09 Okay.
15:51:07 I think that's in the. Is that in the UGA?
15:51:12 I don't know. Okay.
15:51:14 I don't know the ready quick project.
15:51:17 We do we know anything about Iron Dale? I'll be same if habitat refers to habitat for humanity.
15:51:25 We did speak with some proponents from Habitat for Humanity, we did speak with some proponents from Hampet about properties in Irondale.
15:51:29 But it wasn't about rezoning property. And I don't think that that would be the issue is rezoning.
15:51:35 Property in Iron Dale. I think it's more about timing of the sewer and the ability to do unit lot subdivisions, which isn't more of an urban, subdivision type.
15:51:49 Of course, that's in the UGA, but it's not. It's not, but it has the rural transition overlay over it still because of the lack of availability of sewer.
15:51:56 So But again, I don't think a site specific application was part of that. We can certainly reach out to habitat and remind them that the application period is coming right up.
15:52:06 If indeed the intended to submit something but I do not think that that project is in the. Phase one, sewer boundary.
15:52:15 I think you're right. It's not.
15:52:19 So, you know, my, I have. Suggested that if we could add language that would allow for consideration of a site specific amendment if it were being proposed by a nonprofit affordable
housing provider.
15:52:36 But if we can confidently say that we don't think that any of these would be negatively impacted.
15:52:41 I'm I'm not going to push it too hard. But it's just easy to inadvertently hold something up when it's a matter of kind of, you know, timing and funding availability that.
15:52:53 We have a unique opportunity in the next few years to actually. Pull in some cash. I completely agree with this comment.
15:53:00 Can we just add something in case? I mean, we've seen a lot of these projects like emerge quickly.
15:53:07 Yeah, Mason Street. And so, you know. Can we have the ability to consider affordable housing projects in this moratorium or it's not a moratorium but a So I guess my first response
to that is, is this is a great list.
15:53:24 I wish I had seen this earlier because I could maybe done some research on these specific things and try to figure out which ones or ask the proponents essentially which ones.
15:53:32 Are contingent upon a site specific. Comrades to plan a main. Right. I suspect that.
15:53:38 Not many. A few of them or maybe none of them. I really don't know. I would also say that If an application for funding is dependent on a rezone, then I would think that that
proponent, if they're seriously considering applying, would already be in the works for applying for such a thing and they're invited to apply now by by March first to get that going
because we're talking about Because
15:53:59 think about like an application, are we talking about an application that would be submitted? And 2026.
15:54:05 Because then if you're talking about the 2025 cycle that decision isn't made until December for a rezone And I guess I go back to.
15:54:13 What kind of affordable housing projects rely on the rezones. Usually when we deal with rezones it's One dwelling unit for 20 acres or one dwelling unit for 10 acres and someone
is proposing one to only unit per 5 acres.
15:54:27 Now that could make a difference in a PRRD application. But so could revisiting the PRRD.
15:54:32 Requirements themselves and revisiting the bonus density for affordable housing, which I would argue is a better way to approach affordable housing issues on a policy-wide countywide
basis, which we are currently doing.
15:54:45 With assistance from the Planning Commission. And as I said, as I mentioned, the Chimacom comments folks have some policy ideas that they would like to introduce for consideration
this year.
15:54:55 So I guess I would go back to the default of that being the preferred pathway. That said though, I would say that my friendly staff amendment to your idea about changing this
resolution to to put into place that exclusion.
15:55:14 I would ask you to consider. Changing your mind at a future date with another resolution. If that's what you want to do.
15:55:22 In other words, I don't think there's anything that would preclude you from having another resolution.
15:55:24 You could direct staff to prepare it. We would. And then you could change your mind about the next year cycle rather than putting it into this thing because.
15:55:31 Even a laudable. Project, even if it were one site specific amendment that would defeat the purpose in a sense for us of planning. Right.
15:55:43 In fact, if I were to say if we if we get an application that has to be considered in 2025.
15:55:47 I'm automatically gonna say we're gonna we're gonna approach commerce and say that we're we're extending our I'll just say that.
15:55:58 But I think the risk is, you know, somebody calls DCD and they find out that we're not.
15:56:03 But I think the risk is, you know, somebody calls DCD and they find out that there's no.
15:56:04 No site specific amendments and they say, oh, I guess that's, this is on the possibility, you know.
15:56:09 That it's but that doesn't get communicated to write channels to any of us who can make that decision.
15:56:16 Highly unlikely. I agree. But You know, keep in mind, habitat didn't own Mason Street until a year ago.
15:56:21 Like that has happened very quickly and luckily that's within the UGA and that's a very unique circumstance because we only have you know, one, UGA and it happens to be getting
a sewer.
15:56:33 So, you know, it's, it's unique and most opportunities that arise will be in the UGA so can be considered.
15:56:41 But. I don't know, Greg, what's your sense? Like with Ollie Cap or being a little closer to some of the only cap or being a little closer to some of the housing providers.
15:56:48 I think it's really unlikely that we would get one that any of the affordable housing projects that I'm and all involved with are all looking for scalability that being in a
denser area already affords, you know, so I really think it's It's, not that likely.
15:57:07 I like Josh the suggestion if we do get something that comes up, you know, out of nowhere, some new organization comes into town, says we want to, you know, drop a the workforce
housing unit down here.
15:57:18 I mean, then we can. I would say revisit it at that point, but I'd be comfortable.
15:57:27 I get.
15:57:24 I really do think a lot of good is gonna come out of focusing. Focusing on the work of the comp plan and the you know, let's get the code right rather than, piecemeal the solution.
15:57:38 So I like the philosophy as proposed.
15:57:41 And keep our air to the ground to ensure that we're not. Passing up opportunities.
15:57:46 And I would, if there is one, Joe will shave his beard.
15:57:52 Did you hear any Shamus Beard? I couldn't tell. That's my joke.
15:57:51 Yeah. Yes, yeah. Hello.
15:57:55 You gotta hold onto that, Joel. I'll tell you, if there's a side specific comp plan amendment, I'll shave my.
15:58:00 You
15:58:02 I'll share, I'll shave my beard if we have to deal with this.
15:58:05 Okay. So I am happy to make a motion that we approve a resolution to defer consideration to defer consideration of site-specific and suggested amendments.
15:58:16 To the Conference of Plan and the Unified Development Code received by the Department of Community Development after March first, 2,024 until the 2,026 annual amendment cycle
to allow staff time to complete the 2,025 periodic review and update of the comprehensive plan and development regulations by June thirtieth, 2,025.
15:58:36 As required by RCW. 36 dot 70 A dot 1 30 parentheses 5 parentheses B.
15:58:45 Oh, I'll second.
15:58:47 Alright. Carolyn, we need to do public comments. It was already on the agenda with the attachments and nothing has been changed.
15:58:56 Okay, I may just open it up real quick just in case. I'll open up for public comment.
15:59:04 Any member of the public wish to provide comments? Raise your hand by hitting raise hand at the bottom of the screen or If you're in the room, you may.
15:59:13 Public comments. Just this one. Thank you for the clarification just for the motion. On the table.
15:59:21 Last call for public comment. All right, hearing then I will call the question. All those in favor, please indicate by saying aye.
15:59:28 Bye.
15:59:28 Hi. Begrudging I. Not for any. Motion passes.
15:59:39 Not because of any, desire to complicate the lives of staff. It would be interesting to look at that table.
15:59:46 That's like indicate the regulatory pathway that it would take to get that proposed development. You know, in the ground, cause it might not be any of them, as Josh said.
15:59:54 Yeah, do you want me to send that to you, Josh? What's that? Do you want me to send you that spreadsheet? Sure.
16:00:01 Just, I mean, I'm not suggesting you should do what Heidi said just for your.
16:00:07 We'd love to have a deal to engage with those with those players and also thank you very much realize it was a stretch and there was some with those players and also thank you
very much realize it was a stretch and there was some regret begrudging acceptance there.
16:00:15 The the example that Commissioner Brotherton brought up up workforce housing is actually on the table as a policy matter that we're discussing and it might be irrespective of
the underlying density.
16:00:23 Some of the solutions that are being contemplated. So just so you know that, we're looking at all different aspects of this issue than some of which wouldn't rely on the underlying
intensity.
16:00:34 So Keep that mind and again if something comes up between besides the shaving of the beard between between now and I guess I should say between March second because we still
have an opportunity for people to apply this year, but if something were to come up later in the year and it turns out that you know it's something that we're willing to defer our because
we do have a provision in the statue that allows us because of our size
16:00:58 and growth rate. To extend our deadline from June thirtieth, 2,025 to some other time.
16:01:03 Maybe we would invoke that if we felt that it was important enough to do that. So.
16:01:07 Alright, I think we're gonna lose, Greg. Yeah. Alright. Okay.
16:01:12 Yep, I should get off. But lots of good work. Thank you guys.
16:01:16 Anything you want to add before you? Leave.
16:01:19 No, feel like a lot of good stuff happened today, so I appreciate the work of all.
16:01:25 Okay, great.
16:01:26 See you guys tomorrow.
16:01:28 Alright, anything pretty good to the order? On the agenda. I covered a few things.
16:01:40 Okay, I know I know Mark's feelings. You would like to adjourn. Okay, we are adjourned.
13:56:09 From Chambers to Greg Brotherton(Direct Message):
For my minutes, do you know when you arrived? I didn't see you. If you don't remember, I can put 1:55pm
13:56:32 From Greg Brotherton to Chambers(Direct Message):
1:52 PM
13:56:51 From Chambers to Greg Brotherton(Direct Message):
Thanks ð