HomeMy WebLinkAboutchat09:11:55 From Chambers to Hosts and panelists : The SMP update/potential action was moved to March 25th from 10:00 a.m. to Noon
09:12:09 From Kate Dean, Jefferson County Commissioner to Chambers(Direct Message) : thx!
09:40:18 From Chambers to Hosts and panelists : Can you please approve the Consent Agenda before the health update? We have an important hearing notice to publish
14:40:50 From Heidi Eisenhour to Hosts and panelists : Can't hear anything now...
14:41:36 From Mark McCauley to Hosts and panelists : Call in by phone?
14:41:37 From Chambers to Heidi Eisenhour(Direct Message) : 1-253-215-8782
14:41:58 From Chambers to Heidi Eisenhour(Direct Message) : Webinar ID: 9377 7841 705
14:45:38 From Mark McCauley to Hosts and panelists : better?
15:45:49 From Josh Peters, DCD Director : https://www.ezview.wa.gov/Portals/_1992/Documents/2021workshops/Webinar%206%20-%20FFA%20Planning%20and%20Regulatory%20Handout.pdf
15:46:17 From Josh Peters, DCD Director : https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_floodway-analysis-mapping_112021.pdf
15:49:56 From Josh Peters, DCD Director : General info: https://ecology.wa.gov/Water-Shorelines/Shoreline-coastal-management/Hazards/Floods-floodplain-planning
09:00:28 See, I know it looks. Crazy on that screen. I'm not taking it off. I'd be cold.
09:00:34 Hmm.
09:00:37 There it is.
09:00:42 We can do up to 70 next weekend. I know, got a big day of planting.
09:01:03 Okay.
09:01:26 Screeching is kind of, yeah, I'm actually good. Yeah, I'm actually good.
09:01:34 No, no.
09:01:39 We have to approve advertising a vacancy.
09:01:58 Shall we? Everyone ready? Indeed.
09:02:07 Good morning, everyone. I'll call this meeting of the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners to order.
09:02:14 Let's see, anything we need to announce before getting started today.
09:02:20 Not for me. Alright. Okay, so we will start this morning with public comments. We welcome the public to comment on anything they wish this morning and If you're on Zoom, you'll
hit raise hand.
09:02:35 At the bottom of your screen, you will have to accept promotion to panelists in order to be brought over.
09:02:40 If you're in the room, we'll call on you. Ask that you keep public comments to 3Â min to provide everyone equal opportunity to speak.
09:02:48 It is helpful if you give your name and place of residence, though it is not required. Alright, I'll start in the room today.
09:02:56 Who would like to provide public comments? Mr. King? Maggie.
09:03:08 As you know, Monroe Street Shelter will be closing March 30 first Easter Sunday. There will be 3 camps.
09:03:22 When it's one that city hall camp behind, on the grass. One at a golf course camp.
09:03:33 Near the police station, the Y.M.C.A. And the food bank and the transit center camp all have access to public bathrooms City Hall has bathrooms across the street from 8 a. M.
To 8 p.
09:03:47 M. Golf course has the Y.M.C.A. bathroom showers during business and pull hours, additional bathrooms at recovery house from 11 am.
09:03:57 To 4 PM. Tuesday through Friday. Jefferson transit center bathrooms are safeway from 5 am to one am.
09:04:06 We are asking people to make a list of the things they need like body wipes, socks, sleeping bags, tense cots.
09:04:16 Part of, foot and hand warmers. We are working on a place to store, sleeping bags, tense cots during the day that is lockable.
09:04:29 We are hoping to get somebody to donate maybe a shed. We are hoping to get You guys to pony up the city in the county to pony up for.
09:04:41 Portable and toilet at each camp for nighttime and That's that's about it.
09:04:51 We're asking everybody to take a picture and make a list of all their belongings. This is a picture of Lady Liberty.
09:05:02 She's on the psychiatrist couch. And it says this is the new republic magazine. And it says one nation under trauma.
09:05:13 My advice is for everybody to get offline and get off the couch and do something. And so I will.
09:05:23 Hello with the our Continue with these words. From Emma Lazarus. Who wrote the poem the new colossus which is a plaque on the Statue of Liberty in New York.
09:05:44 Send these the homeless tempest tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
09:05:51 Those are the last 2 words you can go over the last 2 lines you can go and look at the text of the entire But really it's about.
09:06:06 She wrote that poem in 1883 way before the UN human rights ratification. Council in 1948 not Maggie.
09:06:20 So all I would like to say is we have a long history. Of accepting homeless people in the community and you know, please.
09:06:33 Don't arrest people who are. Sleeping, eating, or going to the bathroom, long public property.
09:06:42 Thank you.
09:06:43 Alright. Alright, anyone else in the room wish to provide public come in? Okay.
09:06:59 Morning, Mr. King. Good morning.
09:07:09 Okay.
09:07:14 Let me part of the JSNP update process for well over 3 years now and it is evident to me that I've wasted my time.
09:07:26 Showfish aquaculture has a history of well over 125 years in Jefferson County.
09:07:32 There's not been the cause of degradation of our environment. Ask Mike Dawson who runs Chips and County Clean Water District why we have the Clean Water District which brings
in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to further support clean water work.
09:07:45 It is an entity that is created when shellfish growing waters clean in this is threatened. Urban development with its roads, vegetation removal and polluting vehicles is well
documented as the degrader of our native environment.
09:07:58 Yet the Board of County Commission has chosen the path which supports, encourages waterfront development over shelfish farming.
09:08:05 What a front property I know is want the aquaculture section of the Jefferson County SMP to be consistent with neighboring counties, especially Cleveland Kitsap.
09:08:15 In the past neither county has been supportive of shellfish aqua culture. This is evident by the paucity of the productive farms and their shellfish.
09:08:23 In their jurisdictions and in comparison Mason County has a more shellfish friendly SMP and has many acres of shellfish farming and literally hundreds.
09:08:32 Of jobs to show for it. Despite this, the Board of County Commission is choosing to be consistent with Kist, KKKK, and ignoring Mason County's example.
09:08:44 Many claims have also been made that aquaculture, especially goidak farming, is harmful to the environment.
09:08:50 These claims are opinions not backed by facts. And science and contrast the industry has provided the county with scientific opinions and research studies showing that GUIDA
farming impacts and benign inexplicably the commissioners have have given credence to the waterfront property owners and don't seem to be questioning the inaccurate claims they are
making.
09:09:13 As an example, I'm happy to send you a breakdown of Jan Wolves accusations.
09:09:17 And provide references as to why they are in general inaccurate opinions, not facts. Good luck farming in Jefferson County is the only shoreline activity that requires a full
CUP.
09:09:32 I was told by Josh Peters that other shoreline activities, EG, marinas, etc, have not had their status changed by legislation.
09:09:37 So the SMP update cannot address their permitting requirements. When I look at the draft SMP, I see that in many cases the perverting burden has been eased for these other activities.
09:09:50 In this forum, I've heard the commissioner say they're very supportive of Shell for Shack will culture.
09:09:56 Be very clear that if the equal culture section of the SNP is enacted in its present form.
09:10:01 The shellfish industry will see that you are not supportive of Shelford check or culture. And local food production.
09:10:08 You may be content to deceive yourselves, but your actions send a very clear message to the industry.
09:10:15 The proposed changes will stifle a new shelter shackle culture in an innovation, especially smaller growers and less resources.
09:10:23 I'm disappointed and hoped. From this commission. Thank you, Mr. King. L's in the room.
09:10:35 Marilyn Showalter Shine Road I want to tie together 3 things today. I gotta catch my mind.
09:10:45 The first is changing science, ever-changing science. The second is the CUP process.
09:10:52 And the third is non-confirming uses, referring especially to the grandfather oyster farms.
09:10:58 So the ever changing science, so we all know it changes all the time. I put in a letter to you that you may or may not have had time to read, but.
09:11:06 You know, February seventeenth, February seventh. December 20 third these are very recent developments but as they've said microplastic was found in every single placenta tested.
09:11:22 That is just in 8 months of development. And as the article said, think of what that means for a whole lifetime.
09:11:29 The other one was that. Cardiovascular events are increasing very significantly in association with microplastics in the blood system.
09:11:42 And then I was very surprised to learn that the EPA is has undertaken. An inquiry is to, whether PVC should be.
09:11:52 Given the highest priority. Carcinogen which it already is known to be. So it's always changing.
09:12:01 So the CUP process is just an opportunity to find stuff like that out. It does not dictate the outcome, but it allows a process to say, what is the latest science or what's
the latest conditions out there or what's the latest in the marine quality.
09:12:18 That's what a CUP does. That brings me to the, grandfathered.
09:12:22 Shelfish farm. These are non-conforming uses. In general, we frown on non-conforming uses and we limit what they can do.
09:12:34 Now if they do nothing at all, just stay just the same. Really nothing happens. But, but, but these oysters farms are not like, Let's say a house on a hill.
09:12:48 Or bluff. They don't just stand there. They are using the public's. Water and nourishment and marine life every day of the year.
09:12:59 They also are not the same as a standing building because it's a practice. It, it, it, it revolves every, you know, cycle.
09:13:10 It's 5 years or so. For greedux or less but they can change for better or worse.
09:13:15 And that is why a COP should be allowed if they are going to make a change. We're talking about, I think.
09:13:24 10. Shellfish growers, with a lot of acreage. But something on that order.
09:13:32 The staff should have done this a long time ago. What are we talking about? Not today's staff because they weren't here 3 years ago.
09:13:38 But I put in some information like that. It wasn't comprehensive, I don't think. But that's what we should be doing.
09:13:44 Have a CUP if somebody wants to make a significant change. Thank you. Okay, let's go online.
09:13:56 Please hit raise hand if you'd like to provide public comment. You will need to accept promotion to panelists and unmute before you speak.
09:14:03 Start with Mr. Teersch and then Julia Cochran.
09:14:10 Hey good morning commissioners. Couple of things I'd like to cover this morning. First I want to, Again, a great big shout out and thank you to the staff there the county administrator
and his staff.
09:14:26 Who have been very helpful. And migrating the ferry advisory committees. Web presence.
09:14:34 And meeting schedules and all that stuff that's required now. Over to the county website. It's been a bit of work.
09:14:44 But it's now looks like it's well under control and and I just wanted to again say thanks to all the staff.
09:14:51 Who have been so very helpful and responsive to to our needs. Just FYI, our next jury advisory committee meeting is on Wednesday at one o'clock.
09:15:01 Anybody wants to attend. And will be right there in your own commissioner chambers. For the first time.
09:15:07 Be interesting. Second thing is I want to thank you for acknowledging on your agenda today. Sunshine week, very important.
09:15:15 Open government is a topic that I'm pretty passionate about. And so I appreciate you the. Recognising that this is in fact Sunshine Week all across the country.
09:15:27 The third thing is I want to, recognize and thank you for. Posting the work plan that's going to be followed by the proposed task force for studying placement of a pool in Port
Hadlock.
09:15:41 It was originally, I guess, omitted from the agenda, but it, but it was their present in, in your laser face folder.
09:15:49 So I found it and. I'll have more to say about the content of that plan. Later, I don't agree with some parts of it, but we'll save that for the appropriate time on your agenda.
09:15:59 Thanks very much.
09:16:00 Thank you, Mr. Trish. Ms. Cochran.
09:16:05 Hi, good morning. I think I've just moved to Pocket Lane in the county so I'm now for the fighties world I believe.
09:16:17 Welcome.
09:16:15 I Thank you. An experience. Most people like, yes, it's going to be very quiet.
09:16:26 And I'm like, you know, you do realize I'm from Manhattan. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about quiet.
09:16:31 You've got great neighbors on Pocket Lane, Julia.
09:16:34 Yeah, I'm living with with great people too. I'm living with the Taylor family.
09:16:40 Awesome.
09:16:41 So anyway, the housing meeting that happened, the shelter strategy meeting by the housing fund board community conversations committee.
09:16:52 I think I said all that. Was interesting. But I've gotten a lot of phone calls from people who are very frustrated because basically it just sort of outlined the problem that
there is not going to be a shelter.
09:17:07 For an unforeseen time. That only cap has a idea. For a double-eyed trailer that might, you know, squish in 16 people, but they have neither the variances or the.
09:17:20 Money to do that. And so I don't know an answer for the shelter. I have 2.
09:17:27 Other versions of answers and one is that the winter welcoming center figures out how to stay open. So at least there's something 4Â HA day.
09:17:38 For food and clothing and shower tokens and laundry vouchers and the variety of other things we do, referrals to people.
09:17:46 And The other idea is it has to do with supported encampments, has to do with what Maggie is talking about except for I, I'm not gonna tell people where to go.
09:17:59 But, my idea of supporting, encampments has more to do with a religious organization like Jayak, which I think qualifies.
09:18:09 Jul, getting in relationship with whoever owns a land that an encampment exists on.
09:18:18 And, then working with the health department. Sorry, my cat is a little bit of a trip.
09:18:24 My, my animals are having nervous breakdown. Anyway, the health department, the environmental side of that.
09:18:33 Has, the ability to offer. Portopodies and dumpsters and So that's where I'm focusing is.
09:18:48 Those 2 sort of things. I don't have an answer to the shelter. But I know that encampments are exist and will grow regardless of whether or not there's a shelter.
09:18:58 So I think that we need to. Find a way to make them as humane as possible. That's it.
09:19:03 Have a good week.
09:19:05 You too, Ms. Cochran. Let's go to Shelley here now and then Sherry Van Hoover.
09:19:13 Shelley Arnell, Brandon. I'm good morning. Simply put, the new poll task force in question is redundant.
09:19:22 The work product is already complete. The BOCC has in your possession the answers to the questions that the task force will produce.
09:19:30 The new task force is an inappropriate use of county and city human resources and our taxpayer money. The people who are supposed to be the ethical stewards of what is intended
to be the public best interest continue to Be deceptive, facilitating their agendas and own personal interests.
09:19:50 There will be a fiscal impact associated with the task force. The statement, fiscal impact, none on the first page.
09:19:58 Is deceptive and misleading. Anyone working for either the city or the county that participates in this task force could be performing significantly more valuable work for the
taxpayers on more pressing issues.
09:20:10 Are these city and county employees participating without pay? Again, this task force is redundant and a waste of task tax payer resources.
09:20:20 The Pole and Aquatic Center issue is just a Trojan horse being pushed into the citizens to establish the formation of the PFG.
09:20:28 And I repeat my statement of the previous weeks, we do not want a new PFD. I appreciate seeing Maggie in chambers, in the mornings.
09:20:40 And getting to follow her on, video. Because to me, right there, you've got an important need that has to be.
09:20:53 Getting the most attention we can possibly give it on a regular basis and to waste time and energy on this.
09:21:03 I think is. Worse than horrible. Thank you.
09:21:08 Thank you. Is that hover? Welcome.
09:21:15 Yes.
09:21:13 Hi, you hear me okay? Good. So, Sherry Van, who report Hadlock and I wanted to make a request that the monthly public health and emergency management report continue in partnership
with KPTZ.
09:21:33 With the with our public health officer providing really valuable information for the community about whatever is going on with public health.
09:21:43 It doesn't have to just be respiratory illnesses. I think that this has been such a valuable service.
09:21:50 It builds community understanding of what public health does, what public health is, why it's important.
09:21:58 And it could help to avoid a lag in response in future crises if we encounter them or it might even help prevent future crises by creating a better informed populace.
09:22:10 To And, I would but welcome any topics that Dr. Barry or Willie Bentz choose to bring to us.
09:22:20 I dispense this information widely through the community. I think others do too. And I believe that, it has a much bigger reach and a bigger impact in building trust and accountability
than is perhaps realized.
09:22:36 And although it is an investment, I know of. Time and that is value and money. Nonetheless, I don't think that it is an unwise use of resources.
09:22:48 I think it's a much more valuable service than it perhaps is realized and it really does help to prove it reserve and promote a really well informed community.
09:23:02 So that's all I have. Thank you.
09:23:04 Thank you, Miss. Anyone else like to provide public comment this morning? Please hit raise hand at the bottom of your zoom screen.
09:23:19 Alright, I'm gonna go ahead and close public comment then. And open it up for responses. Anyone compelled to start?
09:23:27 I can start. Feels like the shelter conversation should be the front burner thing right now and I'm Wondering what you guys, I mean, I was looking at you guys on housing issues
come up, but I'm wondering what you guys know and if we could schedule a workshop so we could help.
09:23:44 Actually help solve the problems that we're hearing about. Mean I'm in my head going through how many tents I might have in my closet at home and you know it's just that feels
a little ridiculous.
09:23:57 I know there's gotta be better solutions out there than one person or many people in the community thinking about their t so I would love to have a more meaningful conversation
amongst us about it instead of just these quick responses to Maggie every week, which feel.
09:24:14 A little, non productive to me at this point because we all know we agree. What's what's going on so anyway
09:24:34 And then to Gordon and Marilyn, I'm, you know, one thing I woke up the other night thinking about us.
09:24:35 I feel like there's been so much conversation since we had the Planning Commission recommendation. I know we're gonna have another.
09:24:41 Discussion about this on March 20 fifth. But it feels like we need to ground ourselves back in that planning commission recommendation and Talk about why we're differing from
that recommendation, which is what we.
09:24:55 Relie on oftentimes in our decisions are these committees that work very hard to come to a decision.
09:25:02 And then we spend a bunch of time kind of. Trying to understand all the other information that's out there.
09:25:07 So. Would like to get re grounded in that recommendation. I mean, I remember in a.
09:25:12 You know brief what it what it was but I feel like a lot of water's been under the bridge since then.
09:25:18 I, to Tom Teersch. You know, since, I mean, For 3 years now, I've been saying let's make our meetings more accessible and more open and let's make our public comment periods
longer.
09:25:33 We've made great progress I think by having a regular, longer public comment period at every meeting. I would love to think about what, else we can do to make things more open,
but I'm glad to hear that the Ferry Advisory Committee is going to be more accessible.
09:25:47 And. And also that we're gonna recognize sunshine weekend just a few minutes or about an hour maybe.
09:25:56 To Julia. I'm glad to. Here there's some specific ideas.
09:26:02 And I don't know what's the barrier between us. Community in support of encampments, but.
09:26:10 Sounds like those would all be in the city, so maybe it falls in the cities. Per view more than the counties.
09:26:17 But again, it feels like a workshop to talk about that maybe with someone from the city would be helpful.
09:26:25 The Aquatic Center Task Force. I've had a lot of conversations in the last week about the task force and You know, I still think it might be a good idea because it would be
an independent conversation going on instead of these volleys that happen at our meetings, but.
09:26:47 Yeah, I'm still, my jury's still out on the task force idea.
09:26:53 I've gotten a lot of input to Sherry Van Hoover's comment. I got a lot of input.
09:26:58 From folks about keeping the public health update. Even if it's even we're not, you know, we're not in the COVID pandemic times people have come to rely on.
09:27:07 Those times where they can check in about important things going on in the community and. I feel like that's kind of a basic service we can provide and maybe it's not.
09:27:18 Dr. Barry every week. I heard on KPDC on Phil Anderson show last night that I Somebody had been at a Contra dance and.
09:27:27 Gardner or Blynn or somewhere and There was Dr. Barry on the dance board, and it was so great that, you know, there she was that they knew who she was.
09:27:36 And anyway. Just fun to make our, the people in our community and our health leaders more accessible to folks and more a part of the community and I think the public health,
health updates.
09:27:48 Serve that function making us all more human. To our community. So. Those are all my little responses.
09:27:57 Alright, I can go next. Thank you everyone for your public comments. Try to go through.
09:28:03 I agree with a lot of what, Commissioner Eisenhower said to Maggie, appreciate being at the meeting last week and yeah, so we did not have a lot of solutions at the meeting.
09:28:13 You know, when of course the shelter did traditionally close for the summer. It was a winter shelter and we moved to a year round model and we would love to keep that still
looking for options kind of behind the scenes to keep it open.
09:28:26 So I have not given up hope on keeping it open. Happy to have a workshop to hide these point that really kind of dig into this a little bit more and have a chance to really
discuss it among us.
09:28:38 Maggie's plan is legal as far as I know. I would point out that the Safeway bathrooms are not public bathrooms and they are well within their rights to shut those shows shut
those doors.
09:28:47 At the meeting I encouraged a religious organizations as possibilities to take up the slack. Julia talked about that as well.
09:28:53 Our emergency encampment ordinance, which facilitated Coswell Brown, in which the city has a very similar one, I think modeled over ours, which is modeled about over Watson
counties, does allow religious organizations, even not at their own property, but at a piece of property they have legal control over to create these managed encampments.
09:29:18 Support the idea. I think it would be great and we obviously as we pointed out the funding for shelters is based on recording fees, which are significantly down.
09:29:29 We've created, we've been successful at creating more. Capital facilities to shelter people. And our operational funds continue to go down it's It's tough and I, you know, with
the Ninth Circuit Court ruling on being able to create a space for everyone to go.
09:29:49 It does open up the plan that you you you put out there, Maggie, I really would hope that, if we can't find a way to keep the shelter open.
09:29:58 And I know Only Cap is. Trying to place everyone in the shelter at another place and have They have a place and people decline to go to that place.
09:30:08 And they are not legally. Justified and camping on public property. Just be clear. Even if you don't like the place that is offered, that is the legal requirements I understand
it at least.
09:30:24 But I continue to work with Only Cap to try to find a solution and I appreciate the winter welcoming center and Julia and and the whole team and you know it's it's not over
yet and I hope to find the solution for March and happy to have a workshop.
09:30:37 You know, even next week to kind of go through the options. I mean, there's really a couple options.
09:30:42 Find a different funding source.
09:30:45 Find a different organization to run a shelter. That can find the funding. Or find a different model and that model might be more a faith-based, you know, summer shelter, shower
safe camping at a religious organization or a property controlled by religious organization.
09:31:01 But we'll continue to work with you and the advocacy population to come up with solutions. So.
09:31:06 Appreciate everyone's attention and I think the the meeting was respectful. I appreciate everyone. You know.
09:31:13 Being honest and also. Force right at the meeting. So we'll continue to work on it.
09:31:19 It's not easy. I know, Maggie. Appreciate you being here. To Gordon and, Maryland and, you know, we're gonna be talking about this more on the 20 fifth you say.
09:31:29 I mean, I would, of course, I've been recommending planning commission recommendations since the beginning.
09:31:35 I think we're doing We're really digging into. Areas that we don't have a lot of expertise to really understand if there is a parenthetical D beside a C in our planet.
09:31:47 I mean the changes that we're talking about. It was interesting to read, Miss.
09:31:54 Ewald's, recommendations that we asked for and she did provide to us the other day.
09:31:58 About I think the gap between my understanding of what was acceptable to the aquaculture industry and what I guess is now.
09:32:04 We are compelled to do As I understand it, conditional use permits for new GUI ducks.
09:32:10 So now really I believe that the decision point is this very small narrow range of conversions versus and new, conversions and expansions.
09:32:21 We'll, talk about it more then I still, you know, favorite regulatory reform and making it easier for aquaculture.
09:32:28 So I mean, I do. But I think the lane that we're trying to find is getting to the Almost absurdly a level of detail, but I know it impacts businesses and residents in a very
real way.
09:32:40 So I take it seriously. And yet I confess I'm a little bit with Heidi that we've talked so much about this.
09:32:47 It's hard to hold onto the thread of what is important in this. But I do appreciate the the continued input.
09:32:55 And we'll keep going. And then, see to Mr. Toushch.
09:33:05 I appreciate the compliments for staff on the Fair Advisory Committee. Glad to hear that there's the compliments for staff on the Fair Advisory Committee. Glad to hear that
they're supportive.
09:33:09 I have no doubt I know our staff as well as the BOCC are committed to transparency. And, absolutely, you know, paste in the work plan for the task force as an example.
09:33:18 I know I want to comment on one other thing, Mr. Cheers has talked a lot about putting our videos of our meetings on YouTube.
09:33:25 I haven't talking to Carolyn about that and. Really? We're paying money to AV capture and working that contract out.
09:33:32 So the systems that we pay for function would be so much less work than reposting and reposting.
09:33:38 So still going to pursue the AV capture solution, but, you know, if we can't come up with, enough support to make it actually function on with regularity then.
09:33:50 I know, I'll post them. I'll post them on YouTube. Okay. But we'll keep on going and you know, Mr. Cheers contribute to our transparency as well.
09:34:00 I think I brought them one last year to talk after the proclamation and really appreciate that effort and the education I've gotten.
09:34:08 To miss URL and, I mean other, you know, Mr. Grant who sent us and increasingly trace public comments on not moving forward with the task force.
09:34:21 It is a dimensionless expense, you know, budgeted staff that use some of their time to do a task force.
09:34:27 Is not an increase in the budget. It's just, I mean, they're prioritizing that this conversation is important conversation.
09:34:33 And I feel like this is just us doing due diligence. It's not pool or shelter. It's we've got to balance.
09:34:40 Many different. Items of public benefit and You know, this is how we're trying to parse it, but abandoning the idea.
09:34:50 I mean, the task force might come back and say, no, we don't think that it's that there's a path to it, but, we'll talk more about it at our 1030 workshop on it, but I am.
09:35:02 I'm still optimistic that we can find a path that, that creates a public pool.
09:35:07 I will say I spent a lot of time looking at the pool culture in Iceland too, which I've brought up before as well and finding a way like.
09:35:16 Yeah. You're talking about? I'm talking about no public pools. Okay.
09:35:29 You know, we were at a dinner party. This weekend, my wife and I talking about pools, of course, and.
09:35:34 A lot of people don't want to use an indoor pool. I myself, if I went traveling, I would not go to an indoor pool, but as I've said here before, you know, and Iceland, the first
thing we did when we got off the plane was we went to the public pool because they have an outdoor sauna, it's a social area. It's that third place that we're so desperate for.
09:35:50 I mean, it's like I think about Finn River and I think about public pools and I think that's the that's the kind of experience that you want.
09:35:57 So I think there's still conversations to be had. Are you proposing a public pool at Van River?
09:36:05 No, I'm proposing a public pool that has the kind of crowds that Finn River does not doors even in inclement weather.
09:36:11 Okay. And Yeah, I mean, I think the pejoratives and ethical accusations that are starting to come don't.
09:36:22 Make the conversation, they're not constructed with the conversation, worse than horrible to spend. Volunteer time and pre budgeted staff time to see if a public facility can
be funded.
09:36:33 Is exactly what we're here for. So I'm I have starting to get annoyed with some of the pejoratives about the pool.
09:36:42 Let's just have a conversation about the pros and cons of particular plans and if you don't want the pool, you know.
09:36:49 That's that is your opinion and it will go to a public vote before we can do anything public with it.
09:36:54 So, you know, it's still in the beginning times. And, Miss Van Hoover, I appreciate.
09:37:00 The comments I know that we've talked about. Ending or curtailing the health updates but it's great to hear that people are still getting value from that's enough for me you
know and I've heard it from other people too so.
09:37:13 Good doctors time is valuable, but if we can why do we can spread those messages of public health the better so I'm happy to continue.
09:37:22 And that's my response. Great. Feel like I hardly need to be here. Well said both of you.
09:37:31 A couple things, in terms of the shelter, Mark hope you got that message loud and clear workshop maybe next week on shelter great thank you the legislature did include 25 million
dollars to backfill.
09:37:51 25 million dollars to backfill recording fee shortages. Those will be available to counties. You know, consider a potential revenue in the future that we could.
09:38:07 Tap into you know anyway more to discuss but there is a a little glimmer of hope there that, we could get some additional funding.
09:38:18 As for the SMP, More conversation to be had. Just want to make sure you heard the time for the continued deliberations got changed to 10 am next.
09:38:32 Move to March from 10 a. M. To noon. It's from 10 to noon.
09:38:39 Yeah, we won't. Oh, okay. Yeah, we're supposed to be in the end.
09:38:42 Yeah, we don't. Okay, yeah, we're supposed to be in the end. I think it's supposed to be at 1 30 and it's been moved from. Okay, great to 10.
09:38:46 I read that wrong. Hmm. Some more to come there. The, in terms of the, ferry advisory committee, just a little bit of an update on that.
09:38:57 Thank you, Mr. Teersch for your ongoing efforts there. The, I did bring up at our Association of Counties and our last legislative steering committee the desire to kind of have
this new interpretation we have that counties are responsible for fairy advisory committees.
09:39:16 The management of their records and OPMA and their number of counties are interested in working on a fix for that next year.
09:39:25 So I'll be working with you, Mr. Teersch to see. How we want to suggest perhaps the statute language get changed or.
09:39:33 So more to come there as well. The public health reports, glad to hear their support for continuing those.
09:39:41 I think it's probably a question of Dr. Barry's capacity. So we will, continue to discuss that.
09:39:47 We do have that coming up in. 8Â min, so stay tuned, but. I I continue to be very grateful for those reports too, you know, we know that as imperfect humans often have to hear
something many times before it sinks in and Regular reminders are, I think really, really helpful.
09:40:10 So I look forward to discussing that again. I think, oh, just in terms of the Aquatic Center.
09:40:18 Yeah, I am. You know, like we are doing our due diligence. The claims of self-interest.
09:40:28 I've no idea what that's about. I have nothing to gain. I don't even know how to exercise in a pool, like feel like a real, lack on my part that I never learned how to do that.
09:40:40 But I think the importance of children learning to swim is really high and I know that there are many seniors in our community who gain a lot from.
09:40:49 Having aquatics available to them. So, I think we are doing our job and trying to get trying to get more input.
09:40:58 So get criticized for doing so and criticized for not doing enough of that. And I don't know if you guys read the leader this week, but in the there was I forget the gentleman's
same as a regular column and in the column, he talked about how.
09:41:14 I think I'm remembering where this was located in the paper correctly. How, how John Morrow, he's a swimmer.
09:41:24 And how he does laps around people doing laps. That guy is amazing. I think he's pretty amazing.
09:41:31 But he was the gentleman in the column was talking about how. John Marr does laugh around him in the pool. I'm not surprised. Yeah, I'm not surprised either.
09:41:41 Yeah, very physically capable person. Among other things, I'm sure. Yeah. All right, marketing responses.
09:41:49 From you? Okay, so we were we have a consent agenda and very well might not get to the sunshine week proclamation until after our public health update.
09:42:04 So What would folks like to call out on consent? All those road projects love seeing all those road projects.
09:42:13 You know a number of creeks I'd never heard of. Yeah. Yeah, they're no, the creek is got a lot of energy to it for sure.
09:42:23 Lots of salmon benefit there though. All the interesting article in the Seattle Times this weekend. A 1 million dollars a day.
09:42:30 Right on covert replacement projects. One thing I noticed was that the ADA, the accessibility improvements for the Key City Public Theater.
09:42:44 Great. And I know that we are also having trouble with our, accessibility issues in the chambers.
09:42:51 And I'm wondering if we should apply for some of that money to do. A new hearing assist system because ours is stopped working.
09:43:01 So, so ours is beyond. It's incompatible with all the new we acknowledge it honestly don't know. I don't know. Do we?
09:43:08 No. Hmm, great. Yeah, we have some accessibility improvements in the courthouse that we, we could look to as well.
09:43:19 That we already. Appreciate it. Planning Commissioner Mike Nielsen stepping down opening that spot into just in district 3.
09:43:28 Lot of good work that Mike did with us commissioner Nielsen it did with us and I think we talked about reappointing Iron Storming. He seems great.
09:43:39 I met him first time in our joint meeting with the planning commission. He brings a lot of. Valuable skills and it's also as you said in the confirmation great to have a renter
on the planning.
09:43:51 Oh, I know I'd like to buy. You know, hopefully, yeah. In this country, that's kind of the path.
09:43:59 I'm happy to move that we approve the consent agenda. For today, March eleventh, 2024.
09:44:07 Second. All right, any further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Aye.
09:44:14 Alright, we do not have enough time to do our proclamation and we have 3Â min. Until we start our public health update.
09:44:24 Anyone have a A 3Â min item. I know. Do you? I potentially have a 3Â min item.
09:44:36 Just wanted to be sure you heard I believe sent through Mark a message that sounds like the city and public works are on board for pursuing.
09:44:49 A couple of your marks together. One is the Mill Road, design. For, dare I say, new roundabout.
09:44:59 So there's concern if washed out, the State Department of Transportation is designing that alone, that we might end up with one that does not fit the needs or desires of this
community.
09:45:10 The the reference I'm making should go unnamed, but most people know. And so it's interest in city and county working with wash dot too.
09:45:20 Design a better roundabout. So glad that both of our public works teams are on board for pursuing an earmark for that.
09:45:31 And then, the, they're also interested in the, the cities also interested in the only cap.
09:45:39 And we need to move very quickly on these. So Greg, I'm wondering if you feel like we're ready to.
09:45:46 Pull the trigger. One of the first steps is, meeting with the, district staff from all 3 of our congressional delegations and starting to socialize those ideas, but we have
just a couple of weeks to get these applications in.
09:46:00 So. Do you feel like there's interest and that we can move ahead? With all a cap on that.
09:46:06 We're talking about for the construction of shelter. Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
09:46:13 Okay, great. So, with, some more transition happening at Oly Cap, who do you think would be the best contact for, who do you think would be the best contact for?
09:46:29 Maybe going out of town for a week or so. So I'll be talking about the cap and find out who the appropriate.
09:46:34 Okay, great. Yep, cause we're hoping to pull together a meeting in the next. Week.
09:46:41 To kick that off. So, just wanted to get general approval from 2 of you that those seem like worthwhile projects.
09:46:48 Did remind me to we need to rope in transit and thinking about Mill Road and the new shelter for.
09:46:54 In a trail meeting someone expressed concern about you know what are the options for transportation from Kaswell Brown into town is the trail, the only viable option.
09:47:07 So, if you'll help me track that little detail too. Alright, it is 9 45.
09:47:14 Give KPTZ a minute to shift over and let's see, do we have, Great.
09:47:25 Okay. Good morning, Dr. Barry. Good morning, Willie Bence.
09:47:30 Welcome. We are glad to have you here. You heard hope you heard some public comment this morning expressing appreciation for this report.
09:47:38 Thanks.
09:47:38 So. I will hand it over to you, Dr. Barry.
09:47:41 Well, thank you everyone. It's a pleasure to be here and thank you for rolling with the sun change last week.
09:47:48 It's nice to be back with you. And it was an unfortunate week to be away because the CDC decided to give us a lot of news.
09:47:56 Cause the CDC decided to give us a lot of news. So we'll go over some of that today as well.
09:48:00 Nationally, all 3 of our major respiratory viruses, so COVID, flu and RSV, we're seeing downtrend in severe disease, so hospitalizations is the main thing that we track there.
09:48:12 And nationally we are finally starting to see all of those go down. Locally, we have actually had a small increase in COVID.
09:48:18 19 activity and a small increase in hospitalizations as well, which is likely in part related to some long-term care outbreaks that we have going on right now.
09:48:27 Those are some of our folks at highest risk of COVID-19 and then a small community like ours just a small increase in the number of people in the hospital can really shift our
numbers.
09:48:38 But we are certainly seeing a lot of COVID-19 transmission locally. You can see that in our local waste water levels.
09:48:46 And so it is worth continuing to be cautious around COVID-19 thankfully influenza and RSV are turning down in our region RSV a little faster than flu.
09:48:57 We did have a little a little bump in flu activity. We had a tiny second wave in flu. So it's not entirely gone.
09:49:04 We expect to see the flu season last until about April. Out here. And so as far as the precautions that any of us take, consider the respiratory viruses and to be continuing
through March and then see a lot of improvement expected in April.
09:49:18 Certainly at least on the flu and RSP front. And generally we see less activity in the spring and summer for COVID as well, but it is likely to be with us.
09:49:28 For the long term. And so the big news, last week that came down was that the CDC changed the isolation guidance for COVID.
09:49:36 19 saying that basically you only need to stay home when you're sick and then you can stop isolating after that.
09:49:44 A lot of controversy about that decision. And so I wanted to help folks kind of unpack that here.
09:49:50 The first thing to know is that there has been no change in the science around COVID-19.
09:49:55 There hasn't been any new discoveries about how long you're contagious after you get Covid-nineteen.
09:50:01 We know that you can continue to be contagious for COVID-19 until 10 days after your symptoms first started and you can often be quite contagious even after your symptoms have
gotten better.
09:50:11 And so what does this change in guidance mean for us? For my family, I can say that it doesn't really change much for us.
09:50:21 We still know that we can be contagious and so we're still going to be cautious to the extent that we can.
09:50:27 One thing that was, disappointing about the change in CDC isolation guidance was there was a lot of likening of kovat 19 to the flu so basically we're going to treat all viruses
the same all respiratory virus is the same going forward but COVID is not the same as flu.
09:50:44 And you are 10 times as likely to get hospitalized when it comes to COVID-19 and 3 times as likely to die.
09:50:51 If you get COVID-19 those numbers are still unlikely. Most people who get COVID will get better, but saying COVID is the same as the flu, it's just not scientifically accurate.
09:51:03 So the things to know for all of us, of course with all illnesses best practice to stay home when you're sick if at all possible.
09:51:10 We know that that's not accessible to everyone. Some folks can't get off of work, and don't have a choice about that.
09:51:18 So if you do have to go into work, you have to go into public places. Please be sure to mask until you're symptoms resolve.
09:51:24 And to the extent that you are able to access testing for COVID-19, it's still a good idea to access testing for COVID.
09:51:29 19 it's still a good idea to get tested and to make sure that you mask for at least 10 days after you get COVID-19.
09:51:35 Stay home when you can. One worry with this change in guidance is it's, it may give some employers even more reason to push people to go back to work before they're ready before
they're well.
09:51:47 And I wish the CDC had taken another tack, which is really pushing hard for paid sick leave, paid family leave.
09:51:52 So that people could take care of each other and prevent transmission in the workplace. But that is where we are.
09:51:59 So the most important thing for all of us. Stay home when you're sick to the extent you can.
09:52:04 Mask if you can't. And that's always been true. And stay up to date on your vaccines.
09:52:09 So that is the other update is that ASIP, the group out of the CDC who makes recommendations on immunization practices, recommended an additional COVID.
09:52:22 19 vaccine for those over 65 if it's been more than 4 months since your last one.
09:52:27 That's a little confusing because we've been talking a lot about moving towards annual vaccines. When it comes to COVID.
09:52:34 19. And I think there is some suspicion and I share this suspicion that this is on that these 2 things might be a bit connected, is that there's been a push at the CDC to move
from kind of a broad public health strategy to more of an individual health strategy.
09:52:49 So if we're going to take away all the protections in the public, then at least let's get folks over 65 an additional vaccine to protect them.
09:52:56 That's not the way it had to go, but that does appear to be the way that it is going.
09:53:01 So with more folks coming back to work sick, more folks coming into the public sick. If you're over 65 or if you're immunosuppressed are public spaces are likely to get a little
more dangerous, the risk of Covid-nineteen and other respiratory viruses.
09:53:15 Is likely to go up. So adding that extra layer of protection is a smart idea given the situation that we're in.
09:53:22 We don't know how COVID is going to behave in this spring and summer. When we look over the last 3 to 4 years, our worst COVID-19 activity is all in the fall in winter.
09:53:31 But it's still here. And so if you're in one of those high risk groups, if you're over 65, especially if you have a lot of underlying conditions that put you at risk.
09:53:40 It is a good idea to go ahead and get that additional booster. It's not recommended for all the rest of us.
09:53:46 Because our risk of severe disease is low, especially with our accumulated population immunity. But I think as we all move forward into this next phase of the pandemic, it's
really critical to remember those.
09:53:58 Around us who are at highest risk and know that you won't always know who they are. Certainly we all know about folks over 65.
09:54:05 But folks who are immunosuppressed are at high risk from COVID-19 and and they don't wear a sign when you're out and about.
09:54:11 And so staying home when you're sick is mostly to protect others around you. And masking for 10 days after you get COVID is a really important step to protect the people around
you.
09:54:22 And so with that, I'm happy to take any questions.
09:54:26 I would just say I had just had visitors from out of town visiting a sick family member and they were relieved to find.
09:54:44 Yeah.
09:54:36 COVID tests at the library still. So I was just gonna say that out loud. There are still. Because because It I've heard other people puzzling as to where to find COVID tests
for free and libraries are still providing that service as is.
09:54:48 Public health, I believe, too, correct? Yes.
09:54:50 Yes, so there are. Covid-19 tests have stopped being offered from the federal government. And in many other parts of the state, but out here we've been working really hard to
make sure that COVID.
09:55:03 19 tests remain available in an equitable fashion. So you can purchase them at pharmacies, but that's not free and that's not accessible to everyone.
09:55:10 And so we do have COVID-19 tests at the public health department as well as at the South County fire stations and at the library and bookmobile.
09:55:19 And we just purchased some additional tests with public health funds to make sure that that will carry forward even after the state and the federal government stop supplying
it.
09:55:27 And that is true for Jefferson County and I know we have some Calum County listeners from the east side of the county here too.
09:55:32 We still have COVID-19 tests at our libraries in Calm County as well. And pretty soon we're going to start having testing kiosks in multiple parts of the county as well.
09:55:42 So we plan to make sure that COVID-19 tests remain accessible. And that was one of the thoughts in the CDC guidance about why they made that change is that.
09:55:50 Many people in the country don't test. Or can't test, but we want to make sure that people here still can.
09:55:56 So they can still make informed decisions to protect themselves and others.
09:56:00 I loved it that my friends who drove straight from a cattle ranch in Arizona had to stop at the library first before coming.
09:56:05 Okay.
09:56:07 Yes. I actually kind of loved it and hated it, but I love that they got to see our library anyway so they showed up with their tests.
09:56:17 Yes.
09:56:14 Processing on their console between their seats and their truck and It was my most, short story where the COVID-19 testing moment in the whole, whole pandemic.
09:56:27 Okay.
09:56:28 Okay. I don't have any questions. I saw there were quite a few questions from the listeners last week.
09:56:35 Yeah.
09:56:35 So, and, and also many exportations to continue these conversations. So I think Dr. Barry, you had said previously you do have the capacity to continuum at the once a month
interval we're doing.
09:56:47 Yeah, if you want to, we can do it.
09:56:49 Right, I think we do. Yeah, it does seem to have a lot of value and.
09:56:54 I just want to say to I've been thinking, I think it was. 4 years ago, almost to the day, you know, that, that we were really starting to go, oh my gosh, I'm thinking, how can
we shut down everything for 2 or 3 weeks?
09:57:07 Yeah.
09:57:10 And thinking, how can we shut down everything for 2 or 3 weeks? You know, knowledge what we've all been through together.
09:57:14 If you had told us then that we would still be talking about this 4 years later, we would have never believed it.
09:57:19 And we probably would still be talking about this 4 years later, we would have never believed it. And we probably would have quit our jobs, but.
09:57:23 Oh.
09:57:23 Yeah, and I think it's important to acknowledge those universities can feel a variety of ways to folks.
09:57:31 I know we just had the home show in Los Angeles, which I remember as the first large event that we cancelled.
09:57:37 And so that really kind of stuck in my mind. And so just also making space for folks, if you, if that anniversary is hitting you hard, that's not uncommon.
09:57:47 We're right around the time that things got really intense for many of us. And so making that space for yourself to the extent that's possible and for each other if folks are
feeling a little testier that can be wide and just making space to understand that.
09:58:01 Yeah, the first thing I hear I've heard from my mom this morning is it's Dr.
09:58:04 Barry Day.
09:58:04 Yeah.
09:58:06 Let's keep it a tradition for now, please.
09:58:10 Sounds good. And we can always talk about other public health things if we get less virus excitement over time.
09:58:16 So yes, talking, we did get quite a few questions. So one was about the, the, the updated Kovan, 19 vaccine.
09:58:26 So yes, the current most updated vaccine is a monovalent. So it's again XPB.
09:58:31 It's the most it was the most common dominant circulating, sub variant when that vaccine was made and it is still showing good protection against the current circulating variants
to the extent that we can study that.
09:58:43 We do have a lot less on the ground data on variants now because of the scaling back of the public health response as a whole.
09:58:52 But we have seen mixing studies against current circulating variants where they take blood of a person who's been exposed to to those the person who's been vaccinated against
those variants and we see good neutralizing protection so it's still a great vaccine and as far as decisions about whether or not to get vaccinated, the most important thing is that
you got this most up-to-date
09:59:13 dose. Those who are over 65 are relatively well vaccinated in our community over half of our community has gotten the most up to date vaccine, but that still leaves a good proportion
of our folks over 65 who have it and the majority of folks under 65 have it.
09:59:32 Good idea to get that vaccine. It protects you. It protects the people around you by making you less likely to get and give COVID.
09:59:36 19 to others. So if you haven't gotten that, it's worthwhile to do.
09:59:41 If you are one of those folks who got one as soon as it came out and it's been more than 4 months and you're over 65 it is a good idea to shore up that protection now, especially
with some of the decreased societal protections we're seeing going forward.
09:59:54 The vaccine is incredibly safe. You may get some side effects for up to 2 days afterwards. The most common is fever or chills.
10:00:03 That's what I get every time I get this vaccine. Muscle aches you might even feel ill for a couple of days know that it didn't give you COVID but it is your immune system learning
to fight COVID let's see, we talked a little bit about, folks who are high risk and this particular writer was asking about a additional doses of, about additional doses of, of
10:00:29 the most recent COVID-19, the most recent COVID-19 the monovalent against XPB, the most recent Covid-nineteen, the monovalent against XPB, about the most recent COVID-19 the
monovalent against XPB, about the most up to date vaccine.
10:00:40 It is approved for additional doses for folks who are immunosuppressed under the direction of their physician.
10:00:41 The exact cadence of those will depend on the degree of your immunosuppression. So if you are immunosuppress, it's definitely worthwhile to talk to your doctor about how frequently
they recommend getting COVID.
10:00:51 19 vaccines. The main reason for that is that it's all about how long your body can maintain an immune response and that's going to vary depending on the specifics of your condition.
10:01:02 And it's not something we can make kind of broad public recommendations on, but definitely talk to your doctor.
10:01:08 I know, some folks in my practice who are have significant immunosuppression who are getting dose the every couple months, to try to maintain their protection.
10:01:18 And that is one other reason for the recommendation for additional dose for those over 65 is because we know those over 65 don't maintain their immune protection the same way
those under 65 do.
10:01:31 As our immune system ages, it doesn't, it doesn't keep that protection the same way it used to.
10:01:36 And so that extra layer is helpful for that community. Another one was talking about wastewater.
10:01:44 So last month we were talking about an increase in COVID-19 in the in the waste water samples and this person pointed out we used the phrase small uptick and it looked like
a big uptick.
10:01:56 So they wanted to clarify that. The main thing to know about waste water is that it can be a noisy background so you can see big ups, bigs downs and that can be driven by a
couple of different things.
10:02:07 One can be actually big increases in people in the area. So if we have a sudden festival and a lot of people come from out of town, the number of people using our wastewater
goes up.
10:02:20 We do try to correct for that in flow corrections, but it's not always possible to do.
10:02:25 And so if you see a sudden massive uptick that comes right back down, that's usually a people problem more than a virus problem.
10:02:33 But if it's really staying sustained up, then we know that we're having a lot of ongoing transmission, but you will see some bouniness just because we have a small population
in bigger areas.
10:02:43 You'll tend to see a smoother curve because it's corrected for the amount of people there.
10:02:47 The only place we have in Jefferson that has wastewater sampling is Port Townsend because of the sewer system because most of the rest of us on the rest of the county are on
septics and we can't monitor that so it's still a little slice of information but it is one helpless slice that we can look at.
10:03:06 Another question was about Pax Lovat and this person brought up basically a challenge when it comes to Pax little bit.
10:03:15 So Pax little bit is only useful if you get it within 5 days of COVID-19.
10:03:20 And sometimes you don't test positive until 3 or 4 days after your symptoms started. So there's a very narrow window.
10:03:27 In which you can access Paxlovid. And the most honest answer to that question is that is true.
10:03:34 And there's not an easy solution for that problem. That is true. And there's not an easy solution for that problem.
10:03:40 The's not an easy solution for that problem. The base thing to know to prevent that is to test early and make sure you test again.
10:03:43 24Â h later, 24 to 48Â h later so that you can try to access that Pax a little bit in time.
10:03:51 But I do think it is true that we can't all rely on Paxilovet. It may be too late by the time we test positive.
10:03:57 It may be too late by the time we test positive. There's not really evidence for extending Paxlovid later in your course of COVID.
10:04:02 19 because it's it really has to get into your system quickly in order for it to be effective.
10:04:34 Let's see, just a couple more questions. One question was about masking at Jefferson Healthcare and I should say I am not a representative of Jefferson Healthcare were separate
organizations, so I can't speak for them, but I can say that I coordinate with them pretty regularly.
10:04:52 And there is still a requirement of Jefferson health care for masking in patient facing areas and particularly in high risk patient facing areas like oncology that was one of
the things that was brought up in this question.
10:05:03 So what I will do is I will pass this forward. To Jefferson Healthcare to, to check out and make sure that folks are still masking.
10:05:13 It is really important that we mask up when we're working with the most vulnerable in our community.
10:05:19 And so for me that means all of my patients. But especially if you're dealing with books for immunosuppress, masking is common and actually was a norm before COVID.
10:05:29 So when you would go to the oncology floor at UW, you had the masked up just to be there because of the risk associated with those illnesses.
10:05:38 So I will reach out and make sure. As far as being up to date on vaccines, yes, Jefferson health care does, does encourage all of their, other staff to be up to date on their
vaccines.
10:05:53 I don't believe it is actually a full on mandate for everyone at this point, but I will pass that forward to them so that they can respond specifically.
10:06:03 Couple other questions. This person asked about, the efficacy of additional layers of protection, particularly, it looks like they were looking at a nasal powder for preventing
COVID-19.
10:06:18 I would say I haven't seen strong data for that. In particular, your most important layers of protection are staying vaccinated and masking and crowded indoor areas and that
honestly those 2 are going to be your biggest when I always I always remember that in for the first 2 years of this pandemic, in addition to being your public health officer, I was
also working in the COVID.
10:06:42 19 wing of my clinic and so I saw patients every day. 10 to 20 of them.
10:06:48 Who would cough COVID-19 into my face and I did not get COVID because I wore a high quality mask.
10:06:53 And so the masks really do work as long as we wear them. So I wouldn't Reach out to additional products.
10:06:59 Some of those, can actually have some side effects associated with them and don't have a lot of proven efficacy.
10:07:06 One other important factor is cleaning your indoor air. So making sure as hopefully we start to get warmer, you can open windows and get some fresh air in.
10:07:15 But in the meantime, having good air filtration, we have the HIPAA filter at my house that we keep running.
10:07:23 Those kind of things make a huge difference to the extent that you can have them. Let's see.
10:07:30 One person asked about how we can, how we can make decisions about our risk. And that was partly to encourage us to keep having these briefings.
10:07:41 But also I want to acknowledge that we have less data available for people to make decisions about real time risk.
10:07:48 It might be hard to remember, but there was a time where we actually were counting how many cases there were.
10:07:52 In the county and we could really track it and when it went down low, we felt safer.
10:07:58 We don't have as much access to that kind of information now, partly because of these changes in the state and federal response to the pandemic.
10:08:07 And the changes in funding accessible to do that. What I would say is that The biggest way to that I make decisions has to do with my personal risk and the space that I'm moving
into.
10:08:21 So my personal risk is not incredibly high. But that that is different for other people in my family who are much higher risk.
10:08:29 So my dad always wears a high quality mask in pretty much any indoor space that he goes into because of his personal risk profile.
10:08:37 I also try to make decisions based on the space that I'm going into if I'm going into an airy grocery store that has their windows open and not a lot of people and I'm not going
to be there very long.
10:08:48 I'm going to go there, grab a thing and get right out. That's a relatively low risk exposure.
10:08:54 But if I'm going to a crowded indoor space where I'm going to be there for an hour and it's feels stuffy so that all of our air is circulating and we're breathing the same air
for a long period of time.
10:09:03 That's a place where I'm gonna wear a mask. And certainly anytime that I feel a little bit ill, I'm gonna wear a mask to protect other people.
10:09:11 So as we make decisions going forward, we can't make as much of a decision based on how much COVID is out there.
10:09:17 We have to make decisions based on ourselves and the spaces that we're in. And if it feels stuffy, put a mask on as my general rough call.
10:09:25 And if there's a lot of people close to you for a long period of time, that's a good time to mask up.
10:09:31 And that's all the questions I see. Any other questions from our commissioners?
10:09:37 Can I just make a comment? Cause I heard a really great. Podcast if anyone. Loves wastewater as much as I do.
10:09:46 Freakonomics recently had a great podcast, including a segment with a CDC virologist who did their original wastewater studies and she talked about we can see wastewater surveillance
as consider it a weather report just like we listen to a weather report and decide how many layers we're going to bring.
10:10:06 Think of it as a, you know, a very poopy weather report that can help you make decisions.
10:10:08 Yeah.
10:10:12 And she talked about the value of it because it's it's also anonymous and doesn't require people to change behavior.
10:10:16 So in terms of public health surveillance tool, how excellent it is. So I thought that was really valuable information and I do just want to say too how grateful I am that we
continue to get these consistent messages from you, Dr. Barry.
10:10:30 I had 2 trips to the East Coast with big conference rooms, you know, window list rooms and basements filled with people and I was very proud to not come home with COVID either
time.
10:10:39 Yeah.
10:10:40 So it works.
10:10:44 I'm glad to be here and I think it is really important that we have a space where people can raise questions.
10:10:50 And get vetted answers. And so I hope folks keep sending in questions, as we move forward.
10:10:57 Great. All right. Willie, what do you have for us today from Emergency Management?
10:11:04 Hey, good morning, everyone. Thankfully, not a whole heck of a lot from emergency management.
10:11:11 We've had some weather recently, a few power outages. Over the course of the weekend, but thankfully nothing like back in January.
10:11:17 I'm so pretty standard winter weather fair for us over the past couple of weeks. We are starting to think about, summer already here.
10:11:27 I'm in emergency management and with our partners. I'm snow pack remains pretty low. I'm more starting to prepare for the summer weather season and potentially wildfire season,
especially with our partners.
10:11:38 So we have a couple of, you know, outreach and education of events coming up. Port Ludlow was helping kick us off in mid- with a big event focused on wildfire response and evacuation.
10:11:49 So we are looking forward to talking with the community. Big thanks to, to, Fire and Rescue and Chief Black for helping push that as well.
10:11:56 So again, starting to shift our focus a little bit, forward as we seem to be hopefully creeping out of winter just a little bit.
10:12:03 One thing we talked about at our JPREET meeting earlier, a little bit earlier this month was our Nixel text alert service.
10:12:11 So I do wanna take this opportunity to pitch that one more time. I may be preaching to the choir just a little bit if you're listening to the KPTZ briefing I'm assuming you
might already be signed up for Nixel but it certainly doesn't hurt.
10:12:21 I'm Nixel is our emergency of subscription based text alert service. You can sign up by going to the DEM website or just by texting Jeff code DEM one word 2 8 8 7 7 7 and we
send emergency alerts updates on major accidents that cause road closures on major highways, updates on major accidents that cause road closures on major highways and major arteries
in Jefferson
10:12:44 County, major highways and major arteries in Jefferson County. And I specifically wanted to bring this up because as we were, closures on major highways and major arteries in
Jefferson County.
10:12:55 And I specifically wanted to bring this up because as we were talking Make careful decisions about when we let folks know there's something going on.
10:12:57 We certainly don't want to fatigue folks with too many text messages. But do want to bring you important information.
10:13:03 We send about a Nixon a week over the course of the year, including the initial alert as well as the follow-up and it remains relatively consistent throughout the year.
10:13:12 Winter obviously rings winter storms, rain, maybe a little bit of snow. But then in the summer we have more motorists on the road.
10:13:19 We have the tourists. We have the part-timers in town. But we specifically see it ever so slight dip in Nixon's come March in April.
10:13:29 I'm so knock on wood, we always hate to say what we call the Q word, which is quiet, but we are entering, I'm hopefully a little bit of our quiet period.
10:13:36 So that would be a good time for you to sign up again on our website, Jeff code DEM to 8 8 8 7 7 7 to sign up for Nixon.
10:13:43 I'm gonna get emergency alerts as we kind of are coming out of the winter weather season and preparing for summer.
10:13:50 From heat, smoke, potentially wildfire. That being said, I did want to, talk a little bit about as well.
10:13:56 I'm Julia Cochran was here earlier. I know the shelter. Situations at the forefront of everyone's mind.
10:14:01 We are working here in DEM with public health and specifically environmental public health, and specifically around sheltering during extreme weather.
10:14:10 And we did work with the Winter Welcoming Center to support them. I'm with a couple of different things, especially during that January response.
10:14:18 We do hope to continue work with community centers and other community groups and preparing for the summer season, which can bring potentially excessive heat as well as smoke
from wildfires even out of the area as we saw a few years back.
10:14:32 So I'm really appreciate that community conversation. We do want to support, with materials where we can, especially with training on how to handle.
10:14:41 Those extreme weather events. I mean that's something that's very very much on our minds here in DEM as well as public health right now.
10:14:47 So appreciate the continued community support there. Otherwise that's it for me. No KPTC questions.
10:14:55 Again, this month for me. So happy to take any if there are from the commissioners.
10:15:00 Willie, I have a question. So you just mentioned that the.
10:15:06 You know, the snow pack is lower than. Previous when is it when is that an emergency? When is anticipatory.
10:15:18 Reduced water availability, when does that become an emergency? Does something trigger? A lack of snow in the mountains being an emergency.
10:15:27 That is an excellent question. One, I don't know what drought level would, cause a statewide or a local emergency.
10:15:36 Let me follow up on that. I, I don't think we're near that quite yet, but we're certainly at an area of kind of elevated concern, but let me look to see if we have any automatic
triggers.
10:15:47 But let me look to see if we have any automatic triggers. I don't believe we do have any automatic triggers.
10:15:51 I don't believe we do at the local level, but I'm sure there are at the state.
10:15:51 Might be something good to consider, you know, just. I know I look at the mountains a lot and feel trepidation so And it's something I've been thinking about.
10:16:03 Maybe we need a department of existential on we. Okay, probably. I think that's our department.
10:16:13 Well, you don't get much of a break between winter storms and planning for wildfire, do you, Willie?
10:16:18 They all kind of flow into one another, but, again, I knock on wood. I don't wanna jinx, jinx anyone, but this does appear to be, at least in terms of our Nixel alerts, somewhat
of a little bit of a quiet period, so fingers crossed that maintains.
10:16:34 I don't I don't have a question but a comment you know I was at the J.
10:16:41 Prep meeting and enjoyed it it was really on Nixel and on the wash dot alerts too and I don't know, at some point I turned off my next alert and turned it back on and reluctantly
turn the wash dot back on too and it wasn't.
10:16:49 12Â h before our staff said, could you turn those watchdog updates off? You got over a hundred last night.
10:16:58 So, I appreciate the, the I'm gonna use a word that we heard public comment because I like paucity of Nixon alerts and only the really critical one.
10:17:08 So thank you for that. I just signed up for them again and it told me you're already signed up and then it also because I had a typo in my subscription told me I was now signed
up for Nick's Alerts in Jefferson County, Alabama.
10:17:18 So we'll see. We'll see how that goes. You should sign that IDI for the wash dot too.
10:17:26 Yeah.
10:17:22 Okay. And if you were anyone else listening, needs help with your Nixel account, do reach out to us.
10:17:31 We can't actually work directly in your account. We don't have access to your data. Your name, your phone number, any of that when you sign up, I'm it all goes to a list maintained
by the company.
10:17:42 But we can at least walk you through the options on how to maybe alter the level of alerts that you receive if you don't want the major road closures alerts and there is a way
to turn it off so you only receive the, you know, the more impactful things like tsunami.
10:17:56 Advisories and the like. So there's a way to alter your settings and we can help walk you through, you know, how to remove another Jefferson County elsewhere in the country
that you may have accidentally signed up for.
10:18:05 So, always happy to help with things like that.
10:18:07 And that's mostly logging on to a computer into your next of account, right? Is that how you make those adjustments?
10:18:12 So you want to quickly just tell us how Nixel, it's nixel.com slash.
10:18:17 Log in.
10:18:15 Yep. Yep. nixel.com in there is in the upper right hand corner.
10:18:24 The ability to click on that and sign up for your account. Or log in to your previously registered account to view your settings that way.
10:18:31 And there's also a Nixel customer service email that they have on their website that you can contact as well.
10:18:37 And again, if you're kind of feeling overwhelmed, it can be a little tricky. Reach out to us here at DEM and we can give you that information.
10:18:42 I appreciate it. I thought it was only on the phone. It was super easy to configure with you with your help on last Friday or Friday before.
10:18:48 Thank you.
10:18:48 Awesome. And thank you for guinea piging that for us too.
10:18:52 All right, well thank you both. We will see you next month back on our. First Monday schedule, presumably.
10:19:04 Thank you. Bye, guys.
10:19:02 So thank you to KPTZ and all the listeners. Have a great day everyone and so since we give 11Â min back do we now get to like each pick a song? Oh, we can try it with.
10:19:18 Yeah, we should talk to KPTC. We, we can try it with. Yeah, we should talk to KPTZ about.
10:19:23 I don't think they love the And city one, they don't even let the city choose the.
10:19:27 They want the smooth transition to the next program. Yeah. Yeah, I played Navigator by the Poges at last Friday. Oh, perfect.
10:19:35 Cool. Good. Alright.
10:19:41 Should we do our proclamation and then, I was gonna bring up the, for the task force for their product facility and there is going to be a publication that needs to be addressed
for just as long as you know that that's .
10:19:59 And, How about the official county newspaper record? That's not time sensitive this morning. Okay.
10:20:07 Alright.
10:20:10 Can we do proclamation and then quick bio break and then come back and do the task force?
10:20:17 Sounds good. Great. Thank you. Nice planning.
10:20:19 Shared team. So, every year we proclaim Sunshine Week and, It is very important to this commission and to Jefferson County that we remain transparent that we continually seek
improvement.
10:20:38 So that our work, the work of the people is, accessible to the public and seen by the public.
10:20:43 We're grateful for advocates like Mr. Tom Tears who are providing us constant reminders on how we can continue to improve.
10:20:51 Anyone want to say a few words before we read the proclamation?
10:20:57 I have. I think it's critical. I learned this is not something that you come into government knowing intuitively.
10:21:06 It's something that you have to practice and like a lot of things that take training you have to want to do it and really train your limbic system to be to be executing that
practice.
10:21:18 So it's not something that we're perfect on. It's something we're practicing.
10:21:22 And it's also a strange time in terms of public participation, right? I mean, I feel like we unlearned some of our habits that we had before the COVID.
10:21:34 19 pandemic and we're trying to. Re-encourage people to engage in the public process and Come, come to our meetings either.
10:21:42 Virtually or in person and make public comment and. I think the more times we can provide. Access and opportunity for public comment the better.
10:21:51 Especially in kind of rebuilding those habits, right? This feels like we're Look at our empty room here.
10:21:59 We often look out at an empty room and it feels like. Okay, where is everyone? So, you know, and then I see people in the food co-OP and 12 people want to talk and like come
to the come to the commissioner meeting everyone we should all be hearing this you know.
10:22:14 Yeah, it will say too. I think we do a better job than most counties, you know, I interact with.
10:22:21 Counties from around the state and hearing the way that they do business. You know, it's obvious that we, we take steps to really ensure that we are implementing both the letter
of the lie and the intent of the law.
10:22:34 I'm proud that we do that even though it is a significant investment of resources. Alright, shall we read the proclamation?
10:22:43 I'm sure Heidi, Greg, me. Sure, so. Proclamation for Sunshine Week.
10:22:50 Whereas James Madison, the father of our federal constitution, wrote that consent of the govern requires that the people be able to arm themselves with the power which knowledge
gives and Whereas an open and accessible government is vital to establishing and maintaining the people's trust and confidence in their government and in the government's ability to
effectively serve the people and.
10:23:13 Whereas the protection of every person's right of access to public records and government meetings is a high priority of Jefferson County Washington and whereas the Jefferson
County Board of Commissioners is committed to openness and transparency in all aspects of county government and seeks to set a high standard in this regard and.
10:23:32 Whereas Jefferson County intends to hold all open public meetings in a hybrid format whenever practical to allow for greater accessibility for the public and will allow for
in-person attendance as physical space and health and safety protocols allow.
10:23:46 Now therefore, be it resolved that the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners joins members of the news media and many jurisdictions throughout Washington state and our nation
in proclaiming the week of March tenth to sixteenth, 2,024, which includes the anniversary of the birth of James Madison, a founder of our federal constitution, as Sunshine Week.
10:24:06 And during the sunshine week and throughout the year, the BOCC commits to continuing to enhance the public's access to government records and information to increase information
provided electronically and online and to ensure that all meetings of deliberative bodies under its jurisdiction and their committees are fully noticed and open to the public.
10:24:26 We encourage all people to join us in observing the importance of transparency and openness in a free society proclaimed this eleventh day of March, 2,024.
10:24:36 I'm happy to move that we adopt this proclamation. Proclaiming the week of March, the tenth, 2,024 at Sunshine Week.
10:24:43 I'll second. Okay. Any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor please say aye.
10:24:48 Let the sun shine. Alright. Okay, let's take a, let's see, depending which clock we're looking at.
10:24:58 Let's take a quick bio break until 1030 and we will come back and have our discussion and put into action on the healthier together task force.
10:31:17 Alright everyone, we are coming back from a quick break. We are going to discuss the healthier together task force scope of work.
10:31:32 Thanks, Kate.
10:31:30 Welcome to Carrie Heights. City of Port Townsend, director of Parks and Recreation Strategy.
10:31:38 And we also have John Morrow, city manager with us. Hi, Kerry. Long time no see.
10:31:45 Good morning commissioners. Nice to see you.
10:31:48 So who wants to kick us off? Oh, thank you. I I can kick us off and John or Kerry or Mark, please speak up.
10:31:59 I'm still pretty pretty new on the steering committee. So. As was attached, belatedly, sorry, I think that was my fault to the agenda item agenda request we had.
10:32:09 The kind of the little one pager we worked off yesterday, I may change is based on our conversation and sends it around to the steering committee and I think that it.
10:32:19 All the changes were received with equanimity. So we're pretty comfortable with that. We have a draft public release to that ADL help me build.
10:32:30 I don't think it mentioned the one page letter yet. So we've got a little a little more to do maybe on that.
10:32:34 But the question really is if we want to get this posted this week for a 2 week posting period to accept members.
10:32:41 We gotta act on it and I think you know a question that I repeatedly have is who does this task force repeat to, report to, and I think if we're gonna be seating and it reports
to us, we also wanted to report this during committee.
10:33:01 Of course we're talking about 8 members on this task force, 2 from each district. That each of us will choose based on the, submission letters and application.
10:33:11 And then 2 from the Jefferson Aquatic Coalition who live outside of Port Townsend.
10:33:16 That's how it. That's I don't think all good there, Kerry.
10:33:20 Yes.
10:33:22 And then, you know, I guess the one thing I'm not, you probably went with this earlier, Kerry, but I would love to consider an outdoor pool a little bit more seriously too.
10:33:33 And I don't know, is that do you think beyond the scope of this? Work, work plan as drafted.
10:33:38 As drafted probably not we're looking at a less expensive pool so if that's you know with the sprung structure specifically if the commission has an interest in an outdoor pool
we certainly can drive the test for that direction as well.
10:33:54 So not something that has come up previously other than interestingly, and Kerry, you know more about this than I do, our CEO, there are CEO grants that can be used for outdoor
pools only.
10:34:06 That cannot be used for indoor. So it is potentially a new funding source as well. I'm also a big fan of the outdoor pools and Iceland.
10:34:16 Although you have to, you have to strip down naked, shower naked. And there are people, there are people watching to make sure you are watching the important parts of your body.
10:34:25 Yeah.
10:34:26 Using bacteria. So to be fair, it is a more stringent process than, Americans are used to.
10:34:35 Yeah, but it's also a more used resource than we have in America. I mean, I've been I went to them in tiny little towns.
10:34:42 I went to them in Reykjavik and every single time I went they were pretty much at capacity with people socializing and swimming.
10:34:53 Some families go twice a day every day. So I mean, when I was looking again through the the report and the They're pretty Small expectations for usage.
10:35:06 And I, yeah, I'm wondering can we make it bigger? But of course, as I look for outdoor pools in Washington state.
10:35:11 I saw first that, you can use them for high school competitions. So I don't know that addresses one thing.
10:35:19 And you can also, but also let them work that has an outdoor pool that I really loved.
10:35:27 They are looking into a PFD to replace it with indoor pool. So, you know, I and I think the reason why looking through their surveys and everything is because the outdoor pool
was really beloved and they could only.
10:35:44 Yeah.
10:35:43 Operated 3 months out of the year. Yeah. That's what I was gonna ask her.
10:35:49 But I think, and you know. Outdoor pools also giving you the opportunity to really, I mean, I know that if I was going to go to a pool, even to watch my kid learn how to swim,
going to an outdoor pool in the summer would be more appealing than going to an outdoor, indoor pool in the summer.
10:36:03 And I think year round I would I would have that experience. I don't like being in big wet.
10:36:08 I don't know Hmm. But sorry, that's, that's my own rip.
10:36:16 Sorry.
10:36:15 Commissioner Brotherton, I have a question about that and speaking about outer pools. Do you just crank up the heat during the winter or is it a seasonal pool?
10:36:23 Well, I think that there's options to go both ways. I, my preference would be that maybe some of the facilities like in the dead of winter, maybe the 25 meter pool is, you know,
a 2 season pool and the lazy river goes into a celerian that also has Benches, I mean, I was up at Whistler, you know, and went to where my wife went to a Swedish
10:36:47 Yeah. The hot tubs, yeah.
10:36:44 bathhouse that had a Great Solarium and different little hot pots and and those things are year round so I mean In my mind, it's a flexible schedule based on use, but it, you
want to make it able to function for 4 seasons and
10:37:02 Making more of a hybrid too. I've been reading a book about Japan. It's one of my favorite books.
10:37:11 I'm rereading it and There's a whole culture there of on sense, you know, the bath houses and I just love that it's the whole community.
10:37:19 Like relies on it for different. For communication and exchange the information and taking a bath and swimming and I like that culture.
10:37:31 I don't, you know, it feels like a Hi Bar for us to say that we can meet that culture.
10:37:37 Cultural demand with a pool, but yeah, I mean, I lived in South Korea and the same same culture exists and a lot of it was because you know you didn't have Indoor plumbing for
a long time, right? So this culture built up.
10:37:49 But, you know, it would be, yeah, it's a culture we'd have to develop, but I think there's a lot of people that go out, but I think there's a lot of people that go out, swim
in the ocean, you know, year round.
10:38:00 People on staff to do it, right? So it's not impossible and you can have it heated to different.
10:38:05 Temperatures, right? That's how most Icelandic pools are like the, you know, kind of the cool competition pool and then a lazy river that's a little little warmer and then hot
tubs even warmer and a good sauna.
10:38:17 I mean I would go to that pool.
10:38:19 You know, there's some history here that. Mountain View was outdoor and outdoor pool.
10:38:25 It was developed as an outdoor pool and then the community decided to put a top on it and put to cover it.
10:38:29 So it could be used year round.
10:38:29 And Kerry. I'm sorry, I'm going to step on you, but Kerry, do you remember in talking with the sprung folks, is that the kind of thing that you can plan could you could we plan
an outdoor pool that if the community you know, jumped into it and it started, it wasn't practical to use year round, could be a sprung enclosure could be added to an outdoor
10:38:52 pool.
10:38:53 I can talk to them. I don't know the answer to that. I don't think it's easy to disassemble and assemble.
10:39:00 I think it's a pretty rigid structure that they eat once you put it up it costs a bit to put it up and so, you, once you put it up, it costs a bit to put it up.
10:39:13 And so, meaning like if you do an hour pool and 5 years later, you decided you want it to be indoor can sprung to it.
10:39:17 I can ask him about that.
10:39:16 Yes. Yeah, I mean, you see in the extruding process, you know, where they basically do one ramp for the time, it would be more complicated of course if you had.
10:39:22 But, but I don't know.
10:39:23 But it's something you could design maybe upfront so that you it's easier to install later.
10:39:31 I wonder if maybe just having a a line in here about, you know, that the task force might be asked to consider other.
10:39:40 Other recommendations as well. Under work product, we say the task force will report on the viability of sprung construction pool enclosures for a new aquatic center in Jefferson
County.
10:39:53 Specifically comparing the overall life cycle cost compared to traditional construction. We could add something. To that, you know.
10:40:03 Explore the possibilities of. Alternative construction facilities to keep it pretty general. Yeah, yeah.
10:40:13 Cause you know, I think, You might need to carry the water on those, Greg, and you know, do some research and if it seems viable and their models that you see is, you know,
effective in other communities, that maybe we would ask the task force to consider it.
10:40:29 And I do have an answer, Greg, to your question. I'm on the sprung Facebook page.
10:40:34 It says they can. Build a pool and closure for existing outdoor
10:40:40 Hmm.
10:40:46 So should we work on that edit? Cause we are gonna try to approve this. Yes.
10:40:52 So I would say under number 2 I could just say, we are going to try to approve this. Yes. So I would say under number 2, I could just say additionally, yeah.
10:40:57 Addition or the viability of. Alternative. Oh, right. Up there.
10:41:04 Construction, including, of all alternative construction methods. Including Spring and.
10:41:13 Not specifically, but maybe including.
10:41:16 Yeah, including. Fool enclosures. Okay, and then maybe take out the life cycle costs compared to traditional construction since we're broadening that little to take out compared
to traditional construction.
10:41:33 Because matters to in this case it's probably more operational costs. Which are included in Is that true, Career?
10:41:43 Well, the lifecycle costs are more of looking at a facility that is gonna be 50 years in duration and so how many times will you have to replace the roof structure within that
time period and you wouldn't have to replace a traditional.
10:41:58 You know, bricks and mortar building. So it's just looking at costs in a different way.
10:42:04 Yeah, capital costs over the life cycle.
10:42:02 But just capital costs in life. Not operational because it would be I think operational is where we'd see a significant.
10:42:13 Yeah.
10:42:15 Domains and costs. I guess I would say the overall lifecycle costs period and take out compared to traditional construction since somebody would be traditional construction
methods, they would just be.
10:42:22 Yeah, yeah.
10:42:26 That's good.
10:42:22 Sure. How about overall operations and life cycle costs? Yeah, overall. I'll put this up after I modify operations and life cycle costs.
10:42:33 Thank you.
10:42:37 I am fine with the idea of the test course reporting to all 3 entities. Does anyone have any?
10:42:46 Concerns about that. Feels logical to me. Hmm. Mark, I think.
10:42:52 Did you have some concerns? I mean, that was the time. Okay.
10:42:57 I put up the modified language from the draft. Just changing number 2.
10:43:09 And is that true that they would only be looking at the port headlock site. Yeah, that was my question too.
10:43:17 For sprung or Well, I mean, I think a working assumption is that. A sewer is required to make it practicable.
10:43:27 It is. Yes.
10:43:28 Yes, but in terms of. Is the test force not considering. For example, a sprung.
10:43:37 Facility in Port Townsend. Well, I mean, we can, I don't know, what do you think?
10:43:45 I guess.
10:43:47 When I drive around the county and look at signs, you know, it's like the the location seems to be a big part of some of the consternation that we've experienced around the
county.
10:43:58 So I think that we can reverse engineer if this we go through this and say, oh, you know, actually the the Mountain View complex or you know some other location in the city.
10:44:08 Should be reconsider I think that would be additional work but beyond the scope we're considering now. I mean Well, an item number 2 says the task force will report on the viability
of alternative construction methods in Jefferson County.
10:44:25 I left a lot of words out there. So, but the item one says, board headlock, you, GA, so it.
10:44:33 Most 2 seem to contradict each other a little bit. I mean, we we can keep it more general and just.
10:44:42 Can't replace Port Hadlock, UGA with a sewer area in the county.
10:44:50 I think that sewer criteria is pretty critical.
10:44:53 Kerry, do you know?
10:44:53 Locations that are served by utilities maybe. For a pool
10:44:58 I mean, I love it. Port Hadlock, but I'm not. Doesn't seem like the purpose of the task force to me, right?
10:45:08 I was to. Consider locations right and consider the eventual sighting of a pool. Four-had luck is more than one location. Of course.
10:45:19 No, no, I know, I know that. But I mean, well, in comparing options, hearing the costs and benefits of.
10:45:30 Yeah.
10:45:25 Of Mid County versus. Port Townsend. I mean of course I would love if we left the number one with Port Hadlock but I'm That wasn't my understanding of the purpose of the task
force.
10:45:36 So that's all the reason I'm bringing it up. I didn't draft this sentence.
10:45:40 I have no ownership of it. I, I don't. Care but I mean it's a lot easier task to understand to say hey does a pool working for Hadlock versus
10:45:52 Does the pool work anywhere? It's just, you know, narrow in the scope scenes. Like part of purpose but I don't know.
10:46:02 Yeah, I mean, I think for me that it's still the only thing I see missing is kind of.
10:46:07 Assessing. Assessing the. Yep, like we could find out that Port Havoc.
10:46:19 Would work for a certain type of structure and they still have to to compare it to. The existing recommendations of the steering committee, the costs and benefits, but it's
maybe that's our work. Is that kind of how you see it? That.
10:46:37 This isn't a task force that decides if we have a PFT, it's a task force that looks at these questions that.
10:46:45 Upon consideration we didn't fully vet. In our first And we could always, you know, consider.
10:46:53 Tasking them with something, you know, if there was a a third route alternative that, seemed potentially viable.
10:47:02 Continue their work on that. But I'm happy to add.
10:47:09 Compare. I mean, there's, you know, there's Happy to restructure number one.
10:47:17 I can live with it. I can totally live with it. Alright. It's my hometown.
10:47:26 All right. Could I make a suggestion about number 3? Could we say adding other county projects slash facilities?
10:47:33 Yeah, I think that, adds a lot more. Projects, facilities or amenities. Facilities or a
10:47:49 Sorry. We don't need the OS for common, right? Yes. I don't know, Mark doesn't agree with that, right?
10:47:59 You're not from a man, aren't you? What's that? Are you an Oxford common man?
10:48:09 That means no.
10:48:03 After the, before the last item, you don't need a No, it looks good.
10:48:12 Okay. And I think before we take action, we're gonna have a public comment period. Yes.
10:48:15 Hey.
10:48:17 Oh, and we have another document to look at a little bit too. Terry, did you have something to add?
10:48:23 Oh, okay. I'm gonna stop.
10:48:21 No, I found it actually. I just wanted to make sure the operational costs were gonna be looked at for both sites.
10:48:29 Okay.
10:48:29 And it's on under the market, feasibility to the market study.
10:48:35 Gotcha. Okay, I'm gonna stop that share and I will share. The work that, largely ADL did, if I can find it.
10:48:49 We're also going to include on that.
10:48:54 Instruction, I have review that and I can dock me you're working on. So they can see everything.
10:49:05 The last line of this meets correction. Yeah, December 20Â s 2023 we need a new date updated date.
10:49:13 Which would be what March 20 fifth.
10:49:17 That the idea that we're talking about? 2 weeks. Yep. Oh, 2 weeks, but it won't be posted till the Wednesday thirteenth.
10:49:28 More than one I think 2 weeks is what we said. So if it's 1314, so.
10:49:40 No, that's great. Advertise it for 2 weeks. Do the twenty-seventh 2 weeks total.
10:49:53 Right, second line, we need to spell 2 correctly for district 2. 2 from this to 2.
10:50:04 Are we going to capitalize that 2?
10:50:12 Okay. The written statement of interest is the letter, right? So that's included. Should we somehow link this to the statement of work?
10:50:23 We just. That's what Carolyn was talking about. She'll be adding, instructions on how to go to the laser piece folder to get the document.
10:50:32 Okay. 1 24.
10:50:40 Okay.
10:50:44 Hmm. What's up? Just. I guess there'll be more instructions.
10:50:51 In laser fish. I mean, they so in laser fish they they would have that.
10:50:57 When we talk about the the statement of interest is that we've been yeah just a little more. I mean we could add a little bit.
10:51:07 One page letter of interest or something.
10:51:08 That
10:51:19 Sorry, no, I've seen it.
10:51:20 So should submit a, I mean, they're doing the nonprofit, the boards and committee application too, right?
10:51:30 Hey. Yeah. And it does say that in the next
10:51:39 One page written statement. Interest. Along with the okay gotcha okay
10:51:50 Take a moment with that.
10:51:50 Commissioner Brotherton, I might be reading this wrong, but that very first sentence says 6 open positions, but I think we have 8.
10:51:59 And then there's district number one and 2 and 2 at large but no 2 from district number 3.
10:52:06 Oh, thank you. No, you're right. And we say 3 and then 6, but let's go 8.
10:52:10 And then we'll put the number 8 in there. To serve a citizen reps 2 appointments from district one.
10:52:20 Yeah.
10:52:17 Always trying to marginalize just 3. How about 2 appointments each from district 1 2 and 3.
10:52:25 Oh, that's good. Oh, you didn't. Okay. Just.
10:52:32 2.
10:52:35 And 2 at large from Jack. Yeah, there you go.
10:52:44 The board president.
10:52:40 And who is selecting the 2 from Jack? There's Okay, great. What is the length of John?
10:52:49 And maybe we can. Maybe we can clarify that representing the Jefferson Aquatic Coalition selected by the board president.
10:53:06 2 at large. Maybe, yeah.
10:52:59 Yeah. Supporters. So Jeff represented Jeff's. Jefferson, from the Jeff Coe If you have chosen.
10:53:16 President.
10:53:14 By the jack. There
10:53:20 She doesn't buy that. Back president. Will you be holding interviews? We're not holding interviews.
10:53:31 What we decided was that the 2 that each commissioner would go over the letters. And and then for their district and make the applications I think that we would have the flexibility
to make phone call when we wanted to call and follow up.
10:53:48 It'll only be April through June.
10:53:47 I mean, task force usually is. Through June, do we say that?
10:53:52 Yeah, we say that in there.
10:53:55 Complete in June. No, complete in June, 2024. So it's kind of a mission task force is mission driven, right?
10:54:01 Completely. Okay, anything? Geographical and diverse don't need to be capitalized.
10:54:11 Yeah.
10:54:22 Skill sets, I guess.
10:54:24 And that's repetitive the last sentence additionally it seeks representation from geographic economic. So maybe that you could take geographic and diverse out up above.
10:54:35 Hmm.
10:54:38 Yeah.
10:54:35 Because it's more inclusive the last sentence with gender and racial and ethnic university.
10:54:45 Hmm.
10:54:48 Yeah, okay, I'll take.
10:54:57 Yeah.
10:54:55 The last sentence out too
10:55:02 Well, it is more diverse. The last sentence is more.
10:55:07 It's more inclusive.
10:55:07 Yeah Yes, although there's debate as to if racial and ethnic diversity exists or if those are just constructs.
10:55:17 Yeah.
10:55:18 Everything's complicated these days.
10:55:26 Still sense. Got a multiple semicolon sentence here. Hmm.
10:55:38 That's the cool scene. That will see.
10:55:42 Yeah.
10:55:47 I don't know, what do people think about this? Familiar to start a minute balanced.
10:56:01 Yeah, I think it looks fine.
10:55:56 I think it's fine. Do you have any idea how many people actually read or notices? I don't know. I've seen some interest already.
10:56:07 So. I just mean, so appointments will depend on selected criteria familiar with. Yeah, I don't think we need that first and.
10:56:15 A balance of skill sets. And.
10:56:20 Have an interest in
10:56:20 And maybe it's the familiarity with the steering committee work.
10:56:29 You know.
10:56:25 Yeah, I was just noodling on that too, Kerry. Balance of skill sets.
10:56:32 And have interest in finding a path. Just like the board 6 representation. Yeah, I think that's good.
10:56:41 That my phone? Hmm. Looks good. Okay.
10:56:51 There's a bit of redundancy there though. Where? We say appointments will depend on geographical and diverse representation and then the light.
10:57:02 Just check that out. Okay, so look at we're editing on the screen. Right, I'm having trouble seeing it.
10:57:08 We did take out that part out.
10:57:12 Oops. Trying to. Make it bigger, but I looked at something else. I think we've eliminated most of the redundancy.
10:57:22 That's good.
10:57:24 Send it to ADL and to add the pathway for the other document. Okay, and we'll let we should take action on it first, right?
10:57:32 Okay. I'm gonna stop the share.
10:57:34 Hmm, there was one, I don't know, are you gonna link the task force description and purpose and Okay.
10:57:43 Yes.
10:57:44 Okay.
10:57:47 Hmm.
10:57:48 Just because I think it's more. More information people couldn't use.
10:57:54 Oh right, cause I could just have a link to the page where all of the healthier together documents are on our website.
10:58:01 Yeah, that too. Yep.
10:58:01 Right. And the application. We're just sending it a folder, and, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the application and, the, the other documents had, but, a link to the
healthier together
10:58:19 Alright, so, adding that to this. Hmm, yes. Okay. Do we need to add it now or?
10:58:27 Oh, we could just, if someone are willing to make a motion. So that
10:58:32 You could just link steering committee work that were those 3 words just link it right to this website. And, and people will see that it's a link.
10:58:38 Yup, yup, Oh, We can do it online, not in the newspaper, of course.
10:58:44 Exactly. That's right, correct.
10:58:45 And. Okay, great. Okay, with that I'm happy to.
10:58:54 Make a motion that we approve the scope of work and publication regarding recruitment of members for the healthier together task force.
10:59:03 Happy to second that. As edited today. As edited today, thank you for my amount.
10:59:09 Yes. That's the friendly minute. Sex still seconding. All right.
10:59:12 We have a motion and a second. We'll open it up for public comment. We have nobody in the room.
10:59:16 So anyone online who wishes to provide public comment can hit raise hand or star 9 if you're on the telephone and we are only taking public comment on the issues.
10:59:25 For discussion today, the scope of work and not, notice, for the healthier together task force.
10:59:34 Right, we have a phone call. Oh, phone number ending in 6 5 6. Oh good.
10:59:42 You found your way over. You'll need to unmute and you'll have.
10:59:46 Up to 3Â min to provide public comments.
10:59:52 Thank you. This is Diane McDade. I'm president of the Jepco Aquatic Coalition.
10:59:57 I wanted to, express support for the motion. As amended. I would just like to add that our members are excited about this.
11:00:04 We, have many people who are interested in serving on the task force. So I'm really glad to see that it's, that it's under serious consideration today.
11:00:14 One just small clarification. Our board operates by consensus. So the choices that, of folks to serve would be a collective decision by our board.
11:00:26 I don't see any reason that you should change the wording in the motion I just wanted to let you know that it's not up to me as president solely to make that call.
11:00:34 But, I appreciate the work you're doing on this. Thank you very much.
11:00:39 Thank you, Ms. McDinn. And. Yep.
11:00:52 Hello again, Mr. Teersch.
11:00:56 Greetings again. A couple of comments. First of all, the specifications for membership. Being appointed outside of the city of 4,000 that's good but they all should should be
residents of Jefferson County.
11:01:12 I don't want somebody from Bainbridge on that committee. That would be a fatal flaw like the person from the Y.M.C.A. who lives in Painbridge.
11:01:20 So. I really think you ought to specify that. Not in the interests of the county to do that.
11:01:27 Couple of other things on this whole notion. I, I really believe that first of all, the fact that it says report to the steering committee the steering committee no longer exists
The interlocal agreement that created the steering committee expired on December 30 first.
11:01:46 So why is it still functioning? Why is it still doing anything? I think this thing, this task force is a committee of the county.
11:01:55 It should be county focused, not based on the city. I mean, if, you know, if Kerry Height wants to participate as a consultant to the committee, that's fine but should not be
a member by any means.
11:02:08 You know this is a county activity it's going to be county funded county staff are going to be doing it So, you know, what's the point?
11:02:16 This is no longer a city project. That's very, very clear. The steering committee did its thing.
11:02:22 That was to try to build a pool in Port Townsend, you've got that report. Now this is a new effort, the valuation of a pool for Port Hadlock.
11:02:29 And that, that should be it. So. You know like whatever another point though is part of the mission is to include a market survey.
11:02:45 Well, I have to tell you that no real market survey of the county has ever been done in this effort.
11:02:51 And to do one is a lot of money and takes a lot of time and I don't think that either of those things can be accomplished when within the time frame of this task force.
11:03:01 So, you know, the so-called market survey that was included, the Ballard King report was a piece of trash.
11:03:09 I'm sorry. It was just terrible. It was a lazy effort to done very quickly. It included a number of factual errors that we've pointed out in a letter that you folks have seen.
11:03:20 So, you know, relying on that as a market survey tool for a real analysis of this project.
11:03:27 Could could be another serious error. So. Yeah.
11:03:37 Restaffing this task force. With people who are Jefferson County residents. Who really care and can represent the interests of the entire community, I think is the key point.
11:03:49 I think that's, about it for now. Okay, thanks.
11:03:53 Thank you, Mr. Teersch. Anyone else online wish to provide public comment? Please hit raise hand.
11:04:03 Seeing none, I'll close public comment.
11:04:08 May further deliberation?
11:04:13 It seems reasonable certainly to say, Jefferson, aquatic coalition supporters from Jefferson County who reside outside the city of Port Town.
11:04:24 I mean, I'm okay with that. I don't know.
11:04:27 Diane, I don't know if you want, you can hit start 9 to raise your hand if you have any objections to that addition.
11:04:35 Well, I just can't imagine. Any of us would pick representatives who didn't want residents of Jefferson County, Jack included or any of us, right?
11:04:47 It's good to be explicit. Yes. I'll share. That's a good amendment.
11:04:56 Okay. The end of the year. So did they report to them? Do they report to them?
11:05:10 Do they report to us? Yeah. So do they, who do they report to them? Do they report to us?
11:05:13 The task force does report to them. Do they report to us? Do they report to them? Do they report to us?
11:05:17 The task force does report right now we have it in there as it reports to us and to the steering committee and to the city of 4 towns and to the steering committee and to the
city of 4 towns and to the steering committee and to the city of 4 towns and really in an effort to make sure everyone's on the same page, into the city of 4 towns and really in an
effort to make sure everyone's on the same page.
11:05:24 I think that's something that's where that's really important. Yeah. So, everyone's on the same page. I think that's something that's where it's really important.
11:05:29 I don't know if Kerry has its comments on it, but it says that in this description, I said, is it an advisory board to the health 3 together steering committee and said is it
an advisory board to the health read together steering committee and said is it in in this description and said is it an advisory board to the health rate, and said is in an advisory
board to the health 3 together steering committee and directly to the VOCC with the following specific
11:05:41 goals is they're still not a healthier together steering committee. I think there is. I mean, I don't that we've completed the work.
11:05:48 That had been set out in that in our local agreement there's nothing that prevents us from having ad hoc.
11:05:52 Yeah committee that meets that continues to meet. So we're not promising, funding together.
11:06:02 There's, you know, there's no official work of the steering committee that I think triggers any any problem with the MO being expired.
11:06:10 Yeah, I mean, so good good. Good faith effort to continue to, you know, work on the same page and work in the same direction.
11:06:18 Yep.
11:06:20 So I don't know. Kerry, do you have any thoughts on that?
11:06:24 I don't. I think, mister tears is probably correct. That now it's a county committee and on a city committee just the visibility and the perception of the public that it's run
by the county and not the city.
11:06:38 I'd be happy to be the consultant to the to the committee, but I'm not sure who you would like to facilitate the committee.
11:06:48 We originally talked about myself, but I don't have to. And then it can report to the county commission and it can report back to the steering committee.
11:06:58 I think the Syrian committee was interested in the hearing an update from the task force. Midway and then at the end so that they could weigh in on it as well.
11:07:07 Well, and you know, I think I'm probably more aware than most that the city is part of the county.
11:07:15 Yeah.
11:07:14 Yeah, so I and I think it's a distinction that doesn't need to be made and Kerry has done an awesome job in this project.
11:07:18 Okay.
11:07:21 So I have no hesitation with her. Being the staff to the task force. And we right now are, you know, what we've just approved has carry on there as staff as well as Mark and
Carolyn were a clerk representative to make sure that we can manage these.
11:07:44 Okay. Okay.
11:07:43 Okay. Right. Any other? Deliberations or So I guess I would propose or I will.
11:07:52 I, I can propose my own friendly. I mean, just that under composition. The second line reads 2 at large members representing the Jeff Co.
11:08:03 Aquatic Coalition supporters from Jefferson County who reside outside the city of So I added the words from Jefferson County.
11:08:10 Or residents of oh residents. Yeah from is pretty big. Yeah. Right.
11:08:16 Who are residents of? You are. Okay, hold on.
11:08:21 Residents of unincorporated. Or unincorporated Egyptian kidding?
11:08:32 Okay.
11:08:36 Let me just throw this. Now the 400 plus people who made comments about this project.
11:08:44 In the
11:08:45 Commissioner Brotherton, you probably need to make the changes both at the aquatic center task force information sheet and also the publication that's going out to the community.
11:08:57 Right, let's see. So that's the change I've made it here. We'll go one a time 2 at large members represent the Jeff Cohenic coalition supporters.
11:09:06 Who are residents of Jefferson County. Oh, unincorporated Jefferson County, I should say.
11:09:11 Okay, I will save that. Stop the share.
11:09:18 And share.
11:09:22 And.
11:09:26 I'm slash your own one, sorry.
11:09:37 Okay.
11:09:42 To 2 at large members. Who resigned? And.
11:09:57 Cooperated. County.
11:10:10 Unincorporated.
11:10:05 As long as we'll make it. Yeah, then it says who reside outside the city. So if you have an incorporated, take that out.
11:10:25 Try replace president with board. Sure.
11:10:27 You know, or just replace that chosen word from the present. Just it's an appointment from the president.
11:10:33 She's gonna make the appointment. And then it's consistent with the district's appointments.
11:10:39 Yeah
11:10:44 Okay. Do you accept my friend, Right. Okay, I will go ahead and call the question then.
11:10:55 We have a motion to approve. The sorry flipping between documents here, both the legal notice and the scope of work as edited here today.
11:11:05 All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. All right, those are ready to get sent off to media.
11:11:14 Thank you, Carolyn. Thank you, Kerry and John for joining.
11:11:20 Sure.
11:11:19 And. We look forward to creation of the task force and welcome. The public to apply.
11:11:30 Thank you.
11:11:31 Thank you.
11:11:34 Alright. Should we move right into the official county newspaper record with Carolyn?
11:11:43 Sorry, you're doing 12 things. Over there? I don't know. Yeah.
11:11:54 Commissioners. I include the side by side of the biz received. You'll notice, a change in the price per column inch for previous series.
11:12:04 And the one thing that stands out, this year is the cost of one up, of course.
11:12:11 But, This year the leader indicated that. They will not be close to any legal notice on social media or as alternative.
11:12:21 Other than that, you can see that the, The French copies are much higher for the leader than they are for Pencil Daily News.
11:12:29 And as you see there's Quite a bit of side by side that you have to have chance to review.
11:12:34 So,'ll let you guys celebrate on that. Hmm. So. A couple of things stood out to me.
11:12:44 One is the font size, the font size shift from last year to this. You know, the leader having a larger font size.
11:12:53 I don't know what that. It benefits me. Yeah. And the number, you know, folks in our community, but I mean, that's not neither here nor there I mean that's not neither here
nor there I mean it is something though and then You know the, I don't know, this, the circulation.
11:13:12 Comparison is striking to me. And then, but, the, The social media piece.
11:13:22 I mean, there was no information provided from the leader and lot from the PDN. So I just don't know how we weigh the importance of the social media presence.
11:13:36 I don't remember when the leader was publishing. Notices on social media. I don't remember that being frequent or guaranteed or like that that feels like a inadequate.
11:13:51 And we know it doesn't meet the letter of the law. And it seemed very. You know, at the mercy of algorithms and Right, so never gonna get a lot of.
11:14:04 Yeah. I mean, I just, I think I've made the same comments last year. I stand by the, you know, the circulation.
11:14:12 Contrast between the leader and the PDN in in our zip codes is striking to me. And so I feel like it that in itself for selection of the leader in my opinion.
11:14:26 So that's my vote.
11:14:30 Yeah. I mean, we one time since I've been here, we went with the PDN and, you know.
11:14:39 It is has been. Legally called a local paper, right? So it is, we could choose it, but I think, going with our local and independent newspaper is.
11:14:52 I'm pretty quick choice this year.
11:14:55 I'm happy to make a motion. Okay, do you have any dad? Nope. Happy to make a motion that we select the.
11:15:03 Port Towns in Jefferson County leader as our newspaper a record for the county. Second. All right.
11:15:13 I see that we don't have public comments on the agenda. Yeah, it's for taking action.
11:15:19 We probably should. Although it was published so the public comment earlier in the day does satisfy that. Requirement.
11:15:27 But. Maybe since we have time, I will go ahead and open it up for public comments, motion on the table to approve the portans and Jefferson County leader.
11:15:36 As our official newspaper of record. Anyone like to provide public comment on that issue alone?
11:15:44 Okay, alright, thank you.
11:15:51 Welcome. You're welcome to comment on the selection of the most on the table for the Portans and Leaders the newspaper record.
11:16:02 Bye. I don't have any problem with the leader. I just think that it's not a very good source of information for what you're doing.
11:16:11 Their circulation is really low. Compared to the number of people they're trained to serve, I think that if you want to go with the leader because you have to and I understand
that there also needs to be the possibility of a good social outreach on social media where that important information is getting to the thousands of people you have on your community
pages.
11:16:36 Thank you.
11:16:38 Great. Thank you. Anyone else wish to provide public comment? They said raise hand.
11:16:48 Seeing none, I'll close public comment. Any other? Questions? I'll just, respond a little bit to Mr. If I can, you know, this is not the only way that we, push information out.
11:16:59 Of course, we try to use social media, push information out. Of course, we try to use social media sometimes effectively, sometimes, effectively, sometimes effectively, sometimes
effectively, sometimes effectively, sometimes effectively, sometimes, effectively, but we are required by law to choose a paper of record.
11:17:07 Where you know that all of the legal. Postings are going to go in one place and anyone can go there to see.
11:17:14 Hearings or notices or anything. So having a place that is available to the public is acquired by statute.
11:17:22 And, but yes. It's one of those yes and things. We can always do better in spreading it out to that to the local social media groups as well.
11:17:30 And I know our communications, various communications staff right now are looking at being more collaborative and coordinating with each other.
11:17:39 So. You know, potentially this is something that that team can be helpful with. Well, and I have a feeling there's an inconsistency in reporting, because it does have the number
of hits.
11:17:54 For legal notices. Monthly average, the leader reported 96,000. And the PDN, reported 400.
11:18:04 So I think we have. A discrepancy there and, how those were being reported, but.
11:18:11 In theory that the data we have shows that there's significantly higher hits to legal notices in the leader.
11:18:18 It is consistent with last year's. Reporting. Although it's more the PDNs, which is really.
11:18:26 Very far off. Okay. So, you know.
11:18:35 As usual, just say very, very grateful that we have 2 publications that are local. And, you know, more and more communities don't have any and the data associated with that
is really striking.
11:18:47 Fewer candidates robbing for local offices, way lower turnouts, civic education, significantly lower in communities that don't have local media newspaper in particular.
11:18:58 So very grateful to have 2 beds, 2 viable beds. Hey, anything else for a call the question?
11:19:06 Yeah, all those in favor of the motion on the table to, what is the word, a point, approve, award, the, Port Townsend Jefferson County leader as the official county newspaper,
please say aye.
11:19:21 Bye. A motion carries unanimously. I will drop the contract for your approval on March eighteenth. It will start July first.
11:19:30 Great. Thank you, Carolyn. Great work as usual. Compiling 2 very different.
11:19:38 Data sets and having it make sense. Alright, do we get through everything on our agenda this morning?
11:19:46 Yes, shall we dig into some briefing and calendaring? Okay. Can I wanna say one more thing about healthier together?
11:19:53 I forgot to respond to one of their contacts. And just the market analysis, you know, there's a lot of ways that we can get to market analysis, you know, there's a lot of ways
that we can get to market analysis and that.
11:20:00 I'm hoping that Habitat for Humanity that has done a huge market analysis of that area for, you know, pools, but specifically about that area, looking into housing options is
also a tool that this task force can use to, to supplement the other.
11:20:18 Hmm, great. Look forward to that.
11:20:24 Alright, she take a look backwards. Last week. Let's see. With you guys here yesterday, last week and I don't think I at anything else afterwards on Tuesday we had our first
in person recompete meeting, which was great.
11:20:53 It was at the Peninsula College. Unfortunately, our 9 o'clock start time was pushed to 1030 because of snow so they were in opening their school.
11:21:03 So what in you know what was focused on being both a team building exercise bringing many people together that had never been in the same room together, myself and many people.
11:21:12 And and also really getting to some of the metrics for, you know, a concise mission statement and every, you know, project statement.
11:21:23 We did the team building stuff. We didn't really get to the other stuff, but a lot of stuff, a lot of.
11:21:28 Forward momentum is happening. Commissioner French and I also had a scoring off. We both brought, phones and.
11:21:36 We didn't have an official vote, but I didn't have very many to bring back with me.
11:21:40 So, did he have? Hello, a few more, but you know, I do admit that.
11:21:48 I rely on my my lovely wife to help bake the scones. Yeah, I called you out on that last week.
11:21:57 I had additional support, but for my goat key for scones, but they were delicious. And then.
11:22:03 You know this and that and then we're all together for the growth management steering committee I was, I don't know, I think David Faber and I.
11:22:11 Through the wrench the monkey wrench into the proceedings. Suggesting that we should. Considered the high growth projections instead of the medium, but, so we.
11:22:20 Yes, did not come to any conclusions then, but I wouldn't mind a conversation with you guys about that as well.
11:22:26 On Wednesday we had the local recompete meeting. It's great to have.
11:22:33 Junior from the Jefferson Healthcare there, you know, she's not on the task force, but provides a lot of It's got a lot of data analysis, knowledge that is she's helping bring
to bear for, good analysis there.
11:22:43 We had a special LTAC meeting on Wednesday to consider, mostly no, firm recommendations coming out, but to look at the budgeting process that we've talked about, what do we,
I mean, do we want to?
11:22:56 Come up with some items that are in the budget to separate them from the RFP. It was my first time back with that group.
11:23:03 She changed quite a bit. And the gaming was the only 10, I guess. Dan from PLA was on there before too, but a lot of lot of new faces.
11:23:11 So we're gonna have another special meeting in April to refine that a little bit more and bring a recommendation back but I think there was general agreement with that.
11:23:19 Course, but you know, what should belong in there is a bigger question. So more on that.
11:23:28 And then we had, I briefly, I had to leave early, but we had a little data.
11:23:42 Early to go share the special meeting of the housing fund board. 2 at the thank you for Julia Cochrane for setting up the quimper what is QUEUE US universe, like a, university
fellowship church lovely space.
11:24:03 And they, hosted a great meeting, I think. There was probably 50 people there. Lots of advocates, lots of other agencies.
11:24:13 I think most of our significant housing agencies were there. Presentation from Olicap about how we got here basically and then a lot of questions and concerns and a commitment
to continuing to look for solutions I have.
11:24:30 Multiple phone calls I have to get back to. One warming center definitely said, what can we do to help continue this this going?
11:24:39 One of the recommendations I did make at the end to, only cap was that like our early childhood education, which has a
11:24:48 Lived experience based policy council that we add a policy council for that the housing department that is in considerable flux right now.
11:24:57 I think having that. Often we get the complaint that olycap is. Kind of a black box you don't know how the decisions are being made and I think adding that policy council might
be something that is a model we already have.
11:25:09 They can introduce a little bit more community voice into the operational decisions that.
11:25:16 And also to bring those conversations up to the. Boards, the only cat board, I get a lot of value out of that.
11:25:22 The recommendations of the policy council for the early childhood education. Which is a mandate to have that, right?
11:25:27 So it's not like we. but I think that model might be something that we could use to some of the community concerns and, the equity issues that people are concerned about.
11:25:39 And you don't feel like the board of LACAP can do that or they just operating at a level that's hard to do that?
11:25:49 Purpose of the tripartite board that only cap works under is to have lived experience be interwoven into all policy decisions.
11:25:57 Yes, I think these are operational decisions. So I think having an advisory board that's a little bit closer to operations would benefit as well.
11:26:08 Sometimes you get a The rarefied air of the of the board is sometimes not the appropriate place to have.
11:26:13 Detailed conversations about. A specific shelter. We do sometimes but it's just Not how it's been driven.
11:26:22 I mean, we're at a time of flux, so we, we can. Try to bring those conversations up, but I suggest it because it hasn't.
11:26:29 It hasn't worked so much.
11:26:35 Let's see, EBC meeting on Thursday going well. You heard we lost our. Palms officer for the EDC, Kerry Andrews, pick that another guy. Oh no.
11:26:48 Yeah, so It kind of took a lot of good work and. Breaks on it so advertising and and looking at maybe re scoping some of those compensation packages to you know for that all
critical retention if you get someone for 6 months they've had in both the administrative position and the columns position that were kind of split from one position into 2, part time
positions.
11:27:13 The average retention has been 5 months. Gotten there, which is just enough time to get someone.
11:27:19 All right, we're cooking with gas. Oh, wait, we're back to shopping, you know, so it's really frustrating.
11:27:26 Oh, right. We're cooking with gas. Oh, wait, we're back to shopping.
11:27:29 You know, so it's really frustrating. So Carrie and this is doing that. Umhm.
11:27:30 Oh, interesting. What do you know? She found a similar sort of job remotely that they twice as much.
11:27:38 That's what I heard. Then we had our. Monthly AI think tank after a couple resident meetings.
11:27:51 And, you know, heard after that that people are really enjoying. Some people at least are really enjoying the conversation.
11:27:55 We looked at Seattle's AI policy, which is pretty robust and same principles based on on the White House's executive order.
11:28:07 But starts to address some of those thorny things about attribution and plagiarism and. There was a video that Alex Henley from DCD shared that was all about a Canadian airline
where they had a an AI chat bot that was kind of helping with customer service and when someone called in.
11:28:27 Same. Hey, what's the policy for bereavement? Green Statement? Can I buy my ticket and get reimbursed later and The chat bot made a new policy up on the spot that would contravene
the existing Air Canada policy and then it went to court and they had to pay it because you know it was it is the manifestation you know whatever it says you're responsible for so you
11:28:50 know We were sharing, horror stories and fears, this meeting too. So it's definitely a double edged sword.
11:28:58 Then we had the PLVC meeting. I went out to Port Ludlow for that monthly meeting.
11:29:05 They're very concerned about the roundabout coming in. I'm very, they know more about the timeline than I do actually.
11:29:12 Then on Friday I participated with the city and Bayside over at public health, Peninsula Housing Authority is starting a strategic planning effort.
11:29:23 Consultant, Bronner. And so just that for a. The strategic planning session with them and like collected information.
11:29:33 I went down to Sunset Meadows. The old, what's, what was Vernon's name?
11:29:42 Burn Garrison project. New developers are coming in and kind of tour that facility and listen to that.
11:29:47 Yup, new developers are coming in and kind of tour that facility and listen to that. Happy residents of Sunset Meadows.
11:29:50 Yeah, it's a level place and they're doubling it. They love to build. Oh good.
11:29:54 So they are taking advantage of. And they're not, they're not on the stew or the other bus.
11:30:02 They just build a new loss. So that they could do 10,000 gallons per day. I mean like the seventh of the sewer just a.
11:30:06 You know, interesting, learned a lot. And then I was on KPTZ on Friday with Samantha Harper.
11:30:13 She came to do a little sewer update and we had a nice I don't think we said anything wrong.
11:30:25 And that was those were the high points of my week.
11:30:32 Obviously here with you last Monday. Did attend the, no, did I not? I didn't attend the Wasack meeting on Monday.
11:30:41 Tuesday evening was with you guys at the growth management steering committee meeting and would love to have a little more conversation about the low, medium, high conversation
and the rationale for not going with medium on the parts of our colleagues.
11:31:02 And then Wednesday I attended the short farm, the second meeting of the short farm steering committee.
11:31:10 At WSU and you know it's really getting interesting with the parallel path of the Chimicum Drainage District Focus Group.
11:31:23 There's a lot of folks attending both of those and a lot of interest and I think.
11:31:30 I was a proponent of slowing down the drainage district process so that it could align with the.
11:31:37 Short farm steering committee process, but I'm wondering if I should have advocated for the drainage district focus group to go later, but I think it's gonna work out.
11:31:51 It's going to be important in the in the near term. To find out find a strategy or an avenue for communicating with all residents of the Chimacum Drainage District.
11:32:02 Which is Jefferson County. Drainage district number one. That's it's mapped to let him know these conversations are going on because what I'm seeing at these meetings is that
it's just the ag community showing up and there's a lot of non ag residents of that drainage district.
11:32:20 Who may, you know, the ag community may end up being supportive of drainage district activities.
11:32:27 But the non-AG residents may not wanna participate in drainage district assessment. So, anyway, I'm gonna talk with a couple of our.
11:32:39 Other elected colleagues to talk about how to get a mailer out to all of the residents of that drainage district, cause that feels like the most important.
11:32:48 Task that we need to undertake. That's not currently being. And done with the range district process.
11:32:56 So. Thursday attended the Council of Government's Olympic area and aging meeting. And let's see, Commissioner Johnson is our chair for the year for 2 years.
11:33:11 We did notice that all of us are up for reelection on all of the members of the O 3 a council of governments are up for election so they said well take Chair and I'm in, everyone's
running again, but.
11:33:25 You know, who knows how that all turn out. So. But it feels like there's a good team there and I did not volunteer to be chair or vice chair because it was like my first meeting
of that group and I'm learning that.
11:33:37 Stick around a while and then maybe sign up to be chair of something. Thursday afternoon, I.
11:33:45 Had a visit with the new. Team with stewardship of Glendale Farm, the kids sexting kids and they have some kind of issues and working with the county and want to, want to create
some revenue.
11:34:02 Potential at Glendale Farm to offset their code compliance costs basically they're dump fees So I'm, I need to work with Pinky and.
11:34:14 Maybe DCD. I don't know. I'm starting with Pinky to talk about how to.
11:34:19 Support.
11:34:22 Primarily South Sexton and getting what he needs there. Getting some support. So let's see.
11:34:31 And then interesting drive around with. Brent Butler looking at the. Potential areas. Port Hadlock Phase One sewer boundary.
11:34:42 I guess it's not new anymore. Where we could Develop housing. So, larger opportunities for housing development.
11:34:52 And it was great, I realized. Brent hasn't been in Havoc much. So, you know, it's good.
11:34:59 It's good for the teams working in the port head luck UGA to actually maybe drive around and I'm happy.
11:35:03 To drive around with anybody. Who wants to see, get a, get a map and. Take a look at where the opportunities are within the phase one boundary and.
11:35:15 Who the landowners are. And then there evening I did have a another Chimicum Drainage District Focus Group meeting at WSU and.
11:35:26 Unfortunately there was a bunch of technical difficulty in that meeting. There was a lot of folks in person in the room and a bunch of people online as well.
11:35:34 And the online component didn't really come together and the people in the room were kind of twiddling with them so it felt like we have I think the new strategy is we're just
gonna try and do in person.
11:35:45 Okay, drainage district focus group meetings. I think we have 2 more. So, it's a pretty small geography.
11:35:52 Yeah. Easier to get people all in one space. And I'm definitely seeing folks who.
11:35:59 Don't show up normally the public meetings showing up for these meetings. It's really good, but I'm, you know.
11:36:05 Hopeful that the in person strategy will. Get more out of the meetings. Although I would hope that that space that we're paying a lot of money for is working for remote access,
that we're paying a lot of money for is working for remote access. Was it the technology in the room?
11:36:21 Is the money for is working for remote access? Was it the technology in the room? Is the the WSU technology with the conservation district, you know, trying to get the 2 together.
11:36:34 Like some of the materials have been made by the conservation district and they Hadn't really done a dry run before the meeting.
11:36:39 So. And then Friday I did participate in Wassex. Kind of session debrief legislative virtual update, which I felt like it was really good and I'm still, I'm gonna say it again.
11:36:54 I mean, I have not talked about poop so much in my life than I have over the last month, but the septage capacity study didn't make it through more than a sewer, the septage
capacity study and What's going on in my home life?
11:37:07 I have talked about Pooh more and the last 2 months than I ever have in my life, but I'm I just feel So I'm so excited about that.
11:37:16 Septu's capacity study and so, yeah, really glad that it's got funded and big kudos to representative.
11:37:25 Senator Van der Wegg and Representative Chapman for helping move that ball because it's not a sexy ball, right?
11:37:31 And I just had to keep saying this is really important for lots of counties in Western Washington. So anyway, it worked and Now we get to.
11:37:41 They're going to contract to get the study done. And then I did go to the NATO Public Land Steering Committee.
11:37:53 And it's interesting they've been having a lot of conversations about old growth forest policy and I'm realizing how we are really a unicorn in the counties world, which Kate
has said since the day I walked through the door and I haven't been real vocal on that.
11:38:10 That's group yet, but I starting to feel like, okay, what we. There's more perspectives out there.
11:38:16 How is old growth to find on the national level? I mean, in Washington, we define it. I statehood, right?
11:38:22 1850, anything older? US Forest Service. Clinical definition of old growth is and it doesn't even feel like that's.
11:38:33 The point of these conversations, you know. Yet. So. Yeah.
11:38:42 And that was. That was my, that's what I had to report from last week. Right.
11:38:51 My week last week, I did attend the Wasack Assembly over the lunch hour last Monday, and it was the report out from post COVID.
11:39:06 What's the word I'm missing that? Easy. Yeah, but was a jargon for that, but after action.
11:39:14 Oh, and. I would say there was nothing surprising. Yes, yeah, and the membership still arguing over.
11:39:26 If you know the governor took appropriate steps and it masks the vaccines where it can so yes more of same Let's see, Tuesday, I get to my styrofoam recycling.
11:39:39 I just, it's amazing that volunteers do that styrofoam recycling. Like it's, it's a very well run operation.
11:39:47 They collect. Huge bags of styrofoam every week. And I mean, there were like 30 people in line.
11:39:52 When I got there and I just think so many people are like you're getting the word out and getting there.
11:39:58 I just think it's very impressive and it's entirely volunteer run. So I. That's great.
11:40:05 Yeah. Thrilled that they're doing that. There was also a volunteer trash pickup this weekend and how many trucks they got 3 truckloads of trash in 2Â h.
11:40:17 Yeah. Stephanie Moran's group is. Yeah. Yeah, really great to see people.
11:40:21 Just ship it in. Wish it weren't such a problem. Had a maritime Washington advisory board meeting.
11:40:30 Yeah, I haven't been able to attend one for a while. There is a March twentieth there's a local government meeting so local governments who are in the heritage area can participate
and just you know can learn more about the potential benefits.
11:40:48 There's nothing regulatory about the heritage area. But they have started, for example, a grants program, so they have some funding to distribute to groups who are doing.
11:41:02 Interpretation or sustainable tourism, you know, among a number of themes. So nice.
11:41:13 Yep. That's the the heritage area and all around Washington. So from that post, canal to put it sound, and all the way up.
11:41:22 It's so pretty, extensive. Let's see, had to spend quite a bit of time working on earmarks.
11:41:32 So talking with our lobbyists in DC and with public works and the city. Growth management steering committee first meeting.
11:41:39 I thought that was enjoyable. I like kicking out on that stuff. So it's thanks for having a chair.
11:41:47 Yeah. I like kicking out on that stuff. So it's thanks for having a chair. Yeah, sure.
11:41:48 Yep. Think it's gonna be a really interesting process. I appreciated the your disruptive nature, Greg, I sometimes do.
11:41:58 No, really, really good points. And, you know, like you said, doing things the way we've always done it is no reason to do it just that way.
11:42:07 And there's lots of reasons not to do it that way. Had a follow up meeting with the climate action committee.
11:42:16 So we did schedule another workshop to continue our conversation on the 2 goals that we brought forward. It seemed like there was interest in continuing that conversation.
11:42:23 Attended the Housing Fund Board special meeting, till I get. I lost my internet, but thank you for sharing that, Greg.
11:42:32 You did a great job and, you know, obviously a lot of anxiety around that. Let's see number of meetings with constituents on Thursday.
11:42:44 In the city, yeah, not a lot to report. I tended the Jefferson County Peninsula Trails coalition meeting and I think this opportunity at the mill road.
11:42:57 New roundabout design could impact the trail significantly. So. Just being and I actually the 2 roundabouts on 104 also we just have to keep pushing Rashdot to.
11:43:11 Consider pedestrians and bikes in their design for roundabouts. It's They had a great I heard they had a great open house at the library.
11:43:22 The trails. Oh, right. And it was like packed. Yeah, yeah, that part of my brain.
11:43:30 Yeah, 80 people in attendance. Yeah. Yeah, Steve Durant was there and there is a, that was a public meeting.
11:43:38 There's a stakeholder meeting coming up at Finn River. That's I think it's on my calendar, but maybe here's to check out on my calendar.
11:43:46 Okay. I gotcha. And then Friday all day, with the municipal research service center, board of directors did a board retreat, the long time.
11:43:58 Director of MRSC is retiring, Tracy Burrows. She has, she's been there for 14 years and, you know, really.
11:44:06 Kept that organization relevant and increased the funding and you know. Made the rosters program much more robust, so it's a big deal.
11:44:15 Her leaving. So the whole strategic planning ended up really being about how to, yeah. So when you look at Eric Johnson, and now that's quite changes. Yes.
11:44:27 So when you look at Eric Johnson, and now that's quite changes. Yeah, exactly. So, Greg, you would be proud of me.
11:44:33 I was the one who kept saying, why aren't we talking more about AI? So, you know, so much of what MRSC does could be replaced by AI.
11:44:42 Easily, will be. And you know, how does MRSC position itself to have the best, most reliable information?
11:44:53 And you know sitting in a room full of staff. That's also terrifying for them.
11:44:59 So really talked about AI much of the day. Yeah, and I'd say I was actually like, on the bleeding edge a little bit.
11:45:07 So it's all relative here. It's all it's all relative here. It's all, it's all relative.
11:45:14 Here, look what you've done. It's not me. It's the way it's all relative. You're what you've done. It's not me.
11:45:21 It's the way pressing over. It's the AI that's done it. Yeah, well, and I mean, I think it could be a existential threat for In terms of finding their next leader, it has to
be somebody who's willing to really grapple with what that means for technology and staff and the guardrails are going to be critical and that's where MRSC comes in is
11:45:34 helping, you know, small governments like our. Find their way in this which they don't have capacity for.
11:45:41 Yeah, yeah, it was, it was really Meaningful day, great facilitator if we need a facilitator.
11:45:51 I'd highly recommend the woman who facilitated this. So. Anything else? Let's see.
11:45:57 At dinner with the architects who are working on. Mason Street project on Saturday night. That was great.
11:46:04 So here they're off the record take on the project. I mean, you know, all very positive.
11:46:11 Yeah, I think that was my week.
11:46:16 Mark, anything to report out? Yeah, a short week compared to you 3. On the fourth I was returning from Orlando, nice volleyball weekend with my granddaughter.
11:46:26 Did she win? We know. I haven't asked you that yet. We played 8 different teams and they lost out.
11:46:34 All 8. It was fun, but. That's all sports in Port Townsend pretty much.
11:46:44 We don't over anything different. They didn't play as well as they are capable of. Okay, then on Tuesday I had senior management in the morning followed by a risk committee
and then I met Scott Walker the transportation lab fellow and had a very spirited conversation with him about parking and vehicles.
11:47:08 What are we gonna come up? What was our after action from his request last? Week, we're gonna. 500?
11:47:16 Yeah. We got an invoice. And Carolyn already put it in the system for payment. But in the future, we're going to come up with the system.
11:47:23 So. Somebody talked about last week while you were gone. Mark. Was you know maybe having a budgeted amount for sponsorship of community events.
11:47:34 And I know we have a pot of money, but it's, the non departmental, but just might be nice to be more specific about.
11:47:41 Yeah, we could end up with criteria. 500 small line items in there. You know, a sum of money that can be used for a variety of sponsorships and other commissioner priorities.
11:47:56 I mean, putting a cap on it before we start doing it. Yeah. I mean, putting a cap on it before we start doing it.
11:48:04 Yeah, that cause the amount creeps up on you. One on one with Josh Peters and then a special LTAC meeting to talk about maybe supplemental funding and maybe funding a couple
of items, out of the budget rather than putting them through the RFP process.
11:48:20 So we're gonna have a follow up meeting in April. To maybe take action on those things, recommend to the board some course of action.
11:48:29 Then on Thursday, Stacey Preda and Judy Shepherd and I took part in a two-hour demo for a budget software product called Questica.
11:48:43 We're going to have another demo for another product called gravity. After which we may come to the board with a proposal.
11:48:51 For, software that will graphically and in a citizen friendly format portray our our budget information, which I.
11:49:03 I think is, long overdue. And those products will also make us eligible for.
11:49:14 National Award for Budget Presentations. And I know Clark County. Uses Kestica and I'm talking to the finance director down there about that product.
11:49:25 So anyway, that's kind of exciting. And then agenda review with Kate at 4 in the afternoon.
11:49:33 And then on Friday, I had no appointments, but I did draft 2 RFPs that will be coming to you for permission to issue.
11:49:40 Both in support of strategic. I end up priority number 6, which is organizational health. One is to do an employee engagement survey.
11:49:51 And the other is to perform. Compensation study for our exempt employees. So either on the eighteenth of the 20 fifth, those will come to you for consideration.
11:50:04 Okay. Alright, should we look ahead? So first again, let's see. Oh, I should say this morning I had to come in early for a special Olympic consortium board meeting to kind of
get our business done.
11:50:22 We had to reschedule it. Brief. Meeting with, quilts and resident tomorrow morning, then I'll hop on to the EDC Finance Committee.
11:50:31 And then as always I have, oh I have the Behavioral Health Advisory Committee, 2 30 tomorrow.
11:50:38 He's still getting his pencils early childhood coalition. Invite on my calendar, but I still know nothing about it.
11:50:48 I thought I was behavioral health advisory. I don't know why. I think I am still behavioral health advisory.
11:50:57 And then also I have on my calendar the JC quarterly meet up trying to burn that does and I think you've been doing those I could probably do it.
11:51:05 And I think you've been doing those. I could probably do it. And I think you've been doing those. I could probably do it. When is that?
11:51:09 That's Tuesday at 5 so I could that would be great because I have the drainage district focus group again that evening so I will probably do it.
11:51:18 Enjoyed this. Cool. I'll probably do it remotely because I have a 6 30 appointment.
11:51:26 I mean, I could go to that. Well, let's just say I can't, cause that's really, I will accept it.
11:51:33 I just got 2Â h back in my schedule because I can never seem to get the BHA straight.
11:51:38 Oops. And then on Wednesday, we have our weekly Team Jefferson Recompete Meeting.
11:51:45 Then I have the orca board meeting. And, Last week of school for the quarter.
11:51:53 Tonight I have to go down to Olympia and Wednesday at Tacoma. On Thursday we have the NODC executive board meeting at 1030.
11:52:03 I am on the executive board got voted in last week. I'm a vice president. Nice. Oh, Greg.
11:52:10 And still Mark is still the chair. Yeah, vice chair, I guess. And John Morrow is still the treasurer.
11:52:14 They originally had me as treasure and I was like, what is the treasurer do? And they were like, all right, you can be the big team.
11:52:24 They don't have money in that. You want more responsibility. And then we have the full Olympic consortium board meeting on Friday.
11:52:29 And then, oops, and then, oh, and then, I think the fourteenth, the evening, I'm planning to go to the short term rental conversation down in quill scene, I believe is that
meeting.
11:52:41 Do you see the front page about, yeah, 200 short term, Interesting.
11:52:48 And then we talked about maybe someone needing to fill in for. The conflict. So I'm happy to do it if you're needing to fill in for. Yeah, the conflict.
11:53:01 So I'm happy to do it if you've got a kind of coordination meeting. Yeah, I would not have to leave.
11:53:03 So I'm happy to do it if you got a kind of coordination meeting. Yeah, I would, I would not have to leave early, but if you're willing to, So I have, I just, you know, what
I had kind of tried been starting to tee up was.
11:53:10 Working with Chief Black to do the CARES team on KPTC, but I don't know if he's actually available this Friday.
11:53:16 So you could check in with them. I thought that would be a great show. Do you have a song chosen out yet?
11:53:25 You're doing this all backwards, you're planning. But, I'm happy that, yeah, I'll reach out to Chief Black.
11:53:32 I don't have anything else planned. I don't have anything else planned. So I will do KPTC on Friday.
11:53:37 So I will do KPTC on Friday. And that is my week. Okay, so my week I'm Here today, tomorrow.
11:53:46 I have the behavioral health advisory committee meeting and then I have the Chimcom Drainage District Focus Group.
11:53:54 Wednesday I have the Washington D and our Cor, Carbon and forest management work group most of the day and then I'm going to step out of that for Meeting my, I think this is
my last or second to last meeting of the ordinance, the organics ordinance advisory committee for Department of Ecology.
11:54:13 I think we're gonna have actual, a proposal. And then in the evening on Wednesday, I will be attending the short term rentals discussion at the Tri Area Community Center and
missing a couple of other things.
11:54:31 Thursday.
11:54:35 I, Mark and I have a check in with Mallory on her forestry work. In the afternoon at one and then I have a meeting with Kara Cardinal about the straight ER in upcoming meeting.
11:54:50 We usually have a planning meeting before that and then Friday I'm going to be out because I have a couple of personal appointments to Cacilitate.
11:54:59 Great. Alright. Thank you for covering KPTC. I was I was I'll miss it.
11:55:08 Yeah, no problem.
11:55:09 Oh, let's see. Gonna spend the evening with one of the, one of our candidates for legislature.
11:55:18 Tomorrow I have a number of meetings on short term rentals with Granikis, one of the service providers who's been providing some good.
11:55:29 Data for us. Meaning with Brent in preparation for the first of the series of meetings that we're all attending this week, I'll be attending Tuesday evening at Cape George.
11:55:45 Yes. And then a prep meeting for the state. Board of Health? No, our local Board of Health, sorry.
11:55:53 And the Leadership Council meeting because Wednesday I am at the Swinamish. For state board of health meeting all day.
11:56:04 Hopefully catch the peninsula trails meeting while I'm driving home. Via Zoom and then the, Petersen partnership descends on Port Townsend that evening because we have a leadership
council meeting all day Thursday at Fort Warden here.
11:56:21 So. Be nice if it's it's a open public meeting. If anyone wanted to pop in and say hello.
11:56:29 Let's see, so Mark, I'll probably miss the gender review Thursday afternoon. We might need to do that virtually.
11:56:34 Okay. And then at fairgrounds meeting Thursday night, I have just back to back evening meetings at all day long meetings.
11:56:44 So Friday, little quieter county coordination meeting and that's all I have on the agenda for Friday for now.
11:56:52 Just fine.
11:56:57 That's it for me. How about you, Mark? Okay, well today with the board tomorrow.
11:57:06 Regular weekly meeting with Brent at 11 and then public sector cabinet meeting at 2. Wednesday, light day, the North Olympic Peninsula, City Manager County Administrator catch
up.
11:57:21 And on Thursday. CEO breakfast with Cindy Brooks. Then the meeting that Heidi referenced about our 4 3 program with Mallory.
11:57:34 And then the the budget demo with gravity, Stacey Prida and Trudy Shepherd at 2 and then an agenda review and we'll do that.
11:57:43 However, it works for you, Kate. Then on Friday. Having coffee with Mallory in the morning and then I'm meeting with public health to go over there strategic plan items because
I For the coordination meeting, in April, I've got to report the status of our implementation effort and it's coming together pretty well.
11:58:08 So I'll be happy to make that report when the time comes and then of course coordination meeting.
11:58:12 And so, Kate will coordinate on an agenda for that. Yeah. And that's it.
11:58:20 Take it's like very bold to name your company Gravity. It's like Okay. But like, can gravity be, you know, I mean, like, that, can that be trademarked?
11:58:33 Like, it's kind of universal. It's true, but the other the other one that they're what was the name of the other?
11:58:39 Westika. It's meaningless. Gravity says everything. Seems, yeah.
11:58:50 It's almost like medications, you know, pharmaceuticals that, yeah.
11:58:55 Alright, so do we wanna adjourn a little bit early today? Have a longer lunch. We have 11.
11:59:05 We have a busy afternoon. That clock hasn't been changed. Oh, it's new? It's new. Oh my gosh.
11:59:11 I thought it seemed like we had a full. That clock haven't been changed. Oh, it's it's new? It's new. Oh my gosh.
11:59:14 I thought it seemed like we had a full story. You know, we need to, yeah, someone really tall.
11:59:15 Forget that. It's not an early. Yeah, someone really tall. Okay. Well, forget that.
11:59:21 It's not an early. No, I mean, recess, but it's a minute early.
13:32:24 The.
13:32:31 Hmm. Would it be helpful to pull up there? Ordnance or resolution?
13:32:39 And we could. Do you have the run? Yeah, I see the code. Okay, I'll call us back.
13:32:45 Into session. Hi everybody. Hope you had a good lunch. Commissioner Brotherton is joining us virtually.
13:32:53 I have an update if you want. Oh, you found it. That was bad. No, I were talking about the enacting resolution or ordinance.
13:33:02 Sorry, we're trying to. Shall be set by the Director of Public Works with approval by the board.
13:33:08 Yeah, but Monty, were you asking for the enacting? No, that's what I'm waiting for.
13:33:18 So, I'll call you, let's see, approval by the board so you do have to take action.
13:33:24 The, agenda requests. I didn't, dial, I just wanted to confirm since since a lot hangs on that word.
13:33:36 I was under the impression that we had said. After informing the board. Right. Let me get us back in.
13:33:44 Okay. We are joined this afternoon. By a few folks from Public Works.
13:33:54 How are you gonna handle this? Okay, great. And you wanna introduce Justin? Operations Coordinator.
13:34:04 Great, I'll hand it off to you. Perfect. Well, it's been a long road.
13:34:10 As you know, we, So for probably the lowest point in terms of staffing at the transfer station and.
13:34:18 And we've been able to hire. Back and hire really well. Justin has done an outstanding job of.
13:34:27 Training up the new staff. About as fast as one might imagine possible. And so we're confident that April second, we can roll out some additional hours at the transfer station.
So we're looking at.
13:34:41 Starting earlier instead of 9 a. M. Start 8 30. And then on Saturdays to add an additional half hour at the end of the day as well.
13:34:50 So 8 30 to 5. And then we'd also like to add those same hours to the quill scene schedule.
13:34:58 We'd also like to consolidate the cool scene schedule. Right now it's a Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday schedule.
13:35:04 Some of our customers there confused by that we've also staffed that facility with a full-time employee instead of several part-time employees or clerk hires.
13:35:16 And so it would make scheduling a lot easier for us as well. And a lot more consistent.
13:35:24 We're seeking the board's approval for those revised hours today. Great. That's questions.
13:35:33 Go ahead.
13:35:33 I mean, I said. I just can't say I said to Alan, I, you know, why is this even on the, more hours? Let's just do it.
13:35:41 But I know it has to be so. Seems like a good thing to me. So here's the code.
13:35:46 Since the same thing as in general. Of course.
13:35:51 Great. We will know the board. Yes.
13:35:53 Yeah, I think that it's a great idea. Congratulations and thanks, you know, Al and Justin and all the others for building the capacity back up.
13:36:02 I have one. You know, hmm.
13:36:08 I hear a lot down at Kelsey. I know we've talked about this before at the, transfer station.
13:36:14 I'm just gonna, I'm gonna ask you, I'm, I'm not telling, but if I could like.
13:36:18 A lot of people are frustrated that I've heard about the minimum 2 cans at Sand there's never a line there like there is at the transfer station.
13:36:28 And do you think that that's something that with additional capacity could be? Address in the future or is there other reasons that I'm not hip to that for maintaining that
2 can minimum?
13:36:43 When we were looking at a couple of options there in the revised fee schedule, what we wanted to do is find some more.
13:36:50 Between how we charge with the, you know, It was sort of a philosophical shift in trying to convince people to frequent either of the facilities less with larger loads.
13:37:05 We, I have not gotten Negative feedback from that I know the attendants have occasionally talked to folks and suggested to them that they simply return the next week or few
days later with another can.
13:37:21 And they've been satisfied with that. But it's something we could always consider. Revising that.
13:37:29 That can minimum down again. Yeah.
13:37:32 And I'm not asking for that right now, totally supportive of this. Trying to broach different topic.
13:37:38 I just wanted to broach different topic. I just wanted to kind of get your. Understanding of the situation.
13:37:43 M have something to add.
13:37:43 Well, I would also just add to what I said that, you know, quilting needs to pay its way.
13:37:49 So the revenue, has to be collected one way or the other. So even it, I mean, you can bring in as little garbage as you want, but you're going to pay a minimum fee because Otherwise
you have a situation where the customers at the Jacob Miller transfer station or subsidizing the quill scene.
13:38:11 Facility so there is a minimum kind of amount of revenue that has to be collected at that facility. One way or the other so You can bring in one can, but it's gonna cost you
more if we have a one can rate we're gonna you know it's still gonna be a higher rate because Again, there's just a.
13:38:34 Basic bottom end of the revenue stream that that needs to be collected to run that facility.
13:38:44 Sounds good. Thanks. Sorry to bro something not on the agenda topic. I just heard from a couple of people, but it's not a persistent thing.
13:38:50 And I'm just, you know. I appreciate the explanations.
13:38:53 Certainly. And I should mention the Cuisine facility has run at a deficit. For the past 5 years.
13:39:00 I think last year was about a $22,000 deficit. So we are concerned with the With the public perception, the transfer station customers are subsidizing the South County facility.
13:39:16 Our our hope is that today it's it's or by the end of this year. It's running at a break even.
13:39:26 I don't have any questions, but I'm happy to move that we approve the recommendation unless there's other discussion.
13:39:32 I just have one quick question. Do you have any idea why you're able to backfill as well as you were the staffing issues.
13:39:42 Well, probably 2 reasons. We suspect certainly the new CBA, the rates in the CBA.
13:39:48 Or far more attractive. Also, what we're what we're hearing from, candidates for those positions is that the word is out that it's a fun place to work.
13:40:01 So yeah, Justin's done a remarkable job of. Of raising the level of professionalism there.
13:40:08 And, and I think it's starting to pay dividends for us in terms of recruitment and retention.
13:40:14 Good. I can't say how appreciative we are of all your guys' leadership. I know it's been a rocky road for a while.
13:40:22 And to get through this and to come out of it on the upswing is a really positive thing in a mark of your efforts.
13:40:30 So. Super appreciative. I am happy to move that we approve. The revisions to the transfer registration and quilting dropbox hours of operation.
13:40:43 Second.
13:40:44 Alright, we will open this up for public comment. There any members of the public in the Zoom room?
13:40:52 Please feel free to hit raise hand if you'd like to provide comment.
13:40:57 Anyone like to provide public comment?
13:41:01 Going once, one twice
13:41:08 Alright, close public comments. We have a motion on the table. Any further discussion? I'm trying to decide where I want to work after I retire from being commissioner and this
is really high on my list.
13:41:21 Okay.
13:41:19 So keep it good there guys. Are you good at backing up trailers? Nice. You have 2 women commissioners that can back up trailers.
13:41:27 No small thing. Alright, sorry, Greg. I mean. Can you?
13:41:30 No, not you could also just say you have 2 commissioners that are good at backing up trailers too.
13:41:36 Yes.
13:41:34 I don't seem good at it. Alright, all those in favor of the motion on the table to approve the revised hours of the motion on the table to approve the revised hours of operation
indicate by saying aye.
13:41:47 Hi. Hi, this is unanimously. Thank you very much. This will, hopefully make the public happy, but we know that's difficult sometimes.
13:42:00 If you have another couple of minutes, I just. Is that okay then? I just wanna, we did have Justin, our operations coordinator at the transportation.
13:42:09 Well, for all of solid waste operations come in today. Since this is an operational issue, but I, you know, I just wanted the commissioners to have an opportunity to meet Justin.
13:42:24 Sorry.
13:42:20 Face to face or Kind of face to face there. Justin has been the solid waste operations coordinator out there for what a year.
13:42:33 2 coming up on 2 time flies. He was previously with our road, crew for a while built our salt storage shed out and port had lock and a number of other.
13:42:47 Improvements, but, Justin's just been an exceptional operations coordinator for the county identifying needs fixing things and He worked a lot of extra hours and gave up a lot
of weekends with his family to get us through.
13:43:08 The staffing crunch out there. He also. Pretty much. I himself.
13:43:20 Did the upgrade of the software system out there? There were a lot of parties involved with that, but Justin had to.
13:43:30 Get them all to work together, but Justin did a lot of the work himself. I don't I think our typical.
13:43:38 Coordinators are also IT experts and hardware experts. He's built facilities out there fixed roofs.
13:43:50 Just done an amazing job. And we've changed both he and Al, working together have identified a lot of operational changes that, bring us redundancy and efficiency.
13:44:03 Using our alternate wall for construction and demolition to debris and things like that, working with the new fleet coordinator to improve our equipment.
13:44:19 Reliability out there which is huge so You know, all of that's been made possible by having a, you know, really exceptional operations coordinator.
13:44:30 Just a missile. To work with on this and to to be out there. So I think and again, like I said, he gave up a lot of of time with his family to you know get us through the the
staffing crush so i really appreciate that i think the board They want to recognize him for that.
13:44:50 I didn't. I know we had Ricky here last week and, Ricky helped us out.
13:44:57 On some weekends and worked extra hours too, but. Hi, Justin's the leader out there.
13:45:04 And, really stepped up to get this county through that crunch so I just wanna say I really appreciate that Justin and, really, enjoy having you, to work with.
13:45:18 Just like. Oh, here. Feel free to scoot your chair up. Hmm.
13:45:32 Yeah, so again, You know, I'm running the face, but thanks for that, Bonnie.
13:45:39 I really appreciate it. It's nice to have the acknowledgement. I'll accept it on behalf of the transfer station and everyone who works out there.
13:45:47 It has been a long road, but we've also been fortunate enough to work with a team that's really good at providing the resources that we need.
13:45:56 In order to overcome the challenges that we've seen and we have a board who's also not afraid to make.
13:46:01 Decisions on our behalf and it's certainly appreciated from the people at the transfer station and myself so Yeah, thank you.
13:46:10 I'm curious what, you know, I'll answer the question about how we're able to recruit workers, but I know there have been a number of retirements out there, but I know there've
been a number of retirements out there in recent years and, like what's your kind of outlook for how, we interested in and skilled to do this kind of work.
13:46:36 Okay.
13:46:39 You know, we've had this start with the lows we've had in staffing levels.
13:46:45 We've had this talk a lot, you know, amongst ourselves out there. We're operating from a from a word of mouth standpoint.
13:46:53 You know, we're a small county and We have a lot of employees who are well connected in the community, with, people we were looking for jobs.
13:47:03 And by having a professional environment and set and clear expectations, we feel that it. It gives our current staff members, the the opportunity to go out and kind of, you
know, workshop at their friends on getting people in the door.
13:47:23 It's definitely not a place where where they wouldn't want to bring somebody in. We've actually kind of made it a place where they've actually kind of made it a place where
they're trying to get people in and they're they're trying to get people in and they're trying to get people in and they're they're proud to do so.
13:47:35 I think that makes a difference and. I think the work, the work that was done in the current CBA definitely helps.
13:47:42 It's not just about wages, of course, you know, it's it's a combination of working conditions.
13:47:48 And and, compensation as well as, is, there's a word I'm looking for, but I don't have it right now, but basically working conditions.
13:48:01 And culture. That's it's work culture. So by improving on those 3 things, I think, you know, eventually the word just kind of saturates itself out.
13:48:11 And we're we have some pretty good applicants coming in. I know we can speak.
13:48:18 You know, directly for Bill Short, who was just hired on who, came recommended by another county employee to come work at the transfer station.
13:48:26 And Sean Jones as well. So I think I think lots of our recent hires have just come from those avenues.
13:48:35 That's great. Yeah, I know I was trying. I was talking up solid waste and had a candidate for Al and he's like, well.
13:48:44 We don't need anyone. We're full up now. I'm like, okay. Great.
13:48:54 Well, thank you so much. I'm really appreciate all the hard work. And, I mean, it's great to think of the transfer station is like the desirable place to work.
13:49:04 I love it. Cause you know, I mean, It's the thing that we probably get the most, I mean, their number of things, but if things aren't going smoothly at the transfer station,
we hear about it smoothly at the transfer station, we hear about it right away.
13:49:16 You know, I mean it's just. So important. Oh, thank you. 100,000 transactions a year.
13:49:27 Of course.
13:49:29 Can I add one thing real quick, Chair? I just, sorry, I couldn't be there.
13:49:34 I have a class in Olympia, Monday evenings right now. So, sorry to miss Al and Justin, who I think I met at the air event for the artist in residence.
13:49:45 And I was wondering, I believe that There's a new round. I'd love to get Justin's perspective on how the last one went, whether it was whether it adds value for the crew or
kind of what your thoughts are of the artist in residence program down there.
13:50:00 Yeah, sure. You know, The artists in residence have been really, you know, graceful with our staff.
13:50:07 And they work really well together. But outside of that, the program in particular is good for the transfer station and the way that You know, we're slowly giving the transfer
station a face lift and, and, they're, really helping out with that.
13:50:23 They built a garden out on the side of their, place they have some. Pretty ambitious ideas, for art around the transfer station and just, again, just souping up the work culture
in general.
13:50:36 They've been really good to work with and they're well well accepted by staff. So, you know, there's one piece.
13:50:44 Of art out there now, I think come, you know, spring comes out, there'll be a garden out there.
13:50:49 They're putting a mural behind the building that we've landed to them and, I think it's, I think it's a good program.
13:50:56 I'm really excited to see, you know, what direction they take it.
13:51:01 That's great. Well, thank you so much for your service and your sacrifice, Justin, to get us through these lean times.
13:51:07 Appreciate the leadership from all of you.
13:51:11 Okay, thank you. Yeah, we had you done for an hour and a half on the agenda, but we did.
13:51:15 Yeah.
13:51:17 But clearly didn't need up. When you're all done, Good to see you. All right, so at 2 30.
13:51:26 Bye guys. We, butler coming in to talk about theema community assistance visit. And followed by community rating system, 2 related items.
13:51:38 What do we want to do for the next 40Â min?
13:51:42 We did this morning already. Okay, about Josh and Brent on community rating, that's after.
13:51:53 And now.
13:51:53 Is there more legislative update? I mean, I know that both the workforce development bill, what is it?
13:52:01 22. I forgot the number now. The gets for like on Exa, the Exa bill and the biotech bill, both, Pass with blind colors.
13:52:10 Yeah.
13:52:13 Are there any other reports that either of you have about village?
13:52:17 Hmm, our school based health clinic for, Blue Harry Middle School was funded. Very exciting along with the 6 others across the area.
13:52:26 That was our only, capital budget request. I have a quirky one. Well, quirky in my mind.
13:52:33 All the forests and DNR issues I've been working out on and they had there was a effort to get some more encumbered lands, replacement lands funding and they ended up.
13:52:45 Alexating 15 million dollars in the. Budget for encumbered lands counties. But they took Jefferson out.
13:52:55 Because, the rationale was that we got so much in the last round and that there that we had relatively small number of encumbered acres.
13:53:05 Well, it's up to the other encumbered, counties. So. I didn't throw that obviously and I didn't know it.
13:53:13 We didn't know about it. You know, Paul Jewel called me and was like it wasn't me, you know, said I want you to know this happened but it wasn't me and I talked to Steve Theron's
about it and he said we're going to talk more about it and you know when he's back but I don't think it's something we need to be concerned about, but it's
13:53:29 something I'll, you know, track that we're not taking out of everything. So. Not gonna sign up for every committee of DNR if they're gonna take us out of all the Appropriations
in the long run.
13:53:40 Yeah.
13:53:40 So anyway. But just wanted to let you know that we got taken out of that. But on the good side.
13:53:47 Of the capital budget equation. And this doesn't affect us, but all of the Trust LAM transfer projects.
13:53:55 In the last session we were advocating for kind of about a set of legacy TLT projects that they kind of been in waiting for summons for decades.
13:54:05 And. There were 2 versions of a trust and transfer list moving through this session. And we thought we heard that it was going to be funded to 8 million dollars, but they ended
up funding it to 10.6 million dollars and so all of those legacy.
13:54:21 TLT projects got funded in this session. So That allows us to go into the next full biennial session.
13:54:30 With the new request with a new set of projects using the new process that we've created over the last few years for Trust Land Transfer.
13:54:38 So. That was an outcome of this session as well.
13:54:44 Yeah, there's, I didn't attend the Wasack. I wasn't able to attend the WASAC.
13:54:50 Summary meeting on Friday over the noon hour, but. Couple things I was tracking as the, the legislatures embargo on administering the school environmental health rule.
13:55:06 They finally decided to fund $750,000 to the state board of health to, update.
13:55:14 It's not entirely accurate. What is it? At, a technical advisory committee to review and update the school environmental health and safety rules.
13:55:23 The suspension of the rule is still intact, but we can start coming up with a plan to.
13:55:29 Adopt the Now dated school environmental health rule also, but there will be some updates made to it before.
13:55:37 It can be, actually implemented. So it's step in the right direction. It's been 15 years.
13:55:44 Plus embargoed. And so this is the first step to get that updated. We're operating under 19 seventys.
13:55:52 School environmental health rules. Oh my God. Because the legislature refused to adopt the state board of health new rules or refused to fund them.
13:56:03 So that's exciting. But I think in general that the session was. Like I don't think anything too dramatic happened for counties.
13:56:15 You know, some small positive steps on GMA and. Lammers.
13:56:21 Hey, definitely wasn't sense on that call. You know, that the supplemental session was good for counties.
13:56:28 That was like a tagline in a bunch of the slides. No, good. Yep. The 6 initiatives so we've been hearing about.
13:56:36 3 of those were passed in the session. So the.
13:56:42 I can't even. No, that's left. That's left. Yeah, it'll be on the ballot.
13:56:49 Yeah, K, the least pursuits. The income tax one and parental rights in public schools.
13:56:56 All passed in this session, they were slated to be initiatives, those 3. And the 3 left are climate commitment, act repeal.
13:57:06 Capital gains repeal and long term care insurance.
13:57:12 Yep, it's gonna be a wild election. It's too bad the has the 10 acres from you, mmm, 10 miles?
13:57:26 But that works for. Kelsey and Brendan. Do you know what the organic?
13:57:33 There was an organic waste bill that passed and I don't know what that one. Encompassed. ESSB, 2301. Organics. I didn't follow it closely.
13:57:49 Was Yeah.
13:57:59 Yeah, so I think, you know. Probably I'll be getting a number of different bills from different sector, emails from different sectors summarizing what's happened, but.
13:58:09 Kind of hard to put it all in one place.
13:58:15 There's a clar, a bill clarifying that counties are Only responsible to hold on to.
13:58:23 Remains of deceased people. Who, are not, who have not been claimed by anyone to, 45 days instead of 90 days.
13:58:35 Interesting.
13:58:36 So, macabre, I guess. Is that ever? Wow.
13:58:38 Yeah. Yeah, and funeral home does much of that work on our behalf.
13:58:46 Still good to have the clarification.
13:58:50 Alright. Wonder should we something I've been hoping we would have time to talk about is at least give some thought to how we want to come up with our internal goals for climate
action committee.
13:59:07 And I know we talked about inviting Tracy into that discussion, but maybe we could do a little guidance.
13:59:12 From the board before we pull her into it and just reach some. Could we review the old ones? I feel like we did that maybe my first year as a commissioner.
13:59:21 Reviewed what our previous ones had been and. That sparked a lot of conversation about what our future goal should be.
13:59:30 Yeah, and I think too that There's also a question of process, you know, kind of how.
13:59:36 You know, many departments feel like a lot is asked of them and so, you know, how do we get, folks?
13:59:43 To buy into the idea of making incremental improvements without adding a lot of they're play it.
13:59:51 Got it.
13:59:51 Well, I think a problem, Kate, is that a lot of the improvements aren't incremental improvements and it's not worked into the budget like the EV issues that we encountered during
the budget process, right?
14:00:02 Where we brought it up a couple times and that that life cycle cost just isn't accounted for the, you know, the relative life cycle cost of an EV versus, you know, an internal
combustion fleet vehicle at the same class.
14:00:16 Is really. As far as I know, not part of our operating procedure. So it's difficult to get an individual department to jump on that or you know as another idea, you know, paperless,
paperless.
14:00:31 Work, you know, getting rid of that. Paper something we've been trying to do in our office but If we want to do it systemically across the whole county, it's, you know, we kind
of have to.
14:00:41 Help guide that whole process, right? So systemic changes. Start with us, I guess is what I'm saying.
14:00:48 It's okay, I have a spreadsheet that. You and I developed in 2022 should I bring that up?
14:00:55 Yep, good.
14:01:00 Is that January, 22? The same version. Yeah, this looks good.
14:01:10 Yes, I think even calling those things out, Greg is. An important next step where, you know, where are there?
14:01:18 Policy opportunities. And that, you know, that could. Be something that falls under our category.
14:01:31 Yeah.
14:01:30 We're gonna review that. Can we blow it up? I can't. Yeah.
14:01:37 I just have to.
14:01:48 Okay. Yeah. So a number of these, you know, obviously we've made 0 progress on, but some of them we have.
14:02:01 Well, I mean, even the like, I think. I think we made some progress and not entirely of our doing some of our doing but you know, COVID helped transit going fair free.
14:02:15 Helps, you know, in terms of incentives. Like we have more explicitly. Encouraged or allowed departments to decide on their work from home policies.
14:02:28 So there's a fair amount of remote work occurring and you know I never go down to the Port Ludlow fire station for Jeff Con anymore.
14:02:36 I always did it remotely. And what is that? 15 miles each way?
14:02:42 I think carpooling is an area we can still really improve. I just know that, you know, transits, Carpool vans, van pools.
14:02:51 Have been completely unused for at least 4 years, I think longer than that. So. You know, making sure that programs that exist already are.
14:03:03 Presented to to staff that has an option.
14:03:09 Yep.
14:03:11 Got update integral to EPL, right?
14:03:16 I feel like we need a
14:03:20 I feel like we haven't addressed a lot of these things. Yeah, not really. We have, but we haven't.
14:03:27 Hmm. Bizarre. Climate actions are.
14:03:36 Somebody that you know organize. Communicating about these goals and develop a tracking system and Yeah. Yeah, and I, I don't know if you've heard that.
14:03:50 I think Josh mentioned it last week when he was here that DCD and public health are. Convening a little summit of, you know, number of the folks working on climate in the county.
14:04:03 I don't think it will. In the hopes of better coordinating these efforts. I don't think it will result in that.
14:04:12 You know, there's a little bit of funding from foundational public health. To do that work but I still don't think we'll are likely to have that kind of So one thing that might
help.
14:04:22 You know, things get done well that the boss checks, right? You've heard that.
14:04:28 Are you gonna say you're gonna start checking? I'd like to propose maybe a once a quarter workshop on on goals so people can report progress.
14:04:40 I mean like I know, little pressure. We had the whole recycled paper thing and we have been ordered this office has been ordering recycled paper when it came up the time to
renew through order again it was a question again and I feel like
14:04:54 You know, it's just how do we get other departments to do it and we don't use as much paper as.
14:05:01 Able to send out, you know. And I think if, you know, if we purify this list that the board should adopt it by resolution so that it has some force and in that resolution announced
that we're going to have once a quarter workshops on achievement.
14:05:20 This would be a good conversation for county coordination on Friday. Okay.
14:05:25 What's renewable diesel fuel?
14:05:33 Jeez, you know, I knew the answer to that question once upon a time.
14:05:37 Like biodiesel, is that what we're talking about?
14:05:39 I think it's, yeah, I'll just Google it here real quick. I think they take Oh, it's for heating the isn't for heating the shop but no we got rid of that Kate we were burning
waste oil now we recycle it and so we don't have soot floating around out there.
14:06:00 We now use natural gas for infrared heating.
14:06:06 Oh, wait a minute. You can see. I can't remember. I remember Lou explaining it to us, but.
14:06:21 I mean, I think it's good as you're looking for that. You talked about having Tracy come in and do this workshop and I think.
14:06:27 Central Services Director is the person that needs to kind of Good. A lot of these more systemic. Mitigations.
14:06:35 Right. So.
14:06:37 A lot of solar panel money out there.
14:06:40 Yeah, so it's not a fossil fuel and it's not a biodiesel.
14:06:45 It's made from 100% sustainably sourced renewable raw materials, but it doesn't list what they are.
14:06:52 Oh, the fuel is a hydro treated vegetable oil. That is fully compatible with all diesel engines and current diesel field distribution infrastructure.
14:07:03 How is that not a biodiesel?
14:07:03 Oh, it sounds like a Oh yeah.
14:07:08 Hi, what do you say? Hi, hi.
14:07:11 Yeah, hydro treated.
14:07:15 Okay.
14:07:14 I mean I always have a little issue with with fuels that can be, subsidized by the farm bill, I have to admit.
14:07:22 You know, turning our mono cultures to fuel instead of food is. I mean, I've had biodiesel cars myself or.
14:07:30 Renewable diesel fuel vehicles and
14:07:37 It's got some downsides too. I mean, everything does, of course.
14:07:40 Yeah, well, I'm new fleet manager who I've not met yet. Be good to start talking about a number of things.
14:07:51 We can bring him in. Talk about the fleet. Hmm. Yeah, I mean the tricky thing and you know I've been working on this for many years now is you know, just that, how do you get
folks to buy in to making some changes and not kind of push them to resent the work that we want to see.
14:08:16 So I'm very open to kinda. Us taking a deciding on a direction. So that's not Mark and I pestering people for.
14:08:30 You know, things that they, that are seen as kind of. Additional to The day to day work.
14:08:38 That's the departments that hard test with these could own the. Where these came from. So what do you think about the resolution idea and Yeah.
14:08:48 Do you want to spend the time purifying this list or should I email it to each of you and have you send your ideas back to me?
14:08:57 Again, I mean these came from departments and be interesting to get an update on kind of what, you know, what has been done and where they see that the next low hanging fruit
or opportunities.
14:09:13 For improvement. Okay. But I do like the idea of Adapting very resolution and maybe the yeah And again, that could be part of the.
14:09:26 County coordination meeting on a more regular basis. Essentially, I mean, it's almost like could it be an addendum to the strategic plan or something, you know.
14:09:40 Hmm. Can you scroll down, Mark? So we can see what the other ones were.
14:09:46 Hmm.
14:09:56 Okay, fleet you've seen so
14:10:05 Okay.
14:10:20 I mean, lot of these things take kind of communication about them, right? And Recycled paper that's like the lowest hanging fruit really
14:10:33 Some people not to buy plastic. Thank you. Hmm.
14:10:44 Okay.
14:10:50 We squeaking in the ceiling is giving me a really bad headache.
14:10:57 Can you hear it, Greg? Does it come through at all? But high pitched.
14:11:02 I don't hear the wine now.
14:11:12 It seems like it's been worse this year. But.
14:11:15 The cats have left the room though. I don't know maybe. Maybe there's a
14:11:21 But if you're at home. Just the, now it's these, it's the radiator, the boiler.
14:11:32 But sometimes it clicks, Yeah.
14:11:39 Oh.
14:11:39 So how do we wanna broach this? County coordination. Where do we want to meet with connect with Tracy first?
14:11:51 Well, I could send this to the responsible directors. And I let them know we're going to talk about it on Friday at the County Coordination meeting and that we're looking to
update this to add.
14:12:04 The modified to delete. And, Talk about the resolution that you'll adopt.
14:12:12 And then talk about that once a quarter update. Workshop or
14:12:18 I think a dedicated workshop to me would make more sense. Could be a time consuming thing. But then do we need each department to be kind of?
14:12:30 Reporting on their progress. So it'd be an all county thing. So, you know, Apple would report on hers and money on his.
14:12:39 Josh on his and so on. Hmm. Yeah. What do you guys think?
14:12:48 Sounds good to me.
14:12:47 So like a good strategy. A good start and then see how that goes, you know.
14:13:02 Alright. Well, we will report back after county coordination and.
14:13:12 See what kind of buy in there is. Do think too is there a a place that this would kind of naturally live, but it really you know, like with you, Mark, okay.
14:13:28 Yeah, across all the apartments. And it's, and we would like to provide some policy direction.
14:13:36 And I think, you know, during the quarterly workshops you can emphasize and reinforce. Okay.
14:13:45 Alright. Well, we don't have anything till 2 30. Do you guys wanna take a little break?
14:13:51 Phil is here. Those guys can start getting set up maybe when they get here. You guys have a presentation.
14:13:56 You're going to? Okay. Yeah, it's that 6 page agenda request. Yes.
14:14:07 Sounds good.
14:14:04 Folks wanna take a recess till 2 30. Okay.
14:31:58 Okay.
14:32:03 Alright, we are coming back from a recess. Hopefully, Mr. Brother Tim, I'll be back.
14:32:10 Shortly, but we can probably go ahead and get their. Go ahead and get started.
14:32:17 So handing it off to. Bill Brent, who's gonna start us off. I just wanted to, present some of our work to the board.
14:32:32 And my name is Brent Butler and I serve at the pleasure of the board as the Chief Strategy Officer.
14:32:39 And I feel seer. I work for DCD. I'm the building official. And the fire martial for Jefferson County.
14:32:46 And the, and the flood plan administrator. Good. Is will Josh be joining for this portion? I don't believe for this portal.
14:32:53 Leave it in a second. And I should point out that he is available online. So if there's anything that's needed online.
14:33:01 And so if there's anything that's needed, he can pop in.
14:33:02 Next slide. So we have a draft agenda that looks at the statement of the issue. Alright, and we've divided that into 3 components.
14:33:16 And then we also have the background. And I try to answer the. The Phi W or the 4 W's.
14:33:26 And then we also have a brief analysis and then. A recommendation.
14:33:34 Next slide. So the statement of an issue I think is really important to know. What is this?
14:33:42 That we are regulating and why. And so I thought we would start just a brief explanation to what.
14:33:49 So what we see here is a picture of Beckett point that was on our king tide of the 2,02220 23 king time that was our most significant one.
14:34:00 And, a very long period of time because of the low atmosphere pressure. And so I was one of the lowest.
14:34:08 Of 6 on record if I remember correctly. And so, The regulatory framework says that. We are as a government only responsible to be or have concerns and regulations.
14:34:24 In those areas that are known as the special flood hazard area. So we often use S. HA.
14:34:32 Special areas of special flood hazard. The 100 year flood zone, the 1% chance flood.
14:34:41 They all mean the same thing. And so I just wanted to clarify that because there are so many terms, but they're all referring to.
14:34:50 What under the national flood insurance burden the NFIP is delineated in our flood insurance rate map, which is the firm.
14:35:00 And that, delineates the what? That is what's being regulated. And in and that is a requirement for us to be able to have insurance that's subsidized.
14:35:13 Next slide.
14:35:16 So where? Okay, now this is always a very, challenging question. Any member of the public can go to Flood Smart, which is a website available by FEMA, and you can punch in your
address.
14:35:34 And you can see if you are in the special flood hazard area. So I have just an example here.
14:35:40 This is of quilting. I went to the flood insurance map and I pulled up, I typed in the word, And you can see that red.
14:35:52 Mark with the arrow is over. That automatically came up and it showed me quill scene. And so what we're seeing.
14:36:00 Is that blue area and I actually point out go all of the blue is the special flood hazard area.
14:36:09 Okay. And, And what we're looking at right now. Is one of those sub areas. Within the special flood hazard area.
14:36:20 So. Even within the special flood hazard area, which is delineates the one hundred-year flood.
14:36:29 There are areas inside which are have even greater risk. And so what we've highlighted here is you can see the blue, which is the special flood hazard area, but we've also looked
at what is the flood way.
14:36:41 And what is the floodway? So, and I should explain that. That is an area where the flood waters are coming down from a river or a creek or stream.
14:36:54 And in some of our rivers, we're talking. In excess of 10,000 cubic feet per second.
14:37:02 And so that's an area that has exceptionally high risk. Another area that has exceptionally high risk.
14:37:09 Are those areas along the coast? That are subject to high velocity waves. And that's called the Visa.
14:37:19 Okay, next slide.
14:37:22 Okay. Hmm. Is it really is it really disruptive? Yeah, I might I might go down to my office.
14:37:33 This is giving me such a bad headache. Okay. That I can't concentrate on to my office.
14:37:38 This is giving me such a bad headache that I that I can't concentrate on what you're saying.
14:37:40 Okay, we can pause for just a moment. Yeah, that would be great. I feel like I'm in a Saturday Night Live episode. Okay.
14:37:44 Sorry, friend. That's fine. That's nice. It's just.
14:37:47 I'm sorry, what's the premise of this Saturday LED, skip?
14:37:50 It's the it's the buzzing overhead. It's like the screening buzz and it gave me a headache. I have one too.
14:38:00 Yeah, Carolyn has one too. Yes, I do too.
14:38:01 Seems like one of the late nineties skits maybe one of the when they weren't funny at all.
14:38:10 Right.
14:38:06 Alright, yeah, or a statement on governments like. Is this terrible noise and we're all just pretending like nothing's happening.
14:38:16 So just let give hide a minute to get set up. That's one of the page that have very much.
14:38:26 Oh, good. Yeah. Although I do. Yeah.
14:38:40 Now. One Yes, no, it's fine, August. Wait a minute.
14:39:13 Okay.
14:39:48 Okay.
14:39:52 So.
14:40:05 Hey, Brand, what's Special flood hasn't. Hmm.
14:40:36 It's like Heidi's back with this.
14:40:38 Great. You ready, Heidi?
14:40:45 I think she can hear us yet.
14:40:50 Can you hear us, Heidi?
14:40:55 Hmm. She can't hear anything.
14:40:59 I mean, that's still an improvement, right?
14:41:02 Hmm. Goldilocks. Howdy, can you hear? Can't hear anything now.
14:41:12 She says.
14:41:14 Hmm.
14:41:24 Hello.
14:41:36 Just the needs to pick the right mic and speaker.
14:41:45 Hmm.
14:42:31 On my
14:42:39 Can you hear me.
14:42:40 Yep. Can you hear us?
14:42:48 Okay. Right. Yeah. It's.
14:42:42 Okay. I can hear you, so that's good. Thanks. I don't know why.
14:42:55 Okay.
14:42:55 I know why it's not working because I have the right settings going, but.
14:42:59 Okay, the phone picks up a lot of noise. So just be aware. Alright, go ahead, friend.
14:43:07 Is that better?
14:43:09 Yeah, that's gonna get tiresome, I mentioned, but. Just. Okay.
14:43:18 Yeah, you could do speaker phone and just mute if you're not talking, whatever. Alright, ahead, Ben.
14:43:22 Okay.
14:43:23 What we've decided to look at was, well, what is our level of activity? And so this is just a printout.
14:43:32 Of permits. That were issued. Intersecting with our 100 year flood zone. And you'll see that there are some that are not.
14:43:43 On the close line. And that would typically be because we have a lakes and we have shoreline properties within the interior.
14:43:52 Typically associated with lakes or creeks and rivers. And so I just wanted you to be aware that I saw our special flood hazard area is.
14:44:02 It's throughout the county. Next slide. So then. Background, we sort of looked at, well, why?
14:44:14 And so the overall purpose of the national flood insurance program, the NFSP. Is to reduce property.
14:44:21 Financial risk. And so it does. Have a component of it and it was discussed in the report here.
14:44:30 That talks about the indemnification of that risk. And so in, the, the staff, the agenda requests, we identified that we have between 650 and 700 properties.
14:44:44 In that area that's high risk. We also identify. That the prior, multi hazard mitigation plan.
14:44:54 Which I think says 681 properties. Our those that are eligible for insurance as a consequence of Okay, I should say, and I should paraphrase that because I want everyone in
the community to be aware that you don't have to be in the flood zone to get flood insurance that you if you're adjacent to a high risk area.
14:45:20 30% or so of all flood risks. Flood accidents and losses occurred just outside. I really wanted to point out that when I say that, we're targeting those properties within the,
the special flood hazard area.
14:45:38 Also adjacent areas are eligible and they can get lower rates. And so in return in exchange for this subsidized flood insurance.
14:45:50 There is the availability of flood insurance for 2 different aspects. One aspect that's insured is the structure.
14:45:59 So quite frequently a structure may be through the force of the hydrostatic forces of water. Moved off of its foundation.
14:46:12 Those would be covered under the structural insurance. But if in fact, as we do see periodically, some homes are carried away along with their contents.
14:46:24 Then there's also insurance for the contents of the building. And so, and I can think of one example.
14:46:33 We have a one property that's clearly in the flood zone. That's our Brennan community center.
14:46:41 So if in fact there were a substantial damage to that structure. It would mean that 2 things would occur.
14:46:51 That if we have insurance we would get insurance for the structure. And then the second thing that would occur is that all of the computer and all of the equipment inside would
be covered under the contents.
14:47:05 Now, there is a third component. And this comes to the substantial improvement. Up visions.
14:47:14 And so now that's structure has been damaged. And I'm gonna let the. Phil talk about substantial improvement.
14:47:28 Alright, so first thing I want to say is that this has been an absolute amazing opportunity to learn, from some folks that have been in this for years, Brent and, Greg Ballard,
our, code development administrator as well.
14:47:44 Development code minister. Excuse me. I always get that wrong. Had previously served as a co.
14:47:49 Flow plan manager with the building official, in Calm County and he hopes to do the same here.
14:47:55 He's been quite a mentor to me to understand a lot of the ins and outs and then a lot of the intricacies of this.
14:48:00 So some of our standing operating procedures we have, we found we're pretty on a date on doing some of this stuff that came to light during this cab.
14:48:06 Now the community assistance visit, that this one was conducted by the partner ecology usually happens every 5 years.
14:48:14 We've been 17, I believe, on this one. So we were a little bit behind. So a lot of the questions that they were asking, you know, I wouldn't have any.
14:48:23 Any way to respond to you because you don't just we didn't have that institutional knowledge from folks that were here that long ago.
14:48:29 One of the things they've they've pointed out to you in our systems that the system that we have inside of our operated procedures were the elevation certificates.
14:48:38 We were getting them but we weren't necessarily having them fill out correctly by the surveyors. We also weren't necessarily using a best use practice.
14:48:47 In order to get actual 3 different times during. The phases of construction, you know, you have a pre elevation certificate.
14:48:54 You get one as soon as the first floor is completed or at least a confirmation if you have good.
14:48:58 Benchmarks there so that you can determine before the rest of the construction is completed that whether we have an issue or not and then there's the final grade that we do.
14:49:06 So really 3 different reviews of a elevation certificate, was something that we've gone to now that we're implementing currently.
14:49:16 At least I'll pause on that just to make sure that, everyone, listening is where we use this.
14:49:22 We do this so regularly that we can gloss over it. And so when we say that we're looking at 3 different steps, we're identifying one the first step.
14:49:32 Can you, what is that first step? Absolutely. So the first step would be to determine, you know, if you are in one of these flood hazard areas, that you would get, kind of your
baseline, you know, if you are in one of these flood hazard areas, that you would get, kind of your baseline if you will, you would find out what that base flood elevation is and then
14:49:46 per hour. Code in the state of the state building code actually requires one foot of freeboard.
14:49:53 So one foot above that base flood elevation. And so that's what we're trying to determine with these 3 different elevation certificates that we're complying with that.
14:50:01 I was going to pause at that one because that term you used is so important. Phil, freeboard.
14:50:06 Yes. So the greater the freeboard. Of this the more likely your structure is going to survive. That significant event.
14:50:16 In fact, there are many pictures of communities and a lot of times in Florida because they have a lot of high velocity waves.
14:50:23 Where the only structures remaining were those that were elevated above the base flood, but elevated significantly above it.
14:50:32 And so we wanted just to let everyone in the community be aware. Although we require one foot above, you could always do more.
14:50:43 Great. Thank you for that, right? Also in doing that, you know, that doesn't just include structures.
14:50:52 So the other things need to be elevated or like a mechanical equipment, heat pumps, generators, things like that could that could become waterlogged or that could be dislodged
and become debris in the event of a flood.
14:51:04 So there are a few different things there in our center operating procedures that we have overhauled and have a little bit.
14:51:10 Better of an understanding going forward and also a part of this. To get education with our inspectors so when they're out in the field they're seeing these things that they
can identify them and that has been a very key portion of doing.
14:51:23 And I want to point out something here that you've just indicated that I think is so important to note.
14:51:31 One of the most common utilities that I became aware of in my discussions with Phil is the, you know, I guess it might be a response to climate change, heat pumps.
14:51:43 Are becoming prevalent. And so one of the concerns that we would have is that If he pumps are improperly, and I say improperly, put in the flood zone.
14:51:55 They're not raised above. There could be potentially the electrocute, the electrocution of individuals.
14:52:02 The electrification of the floodwaters. That's the worst case scenario. And so I just wanted to highlight that.
14:52:10 So that's one of the benefits of the standard requirement of elevating utilities above the base flood and that being one of the most common utility permit, I thought it's important
to note that.
14:52:26 And usually sits on the ground. Yes, typically, yeah. But they can be elevated, they can be attached to a home on an elevated structure.
14:52:33 There's a lot of different ways that you can accomplish that. Yeah, so that's really interesting.
14:52:40 One of the things that, FEMA talks about, you know, in all of their paperwork is structures.
14:52:45 Well, structures aren't necessarily just buildings. When they're saying structures, they're also talking about tanks, you know, mechanical equipment, other things of that nature.
14:52:55 So, the term structures, is a very, very broad term, you know, fencing, there's all kinds of things they consider to be structures.
14:53:02 And another note, I just wanted to move back up to the when for a moment. Substantial improvement and, so, and what is that?
14:53:11 Because that's such an, a vague term and it is for many members of the community a significant term.
14:53:19 And so maybe you can talk more about substantial improvement. Absolutely. So the way the substantial improvement works is that if there is a structure that you have and you
want to substantially improve it, substantial improvement is typically set at a 50% threshold.
14:53:33 What we've done with our introduced in 1515 now, correct? The threshold, how we determine with our end and it is 1515 now, correct? The, our threshold, how we determine other.
14:53:43 It's not in it's in our standard operating procedure, but we didn't include that in it's in our standard operating procedure, but we didn't include that in it's not in the ordnance.
14:53:47 So that's, that's a good point. So, Excellent. So, The way that we're determining your basic, value of, of your structure.
14:53:59 So there's basically 3 different ways that you can do it. You can do it by your assessed value.
14:54:03 You can do it by your. Ensured value or you could do it by a, by an appraisal.
14:54:10 So the app is obviously being the most expensive and the one that takes the most amount of time. the assessed value obviously is going to be typically the lowest of your 3 values.
14:54:20 So we went for kind of the middle, the kind of the lowest hanging fruit in our opinion. And that was, the insured value.
14:54:26 So the way to do that. Pre any event. You would provide us or the declarations page of your insurance, which assigns your value of your structure.
14:54:36 That doesn't cost anything. And it gives you the most amount of flexibility bang for your buck in our opinion.
14:54:41 So that you can do as much substantial improvement as possible. Substantial improvement is capped at 50%.
14:54:48 Once you hit a 50% threshold, we start talking about you've improved the structure enough. That it would require you to possibly raise the elevation but you would have to come
into and the current codes with things.
14:54:59 So if you had a hundred year old structure that you wanted to completely update and restore. Chands are there could have to be raised to be above to be into current.
14:55:11 Floodplain management standards. And just in terms of local, locally relevant examples. This I think, responds to what we saw with the Nordland store.
14:55:24 That is in the flood zone. And because it's in the flood zone. We use their declarations page to determine how much investment they can put in.
14:55:36 Before it triggers a requirement for the entire structure to be elevated. Now, I have to point out there's a mixed Bag in this.
14:55:49 One is that By elevating the structure, you're making sure that structure is going to be around for another 150 years or so.
14:55:56 By not elevating it, your saying that that structure will continue to have an elevated level of risk.
14:56:05 So therein is the concern. And one of the areas that we did not adopt locally in our government is historic preservation ordinance.
14:56:17 Had we an historic preservation ordinance, the building such as the Norland Store, which I think would qualify, would be exempt from the regulations under the flood, plane management.
14:56:32 And so that's one of the few areas that an exemption does. is allowed. I think I see.
14:56:40 Heidi's head.
14:56:40 Can you say that last phrase you just said again?
14:56:45 That the requirements under the flood damage prevention ordinance. Many of them are exempted, for historic structures.
14:56:58 So if you have an historic structure or barn or like the Nordland store, the ability or the requirements for that store to be elevated would not be triggered if they exceeded
the substantial improvement threshold.
14:57:16 Okay. No.
14:57:15 But it has to be registered. Has to be registered either at the state. I did double check this, the local registry as well would satisfy.
14:57:25 But we haven't a program in place. So, but I just, if there is interest in that down the road, that's something that's one of the benefits of that.
14:57:37 So I will move on just to talk about the lawsuit. So many members of the community do not understand.
14:57:45 Oh, stay at the last page. many members of the community. Oh, okay.
14:57:52 There we go. Okay. Do not understand, that in addition to the requirements laid out.
14:57:59 With regards to substantial improvement. The 3 phases of the elevation certificate, the first one being you establish that base flood so you know the elevation of floodwaters
at that hundred-year event.
14:58:16 And the design standard is one foot above that. We recommend more if you can't afford it. But that's the design standard.
14:58:26 And then there is a final. When we come back after. The construction to confirm. And so.
14:58:34 Prior to construction though. We do require as a consequence of the lawsuit, National Wildlife Federation versus FEMA.
14:58:44 That all properties all development in the flood zone submit a habitat assessment. The National Wildlife Federation.
14:58:55 Was in that lawsuit they determined that the National Marines Fishery Service did not consult. And as a consequence of that, there was, unlawful takes, of, when I say a take,
I'm referring to under the Endangered Species Act.
14:59:17 That there was a potential for a loss of listed species. And so, as a consequence, we as a community attempted to adopt an ordinance that meant that requirement, but we were
not successful in doing that.
14:59:38 And so that would have been door one or door 2. We attempted that back in 2,008.
14:59:45 We were not successful in meeting the more onerous. Requirements. And so that gave us what we call door 3.
14:59:53 The requirement for all development in the flood zone. To submit a habitat assessment. There are some rare exceptions and that is also identified in our paperwork.
15:00:08 So for a lot of our programs, we do have some exceptions. Next slide.
15:00:16 So now we're going to move on to the analysis. Any questions on what we presented thus for?
15:00:22 That's far Okay. So we're gonna move on to the analysis.
15:00:30 Okay, so just a brief summary. So we covered. What the CRS is regulating.
15:00:38 And. And I should point out you say not the CRS with the national flood insurance program regulates.
15:00:47 Now, Looking at the CRS program, which is the community rating system. That lays out optional activities.
15:00:57 And these optional activities include. Increasing the number of the the freeboard so we mentioned that is One foot being required.
15:01:08 But that is one of the optional activities. Now I did have a handout here and this comes from the CRS manual.
15:01:16 And it identifies. Some 19 different activities that a community can undertake. One of them is developing new maps and data.
15:01:31 Another one is, providing the data to community members so that they better understand their risks.
15:01:40 And that's under, we have essentially in terms of optional activities. There's about 7 subcategories.
15:01:50 One of them is assessing your community's flood problem. A second one is just mapping and flood data.
15:01:56 That's what I'm referring to. A third one is managing new development and minimizing future damage.
15:02:03 And so one of the ways that a community does that, and this is what we've done and a lot of communities is preserving open space.
15:02:12 So typically you would in those areas where it's high risk. Flood ways, zones, you would preserve that as open space or flood storage.
15:02:25 A lot of communities make that parks. So the parks will flood in the time of the raining season.
15:02:31 And it's not, it's not impacting development potential. Other areas are developing a flood plain management plan for the community is another optional activity.
15:02:46 Reducing flood losses to existing, development. So we have been doing that. So one of the activities here is acquiring and relocating flood prone buildings.
15:02:58 On Tammy Polkearney in our public health department has been working on this for 15 years acquiring property from willing and I want to point out willing property owners.
15:03:11 And then there is, addressing what FEMA identifies as repetitive lost properties, properties that have had more than one loss.
15:03:22 Under the National Flood Insurance Program. And then another, there are 2 other areas that are action optional activities under the CRS.
15:03:31 One is improving. Emergency preparedness and response. And so that includes a flood warning and a response planning.
15:03:40 Another activity under that is warning and response for areas protected by a levy. Or for example, Lord's Lake.
15:03:48 And a lot of communities have plans in place if the dam gives way. How are people notified?
15:03:56 What is done? And so, and this is essentially warning and response for areas downstream of a dam.
15:04:04 Then a final activity that is in the CRS program. Is implementing public information activities. And so one of the things that's often occurs is that there's a master public
information program usually done in conjunction with the school district.
15:04:21 And different components. And then. There is also outreach done to flood plain property owners.
15:04:30 In advance of the flood. So, or I should say, advance of the flood season so that they know, oh, if you've got any.
15:04:39 Loose paint or chemicals in the storage shed, you want to be aware of that. And so these are all the list of optional activities, although none of them are mandatory.
15:04:52 These are optional activities that a community that elects to do any of them. Would receive additional credit and each credit point.
15:05:04 We reduces the overall flood insurance by 5%. Now I want to point out and I'm going to turn the microphone over to Phil.
15:05:15 There are some activities. That are already required. And I think Phil can talk about one of those. Yeah, absolutely.
15:05:24 So some of the things that are already required, like we talked about the, elevation strength against a lot of the things that we're doing already we found out that we were
doing but maybe not quite recording the right way.
15:05:37 So there's definitely some room for improvement there. We've identified those areas and we're going after those particular things.
15:05:48 Yeah, about the state building kosher. So the state building code automatically adopts a one foot free board requirement anyway. So the state building code automatically adopts
a one foot free board requirement anyway.
15:06:01 So just by following that, we do get some credit, automatically adopts a one foot free board requirement anyway.
15:06:07 So just by following that, we do get some credit toward the CRS program. Should we decide to enroll in that? Should that decision be made?
15:06:10 So there's a lot of things that we're doing that are already headed in that direction that are kind of positive points for us.
15:06:13 But we'll get into a little bit of that more, wanna get into the CRS portion.
15:06:19 And I just wanted to highlight that the CRS portion. And I just wanted to highlight that. So the the federal standard is only at base flood elevation.
15:06:24 So as long as you are at the base flight elevation you're okay. We have a higher regulatory standard of one foot above and that is demanded by the building code as Phil pointed
out.
15:06:34 And some jurisdictions choose to go higher, right? Yup. City of Fort Townsend, it's 2 feet above the base flood elevation.
15:06:42 However, they have decidedly less properties in a special flood hazard area and we do. Yes.
15:06:56 So, so we've covered about where the CRS program is really focused on. It's also overlaps with the NFIP, the National Flood Insurance Program, it's in the regulatory flood zone.
15:07:06 The special flood has it area, the 1% chance flood all the same term. And then when, this is so important to note.
15:07:15 That new construction is really the first. Place that we look. If you're building something new have to elevate it.
15:07:29 But the most difficult one for community members, the one community members. Fail to recognize is the substantial damage to substantial improvement.
15:07:39 And so important it is that a property owner that's improving their home, be aware. That one.
15:07:50 If you're putting in hardwood floors. If you're doing things that are fixed to the property.
15:07:57 That's an improvement. And you need to be aware that those costs. May trigger the mandatory elevation of your structure.
15:08:08 And so we have a desk reference. It's a fairly lent large volume and it identifies.
15:08:18 What contributes. To the costs when you're making that determination. But as we've indicated earlier, in many regards, It's a best practice to elevate the structure.
15:08:31 But as we know, some parts of our community have depressed incomes. And they would not be eligible or able to do that.
15:08:44 Many other governments and even our government, we've done a relocation and buyout program when grants are available.
15:08:50 Thurston County has a regular ongoing elevation program to help those property owners that are unable to do it themselves.
15:08:59 Now one of the other components that's really important to note. Is that When I did some outreach in Brennan, I learned that the existing cost of flood insurance.
15:09:11 Already is a barrier for some homeowners. That I was told specifically the reason they do not have Flut insurance is that they could not afford it.
15:09:24 And what does that mean? And I wanted everyone in the community to be aware that that means that if there is a flood.
15:09:32 That property owner that could have purchased flood insurance but did not. Is denied federal disaster relief funds.
15:09:43 So anyone in a flood zone. That could have gotten flooded insurance. And did not and that is 80% of the properties that are in the flood zone based upon our analysis.
15:09:57 They will not be eligible for a federal disaster relief funds. Regardless of participation in the CRS.
15:10:05 Regardless of participation in the CRS. And I see a hand up.
15:10:12 Yeah, thanks. Yeah, interesting stuff. And of course, we talked about this a lot after our, King tide last year.
15:10:20 We know there was. Folks that wish that they had retroactively been in the insurance program. Are you guys gonna get later to how do we notify these 650 on property owners?
15:10:33 Of this need, you know, before I think we. And tell me if I'm just jumping ahead, but we had talked about mortgages being a trigger, but there's not a trigger just to owning
it.
15:10:46 And I'm wondering if we're going to find a better trigger.
15:10:48 And thank you. We will, cover that. And there's 2 pathways there and one of the pathways that I want to talk about is yes and so we're actually right in time with why reduced
property owners financial loss and loss of life so by providing community members information in advance of the floods season.
15:11:11 That is one of the accomplishments of doing that and you highlighted that. However, I want to point out if we do it.
15:11:21 And. As an enrollee in the CRS program.
15:11:28 We would be doing one of the activities that generates credit. Above and beyond what we are already doing.
15:11:37 As Phil pointed out, the building code already requires us. To do require buildings to be elevated one foot above the base flood elevation.
15:11:48 An outreach program to property owners is not required. By the NFIP program. But it is an optional program in the CRS.
15:11:59 Okay, and I just wanted to make that point. And Brent, you said for each optional item that we undertake, we get a 5%.
15:12:07 Oh, well, it's there are reduction. Well, for each additional item, there are points.
15:12:14 And then when you get a certain number of points, I think 500 points you move up to another category another class.
15:12:21 So, so I've listed a group of 19 activities in this handout, but they all are equated to points.
15:12:29 And so then you would add those points together to see if that's enough to make it to the next class.
15:12:34 The way the reading system works is a 9 to one system, one being the highest. But by making flood insurance more affordable, we can.
15:12:42 Make it possible for some of those. Without insurance to obtain. That's absolutely correct. So that's the whole point of this CRS.
15:12:52 It's an enhancement program. Yes. Optional to go on top of what the NFI people require.
15:12:55 And I did not, I wasn't unaware that why many of the persons did not have flood insurance until I did outreach in Brennan and I asked people in the floods when I said I can't
afford it.
15:13:08 So that is a barrier. And then how? So to develop a plan, typically it's done through a collaborative process.
15:13:19 FEMA generally calls out and says that not more and I might have the number wrong but I think it's not more than 40%.
15:13:27 Of the planning team that sets up, what are the activities? Should be local government. So it says, 60% should be outside.
15:13:38 And when I say local government city or county, not including the school district. And so, 60% should be outside.
15:13:46 In the last community that I enrolled in the community rating system, the school district was really valuable partner.
15:13:56 So next slide.
15:14:00 So then. And looking at some of our documents. I became aware that.
15:14:08 Previously, the county had been enrolled in the CRS program. I was one of the, I was here for the last community assistance visit.
15:14:18 I, I helped prepare all the documents. It just so happens I happen to be back at the same time that we have this one.
15:14:27 And so I helped with the enrollment last time. And, in the, multi hazard mitigation plan.
15:14:34 It was identified as one of the of the types of activities that would have an impact. And, and I think that it's, it's really important to note that.
15:14:45 In our in the agenda request I highlighted. The number of declarations of emergencies. That we have had in Jefferson County.
15:14:55 And I pointed out that. Table J one. In the multi hazard mitigation plan. For major disaster declarations from, 1,956 to 2,016.
15:15:09 Identify Jefferson County had a flood emergency 24 times. That is significant. Some of those flood emergencies have had a significant impact on the county's budget.
15:15:24 You may remember the wash out of the road on the west end. Yes. Hmm. So I do point that out.
15:15:34 And so as a concept, the prior plan. Had identified the community rating system. As one of the strategies to reduce loss of life or damage to properties.
15:15:48 24 and what was the in between the 20, the the last visit for the community assistance visit. 24 declared emergency.
15:16:06 Oh, the 24 that was from 1956 to 2016. And that's in table J dash one.
15:16:09 Okay. Of the. Has it multi hazard mitigation plan? One every 3 years.
15:16:14 Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.
15:16:18 So I point that out because in the life of our of of of of the plan. Or the document that identifies those declarations of emergencies.
15:16:31 There are a few others that are as significant
15:16:36 Next slide. So an analysis, we've identified 650 to 700 and I should not have written homes.
15:16:47 I should say structures. Okay, cause some of those structures will be agricultural buildings. There will not be residential property.
15:16:55 So I wanted to point that out. For example, Brandon Community Center is not a home. And then the 4 areas of effort.
15:17:03 One of them we've talked about is the record keeping requirements. The CRS program.
15:17:12 Requires. Record keeping. Now in this round for this cab I've estimated that we've spent 300Â h.
15:17:24 That was an estimate based upon the amount of time it took me to find files that weren't properly located that weren't properly put in the low proper location.
15:17:35 If we were a CRS member. That once a year. We're submitting all of the new permits and that information.
15:17:45 And so the community assistance visit. Should not take that amount of time. It should be a fraction of that.
15:17:52 But because we have not been keeping up. And we also went into a new ENGOV system, which might potentially help the record keeping.
15:18:05 Yeah, I think it actually is because we're completely digital now. So I mean, if those documents are out there, they're less likely to be misfiled or, you know.
15:18:13 So this is one of the areas. So the the the con is that we have an annual reporting requirement and I have to also identify to the board that there's some information that was
not available that I had sought to bring to the board.
15:18:28 And that was the level of effort for the lowest rating. And I say the lowest rating, if we did the bare minimum just to get 5% off, what is that?
15:18:41 And unfortunately, I've spoken with, I mean, Washington is unique. There are some and I think I mentioned that in the report there are 1,500 communities participating in the
CRS.
15:18:56 There is only 5. That have gotten the lowest rate, not the lowest rating. No one has gotten a number one, which is the lowest rating of all.
15:19:05 But there are 5 communities out of those 1,500 across the United States that have achieved a number 2.
15:19:14 3 of them. I've gotten feedback that the microphone is maybe not the best. Maybe use the other one.
15:19:27 And so out of the 1,500 communities. That are participating in this voluntary program, the community rating system program.
15:19:39 There are only 5 that have achieved a score of 2, which is the highest, which is the second highest, this one score higher.
15:19:46 And 3 of those are in Washington state. So we had our conversation with one of those governments. Was that Pierce County?
15:19:56 And Mr. Dennis Dixon, very abundance of knowledge. But unfortunately, The level of effort.
15:20:05 That that community is going to make is not nothing. Close to what we would do. It provided us technical support and understanding.
15:20:17 He was, so thankful. That that program had developed a record keeping and bookkeeping procedures because it is facilitated.
15:20:29 The their management of the flood plane. And so we've also been told to reach out to Kitk County and I have a email out to them, but they also are a higher community.
15:20:41 They're not as high as Pierce. Pierce is one of the best in the nation. It's in the top category.
15:20:47 And so, we're trying to identify what is the minimum. Level of effort.
15:20:56 The development standards we talked about are another area that a community gets, increased credit. We've talked about how the freeboard is one area that's low hanging fruit.
15:21:11 Now there's also this relationship to the multi-hazard mitigation plan. That in some regards there's a twofer, meaning that by enrollment in the CRS program and adoption of
some of the outreach programs.
15:21:28 We're also helping implement the multi hazard mitigation plan.
15:21:32 And then finally, and this is the fiscal impact. And that is related to number one above.
15:21:40 What is the cost to do that? And that's the information that we're still trying to obtain.
15:21:47 Next slide.
15:21:51 So our analysis, we've identified that we're changing as a consequence the ordinance and the ordinance has required us to look at some of the terms like definitions.
15:22:05 We didn't have that in the, we didn't have Park model in our ordinance. We've identified who the local administrator will be.
15:22:15 So and number 8, farmhouses, that's in. A required, I mean, in the RCW, we've included that.
15:22:25 One of farmhouses and the floodway. What are the standards to replace them? And so, and then we've also included a livestock.
15:22:36 And so, next slide.
15:22:40 What I would recommend and is that We go through the process of having the public hearing. And we would bring forward a recommendation from the Planning Commission.
15:22:53 Now, and I would point out that we typically do not bring any items related to the budget to the Planning Commission.
15:23:00 So the CRS program really is a decision for the board and it can be answered at that time.
15:23:07 As to whether or not we want to enroll. And unfortunately, We still have to.
15:23:15 Have an adopted ordinance we cannot even submit an application right now. Without having, an ordinance that's compliant with the state's model.
15:23:28 And we also identified there was one property. Constructed in the flood zone without permits. And we have to prove that we are.
15:23:38 Enforcing the regulations to FEMA. That's the 2 components. Did they leave anything else?
15:23:45 I believe so. Okay. And so then so then, oh, and then the form so that the, the completed ordinance one.
15:23:56 The completed enforcement too and then a form of enrollment in the CRS programs. And if we are fortunate, after that's done, if the board were to choose to move ahead with this.
15:24:18 They would have to be what they call a verification visit by FEMA. Based upon what Commissioner Brotherton suggested about outreach to the flood plain property owners, I would
try to reach out to them in advance and see if we could get them to come out.
15:24:36 In October so that we could get credit for that activity. H. After enrollment, correct. Is anything you do prior to when roll, it'll get credit for.
15:24:50 Okay. And you were saying it's not. Well, the it
15:24:57 How is the decision made to take this to the planning commission even if it is? More fully an hour lane due to the budgetary impact.
15:25:06 So we included all of the provisions in the ordinance, even anything that was optional. And so they'll make a recommendation and we'll forward that to you.
15:25:17 And then if you so choose to accept their recommendation, I believe you needn't have a public hearing.
15:25:23 But if you decide, wow, that this ordinance includes CRS and we don't want it in there or there are some optional terms we don't like.
15:25:34 We can remove those. There are unfortunately some mandatory, some mandatory language in the ordinance that keeps it in alignment with the Washington state model that we are
not allowed to make a change to.
15:25:51 And what is the scope of this ordinance? It just, you said if the ordnance includes the CRS.
15:25:58 Right. About the 00 right, so the ordinance is so what we've done is the entire chapter 1515 we've done we've provided the planning commission a line out line line in and the
most significant changes to that.
15:26:18 Are some of the new definitions. Right. Yeah, okay. And then and then some of the other additions were the definitions.
15:26:32 Oh, so we adopted. Our ordinance 6 months before maybe 7 months or 6 and a half before the model ordinance.
15:26:43 Was rolled out. So we adopted our ordinance in May of 2019 the existing flood damage prevention ordinance. In December of that year they came out with a model and I say they
I'm referring to FEMA and the Department of Ecology, they came out with a new model.
15:27:03 Because we preceded that new model. There are changes that are necessary so that our ordinance tracks that model that came out.
15:27:13 So the Planning Commission is looking at that whole chapter. Specific parts of the chapter. Gotcha.
15:27:19 Thank you.
15:27:19 And, next slide.
15:27:24 And then I think it's any additional questions. Hmm. Okay.
15:27:32 I didn't see the, model ordinance in our materials. Was it there and I missed it?
15:27:42 Okay.
15:27:39 Oh, we did not include the model ordinance. I did not include. I did include the standard operating procedures.
15:27:46 So one of the other components that was required as a result of the cab. Was that we had to have operating procedures in terms of how we process our program.
15:28:01 And, sorry, Greg, do we just ask one clarifying question?
15:28:06 Did we just do both agenda items? Yes. And I think the purpose of this today was to familiarize.
15:28:20 The board with the CRS. Yeah. Discuss the optional aspects of it. So that when you get a recommendation from the Planning Commission.
15:28:29 You'll you'll fully understand the CRS and what they might recommend and many of these should I think be part of our program but you know I see Josh has popped up on the screen
and he might want to address bandwidth issues or other.
15:28:47 Other topics?
15:28:48 Just ask one agenda question first. So on the agenda today, what's linked under the next agenda item, community rating system is the same thing that was linked for this.
15:28:59 Item was that intentional?
15:29:01 Yes, that is correct. Yeah, they're very related.
15:29:02 Okay, okay. Okay, yeah, I get that, but I'm just.
15:29:08 Greg, do you wanna ask clarifying question before we go to Josh? You're muted.
15:29:16 Thanks. Yes, clarifying question. Just to make sure I understand correctly. So if we opt into the CRS, the community rating set system.
15:29:24 Every level that we achieve starting at the low of 9 up to you know 2 which seems like pretty bold.
15:29:31 That's going to reduce the cost of flood insurance to the community. By 5%. Is that what you said?
15:29:39 Right. And I want a point of clarification that, each credit activity is associated with a certain number of points.
15:29:46 Like for example, one of those activities that I don't think we would be able to do, I'll call out just because of how onerous it is.
15:29:55 Debris maintenance. So, in advance of storms, the CRS program gives credits to communities that goes into the drainage corridors to remove any debris that would cause essentially
a river or a water cross to leave its bank.
15:30:15 Hmm.
15:30:15 And so that's one of those types of activities that's too onerous, but a city might undertake that.
15:30:21 That's a good program for a city, city of Port Townsend, but not so much for a county.
15:30:28 Though we do have a couple drainage districts, you know, the Port Ludlow Drainage District might proactively go in.
15:30:34 I don't know. Okay, thank you.
15:30:34 Okay. Gosh, you wanna check in?
15:30:40 Sure, thank you, Charging. Yeah, so Brent deserves a lot of credit for even just bringing this topic to our forefront here, although we did of course get the invitation to to
accept the community assistance visit from ecology.
15:30:56 Which is representing FEMA essentially for that visit. So. But he's done, you know, he is familiar with the program.
15:31:03 He had the training back and Washington DC a long time ago, and remembers when we were participants in the CRS before.
15:31:09 And has helped us through this process. And of course, Phil, as you mentioned, is, learning a lot about the program and has accepted the responsibility for me to be my designee
as the flood playing administrator for the county.
15:31:23 Greg Ballard as a development code administrator is is a deputy floodplain administrator and really I just made sure that both of them would be able to sign the new flat plane
development permits that we've just developed.
15:31:34 At the behest of ecology slash FEMA. So you received a memo. From or a letter from ecology with the results of that community assistance visit in December and then we did a
follow up meeting early this year.
15:31:47 So we feel pretty pretty good actually about the results in the sense that we only had one property that it turns out.
15:31:53 Was that identified specifically? As having done development without. Without. Being in compliance with.
15:32:00 With the regulations. So that's not too bad. It could have been worse in a sense because I think it was difficult for us to find a lot of the information that we needed to find
to provide to a.
15:32:12 So we, we have some work cut out for us to do in terms of record keeping. And this is really over the last 5 years or so, so it kind of predates both Brent's 10 year in my 10
year as director, but nonetheless we we've picked up that thread and are doing, I think a much better job of doing that.
15:32:27 I think the flood plain development permit will help with that process. So. Then we've got, you know, other folks that are involved in our public records requests slash data
management system like Chelsea and Aaron helping out as well.
15:32:41 So it's kind of an all hands on deck situation already. And, just wanted to mention that, I think Brent's also done a good job and with Phil, for outlining all the pros and
cons of participating in the process.
15:32:50 And we're already, there are basically things that we have to do, which we're doing.
15:32:54 That ecology gave us his homework essentially as follow up to this community assistance visit and then there are things that are optional so we have to make some changes if
we're going to continue participating.
15:33:04 Of course, in the National Fund insurance program. So that's, I guess, a choice. We're assuming that we're going to want to do that, which means that the least insurance would
be available for property owners.
15:33:14 And that close all of the 600 to 700 properties that are involved that are in the, special, hazard areas.
15:33:21 So then those are the bare minimum things we've sent that along to the planning commission to look at in our chapter 15 or section 1515 chapter 1515 of title 1515 of title 15
of the jerson county code which is our flood damage prevention ordinance So we could have, I guess, abandoned all that whatever is on the books and completely went with the model or
miss quote unquote, but we did it.
15:33:44 We basically FEMA, our ecology looked at our code. They said these are the things that you have to do.
15:33:49 These are the things you have to change in order to stay compliant with, with that program, the participating in NFIP.
15:33:56 And so we said, okay. And then there are some things that are optional language that we included for consideration for the Planning Commission and that optional language would
enable us to then participate in the CRS.
15:34:06 So if we were to adopt these optional things, then we could choose later to enroll or to propose to enroll in the CRS.
15:34:15 So that's how that's my understanding of the process the way that Brent and Phil had laid it out for me and so I just wanted to add into that and I guess in terms of the pros
and cons just wanted to add that.
15:34:26 As Brent mentioned, it's not just about what Jefferson County does or certainly not just what DCD would do.
15:34:34 It's also about community partnerships. In fact, we have to have partners. So for example, we talked about a committee that would have to be set up that would be kind of an
annual at least an annual meeting to help make recommendations and to take a look at the at things and we talked to Willie Bens at the Department of Emergency Management and he said
that, you know, he'd be willing to at least help us with the management of such a committee because really it's
15:35:00 it's gonna be more than just our my department that would be involved it would be definitely Willie's department at emergency management would be potentially WOO extension because
of their expertise and role in in education programs because a lot of this is outreach to folks.
15:35:13 And, they mentioned Brent mentioned Pierce County. I just wanted to mention that I think the number was something like a thousand hours a year that they put into their program
in order to get that level 2 rating.
15:35:26 And I don't think we'd be able to do that. Certainly wouldn't be able to do that without additional staff resources because you know we're doing our best just to keep going
but we're doing our best just to keep going but what we've got and you know we're doing our best just to keep going but what we've got and you know you've heard from me last week probably
too much about
15:35:38 all the things we've got going and so that although I want I would love to do all these things and some more things like I overheard you talking about not overheard, but I was
listening in and why you were talking about climate initiatives and there are just many, many, many things that we'd love to be involved in, but we could have to make choices about
which things we can actually be involved
15:35:57 in unless we were to have additional resources, additional funding and so forth. So I just wanna lay that out there that when we come back to you after we have conversations
with other counties like Kitatas and after the plan commission has this discussion and we'll come back to the board with you know with more to think about in terms of whether we want
to enroll or not and then we'll have a better idea about what that
15:36:16 commit would actually look like in terms of budget.
15:36:19 And that's half an FTE, 1,000Â h, so.
15:36:23 Right, and I want to point out that that was for. A class 2 community, which is only 5 in the country out of 1,500.
15:36:33 And it's also in preparation for the cab. So they put in a much less on an annual basis.
15:36:40 So. And so we'll have that information about what is a class 8 community. We still haven't identified one kidit task.
15:36:48 It was a 6, so we're trying to find one that's comparable.
15:36:56 Well, I'll just speak a little bit. I really appreciate the presentation and the packet was great too and very, very helpful and clear.
15:37:06 I mean in regards of like making the choice right now or allowing the natural course to go through the planning commission.
15:37:15 I always would. Defer to the Planet Commission first. I'd like to get their insight into it.
15:37:21 That would be just, I don't know, if I'm jumping into the liberation, sorry, Chair.
15:37:22 But I mean, I can live with both. I just having those folks from the Shine come out, from Shine coming out last year.
15:37:30 But still it still sticks with me and I just think that anything we can do to make this the service more accessible and lower cost for folks.
15:37:40 It's incumbent upon us to do it. So, but I'm happy to go through the planning commission first.
15:37:48 So what other thing I wanted to point out to you, one of the prerequisites for joining in the CRS is the, the building writing for the B.
15:37:57 S. Are building code effectiveness. And we actually score quite well on that. Again, that's another scale from 9 to one and we're currently at a 3.
15:38:04 Which is a pretty good score so that's gonna give us a little bit of extra latitude should we decide to join this program.
15:38:12 Again, it's just, there's wanted to be cognizant of the level of effort that would be required.
15:38:17 When would you?
15:38:17 And Phil, could you, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I know that Phil had another piece of information.
15:38:21 That when he participated in a briefing about the CRS with our ecology friends. They, they gave us an idea of where we might land right now, correct?
15:38:32 About what we're doing currently or if we did a couple more things this is where we'd be and if you have that information I think this is where we'd be and I would if you have
that information I think you that be valuable information I think you that be valuable information for the board and also just Another detail or 2 about what it takes like for example,
we would do an annual self-assessment rather than waiting
15:38:48 every 5 years for the cabinets another piece of information.
15:38:51 Correct. So, Yeah, when we were talking to Mr. Dixon with Pierce County, he did say that you know in an audit year and a cab you had about a thousand 1,000Â h worth of effort
in a non-cap here be a couple 100Â h.
15:39:05 Again, that's class 2 community. We're trying to get more apples to apples.
15:39:09 Marlene Jacobs with FEMA told us that we would be, we could get on the board at 9, not a problem.
15:39:16 With the, Yeah, we could get down to a 7 or 6 possibly after our ordnance has passed and everything.
15:39:23 So I mean, again, and each level is 5%. So that it could be a savings, you know.
15:39:30 I don't know we currently have roughly. 20% of the properties that would be eligible. That currently have a flood insurance policy.
15:39:40 I don't know if this is enough. To entice the remaining folks to join or not. I don't know.
15:39:48 That would be really interesting to find out though, you know what? If it was how many people we could actually affect by go into this level of effort.
15:39:55 And can I clarifying question if someone has a mortgage on one of these 681 properties they required to get flood insurance, right?
15:40:02 Correct. And I'd also even point out that one of the examples was presented that they had someone who refinance their, not refinance.
15:40:11 They took that equity home equity line of credit out. And that triggered the requirement for them to get insurance.
15:40:19 Can you give us a timeline of when you think this is gonna be coming before us from the planning commission?
15:40:27 My, my guesstimate is the end of April.
15:40:30 So we have to remember all this. Burn this into our head so we don't have to have another hour briefing to refresh us but it is it's dense.
15:40:39 Information. Thank you for making it understandable today. You're welcome. And one of the things I would point out just in closing is that.
15:40:50 Part of the B-sakes is that, the building code affecting this grading schedule says that We as staff are required to provide you.
15:40:59 As board members. An overview of the code. And so by us delivering this presentation, we're talking about all of the different components of the code.
15:41:13 So it does meet that component of providing continuing education about the code. May I ask FEMA questions since I have 3 semi experts here.
15:41:28 I'm hearing a lot about this. No rise issue. I think is it a new regulation that is going to be or newly applied to restoration projects.
15:41:39 This is something any of you can speak to because I'm hearing concerned about it from the environmental community.
15:41:44 So.
15:41:45 I could jump in on that one first and I'm sure if you might have something to add so I'm familiar with this in the sense that when I work for Fish and Wildlife, we were launching
a new program called the Habitat Recovery Pilot Program.
15:41:56 Directed by the legislature. And there were also amendments made to the other traditional fish and have fish habitat enhancement project process through through fish and wildlife.
15:42:10 So both of those were late to the hydraulic code and you can, if there's a qualifying project.
15:42:16 Then that either for a usually they're smaller and are always on freshwater for the fish habitat enhancement project.
15:42:23 Or if you wanted to try for the new habitat recovery pilot for me, a qualifying project would only then get an HBA hydraulic project approval and not have to get any other permits
state or local.
15:42:35 And that includes for example shoreline permit or critical areas review or anything from us. This doesn't count for building code by the way.
15:42:42 This is just for essentially flood plane restoration projects and the like. Of habitat restoration projects. But the caveat is that If there's a local government that is implementing.
15:42:53 A federal program. Then that and and the basic one that they were referring to was floodplain regulation.
15:43:01 So essentially we at Bart Park by participating in the National Food Insurance Program, we are implementing this federal flood regulation in exchange for that essentially.
15:43:09 That benefit. We could, in fact, we have to, do a flood plane development permit or approval of some kind and we can charge for that.
15:43:19 So that's and that was clarified in the legislation that it's also not just about the new program, Habitat Recovery Pilot Program, but also fish habitat enhancement projects.
15:43:28 So that means that that was one of the reasons why we created, the fact that they told us we have to.
15:43:33 Creating a new floodplain development permit so we can use that permit then to be the only permit that we would grant for such.
15:43:41 Flood, habitat restoration projects that qualify for other one of those 2 programs. But as part of that though, there is a no rise analysis though that essentially there.
15:43:51 They have to show that this floodplain development project, whether it's a flip place by design, like a larger scale landscape deal or whether it's a smaller project or what
have you.
15:44:01 And it's not going to have a negative effect downstream in terms of affecting other people's risk level for for floods.
15:44:11 And that's that's something that's really out of our control in the sense that this is covered by both federal and state regulations.
15:44:16 So that's my that's my response to not sure if anyone else has anything at or if that answers your question.
15:44:21 And I just wanted to point out and when he says that the no rise is of the surface water elevation.
15:44:28 So you're identifying that. That development will not result in a rise of the water surface elevation.
15:44:37 Hmm.
15:44:40 Let's. We'd love to dig into that, but then it's outside of the scope of our conversation.
15:44:46 Yeah, I was.
15:44:49 Yeah.
15:44:47 It's like, Yeah, how do you prove that? Well, so they do. Models.
15:44:58 And so typically the no rise analysis is our flood insurance rate map from 2,019. Is done by a model.
15:45:05 And so You have to be a qualified engineer. And if you are a qualified engineer, you can get access to that model.
15:45:16 And you could put the parameters of change into that model. To identify that it does not. Increase the surface elevation.
15:45:26 So we've just had a project approved. In, on the Chimican Creek, it was funny you just mentioned that.
15:45:34 And they, they were able to demonstrate that they lowered the surface water elevation. So it's the exact opposite.
15:45:42 Yeah, even though.
15:45:42 Well, and they're finding that the ground is subsiding. We're losing elevation in Chima.
15:45:55 Hmm.
15:45:51 Because of the, peat soils. But I mean, it seems like there's a lot of moving variables in this conversation, right?
15:46:03 Yeah, cause a lot of restoration projects you are wanting to recreate the natural function of a river, which would have, you know, seasonal flooding that benefits some rearing
habitat, for example, So It's I can see where this gets complicated quickly.
15:46:24 And how does this tie into Charlotte or Charlotte program?
15:46:31 That's the Joshua question.
15:46:33 Does it? I mean.
15:46:37 Oh, you're beyond, Josh.
15:46:40 The short answer there, Commissioner Eisenhower, is that if there is a project that qualifies for either of the 2 programs that I mentioned before.
15:46:49 Then that project does not need a shoreline permit. It's exempt from all local and state permitting except for that permitting which was required to implement a federal program.
15:47:00 That's where the floodplain development permit comes in. I put a couple links in the chat here just Just doing a quick Google search like, for some.
15:47:10 State guidance on this issue, including that I notice it on the on the PDF that that was a Called up is the.
15:47:20 Template for a floodplain development permit and our our new flood plan development permit looks a lot like that permit except I worked with Aaron our permit center coordinator
to add some stuff and we added a box like is this related to flood The habitat, a fish habitat enhancement project or I have a TED, a recovery pilot program project.
15:47:40 So. Anyway, that's, that's the quick answer on that. And we can get you, when we come back, we can talk a little bit more about this if you like, but you're absolutely correct
in identifying that.
15:47:49 There is a there is a tension here between between different communities. Their flood management community and the habitat restoration community, including even federal programs,
floodplains by design being an EPA sponsored program that has usually state sponsors.
15:48:08 We've had major conservancy be involved in that and other partners that are on the NGO world who are.
15:48:15 Helping to implement those programs. And then you have, of course, the floodplain management that we've been talking about today.
15:48:20 So. I would say that there is no easy solution on this. And there's a sort of a friendly tension, if you will, or maybe even not so friendly, but there is a program though through
the habitat recovery pilot program where there's something called the map team or the multi agency.
15:48:36 Team and that is where this these things are among other issues are supposed to be a adjudicated if you will by a multi agency group of experts who discuss whether certain projects
should qualify for that or be pulled out of that or or, but it doesn't necessarily solve every program.
15:48:56 Or every pro, every problem that's related to this program wide because really it's still the local government responsibility to to do the floodplain management and we have
some resources we can turn to such as Department of Ecology, but ultimately we essentially say you have to do give us the analysis and then we take it and then we examine it and analyze
it and if it looks good we go with it but you know we're also in the process of developing
15:49:20 our own expertise in that respect so luckily we can turn to ecology and perhaps even FEMA for guidance but there's no easy solution to some of the problems here.
15:49:34 Anything else? Okay.
15:49:41 Okay.
15:49:40 I have a feeling we could talk about this for days. I'm gonna mute.
15:49:43 We need to talk. Alright, we do have public comment on the agenda. So. I will open it up.
15:49:53 To the public if anyone would like to comment, please hit raise hand. On Zoom. We don't have anybody here in the room.
15:50:06 One more call for public comment.
15:50:10 Everybody's. Stunned into silence. Alright, close public comment and.
15:50:18 Look forward to this coming before us again. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, clearly a lot of interest and all the related topics.
15:50:27 Okay, anything, Greg, Heady? Before we
15:50:30 I just wanna confirm that if we're letting it play out its course through the planning commission, you don't need any action today.
15:50:37 That's correct.
15:50:38 Yeah, no, really educational. Thank you.
15:50:42 Great. Alright. Let's see, we. Through our agenda today?
15:50:54 I believe we have.
15:50:55 Alright, anything else we want to try and cover today?
15:51:03 I don't have anything else.
15:51:06 Alright, Yeah, we've gotten a lot done today and we can let Greg hit the road a little early.
15:51:14 Thank you, Craig.
15:51:13 Sounds good. Thank you.
09:11:55 From Chambers to Hosts and panelists:
The SMP update/potential action was moved to March 25th from 10:00 a.m. to Noon
09:12:09 From Kate Dean, Jefferson County Commissioner to Chambers(Direct Message):
thx!
09:40:18 From Chambers to Hosts and panelists:
Can you please approve the Consent Agenda before the health update? We have an important hearing notice to publish
14:40:50 From Heidi Eisenhour to Hosts and panelists:
Can't hear anything now...
14:41:36 From Mark McCauley to Hosts and panelists:
Call in by phone?
14:41:37 From Chambers to Heidi Eisenhour(Direct Message):
1-253-215-8782
14:41:58 From Chambers to Heidi Eisenhour(Direct Message):
Webinar ID: 9377 7841 705
14:45:38 From Mark McCauley to Hosts and panelists:
better?
15:45:49 From Josh Peters, DCD Director to Everyone:
https://www.ezview.wa.gov/Portals/_1992/Documents/2021workshops/Webinar%206%20-%20FFA%20Planning%20and%20Regulatory%20Handout.pdf
15:46:17 From Josh Peters, DCD Director to Everyone:
https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_floodway-analysis-mapping_112021.pdf
15:49:56 From Josh Peters, DCD Director to Everyone:
General info: https://ecology.wa.gov/Water-Shorelines/Shoreline-coastal-management/Hazards/Floods-floodplain-planning