Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutmeeting_saved_closed_caption[BoCC] 09:01:15 This weekend at the connectivity summit at the Timotham School. Was an awesome display of community spirit and it really lifted my spirit. And I heard similar Fabulous, yeah. Similar sentiments coming from you guys too. Oh my goodness. What a great weekend. So nice, nice. [BoCC] 09:01:22 Show of community. Engagement. Agreed. [BoCC] 09:01:27 It's a privilege to participate. I'd love to see more and more. More things grow from it. Yeah, yeah. [BoCC] 09:01:34 So as we always do, we'll start with public comment and we'll start with folks in the room. [BoCC] 09:01:40 Is there anyone with us today who would like to make public comment? [BoCC] 09:01:44 Is that everybody? No. Okay. Let's start. With our elder statesman, retired commissioner john austin Come on up, John. [BoCC] 09:01:57 And the owl is the microphone, so you don't have to You can hear me all right. We can hear you. [BoCC] 09:02:05 County commissioners, thank you for your service. And I have two comments. First is… I was going to be serving on jury duty this morning and uh i've been relieved And I was talking to my son who's a who's a… [BoCC] 09:02:27 Who works in uh for pierce County. As a public defender. [BoCC] 09:02:31 And I told him that I was going to be earning the princely sum of $15 a day. [BoCC] 09:02:39 Which is considerably less than I would get if I would substitute teach, which I had scheduled to do. [BoCC] 09:02:46 And I'm quite willing to forego about $60 or $70 per day. [BoCC] 09:02:55 Because I feel it is the duty of every citizen to be on a jury. And he noticed or told me that in Pierce county they're going to start paying $100 a day for their jurors. [BoCC] 09:03:09 And I thought, well, maybe we could go over half that. We're a smaller county. [BoCC] 09:03:15 So I'd like you to at least consider raising how much is given to our citizens who serve as jurors. [BoCC] 09:03:24 The second is the second is Once again, we have the problem of road closure on your western access to the national park and i know that this has been a thorn in the side, particularly Yeah, and other folks who work for the county [BoCC] 09:03:43 And in the past, there have been some efforts to have the access road to the rainforest turned over to to the Park Service. [BoCC] 09:03:53 Similarly to the way that Race Road is, a lot of credentials and um I'd like to know if we are continuing to urge our representatives in congress to take over that access road. [BoCC] 09:04:09 Because I know that eventually we supposedly get reimbursed for the amount of money that we put into fixing it up This means that every time it goes out, we have to have our county engineer or some other representatives of the county go over there [BoCC] 09:04:24 And that's time that we have to pay for. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, John. [BoCC] 09:04:37 I'm just going to say for folks who've joined us online if you're with us online and you would like to make public comment, please use the raise hand button at the bottom of the Zoom screen and we will get through the folks in the room with us and then we'll move to the folks online who have their hands raised. So Maggie, would you like to come up? [BoCC] 09:04:55 Sure. [BoCC] 09:05:00 Nicole, you're already on your way. Come on up. [BoCC] 09:05:07 Okay, so the connectivity summit was cool. I connected with some people about marrying environmental justice with social justice And making that the Port Townsend Yacht Club, their day center and using the two docks for environmental justice programs. [BoCC] 09:05:28 Okay, so now I'm going to talk about something else real quick. [BoCC] 09:05:33 Okay, back in the depression era, there was a woman who created a board game called Monopoly. It turned into a capitalist BS game, but it originally was a game citizens how banks work and how the banking system worked. [BoCC] 09:05:57 And during the Depression, there were 1,000 foreclosures a day on people's homes. And so they created that federal bank, I forget the name of it, you can go look it up. [BoCC] 09:06:12 That kind of like kind of like the her precursor to Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac. And they were supposed to give mortgage loans to people who could not who were too low income to afford loans on homes. [BoCC] 09:06:30 There were some regional banks and they across the country and eventually it ended up with 6,400 members. So today. [BoCC] 09:06:42 Only 42% of those banks that are a member of this federal loan place have originated mortgage loans since 2018. [BoCC] 09:06:58 And the rest of the money is tied up with private equity companies who have grabbed all that money and put it in their own banks and then they're making 200 million off the interest. [BoCC] 09:07:18 So there are 6,400 banks only 42 banks percent of them have originated a single loan Since 2018, which the purpose of was supposed to be for low income people so you know this is and and the rest of the money has been taken by private equity firms who are making 200 million a year [BoCC] 09:07:49 Of an interest, off of money that was supposed to be loaned to low income people for affordable housing. [BoCC] 09:07:59 So you wonder why everybody's ending up on the street who should be announcing who you know who learn kind of a little maybe 100% over the poverty line, 80% on the poverty line. That's why. So then, of course. [BoCC] 09:08:15 Then we go down to people with disability. Who are trying to get permanent supportive housing in those empty units and those landlords if they go if they're if they have a big portfolio and they have people going, you know, they leave a few units empty because they don't like the fact that they're tax is over. [BoCC] 09:08:39 They will leave those units empty. So that's the problem. [BoCC] 09:08:44 Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Come on up. Okay. Try this again. [BoCC] 09:08:54 So Lynn Shad and I look here for the other room. So I just want to explain that I've given my entire life to mentoring and encouraging young people, first as a juvenile probation counselor for 17 years. [BoCC] 09:09:07 For Clown County and Jefferson County too. I worked on that. [BoCC] 09:09:11 The west side of Connell County. And yeah, so my students today are not the students I taught or worked with 50 years ago or even 30 years ago Virtual experiences have replaced actual participation. [BoCC] 09:09:26 Frankly, all of us need to get out, inhale fresh air, fill our sights. [BoCC] 09:09:30 And our memories with the beauty of nature, the exhilaration of hiking a challenging trail and making it to the top. [BoCC] 09:09:36 There's nothing like hiking the High Divide Trail or the 18 miles up the whole rainforest trail and encountering the blue glacier. How many of you have done that? [BoCC] 09:09:46 Yes, so you know exactly what I'm talking about. Depriving hundreds of thousands of visitors, the actual experience, the actual experience of the Hall of Massus Trail. [BoCC] 09:09:56 Is not acceptable. Many families come from cities where they live frenzied lives and visiting the rainforest is the therapeutic is therapeutic for body, mind, and spirit. [BoCC] 09:10:07 People come from all over the United States. They also come from Europe and Asia. [BoCC] 09:10:12 The Middle East, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and India. Everyone in search of a peaceful, majestic, and magical place. [BoCC] 09:10:20 And this is the one that is on their bucket list. [BoCC] 09:10:24 I had not planned on being here this morning. I didn't sleep all night, but felt compelled to speak after last night when it was brought to my attention that we needed to raise $20,000 By Tuesday at noon or there would be no funds available for the repair of the upper road. [BoCC] 09:10:37 I've never raised money through a GoFundMe account, but it seemed like that that would be the only hope for it. [BoCC] 09:10:43 Of coming up with something. My reply to, here's what I got. Most figured that it was a scam They ranted and raved about how money is spent in Jefferson County. Some claim the federal government should fix this. Others said the state would fix it. Others said the road needed to be moved. Others made statements that use language I don't use. I'm an English instructor. [BoCC] 09:11:02 And by the way. George Orwell in politics in the English Language instructs us to let the meaning choose the word. [BoCC] 09:11:11 And that's what I teach in English 101. I force my students to read that. My reply to many of these very angry responses was simply that this was what was offered. [BoCC] 09:11:23 To us. And yes, it meant paying more taxes, but at least this tax is a choice. [BoCC] 09:11:29 And one could choose not to pay the tax without losing a home or going to jail. [BoCC] 09:11:35 So with that. I just want to say I was up all night because I've never had that kind of reaction. I don't know if there was any money uh received but that I think the most important thing is that there would be transparency [BoCC] 09:11:53 And that the meetings that are had by various people, that we know about them and we know what's going on. And I was told that this actually was an investment. [BoCC] 09:12:03 And if it's a duck, and I mean, if it walks like a duck and cracks like a duck and looks like a duck, it's probably a duck. And George Orwell would say, let the meaning choose the word. It's a tax, but I'm willing to pay it. [BoCC] 09:12:16 And so are a lot of other people. But I guess we just call it a tax. [BoCC] 09:12:22 That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Would you like to make a comment this morning? No, but I know anyway. Okay. [BoCC] 09:12:31 I love that response. I haven't slept in a week. I'd like to start with a quote from the Iron Man of the hoe. [BoCC] 09:12:42 The settler who moved to the upper hoe in 1890. He doesn't need it. Go ahead. Who said… His daughter wrote a book about the legend of the Iron Man of the Who. And she said he spent his life waiting for the road, but he realized he said [BoCC] 09:13:01 Our numbers are insignificant and our votes don't count. And so, but the thing about the Iron Man and the hoe And maybe, you know, his legendary packer who got paid double wages packing double votes I wrote about him about carrying a lot about [BoCC] 09:13:19 A load of frozen pizzas in a microwave oven. It's just totally erroneous. He's actually packing a stove full of potatoes. [BoCC] 09:13:28 And so they can never get ready. What did they do? The locals. [BoCC] 09:13:32 Went to work to pay off their taxes. They built something called the pacific Trail. [BoCC] 09:13:36 A road out of split cedar from forks to mo clips with side roads to Oil City, Goodman Creek up the hoe, up the Queens. [BoCC] 09:13:45 All with local labor. And so Of course, we can't cut cedar without getting arrested. And so we come up with every idea we can for the locals to help open this road. One of them was the GoFundMe. [BoCC] 09:13:59 Which, you know, got no reaction. And as now we get 48 hours to raise. We don't know how much money we need But we know we probably can't raise it in 48 hours. But the point is Since 1890. [BoCC] 09:14:12 The human stones have paid a lot of taxes. Glinda's grandmothers started a ranch for packing up the hoe in 1927, 98 years ago. [BoCC] 09:14:22 They've been paying taxes. They've been trying to help. We're trying to stop, you know, open the road as part of an effort to preserve our national parks which you realize are under attack, being shut down And we're trying to do it through local action. We really appreciate some help. That's all I got to say. [BoCC] 09:14:43 I'm wondering if i should There's a big reveal before more public comment. People are out of the loop. [BoCC] 09:14:52 Yeah, maybe before you go online Okay, so before we go to online comment, I would like to share some news with the community. [BoCC] 09:15:02 I can't believe we're getting criticism this morning, but I've been working double time for the last two weeks in Washington, D.C, Olympia. [BoCC] 09:15:08 And right here at home, including on Saturday on a Zoom call with our Good Governor Bob Ferguson, who has pledged the money to repair the road the Upper Ho Road. The issue is that that source of funding, because this is different [BoCC] 09:15:28 Then the way we've repaired the road in the past In the past, we've repaired the road using Federal Highway Administration Emergency Repair Funds. [BoCC] 09:15:37 That were administered through the Washington State Department of Transportation. I've been on both coasts of this great nation. [BoCC] 09:15:44 Trying to see if we could free that money again. To do the repair before the spring and summer season. [BoCC] 09:15:51 And the answer has been unequivocally no. From the Federal Highway Administration. [BoCC] 09:15:57 We can all speculate as to why that is. But our governor has been awake at night worrying about this. [BoCC] 09:16:06 Issue since he saw it on the front page of the Seattle Times. [BoCC] 09:16:09 And came up with a solution. And the source of funding that we're going to use to do this repair comes from the State Department of Commerce and it requires a private match. [BoCC] 09:16:22 Of $5,000 to $20,000 was the range that was given to us on Saturday. [BoCC] 09:16:27 So Commissioner Randy Johnson, I'm just clarifying this for everyone. Commissioner Randy Johnson from clown county put out an email with the low end of the range. [BoCC] 09:16:37 I being the eternal optimist in the room said our community can do more than that and we'll all put out the high range. [BoCC] 09:16:46 I was on a Zoom call with 20 people on Saturday. 10 of them have already pledged $100 each to this effort. I've said 500. [BoCC] 09:16:55 Okay, great. So I'm going to add you to the list. You can put me down for 100. [BoCC] 09:17:02 Yeah, okay. Okay. I'm doing this real time. But anyway. [BoCC] 09:17:08 So we've been working very hard to come up with a solution. [BoCC] 09:17:12 A new recipe to repair the road. And we've come up with one. [BoCC] 09:17:16 And our public works team has already talked to the contractors and already has materials in place. We just haven't had the funding to hire the contractor. [BoCC] 09:17:25 So we're optimistic that a repair will be imminent. And that's why it was two days because we want the money as quick as possible to get the repair going, to get the contract signed. [BoCC] 09:17:37 And the repair going. We're not going to sign a contract without the funding. So the private fundraising we're doing is to free up the over $600,000 in public funding that the governor has pledged to do this repair. And just to be clear, Heidi, we couldn't use county funds for this match. It has to be private. Right. And the requirement for this source of funding is that it's private. I said that private dollars that match. [BoCC] 09:18:03 Do we need cash in hand or will pledges suffice? Pledges will suffice. [BoCC] 09:18:08 So what do I do with if I actually, if I even get anything in a GoFundMe? I've never done you've gotten $250 so far. I just, because Anna sent me the link and I've seen it. So I put out an email yesterday saying the money needs to come to Jefferson County. That's what we agreed to on Saturday on the call. And I put out a PO box. [BoCC] 09:18:29 1220, Port Townsend, Washington, 98368. I posted that and everybody said it was a scam. It's not a scam. So people, but that's personal prerogative, right? It's not a scam. I can show you the picture of the Zoom room on the call. It was the city of Forks. [BoCC] 09:18:48 Cloudland County, Jefferson County, many people from the state of Washington. [BoCC] 09:18:53 All participating in this call and coming together on this solution. And now $270. That's what people were saying to me and so i got lots of pushback. Okay, we're not going to do back and forth because now the list of people online who want to make comments is growing. So we're going to go to them now. [BoCC] 09:19:12 So that was brief update, but I just want to share that with folks because I felt like it was going to waste a lot of public comment. I'm going to go to the top of the list. [BoCC] 09:19:24 So let's start. Let's bring everyone over. And we'll start with Anna Peterson when she gets into the Zoom room. [BoCC] 09:19:31 I think that's Anna Montcher. Well, I'm reading what's written on the Zoom list. [BoCC] 09:19:39 Good morning, Anna. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:19:42 Hi, Anna Maci here, Upper Hill Road. I do want to say we are very grateful for the progress that has been made over the last 24 hours. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:19:53 I think it it was very exciting to get some of these emails. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:19:58 I do have to say the level of confusion now that we've heard this update was immense. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:20:05 Because we heard from two different sources, two different numbers. And so our excitement and our optimism with the 5000 was Immediate, we knew we could do 5,000. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:20:17 $4,000 in pledges already, and I've sent that to Ryan O'Connor because that was the address that I got to send that information to. So I'm sorry if that hasn't been shared with the commissioners. [BoCC] 09:20:21 Great. Yep. [BoCC] 09:20:25 Yep. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:20:30 So it's 1,000 from Hard Rain Cafe, 1,000 from Whole Valley Cabins, 1,000 from Peak Six. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:20:37 And then from Glenda, $500. So amongst our friends, family, employees, everyone we knew, we were up to 4,000 already. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:20:47 And then what happened is yesterday I was driving. I stopped at a rest stop. I checked my emails and I got the emails from Ryan O'Connor and Miss Eisenhower and it said 20 and it just felt like we had been hit with a load of bricks. We felt hopeless. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:21:04 And as soon as I got home, then I talked to Glenda and we set up the GoFundMe account. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:21:10 And I do, I just have to say on one hand, super grateful that we're making progress. On the other hand. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:21:17 We need transparency and we need transparency more open communication. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:21:24 The situation is developing by the hour and so it's difficult to get that. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:21:28 But at the same time, I really feel like Something that I learned in college in terms of communication when you're a business is that you have to be as open and transparent as possible And that needs to happen in a timely manner. And I think we're struggling with that. And I would ask for [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:21:47 Maybe when we review the situation in the future, if we can look at how can we be more clear, like if we have a goal between five and 20 that would have been so helpful to just put that out as a blast email to everyone that's on these meetings or everyone that has [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:22:04 Written emails in. So we're all on the same page so we don't have this panic and confusion so people don't lose sleep at night. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:22:12 I think transparency brings trust. That was what came to me this morning when I was thinking about this meeting. Transparency brings trust and we'll be better partners as residents and as business owners If we get that. I'm glad that y'all had a meeting and all the important, powerful leaders were in that meeting. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:22:30 It would have been nice to know that that kind of meeting was about to take place, even if you didn't know what the results would be. But just knowing that those meetings are happening is very helpful for our sleep. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:22:41 And also for our It was just a wild scenario of emails that have happened over the last 24 months. [BoCC] 09:22:47 That's time, Anna. That's three minutes. Thank you. [anna_m_peterson@hotmail.com] 09:22:49 Okay, thank you i just Thank you. [BoCC] 09:22:56 I don't know who's about. It's not yours. Let's see. Have you listened. [BoCC] 09:23:04 Lizzie Andros. Good morning, Lizzie. [Lissy Andros] 09:23:10 Good morning. Thank you so much. I'm sorry, I'm in my car. I want to thank the commissioners for all their hard work. I know that the meeting after Rod let me know about on Saturday, I was super excited about it. [Lissy Andros] 09:23:25 With Anna's pledges and including Linda's and so forth. Our list is at 12,000 here in Fork. So, and I know people are still willing to contribute if necessary so That doesn't include any of the pledges outside of the area because I'm not aware of those but [Lissy Andros] 09:23:43 Anyway, I'm hoping we can get this done quickly and I appreciate all y'all's hard work and I'll be sending my list over to Rod when I get it all finished. [BoCC] 09:23:53 Thanks, Lucy. If you'll copy me and Ryan and Representative Birnbaum's office, that would be great because those guys and Representative Birnbaum and ryan are represented officially collecting the compiled list. [Lissy Andros] 09:23:54 So thanks. [Lissy Andros] 09:24:09 Okay, absolutely. Thank you. [BoCC] 09:24:11 Yeah. Okay. Ed Bowen. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 09:24:15 Good morning, Ed Bowen, Wes Jefferson. I normally comment on the topic of this today. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 09:24:21 But in hopes that you are going to have public comment during the upcoming work session next. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 09:24:27 I'll switch topics to something I'm hoping the chair sat in on while back in DC. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 09:24:34 So Secretary of VA Collins gave a briefing to the counties regarding veterans benefits, I hope the chair and the county is paying attention to that. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 09:24:45 It is a golden opportunity for not just getting the money in service-connected disability claims, but it's actually a way of connecting with the counties to get the actual benefit itself the The purpose of the benefit is not just money. It's medical care, it's everything. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 09:25:03 And I did take away from that listening to the secretary that he is very interested and very engaged with the idea of bringing the counties into the equation. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 09:25:15 So I hope the chair participated in that. If not, maybe it's something to go back and take a look at. Thank you. [BoCC] 09:25:23 Thank you, Ed. Next on my Zoom screen is Shelly Hernando. [BoCC] 09:25:29 Chris has her hand up right now. I think I'll just… Okay. [BoCC] 09:25:36 Good morning, Shelley. [SY iPhone 16] 09:25:36 Good morning. Good morning, Shelly urinelle Brennan. I too would like to talk on the hoe river In my opinion, it is. [SY iPhone 16] 09:25:47 Really dramatic. That those who are hurt the most by this problem with the river are the ones who are giving the most. [SY iPhone 16] 09:25:57 And I think that needs to be noted. You can feel the heartfelt request for help. [SY iPhone 16] 09:26:10 There has been an offer of a contracted piece of equipment that's meant to do this job. [SY iPhone 16] 09:26:18 To be donated. We don't hear anything about that. [SY iPhone 16] 09:26:23 This can be done. You know. I agree with the transparency. [SY iPhone 16] 09:26:29 We have this problem in the county with everything. The county can be way more transparent than they are. [SY iPhone 16] 09:26:37 And should be. All of these issues wouldn't be coming at you screaming and angry if we knew what was happening. [SY iPhone 16] 09:26:45 And it's a simple solution if we would just do it. It's not the hoe. It's not the resort. It's not taxes. It's not the pool. It's the fact that it's not transparent. [SY iPhone 16] 09:26:56 We need to address the problem and address it as soon as we can. And when there's comments that come through to the commissioners. Be careful of your comments back to the public. [SY iPhone 16] 09:27:07 That's a problem. That needs to be handled and it needs to be handled Immediately, in my opinion. Thank you. [BoCC] 09:27:16 Thank you, Shelley. Over to Jean Bob. [Jean Ball] 09:27:25 Good morning. Well, loop indeed. [Jean Ball] 09:27:32 I'm a little disturbed by the lack of pushing of information out to the public. If I didn't know about this. [Jean Ball] 09:27:39 You know, I kind of tend to be ahead of the curve on information gathering. I'm you know kind of everywhere. [Jean Ball] 09:27:45 How can other people know about this? How come I didn't know about it? How could I have found out about it? Why wasn't there an effort to push this is god damn, this is exciting my god what shouldn't we be screaming this from the rooftops? [Jean Ball] 09:28:00 Holy smokes, I'm coming unglued over here. This is really, really exciting. [Jean Ball] 09:28:05 Why aren't we amplifying this message? Okay, so I have a concern. [Jean Ball] 09:28:13 I still haven't heard a whole lot doula or the national park, things are kind of you know undone over there. And I don't know If we can take advantage of the opportunity to repair the road, can we then staff the visitor center? Can we get the trails open up the hoe? [Jean Ball] 09:28:35 Those questions certainly need to be asked and answered. That should not, regardless what those answers are. [Jean Ball] 09:28:41 That should not stop us from getting this road repaired. 20 grand? Are you kidding me? [Jean Ball] 09:28:49 I could raise 20 grand this afternoon to get this done. [Jean Ball] 09:28:52 Seriously, that is not a problem. Tell me these things. Oh, my God. [Jean Ball] 09:28:57 Thank you. Get this done. Send me some information so I can put this out and we can get the money. [BoCC] 09:28:58 Okay. [Jean Ball] 09:29:01 Please send me information. [BoCC] 09:29:06 Okay, I'll send you the link to the GoFundMe right now. And Tom Tirsch. [Tom Thiersch] 09:29:13 Good morning, commissioners. Thank you for keeping this public comment period open. [Tom Thiersch] 09:29:20 Switching subjects just a little bit, but also related to roads in general in the county. [Tom Thiersch] 09:29:27 I want to address this. Set of comments to Transportation Benefit District Board. [Tom Thiersch] 09:29:34 If I could, which of course are you folks [Tom Thiersch] 09:29:41 You enacted a 0.1% sales tax increase. Which will start in April as a first step. [Tom Thiersch] 09:29:49 In funding the transportation benefit district. For the county. [Tom Thiersch] 09:29:54 More money is needed for the roads because inflation is going to be increasing i'm sure. [Tom Thiersch] 09:30:00 And the cost of everything is going up very fast. So that money is going to disappear pretty rapidly. [Tom Thiersch] 09:30:07 So I would just encourage the Transportation Benefit District board to put a measure on the ballot this November to increase that sales tax by the allowed two tenths of 1%. [Tom Thiersch] 09:30:21 That'll bring in another $2 million or million some dollars a year desperately needed by our roads. [Tom Thiersch] 09:30:31 And so again, I encourage you to add that to the November ballot for the voters to approve. I'm sure it will pass. [Tom Thiersch] 09:30:38 Just like the one in Port Townsend did. By what was it, 80%? It's going to be well supported because everybody knows that we need and want good roads in the county. [Tom Thiersch] 09:30:49 Different subject. Last week, in the discussion of putting the ordinance for the short-term rentals on your schedule for a hearing. [Tom Thiersch] 09:31:00 You heard from Josh Peters, DCD. I heard something that caused me a great deal of concern He said, well, there's capacity issues. [Tom Thiersch] 09:31:10 I don't want to hear about DCD not having enough capacity to do their job. [Tom Thiersch] 09:31:16 The short-term rental program is going to involve five, 600 properties that are going to need to have permits in order to operate a short-term rentals. [Tom Thiersch] 09:31:26 And if you simply apply a reasonable fee such as those imposed by Chelan or San Juan County. [Tom Thiersch] 09:31:35 To each of those permits, you can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in permit fees each year without hurting any of these rental owners very seriously. [Tom Thiersch] 09:31:46 They're making plenty of money off their rentals. And you could basically operate the short-term rental program as an enterprise fund, there's going to be enough money coming in from the permits In order for you to fund two people at least full time to do enforcement and managing of the permits [Tom Thiersch] 09:32:04 Do the math, it only comes out to one person having to deal with about one to two permits per day throughout the year averaged out. So it's perfectly doable. [Tom Thiersch] 09:32:14 And again, I don't want to hear DCD complaining about lack of capacity. [Tom Thiersch] 09:32:19 This is going to be one of those programs where It does not have to cost anything out of pocket. It's just going to be paid for by the people that are using the program. [Tom Thiersch] 09:32:29 So more to come in writing, but I just wanted to surface that concern before Josh Peters goes off and writes a proposal that says, oh, no, we can't adopt the ordinance as written because it's going to be an odious amount of work [Tom Thiersch] 09:32:41 On our staff. Nope, not good enough. Sorry. Thanks for the [BoCC] 09:32:47 That's time, Tom. Thanks. Okay. [BoCC] 09:32:53 Anybody else? I see Patricia, you have your hand up. You're going to need to accept the promotion. [BoCC] 09:32:59 To panelists to come over to make a comment or we can unmute you from where you are correct So we are unmuting you from where you are. [BoCC] 09:33:09 Oh, there you are. You're in. Okay. You have three minutes for comment. [Patricia Earnest] 09:33:12 Okay. Okay, thank you. It's a different issue again and not necessarily as important as what's been going on, but important to us. Patricia Ernest from Maristone island Good morning, commissioners, administrator and staff. Thank you so much. [Patricia Earnest] 09:33:28 For your consideration of Maristone Island's Bridge Naming Committee's petition for your support in our island's choice of name for the bridge. [Patricia Earnest] 09:33:36 Between Indian Island and Mariston Island and State Highway 116, which you know runs between port hadlock roadie drive and Fort Flagler. [Patricia Earnest] 09:33:46 So in requests for a revision to your letter of support is written, I'd like to add the following information. [Patricia Earnest] 09:33:53 Our original request delineates that the residents voted in the name of the bridge to be Passage through bridge with the native name for passage through displayed underneath. [Patricia Earnest] 09:34:04 In our February 6 Zoom with the Washington State Transportation Commission Executive Director Reena Griffith, she said we were farther along than most folks who come to them with a naming petition. [Patricia Earnest] 09:34:16 We've gathered the support of Washington state elected officials Senator Chapman, House Representatives Therringer and burn bomb for the full requested name. [Patricia Earnest] 09:34:27 In chapter two of the Washington Department of Transportation Traffic Manual. [Patricia Earnest] 09:34:32 Day to day. Am i finished but oh All right. Okay. [BoCC] 09:34:33 Five years ago. No, no, we're having a technical issue, but you're fine [Patricia Earnest] 09:34:40 Okay. So, um. [Patricia Earnest] 09:34:45 The chapter two of the Washington State Department of Transportation Traffic Manual, which is dated May 2021, in section 214.11c titled Tribal Language Signs, developed in conjunction with the Washington Indian Transportation Policy Advisory Committee. [Patricia Earnest] 09:35:03 There may be signs with both English and tribal language on a single sign under certain guidelines. [Patricia Earnest] 09:35:11 The signs are on a continental highway post mounted with a tribal name in mostly English lettering, which is satisfied by our request. [Patricia Earnest] 09:35:20 Without requesting that the bridge sign be in both languages, there will be no reason for this dual committee to address the issue for this particular sign. [Patricia Earnest] 09:35:29 The citizens and the tribes are both requesting the same thing. [Patricia Earnest] 09:35:33 We implore you to consider adding the tribal name to have the official bridge name and therefore sign read as requested. [Patricia Earnest] 09:35:43 Thank you so much. And for you who can see. This is what it would be. It would passage through bridge. [Patricia Earnest] 09:35:49 With the tribal name underneath. I hope you can read that. Thank you so much for your consideration and all the good hard work that you do. [Patricia Earnest] 09:35:59 Thank you. [BoCC] 09:36:00 Thank you, Patricia. Okay, looks like Nels Peterson. The Sklalom tribes is what she's we're going to bring you over. [BoCC] 09:36:12 You're going to need to accept the promotion to panelists. [BoCC] 09:36:21 Okay, well, you are in the Zoom room now. You'll need to unmute. [BoCC] 09:36:28 Okay, you have three minutes for public comment. Yep, we can hear you loud and clear. [Nels Peterson] 09:36:29 Let's see. All right, you can hear me. [Nels Peterson] 09:36:33 Okay, cool. All right. No, I was appreciative of the work done this weekend. [Nels Peterson] 09:36:40 We handle the management of the cabins up on the Ho Valley. [Nels Peterson] 09:36:45 A lot of the questions and the cancellations are occurring mainly due to the the road closure. So my questions are pretty simple. If we do get the funding, what will the schedule be like if we know it? [Nels Peterson] 09:37:00 So that we can start giving some answers to people that are needing to and wanting to firm up their you know vacation From now through about October. [Nels Peterson] 09:37:10 So more specifically in the near term If we're talking April, if we're talking May. So just an idea of schedule. And that may not be known. [Nels Peterson] 09:37:21 The other is that historically the park visitor center up at the Ho Valley has been closed in the winter months, even though access is given. [Nels Peterson] 09:37:32 So the whole question of that the staffing may not be there to open the visitor center correlating with when the road is open The road's always been open, even if the visitor center is not. [Nels Peterson] 09:37:44 So that, you know, it is imperative we get that road open so that visitors can can explore and hike and see the beauty up there. [Nels Peterson] 09:37:54 Yeah, I think other than that, it goes kind of with it is are the permits in place for the construction to occur so that As soon as we have funding or are we ready to roll and does it have to go through a competitive bid or do we have a preferred contractor [Nels Peterson] 09:38:09 Ready to roll. So that's it. [BoCC] 09:38:12 Thanks for your comments and questions. Mr. Peterson. Is there anybody else with us online who would like to make a comment this morning? I see a number of other folks. It looks like Elijah's there. [Nels Peterson] 09:38:15 Yep. [BoCC] 09:38:26 I'll bring a live film. Anybody else raise your hand. We're kind of going long on public comment, but that's fine. [BoCC] 09:38:37 And Elijah, you have three minutes. [elijah] 09:38:40 Yeah, hi, this is Elijah with Peninsula Daily News. I am going to be writing hopefully an article on the updates for the Hoa Road closure and If it's possible, I think I heard something in the column county commissioners meeting about a go fund me [elijah] 09:38:57 Or was that this meeting? Either way, if that can be emailed to me before the end of the meeting, that would be great. [BoCC] 09:39:05 I'll send it, Elijah. Yeah, I just got it from Monty too Okay. Anyone else online? [elijah] 09:39:07 Thanks so much. [BoCC] 09:39:15 Would like to make a public comment. You can use the raise hand button at the bottom of your Zoom screen. [BoCC] 09:39:22 Okay, I'm seeing no other hands go up. I'll close public comment and we can do response. [BoCC] 09:39:29 Anyone want me to do you want me to respond first? I responded in the middle but I would just say to the people who are frustrated with the schedule of this news This is all happening very real time. [BoCC] 09:39:42 I didn't know about the meeting that was going to happen on Saturday until late on Friday. [BoCC] 09:39:47 I went to the meeting on Saturday with a whole bunch of other folks from the Olympic Peninsula. [BoCC] 09:39:52 It was not a public meeting. There was one commissioner in the meeting. It would have been hard to pull that meeting together as a public meeting. [BoCC] 09:39:58 In less than 24 hours. Everybody on that meeting was intent on a solution for the roads on the West End. [BoCC] 09:40:07 And came to the most expedient thing we could do is upper is expedient allocate funds for the repair from the state for the repair of the upper hoe Road. [BoCC] 09:40:18 Through a source of funding that the state has that requires private match. [BoCC] 09:40:23 And we identified a range of $5,000 to $20,000 in private match. [BoCC] 09:40:29 As low as five up to 20. We now have well over $5,000 pledged. It's going to happen, folks. So there's no more I haven't been sleeping either, either because I've been in another time zone or working 16 hours a day, but I haven't been sleeping either. So I get it, you guys. [BoCC] 09:40:50 And I fully know the value of the that forest. [BoCC] 09:40:56 To the health of people. I really appreciated your comments this morning, Linda, because that's why I have been working so hard. [BoCC] 09:41:02 Because as a child, I went into the hole As an adult, I've gone a number of times. It always refills my cup. [BoCC] 09:41:11 And, you know, I know that there are hundreds of thousands of people who need to get in there this summer and have the same experience. [BoCC] 09:41:18 Especially in the time that we're living in. And last week. [BoCC] 09:41:24 Richard Louv came and spoke at the Land Trust Conservation Breakfast, and he's a writer who wrote a book, No Child Left Inside. [BoCC] 09:41:34 And there's been a lot of funding programs that have come out of this movement, but the whole premise of that book is to get out in the woods and get kids out in the woods and it It does things for health [BoCC] 09:41:47 People who spend time in nature don't have as many occurrences of ADHD. [BoCC] 09:41:52 You know, there's all kinds of maladies in our culture that can be ameliorated by spending time in nature and the whole road gets people to that place. [BoCC] 09:42:05 So I see it as medicine. So anyway, I am sorry if you're frustrated with the timing. Jean Ball, I sent you the email, the first email I sent to anybody. [BoCC] 09:42:16 About this news. The first news i had about this was when I sent you that email. So don't say that you're out of the loop. You're as in the loop as I am. [BoCC] 09:42:27 And I'm sorry that you weren't on the call on Saturday, but I was barely on the call on Saturday. [BoCC] 09:42:32 And I am an elected county commissioner. I know you have aspirations for that, but I am currently a seated county commissioner and I was invited to that call and I participated on our behalf. [BoCC] 09:42:44 And I am sorry if you feel like you should have been in the loop on that. But we were just trying to respond to every opportunity we've had to get these roads reopened. So I just I feel a little bit frustrated because I have been [BoCC] 09:42:59 I haven't had a day off. Two and a half weeks and I've been working about 16 hours a day and i'm just I'm trying to do the best here. [BoCC] 09:43:09 I, you know, everyone knows I'm sensitive and i shouldn't be… expressing that maybe in your public comment period response, but I am feeling like We've heard you and it's because of you that we're doing this work. [BoCC] 09:43:25 We work for you. And it's because of the people of this community in this county on the west end and on the east side of the county that we're trying to get these roads reopened for the season. And I know it has a huge economic impact. [BoCC] 09:43:40 To our entire county. From the Hood Canal Bridge to the all the masses you know this is this is this is what's happening real time so I am super excited. [BoCC] 09:43:53 That the state has come forward with a solution and the county is ready Because our public works team is so awesome. [BoCC] 09:44:02 And they have been already doing the work to get the pieces in place. I don't know the timeline yet, but we'll be getting that. That'll be the next update. [BoCC] 09:44:09 We'll work with our public works team and maybe we can have some kind of workshop next Monday or maybe we can do something before that, have a special meeting but I feel like all of this is happening very real time. [BoCC] 09:44:23 So there is no, this is your your update. This is all we know at this time. And as of now, from what we heard from Lissy The pledges I've heard of from the meeting I was in on Saturday, from the public comment today were [BoCC] 09:44:39 We're getting close to 15. We're done. I think I just wanted us to show up with a good show of support for the state on this. And that's why I said up to 20, So sorry if that created confusion for everyone. [BoCC] 09:44:58 Let's see, was there anything else? And to Patricia on the passage through We'll get that change made to the letter. We'll get that updated. [BoCC] 09:45:09 That's yeah that's an easy ask and ask We'll just have to make sure we have that font in our deck. [BoCC] 09:45:17 Benefits. Oh, veterans benefits. I did go to a portion of that presentation. [BoCC] 09:45:26 And I think I will need to go back and review it to get at the specific program you were talking about. [BoCC] 09:45:34 It was very It felt very like a high level overview. [BoCC] 09:45:40 And one thing I will say about the updates that I was hearing at the National Association of Counties Conference in DC. [BoCC] 09:45:49 When I was not meeting with our delegation was In one instance, I would hear one thing and then the next person I would hear the opposite message coming out of their mouth. So I didn't haven't really known what to track on that front. And mostly I was there talking about [BoCC] 09:46:07 The two roads on the West End. So I was running back and forth from the NACO sessions to meetings with our delegation talking about getting these roads reopened, but as we all know now, the solution came from our state so [BoCC] 09:46:22 I don't know what else I can add. [BoCC] 09:46:28 Interesting comment, John, about the jurors being paid more in Pierce County. [BoCC] 09:46:33 I think, didn't we just recently increase the amount we were paying jurors in my time as a commissioner? I'm looking at you because you've been here with me. Planning Commission, we started paying volunteers. Okay. I think it's been 15 for a while. Okay. So maybe that's something we… take up at a later date. That makes sense to me. $15 doesn't even cover breakfast. [BoCC] 09:46:54 Or lunch. Okay, we don't do questions. [BoCC] 09:46:59 At this point. And I'm going to let you do. Sure. And I'll say stay around because we do have national parks coming at 10 a.m. To continue the conversation. I know there was some interest in hearing from them. And this is, I guess I'll just reiterate. [BoCC] 09:47:14 Great news. It's great news that we have funding for the upper hoe and we're going to get it done. And Public Works has always talked about most of the permitting happens after the fact and the mitigation. So that 650 included both the construction and the permitting and we'll get more specific timelines, but I think imminently is what we can say that it's going to happen because obviously we're past that 5,000 minimum. As Heidi said, we want to demonstrate that we can really [BoCC] 09:47:43 Be there. And I think that the communities have already done that you know it's multiple communities that get a lot of benefit from the Upper Hill Road. [BoCC] 09:47:50 But I would say that we're halfway there because the South Shore Road is as important an access point. I love the Seven Basins Lakes and I also love Enchanted Valley and we want to make sure that we get both of those places open. So we are not done with this, but just as regards to the comments about transparency. [BoCC] 09:48:09 Public government doesn't get any more transparent than this. I mean, maybe there were some communication, you know, two messages That's because both Heidi and Clown County Commissioner were just excited and got the news out to the mavens the moment I got I got the same notification that other people did. I mean, we had a talk on Friday who's going to sit down with the governor and [BoCC] 09:48:32 Heidi has been leading this legislative action on behalf of the county, so it was clear that our chair be our representative there but This was evolved from a six o'clock call on Friday that we were frantically organizing to move things around on the weekend to make sure that we prioritize this. We did. We continue to. [BoCC] 09:48:55 And if there's some communication miscommunications that happen because we're trying to be as responsive and transparent as possible. [BoCC] 09:49:06 I think that's okay. So I'm really happy with where we are now and we'll just have to continue to look for the money for South Shore as well. And we'll get an update from national parks on what their priorities are. You know, we've talked about whether or not the center is open, we can still have the road open and i think that's that's [BoCC] 09:49:26 That seems reasonable to me, but let's talk to the national parks about it. That's why we had them here we just got better news that we can share with them. But I certainly want to talk about North Shore Road and the other issues going on as well. [BoCC] 09:49:40 And we do have public comment as part of our national park session. So you can make an additional comment during that. [BoCC] 09:49:47 On the veterans benefits. I fly a lot closer to implementation here and you know i'm excited that Bayside is applying for the SSVF grant this year to get those social services for veterans often in the form of rent relief and making sure that we don't have veterans lose their homes. [BoCC] 09:50:06 That left local administration recently, and I think getting it back under a local agency is great. So that's, I guess, where I focus more or less. [BoCC] 09:50:15 What are the feds going to do and more, what can we do with what the feds have already done? [BoCC] 09:50:22 Thanks for the comments on connectivity summit. Maggie and And to John, I mean, we will look at I think it's worth looking at that the juror compensation it's a struggle. I don't know where those, I don't even know where those funds come from so uh you know [BoCC] 09:50:41 Step one, question asked, basically. And to Mr. Tirsch. [BoCC] 09:50:48 Appreciate your notes on the transportation benefit district and I tend to agree with your analysis of DCD capacity. We've done lots to make sure that we give them capacity. [BoCC] 09:51:00 I think Mr. Peters was talking about the 4% cap as being a struggle to enforce. [BoCC] 09:51:07 I tend to agree with them, though I think there is this there you're correct, I believe, that this is an enterprise kind of increase in the level of regulation that it should be able to pay for itself. [BoCC] 09:51:22 I also wanted to comment. Mr. Tears has made some public comment about some of the PFD RFDs or rcws 060 that talks about other bond capacity that you can't bond more than one tenth of one percent of the value of all the property. And that does not create any revenue. [BoCC] 09:51:44 I double checked this with the prosecutor's office as well as looking at it. It only creates a limit to the bond capacity But no bond council or underwriter is going to give a fledgling pfd alone that they don't have the collateral or revenue stream to support. So that is a cap for the maximum, but does not convey any funding. [BoCC] 09:52:08 Just revenue stream. Want to respond to mr tears about that in public place And then to Nell's, you know, we don't know exactly because about when the schedule is going to happen. But as I said, when we get it, we will make it public [BoCC] 09:52:25 And… I think that's my risk. Oh, and to Patricia, of course, yeah, adding the file name that's no No, no big. We'll probably pull it from consent and make that small modification. But yeah, I think it's a great name. Yeah, it's a great name. Just so you know, Eric Kuzma said they're hoping to get the repair bid out this week. [BoCC] 09:52:46 Great. You just sent that email. Great. Yeah. There is a bid, but get out the bed this week. I'm not going to add a whole lot. I think you guys have covered it. [BoCC] 09:52:59 Fully, I just will say as I'll continue to play my new commissioner card for just a second and just thank you both so much. [BoCC] 09:53:08 For the work that you have been doing and to watch how this has happened, how this has all played out. And I can say, again, having talked to a lot of new commissioners in other and other counties, this does not happen. [BoCC] 09:53:27 In many other counties. I will say that this level of transparency, I'm talking to other counties and this is not the way things go. [BoCC] 09:53:38 And the fact that We've got over the weekend, a commissioner being asked to attend a problem solving meeting where that commissioner then reaches out to as many people in the public that she knows have been involved and invites them. I can say my [BoCC] 09:53:59 My text cell phone is out to a lot of people out there and the connection that I'm so grateful to have made on the West End with Anna. She's texting me over the weekend. I was at least able to tell her that that meeting. [BoCC] 09:54:15 I had heard that it was happening. We are doing our very best to communicate in real time. And I do not see that happening in many local, state, or federal government agencies. [BoCC] 09:54:30 Thank you for the work that you are doing. And it is remarkable to watch it happen i am really blown away at your capacity to manage so many disparate and different things all at once. Just your response to public comment right now was so across the board. My mind is bouncing all over the place. [BoCC] 09:54:51 I am learning. And thank you for teaching. Thank you. [BoCC] 09:54:57 I just want to address a couple other quick things. Commissioner Austin, on your comment about the access road being turned over to Park Service. Ultimately, I mean, that to me is representative of This is not where the conversation stops. [BoCC] 09:55:15 That we celebrate the wins. We continue to move forward and look at all the possible solutions and ways to manage things down the road, whether that's the right solution or not. [BoCC] 09:55:27 We just continue. Can I say one thing on that? Yeah. Just that I've had that conversation with Monty and public works and i think the flat program, I'm probably skewering which one but i think some of those programs, the Federal Lands Access Program and other things were kind of the solution to that conversation in the past where here's a way to maintain the roads and kind of [BoCC] 09:55:49 Kick the can and not take on responsibility for what is, as we can see, a challenging road to take over so Yeah, that's been the architecture. To potentially look back at Flap when there are dollars available there. Maggie, I want to thank you for your continued focus on the idea of an urban rest stop. I think you know that I'm very excited about that idea and I want to keep looking for ways. Thank you for making that opportunity for a conversation at the connectivity summit this weekend. [BoCC] 09:56:21 That's how we move these things forward. We just keep talking about them, getting input and feedback. And just to all of the comments. [BoCC] 09:56:31 About transparency building trust. Anna, Shelley, Jean, there are many comments about that. And I would just say That is absolutely true, and it goes both ways. [BoCC] 09:56:46 There needs to be that trust building in both directions and an acknowledgement of what the people who are working for you have done and then continue to criticize, continue to move the conversation forward but um it When people are working so hard, they also need to be acknowledged before [BoCC] 09:57:11 Before criticism and that goes both ways. We are amplifying the message. That is what you're seeing happening here. And it is a partnership in both directions. A couple of people have brought up Ms. Ball a couple of times about the offer for equipment. We did discuss that. [BoCC] 09:57:32 In the meeting last week, and I know there are lots of issues around that, not the least of which is liability and the permitting required and as the generosity of a piece of equipment being offered is amazing. And it's not that [BoCC] 09:57:51 Ultimately maybe take advantage of that, but there's a lot of steps that have to happen in order for that. [BoCC] 09:57:58 To be able to be part of the solution. I think that all of the other comments have been so well addressed. I'm going to let us move forward. But thank you everyone for participating. You are the reason that this road is happening. [BoCC] 09:58:11 And you and all the people working for you. Doesn't mean we're done, though. It doesn't mean we're done. One out of two roads, though. [BoCC] 09:58:20 Right. So the South Shore Lake Pinalt Road to address and I know there's conversation about how to do a temporary workaround with the north Shore Lake Penal Road. So I think the timing of this next workshop with the Olympic National Park [BoCC] 09:58:39 And the deputy director there couldn't be more perfect because we can ask questions and You know, I mean, some of this information they're probably just getting as we're sharing it here. Can I ask consent agenda is time critical today. Can we do that after we know? [BoCC] 09:58:59 There's no question. Yeah, no, it's a robust one. I've got some Questions and comments too so okay So it's 9.59. Can you see if Kevin's can be brought over? We can. [BoCC] 09:59:15 Probably send Patricia back to panel that attendee as well. [BoCC] 09:59:23 I don't have Patricia in mine. Yeah, I see her too. [BoCC] 09:59:29 And I'm not a co-host, so I can' No. [BoCC] 09:59:36 You can remove you as co-host, but it says that you are. [BoCC] 09:59:39 I can't remove Patricia, though. She's not really there. Yeah, it's interesting. She's not in the list, but she is on the screen. Kevin is there on the attendee list. I moved him over. He's now panelist. He accepted. [BoCC] 09:59:52 That's weird. Why can't we see him? Yeah, having some tech issues. Sorry, Kevin, we can't see you in the panelists. [BoCC] 10:00:03 We were having other tech issues. I thought it was just AV capture. [BoCC] 10:00:08 Kevin Killian. Kevin Killian. We love you, Kevin, and value, but we weren't trying to break it. Nobody, I'd rather spend my time with than you, Kevin Hitchcock. [BoCC] 10:00:26 I think Kevin's in. Good morning, Kevin. Yes. Thank you. [Kevin Killian] 10:00:30 Good morning. Apparently I've been promoted. I'm now a panelist. [BoCC] 10:00:36 Yeah. So have you been listening to our meeting? [Kevin Killian] 10:00:40 No, I've been engaged with a million other things. So I just joined a couple minutes ago, but I did see an email. I just… I was gone for the last five days or so. I just got back in to see an email about some possible funding solutions. So that's wonderful. [BoCC] 10:00:53 Yeah, so we had, I'll just briefly let you know that we had a meeting with the governor on Saturday. [BoCC] 10:01:03 The city of Forks, Clallam County, and Jefferson County. Collectively, they pulled together a meeting late on friday And we, turning my notifications off We met with the governor and he has identified a pot of funding that he's going to allocate for reopening the Everhole road. [BoCC] 10:01:28 And that funding requires a private match, so not a public match, but a private match. And so we worked over the weekend to get the word out and apparently didn't do the best job of that because Commissioner Johnson from Clallam County sent the low end of the range and I sent the high end of the range that we had talked about with the governor but we are [BoCC] 10:01:50 Fully in the range. So we've raised the money needed So, yeah, and our public works team is getting the contract out This week, they said, just a couple minutes ago. So we are in the process of repairing that road. [Kevin Killian] 10:01:53 Oh, that's fantastic. [Kevin Killian] 10:02:03 Amazing. [Kevin Killian] 10:02:09 Oh, that's so fantastic to hear. Yeah, we're ready to… Ready to go. We just got to get the access and then we'll just get things turned back around and stuffed up and Yeah, look, that's wonderful news. Thank you for sharing that. And thanks for all the hard work on it. [BoCC] 10:02:23 Yeah, and sorry, it has been, it's very real time news. So sorry, we weren't able to get it to you sooner, but we've been just working on it for the last eight weeks, basically. [Kevin Killian] 10:02:28 I… [Kevin Killian] 10:02:33 Yeah. [BoCC] 10:02:36 And… I feel like, you know. [BoCC] 10:02:39 Now it's important just to get the word out and get the work going so [Kevin Killian] 10:02:41 No, that's perfect. Yeah, we've been, you know. Probably unreasonably so confident that that y'all would find a find a way to work through it. So we've, you know, of course, you know, buttoned up operations within the hoe just to protect the assets that were there. [Kevin Killian] 10:02:56 But it's functionally turnkey. As soon as we can get access in there, we'll be able to turn things around. [Kevin Killian] 10:03:03 Any idea? Of course, you're just going to contracting now of a general timeframe expected? [BoCC] 10:03:10 Well, our team has been saying that has been saying that that the contractors, you know, the repair will probably take three to four weeks Once they get going. So I don't know what other work those contractors are currently when they'll be available to start, but they've known that this is the top priority for the county so [Kevin Killian] 10:03:19 Mm-hmm. [Kevin Killian] 10:03:28 Mm-hmm. Perfect. [BoCC] 10:03:32 Well, you know, no more this week. [Kevin Killian] 10:03:34 Wonderful. Yeah. Well, we will… Engage in any conversations you need us to engage in just to make sure that we're all continuing to work together. I've been so appreciative. My entire team has been so appreciative of the communication coming from Eric and the rest of the public works team. [Kevin Killian] 10:03:48 I just feel like we've been really well connected up to this point. [Kevin Killian] 10:03:53 We're happy to keep on working together. [BoCC] 10:03:59 Okay, thank you. So what else do we need to talk about today? How's it going at the park? Can I ask a question? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kevin, I really appreciate you making time today. And it's good to hear that you guys are, that it's pretty much a turnkey operation up at the hoe. [Kevin Killian] 10:04:08 Yeah. Yeah. [BoCC] 10:04:15 And really the reason we wanted to bring the national parks out here is to kind of get a feeling of where you guys are. I know it's a turbulent time on the federal level. [Kevin Killian] 10:04:26 Mm-hmm. [BoCC] 10:04:27 You know, as we kind of framed the issue, we're halfway there and getting funding for one of the two access points to the national park with the South Shore Road down at Lake Wenal completely gone now, basically. So wondering [Kevin Killian] 10:04:41 Mm-hmm. [BoCC] 10:04:43 What you guys are planning with the North Shore Road down at Lake Buenault as well and I guess just in general, what's the plan going forward we've heard concerning things about firefighters being furloughed as well. So what's the landscape in that Olympic National Park is my big question. [Kevin Killian] 10:05:04 So, um. Can't say a whole lot about the specifics of it, but what you're reading in the paper is pretty true as far as Park Service goes. [Kevin Killian] 10:05:14 You know, our law enforcement and emergency services folks are pretty well intact. [Kevin Killian] 10:05:20 You know, but there may be some There's the probationary terminations, which largely did not affect any of the emergency services side of things. [Kevin Killian] 10:05:29 Then there's the deferred resignation program which You know, we did lose one of our law enforcement staff to the deferred resignation, but that's just their choice to make. [Kevin Killian] 10:05:43 But moving forward, you know, we… we anticipate being able to hire as many seasonals as we did last year, maybe even more so, you know, budget dependent. [Kevin Killian] 10:05:52 Which, you know, as we move forward into the rest of this week with the continuing resolution, hopefully happening. [Kevin Killian] 10:06:00 We'll uh… keep on plugging away at it, you know, making our hiring decisions and bringing those people on. [Kevin Killian] 10:06:06 Hopefully in the same time frames as we normally would have. [Kevin Killian] 10:06:10 But you know. There's still a lot of uncertainty ahead of us. [Kevin Killian] 10:06:16 We're still in a hiring freeze. So any permanent vacancies that we have, we're not able to hire for. [Kevin Killian] 10:06:23 Right now, waiting for more word on that you know in the Hopefully within the next few weeks to a month or so, hopefully we'll get some word on being able to on what we can do with those vacancies that we have. [Kevin Killian] 10:06:36 And yeah. There's a lot of uncertainty on the budget front as well. Moving forward, we don't know what that really looks like. So we're just making the decisions that we can with the authorities and the finances that we have available to us right now. [Kevin Killian] 10:06:52 And honestly, we're kind of taking it day to day. Our employees are are challenged. Sometimes they're struggling a little bit with the uncertainty. So we're just really focusing on how we can we can give them the best information that we have. We're having daily calls with our employees. [Kevin Killian] 10:07:09 We're trying to meet up as a team, a park team, at least once a week if we can. [Kevin Killian] 10:07:15 You know, whether it's virtually or in person, just making sure that we're all connected and sharing sharing the information. [Kevin Killian] 10:07:24 And we're getting great information to the extent we can from our regional office that's been uh It's been really a high point for us is meeting daily with our regional office staff. [Kevin Killian] 10:07:35 Superintendents, all the superintendents in the region are meeting meeting daily with our regional director and the directorate team. [Kevin Killian] 10:07:42 So we're feeling as good as we can with the things that we're things that we're hearing is we're all trying to hear the same thing and communicate amongst each other to make sure we're all we're all understanding. [Kevin Killian] 10:07:54 Understanding everything that we're hearing. So if that makes any sense. [BoCC] 10:07:59 It does. It does, but I'm still curious about the North Shore Road and just like, if we can't find funds to replace that South Shore Road or repair in a timely way is there going to be access from North Shore and what is the timeframe for that [Kevin Killian] 10:08:14 Gotcha. Gotcha. I didn't realize you're asking a direct question about North Shore Road. I thought it was just generally how we're doing. So North Shore. So I'm not sure of the timeframe of it, but we are still planning on moving ahead with the repair of that bridge. [BoCC] 10:08:16 If there is. [Kevin Killian] 10:08:31 On North Shore Road. And so that is going to close access on North Shore, I believe just after July 4th. I think it's July 4th. [Kevin Killian] 10:08:41 Seventh maybe but uh and that'll be a hard closure of that is that's We wish that wasn't the case, but it is the case. That's when the funding is The funding is here and the work needs to be done. So we need to do that. [Kevin Killian] 10:08:58 So we're so we're hopeful that there was going to be a shoe fly, as I've heard it termed. [Kevin Killian] 10:09:06 On the South Shore, but I am just getting up on the news when you said that the road is completely gone on on South Shore. Apparently, that's not a possibility down there. So we need to to maybe rethink that a little bit. We cannot rethink the um [BoCC] 10:09:07 Yep. [Kevin Killian] 10:09:25 The roadwork, the road work on North Shore, the contract is in place and the Yeah, that work's got to happen. [BoCC] 10:09:26 July. [Kevin Killian] 10:09:34 So unfortunately, that's going to be a challenge for everybody. [BoCC] 10:09:37 So I'm still, I don't know exactly which, I'm always confused about the conversation of bridges over on North Shore Road. [BoCC] 10:09:45 Can you just be really explicit so the public and I can understand right now there's a bridge that's been kind of moved to cover a broken culvert. Is that the road work that will happen in July, repairing that culvert? No. [Kevin Killian] 10:09:59 No, it is not. Pardon me for not being… super specific. So the bridge farther out east, the temporary bridge that we pulled we intend to put that back in place. But this is roadwork and i'm in and I'm not remembering the name of the [Kevin Killian] 10:10:21 The specific name of the spot right now. If you can give me a few minutes, I can go check in with my facilities folks and kind of get that specific. [BoCC] 10:10:22 Grace. [Kevin Killian] 10:10:31 Specific project name for you? [BoCC] 10:10:34 I mean, I really, that's kind of my biggest question is just understanding what the timeline is for these different pieces on North Shore Road right now. And I just want to reiterate, so you're You guys are golden with us getting the upper hole road [Kevin Killian] 10:10:38 Yeah. [BoCC] 10:10:48 Functional as quickly as possible, you'll be ready to, as you say, it's a turnkey operation and just got to turn it back on. [Kevin Killian] 10:10:53 Yep. Correct. Yeah, that is correct. [BoCC] 10:10:54 Which is great news. But I'm sorry we didn't give you the exact questions beforehand, but I don't know if it's okay with the chair. I would love to take a little pause in this and get as much information about the timeline on North Shore Road as we can. [Kevin Killian] 10:10:58 Yeah. [Kevin Killian] 10:11:08 Yeah, if you give me like five minutes or even less than that, yeah, I can be right back. [BoCC] 10:11:14 Okay. Yeah, well, we can use a recess. So we'll recess. [Kevin Killian] 10:11:18 Cool. Thank you. [BoCC] 10:11:20 We'll recess until 1020. How about that? All right. Okay. Thanks, Kevin. [BoCC] 10:11:34 You can mute us as well here. Yeah. [BoCC] 10:20:05 Okay, we're back. It's 1020. Kevin's back. Maybe he has an answer to Greg's question. Everything's so read time these days. [Kevin Killian] 10:20:12 Yes. [BoCC] 10:20:14 Sorry. Welcome. Welcome to our world, Kevin. It's very real time right now, but I'm sure as we get through this set of issues that we're dealing with, it'll go back to it. [Kevin Killian] 10:20:17 Yeah, right. Yep. [BoCC] 10:20:27 Slower pace, hopefully. [Kevin Killian] 10:20:28 Someday. Someday. All right. So the area we're talking about is Big Creek. And I knew that. I just couldn't recall it. [Kevin Killian] 10:20:37 Because we have had so many other problems that we tend to push these things to the back of our memory banks. [BoCC] 10:20:44 We hear you. [Kevin Killian] 10:20:44 But obviously, yeah. So Big Creek is a milepost 10.2 on the North Fork Road. [Kevin Killian] 10:20:50 And right now we're envisioning a hard closure starting July 7th, and it's going to be about, it's predicted to september 3rd. [Kevin Killian] 10:20:59 The reason for that hard closure on that is the road needs to be removed with an engineered log jam placed in Big Creek and then the road rebuilt on top of that engineered log jam. [Kevin Killian] 10:21:13 I asked why we couldn't delay this project and apparently this is Funding from the Federal Highways IRFA program. [Kevin Killian] 10:21:22 Emergency repair for federally owned roads. And we've already asked for a delay once and they granted that delay. [Kevin Killian] 10:21:27 So we cannot ask for a second delay or we risk losing the funds completely. [Kevin Killian] 10:21:33 And the problem with that is that if there's another high water event up there in Big Creek, it's likely to take out that road completely and we don't have the funding to replace that road if it's all gone. [Kevin Killian] 10:21:46 So this is the only fund source we really have available to us to protect the north the north fork road In that area. [Kevin Killian] 10:21:53 So with this recognized damage, we did put in some riprap in there. [Kevin Killian] 10:22:00 To when we asked for that extension, put some riprap in to kind of delay the delay the deterioration of that road. [Kevin Killian] 10:22:07 That is holding, but it's unlikely that that's going to continue to hold forever. So this is the opportunity we have to actually protect the North Fork Road in that area. [Kevin Killian] 10:22:16 So we've sent letters to all the landowners past that. That's the Big Creek area, notified them of this. [Kevin Killian] 10:22:27 And I haven't heard a lot of pushback about it. Apparently one uh One family is not too pleased about it. And we apologize, but this is just kind of the the way that we need to do it just from a funds available perspective and the work required. [BoCC] 10:22:43 So are there residents beyond that that will be on it? No. [Kevin Killian] 10:22:47 No. No full time. So the full-time The Clarkspur, there's some houses out there, but none of those, from what we understand, are full-time residences. Just, you know, summer, summer homes. [BoCC] 10:22:51 Okay. [Kevin Killian] 10:23:01 Which is unfortunate that people aren't going to be able to access their their homes. But there's not an the land is not available or funds not available, a combination of both. [Kevin Killian] 10:23:14 To do any kind of bypass in that area. So the hard closure really is the only way to go as far as we're concerned. [Kevin Killian] 10:23:22 For the repair of that road. [BoCC] 10:23:24 There's not a shoe fly or some other solution that we can come with on South Shore, that whole area is going to be completely inaccessible, at least for the month of July. [Kevin Killian] 10:23:32 Yes. Yeah. And so we're exploring options for what we can do as far as, you know, allowing people to go as far as the ranger station. [Kevin Killian] 10:23:40 We wish there was more parking there so people, but there's not that much. We think there's about room for maybe 15 cars or so. [Kevin Killian] 10:23:48 So we're still trying to figure out how we're going to handle the visitor load in that area because it's a it's popular areas We just don't have the room to just kind of stack up cars there at the ranger station. [Kevin Killian] 10:24:04 There's not adequate bathroom facility. So we're just trying to figure, we're still working on how we're going to handle that. [Kevin Killian] 10:24:10 But yeah, that's the best we got. [BoCC] 10:24:12 And then until that work happens. How accessible is the road? Like right now, it's not accessible all the way through, right? Because that bridge has been moved over Graves Creek or whatever [Kevin Killian] 10:24:24 Yeah, Graves Creek. Yeah, so we anticipate reinstalling that bridge in April. [Kevin Killian] 10:24:28 Early April. So there will be access over to graves and all the way over. [Kevin Killian] 10:24:35 All the way around with the exception of the South Fork impassable area in South Fork. [Kevin Killian] 10:24:39 But yeah, April is when we anticipate reinstalling that bridge. [BoCC] 10:24:43 So it'll be open in April. Access all the way around to both sides of the closure on South Shore Road and to the Enchanted Valley and whatever that exit, I don't even know that it's called there And then close down [Kevin Killian] 10:24:53 Mm-hmm. Yep. [BoCC] 10:24:57 To all full closure in July for about a month and then open again that same way. [Kevin Killian] 10:25:02 July 7th, two months. So July 7th through predicted September 3rd. [BoCC] 10:25:07 Wow. So for the rest of the season kind of. Yeah, that's a lot. [Kevin Killian] 10:25:11 Yep. [BoCC] 10:25:12 Okay. Well, that's helpful. I guess. The other question about down there is, I mean, is the national park invested in looking for other options to get the road repair done in a timely fashion and on South Shore Road. [BoCC] 10:25:29 Yes. That's not a fair question, maybe. [Kevin Killian] 10:25:33 Yeah, I don't know. I think it's a similar question to ho you know we're supportive of of what like we're ready to go if the road is able to be reopened, but we don't have the ability to put funds towards [Kevin Killian] 10:25:47 The road repair in that area. You know, to the extent we can be supportive of the communications that you might have with federal highways we were behind the scenes, we were working with our contacts at Federal Highways to see if there's anything that we could do. And we were told, no, this is between Jefferson County and [Kevin Killian] 10:26:08 And the Federal Highways programs that they're already in contact with. And I know those relationships were very good between Jefferson County and the Federal Highways folks. So there really wasn't anything that we could do or bolster behind the scenes because those efforts were already underway. [BoCC] 10:26:23 Thanks, Kevin. You guys have any additional questions? Well, other than our hair on fire questions, was there anything you wanted to share with us today, Kevin? [Kevin Killian] 10:26:25 Yeah. [Kevin Killian] 10:26:34 No, we're… We're just doing our best here. We know how important Olympic National Park is as a resource um not just for the natural resources, but also economics of the the Jefferson County and Clown County and the whole Olympic Peninsula. So we [Kevin Killian] 10:26:50 We recognize that and we value the relationships and we really value the community up here. So we're we're doing everything that we can. [Kevin Killian] 10:26:57 To make sure that we are ready to go for the summer and any challenges that that we're facing. We're working hard to make sure we're minimizing those. [Kevin Killian] 10:27:06 And putting the best foot, best face forward, protecting the park, but also providing for the recreation of all the folks that are planning to come out here, both local and non-local. [BoCC] 10:27:17 And we appreciate that big time. I don't know. Nothing I love more than our park and our national forest and Love being in partnership with you guys. So I look forward to getting Getting to solutions on the South Shore Road and getting that hoe Road reopened and [BoCC] 10:27:36 It just feels like, I feel like we've been pushing and pushing and pushing and this feels like a little bit of a window. We got a break in the log jam with the whole road. And so, you know. [Kevin Killian] 10:27:42 Mm-hmm. [BoCC] 10:27:49 I know our public works team has got more on their plates right now than they can manage, but I know that this is going to rise to the top in terms of getting this one. [Kevin Killian] 10:27:59 Absolutely. Well, we're just so appreciative of the county's efforts to to to repair that road i know yeah i know how hard it is to secure funding for these projects. [BoCC] 10:28:00 On this. [Kevin Killian] 10:28:09 And yeah, kudos to you and your team for being able to to make that happen. [BoCC] 10:28:15 And thanks to our governor, Bob Ferguson, for having the idea you know Yeah, really stepping up. Kevin, hi, I'm Heather Dudley Nolad, brand new commissioner here. [Kevin Killian] 10:28:24 Hi. Heather. [BoCC] 10:28:26 We haven't gotten to meet. Although Did you come to the last? Yeah, we got to say hello then yes My question is about communication. [BoCC] 10:28:39 If there is not success in getting south shore dollars this season. What communication tools are you using and how best can we help communicate out to the public through your tools? [BoCC] 10:28:57 To make sure people know what their options are. And maybe if you can't access this way, here's what you can access to the park and here's ways to plan your visit and all of that. How do people access that information? [Kevin Killian] 10:29:11 So on the park website, we have an alert section where we tell people the latest access or the latest challenges, the latest closures [Kevin Killian] 10:29:23 So that's kind of been the best we have right now from a real time updates is our park website. [BoCC] 10:29:32 Okay. [Kevin Killian] 10:29:33 We've got some figuring to do when it comes to the permit. So we normally put all of our wilderness permits Or the majority of wellness permits on sale in the middle of April. [Kevin Killian] 10:29:44 We've got some figuring to do when it comes to what how we're going to message these access concerns that we have. Of course, we're trying to to wait things out on the hoe because that's the primary wilderness access point is the hoe. [Kevin Killian] 10:29:58 So it sounds like we're not going to have to change a whole lot about what we're going to message on the hoe at this point. [Kevin Killian] 10:30:04 But as you all know, the Enchanted Valley is a very popular place to go So we're still working on that. [Kevin Killian] 10:30:11 But yeah, our park website is the primary message point. But as far as the real time You know, messaging boards on the road To tell people, you know, road closed x miles ahead There's kind of the point of the point of [Kevin Killian] 10:30:28 Point of notification. As far as that goes, if y'all [Kevin Killian] 10:30:36 Could work your public messaging capabilities with the maybe the tourism board. [Kevin Killian] 10:30:44 To let folks know as they're coming in that there might be some challenges in accessing the Quinault Rainforest. I think that would probably be pretty helpful. [BoCC] 10:30:51 Okay. Yeah, that's exactly why I'm asking the question is, you know, especially in response to the, you know, continued requests that we get for engagement and communication and us pushing out information as opposed to the public having to search and dig for information. [Kevin Killian] 10:31:00 Mm-hmm. [Kevin Killian] 10:31:08 Mm-hmm. [BoCC] 10:31:10 We could hopefully use this opportunity to find even better ways to do that So I know alternatives is something that people have been asking me, can we, if we can't access it this way, can we have some transparent and clear, easy to find information about how can we access? What can we be doing and that may be a good direction for tourism [Kevin Killian] 10:31:30 Mm-hmm. [BoCC] 10:31:35 Folks to be kind of putting their minds toward how do we yeah how do we really point people to the things that they can do this season And so if we can all be kind of keeping our minds pointed toward that and really talking to each other about how to share information. [Kevin Killian] 10:31:44 Right. [Kevin Killian] 10:31:52 Well, if you have any recommendations for us, we have some limitations placed on us in terms of the the communication avenues that we take. But if you have any recommendations for us, we're happy to work on on your kind of bolstering our outward facing comms to kind of fill some of those gaps if you see any out there. [BoCC] 10:31:54 Good evening. [BoCC] 10:32:12 Thank you. So Kevin, do you think that if we can't find a solution for South Shore Road. [BoCC] 10:32:17 That you probably would not issue wilderness permits for Enchanted Valley in April is that [Kevin Killian] 10:32:22 So, no, I think we would just make sure that we're letting people know that that they can't access Enchanted Valley through the way that they think they're going to. Just like one thing that was in the back of our mind for the [BoCC] 10:32:31 Right. [Kevin Killian] 10:32:36 For the hoe was making sure that we had really open and transparent information available to folks that maybe they had to add an additional day or two to get to where they were hoping to get to. [Kevin Killian] 10:32:50 And think more about their level of preparation for some of the backcountry adventures they were hoping to take. [Kevin Killian] 10:32:56 I think we would do the same thing for Enchanted Valley. If folks were looking to go to Enchanted Valley, we would make sure we're well aware and um and you know kind of leaning into proposing alternate routes for people [BoCC] 10:33:08 That's great. [Kevin Killian] 10:33:08 Yeah, so we have a fantastic wilderness staff that are very experienced and not just experience in the wilderness, but experience in customer service. And that's really what they look for is not just Not just providing access to wilderness, but providing information so people can access it safely. [Kevin Killian] 10:33:26 So those are the things that they're really working on and have been working on for a while now. And we have a interdisciplinary team that is stood up here in the park, just kind of focusing on visitor access and how we can have the [Kevin Killian] 10:33:40 The best, safest summer available for our park visitors this summer, given some of the challenges and changes that we're seeing and we're anticipating. [Kevin Killian] 10:33:47 Yeah, and the wilderness folks have been working on these things and they're going to be ready to go. We just got to figure out where the excesses are and are not. [BoCC] 10:33:53 That's really exciting. I think that's so, I mean, just to finish that up, I'm thrilled to hear that because, you know, and I hope that's the message that the public ultimately sees, not just roads closed. [Kevin Killian] 10:34:09 Great. [BoCC] 10:34:09 But here's your opportunity to have a different adventure this season. And here's going to be a different way you may never have experienced it this way. And so if the public can be sharing that message that There is access. It's going to be different this season and therefore your adventure may be different and it may take a little bit of a different tack but [BoCC] 10:34:32 But you can still get there and hopefully people will really embrace and support that message. [Kevin Killian] 10:34:34 Mm-hmm. [BoCC] 10:34:38 So I'd like to… allow for some public comment and have Kevin stay with us in case any of the questions we get in public comment are better answered by you, Kevin. Is that okay with you to just stick around for a few minutes after we're done? [Kevin Killian] 10:34:52 Yeah. I'll do what I can. I may not be able to answer everything, but I'll do my best. [BoCC] 10:34:58 Okay. I've got just a little bit more. Just as long as we have Kevin here, I'd love, we're in Enchanted Valley. I just haven't heard recently what the, if you can give us an update on what's going on with the chalet. It seemed like the river was moving away and it wasn't The same imminent danger, but can you give us any update about that? [Kevin Killian] 10:35:15 I can't really. I personally have not been there. I haven't been in this park all that long. I'm hoping to get up there this summer myself. [Kevin Killian] 10:35:22 But I'll have to take a couple extra days to get there, apparently. [BoCC] 10:35:26 Yeah. [Kevin Killian] 10:35:26 But no, I can't give you any update on that. They're the the um I think we're still hoping to get some resolution on that issue over the course of the next year or two, but we don't really have anything different than what you know. [BoCC] 10:35:41 And then just one comment just to, you know. I guess point out how if we don't address these emergencies right when they happen, what can happen you know we've our only access to the national park from East Jefferson County at Dosey Wallops has long been washed out. And I've heard more conversation with the Forest Service about [Kevin Killian] 10:35:59 Mm-hmm. [BoCC] 10:36:02 Talking about solutions again to get more access, which would, of course, you can get to Enchanted Valley from there. But I just want to put that pin in that, you know, the longer we wait, the harder it is to fix these problems. [Kevin Killian] 10:36:07 Mm-hmm. [BoCC] 10:36:14 And hopefully we can start talking about Dosie wallops again, too, because, you know. [Kevin Killian] 10:36:14 Yep. [BoCC] 10:36:20 It's really critical access for the area in Brennan and just I don't want to lose sight of the things that have already happened that we can address to create access for the national parks. [Kevin Killian] 10:36:32 Yeah, absolutely. [BoCC] 10:36:32 Sounds like reengaging with that federal land access program is on our agenda for sure. That one's super challenging. Wilderness areas. It literally takes an act of Congress to fix that problem. Wow. [BoCC] 10:36:46 Anything else, colleagues? Okay, so we're going to open up public comment. Pat in the room, did you have a comment you wanted to have one question. [BoCC] 10:36:55 Okay, come on. Okay. Did Pat in the room and then I see two hands up online. If anyone else online would like to make public comment or ask the question for Olympic National Park. Believe me, if you've done people out west are going to be really relieved after this [BoCC] 10:37:12 And I rate it weekly. We'll discuss a column for the commissal of Daily News and the Daily World in Aberdeen. And I have to know How will I find out if we've met the deadline? [BoCC] 10:37:23 By tomorrow. We met the deadline. We have. Yes. I said that earlier. I know, but… I'm confused. Okay. We just needed between $5,000 and $20,000 in pledges. All right. [BoCC] 10:37:37 From what I've heard today, we have at least 15,000, if not more secured. We've met the deadline. Okay, so it was the governor who secured some funding from unspent from grant sources? [BoCC] 10:37:51 Through the Department of Commerce. And then the Department of Commerce? [BoCC] 10:37:55 Who wanted a public match? The source of funding that the governor is using to fund this repair requires a private match. And I don't know the exact… That's okay. Yeah, it's complicated. Yeah. [BoCC] 10:38:13 We can also note that Representative Adam Birnbaum newly in his position has been very instrumental in helping to move this forward as well. I get 600 words, but I really appreciate it. Everybody, take a nap. [BoCC] 10:38:26 What's in that? You know, it's what I do at work. Okay. [BoCC] 10:38:35 Then we'll bring over Teresa and Ed and Shelly and anyone else who's online with us who would like to make a public comment today. [BoCC] 10:38:43 Using the raise hand button at the bottom of the Zoom screen. [BoCC] 10:38:48 Teresa, you're first. You'll have three minutes for comment. [BoCC] 10:38:55 And you'll need to unmute, Teresa. [theresa jump] 10:39:00 Hi there. Hi. First of all, Jefferson County Commissioners, thank you very much for everything that you're doing in this effort and Thank you, Supervisor, for being here today and your efforts. [BoCC] 10:39:02 Hi. [theresa jump] 10:39:14 I'm a Holcomb resident. My family's had a place in Quinault since the early 90s and um [theresa jump] 10:39:23 Not only is… Are these roads vital to Jefferson County, they're very important to Grace Harbor County as well I know these roads well because I hike them. I hiked the area a lot and I just would like to um [theresa jump] 10:39:40 Highlight the importance of the South Shore Road access Primarily because If you were to take a drive on the North Shore, there's a place on the North Shore Road. [theresa jump] 10:39:53 On a hillside. A blind corner. [theresa jump] 10:39:57 With a big drop off. And during high traffic season, it's pretty dangerous. There's no sign stating that it's a blind corner. [theresa jump] 10:40:08 If there is some way that if because it sounds like North Shore is going to get a lot more traffic, if there's some way that this could be marked. [theresa jump] 10:40:16 That would be really wonderful because i've i've encountered scary situations more than once there. [theresa jump] 10:40:22 And that's all I wanted to add. Thank you. I'm sorry. [BoCC] 10:40:24 What mile marker that is? Any idea what mile marker that is, Teresa? [theresa jump] 10:40:30 Oh, gosh. No, it's um Oh, boy. [BoCC] 10:40:37 If you think of it, you could email it to us. [theresa jump] 10:40:40 Yeah, I'll try to figure it out. I don't pay attention to mile markers, to be honest. I just drive. [theresa jump] 10:40:45 But no, it's hillside, it's dirt and gravel and precarious So I will see what I can do. [theresa jump] 10:40:55 I believe it's in the general area where there are some on a back road. [theresa jump] 10:41:02 Far off the road. And these may be the residents that kevin was referring to the part-time That's the best I can do. But there's not much he'll… on that on that North Shore. [theresa jump] 10:41:15 So if I mentioned that people can know the road, they don't have to go. [theresa jump] 10:41:21 Thank you, everyone. Very excited. Thank you. Welcome. [BoCC] 10:41:24 Thanks, Teresa. Citizen Bowen. [BoCC] 10:41:29 Over to you for three minutes. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:41:30 Thank you. Thank you very much, Commissioner and the park for being here today. Ed Bowen. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:41:38 Wes Jefferson for Jefferson County purposes, but I hope the park realizes my comments are directed towards them because the park is my government. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:41:49 Okay. I'm one of those. So with that Olympic National Park. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:41:55 You mentioned something about engaging in communication. So I want to be clear. Where is that engagement and communication with the people that you're responsible for, not visitors, but citizens who pay our taxes that you're responsible for. So with that, I'll sum it up by giving you a few suggestions. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:42:15 You mentioned early April, the temporary bridge idea. I totally advocate that. I think that is a short-term solution. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:42:25 And I please move that up and make it known that you're going to do that and it's not just a theory. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:42:32 Because at least that gets us to July 7th. Now, July 7th to September 3rd, yes, we have a problem. And I like your idea of messaging for wilderness. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:42:42 But that doesn't solve our South Shore dilemma. With that. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:42:46 I do think you have a role in the flap. Aspect if that becomes a component for the South Shore Road. The Park Service can be a part of flap it's not just between the county and the the federal highways. [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:43:03 And with that, I just want to say communication has been so poor with the park. I'm asking you today at Olympic National Park, who do I communicate with? [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:43:13 Who do I talk to to get the latest and greatest and non-conflictatory and non-misinformation that the website currently has regarding the North Shore Road? [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:43:23 So that's my question I pose. To the Olympic National Park, who do I contact to get the most and best information? [Ed Bowen Citizen] 10:43:31 Thank you. [Kevin Killian] 10:43:35 So first of all, Mr. Bowen. [BoCC] 10:43:43 I'm sure you'll come back. He'll come back. Do we want to take Shelly's comment and then, well, no, he should, Kevin should be here. Yeah, let's wait till we get Kevin back. [BoCC] 10:43:59 There he is. I'm sorry. We lost you for a second, Kevin. [Kevin Killian] 10:44:01 How about that? [BoCC] 10:44:05 The timing was impeccable. [Kevin Killian] 10:44:08 Is Mr. Bowen still there? Okay. So Mr. Bowen, if you have any suggestions as far as uh the the bridge the bridge I wasn't sure exactly like it sounded like you were advocating for our plan As far as early April goes. [BoCC] 10:44:11 Yes, yes. [Kevin Killian] 10:44:28 But if you had any recommendations as far as communication avenues for that, so we could let people know if there's any changes to that plan. [Kevin Killian] 10:44:37 Totally open to hearing that. I'm not as familiar as I should be with the communication pathways in the community out in the Qunault area. So if there's any avenues that we're not taking for communication to let folks like yourself know out there what the plan is, what the dates are, what the road accessibility options are. [Kevin Killian] 10:44:56 I'm absolutely open to hearing that. And as far as the The second part of your question. [Kevin Killian] 10:45:02 Who do you communicate with? [Kevin Killian] 10:45:08 So Olim underscore superintendent, if you have a question That is an email address that's available to you. Also, we have our open communication line there at the visitor center. [Kevin Killian] 10:45:22 You know. Do submit comments at the visitor center on a regular basis and those come to the superintendent's office for dissemination. They go to the various division chiefs or other program leads that we have here, try to get people answers as quickly as we can. [Kevin Killian] 10:45:37 We don't necessarily have a public line that somebody can call and necessarily have somebody pick up the phone. [Kevin Killian] 10:45:43 But, you know, we're trying to be as responsive as we can to public comments however they do come in. [BoCC] 10:45:48 Thank you, Kevin. Can you repeat that email, Olim? [Kevin Killian] 10:45:52 O-l-y-m underscore superintendent at nps.gov, gov [BoCC] 10:45:56 Okay. Great. Thanks. [Kevin Killian] 10:46:00 You're welcome. [BoCC] 10:46:01 Okay, awesome. And then we'll take Shelley's comment and then we'll do any responses other than Kevin's real-time responses because everything's real time now. Shelly, you'll have three minutes for comment. [SY iPhone 16] 10:46:15 Hi, Shelley Yarnell Brennan. And I'm not going to be critical. I'm trying to be helpful. [SY iPhone 16] 10:46:21 So I just would like to say that the GoFundMe that's been is awesome. And I think that that's a public effort to help the county do what they need. [SY iPhone 16] 10:46:35 But GoFundMe takes a large portion of those monies. And I would like to see all that money go to the repairs. So if there's anything that any of us can do to spread the word that we need to send that money to that post office box or wherever the best part is to do it. That would be [SY iPhone 16] 10:46:57 Information well put out there. So that's all I have to say. And I'm glad to hear that there's progress. Thank you. [BoCC] 10:47:04 And the GoFundMe is up to $1,080. It was $250 when we started this meeting. [BoCC] 10:47:13 That's a good question. Maybe we can respond to that in a second about how to send in your pledges. [BoCC] 10:47:19 Outside of that. Are there any more questions in the Zoom room? [BoCC] 10:47:24 We don't have any more hands up in the room room. [BoCC] 10:47:27 I'm going to start calling it the room room. Room room versus Zoom room. Okay. [BoCC] 10:47:32 I guess we're done with questions. Kevin's answered the one directed at him. Do we want to Any more responses for Teresa or Ed or Shelly? [BoCC] 10:47:43 You can send checks to Jefferson County to P.O. Box 1220 in Port Townsend, Washington. Austin 98368. [BoCC] 10:47:51 And just note in the note line that whole road repair. Jefferson County dash hole road repair. Right. [BoCC] 10:48:02 And we'll get a Facebook post, I guess, out about that later today. [BoCC] 10:48:08 Okay, well, if there's nothing else, Kevin, I guess we're giving you some minutes back of your day. [BoCC] 10:48:14 You're already over full day, I'm sure. Thank you for your partnership and we look forward to getting out in the park this summer more than I can possibly say right now. I look forward to being out there in the trails. [BoCC] 10:48:26 I predict we're actually going to have an uptick because of all of this promotion. So I hope everybody's ready. [Kevin Killian] 10:48:27 Excellent. [Kevin Killian] 10:48:36 Yep. Yep. Well, yeah, just, yeah, as long as people are recognized you know the We're going to staff as as to the extent that we always have been able to. But that doesn't fix the problem that there's typically a line out there, an extensive line at the host. I would recommend people get there early. [BoCC] 10:48:36 Yeah. Thank you. [Kevin Killian] 10:48:55 Or get there late. [BoCC] 10:48:59 One other question. A soul doc. [BoCC] 10:49:04 Lake Crescent, all those things with Aramark as a contractor, those are all going to open on their usual timeframe. Okay. [BoCC] 10:49:10 I just have to figure out what I'm getting into soldock so [Kevin Killian] 10:49:10 Yep. Yep. That's right. Well, thanks for the invitation. I appreciate you welcoming me here and congratulations again and excellent work on the And the funding. Thank you so much for all your efforts. [BoCC] 10:49:24 Yeah. Thank you, Kevin. Thanks, Kevin. Thank you. Bye. [Kevin Killian] 10:49:26 Thank you. Bye. [BoCC] 10:49:31 Okay, so we can maybe look at maybe consent agenda because we had yeah at least dig into some of the big needy stuff this week I would just say on item one, we've already talked about the updates to the letter and the signs that need to happen. We just need to get that font. Right. So we're going to pull that letter from consult, but still get it. We'll just approve sending it with the subject to changes. Subject to changes great changes requested. Yeah. Easy changes. We'll work with Heidi to make sure it's right. Yeah. [BoCC] 10:50:06 Excellent. Good thing we have a column speaker in the wait. Make sure it looks right. [BoCC] 10:50:15 Okay, so what else on consent you guys did you want to covered today. I have some an easy one that is just for my own edification and maybe for the public. So on number three about updating the official county road log with these two Mount Wilder Way and McCartney Peak Lane, which I believe was yeah so are those currently [BoCC] 10:50:38 Privately owned by Portland Lo Associates. Who owns those roads now? So it's part of the plat for OT2, for Terrace 2, you know, so they're building the houses out now. I don't know They've been having this conversation for a couple of years. I've seen it. So this is the last of them, right? Basically. And so they're just hoping that [BoCC] 10:50:58 We take care of those as county roads as wells rest. But in the future, any developments that are created, they're going to have to do their own things. And there was, I mean, you know, even after we had this conversation at a POVC meeting once about this public works being willing, and this was a back and forth sure for quite a while, I think. [BoCC] 10:51:15 You know, there's that little cutoff road that is in by the village center. That is a private road that other people said, oh, the county should take it over but what the county would do is put a college blocking it from people from using it, right? [BoCC] 10:51:29 This is the end. These were the two that county was willing to take over and currently they are owned by Port Local Associates. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Yeah. That's important because the county road log is maintained by the county road administration board so we have to provide that information to them and that forms the basis for the motor vehicle fuel tax distribution [BoCC] 10:51:52 And so if we're going to maintain them, they need to be on the log so we get a little extra. So that we can at least get ready for maintenance. [BoCC] 10:51:58 That's great. So maintain at the crab board level. Clock repair, number five. [BoCC] 10:52:07 I am not understanding. There's a difference between the $9,846 on the contract Which says that's inclusive of Washington state sales tax But the contract review form says $12,096. What's that $2,250 difference? I didn't find that description. [BoCC] 10:52:31 I might have just missed something but is that an increase in the contract amount from 9,000 something to 12? [BoCC] 10:52:38 Yeah, I'd love to pull up the actual document. 9,000? Yeah, the contract says $9,846 inclusive of Washington state sales tax. So that was one thing I was thinking was that, oh, is this just the extra calculation of WSST, but it says it's inclusive of that. [BoCC] 10:52:58 But the review form says 12,096. I'm wondering if it's an increase to that contract. [BoCC] 10:53:04 This is a new contract. I don't think we've had this before. Right. Yeah, it's brand new to To fix. [BoCC] 10:53:12 Fix things up. I mean, the contract itself says 9,000. So even if the agenda request says 12,000, that's not what we're giving capacity for. Right. So, okay. So if Sean happens to be listening, if he has an answer to that, that was my question. [BoCC] 10:53:30 Right. Contract. So if it wasn't including sales tax, if you multiply the 9846 by 0.094. [BoCC] 10:53:40 Or 1.094, you do not get 12,000. Exactly. Yeah. So I did that same math and thought, well, this isn't Washington state sales tax, so it must be something else. [BoCC] 10:53:52 Or maybe they did the contract review form is just wrong but maybe could be that note. Sean, I see you're there. Are you available to come answer this question? [BoCC] 10:54:04 Are you actually listening? Exhibit F, the scope of work there is possibility that they won't be able to get the OEM I don't see sean I didn't respond to my request. Okay, so maybe we can move on and see. Or you can pull that one back. [BoCC] 10:54:23 Review it. Sure, yeah, let's just make sure we understand it. [BoCC] 10:54:32 The energy audit grant program number seven for tier one and tier two buildings, if you go to the last page of that, again, this is just clarification from my It looks like that's only for the courthouse, the only building that [BoCC] 10:54:46 Qualifies for this program is the courthouse. Based on square footage. Okay. And this is the largest structure that we have. Yeah. And so there's a timeline tier one or the largest buildings they go first okay and then in subsequent years [BoCC] 10:55:01 Smaller buildings are then done. Okay, sounds good. So, and then it just says that the the um contract period is July 1st 2024 to June 30th, 2025. So my question was We're just assuming that that audit for the for the energy audit for the i'm just going to look to Sean because I think this is another sean question the energy audit [BoCC] 10:55:25 For the courthouse, you think you can contract for that and get it done before June 30th, 2025. [BoCC] 10:55:33 Yes. Yes. Okay. Got it. That is my only question on that. So can we go back to courthouse clock repair question? Did you get the whole question? I did not get the question. I was away from my computer. I'm going to reiterate it then. [BoCC] 10:55:47 So the clock repair contract document says that the cost is $9,846 inclusive of Washington state sales tax. But the contract review form says that we're authorizing $12,096. So do you know that the difference? That's a difference of $2,250. [BoCC] 10:56:14 The agenda request form says 120 people on the spot like this. I will have to verify the agenda request form. Okay. [BoCC] 10:56:23 Yeah, it's actually the contract review form that is the discrepancy so yeah the agenda request. Yeah, you're right. It's both. Say 12,096, but the contract itself says 9,800. [BoCC] 10:56:40 840 cents. And I just was looking through the contract thinking like, okay, is there anywhere in this contract that says we would authorize up to something more, and I didn't find it but Maybe you know. [BoCC] 10:56:57 Or do you want to go look and go look We can pull this and just look at it this afternoon if you'd like. [BoCC] 10:57:04 Yes, please. Okay. I will go look at the um the contract request and contract renew form and verify where those numbers came from. Perfect. Yeah, just compare it to the contract. That's the difference that we're seeing. Thank you. [BoCC] 10:57:17 Absolutely. Yeah, I think that was my only Sean questions. I have just a few more on the consent agenda. Do you want me to keep going or do you want? Yeah, okay. [BoCC] 10:57:29 The number, I always have to look at my notes and see what in the heck. [BoCC] 10:57:33 I meant. Number 13 was the next one on my list, the on-site sewage action plan Oh, this is that. [BoCC] 10:57:46 Change from the one that we signed in February And they're just coming back and saying. [BoCC] 10:57:52 Oh, we didn't mean all we're not going to scan in all the septage records only a portion of them. [BoCC] 10:58:02 And so I just took out all. Yeah, they just took out all so I don't, I mean, again, this is really a question for pinking. What's the impact of that compared to their original expectation. My assumption is that Since public health brought forward this agenda request, they must be on board with it um but [BoCC] 10:58:26 It seems like a pretty significant difference in the expectation of what they were get what we were going to be getting for those dollars. And so my question for pinky really is, was that yeah yeah was that your was that your assumption all along and it was truly just an error that didn't get caught? [BoCC] 10:58:48 Or is this the contractor coming back and saying. No, we're going to give you a percentage of what you expected and we're just going to accept that. For clarity, the funding dedicated dedicated to this task will be less than 10% of the total septic records. Right. Less than 10%, which is a big difference. [BoCC] 10:59:08 From 100% expectation yeah so i don't know. This just didn't seem like a small thing to me. It could be a small thing. Pinky could come back and say, you know what, this gets us exactly where we need to be. We don't need to go back And to imagine that's the case, but is she young? [BoCC] 10:59:28 I don't know, she's not online. She's not online. So do we want to pull that one? [BoCC] 10:59:33 I kind of feel like I just need to know Are we being bullied by a contractor? [BoCC] 10:59:41 10% is like 10%. 10,000 houses in the county. So 10% would be a thousand so we're doing Right. Are we getting a small digitize these records? $90 each. [BoCC] 10:59:57 900. 900. 1,000 times 90. [BoCC] 11:00:03 Is 90,000. That's true. So I think it's a thousand houses. Yeah. [BoCC] 11:00:09 Anyway, I just want to know from Pinky Yes, this gets us where we want to go and it is aligned with our expectation Or no, we feel like we're giving in on this one. Okay. [BoCC] 11:00:24 Buying a scanner. Right, exactly. Okay, my last ones, I actually got an answer. [BoCC] 11:00:32 On one of these already, which was just, again, my edification And my last question is about number 15, the County Road Administration Board. [BoCC] 11:00:43 The crab road levy certification, which this is something that happens every single year, I understand. Yeah, there are about 10 things that we have to certify to crab. [BoCC] 11:00:52 To get our certificate of good practice, which enables us to get the motor vehicle fuel tax and other state. $5 million. Yep. And Monty asked if I wanted this on And I said, yes, just great for this purpose yeah to educate the new commissioner i said great and the public. So my question about it is. [BoCC] 11:01:11 I'd have to pull it. I should pull it up, but based on my notes It notes that 520,000 is diverted. That's to sheriff's office. Traffic law, unfortunately. Right. But then it says that zero dollars are used for traffic law enforcement. [BoCC] 11:01:31 Is there additional yes so is it additional to be used for traffic law enforcement. [BoCC] 11:01:38 I think that's a separate line. It's just the way this is reported, but basically the form highlights a diverted levy amount. Okay. So I, yeah, I just, I think I was just confused by that. Let me shift. There's a completely different animal. [BoCC] 11:01:54 The shift is different than using it for traffic. Diversion is not a shift. They're two different things. Okay. [BoCC] 11:02:00 So are you saying this is considered a shift and not a diversion? It's a diverted levy amount. And the next line's down. [BoCC] 11:02:07 County Road diverted for other unincorporated purposes. Okay. It's the second part of that page. Okay. [BoCC] 11:02:13 Thank you very much. That answers my question. I think that's all. Oh, I guess I just wanted, you know, we've got these appointments, always so much gratitude for the people, you know, stepping up to Jefferson County Parks and Recreation and our county planning commission [BoCC] 11:02:32 And the Marine Resources Committee. So thank you to all those people re-engaging or engaging for the first time. [BoCC] 11:02:39 I did want to note, 22 years of service from Howard Scott. Did I read that right? Yeah. On the left one disability board Our firefighter Association representative, Howard Scott, is stepping down after 22 years on that board. He's been great on it too. I have not served that long, but I have served with Howard. I was a little [BoCC] 11:03:02 Kirk before the horse because we appointed his replacement last week. Oh, right. That's right. That's right. Okay. Well, I just, I haven't gotten to meet Howard Scott, but boy, what a contribution he made. [BoCC] 11:03:13 One question on the reappointments. Did we post the Planning Commission appointments so i think we had He said he josh said in the note that he had posted it twice. It went into public notice two times and he noted the dates. [BoCC] 11:03:31 Good, good. No, love the appointments are great. I want to amplify a little bit that moving forward with a big project down in quill seeing with the Jamestown stallum tribe as well as the uh Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group. [BoCC] 11:03:51 And so this is the first part of getting them some access and just to let people know that that Rogers Roger Street is going to be a detour for a while as this work starts to ramp up and there'll be a temporary bridge across Rogers Street to access. And that's items 2, 16, and 17 on consent today are all about this project and quilting. [BoCC] 11:04:15 On the bridge across the Big Quilstein River, being led by the Jamestown Sklalum Tribe. So we've been working actively with them on this and Yeah, very representative of real-time ongoing active work happening on a weekly basis since I've been here or hearing about this and certainly well [BoCC] 11:04:37 Well before I was here, sounds like. Yeah, and there was a lot of community outreach well before even I was on the board, I think, but we probably need to start amplifying it again and make sure that folks know some folks that live down there off Claybanks this weekend and they had no idea what was going on, but some big and important work is coming down there really soon. Yeah, and there's the partnership between the county and Jamestown Slalom Tribe, the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group, and and others and just as inspiring. [BoCC] 11:05:06 Possible amplifier number six about continuing the contract with Sharon Mulan on getting that EPL going. I mean, it's It's a challenge. It was frustrating reading through that and a little bit of me is like, we just got to get staff capacity. But I know Sherry has been great and that rate is really reasonable. It's like a no brainer to approve this. Yeah. So originally when Sherry came here, we were contracting through Hansel Tierney, which was a recruiting firm that matches talent with work. [BoCC] 11:05:34 This contract takes Hansel Tierney out right and so we're reducing the per hour cost i think by 40 bucks an hour. I know she's been, I've heard her work praised up and down and getting us ready to move on to the cloud is important work and i appreciate it how it was broken out. Did I also see that she's from Port Townsend? Which is, you know, I think that's really cool too. We were able to be able been able to find multiple contractors are doing big work, but are also local people, which I've always I really appreciate and want to lift that up too. [BoCC] 11:06:06 I also appreciate central services and the Port Townsend gymnasium, the Port Townsend Rec Center getting the new roof. I've been hearing about that for quite a while. It's great to see that getting out there and getting tangible. So appreciate that and the pivot to moving the EV chargers when they didn't work up here down to the tri area. Important work and there's not a lot of stuff. Although on the port sounds and roof. [BoCC] 11:06:29 This contract Again, confirming what I'm reading here is really just to do the planning. It's not construction right coming up with the documents that we would then bid out. Which could take up to two years. Is that what I'm seeing that this time frame is… [BoCC] 11:06:46 For the full Monty from you approving the contract today to the architect? Don't ask Lonnie to do this. He's busy. [BoCC] 11:07:00 There's the whole enchilada. I think that two-year time frame might include the construction. You're making me hungry. It's permitting as well. [BoCC] 11:07:07 But I don't think it's construction, but it does go through permitting. Yeah, this is just 100% designs, I think. Yeah, it does. I mean, it's just something for people to know that these projects take a long time and put a lot of work behind them so but it's exciting to move it forward. [BoCC] 11:07:26 Yeah, I'd like to draw your attention to the Puget Sound partnership item, if you read the purpose paragraph Now, this involves Developing the API that imports septic inspection reports from online RME into EPL. It also involves a purchase of the Tyler [BoCC] 11:07:47 Module called the decision engine And so you can't you can't really divide how many permits are going to get scanned into the number for the contract. [BoCC] 11:08:00 So it's a multi-purpose agreement. [BoCC] 11:08:06 Let's see what number was that? So much going on. Also, lots of gratitude to the gathering place for having us uh the the the artwork that they contributed. [BoCC] 11:08:21 To the connectivity summit. Very exciting to be able to highlight their work yeah retroactively. Retroactively, yes. Yeah, and then further, there's actually a budget section in that Puget Sound partnership digital file prep, it's 24,000. And so there are salary costs overhead [BoCC] 11:08:46 Supplies and subcontracts. [BoCC] 11:08:51 For the computer work. Yeah, so a lot, a lot going into that. [BoCC] 11:08:55 Sounds like the agenda request may have been the compute. Was it in the agenda request where you got Snagged Heather on that one or was it in the actual… Yeah, it's… you know they were changing to remove the word all. Yeah, that's where you know the word previously approved this agreement right as it is. Right. It's the going back on what we thought we were getting. I just want to make sure that [BoCC] 11:09:20 That's… a reasonable give. Yeah. [BoCC] 11:09:26 I mean, they do have a contract at this point. So I was just going to, you know, I've already talked individually about all the items but the number of things that have actually happened in my time as a commissioner is a little bit refreshing to me because a lot of times I would look at consent and go. [BoCC] 11:09:44 I wasn't even here. But it's great to see. I mean, the Olympic Discovery Trail, Anderson Lake. Danny Mullen would say. [BoCC] 11:09:55 Boom with a local contractor. Yeah, the seat in construction. I was here. I came for the bid opening. I love bid openings. Anyway, four and a quarter years in and you're starting to see some things loop back. Well, that was on the simmering away when I got here, but just to see that contract come through, I just, I felt this like wave of relief so [BoCC] 11:10:17 Just really excited to see that trail extension happening. South of the transit center there. Gosh, I think I have my whole Spring and summer plans out and I don't even need to leave the Olympic Peninsula. All on one agenda. [BoCC] 11:10:35 Yeah. Yeah. So I'm um Happy to entertain a motion. We have… Are we going to pull the one we have questions about? We're going to update the letter, but we're going to approve the letter as Updated. I think we're just pulling five and 13. [BoCC] 11:10:51 And we're going to pull 5 and 13. Who wants to make an emotion. I'm happy to move that we uh pull Items 5 and 13 from the consent agenda and also on number one. [BoCC] 11:11:08 Authorize the chair to sign a letter with the adjustment of adding the the native language as well. [BoCC] 11:11:15 As requested and approve and adopt the consent agenda [BoCC] 11:11:24 I think the letter as prepared, I think has all three of your signatures on it. Yes. Am I to remove? Oh, no, sorry. [BoCC] 11:11:30 Friendly amendment, just to update the letter and bring it back. Thank you. [BoCC] 11:11:35 I will second that. Okay, all in favor of the motion on the floor. Aye. [BoCC] 11:11:42 Okay, thanks, everyone. Yeah, thanks to all of the staff and everyone involved and moving so much work forward. That was 22 incent agenda, 23 incentives. We had as many as what 45 or 50? Thanks for preparing me. Yeah. [BoCC] 11:12:02 That's amazing. [BoCC] 11:12:08 English. My husband is sending me texts and pictures of the Dow Jones going down real time. Oh, boy. [BoCC] 11:12:16 Anyway, okay, so… We are done with consent. We don't have anything on our agenda. Any more timed items this morning, but we have some time before noon. Do we want to do some briefing and calendaring? Yeah, why not? [BoCC] 11:12:36 Who wants to go first? I'll go first. Great. I am attending the Jefferson Aquatic Coalition public conversation regarding the potential aquatic facility. [BoCC] 11:12:50 This evening at 5.30 p.m, that's at the Mountain View Campus Gymnasium. Do we want to do briefing? We usually do briefing first. Oh, that's going backwards. Sorry. It's okay. It's okay. [BoCC] 11:13:03 Let's see, Monday, all day with you guys. Quilting Community Center visit on Tuesday. I got to sit down with Richard Fitzgerald. And what's Richard's wife's name? [BoCC] 11:13:16 Kirsten? Maybe. I think you're right, Kirsten. So the both of them gave me kind of a rundown of the quilting community center and it was just a great to hear They're just really positive comments about OLECAP and the support that they feel like they've received through the new administration there. That was just you know really positive things to say about that. And it was great to get to know them. And they just have so much [BoCC] 11:13:44 Kind of passion about using that space and it was it was so exciting to present I did finally get to have lunch with Vice Chairwoman Lonnie Granninger on Tuesday afternoon, got to go out to Cedars at Dungeness and and see their beautiful facility there and we just really had great conversations about [BoCC] 11:14:08 About the relationship and and talked a little bit about some projects that we've got going on and just had a great conversation. We also talked a little bit about the America 250th anniversary celebration in 2026. It's called america 250. And so I'd like to continue conversation about that and whether or not we do some kind of [BoCC] 11:14:36 Government to government outreach to our local community tribes. About whether they do or do not want to engage in part of that celebration and how to do that. So I'd like to have a bigger conversation about that at some point. If they're uncomfortable with it, aren't we uncomfortable with it? I mean, I don't know. [BoCC] 11:14:57 Right. I think that's why we need to outreach to them first before we kind of figure out. I mean, the point is This area looked a whole lot different in 1776 than it did on the east coast of the United States of America. And so for our celebration may [BoCC] 11:15:15 It may also look different. And I think that's really encouraged by this America 250 group that's kind of moving forward the idea of celebrating the whatever we're calling it. Yeah, exactly 250th. It's not bicentennial, but bicentennial and a quarter. [BoCC] 11:15:33 Anyway, I think that's a conversation worth having. Dosie Wallops River Collaborative meeting Tuesday evening. So thanks for letting giving me the heads up about that. I had meant to go down and see it, but a previous appointment went long and so I zoomed into it, but got to participate and it was great and they welcomed me and [BoCC] 11:15:55 Really, really good conversations happening there. I got to meet with a beef farmer, Martin Mills, on Wednesday. [BoCC] 11:16:05 Mourning and talking kind of moving forward the food system security plan that the food systems work group is wanting to kind of promote and move forward in the comp plan. [BoCC] 11:16:19 Or supported by the small plan. So good feedback about farming. I went and toured the Jefferson Sportsman's Association facility on on uh Wednesday afternoon, I think we're going to be hearing from them soon regarding a proposal that they may be bringing forward. And I'm excited to hear from them. [BoCC] 11:16:44 Then very interestingly paired with a visit with some residents in that area. [BoCC] 11:16:52 Who have been repeatedly reaching out about the sound that they hear from the Sportsman's Association and the concerns that they've had about that. So I got to kind of pair those two things together and Talk to each of them about what I was hearing from the other and try to kind of foster communication between them. So that was good. Then I went on to the Climate Action Committee's [BoCC] 11:17:16 Food group meeting or the food systems work group. And so that was my first food systems work group meeting out at the farmhouse there at the river and that's just an exciting group of people who are You know, I think the idea is [BoCC] 11:17:35 That's formulating there is to promote and resource creating a food systems resilience plan. And I was kind of sharing about the win of creating a community wildfire protection plan for the first time in jefferson county So I'd like to really learn how that happened and where there may be parallels in terms of process of how a food systems resilience plan could potentially get developed and referenced and used as guidance in Jefferson County. So I think that's what this group is really working toward right now. [BoCC] 11:18:15 We're reviewing the Johns Hopkins Food Systems Resilience planning tool and Kelly Henwood from Washington State University Extension also has brought forward another tool that we're reviewing and vetting. So we may kind of put a couple of different planning tools together that would [BoCC] 11:18:35 Create framework for us creating a resilience plan. But I think it's a really exciting movement and could be really a great framework for us creating more resilience in our food systems, not just for emergency planning, but for our ongoing sort of [BoCC] 11:18:54 Growing and resourcing and manufacturing and distributing food. And as Deanne looped in in that? Dem is also grouped in. So it looks like it's a really cohesive conversation that's bringing a lot of people to the table. I'm excited about that. [BoCC] 11:19:10 Thursday, I got to attend my second O3A COG meeting, which is the Olympic Area Agency on Aging, the Council of Governments, which is the group that I'm sitting on. I think both of you over time have sat on or just sat. Yeah. [BoCC] 11:19:25 So that was exciting. I got to highlight a few programs. There's a resource distribution program that just got funded and a An RFP that went out, but no one responded to that RFP for Jefferson County. So for the other three counties, they're going to be receiving funds to get that resource distribution program out into the community, but not in Jefferson. [BoCC] 11:19:55 And who hasn't Jefferson in the past? I don't know. And I asked that question. They're going to provide that information to me. And I think what we're going to now do is reopen that RFP just to Jefferson County. And so I've asked for a heads up about when they think they can do that because they have dollars to give so that we can actually promote it and really get the word out that this RFP is going to reopen for Jefferson County only. So there was some discussion that maybe Jefferson County wasn't [BoCC] 11:20:29 Rural enough or that maybe that it wasn't needed that seniors weren't needing you know this is really about seniors, particularly who are either shut in or pretty pretty immobile in their own homes. And I said, I can assure you that it is not because we don't have a need. Right. Yeah. So hopefully we'll get more information about when that RFP is going to come back out and then we'll get to really spread the word. And I feel sure that if there's enough communication about it, that people will step up and want to use those dollars. [BoCC] 11:21:03 Discovery Behavioral Health and East Jefferson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You bet. I then got to spend some time with Wendy Bart and Rich Childers. We had lunch together on Thursday and really talked a lot about the early childhood and family support early childhood learning and family support center that they are wanting to build. [BoCC] 11:21:29 Just keeping an eye on the funding that they have and whether there's any concerns about any of it being brought back. Right now, it looks like it's on the right path. [BoCC] 11:21:38 But there are some concerns that those dollars may not be accessible because of federal issues so we're keeping a close eye on that. And then, of course, Rich, you know, wanted to give me a lot of background and information about [BoCC] 11:21:54 What's happened prior to now on the aquatic facility. And just so you know too the um YMCA is really looking at I heard loud and clear from Wendy that The YMCA moves forward by request from the community, basically, that they don't intend to step in and say, hey, the YMCA would like to do X regarding the aquatic facility. But they do respond well to [BoCC] 11:22:25 Outreach from the community that says YMCA, we'd really like you to take on, for example, everything but the pool in this aquatic facility and that she was really open to that. So just to continue. We say, hey, we'd love you to take you over there. [BoCC] 11:22:41 The pool, fundraising for the pool. But the pool is what they're mostly interested in right now, but that they really would want that to come as a request from the community. [BoCC] 11:22:54 And that hasn't already happened. It sounds like it hasn't been tangible, but they're also clear they really need to plan for what's going to happen at Mountain View as a result and what that means for their services and what the rest of the Y non-pool version of the Y is going to look like. So just kind of asking for communication about that. And you'll do that with [BoCC] 11:23:21 Talk to jack and oh yeah and this is an ongoing conversation of course the ymca has been was part of the healthier together task force so i mean they've been at the table i think they're excited about the energy that is there. But I mean, at a certain point, something might be missing from what you're saying. I think what she's saying is… even if you don't see us come forward with [BoCC] 11:23:45 Here's what we would like to do. Keep us in the conversation and outreach to us because we act on by community request so that I think the interest is is absolutely there to engage and to push out to them and keep them in the loop. But it's not going to be us, honestly, that leads that, right? I mean, we're [BoCC] 11:24:09 Hoping to create a fledgling PFD that is going to have to be the one that make those ultimate design decisions and bring in and the timing of bringing in the Ys is more based on their decisions based on the output of the survey. Yeah, absolutely. And also, you know, I can do some outreach. I'm going to be meeting doing some engagement with the city of Port Townsend next week, which I'll tell you about. [BoCC] 11:24:35 But I think that's also, you know. Some would need to come from them to keep the Y updated on what's happening with their facility at the YMCA as things change. So I'll just encourage a lot of communication there and engage in that as much as I can. I got to meet up with the housing fund board five-year plan planning group. [BoCC] 11:25:01 Great. Vicki Sontag and Audrey Morford are just great, you know, great planners and you know we're we're looking at the series of meetings and how to facilitate those really configured one meeting at a time and then and then let [BoCC] 11:25:17 How that meeting went influenced. The next meeting is going to be the approach, but they're making lots of progress there. And we should amplify that we're still looking for task force members, right? I think we all have opportunity on the website. Absolutely. And yeah, so that's important for people to note. The Housing Fund Board has [BoCC] 11:25:39 A five-year plan task force that will need members on it and And so you can apply through the housing fund board's website on Jefferson County's website. Call us. We're looking for folks with lived experience and people In the real estate industry and just kind of all over the housing continuum. [BoCC] 11:26:05 Pretty much anyone that has a real interest in the sector is really welcome yeah and want to make that a really productive, directed conversation. I spent the rest of the weekend, well, the bulk of Friday and Saturday at the Connectivity Summit. I really got to focus in on the youth summit on Friday and really [BoCC] 11:26:28 Just attended every bit of that and it was it was so inspiring and encouraging. We did get a lot of comments from the youth about the turf field at Memorial field and yeah And please, more activities and things for kids to do. And so, you know, just that call for investment in youth [BoCC] 11:26:52 Infrastructure, you activities and ways for kids to engage. It was also really exciting to see Jefferson County engage Jefferson County that that effort there and asking for kids to step into that work with them. They're offering paid stipends via Visa gift cards. [BoCC] 11:27:17 To kids who engage in the conversation that will contribute to changes in our Jefferson County Comprehensive plan so if kids are interested in participating in that conversation, ways to craft Our comprehensive plan that lift and amplify the things that kids want to see, people 18 and under have that opportunity. [BoCC] 11:27:47 That was pretty exciting. Question on that. Are you responding to those kids who wrote us letters? Because we received a number. [BoCC] 11:27:53 Just making sure they're getting a response from us. I have responded to the one about the memorial field I think I've only seen one so far. So let me… There have been a few. Have there been a few? Okay, so I would like to respond absolutely so did you happen to see Heather, Matt Tyler's [BoCC] 11:28:13 A response to yeah because i think i blind copy this new assignment? [BoCC] 11:28:18 Yes. Yeah. To write a letter to your local government yeah um but you know i We did this down at Clark County. It's extraordinarily expensive to put artificial turf in and to maintain it. [BoCC] 11:28:33 Unless the RCO would pay for it through a grant with no match. It's just simply not an option for us. [BoCC] 11:28:41 But maybe the RCO will pay for it with a grant with no match. [BoCC] 11:28:46 So who knows? Or some other grant may come up at some point. So we can keep our eye out for that. And maybe we can teach kids how to do some grant writing. [BoCC] 11:28:55 I'll look at the letters because I received at least three or four. So I think they went to Jeff BOCC. Okay, great. I'll just scan them. [BoCC] 11:29:02 I'm struggling with email right now, but I'm getting on top of it. Good stuff. [BoCC] 11:29:07 Amazon grass was better than field turf, but I guess… more consistent to ask the alternative, but that's a nice field. Yeah, I think it's fancier or something. Fancier. [BoCC] 11:29:19 I don't know. I'm not a turf field person but There was certainly some compelling arguments in favor. [BoCC] 11:29:27 Yeah, so that was pretty much And got to introduce the Ignite talk on Saturday, which is really, really fun. I thought those were great. They were great. [BoCC] 11:29:39 Yeah, except Greg's artwork. You didn't like my artwork? Greg's artwork is fantastic. I can't take full credit. Someone else did. [BoCC] 11:29:48 Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. Very creative, though. Yeah. Was that all AI driven? [BoCC] 11:29:53 Yeah, all the artwork was. Yeah. They look retro. Yeah. Old nature comics. Yeah. Really fun. Really fun. And some amazing projects and great. Yeah, I love them all. Yeah. Yeah. [BoCC] 11:30:10 All right. Me? Let's see. All right. Well, of course, with you guys on Monday. [BoCC] 11:30:18 On Tuesday, had the shelter operations meeting and the coalition meeting and uh operations you know there were some concerns from the American Legion. I think I mentioned about some guests that might violate the MOU. So there was some I don't know. Shots crossed the bow from the American Legion that they're meeting on Wednesday. I've not heard how that meeting went, actually. And it sounds like it was pretty [BoCC] 11:30:44 Pretty productive okay yeah and relationship building. Good. Yeah. Good, good, good. [BoCC] 11:30:51 But we continue to use that meaning to kind of navigate those problems. So I reiterated the invitation to Bob and others. Hey, we've got a meeting set up to deal with stresses that we're having and we can't talk about them all together it's uh [BoCC] 11:31:07 I'm not going to get anywhere you know just like leapfrogging the people that can actually solve the problem to start talking contracts is Yeah. [BoCC] 11:31:16 Too annoyed. That shelter coalition meeting every other Tuesday available to the public. You can zoom in you can show up at the recovery cafe. Well, we have an operations meeting first. So at 10, we have an operations meeting just with, you know, finance and Bayside and reiterated the invitation to American Legion. They can always go there too to like. [BoCC] 11:31:40 Do the action items that come up with the coalition meeting, which is, yeah, anyone other than housing fund board members or the two of you are welcome to join the coalition meetings. And it's growing and continue to talk about designs and design considerations for the new Coswell Brown Phase 3 and what the timing is. I know this afternoon we're going to talk about some of these funding requests that are coming from a myriad of housing and social service agencies as their funding is being constrained on the state level and budget cuts are hitting everyone oh my gosh well so [BoCC] 11:32:15 And I replied to a message that Maggie sent to the city of Port Townsend and And said, it sounds to me like you're making an argument for the dispersed or separated emergency shelter model as opposed to the congregate model that is possible at our current location. And so I was asking her if that's if you know because there's [BoCC] 11:32:44 There's pros, as we know, pros and cons in both directions by housing providers all across the country saying, you know, congregate is better, no separate is better. And so that was my reply was to say, it sounds like you're in favor of the separate model, but I just wanted to clarify that. Yeah. And the design still has both, right? There's a congregate emergency shelter and then a separate UM units allowing for families or I mean, maybe families, small families. Yeah, small families. As well as, you know, if you need to isolate for infectious disease reasons or what have you. So maybe the best of both worlds. Yeah, hopefully. It's not perfect. And of course. [BoCC] 11:33:25 Even those tiny shoppers will function differently than because we'll run phase one and phase two, where people have uh Italian shopper that is theirs the next day too, and they can start leaving belongings there these are kind of overnight shelter model. So, you know, they'll have places for people to store things. I think is the idea, but it's not like you're [BoCC] 11:33:46 Signed up for this and that's your unit it's every day people come in and some of those logistics we talked about at the shelter coalition meeting as well as The point in time counts, you know, and some of the [BoCC] 11:34:01 Disappointing results and just how can we work to just continue to improve. But overall, I would say the alignment and partnership between our different social service and housing especially specifically in this housing sector I've really never been better since I've been here. So it's feel like relationships are really being strengthened. Yes. Well, as you know, it's very strange for me not to be able to engage in those conversations. So thank you for the updates. I appreciate it. [BoCC] 11:34:28 Close to my heart. I know, no. It doesn't seem right to have you there either. But you're doing a great job. [BoCC] 11:34:37 On the Wednesday, as the vice chair of Jefferson Transit Authority, I went to my first finance committee meeting. [BoCC] 11:34:44 Really interesting. I was the only authority board member there, but it was great to be able to dive deeper into the finances with Miranda and Kelly and Nicole. So well appreciated. [BoCC] 11:34:56 I had my class so I could not attend the tag meeting but i did send a bit of an update and Nicole covered for me at that first transit advisory group, which I just learned the week before was also one of my meetings. So I said I would make sure to prioritize around class and hit the next one, but couldn't go there. [BoCC] 11:35:15 We have the board of directors meeting for the EDC on Thursday and it's, you know, we're still kind of the prime course is hiring a new ED. So we've had 32 applications, including several USAID former employees that were involved in economic development so [BoCC] 11:35:38 Well, we're having a hiring committee whittling that down to 10 and then the hiring committee will whittle it down to the number that we have. We take interviews with and everything. I mean, I would say most of those we were like. [BoCC] 11:35:53 On Indeed and the majority were just kind of fishing like they send out, I mean, you know, I'm a Executive assistant in Nairobi. I think I'd be perfect for your ED of the economic development, some of these but But a good half of them maybe are not. There were definitely some viable candidates. Okay, great. So, you know, I probably wouldn't have [BoCC] 11:36:14 Chosen 10 to take this level, but I'm curious to see what everyone kind of went through it on the hiring committee and said Let's move these guys to the next stage. So that's where we are. [BoCC] 11:36:27 Then we went on to the optic meeting, the Olympic Peninsula Tourism Commission. [BoCC] 11:36:34 Counsel? Commission. I think it is commission. Just to give a brief update of You know, our process well received and obviously a lot has happened since then. So I think I saw most of the leaders of that group with us this morning. I think they're pretty hip to the changes. [BoCC] 11:36:53 And then we had our AI think tank. We're going to look over as an internal group, just looking at AI issues and Sean was working on a policy. We're getting closer to a policy, but he was still on PTO, so we just [BoCC] 11:37:08 Kind of talked about some big issues going on. I previewed my night talk with them and talked through stuff. So it was more conversational. [BoCC] 11:37:17 Then I went out to the POVC, the Portland Village Council at the beach club They were very appreciative of the workshop that David Wayne Johnson and Andy from DCD came and gave and i think mollified about their concerns about the sunsetting of the development agreement with PLA vis-a-vis specifically the timber agreement and just kind of the protections that [BoCC] 11:37:43 Dcc still thinks that there are basically as long as we keep looking out for the FPA, the Forest Practice Application, we can continue to assert our opinion that inside the npr should not be logged in open space areas. [BoCC] 11:37:58 There's, I think, some lingering frustration about the four properties that were still that were being developed under the agreement, which allows for different shoreline proximity than our current S&P or the projected S&P but it's just legally allowed under the development agreements that there's not really much you can do to argue against it. So I think they understood that. [BoCC] 11:38:23 They're really they're trying to have more workshops down at POVC and really digging into things. So it was great. [BoCC] 11:38:30 I skipped the ignite dress rehearsal because I had to splitting headache after that for some reason. I'm dehydrated or something. Met with Bill Downing Dowling on Friday briefly to set up the agenda for the Olympic Consortium Board. [BoCC] 11:38:44 I had forgotten I am the chair of that now, but so I said, I'll definitely be at the meeting in person. We're meeting with the Workforce Development Council next On Friday the 21st. [BoCC] 11:38:57 My birthday, but I'll be with you guys. It's okay out of the Olympia on my birthday. March 21st is your birthday? Yeah. How did I never catch that? You know, mine is the 20th. Oh, yeah. [BoCC] 11:39:11 That's so funny. I don't know about that. No, what are you? [BoCC] 11:39:17 Well, I'm on the cusp. I get to choose. You're on a cusp maybe too, right? Yeah, we're like, theoretically, I think depends on the horoscope. Mine is sometimes the last day and sometimes yours is the last day. Mine is up in the first day of spring. Sometimes your birthday is the first babies. Aries are Pisces. Yeah. I'm Aries. I'm Pisces. Yeah. [BoCC] 11:39:41 Oh, boy. That was like a good guy. Maybe we should have our cars done or something. Oh, interesting. You put that in the budget for just getting everyone in the public. Just kidding. Yeah. [BoCC] 11:39:59 But excited for that. And then we had the monthly meeting with Kirsten and SCJ Alliance about Glencove, unfortunately, the planner, part-time planner that Josh had gotten that was going to work on this project. It took full-time employment elsewhere, so we lost them. Really disappointing, I think. [BoCC] 11:40:16 I think she had a tour and that was it. Maybe the one tour was enough to push her back to someone else. I don't know. So we continue to soldier on though the report on existing infrastructure and the options is pretty refined. We'll get the final draft here this next week, but they really broke down four options, including this, you know, this is bringing [BoCC] 11:40:39 Infrastructure, primarily sewer but stormwater needs to be considered as well too to either the glen cove lambert or to do a UGA swap or to do a UGA expansion or to, there's one other option. [BoCC] 11:40:56 But I'm forgetting now. But once that gets fleshed out, I will bring you guys a copy of that. And then we're setting up some focus groups with the property owners that we had met with before to really make sure that those folks are understanding the options before you make any more any decisions, really. So just kind of trying to play with the [BoCC] 11:41:16 When do you bring in public input? It often, and tell me if I were to soapboxed about this before. Yeah, yeah. So trying to find where is the appropriate place to get the most constructive public feedback as we develop an infrastructure project. So those are getting scheduled for the two weeks from now. But we had that meeting where we went over the document that is just about ready and just folks [BoCC] 11:41:43 From the city and DCD staff are putting in any notes before we get that finally scheduled. I am meeting this week with Pete Langley. He asked to sit down with me and says he has some questions about Glen Cove. So anything you want to send me around background just to be more prepared for that, I'll feed it in. And he's, of course, involved in those focus group meetings too. So I've been invited to them and said he was interested. [BoCC] 11:42:10 Great. They met briefly with Brent Butler about the water utility coordinating committee. We're back to the meeting twice this this month to get HDR on, and we've got a lot of work to do kind of getting them the information they need to start. [BoCC] 11:42:27 I did the KPTZ from live from the connectivity summit, which was Pretty good. Little hack need, but I got Danny on for a little bit and also helped talk about how important the partnership between the county and KPTV has been in their fundraising you know it was their fundraising time, but back to the COVID days when we had the weekly report and now the monthly report, it's just the lifeline. It was a lifeline for a lot of the community. I remember because I was out there listening to those all the time and it was an absolute lifeline. And the communication success that we want to keep building. [BoCC] 11:43:04 Our local public radio station. Then on Saturday, of course, I was with you guys at the connectivity summit as well and gave my Ignite talk on AI as a framework, AI framework for the public sector. That's great. And I was a little rushed, but… Coach, and concierge. That's good. So that resonated. [BoCC] 11:43:26 Yeah, alliteration, right? Yes, exactly. That's great. Hey, I want to throw in a couple more things that happened on Friday that I didn't attend. [BoCC] 11:43:37 Which was the one-on-one session so uh that had to do. So I did… by request send that on to Judy and Amanda, Judy Shepherd and Amanda Christopherson And the request was to start engaging them in those TAs so they were they were invited to do that. Neither one of them could attend. It was just two last minute and Amanda was really involved in connectivity summit, which was excellent. But [BoCC] 11:44:11 Judy came back. So the idea is if the county is considering taking on the continuum of care responsibility two years from now, now less than two years from now, that we might want to start listening in on some of those to kind of understand what we would need to be prepared for if we were to take that on. [BoCC] 11:44:34 Judy feels like maybe that's not… she wouldn't be the best one for that. So she's really asking for us to kind of think about who should be involved in those kinds of trainings. And that might be a combination of people, but that's something for us to put our mind to maybe at the housing fund board. The other thing that happened was a Wasac training that Paul Jewell had put out around Senate Bill 5014, which is the implementation of [BoCC] 11:45:02 The elections process, regulations that are being implemented by Senate Bill 5014. So I forwarded that on just so you know to Brenda huntingford to make sure that she had access to the link to go back and view that training and make sure her department has all the information and that I copied Mark and Mark forwarded it also to Sean to make sure and basically said to Sean, hey. [BoCC] 11:45:33 Your team is also going to need to be there to support elections and to implement this. And most of it's IT related. Yeah, so I believe then Sean is now going to hopefully go back and view that training as well and keep Mark and or us informed if there is there anything that you need resource wise or partnership wise to make sure that you can implement that Senate bill 5014 And I've also been passing all that stuff along to Sean. So he's getting it from multiple directions. Okay, great. So I just wanted to make sure that I [BoCC] 11:46:06 Looped you guys in on those things. All right. That's to do. Okay. [BoCC] 11:46:12 I don't remember the last time I was with you guys, really. I know. Last week you were remote. So let's see a calendar. He's been across the nation since then. We did get done early. [BoCC] 11:46:24 Last Monday. Because I wasn't here. So let's see, looking the week before last, just a couple of things. [BoCC] 11:46:38 I had a meeting on Tuesday the 25th. With jumping masks? [BoCC] 11:46:44 And went over there for a tour and ask for their help with House Bill 1805, which is the one-tenth of 1%. [BoCC] 11:46:53 Funding proposal from Representative Therringer for kids and families, and it would create another program opportunity for focusing on programs like jumping mouse. So they've been very active advocating for that piece of legislation Just had a tour. I've never been personally in jumping mouse, so it was very touching. And I've seen, you know, they've become the behavioral health advisory committee and do their presentations and show us the sand tray tables. Did you play with the sand tray? I didn't play, but I was in the room. That would have been a great photo. Yeah. [BoCC] 11:47:32 Hey, what have anyway so that was that was a good um meeting with them and I'm enjoying my collaboration with them On Wednesday. [BoCC] 11:47:46 Let's see. I went to the comprehensive operational analysis meeting with transit oh cool on the work that left turn right turn is doing about kind of how we can change our bus schedules and bus routes to be more responsive to the community and there was a lot of talk about microtransit but [BoCC] 11:48:13 We really focused on an actual physical proposal regarding updates to the bus routes and It was interesting. It was like, oh, I can see why this would be a really hard task. Yeah. You know, bus routes. [BoCC] 11:48:27 In a rural county and they were like, well, what can we do to save time here? And I'm like Do you really need to drive all the way through Fort Warden? Can people just meet at the gate? And that was a big conversation about that, you know, about how symbolically it was good to drive all the way through Fort Warden and [BoCC] 11:48:47 But I think, and the long story short, we ended up thinking that people could walk to the gate. Yeah. [BoCC] 11:48:53 And that would save them, I think, four minutes but that was that felt huge you know so It's been these micro adjustments throughout the whole process [BoCC] 11:49:08 And then… Let's see, what did I do? In what order did I do this? Sometimes our calendars are hard to read. [BoCC] 11:49:14 I feel like I did both of these, but how could I do both? [BoCC] 11:49:18 Oh, I did. So I went to the Jefferson Aquatic Coalition's outreach meeting at the county library on the evening of the 26th. [BoCC] 11:49:29 To kind of welcome everybody. And that was the first one, I think, to point out the window that that's where the pool would be and, you know, just hear what people had to say. And that meeting wasn't as long as it was anticipated to be. So then I could bump out of that and go to the planning commission, the joint meeting with the planning commission, which I thought was great. [BoCC] 11:49:50 On the 26th. So anyway. It was just a planning commission meeting Or was it about open house with the planning commission yeah Lunch and learn about the sewer was Awesome. Sam's doing such a great job over there at Public Works on the sewer projects and [BoCC] 11:50:08 They're starting to dig in with the PUD on, you know, PUD managing the The service provision of the service provision [BoCC] 11:50:18 All the invoicing accounting for the sewer system so sounds like that lunch and learn was really well attended. It was really well attended. Yeah. [BoCC] 11:50:26 I think all the pizza got eaten. Every piece. Then I went to a meeting um with our consultants, SWCA, on the community welfare fire defense grant um another review with our technical advisors at dnr And that proposal came a long way. The first meeting we had with these guys at DNR, I felt like they were really like [BoCC] 11:50:53 You need to do this and this. And this time they were like, wow, good job. And I was like. [BoCC] 11:50:59 So I saw this morning there were a couple of other changes that needed to be reviewed, but I think Right, submission on Friday. We're getting there. $2.6 million. [BoCC] 11:51:11 Is it still 2.6? I think so. Yeah. Grant proposal. That's exciting. So exciting. [BoCC] 11:51:17 And then I went to the Child Advocacy Center open house for a little bit. [BoCC] 11:51:23 And then… I stopped in at the library again. [BoCC] 11:51:29 For an Olympic Housing Trust presentation on the Chimicum Commons. Right, you're two weeks ago. Yeah. I thought you were like, I felt like was great and have done some follow-up since then. [BoCC] 11:51:40 With Kellen and DC. And then I was off to DC and Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday in dc So Saturday and Sunday were the NACO conference and I was trying to think of what I could bring home and I did bring the whole agenda home. So if anyone wants to see it but [BoCC] 11:52:01 Of the keynote speakers of the NACO conference, the two things that I remember really grabbing onto were Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon was one of the keynotes on Sunday morning, and he was just really reinforcing the importance of secure rural schools in Pilton for Western counties. [BoCC] 11:52:20 And that was like his one. He's like, if I could just leave you with one thing today. And so it was good to see such leadership from someone out west. And he's he's a is a player on that issue in DC, even though he's in the minority now as a Democrat. So basically, is he saying these are programs that we need to get better at taking advantage of at the county level that we need to make sure are funded. We know how to use the money. Yeah. [BoCC] 11:52:46 Yeah. Yeah. But there hasn't been a funding proposal for secure real schools for a couple of years. So they're trying to get it refunded, which is going to be incredibly challenging in this defund everything climate that is currently going on in DC so [BoCC] 11:53:04 And then there was a question earlier about the VA benefits, and I felt like that gentleman came and he was like, we're going to be local, we're going to We're going to be more effective at getting resources out on the streets and responding to people's needs. [BoCC] 11:53:18 So it was a great message and I look forward to seeing how it happens. And I know that community, it's really in Carolyn's wheelhouse. She's really the VA frontlines person. So I want to follow up with her on how she sees a change, like what changes she sees over time. [BoCC] 11:53:35 Especially with what's happening at the federal level. The defunding to defund everything. So then on Monday and Tuesday last week i um I tried to join you on Monday, but then we got meetings with Cantwell and Murray both scheduled. [BoCC] 11:53:52 With their staff so we didn't For Marco Zias and I, we did not have meetings with our senators. We had meetings with their staff, I think three forwell and Two for Murray. And sometimes we all know that that's where the rubber meets the road and they'll carry our message back to the senators but we were [BoCC] 11:54:12 Pretty much solely talking about the roads issue And I don't know what elevated it to the chiro, Como and the Seattle Times, but… I know. That helped. Yeah, I think it did. [BoCC] 11:54:27 And so… Those meetings were good. [BoCC] 11:54:32 And then… Let's see. I came back after those meetings and jumped on the BOCC meeting with you guys for a little bit and joining the executive committee sessions or executive session. Then the next morning on the 4th. [BoCC] 11:54:47 We did Wasak Hilda [BoCC] 11:54:52 A hill visit prep meeting for all the commissioners that were there. There were 35 of us from Washington in D.C. Last week. And then… We did a group visit to Congresswoman randall so with I think seven or eight. [BoCC] 11:55:09 Electives, local electives from in her district And covered all the issues. Secure all schools pill va all the benefits, Medicaid, all the you know The issue is not really focused on the roads But I was thankful that Mark and I had made a separate meeting request. I had made a separate meeting request that was right after that one. And I said, okay. [BoCC] 11:55:32 Now we want to focus on what we're thinking about. So what I heard in all of those meetings is that the Democrats are really not part of the conversation. Yes. All the all the everything we're seeing happen they're not part of the conversation. They're not in the kitchen. They're not the cooks in the kitchen. [BoCC] 11:55:55 Quite frustrated about it, which I think was exhibited at the State of the Union. But I don't think it does anyone any good to have this to be strengthening the division, which is what I see happening. [BoCC] 11:56:11 And I hope that i hope there'll be some desire to work collaboratively across the aisle in DC, but currently not seeing that. And I'm not sure it's going to happen. [BoCC] 11:56:24 That was, I think we talked a little bit about that message that she gave when she was here too. [BoCC] 11:56:31 And really focusing in on the responsibility and the opportunity for everyone in the public actually to be talking to their friends who are Republican sharing these issues together and having even local conversations with our Republican friends, the people that you have already established potentially a relationship with. [BoCC] 11:56:59 And then, you know, trying to find some alignment there and utilizing those relationships to then fold up into their congressional representatives. Yeah, totally. So I think just that was an empowering message, I think, for local people And I would say that's booming to Wednesday. I got home, I went home, I slept at home, and then I got up and came here. [BoCC] 11:57:27 Organize my desk, got in the car and drove to Olympia for the legislative steering committee. [BoCC] 11:57:32 And I'm not seeing the same tenor in Olympia. I see a lot of working across the aisle and I met with a number of Republicans in the last couple of meetings there who are working actively with the Democratic Party. [BoCC] 11:57:46 To move issues that we care about forward. And so on the Wasac front. [BoCC] 11:57:54 The Wednesday evening things are roundtable where we talk about the issues in our community. Guess what I talked about last Wednesday? But I was like. [BoCC] 11:58:02 Axel, the head of the public engineers affiliate. [BoCC] 11:58:09 I was like transportation. I was like, I'm glad you're here. You need to hear this. And so he was like, I'll see what I can do tomorrow. So I'm like. [BoCC] 11:58:17 And now replaying how this all came together for this meeting on Saturday, I'm like, did Axel do something? [BoCC] 11:58:24 Did the congresswoman do something? I don't know how the movement happened, but it was beautiful. Oh, and Adam's been bird dogging it the whole time. Every time I go down there, I meet with Adam and we're talking about this. So he's been amazing. Representative Birnbaum has been… a leader in his freshman year as our representative in Olympia. So in terms of [BoCC] 11:58:47 Lsc, I might go a few minutes over, but I'm almost to the end of the week. [BoCC] 11:58:55 The Wasak priorities, as I've said before, a number of the issues have died. Yes. This week is the deadline. The 12th is the deadline to get out of the house of origin. [BoCC] 11:59:08 So the things that were still alive last week that were Wasak priorities were the ability to revise the 1% property tax growth limit to 3%. [BoCC] 11:59:20 And that one was still alive, then all of the housing issues were still alive. [BoCC] 11:59:25 House Bill 1345, which authorizes attached ADUs on residential lots, which we already have here, but that was still moving. [BoCC] 11:59:34 House Bill 5471, which expands the county authority to increase development options in appropriate areas. This is the landward flexibility issue. That one was still moving and had unanimous support. [BoCC] 11:59:48 House bill or Senate Bill 55765 expands the state investment and infrastructure that supports housing. This is a sales tax. [BoCC] 11:59:58 Okay. For short term rental work. And this one that one, that's the vehicle the senate bill and that one's still moving. [BoCC] 12:00:07 It was last Thursday. It would be interesting to compare these to what's happening in the housing and homelessness advocacy day on yeah on friday so well we can in our workshop yeah [BoCC] 12:00:23 And a lot of other stuff. A lot of the other priorities have actually died. [BoCC] 12:00:28 But I would say there was one thing that came up and I want Greg David, so maybe he'll be back. [BoCC] 12:00:34 I won't say it until he gets back. Okay. [BoCC] 12:00:42 There's a local access road option and rules. That became the transportation vehicle I'm not that familiar with. [BoCC] 12:00:51 Unfortunately. We had our issue paper, and I'm sorry I didn't get you guys a written report this week, but our issue paper last week was on House Bill 1380 allowing objectively reasonable regulation of the utilization of public property. And this largely came out of the 2019 Ninth Circuit [BoCC] 12:01:14 Decision regarding Martin versus the city of Boise, and this is about homeless individuals sitting, sleeping or lying outside of public property There was a big discussion about this, how House Bill 1380 tries to get at this and seeks to implement the objectively reasonable standard in washington [BoCC] 12:01:32 Prohibiting local governments from enacting ordinances that don't meet the standard. [BoCC] 12:01:39 So… criminalizing homelessness, basically. And The room was completely split at Wasak. [BoCC] 12:01:50 Yeah, it's been on it. Controversial yeah and the recommendation from staff was that we remain other with concerns And continue to work on languages to improve the bills that moves forward so I will be reporting back with more news on that one after House of Origin cut off on Friday. [BoCC] 12:02:10 And I guess I'll just talk about this PFD formation bill or maybe i can ask you about house bill 2015, which Mark and Andy Friedsteiner and I have been communicating about. Is that on Wasak's list? [BoCC] 12:02:24 Mostly following and supporting this bill provides new local authority work. Yeah. Oh. [BoCC] 12:02:37 0.1% sales tax for law enforcement includes a state funded grant program yeah and this was that was one that wasac added to our update last week. So I just sent that around to Andy just to see you know what kind of support or lack thereof. [BoCC] 12:02:52 Of course he's supportive and Mark came back and What I'm hearing from our delegation, though, is they're creating all these ways for us locals to raise taxes. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. We'll be at 10%. [BoCC] 12:03:09 Sales tax before long. None of these are out of the existing Steve. Well, one of them was one of them is mental health or the… No, the Therringer bill is a local It was one of these housing ones. [BoCC] 12:03:28 It was the 5576, the short-term rental creates a pot of funding for affordable housing by taxing short-term rentals statewide. That's my concern is that yeah great great tools but at one, you know, we can't get them passed, it's not, or if they're non-supportable [BoCC] 12:03:50 By our residents as additional advice of taxes then. So the last one that I found super interesting, and sorry we're a few minutes over, but we're just going to keep going, which Paul Joel was glazing through his multi-page report and he said, there's this bill's [BoCC] 12:04:07 Substitute Senate Bill 1037 Which is regarding PFD formation. And it was largely the proponents were largely the city of cluelum and Kittitas County, but it was about an odd shaped county and the ability to I mean, this would allow us to leave the West End out of the PFD formation if it passes yeah so that's one I'm going to be watching with keen eyes and you might want to too. That would be fantastic. It's a substitute Senate. [BoCC] 12:04:38 Substitute left. Second substitute house bill sorry oh sorry 1037. [BoCC] 12:04:45 That's the vehicle. That's pretty amazing. Yeah. So I was like, wait, that's something that could actually help us. Yeah, it would be a bunch of no boats that would Well, I mean, but we've all talked about how there's 221 addresses of record out there and they're never going to come to the pool we could [BoCC] 12:05:01 If we could, I keep asking, can't we just leave them out of the BFD? With this, we could. That's amazing. So with that, just in terms of timing If that goes through in this session. [BoCC] 12:05:15 How long would that take to be able to implement? We'd have to see if we can, yeah. [BoCC] 12:05:21 I adjust it. I think it's 26. But if it's been passed, you're saying. I haven't read the text of the bill. I don't know if it allows for adjustment after the fact or something. [BoCC] 12:05:33 I just thought this is a juicy one for us. It sure is. Thank you for bringing that up. And then I stayed in Olympia for Timber County's caucus meeting. [BoCC] 12:05:44 I'm definitely the tree hugger on the Timber County's caucus. No surprise there, but There's a couple of others with me. I don't feel so alone. Thurston. Thurston, Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish, Pierce. [BoCC] 12:05:58 Okay. I have eight on my list now. [BoCC] 12:06:06 The big meaty topic for timber counties was CMER, which is the cooperative ecosystem. [BoCC] 12:06:16 It's the science portion of the forest practices board and wasac retains a contractor mark meleeson who's a scientist and it was a very juicy sciency presentation about watershed dynamics and your favorite yeah i was like oh I just, I felt like i was [BoCC] 12:06:35 Laying back into a big feather bed. Oh, I know all these words and I know what he's talking about. So it was like, oh, such a relief but I was really grateful at the end of that, but Wasak has the [BoCC] 12:06:47 You know, for the foresight to actually keep somebody like that on contract to be able to explain complex ecosystem dynamics to a room full of low level policymakers, right? That's amazing. Yeah. [BoCC] 12:07:01 So, and then I drove home. And then you guys aren't low-level policy makers. No, county commissioners. Local policy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [BoCC] 12:07:12 Friday I was home. By Friday, I was home. And I went to the straight ERN steering committee welcome of our new coordinator, Angela Gore, who's A staff person also at North Olympic Development Council. She's awesome. Her husband works at the park national park so we can get [BoCC] 12:07:30 Inside information from her there, but she's already jumped in and I have been appointed to the ecosystem coordination board, ECB of the Puget Sound Partnership, and we'll be attending those meetings now And I haven't yet to hear whether my forest practices board application has been approved, but those will be two more big juicy things to do. Wait, on DNR? Yeah. Oh, that's the BNR, right? Is that… [BoCC] 12:07:56 That's the DNR. It's the forest practice no it's not the board of natural resources it's the Policy Setting Board. Oh, gotcha. Okay. [BoCC] 12:08:05 And then Mark and I had our monthly forestry, but he wasn't there because he was at connectivity summit I had our forestry meeting with mallory Which was good and we are planning the timber harvest for Elmira. Oh, great. So that [BoCC] 12:08:22 We'll be seeing proposals about that or presentation about that upcoming. That's exciting. [BoCC] 12:08:28 Yeah. And then I attended my last encumbered lands working group meeting No longer endumbered with it. We're no longer encumbered because we are going to get compensated for our acres first. [BoCC] 12:08:40 It would be out of the equation. Pinky is here with a raised hand. Oh, great. [BoCC] 12:08:44 I talked long enough. I don't know how long she's been there, but thank you for being here. And then I did not stay for the meeting to discuss the implementation of Senate Bill 5014. And I think Mikey might have gone. Okay. Because that was… Wasak organized a meeting of counties that were going to be affected by that and [BoCC] 12:09:06 I encouraged Sean to attend and he was going to have Mikey go. Great. Perfect. [BoCC] 12:09:12 And that was the end of my, oh no and then I just, I did. [BoCC] 12:09:16 Good things with you guys. I did the connectivity fair on Saturday. [BoCC] 12:09:22 And then I had the Upper Ho Road meeting with the governor at three o'clock on Saturday. [BoCC] 12:09:27 So yesterday I did my laundry. And maybe said hello to your beloved husband. No, he's really frustrated with me right now. Sorry. Slidding all over the country. How many local county commissioners get divorced in there? [BoCC] 12:09:46 I've heard of some. No, we're not getting rid of some. [BoCC] 12:09:49 We're not getting divorced. And I don't know if Gene Ball is running for county commissioner. I'm just I was kind of APO this morning with all the negative feedback we got out of the gate. I felt like we were coming with good news today. We were. And I think it was well received in the long run. I don't know who's running for county commissioner, but I hear names. There's no county commissioner. [BoCC] 12:10:09 I know. I know the speculation and I'm like, oh, God. [BoCC] 12:10:15 Still got a year in it. I don't want Greg to go anywhere. [BoCC] 12:10:18 Greg's not going anywhere anyway. Okay. Pinky, can you answer our question? [Pinky Mingo] 12:10:26 I think so. I kind of got a little bit of a rundown. [BoCC] 12:10:30 Yeah, sorry to put you on the spot. Thank you. It's just [Pinky Mingo] 12:10:32 No, no worry. I mean, it's just it's just clarity. So we have this grant that just kind of dropped in our lap. And so The number of records, there was never a number there It was… Basically, it's what we can get done. [BoCC] 12:10:36 Yeah. [Pinky Mingo] 12:10:49 I mean, and it's going to be a very small fraction of what's in our… in our file room right now. [BoCC] 12:10:59 And that's okay and meets your need. Is that? [Pinky Mingo] 12:10:59 So. Yes, every little bit will help. [Pinky Mingo] 12:11:06 This is going to be a Yeah. [BoCC] 12:11:06 Okay. Funding coming in for this purpose. So not to spend it just means less done, right? Yes, absolutely. I just wanted to be cognizant of the fact that you know they did sign a contract that said that, and I recognize they're wanting to come back and change it but [Pinky Mingo] 12:11:12 Yeah. [BoCC] 12:11:23 I just wanted to make sure. You're changing it. [Pinky Mingo] 12:11:24 No, actually, we're changing it. We're changing it. Yes, it was an error. It was an error. [BoCC] 12:11:32 Okay. That makes all the difference to me. I thought it was the contractor coming back and saying, hey. [Pinky Mingo] 12:11:33 It should have never said all records. [BoCC] 12:11:43 We're not committed to what the county thought they were committed to. [Pinky Mingo] 12:11:46 No, they were okay doing an administrative memo, but the prosecuting attorney's office said Nope, we should do this as a regular amendment. And so we just whipped it around as a regular amendment. [BoCC] 12:11:59 That makes all the difference to me in the world. Thank you for taking the time, Pinky. [Pinky Mingo] 12:12:03 Hey, I'm always happy to answer questions. [BoCC] 12:12:06 Just wanted to make sure we weren't getting… I don't know, some bad word. [Pinky Mingo] 12:12:11 Yeah. Yeah. No, it's all good. [BoCC] 12:12:15 Okay. Thank you, Pinky. Appreciate you. [Pinky Mingo] 12:12:18 All right. Thank you. Have a great week, everyone. [BoCC] 12:12:21 Thanks, Tinku. Okay. Anything else before we… Do we want to make a motion for that one to approve the 13th? Just go for it now. Yeah. Yeah. [BoCC] 12:12:33 Let's see the agenda in front of me. Motion. Item 13. Yeah, to approve item 13 that was previously pulled from the consent agenda, but to go ahead and approve that. [BoCC] 12:12:47 A second? No. Okay. All in favor of approving item 13 on our consent agenda? Aye. [BoCC] 12:12:57 Passes unanimously. Great. Sean, do you have an update on the clock tower? I do. I can explain the $2250. [BoCC] 12:13:06 The contract amount for the 9,800 Number is the amount of the work to be done by the contractor. The additional fees in the contract worksheet that we use to track total project costs, the $2,250 include internal staff salary and benefits costs that were added into the project that were added into the contract [BoCC] 12:13:30 Review form. You're giving us the actual cost of this yes Yes. Projected. Projected. Got it. [BoCC] 12:13:39 Including internal costs. I'll move it. We approve item number five from our consent agenda. [BoCC] 12:13:48 I will second that. I was sending an email and it seemed as though you were getting ready to break. Perfect timing. Thank you so much. Okay, so… All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Okay, so the only last outstanding hanging chad on consent agenda is getting the letter [BoCC] 12:14:07 And I see that you sent me a letter. So we'll do that over the lunch break. [BoCC] 12:14:12 So this will be a new letter of support. Consent will be tied in a bow and we are adjourned until one 130. Recess, sorry. I wish we really did have recess. [BoCC] 12:14:27 We had a merry-go-round and a dump. [BoCC] 13:30:06 Okay. Thank you. [BoCC] 13:30:12 Okay, we are back from recess. How are the swing set, you guys? [BoCC] 13:30:18 Excellent swing set. Did not get outside, though. I should have. I went for a walk. I didn't find a swing. [BoCC] 13:30:23 Oh, silly. Okay, well, we're back from recess. Calling us back into order and we are going to immediately go into executive session with our county administrator, our chief civil deputy prosecuting attorney. [BoCC] 13:30:35 A civil deputy prosecuting attorney, our public works director, our engineering services manager. [BoCC] 13:30:41 Regarding potential litigation, exemption is outlined in the Open Public Meetings Act RCW 42.30.110, parentheses 1 parentheses I. We're going in at 1.30. We will be back at 2.15. [BoCC] 13:30:55 See you then [BoCC] 14:19:08 That's the neater one. [BoCC] 14:19:13 Yes, ma'am. Okay, is the audio working? [BoCC] 14:19:19 Looks like recording already. I don't see that. Let's put Philip on mute. I don't see the transcriptions. Do you see him? Yeah. Okay. We are coming out of executive session and we're going right back into executive session with our county administrator. Chief Civil Deputy Prosecuting attorney, civil deputy prosecuting attorney. [BoCC] 14:19:40 Public Works Director, Engineering Services Manager. And regarding potential litigation, exemption is outlined in the Open Public Meetings Act, RCW, 42.30.110 parentheses 1 parentheses i we are going back in at 219 and we will come back out at 225. [BoCC] 14:26:36 Oh. [BoCC] 14:26:44 We are coming out of executive session and we will not be taking action. So we will resume our activities on our agenda and the next item on our agenda is a 2.30 workshop, which we have a which a few minutes until so anything [BoCC] 14:27:02 Happened over the lunch hour. What goes on? Talk about? [BoCC] 14:27:07 Along with the day outside. You bring me up as a panelist? No, thanks. [BoCC] 14:27:23 Where they are. Hey. Hey, we've got… esteemed colleagues in the room. Can you close the door behind you there? And our afternoon will kick off. [BoCC] 14:27:36 And with? A fire marshal program update and their 2025 You're right. We have three minutes. [BoCC] 14:27:46 I believe so. No. What did you guys do for lunch? I had leftovers. [BoCC] 14:27:57 The Spanish program. Has been teaching the kids how to make handmade tamales and handmade eggs. Oh, wow. [BoCC] 14:28:15 So my daughter, actually one kid is learning the tamales and the other one is learning the tortillas and so we have this amazing dinner. [BoCC] 14:28:26 Where Elon actually was so excited about remembering the whole recipe by memory. And so she started saying it and then she yeah It's a little bit of both. And so she's like, I got to get a piece of paper and I'm going to write it all down. And she's proceeded to write it all down. And I'm like oh [BoCC] 14:28:46 Now we can now you can make dinner. We went shopping got all of the invites and she just made this gorgeous dinner that was so i know it wasn't even talking Tuesday. It's amazing. Awesome. [BoCC] 14:29:02 Well, that sounds fun. [BoCC] 14:29:08 But I walked down to Water Street and had a slice of pizza. Were you here last night? [BoCC] 14:29:12 What's that? Yeah, I didn't have leftovers. I was thinking about last night. A great shashuka yesterday with goose eggs. That was delicious, but that was more brunch and it was kind of consumed by the end of the day. And some little kimchi rice inaris. [BoCC] 14:29:28 Yeah, yeah. Well, we stashed all of our squash under the stairs Last fall. And I just kind of remembered that they were all under there. They're all doing so well. We have so much squash. Anyone need squash yeah sure we love squash. I'm not a squash. I mean, there's a lot of squash in the house. I'm not crazy about squash. I love squash. [BoCC] 14:29:51 If anyone's joined us, we are just killing a minute by enjoying each other's company for 60 seconds before we… kick into a fiery update. Hopefully a fire update. [BoCC] 14:30:10 Sparkless talk, right? Well, it's 2.30 on my clock. All right. So we can get going. Thanks for being here with us, Bill and Brian. [BoCC] 14:30:20 And we are going to hear about hear what's going on in our fire marshal program and hear about the work plan for this year. [BoCC] 14:30:30 Excellent. Thank you, commissioners. Thank you for having us here today. So yes, so just a little bit of background. Ecd And for our work plan session in the last month. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend and give my update. Director Peters did a great job in my absence kind of relaying some of the [BoCC] 14:30:49 The pertinent information. But I was at a kickoff meeting, actually a legislator steering kickoff meeting for House Bill 6120, which has to do with the WUI mapping and knowing that that is a very complicated and personal to Jefferson County. [BoCC] 14:31:10 Issue with our mapping and some of the LIDAR mapping that had showed up on the uh And portions of the city as well, yes. So you definitely want to make sure that I was on top of that and got as much information in advance and had the opportunity to… [BoCC] 14:31:33 Guide that process and have some ground floor information. It's been really cool. It's been my first time being part of the legislative steering committee, so I apologize for not being here, but we're here now. Thank you for being there. And how's the bill doing? Have you tracked that one? [BoCC] 14:31:51 It's doing well. There's a couple of them that I'm tracking at the moment. But yeah, it's definitely… it's not a matter of if it's kind of when. It's how we do this portion of it. And it's dependent. There's actually two different bills that are piggybacking off each other. One has to do with the mapping, one has to do with the actual implementation. So it's all coming. Cool. I'm part of this process. Unfortunately. [BoCC] 14:32:15 Chief McCurran down in the quill scene. Fire District 2 is part of the other half of it. So we've been kind of collaborating a little bit like, well, what did you learn or what did you learn? It's been a [BoCC] 14:32:27 An interesting process. Right. Great. Next slide. Yes. And this is going to be a lot of it to do with the fire marshal, but also I serve as the fire marshal and the building official. So, you know, this is going to kind of be a hybrid between the two. [BoCC] 14:32:42 As we can see here, this is just kind of an overview. We're talking about this second column from the left there, the building official fire marshal, and the positions that are listed there. [BoCC] 14:32:53 So just kind of as an overview of this is the portion of DCD that we're going to be talking about. [BoCC] 14:33:00 And are all those positions filled? So yeah, on that, so we were going to We do have a job offer extended right now for a clerk hire. We're waiting to hear back hopefully this week. We've done interviews and we've made our selection. We'll see [BoCC] 14:33:15 Pretty positive that everything's going to go through there. So that's great. We'll be staffed there as well as we do have another staff member that we're working on getting trained up as as a planes examiner, which would be a very great help to me because currently I served as the building official, the fire marshal [BoCC] 14:33:34 The floodplain administrator and the plans examiner. So if we can get that position to transition into that, we're working on some HR paperwork with it right now. [BoCC] 14:33:46 Then that would take some of the things off my plate, which would be great because then I can focus on the commercial and the more complicated things and that staff member can take over residential and some of the simpler reviews, which would be great. [BoCC] 14:34:00 Again, just kind of recap here, you know, DCD broader work plan, I guess it was February 18th, we had done that. So one of the things I wanted to do today was talk about uh Primarily. [BoCC] 14:34:13 Program we're trying to kick off is our commercial Fire Life Safety Inspection Program. That is something that we came here to the board with you folks and uh we passed a ordinance in, I believe, 2023 Establishing that and establishing the fire marshal to charge reasonable fees. [BoCC] 14:34:32 And then it also came back through resolution and got a fire marshal fee schedule approved through the board. So that's kind of where that program is at now. We really hope to kick it off the first of the year. We ran into a couple of issues. The primary one [BoCC] 14:34:50 Being the implementation of the Tyler software program. We have a software program called Mobilize or Fire Prevention Mobile. [BoCC] 14:34:58 Really cool program, but we were kind of waiting for that system to be fully implemented, as well as waiting for our vehicle to show up, which we have now. We have all the tools that we need to do to go to work to start this. We sent out a preliminary letter to businesses [BoCC] 14:35:12 Letting them know that we would be starting that program and got a little bit of a little bit of pushback, a little bit of a interest, folks not realizing this process had happened, you know, in talking to the county administrator and talking to our legal team, it had been a little while since we talked about it here on the board and public. So maybe a little bit of outreach would help as well just to [BoCC] 14:35:35 Kind of form that program and reemphasize what our goals are and what we're trying to do there. [BoCC] 14:35:40 I think we can go next slide. All right, again, this is just an overview. What does the fire marshal do? Where our authority comes from, you know, St. Jefferson County Code. [BoCC] 14:35:50 Things we do, pipeline review, inspections, investigations. We do all the address and road naming in the county. We've been in front of you folks for that. Enforcement and burning regulations and One of the things that takes a lot of time and effort during certain portions of the year are setting our [BoCC] 14:36:07 Fire danger risk levels and the corresponding restrictions that come with that. So by county ordinance, the fire marshal is required to just set the burn levels with the… collaboration with the fire chiefs. So that can be kind of a challenging thing to watch those atmospheric conditions and adjust them as necessary during those burn seasons. [BoCC] 14:36:31 Next slide. The other side of the office was the building official view. Same kind of a thing. The county code there, you know, where the administration enforcement of the code comes from in our Jefferson County code. [BoCC] 14:36:46 Now on that side of it, the building official manages the inspection program, provides plan review and oversight. [BoCC] 14:36:52 Enforces building codes and safety regulations, issues permits, and serves as the authority having jurisdiction. So that is, you know, in a nutshell kind of what John McHales, that's a bit of an oversimplification, but there's a lot of other things that are ancillary to that. Sort of a lightning rod. At times it can be, yes. I mean, it can be. [BoCC] 14:37:14 Next slide. So this one's kind of fun. So this one is, this is a similar slide that you saw that the director Peters had brought up, some of our accomplishments and our goals. There are a few things on there that I've added since then that are a little bit different. [BoCC] 14:37:29 Last year in 2024, we did 444 plan reviews. 40 of those those pretty much all of those candidates you might ask personally. 40 of them did have some consultant support we did have Another staff member that was doing a portion of decks, very simple review type things under my oversight. [BoCC] 14:37:49 We did 115 address cases last year. 3,904 individual inspections. Now, that's not necessarily total site visits. A lot of those were combinations where we did more inspections, you know, up to three, four, five inspections in one site visit. So that's not necessarily site visits. [BoCC] 14:38:09 When we break it down on our cool new EPL program, that's how it comes out. [BoCC] 14:38:15 We had 13 fire investigations last year. We did a lot of continuing education for the Survey and Ratings Bureau. [BoCC] 14:38:22 To keep all the capacity and to keep up with our skills and everything. We had accumulatively three ICC certifications earned last year. One of those allowed us to promote one of our inspector ones to an inspector 2, which is fantastic. He gained a, that was Brandon Brown. He gained a commercial building inspector certification. So we're super proud of his effort with that and everything. That was fantastic. [BoCC] 14:38:49 You know, last year we continue to build on some of the lessons that we learned from the previous year about our fire danger ratings and our burn restriction levels, you know, kind of refine that process and try to streamline it a bit. [BoCC] 14:39:03 Last year, we got the fire marker vehicle. It actually got delivered in February, so… But all the legwork and everything was done last year, you know, waiting for the upfitter and actually ordering the vehicle and everything like that. It's great. [BoCC] 14:39:18 Also working on our short-term rental annual inspection program so and what we've been doing is we've been doing ongoing inspections for the ones that were already existing prior to the moratorium. So obviously 2025, that's one of the things that will get expanded. [BoCC] 14:39:34 You know, with the you skipped over the surface tab. Oh, forgive me. So yeah, sorry, we have these service tabs. These things are amazing. We love these. So before we would have a… a laptop that we would have and we would also have an iPad. So the acquisition of these was done uh [BoCC] 14:39:53 Partially through the um partially through the Paper to digital grant that I got from Commerce is fantastic. So out in the field, you know, the inspectors can do this. They can use them as a tablet and everything. Preliminarily, we purchased two of them. I'm glad that we did it, that we kind of did a scaled rollout because there was a little bit of a learning curve to get all the software and everything figured out. [BoCC] 14:40:13 With some of the things that we use. Brian and I are currently using them and then we're looking to purchase another two with that money, those funds that are still available. [BoCC] 14:40:22 Through, I believe, the end of June that expires. We'll be getting more, but we've had to work with the IT quite a bit to get them to function exactly the way that we want to. They are cellular capable, so they're 5G, and they work throughout… the majority of the county on our horizon network. So it's really nice still you get out onto the coil or you get into some of those places on Mariston, so it's a little spotty. For the most part. And the nice thing about these two, the functionality that they have is that we can run them offline. [BoCC] 14:40:49 And then as soon as we come back in, it'll automatically update. That was going to be my question. That's great. [BoCC] 14:40:56 So yeah, so it's been really cool. We've been using the iPads for several years, you know, with some issues back and forth. The biggest one being the support from IT, being an Apple product and everything. They prefer to be a Microsoft product, you know, it was a lot easier to get a through the firewalls and use all of our county [BoCC] 14:41:17 Software for security and things like that. So these dev circuses do, and it's my surface. They're great. Yeah. Tablet and PC at the same time. Yeah, it's great. We've got the stylus and the little keyboard and everything. [BoCC] 14:41:30 You know, Brian's even got a thing in the truck where you can set it up on the steering wheel and do everything and truly be mobile. So it's really nice. Not that you do it while driving, of course. Well, yeah, not when we have that. [BoCC] 14:41:42 So goals for 2025. So I'm still working with Brett Butler on the stock plants with our go live. They're continuously doing updates with that, you know, to touch base with them as recently as this weekend. [BoCC] 14:41:55 Have you done the plans examination on them already? I mean, where are they on your desk, I guess? So they have not made it to me yet as far as that. I have the floor plans, but I don't have actually any of the nuts and bolts, if you will. [BoCC] 14:42:08 Still kind of working. My understanding is that we're still kind of working on the designers and some of the engineers for the actual contracts, that there was some language that had to be massaged and some things in some of those contracts. So I'm not exactly sure how many of them we have signed up at this point, but I can definitely find out. [BoCC] 14:42:30 With the brain working a part-time scheduler, we've been kind of hit and miss a little bit. We passed each other home like hey you're here today. Let's talk about this. [BoCC] 14:42:40 We're currently working on right now. We have a draft ILA with the local fire districts. We're working with the PAO's office um and getting that all set up and we're kind of just a little bit of minor tweaking to that until it's ready for prime time and we can actually release that and bring it to the chiefs and everything. We've had collaboration with them. We meet monthly through the Jefferson County Fire Chiefs Association. The first Monday of every [BoCC] 14:43:06 About every month. So it unfortunately competes with the BNA and the BOCC meetings. I try to balance what I can between those when they're kicking off. [BoCC] 14:43:16 The CPACER program, again, you know, working on that one with brent butler For an update on that guy. [BoCC] 14:43:25 Establishing private road and driveway access standards. This is something that's probably going to be coming to the board here. There's a couple of things that we would really like to get into code and to get an ordinance on. That's one of them [BoCC] 14:43:36 It's a little bit challenging for the private road and driveway access standards, as well as some of the E911 and having some of our like a bridge registry, some of that sort of stuff. Or we have, you know, private residential bridges that serve our residents and, you know, making sure that they're certified, making sure that at this point, some of the fire districts [BoCC] 14:44:00 Are very hesitant to go over some of these bridges, but they don't know what the weight rating is they're not listed, they don't have science, that sort of thing. So we're kind of working on the registry for that. [BoCC] 14:44:11 Why it's a little bit challenging to get into our private road and driveway access standards I delayed this one on purpose. [BoCC] 14:44:16 Part of the reason because I was waiting for the wildland urban interface to be installed because it does have some language in it about private roads and what the widths have to be and vegetation management, that sort of thing. And it also bridges on some of our Title 18. So that would have to go through planning commission for recommendation as well, because it would be development standards so but some of the work that we're going to be working on to move forward on that [BoCC] 14:44:43 Also, the CWPP implementation, we touched on the STR program. Our commercial fire life safety program touched on. So this is another one too that I was just talking to Director Peters about this morning, about the fire flow and the fire hydro spacing code update. [BoCC] 14:44:59 It's one of the things that I've been working with a consultant on, you know, just kind of table topping some things about how it would work. I propose using the International Fire Code as a standard, which we already which is an appendix that we can adopt. Currently, that's housed, as you may or may not know, in the coordinated water system plan. So this is kind of has a natural nexus as we're starting to overhaul that process and everything. The codes that are in there, the standards that are in there are a bit outdated. [BoCC] 14:45:29 However, going to the International Fire Code and adopting the appendix would not necessarily be our best bet. Being that we're a rural jurisdiction and that we want to have a right-sized program, my consultant was recommending that we consult the NFPA 1142, which is water standards for rural districts. [BoCC] 14:45:47 Which is a little bit more allows us to right size a program if we use that as a base. So again, I was talking to Director Peter today proposing that I be an alternate for the water utility coordinating committee. [BoCC] 14:46:03 In a couple of days that he was unable to attend. So I think that that would be great. I think it would be a great opportunity to meet all the key players and everything like that in the county and to get where we want to go with this. [BoCC] 14:46:13 Glad to have you aboard. So thank you. Appreciate it. We've got two meetings this month so Get ready. [BoCC] 14:46:23 Dispretion combination to reduce site visits and improve efficiencies. And this is one of the things that I've been talking about for a while. So I sat down with my inspectors and We changed the way that we're doing inspections a little bit. And the reason that we're doing that [BoCC] 14:46:39 Is the name that program that I saw when I was in Kitsap County that worked really well. And what that allowed us to do is to do a combination inspection at the framing stage, which allowed you to take multiple inspections and do them at once. [BoCC] 14:46:53 We have to be on site less. We still get to respect everything that we need to. And also the is really preferred by the builders and the developers because they're not waiting on us for these different things. Instead of waiting for us to check these boxes, we can kind of wait until we get to a point and then check several boxes at one time. [BoCC] 14:47:11 So we've always encouraged that, but we're kind of taking a step forward and being like, this is the way it is. Trying to reduce that. And that is in response to, you know, we put a lot of miles on our inspection payables. With the recent crunch in ER and R and, you know, having some of our replacement getting pushed out there a little bit further and things like that. [BoCC] 14:47:33 We're trying to do what we can internally to monitor that and to kind of course correct if there's ability to. Can I just ask, does that allow the project to move forward and you have more inspections later or does it slow them down as you're like, wait, we got to do all these [BoCC] 14:47:51 It should allow the project to go quicker. So they're not waiting on us to inspect each one of these things. Instead, we can kind of let them build up to an extent. And each project's a little bit different. If there's a particular building style, when I'm doing my review, I try to size that correctly. For this combination spectrum, whether it's a candidate for it or not. For example. [BoCC] 14:48:11 Some of the building that we're going to be having coming on in Olympic Parish 2 at port level uh that builder in Richmond american homes is definitely going to appreciate this style of an inspection program rather than you know [BoCC] 14:48:26 Because it allows them to coordinate with their subcontractors a lot quicker and a little bit easier. [BoCC] 14:48:34 Yeah, so it's great. The addition of the clear fire we kind of touched on. Oh, and the potential addition of a wildfire safety coordinator. If we still are grant eligible and everything for that through our cwpp program so it's one of the 2025 goals that'd be fantastic if that happens. And if it act if it [BoCC] 14:48:57 And we were still eligible, the candidate to house that program or that position. [BoCC] 14:49:04 You're fantastic. On that previous slide, just ask a little bit, what's the short-term rental inspection like? I'm sure it'll change with the upcoming regulations, but what is one the existing ones, what does it look like so the process is going to be the same. So we have an annual inspection requirement [BoCC] 14:49:20 To keep the permit valid. And like I said, we've been doing the ones because what we saw happening a lot was that we would do an initial upfront life safety inspection when you got the permit, when the permit was issued, there was a condition of issuance. And then after that, there was nothing. There was no regulation. And we were seeing a lot of things, stairs to the beach you know a water heater replacements and straps not necessarily being replaced. Alarms that were [BoCC] 14:49:49 Smoke detectors that were way out of date. People just weren't maintaining it, you know, correctly. Things that you know we would be a little bit more critical of a hotel or something like that that would be in a different type of occupancy. So the goal there is to just [BoCC] 14:50:07 Touch base with him once a year, you know, make sure that everything is still secure, make sure that we still have, you know, appropriate signage, make sure that we still have all of our life safety elements, you know, the address is still posted. We also have a couple of documents that we have up on our website. [BoCC] 14:50:22 That we're looking to expand on as well with our ready set go for, you know, some type of evacuation you know as that program develops, you know, we're still talking about an evacuation modeling with DEM and with all the fire chiefs and everything like that. But that was one of them. [BoCC] 14:50:38 Another one was that they did in Chelan County that I really liked. [BoCC] 14:50:42 Put on the operator of the Airbnb or of the, I'm sorry, the short-term rental. [BoCC] 14:50:49 That they would have to secure if they offered any type of a fire pit or any type of like a propane barbecue or something, they would have to secure that either by locking it or there's a bunch of different ways that it can be done. [BoCC] 14:51:03 So they could be used during periods of high fire danger. So in these short-term rentals. Chelynn did a really good example of that. Their fire marshal department part of marshal office there about How did they do it? Your propane tank has to be removed and it has to be permanently or locked in a garage or shed or something like that in order so that the uh [BoCC] 14:51:30 Renters didn't have access to it. Or, you know, if you had a fire pit that was out there, it had a grate that came out and you padlocked it so you know you couldn't have a fire in the fire pit. Everyone's got that, right? It's black courage room. [BoCC] 14:51:42 So there's uh you know there's some of that type of language we're trying to also have a standard that you know um a form that has to be there that says you know where the nearest hospital is, where you are, what your address is you know just those basic life safety things so that if something should come up, who the responsible party is for the structure, you know, those type of things that we're tracking. I believe insurance is also on there. [BoCC] 14:52:05 So we also have a spot on there to verify that there's insurance. [BoCC] 14:52:10 They have to at least list the policy and everything like that so we can keep it on record, whether it's valid or not, that's one thing, but at least you know we have a we have a record of it. And I do believe that that isn't a state law that we actually record that information. We have to verify it, but we have to at least have it available. Can you remind me how much that inspection costs? So the inspection is currently with our curfew schedule, everything is $294. And that is two hours of inspection time. [BoCC] 14:52:41 At a rate that was set when we did our fee study to prove the reasonableness of fees. And then I believe a tech fee um And any small administratively. And when you have 500 of those to do every year. How will your department change? [BoCC] 14:52:57 It's going to be interesting. So that's one of the things that's the question, isn't it? That's the question, Phil. I believe it's going to be scalable. So again, with having this clerk hired, they were going to come on, you know, we kind of have a… You're going to ask kind of a jack of all trades. We're going to transition to do fire safety inspection programs. We have a fantastic candidate and everything that has a background in fire as well as architecture. So it's a really great fit for us and I'm really excited if this all goes through with this candidate. [BoCC] 14:53:29 And… they would be available for surge capacity kind of things. It doesn't help us necessarily vehicles getting mobilized because we still have a little bit of a crunch there. [BoCC] 14:53:40 But we assume that Brian's going to be out. Brian or I will be out doing either the life-saving inspections for businesses or for short-term rentals. We also have the inspectors, our billing inspectors cross-trained or are planning to have them cross-trained to do that. So there would be a a little bit of flexibility for that, as well as our our [BoCC] 14:54:01 Staff member that would be promoted to a plans examiner. Plans examiner also has a very, very job profile to an inspector. And I believe that there is some overlap in the job description. So we can potentially in a pinch, you know, pull them. So the idea is to just get the bench as deep as possible with the staff that we have. And so have everybody as flexible and [BoCC] 14:54:26 Cross-train as much as we can. Thank you. So, but yes, it will be there'll be a bit of an adjustment if we, you know, especially right off the bat. I'm hoping that this, we can kind of ease into this, but it could be a very [BoCC] 14:54:41 Quick, you know, crazy. Yeah. Could be a steep curve. [BoCC] 14:54:48 Please. So the commercial split inspection program, so this is, as I kind of alluded to earlier, we did have an ordinance and I do believe there is 2023. [BoCC] 14:55:01 That'll allows the fire marshal to establish this and also to charge fees there. And number four, there's about fees. [BoCC] 14:55:11 And this has caught a few businesses off guard that we sent out previously. [BoCC] 14:55:17 So in this letter, one of the things that we said is that we'll be rolling out this program. It'll be toward the end of February. [BoCC] 14:55:25 There was a fee involved. The fee is the same as it would be for a short-term rentals, two hours of inspection time. That's $294. [BoCC] 14:55:34 This is one of the things that the way that we size this program is from the WSRB, which is the Washington State Survey and Readings Bureau. [BoCC] 14:55:43 They set into our standards. They're also the ones that do two different ratings. We have a fire protection class rating, which we have as the county have some responsibility and because we're the record keeping and the investigation and the inspection portion of it, but also has some things that are outside of our control that would be the local fire district, you know, how close you are to a fire station. [BoCC] 14:56:06 Whether you have how close water is available If we're doing tenure credits for water tenders, things like that. There's some things that are out of our control. Also staffing, training, things like that through the fire districts. [BoCC] 14:56:17 So we're just trying to do our portion of it to help our partners in the fire districts that we're doing what we can to give them as much of an edge as possible to get a good score. Also, survey and raise bureau on the other side of the house on the building side. [BoCC] 14:56:32 Has what's called the BSEGs, which is the Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule. [BoCC] 14:56:39 Which is the last time that we were up, we hadn't done it in 2022 i believe And we were able to increase our score, which is fantastic. Where some of our holes were. [BoCC] 14:56:52 Where the money that we had available for training. Since then, we fixed that with our budget and brought it up to where what they ultimately want to see is 2% of your overall budget. [BoCC] 14:57:03 Can be allocated for training. So we've done that. We fixed that on our budget through the budget cycle. [BoCC] 14:57:12 And the other thing of it was. Where we could have scored more points. The main thing was the time the staff has been in their current role. And so there's not a whole lot we can do with that. We just have to wait, you know, as we have, you know, we had some very, very senior staff members and then as we had the turnover, you know. [BoCC] 14:57:32 Obviously the experience goes down. But as that goes over time, you know, we have one of these every five years. So that is naturally going to come up over time. [BoCC] 14:57:42 As well as the certifications that those staff members hold. One of the things that I personally am pursuing is called the Master Code Professional Certification. [BoCC] 14:57:53 This is through the ICC. It's a series of about 17 tests into it at this point. [BoCC] 14:58:00 Three or four more to go. Once you do that, this does give you the best score possible on the V6. And so this is something that's a it's a relatively elite group that gets the certification. I jokingly call it my master's, but it is [BoCC] 14:58:19 It's across all facets. From fire to buildings to mechanical, plumbing, electrical, all facets of construction, disability, ABA. [BoCC] 14:58:33 Compliance. There's a lot of different things that go into there's a legal management module. [BoCC] 14:58:38 Several other things. Anyway. Did you get a fancier fire marshal bag? So you actually, it's kind of funny. It's kind of like the masters. You actually get a green jacket that says MCP. Wow. [BoCC] 14:58:49 So Phil, can I ask a totally basic question Remind me, have we charged for these inspections in the past? So these inspections traditionally Brian could probably talk to this a little bit too. [BoCC] 14:59:08 We didn't have a robust fire marshal office in the county. And so a lot of these inspections either weren't happening in a lot of districts. Macaulay's giggling, by the way you're being kind so No, this program virtually didn't exist. We weren't doing it. Some districts were doing it independently. [BoCC] 14:59:33 Don't believe that they were charging a fee for it. But in order for us to move forward and build this program. [BoCC] 14:59:40 We have to be cost recoverable at some point. Being that we're enterprise funded, the only alternative would be general fund And I don't think there's appetite for that. No, that's great. I just wanted you to reiterate that and confirm that. We had this conversation at the ICG with the city as well, right? We were talking about different approaches to the commercial inspection. Right. And there was a potential that they would do some sort of like a three-way ILA between the city and the county and east jefferson [BoCC] 15:00:06 To uh kind of a kind get a program where we can all kind of tackle Because per capita, the city has more than the county you know by far for as far as businesses and as far as the need for these types of insurances just more concentrated. So when we started this program, we did start it. [BoCC] 15:00:25 The recommendation of one of our Actually, the folks that did our software at Tyler were recommending that we start with a limited base, maybe limit it to a zip code or to a specific city or something like that. So what we chose to do, and a lot of it came from just size, the amount of things. [BoCC] 15:00:44 We started with the south kind. We started with Brennan and Wilson. We rarely get to go first. That's so nice. Thank you, Phil. And the other thing, that's where the resistance is coming from. Sure. [BoCC] 15:00:56 That was not something that we factored into when we decided to go in that direction. But it was also the lack of information that we had the further south that we went. East Jefferson did have We have some record of things that are around the city or things that we know more toward the north end of the calendar. So further stuff we go a little bit [BoCC] 15:01:14 More sparse the information was and a little bit more needed. So we were trying to get best bang for our buck, start down here, do kind of a soft rollout and everything like that. Some of the criticism has been, and I feel for it. I mean, I ran a small business for several years. [BoCC] 15:01:29 And so I totally understand the plight of a small business owner, or I can sympathize to the very least. [BoCC] 15:01:37 It's the slowest portion of the season. You know, where funds are tight. Also, you know, the fact that we started down in the south end, which had nothing to do with any type of a Like I said, it was just based upon the amount of things that were down there and the lack of historical data. So there wasn't any other reason why we picked to go from south to north. [BoCC] 15:02:08 Was there anything you want to add on any of the You're speaking so elegantly. I don't know if I can make it look so much. Jump in here anytime you want. You know, I will say that when we presented the letter by mail to the established zip code, in this case, Quilsi and Brennan, we provided a letter detailing all of this, but we also provided [BoCC] 15:02:27 The basic inspection form on, hey, these are the top 15, 20 things that we're looking for. So we're not hitting people out of that field with something that we've never heard of this. We provide code references, both law and through the international fire code. So when we show up or we make an appointment with you, you kind of got an idea, okay, this is what we're looking for. I think the biggest [BoCC] 15:02:49 Hurdle we have is those, I don't want to say egregious violations, but those emergence where you know you have a community in an assembly for example and you have push bars or doors that don't open, those kinds of little things that we truly need to look at to make sure that everybody's safe so we don't have a tragedy. So we're trying to provide as much information as we can, thus being here in front of you to day before we truly get out there and start rolling out the program. And even if we find a violation of, say. [BoCC] 15:03:22 A hood and duct or, you know, commercial cooking establishment. It's okay. We're going to set up a parameter. You got seven days to come up with a plan on how you're going to fix this and bring it up to code. So it's working with the tenant or the building owners, the project managers in there to fix or resolve a problem based on current standards. [BoCC] 15:03:45 So I think you can go to the next slide. All right. And then just uh I think this is just kind of emphasizing some of the things that we just talked about you know it's insurance underwriter driven you know i talked about the washington survey and ratings bureau [BoCC] 15:04:01 So one of the goals, one of the goals is to do an annual site inspection of every business you know annual every year. The realistic goal that we have at this point is to do a self-inspection every other year. And we would do a physical inspection [BoCC] 15:04:17 Every other year. So in the off years, you would have at least a self-inspection. We'd love to increase that over time. [BoCC] 15:04:26 But this is what we think that we can do now with the resources that we have, especially not knowing what the short-term rental program is going to do and what our capacity is going to be at this point. [BoCC] 15:04:36 So we want to get there, but in order to do it, we may need to expand the program in order to get there. [BoCC] 15:04:44 I touched earlier the fees that were collected were approved by the fee schedule. [BoCC] 15:04:48 That was adopted consistent with the Jefferson County. One thing that I do want to talk about a little bit about is that what I'm hearing the board before, we talked about food truck inspections Since then, a little bit of information has come forward. So they've actually added in the 2021 IFC, the International Fire Fed. And I've actually added mobile food trucks to that. I understand that that was [BoCC] 15:05:15 I believe that the conversation that we had at the time was that they were incubator for small business. We're trying to do it. We were trying not to be a barrier to those type of establishments but I don't know that we can… [BoCC] 15:05:30 Maintain that or exempt them at this point. But I'd love to hear the board's input about it and if there's an alternative or anything like that. I mean, I'm all ears. [BoCC] 15:05:39 But it is something that has been written into the fire life safety code at this point. And then we talked a little bit about the inspections that we have. [BoCC] 15:05:48 The zip code and why we started where we started. So are there any questions that are there any questions that I'm just, as you're talking, I'm just looking up and grant programs available for rural businesses to support. Do you know if any [BoCC] 15:06:06 Research has been done on grants that businesses could take advantage of or is that worth doing? [BoCC] 15:06:12 Just recently, I sat down with patty schmucker from the ABC, and we started talking about that a little bit, you know, to talk about it I don't know of any grant programs specifically for the life safety inspections. A lot of these are required by insurance anyway. Over the years, a lot of the, like we were in a recent establishment, a food establishment. [BoCC] 15:06:34 That had to put a new hood and duct system in. [BoCC] 15:06:38 They opted to do it because their insurance wouldn't assure them otherwise because they were out of date. [BoCC] 15:06:44 This particular one, it was about $60,000. It is an expensive system. They had to do some upgrades to the building as well because it was a flat roof, so they had to do some reinforcing of the roof and everything. [BoCC] 15:06:54 For this new system. So there are um implications or costs to some of these things. But again, that was interest driven in the past. It's just going to come from a different direction at this point, but still the goal is still the same. [BoCC] 15:07:11 It looks like the USDA Rural Development and FEMA might be places to look. [BoCC] 15:07:17 Maybe not right now. Right, maybe not right now. And then there's a fire rescue program that has some legislative based funding. So it might be worth looking into. [BoCC] 15:07:27 For sure. No, thank you for that. We will take a look into that and it's you know um I mean, I guess… Commissioner, what are you thinking are you thinking from like the violations that we find or the corrections to them are you thinking about [BoCC] 15:07:41 $294 that we're going to charge for the program. I mean the corrections. Yeah, to support people to be able to make the corrections that you recommend, especially if they're above a certain level, you know, things that might shut a business down if otherwise, if they can't afford it. [BoCC] 15:08:00 Yeah, you know, we have a program out of public health where we subsidize septic improvements for low income folks yeah i know when I was part of the main street program we set up the light at the end of the tunnel fund, which was a revolving loan. [BoCC] 15:08:21 Low interest loan program that allowed businesses that could prove that they're viable otherwise. [BoCC] 15:08:28 That we're not just subsidizing a business that's going to fall apart anyway. But once they can prove that, that they can have access to these funds, even at a low interest rate and so a revolving loan fund is a potential And what I'm thinking too is the program is probably similar in design to the CPACER program. They would allow some of those things that, you know, could happen over a period of time and, you know, again, like a subsidized style program. So, I mean, there's [BoCC] 15:08:58 We have a similar model for something like that. I haven't pursued any of that type of program previously, but that's a good idea. We'll definitely look into it. I'll connect with Mr. Butler and see if we can uh how he got all the information that he did to start his program. It could be a possibility. Yeah, sometimes you can find dollars that can see a revolving loan program like that. [BoCC] 15:09:24 Or you can find grant dollars that will actually just pay the business owner to do the upgrade. [BoCC] 15:09:29 But I'm not saying it's out there for sure, but I'm just Googling it. There are several potential options that I can see on my screen. As several insurance companies, if they don't require these type of inspections. [BoCC] 15:09:41 Give you discounts for having them if you can prove that you had your regular servicing of your fire equipment or whatever like that. And, you know, there was an entity that was actually overseeing that type of a thing, you do get a rebate, you get a reduction on a premium. That's great. [BoCC] 15:09:55 I wonder with the food trucks, it is a barrier. And it required of the food trucks, they all have to have a commercial kitchen as well, right? So any food truck gets twice as many annual inspections as your average restaurant. It would get the same as a restaurant if you think about it. So you're just going to charge them the one time for the commercial kitchen and for the food truck? [BoCC] 15:10:16 I see what you're saying. You're saying they're the same I mean, you have to have a separate commercial kitchen to get a permitted food truck. [BoCC] 15:10:23 So a commercial kitchen is going to require the commercial inspection and the life safety on the truck itself both yeah the commercial kitchen and the truck. So it's kind of we're charging them twice and it's two different things, but maybe there could be a, you know, a reduced fee or something, an hour for a food truck. How long does it take to walk around a food truck? 15 minutes? I mean, I just… Trying to make it so it doesn't create [BoCC] 15:10:45 Additional regulations for these small incubators I think would be worth we can look into that. The other thing that is too is that We are participating in a pilot program across the uh the Washington Association of Fire Marshals, where we have kind of a [BoCC] 15:11:01 A set form that we use for a food truck. And it's used across multiple jurisdictions. So once you get one. [BoCC] 15:11:09 You're good across any of your participating jurisdictions. Exactly. Oh, yeah, that is huge. I know. [BoCC] 15:11:17 That way, you know, everything that comes in here for a weekend event or something like that, if it's already been inspected, like improvement's been inspected, we would honor that inspection. Oh, that's great. So like we require spot inspections of food trucks that are here for events, but you're saying with this co-op kind of model where you get one that you don't need the inspection at the event correct [BoCC] 15:11:38 Yeah, that would be great. If you can show that you've been inspected elsewhere. Just post the inspection results. [BoCC] 15:11:47 Somewhere along the third row. Have it in a binder or whatever. [BoCC] 15:11:52 And that was actually one of the suggestions of Patty at EDC was to have a, you know, similar to your health have like window claims. So something that's similar to like, you know, your health score, you know, when you walk in, we're an A-plus establishment kind of thing, just as a, you know, I've already been inspected, you know, kind of a seal. We're issuing certificates, you know, annual certificates that expire [BoCC] 15:12:13 A year from whenever we do the inspection. But she was suggesting something that was like a little bit something were to display something is a little bit more to what we're doing. [BoCC] 15:12:24 Well, thank you for doing that outreach to EDC, Team Jefferson. I have a great bead on what our businesses need. And I think that shows a great effort on your part to reach out. In full transparency, Patty reached out to me. So thanks to Patty as well. [BoCC] 15:12:46 So this is one of the, you know, this is our PSA, you know, the more you know. And so what this is, is that this is um the way that we're viewing our schedule of how to deal with some of these corrections. You know, these extreme hazards you know locked blocked exits, you know, obviously that needs to be corrected immediately within one hour. The high hazard, moderate and low hazard, you can read what all of them are. I won't warn you with going through the whole thing. So there is a [BoCC] 15:13:14 And this is at the discretion of the inspector as well. So, you know, we want to empower inspectors to get out there and work with these business owners. We're not trying to uh We'd rather provide a carrot than a stick. Sticks are much more flammable. That's true. Absolutely. [BoCC] 15:13:36 So, you know, that's what we want to do. We will do follow-up inspections. You know, we'll give you time to correct it, you know, as long as you can show that you're working toward it or, you know, you've got a quote to get or a date on the board to get your fire system you know if it's OSS, there's out of service. So you have a fire system that's out of service, you have contacted a company you know you're you're working toward that, you have a date in mind, you know, they can't come till next tuesday or something like that. [BoCC] 15:14:01 That we don't have to shut you down, that we can put you on a fire wash, that we can put you on different opportunities and different alternative enforcement, if you will. [BoCC] 15:14:12 You know i just just to add on to what's here in the 10 plus years that I've been doing inspections of commercial establishments, when you start talking about some of the stuff that's needed you know cooking stuff. [BoCC] 15:14:23 They know the regulations, whether they put them off for whatever reason or whatnot. [BoCC] 15:14:29 They're aware of what's really going on. So being able to work with them to go, okay, this is holding a little bit more accountable this week and bring up that bar of safety Yeah, you're also mitigating for you know they they not only do they often know the regulations, they also know their margins and they know what it what it takes [BoCC] 15:14:49 To be able to put food on their tables, right? So in some ways starting down in South County is going to absolutely give a a better insight into what it's going to take to support businesses to be able to be in compliance. [BoCC] 15:15:09 The presentation, one of the Ignite talks at the connectivity summit this last weekend was Department of Public Health's Compassion Project, which has to do with hoarding behaviors, right? And just the successes that they're really seeing around that carrot versus stick model and really supporting [BoCC] 15:15:34 Businesses to come up because ultimately it is about life safety. It's about saving people's lives. And so we should be able to partner on that. There is an underlying another underlying issue with all of this on trying to prevent fire. And there's a large statistical data that shows that a business that catches fire in the kitchen [BoCC] 15:15:53 They're not going to return. That'd be devastating to certain parts of our county. So having that information and understanding why and where along with the statistics we're going to gather on what the majority of the issues are within our county We have one business in Port Towns and a restaurant that caught fire. [BoCC] 15:16:12 And the owner was able to put it back together in nine days, but she put her staff out of business for nine days. [BoCC] 15:16:18 And then had to correct and remove tenants that were above in condos. So the overarching cost of, you know, and it was totally an accident based on the construction of the kitchen at the time but using that information that we have locally and then nationally as an education tool to help promote this stuff. We're trying to keep businesses actually in business so we don't lose our [BoCC] 15:16:42 Or establishment in a rural area lose jobs for people that are actually working. Like I said, it's an underlying, it's another reason why Thank you. [BoCC] 15:16:55 So next slide, please. All right. So next steps is what we have. That's one of my favorite little um diagrams there for the kind of humorous. So what we're looking at is that we're probably going to bring what we'd like to do, what we've been encouraged to do by our legal team is to get a resolution in front of the board to establish this program. [BoCC] 15:17:22 Even though we have a an ordinance and our fees have been adopted by resolution. It's being recommended that we bring a resolution to the board just outlining you know the establishment and the kickoff of this program. [BoCC] 15:17:35 They'll also aid us a little bit with having some public input and just get that much more light on this subject. [BoCC] 15:17:44 Which is great because we're looking for a transparent program. We're not trying to do a gotcha. We're not trying to do any of this. It's just uh I thought that we had taken all the proper routes to get to here. [BoCC] 15:17:55 You know, we've been hearing from the public that you know this is coming out of the blue. So, you know, not what I feel, but if there's more outreach to be had, then great. I mean, we're definitely not going to shy away from it. That's a great attitude. [BoCC] 15:18:09 We're going to continue implementation of the programs, our inspections. What we've done right now is we've kind of pivoted a little bit. [BoCC] 15:18:15 And we're reaching out to those businesses that have reached out to us and have already paid a fee or said, hey, come on down, you know, let's do it. So we're focusing on those rather than, you know. [BoCC] 15:18:26 Really these other businesses that haven't responded to us or, you know, to go into doing, you know, not a surprise business. We told you we're coming, but, you know, not scheduled, I guess. [BoCC] 15:18:36 And just make continued conversations and eventual ordinances linked to the private room and driveway standards, hydrospace requirements, and fire flow requirements you know will uh kind of see how that goes organically if we want to put it in the coordinating water system or if we want to adopt something a little bit different in our code. How do we want to do that you know again [BoCC] 15:18:56 Traditionally, those hydrospacing and fire flow requirements were through the coronary wash system plant. I think that's just because we didn't have any other place to hold them at the time. Don't know if that's the best fit, but love to continue that conversation further and what the best place for that to live is. [BoCC] 15:19:12 And we are going to propose the ILAs for each fire district. So again, what we have going with that is that we have the draft ILA we're trying to use as a template that can be modified to each jurisdiction, each district, if they need something a little bit different than what we have listed there. If they're interested in You know, taking more of a more [BoCC] 15:19:31 More of a role in doing inspections or investigations and definitely welcome that um I can answer that for you. No. But we want to throw it out there. The other thing that is too is that we want to make sure that one of the things that [BoCC] 15:19:45 The criticism that we heard from the district as well was that are we going to charge them to inspect their own facilities? [BoCC] 15:19:52 The answer to that is no. But in order to do that, we wanted to put a clause in the ILA that just said that if you do the inspection, you have the expertise, you have everything like that, and provide us with a report, we'll accept that. We don't have to charge you to inspect each one of your fire district buildings. [BoCC] 15:20:07 That's fair. Yeah. We're on to the next slide. So that is Pretty much it. Shot of the truck there. Beautiful. Let's say, you know, it's our Ford Lightning. We call the lightning rod. [BoCC] 15:20:22 And yeah, charging has been a little bit of an issue, but we're working through it and we're waiting for those chargers to get installed. I'm sure you've seen it out here. [BoCC] 15:20:33 Still uh still uh workshopping a name for it. [BoCC] 15:20:42 That's kind of where we are with everything. Do the commissioners Zoom and have any questions? Everybody looks to me. Question, girl. It's great. We all have questions, but we start with Heather these days. [BoCC] 15:20:59 My question has to do with the fire marshal element. And you actually touched on it a few times throughout your presentation and it has to do with partnerships, the ways in which you partner with our fire districts. [BoCC] 15:21:13 It's just always been strange to me that we have a fire marshal that isn't within one of our fire districts or that isn't a firefighter per se. And so can you just talk a little bit more about how you partner with our fire districts and what that communication is like? And do you feel like there's any room for improvement there or? [BoCC] 15:21:33 Ways that you're kind of continuing to work together to have a, you know, in lockstep kind of relationship. We steal their best staff. I guess we do. So there is a little bit of history there. The county did have an ILA at one time with a local fire districts to put that position, an inspector position if you believe in the fire district, which is what I did for 10 years. Right. [BoCC] 15:21:57 With the development of the Jefferson County Code, developing the fire marshal, it kind of made a little bit of gray area in how we're going to move forward with that, which is the ILA that Phil had talked about. Our ultimate goal is to meet the WSRV standards, the safety standards to do roadway standards so we don't have those paradise incidents where we have one way is and one way out. We need the fire department's help with that. We need their input because they're governing they're looking over their jurisdictions every day. They know what's working and what's not. So hopefully the ILA will work that in that place so we can have that [BoCC] 15:22:29 Teamwork approach to reaching out to all the businesses and establishments within the county. So the ILA is really a next big step to building and growing that relationship and the communication. [BoCC] 15:22:41 And our goal for the ILA was to do it in the first quarter of 2025. We're still looking like we're going to hit that goal. Okay, that's great. [BoCC] 15:22:49 Thank you. I will also add that, you know, previously, I did work for another jurisdiction briefly, Kitsap County. Kitsap County has the same model that we have here, which is a countywide fire marshal. [BoCC] 15:23:04 It's not uncommon. In Clark County, same exact model. Both of them are much larger than Jefferson County, of course. Sure. Scaling is always a challenge. Yeah, 20, 10 times larger, respectively. Yeah. [BoCC] 15:23:20 I just got one question. I didn't see anything on about fireworks on your work plan. [BoCC] 15:23:26 Thanks, Commissioner. You want to talk about lightning. It has come up. It's come up a little bit recently, and I guess I just want to talk As you know, any law takes a year to take effect. We've got a new law that [BoCC] 15:23:42 I think there was better implementation last year. But actually the alignment with fire districts and law enforcement, I think is something that still needs to be improved. So when you were talking about the ILA, like if we're going to stand pat with the firework [BoCC] 15:24:00 Like we have it now, right? Where it's kind of a collaborative decision on whether the conditions allow them or don't allow them really to take proactive action to ban them in a timely way. [BoCC] 15:24:14 Is that going to be part of the ILA with the fire districts and how do you see that continuing to develop? [BoCC] 15:24:19 Currently, there is no language in it that we had in the draft ILA as far as the fire districts because the fire districts I don't think necessarily I think that they appreciate their autonomy in that subject and they'd rather defer to uh [BoCC] 15:24:35 To a central entity. The other thing around that's kind of nice is that, again, having county fire marshal that can speak to the entire county rather than these limited districts. So, you know, when we say something we can, you know, get unified messaging out there and it's across all the fire districts. Also, you know, we've heard that um [BoCC] 15:24:57 When we are issuing our burn bans and our restrictions and things like that. But, you know, other partners such as like the state parks, like those will follow suit with whatever We do. They don't necessarily have to. [BoCC] 15:25:12 They can choose to sign with D&O or do something. They have their own way that they can go about it, but they have chosen to follow in lockstep with whatever we decide. So that's been comforting in those particular Yeah, fireworks, I'd be more than happy to come back and we could do an entire workshop just on fireworks if we wanted to. My question is, I mean, should we consider just the band that, you know, people push all the time and it's at least a declarative and easy to enforce answer. I mean, talking to law enforcement, usually who has been on the enforcement side and it's a really challenging to [BoCC] 15:25:48 Enforce something that's a week old, you know, when people are coming from all over the place, right? Understood. And we did talk about some different messaging and things that we can do, you know, potentially having a some of the highway signs and you know stuff like that. One of the canal bridge and i wanted you know there's three main ways in Jefferson County, so it'll be easy enough to get that messaging out there should we get to that point to where we actually do a full [BoCC] 15:26:12 Bananas. Would be more than willing to entertain all different options for that. So, you know, there's also another, you know, a bit of a hybrid model, if you will, which was that we would have these firework sanctuaries or firework havens where allowed uses under supervision to light off certain things. Small local celebrations. Exactly. The other thing that seems to be a sticking point, you know [BoCC] 15:26:40 Twice a year, you know, for the New Year's and the July holiday. [BoCC] 15:26:47 Seems to be public display is what constitutes a public display and what is just a neighbor who's really enthusiastic and, you know, wants to put on a show. [BoCC] 15:26:57 So it's been something that I think that there is a little bit of a gray area in our code and there's something we could definitely define going forward. But I'm not saying that we're going to solve today. All right. Well, I like to see the department growing. I still think about you not just as the fire marshal, but also the fireworks marshal. Because he needs more jobs. Yeah, only four hats. [BoCC] 15:27:17 Cool. Well, really, it's great to see the department blossoming and finding its way. [BoCC] 15:27:25 Thank you very much. It was all thanks to you folks and uh you know commissioners time with the commissioner support and uh you know uh giving us the resources and the things that we need in order to do these programs, to implement these things. And ultimately. [BoCC] 15:27:40 Make our entire county safer so how is that lightning It's cool. It's a cool truck. I think that the only thing at this point has been just the charging, just figuring out the charging. The infrastructure is coming. So we talk about range anxiety when you buy an EV. A range anxiety is a little more because they only have one place to park. Can I get back. [BoCC] 15:28:02 Yeah, I'll tell you my best range anxiety story someday, right? Okay. It's a good one. [BoCC] 15:28:09 Well, thanks, you guys. Appreciate the work you're doing. Appreciate it. [BoCC] 15:28:18 Straight into the 330. There's also a time to end the item. Two minutes. [BoCC] 15:28:24 I need to go give somebody a hug. And I need to ask for coverage on Thursday if anyone can do the communications coordinator interviews Oh. [BoCC] 15:28:38 Press conference. I can in the afternoon. In your pocket. [BoCC] 15:28:47 We got this. I forgot that. [BoCC] 15:28:57 Thursday the 13th. I'm pretty flexible. I've got an 11 o'clock I'm just going to be on. [BoCC] 15:29:05 Bureaucracy with John Morrow. Oh, nice. They never invited me with that. The first ones are from 9.30 to 11. [BoCC] 15:29:15 The first interview and the second interview is at three That one I could do. You need one person to do both? That would be ideal because then and then there's another one the following week. [BoCC] 15:29:31 On Tuesday at three. We have three candidates for the communications. [BoCC] 15:29:35 Manageable. Yeah, I could do it if I move my morning. Tuesday one? [BoCC] 15:29:43 The Tuesday one is at 3. I could do that. We're not very attentive at the quilting. We're in a coalition meeting, but I have to miss part of that. [BoCC] 15:29:54 You should go to that. We still have one minute, so we're just… I can make them work too. [BoCC] 15:30:01 Awesome. That would be awesome. If you change your mind, all I would need to do is move this meeting with Pete Langley so Just keep me posted. We have three great candidates, by the way. I should really go to the [BoCC] 15:30:18 Yeah, I'm happy to do it. With the governor in Seattle. That's amazing. [BoCC] 15:30:23 All right. Breads. Yes. Exciting. Yes. And pledges are coming in as we're sitting here. That's why I've been over here. [BoCC] 15:30:30 It's pretty exciting. Yes, you should definitely be the person to do that, having worked so hard on it. [BoCC] 15:30:37 Okay, so it is 3.30. And we have a number of our esteemed colleagues here for a workshop on Housing Advocacy Day and Emergency Shelter funding and heather Commissioner Dudley Noette is going to lead this one. I will just kick us off. [BoCC] 15:30:58 Thank you to everyone who was able to scramble. And I think that there probably will be some folks online as well. [BoCC] 15:31:08 What we see obviously in the room are actual providers who are here and that's pretty important for the shelter conversation. And we do have, we were kind of putting together two different shoot fairly different topics here, even though they are all around kind of housing um [BoCC] 15:31:29 So I wanted to just start with the housing and homelessness Advocacy Day conversation first, because I think the majority of our time would want to spend on the emergency shelter topic. [BoCC] 15:31:44 If there are folks in the room that let me just kind of tee this off. And then if there are people who would like to make a comment about Either this coming Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day, which is on Friday, March [BoCC] 15:31:58 14th coming up. It's a full day in Olympia and or really the conversation is worth having about having how we all coalesce. [BoCC] 15:32:10 Around legislative issues. That we think are going to affect housing affordability and homeless housing services, which again, we recognize as Legislatively, they're also going to be quite different oftentimes. There's usually not going to be a bill that's going to address both of those things, but we also recognize that they're interrelated. [BoCC] 15:32:34 And that our community of people who are working on these issues are also fairly interrelated and overlapped. [BoCC] 15:32:43 It was just one more year of this coming up at the last minute, at least onto my radar. [BoCC] 15:32:50 And it feeling like, oh, we're scrambling to see whether we should pull together a coalition of people to show up. [BoCC] 15:32:57 Having a homelessness advocacy day which is which this is a specific advocacy day, lobby day that's run by the Low Income Housing Coalition or Institute. [BoCC] 15:33:15 For all of our all of our counties. So I'm interested to know i'm interested to know those who are in the room Do you feel like it's worth even thinking about now to next session, to sessions upcoming of having [BoCC] 15:33:34 Some kind of more coordinated effort around how we show up in Olympia or in DC for that matter around housing and homelessness related legislation. [BoCC] 15:33:48 So I'm interested in certainly in your feedback about that since you are our legislative representative right now. [BoCC] 15:33:55 And the community's feedback on that. And again, I'll just sort of wrap that up by saying I did get to show up at our housing and homelessness Advocacy Day last year and was the only person from Jefferson County and [BoCC] 15:34:10 And I remember it being a scramble last year. I remember sending out a message. It was actually Liz Revord from the Housing Solutions Network who put it on everybody's radar and said, hey. [BoCC] 15:34:20 People want to go and I happened to be available, but it was last minute and I was the only one available. It was nobody's fault. [BoCC] 15:34:28 And I showed up, but I really did. The power of big groups of people being there, anywhere from 20 to 150 people from various different counties. [BoCC] 15:34:44 And so when you show up and you see that, and we hear in our county over and over and over and over again about all the issues. [BoCC] 15:34:57 That rural places get sidelined when it comes to funding and legislative support. [BoCC] 15:35:06 Then it really starts. To feel like it makes a difference to actually show up in large coalitions and be that representative. [BoCC] 15:35:16 What do you think about? Especially if your legislators sit on funding committees or policy committees where they can actually put in place some of the policies that we're seeking. [BoCC] 15:35:28 I would say first that i would say first there are lobby days almost every day in Olympia on different interviews. So we could have coalitions of jefferson county passionate people about every issue attend a lobby day. I feel like housing is [BoCC] 15:35:45 A top issue in Olympia and here. And I hear that across the county family So I think putting extra energy into the housing issue as a community makes a lot of sense. [BoCC] 15:36:02 I mean, it's one thing for us to show up as commissioners, and I think that has, or city council people, if they're coming from the city And that has a certain amount of weight in that government to government conversation but [BoCC] 15:36:16 I saw In this case, it is much more powerful to have residents and representatives from from organizations that are providing services, whatever is the relevant sort of representative And it is really powerful to have numbers of people. [BoCC] 15:36:37 So, um. And I think probably everyone in this room has been an Olympia advocating for certain things over our careers. [BoCC] 15:36:46 So I don't think this is news to anyone here. But the question to me to workshop is. [BoCC] 15:36:52 How best to do that. Does that come from the county or does it come from sort of issue specific organizations like Housing Solutions Network or Jefferson Community Foundation. [BoCC] 15:37:06 I don't know if we want to have an opportunity for people to provide any thoughts about this first. [BoCC] 15:37:13 And then could talk some more about it. So. [BoCC] 15:37:17 Do I run this or do you run it? Chair in terms of opening to public comment. Oh, I can open to public comment yeah I'm assuming we only have a small number of people in the room, but we might have a number more online. [BoCC] 15:37:32 It's just tough. Just this topic. We are very interested in in collaborating with you all on how we move forward So you're talking about housing advocacy day. Do you also want to tee up their emergency shelter funding conversation? Sure. Yes. Because what we discussed earlier was [BoCC] 15:37:50 When folks come up, instead of having like a three minute set period of time to talk that we would have like a five minute period of time because it feels like it's a bigger issue than three minutes might allow. But you mentioned wanting to tee up. [BoCC] 15:38:05 Yeah, so I, yeah, sure. I will do that. I think she was thinking about separate opportunities for making public comment but Right. Because typically in this format, each person only has one chance to talk. Okay, so you want to just do emergency housing advocacy day first and then okay i wouldn't like to. Okay. Okay. Amenable to the chair. Yeah. [BoCC] 15:38:24 So the first thing we're going to talk about is the question that Heather just posed of how do we best show up And Olympia as advocates for housing. And I will just say My role in Olympia is really to serve as our [BoCC] 15:38:38 Liaison with the Washington Association of Counties. That said, they have a number of housing bills they've been tracking. [BoCC] 15:38:45 None of the bills they're tracking are emergency shelter bills. So why I thought this was an interesting conversation to have is that the housing issue is much broader than what say Wasac might be tracking in a legislative session. [BoCC] 15:39:01 So I feel like we should have our own strategy as a community about how we show up at Housing Advocacy Day and I would love to know from that group, that affinity group. [BoCC] 15:39:16 What else I should be talking to our legislators about when I'm in there talking to them about the Wasac bills? [BoCC] 15:39:22 In the case of this year, there's bills in there that are moving along and doing, they're in a healthy position on like allowing for an ADU outside of urban areas. We already do that. So I'm like, we're already doing a lot of the things that [BoCC] 15:39:38 Wasac is proposing to the legislature through these bills. And so I feel like That's another reason that we should have a more generative housing advocacy platform conversation before each session. That said, this every two years is a biennial budget year [BoCC] 15:39:56 And so this year is the budget year. So I would say every two years, it's going to be a more robust effort. And I'm imagining that these advocacy groups that are going to Olympia are primarily going on those two year cycles. [BoCC] 15:40:08 Unless there's a policy bill that's got a lot of energy around it. [BoCC] 15:40:15 I know homeless and homeless and Housing Advocacy Day. [BoCC] 15:40:21 Is every year. And so this Washington low income housing alliance establishes, and I sent this out to anybody who got to open their emails this morning with the link to their website and their legislative priorities. [BoCC] 15:40:37 So it really just further emphasized to me that this isn't just a one-time show up in Olympia on the day that they say It's really getting ahead of it so that we can be feeding them, hey, here's the issues that we care about. We really want you to [BoCC] 15:40:55 Set as your priority, things that include things that we care about, right? So that's really a year all year long kind of effort and and maybe prior to session starting to understand when do they set their priorities. [BoCC] 15:41:11 When did they decide what they're going to get behind? And how many rural community voices do they have on their policy setting? [BoCC] 15:41:20 Teams right it is it is a full year process. I do this work in the conservation world. I go to Olympia for the conservation lobby days. I just did that. So, you know, it is a full year process and setting the priorities and getting the bills drafted and finding sponsors for the bills and working the bills through the legislative process. You're right. It is a full year process. [BoCC] 15:41:44 And if there is a lobby day every year, then that's the schedule. It's every year. Every year. [BoCC] 15:41:51 So, you know, getting together to talk about How do we pull together those priorities? How do we teach people how to get in front of their legislators? How do we show up? [BoCC] 15:42:04 For this process, it's something I'm interested in. I feel like we're just talking. So we would love to hear on the first topic on the idea of advocacy around housing issues what you guys And I'm looking at our add one more thing just to add more [BoCC] 15:42:19 I thought that was the basis of all of this. And I hope I prepared you enough to kind of be thinking about what you might say, but I also don't want to put you on the spot. So if If all we get out of this moment here before we move on to emergency shelter is the idea that even if you are willing to come and say, Heather, I think this is hooey, that's ridiculous. We don't need this. [BoCC] 15:42:50 That's okay too. I'm interested in putting some energy behind this, both on the housing affordability side and the homeless housing and shelter and all of the additional means we need. [BoCC] 15:43:05 There, but not if it's not something that people want. I'm going to check some emails here too. I can see that um jim cold house just sent it. Okay, so we've got somebody in the Zoom room with their hand up. Great. [BoCC] 15:43:20 So let's ask our colleagues in the room first, though, if you guys have thoughts on this advocacy day. Let's just let this be more of a conversation. Yeah. [BoCC] 15:43:31 So let's just allocate like, you know, seven minutes maybe for the conversation and see if that gets us through it. That's great. Thank you. And we'll um Let's bring Gary into the room, Gary Keister. [BoCC] 15:43:44 Have Gary turn his camera on his microphone and he'll be with us too for the conversation. [BoCC] 15:43:53 Do you want us to start? Yeah. Well, I would say I agree 100% that it's important we show up for advocacy days for victim services. [BoCC] 15:44:04 It does require prep. So I was glad to hear you say that yeah to teach people how you have to I think it takes at least six weeks to a month to get your appointment with your legislators. [BoCC] 15:44:18 And I think knowing what bills they are working on is really important because what I've learned is representatives like you said, they see so many people so having something to give them To remind them, you know, to bring it to their attention [BoCC] 15:44:35 Doing that conversation group before where you can do some role playing and some talking and Like that's how we did it in the past. I think having rural communities show up is important. [BoCC] 15:44:49 Bringing, we take actual people who are survivors, which has an impact. [BoCC] 15:44:54 But they definitely need prank. So they kind of know what they're walking into because you know you get about 10 minutes, 15 minutes if you're lucky about right because they're so busy. So getting to the point And one of the interesting things that we've learned is how to bring them back to topic [BoCC] 15:45:14 Because legislators are good at going off topic and don't be the same. I thought that was an interesting skill to learn. [BoCC] 15:45:21 But I would love to see us have some sort of a group, like Greg said so we're Because it's important to have a joint voice. Yes. So we all go in with a joint voice, you know, like a similar and that would require some prep time and [BoCC] 15:45:36 Dubhouse would absolutely love that. That's great. It's really important to do that. I want to say, because there's a number of other people online who I think should be part of this conversation if they're interested, we are having a conversation as part of this agenda item right now about the idea of a housing advocacy day in Olympia. [BoCC] 15:45:53 Where we organize our Jefferson County contingent to go down and talk to our elected officials about housing. If there are people other than Gary who's already in the Zoom room with us. [BoCC] 15:46:04 Who'd like to be brought into the Zoom room to be part of this conversation, we also have a number of housing providers in the room with us. [BoCC] 15:46:13 Physically. So is there anyone else online who would like to be brought over? Please use the raise hand button at the bottom of your Zoom screen. [BoCC] 15:46:21 And while folks are raising their hand, also just reiterate This particular housing and homeless advocacy day on March 14th does exactly what you're saying. The format of it, or at least was last year, you show up, it's an all day, pretty much all day thing. You show up in the morning, gather all together. They do kind of like a kickoff speech where everybody, you know, they kind of get everybody all excited and then and remind everybody what bills we're focusing on. They do some presentations about those bills a little [BoCC] 15:46:53 Bit of training in a very large group setting. And then they have you break off. [BoCC] 15:46:59 To your individual groups. This is the moment at which I realized I was the only person there from Jefferson County because I was supposed to go to this room and meet my cohort, right? And no one, I like. [BoCC] 15:47:10 Looking around. So I went and found clallum County instead. And there were four people from Clallum County and I got to walk around with them. So we, as a cohort then sit down and strategize. They give you about, I think, an hour to sit down and strategize. They give you the talking point sheets that you were talking about. They're all bulleted out. So this particular day is quite organized. [BoCC] 15:47:35 No, we can do our own organized days as well. And it's also good to take advantage of the ones that are organized by other groups like this one. [BoCC] 15:47:45 Well, you never know what you're going to learn from the other people too, right? Exactly. And I think then the follow-up, I think one of you said, you know, it's an all year. So then you have to have somebody who continues like where's that middle left? [BoCC] 15:47:56 I mean, we're in the process of doing that with victim services right now. Like, where's the different bills at? [BoCC] 15:48:01 Who do we say thank you to? Who do we say hello? And so it's a long process, but I think it's important and it's also a real empowering and educational process. At least I found for me i've learned a lot [BoCC] 15:48:18 By doing that, like, oh, it's possible, what's not. And then the other thing that we do, that our coalition helps us do is they hand us self-addressed thank you letters so we can send them to our whoever met with us. Because it's just one more way of getting in front of them and also acknowledging the work they do. And I think those little pieces are important. Thank you. Yeah, it's a great example and [BoCC] 15:48:42 It is really empowering. It is one of those ways that people, residents in our community can get engaged in something that they really care about and really see that you have access to make a difference. [BoCC] 15:48:56 In state and local policy. And this is the part of the process. This is part of how you know what it takes. [BoCC] 15:49:04 It is nerve wracking. It's a little scary the first time you do it, but over time you learn how to do it just like anything else. It's a skill set that we can practice together. [BoCC] 15:49:14 Anyone else have anything they want to? Oh, I just want to piggyback. And I also think that it's a really wonderful idea to get a coalition together. [BoCC] 15:49:22 From Jefferson County and specific to housing. Guess where my brain goes is I go into like how is this going to work Already? Like who's going to take the lead it's going to take a year at least to gather the people. It's not going to happen by Friday. I can see an opportunity to bring residents of [BoCC] 15:49:43 Our affordable housing units to the table. I think there's a residence council at Seventh haven now so really doing that outreach to the other groups who might have a vested interest in going and lobbying and then finding an agency or a person that is going to spearhead it or take that leadership role. And then also I start thinking about who's going to pay for everybody to get down there. [BoCC] 15:50:09 If we have people with lived experience who's not going to be a volunteer opportunity for them or a paid opportunity for them. Very good question. Those are all the things to consider. [BoCC] 15:50:19 And I think it is important that we represent, especially since our county is in such a kind of a position in housing and emergency shelter that now is the time To get together. Yeah. And it is potentially divided into these two separate lanes too. And I did get to talk with Liz Revord at the community or the connectivity summit over the weekend about this. And I think she was really interested in the idea of potentially using Housing Solutions Network as a sort of [BoCC] 15:50:53 A train you know a format for convening and training people how to do this. [BoCC] 15:50:57 And of course, they would want to focus on the affordability related bills. [BoCC] 15:51:03 Whereas maybe it's, you know, we reactivate the community connections subcommittee of the housing fund board, even though that's kind of yeah make it a ledge committee or whatever and um so that's worth, I want to use a goodly amount of our time to talk about shelter as well. Any more thoughts on this lobby day from online to Gary or laurie? [BoCC] 15:51:28 Do you guys have any thoughts about doing a collective lobby day about housing in Olympia? [gkeister] 15:51:34 Well, of course, housing is such a wide spectrum. I really believe two things. We have to have a strategy. We have to do a lot of pre-planning and we need to really determine which part of housing we want to advocate for rather than just housing in general. [gkeister] 15:51:50 That's all I have. [BoCC] 15:51:52 Yeah, very good point. And to that i think It maybe needs to be multiple efforts and that you know that both those things, affordability issues and issues homeless and co-occurring support needs like behavioral health needs. Those are probably need two different groups. One thought I have about logistics [Lori Fleming, JeffCo BHC] 15:51:54 And I'm… [BoCC] 15:52:20 Is that if this group is going to organize a lobby day every year, it might be good to go in with them because they'll organize a lot of those logistics. [BoCC] 15:52:28 When we show up with our issues in our group and get a room to talk amongst ourselves in, I mean, that feels You bet more efficient to me and more efficient Right. And then look for other ways, other either organizations that are already doing lobby days around more like behavioral health issues or around [BoCC] 15:52:51 You know, emergency shelter and permanent supportive housing and you have you know certain groups that are working on domestic violence and general crime. [BoCC] 15:52:58 Related issues. So I do feel like finding those not reinventing the wheel but finding those organized groups that are already doing this. I don't know, Laurie, if you know about groups that are already organizing to talk about legislative issues relative to behavioral health issues, but that's some place to look as well. [Lori Fleming, JeffCo BHC] 15:53:21 So what I was going to say is, of course, this whole housing certainly the how it relates to the behavioral health system and having somebody in housing is a fundamental thing that needs to happen in order for them to get on their pathway. [Lori Fleming, JeffCo BHC] 15:53:36 This is a topic that I would be happy to bring to the BHC table. It isn't one that we have a galvanized approach to going down and advocating in Olympia. [Lori Fleming, JeffCo BHC] 15:53:48 I think certainly at the regional level there might be. Things that I am unaware of that are happening. [Lori Fleming, JeffCo BHC] 15:53:54 I think I just wanted to quickly say we certainly can bring this conversation and exploration to the table at the next BHC meeting. [BoCC] 15:54:01 Yeah, I love that. And if anybody doesn't know the BHC, that's the Behavioral Health Coalition. Consortium. Sorry. Yes, thank you. I'm actually on that consortium. [BoCC] 15:54:13 Jim Novelli is here also from Discovery Behavioral Health Care. Part of that table. We also have Salish Behavioral Health Administrative Services Organization that I'm sure is aware of regional legislative efforts. So we coordinate with them. So I think this is a big yes okay and so are you maybe not for friday i mean that's the no no yeah not for friday so friday specifically i will continue to talk to Liz Revord. That is, if you look at homeless and [BoCC] 15:54:50 Homelessness and Housing Advocacy Day. They are pretty focused on on affordability legislation. So I'm going to continue just one more little push through housing solutions network to see if they want to pull together a group. We may be able to get some folks down there. And if not, again, I just wanted to use this as a [BoCC] 15:55:10 Hey, it's come up again and we're caught unawares again. This is how we don't get people down to Olympia from rural areas. So how about if we do it a little bit differently? [BoCC] 15:55:20 Julia, is that a hand? Yeah, it's a hand. I usually go on Poverty Action Day, which is Martin Luther King Day. I did not this year because of health reasons. I'm usually the only one from Jefferson County. There you go. [BoCC] 15:55:33 And sometimes the only one from the peninsula. But two of the things that they're advocating for this year is to prevent cuts to homeless services by investing 253 million in the operating budget. [BoCC] 15:55:45 This is Lehi. This is their thing. And protecting the rights of people experiencing homelessness from like getting arrested for being homeless, which is real in a lot of the state, yes, the criminalizing. So anyway, you know, I think that [BoCC] 15:56:01 Yes, please advocate for these things. And next year, I would be happy to join you guys. Okay. And I would just maybe and Jim Novelli has his hand up, so maybe we can let Jim have a word, but I will say that [BoCC] 15:56:18 You can email me after this, and I would like to help coalesce all of this. I don't need to lead it all. I just want to kind of help to move this conversation forward and see, you know, are there [BoCC] 15:56:33 Three or four areas or so are there one or two areas that we want to try to build coalition around in terms of legislative support. So I'm on board for that. [BoCC] 15:56:44 Jim, do you have a comment on this topic? [Jim Novelli] 15:56:46 Yeah, I just wanted to touch base. You had asked about you know kind of joining in behavioral health. I'm a board member of the Washington Council for Behavioral Health. [Jim Novelli] 15:56:55 And we do advocacy days like we just did it this February. We go down. [Jim Novelli] 15:56:59 And actually, Peninsula Behavioral Health, the CEO from there, West End and myself usually are all down there and we go meet with our representatives from this area as a group as the three of us. [Jim Novelli] 15:57:09 And we go in there and kind of talk about what we think is important. The Washington Council actually does a lot of work throughout the year with our lobbyists. [Jim Novelli] 15:57:16 And sets up priorities and talking points. And I just sent a letter down to Theron June, got a response about Please don't cut Medicaid rates. Got a nice polite, maybe we… we won't be able to do that probably. But anyhow, I just see how I can weave that in, dovetail some of the housing stuff into our behavioral health discussion. [BoCC] 15:57:32 Maybe. [Jim Novelli] 15:57:37 Because it's important for us to having appropriate housing for people that have behavioral health issues and um Especially, we see the disappearance of transitional housing. [Jim Novelli] 15:57:47 There's just about non-existent anymore. And that's just something that really, I think is more is helpful. And it's really hard to get somebody started in permanent supportive unless they've had a kind of a running start, as they would put it. [BoCC] 15:58:00 Well, that is a perfect segue into our next topic. So that's perfect. [Jim Novelli] 15:58:00 That's some of our priorities yeah [BoCC] 15:58:06 I feel like just that. We've made so much progress together. [Jim Novelli] 15:58:06 Yep. [BoCC] 15:58:11 Over the last few years of connecting and really making sure that we're starting to work together more closely. And I just see this as another way for us to do that. Maybe we kind of do a collective training. Everybody who wants to work on these legislative issues in this realm, we can all train do the trainings together, share that kind of time and resource, but then each group kind of goes off and [BoCC] 15:58:37 Gathers their own group around either behavioral health issues or transitional and permanent supportive or or affordable housing, that kind of thing. So thank you for anybody have any last comments they want to throw into this topic before we move on to the next one? [BoCC] 15:58:56 Okay. So again, I'll just kind of tee this one up which is related but quite different as we know. And that has to do with our our immediate need in this community for emergency shelter and all the different kinds of emergency shelter. [BoCC] 15:59:15 That are currently being provided. I will say that I know this conversation is going to want to go in and probably should capture a little context around what we want to see. [BoCC] 15:59:29 In emergency shelter down the line. I'm just going to, in the interest of time, I think we have an emergent need right now. And of course, that was started by the public comment that several people from Dove House very astutely made at the February 26 Housing Fund Board meeting, indicating that they needed a mid-cycle request [BoCC] 15:59:50 For funds to replace previously received and anticipated funds to maintain operations of their emergency shelter, which is serving women and children. So we have an immediate need. We also know that we have an immediate need for continuing shelter at the Jefferson County Emergency Shelter with [BoCC] 16:00:08 The need for that to transition this year. So we felt like this was just a good opportunity to get the sort of the overarching, what are our current emergency shelters being provided in the community right now. Who's currently providing emergency shelter? We think we know that, but let's just make sure if you're currently providing emergency shelter, are you fully funded? [BoCC] 16:00:36 Or where are your gaps and what funding are you losing? Where was that funding coming from? [BoCC] 16:00:44 So we just want to wrap our minds around all of that right now as a bigger picture. And then to make sure we've captured all of that, if there are additional comments about This is the emergency shelter that our community is desperately missing as well. It would be useful. Is there anything else that you all want to get out of the [BoCC] 16:01:06 I mean, maybe a little framing i would just say that this request originally came to the housing fund board And at the next housing fund board meeting at the end of this month, 26th, I think, we will be looking at the budget. And if there is budget capacity and the recording funds that go into our shelter as well as the 1590, the percentage of that that can be used for operations of dispatch facilities. [BoCC] 16:01:27 It's unlikely. I mean, we were oversubscribed last year and we're not able to fill all the needs then. So it's unlikely that we have more. [BoCC] 16:01:37 So I think these asks that I think we should just listen to and absorb today. [BoCC] 16:01:43 Are we need to look internally like at other revenue sources within the county and within other partners like the city and and you know deficit health care and even unlikely Yeah, we need to look far afield for these files. So there's there's no [BoCC] 16:02:00 Where we're hearing the problem, but there is no solution that is in front of us that is already ready to go. Unless any of our public commenters also want to add potential solutions. So can I just check one thing before we start this conversation? Apple, are you here for this conversation? Yeah. [BoCC] 16:02:16 Monty, you're not here for this conversation, are you? You have something else. [BoCC] 16:02:23 You don't need time on the agenda? Nope. Okay. Okay, I just want to make sure. We have 30 minutes. Thank you. [BoCC] 16:02:32 That's great. So again, it's about like once we start thinking about these creative solutions, we want to make sure we're understanding the whole picture. [BoCC] 16:02:43 So you want to open it up to public comments? Is this good? Yeah. All right. I feel like we need to have more of a conversation and not like That's really great. I didn't know that was even possible. I think it should be. Is that a meeting? Yay. Okay. Okay. I'm learning what we can do. [BoCC] 16:03:03 So I'll start. Peggy webster we can. What we have right now has over two. It has 50 persons living there. Of those six are children. [BoCC] 16:03:17 We… are funded fine for Castle Brown 2 through the balance of the year. Okay. Through the fiscal year or the calendar year and the calendar year yeah calendar year We are working on Castle Ground 3, which is the upper lot [BoCC] 16:03:38 We will have between 10 and 15 tiny shelters up there by June 30 and a congregate building close to the October, November time of year and an entry office entry building we don't have operating funds for those last half of the year now [BoCC] 16:03:59 Six of the months is we're looking at 15, you know, staffing for overseas six of 15 units. And then towards the third fourth quarter it'd be all 31. So the staffing would go up. I do know if it was a full six months, it's $102,000 for staffing, insurance, utilities. [BoCC] 16:04:20 Et cetera. Can I ask if Is there… I don't know. [BoCC] 16:04:27 Scope issues that you can address, just dealing, you know, kind of minimizing staff for that first six months with, you know, you got the 50 people down below. Is this already sharing staff between the two facilities? One shelter manager for everything. Yeah, Terry will take a dog but this is the additional staff we need to be up there and with the overnight shelter, of course, everyone comes in and you have to put them through HMIS. Okay. [BoCC] 16:04:55 Okay. Riley. [BoCC] 16:05:00 And go next, I guess. I tried to follow your rule. Thank you. Suggestions. I was trying to not catch you guys off guard too much. [BoCC] 16:05:12 So I'm Beulah, King Solombert with Dovehouse Shelter. We run the domestic violence shelter in town, which is an emergency shelter, but we're not an overnight shelter. So people move into our place. [BoCC] 16:05:25 And they stay, you know, ideally it's a 90-day shelter um I think our average day right now, last time I looked was, and I didn't look today. [BoCC] 16:05:36 Was about 87 days. We can house up to 21 humans. And I say humans because the way our shelter is set up, it depends on the size of our family. So we could have a family We just had a family with, you know, one mom and four kids. So sometimes it requires two rooms. [BoCC] 16:05:56 To put a larger family in so that lowers our capacity of how many we can have. [BoCC] 16:06:01 And just to clarify, when you say you're not an overnight shelter, do you mean you're not a night by night? Obviously, people stay overnight and stay for 90 days or sometimes longer. Yes. Right. And a lot of our families do stay longer. [BoCC] 16:06:18 Partly because when they get settled into our systems, our schools and they can IEP or whatever they need, it's almost impossible then to move them out in the middle of the school year. So we have some flexibility there on how long they can stay. [BoCC] 16:06:35 And what they do. We also, part of having that shelter is our 24 seven crisis line And that is a requirement of the state for a domestic violence shelter so And the way we get funding for our shelter is through victim services. So there's a lot of requirements that come with us getting this funding. [BoCC] 16:07:00 We're in conversation with the state about if you're going to fund us less what are the requirements less? The problem is nobody can figure out what service would you cut out because without these services we would just be passing it off to someone else, right? So this is the funding that you have lost. Victim services funding from the state of Washington. The services come from the federal government into the state and then the state sends it down through us through the DSHS. [BoCC] 16:07:30 Is how it comes. Funnels through. So that's the funding at this point and then Depending on how much of a cut goes across the state government. [BoCC] 16:07:43 What they told us is to prepare for $78,392 for shelter funds. And that's from july first through the fiscal year, right? So July through June. [BoCC] 16:07:58 The reduction of that much or that's how much you're getting? That's the reduction. The reduction. Yes. [BoCC] 16:08:04 So… That's why when I asked for the board, I was like, well, if we could get half of this from July 1st to December 31st because that's when the grant year starts is January 1st. [BoCC] 16:08:17 About 45,000 would be able to maintain the services we already do. [BoCC] 16:08:24 You know, one of the things you said is what can we cut? Where would we get other funding? [BoCC] 16:08:30 I was talking to gary at the connectivity fair and he was saying, you know, possibly we could ask all the cat for some of the CHG funds. [BoCC] 16:08:39 For shelters, never been successful. I'm not sure that's possible, but I thought I would ask for that. [BoCC] 16:08:47 We are looking at other grants. And we have reached out to some of our foundations, but everybody's asking everybody. So they're looking for that ways to fund that in other ways. Some of our foundations The fund is operational. [BoCC] 16:09:03 We have asked them, we haven't gotten a yes or no from them. I mean, I understand like the timeline for holy cap on their need is like July 1, what's the timeline for your July 1st. So this would start my new grant funding would be July 1st. And that's when the cut's coming. Okay. Right. And Peggy, do you know the consolidated homeless grant application I know is due soon, right? Yeah, in April. So, and is that Viola? Is she leading on that team working on it. Okay. [BoCC] 16:09:37 Yeah. Do you think there's any room for conversation about the emergency shelter? There's a requirement even, I think, for subgrantees, but we have to put together MOUs because we have to have be able to audit and there's a lot of complications but not impossible okay all right absolutely so i mean because consolidated homeless grant is meant specifically for emergency shelter so [BoCC] 16:10:02 Can I ask, it's a good conversation. Maybe 10,000 feet up question. Are any of these funds federal? [BoCC] 16:10:10 Well, so that's the fund that was coming from us was coming from the federals down to DSHS. [BoCC] 16:10:16 Down to us. And that's the money we know is going away, the $78,000. And we also know that last year yeah that some of the consolidated homeless grant dollars that we had previously gotten the year before were replaced with emergency housing funds dollars [BoCC] 16:10:34 That are federal funds. So Viola is going to and and Peggy will be much more up to speed on what the funding mechanisms are through the CHG, through the consolidated homeless grant this year. Any other sort to everybody, any other sources of federal funding What else would take we're guessing [BoCC] 16:10:55 Best case scenario in our whole umbrella agency Best case is 200,000. Worst case is 400,000 for federal funds being calculated across victim services across all of our state. Across dovehouse's victim services. [BoCC] 16:11:13 I guess I would also add that in terms of it's not the shelter aspect but 80% of our rents are paid by pet yes and we'll get marched. [BoCC] 16:11:26 Don't know if we can get anything in April. It would be good to collect all of these federal. It would be funding pieces that are coming to our community so that we're aware how best for them to email it to us. [BoCC] 16:11:42 Yeah, I mean, if maybe Heather, if you want to create a as the note on this topic. [BoCC] 16:11:49 Spreadsheet of little Google sheet or something and share it with me just i mean I'm trying to understand. [BoCC] 16:11:56 Please make it public yeah well it'll if it's emailed between us, it's probably yeah um yeah So can you would providers be willing to email I think you all have my email address, hdudley-Nolat With two L's. M2 D's. [BoCC] 16:12:18 And Ian and at O. Dot. [BoCC] 16:12:23 Jefferson.wa Dot U.S. [BoCC] 16:12:30 And send me What is your federal funding source? [BoCC] 16:12:36 What dollar amount have you been And you just put rough numbers. Yeah, prepared to whatever you know. It's all we can know at this point. Most people aren't really all that clear, right? But what do you think you may be losing [BoCC] 16:12:51 And if it's a range, give me the range. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. The date that you think that will start to impact your organization and what it is funding. [BoCC] 16:13:05 What would be lost without that funding issues or anything other piece of information to follow up with everyone with an email yeah okay And then don't forget that a lot of state funds are federal funds that are passed through the state. [BoCC] 16:13:22 Yeah, so anything Yeah, it might come through just like what you've described. It might come through a state source. [BoCC] 16:13:29 But we know it's coming from the beds. Right. And our state grants break them out for us because that's how we know if we have to have a federal audit or not. [BoCC] 16:13:38 I can pull those pretty easily. That sounds good. And, you know, for looks like Viola has her hand raised, but it um We are also recognizing that one of our vulnerabilities here is that we haven't always known. [BoCC] 16:13:53 Where the federal funds are, right? Which programs are actually funded through federal funds so Silver lining, we're going to start to get a lot clearer about all of that. [BoCC] 16:14:06 Can I just make sure you're specific about housing? We're specific right now about emergency shelter, but I would say if you have if you know Both. Send me both. Just tell me which one's emergency shelter and which one's other programs that you're providing. [BoCC] 16:14:26 Yeah, exactly. [Viola Ware (she/her)] 16:14:27 Hi, if I can, I apologize. I've been working at home off of my surface and it didn't update. So my calendar has been running an hour behind. I was like, oh, I'll hop onto the meeting early. I was like, oh, no. [Viola Ware (she/her)] 16:14:40 So I apologize for that. I do want to clarify a little bit about the funds available in the consolidated homeless grant. [BoCC] 16:14:48 Great, thank you. [Viola Ware (she/her)] 16:14:49 Emergency shelter. Most of the consolidated homeless grant is designated for coordinated entry and rent and eviction prevention. [Viola Ware (she/her)] 16:15:01 If there's extra funds awarded, such as the emergency housing fund, then those are less restricted and can be put towards operations for funding operations in a shelter but usually That ends up augmenting what the operation funds and the rent assistance funds don't make up for. [Viola Ware (she/her)] 16:15:24 And that's usually the area where in assisting Bayside this last year where we pulled from that fund, but that fund itself is not guaranteed. That was one that had to be applied for and petitioned for. Yeah. [BoCC] 16:15:41 Okay, well, know that we have a $45,000 gap at Dove House right now just to the end of the year that we need to take into consideration in all of our applications. [Viola Ware (she/her)] 16:15:54 Yeah, absolutely. We were just starting to kind of look at it. Unfortunately, the grant right now, the renewal is mainly narrative and not so much looking at funds, we can start pulling in. My hope is this week to have a portion of those completed and ready to go and then [Viola Ware (she/her)] 16:16:13 Set meetings with our… our partners like Gary and Dove House and sit down and have a conversation of maybe what you know that the landscape looks like moving forward. [Viola Ware (she/her)] 16:16:26 For sure. Yeah. [BoCC] 16:16:26 That would be fantastic to really just holistically look at our whole shelter system and really see What do we need here? [Viola Ware (she/her)] 16:16:35 Yeah. Yeah. And then just, you know. Sorry. [BoCC] 16:16:35 So Viola, I don't know if you heard, but Peggy represented you well and got to describe Caswell Brown two and three. So that was helpful. [BoCC] 16:16:48 Gary, do you want to talk at all about emergency shelter there at Bayside Tower or any other emergency shelter needs you need to address? [gkeister] 16:16:55 Sure. Yeah. Well, of course, you know that we manage the county overnight shelter. [gkeister] 16:17:03 We have approximately 30 to 32 guests per evening there. Made up of about one-third females and females Two-thirds males. We have pretty well volunteers for meals. [gkeister] 16:17:18 And it seems to be running satisfactorily. We've had a meeting with the Legion last week and they seem to be pleased with the operation. We also have the tower at Bayside at the old alcohol plant. We currently have 44 guests there. [gkeister] 16:17:38 Between senior women and men, veterans And some moms with kids. [gkeister] 16:17:46 And we are not funded for that. Program as compared to the program emergency shelter that the county has funded us. [BoCC] 16:17:55 Okay. Okay. [BoCC] 16:17:59 So you have no funding for that right now through and just finding it with your your donor base. [gkeister] 16:18:06 Correct. It's a challenging time. And I can just say that my conversation with uh Congress has been that has been the grants are being re-reviewed in Washington. [gkeister] 16:18:19 For whatever that means. So it's a very chaotic time for everybody. [BoCC] 16:18:24 Sure is. Julia, do you have a comment? [BoCC] 16:18:29 As the mouse in the room, yes. As these things collapse. [BoCC] 16:18:37 And as the possibility of those of us who survive on Social Security have bumps that may land some of us in homelessness. [BoCC] 16:18:47 What the welcoming center does is essential. There needs to be somewhere for people to go. [BoCC] 16:18:53 We're not a shelter, but we do feed people. They do sleep. We have two people who sleep most of every moment we're open. They come in and they crash and um I just don't want us to be forgotten because we don't meet the category of shelter. We're not part of HMIS. We're not this. We're not that. We are absolutely essential and [BoCC] 16:19:18 Second time today, urban rest off. It needs to exist. There needs to be an open place for anybody. No ID, don't know their name. They can take a shower. They can wash their clothes and we can throw food at them. [BoCC] 16:19:31 And they get resource, you know, resources and whatever we can offer. [BoCC] 16:19:37 Yeah, I think that it's really, I mean, I think you know I'm a big, very excited about the idea of an urban rest stop and a big advocate for it. By July 1st might be a challenge. [BoCC] 16:19:48 But I think that is something we need to consider in this shelter landscape, right? [BoCC] 16:19:59 Emergency shelter emergency shelter is about low barrier. And I think that's partly why it's important to have our behavioral health partners in this room as well. [BoCC] 16:20:14 Hearing our harm reduction team represented by their boss here apple martine in the room it's part of that larger network that holds a true low barrier system that even our emergency shelters, some degrees of emergency shelter are really not able to provide, right? [BoCC] 16:20:41 And there are this like the success of people needing support in this system really relies on scaffolding an entry point at zero barrier is really critical to success of the overall system. And so I think we have to really start wrapping our minds around [BoCC] 16:21:02 What the funding sources are for that and what the benefits of it are So, you know, as you talk about that, I think it's true. I think we do need to look at that big picture because like Julia said, if one thing closes. [BoCC] 16:21:18 We're going to see a domino effect that's not going to be helpful. [BoCC] 16:21:23 You know we feed a lot of people from the downtown shelter at the cafe So, you know. [BoCC] 16:21:29 As we take cuts, like those are the like it's not one thing that could go down it could be multiples. We feed 45 lunches on average a day at the cafe. So four days a week and they're delicious they are delicious. You know. [BoCC] 16:21:46 Food out in the outside pantries. We stock three free pantries and we cannot keep them stocked with food. So, I mean, there's a lot that's not just people sleeping in the shelters, but all the other pieces. [BoCC] 16:22:01 As you know, we quit doing laundry vouchers because it just That's so expensive. [BoCC] 16:22:08 Yeah, I don't know the answers, but I think we should take time to stop somehow and have a really big conversation around what this all looks like and how we can move forward So we're not just putting band-aids on things. We're really looking at solutions. [BoCC] 16:22:25 Cheryl, do you have something? Yeah, I know Abuel and I were talking earlier this afternoon about, you know, if we need to cut in our shelter services, where do you cut? And then if you cut that. [BoCC] 16:22:35 Then what happens is like you're talking about, there's this domino effect. So if we if we laundry services because it costs us, you know, $15,000 a year to do that. [BoCC] 16:22:46 Then who's going to pick that up? Then where is that going to come from? If we quit providing food to our shelter residents, then where's that need going to be picked up? What other agencies then going to need to fill in that gap? So it's not just a matter of finding where places to cut. It's like, how are those services still going to be provided because those people still exist. [BoCC] 16:23:10 You bet. You know. I don't know if people are feeling ready for that type of conversation. [BoCC] 16:23:18 But I feel like we're ready. I've witnessed how you all have worked together for so many years. I'm looking at you too, Lori. [BoCC] 16:23:27 In the behavioral health realm. And I think we are ready for that kind of conversation. [BoCC] 16:23:34 When we get these kinds of cuts coming down from places that we can't control. [BoCC] 16:23:41 The opportunity for us to reduce redundancies within our own system is really ripe. And I think we have laid enough foundation Over the last several years to start trusting each other a little more with that conversation. We might not be 100% there. [BoCC] 16:23:59 In the trust realm, but I think we're getting close enough that we could have that conversation and really start looking at where can we save by not reinventing where can we reinventing cede some work to another organization and take on a piece so that we're not [BoCC] 16:24:21 Adding redundant systems. I would love to facilitate a conversation like that. Heather, can I just… We have a very important representative in the room, Apple, our public health director. And I'm just wondering, we have five minutes left. [BoCC] 16:24:35 I'm just wondering if you have anything you want to add to this conversation or questions you have for all of our guests or I don't know where we're at with the different buckets of funding that we're working on. [BoCC] 16:24:47 And I also don't know because I'm not as in your wheelhouse anymore what you're hearing from the state and federal funding situation. [BoCC] 16:25:00 We're all in our different sort of fields of expertise seeing cuts, especially from the federal level. And then we're seeing a tightening across all state agencies. [BoCC] 16:25:10 Certain grants are going away, certain applications that are in the queue are being decommissioned so they're not even going to get approved and then denied for the funding. They're just not even going to be reviewed at this point. So we're feeling that in public health too. It's a lot of pressure on me to sum this up now and we're not expecting that. I am listening to everyone. [BoCC] 16:25:32 I do think you make a really good point, Heather, that our community and all of the service providers, we know each other well. We work together. It's not always been easy. There is always room to build more trust. [BoCC] 16:25:45 The landscape is vastile and it's also tense and we're in a particularly tense fulcrum right now, not just locally in all the dealings that we're engaged in anyway, but then the added pressures from the changes of leadership at the state and also the federal [BoCC] 16:26:02 Places where our funds come from. Public health is not by and large funded by federal funds. In fact, by and large federal funded by state funds that are out of the state legislature more currently. [BoCC] 16:26:14 That's the foundational public health services. And we have a tiny bit of that a repertoire of money that's dedicated to homelessness engagement from a public health lens. And as you all know, and I've said it many times our lens [BoCC] 16:26:29 Is often really specific to disease mitigation. And I know that's not a very sexy topic. It's also difficult to kind of socialize that as an MO. [BoCC] 16:26:38 Because it's hard to get, it forces you to have to think down at a minute level. [BoCC] 16:26:43 But it really is the basis of how we engage the public and the communities is how do we keep them safer and and healthier, we mitigate disease. So even though we have a smaller currently kind of repertoire with regard to homelessness and emergency sheltering, we're involved in a multitude of ways. [BoCC] 16:27:03 And i think What I'm hearing is that i'm hearing is We're at a critical juncture to coalesce in this time and space what the next meaningful action can be. We've got everybody showing up. [BoCC] 16:27:17 I mean, I'm at the Shelter coalition meetings every two weeks. It's dynamic. We've got things to solve. It's not always pleasant because we've got hiccups along the way and things to overcome, like where's the funding going to come from and that kind of thing. But with regard to the urban rest stop, I mean, you socialize that idea not that long ago and it's gotten a lot of traction and it has a lot of meaning. Is it the answer? There's not one answer, right? [BoCC] 16:27:42 Where can we plug in what we do have? To maybe try some new things. Where can we, let's say, for instance, hypothetically there's some opioid settlement funds, perhaps, maybe a lump sum that starts the brick and mortar place where an urban restaurant could be. And then we have, say, for instance. [BoCC] 16:28:02 And Laurie, not to put you on the spot, but perhaps the Behavioral Health Consortium table has a bunch of lead agencies in different sectors who could come together and help braid in to support the inner workings of, say, an urban restaurant. Now that speaks to one channel of need, which is hygiene and health and a place. [BoCC] 16:28:23 To come that's not um that has no barriers You don't have to show an ID. You don't have to be from a certain program. You don't have to do a certain intake form in order to be eligible. And I do think you're right that [BoCC] 16:28:36 No barrier first stop, say the work welcoming center even. Is the stepping stone to the next things, whether it's supported housing or it's getting into treatment or Or what have you. I think there's some I think there's a possibility for that. What I worry about is that when certain funds [BoCC] 16:28:59 Either go away or we're in a phase where they're going to go away The alternative is not that we're suddenly going to find other sources that are more stable. [BoCC] 16:29:08 I mean, my feeling in this entire profession is that none of the funding is stable yeah not ever So tempering our expectations is really what's important to me yeah you know the prize would be that In this landscape where these cuts are coming that maybe we didn't anticipate three years ago. [BoCC] 16:29:29 That there would be some other channel for funding that could help really add the tide and be sustainable for many years to come. That's kind of that's a pipe dream. [BoCC] 16:29:40 So I still think even though it can feel piecemeal with lots of different smaller buckets put together, I still think that that is a reasonable strategy and it might be the only strategy we Where we have one big cut, say an emergency shelter like at Dove House, maybe we are able to get [BoCC] 16:29:59 $40,000 to tie that over from a source. That's maybe only for the next year though right um So I guess my point is, is that if we know that it's constant ebb and flow. [BoCC] 16:30:12 We shouldn't be looking for the prize. We can do just as well by working more strongly together to put pieces in to make the idea work. If it's the urban restock. Let me show the chat. Julia said her staff would staff it. We have a harm reduction dollars that need to go for us to give the services, but maybe harm reduction would be part of that so that we can align some of those funds to collaborate. [BoCC] 16:30:41 I can see a lot of different entities being helpful in an effort like that. But again, it's not the answer. It's just one part of the puzzle. Well, it is 430 and I believe we have to close the courthouse at 4.30. So I just want to thank everybody so much. And I will say, sorry, we can't get to any more comments right now, but I will say that I am so on board for continuing this conversation. So as you send to me your thoughts about what [BoCC] 16:31:11 Funding you anticipate you might be missing. And I would invite Jim and Nivelli if you have funding pots that you know you're anticipating. We really want to know about that and kind of get the full spectrum of what is happening and then maybe through that communication, we can find ways to continue this conversation and maybe run with some of these ideas that are coming up. [BoCC] 16:31:35 Today. So Lori just put a good comment in the chat saying that it might be worthwhile to get our faith-based supporters. [BoCC] 16:31:42 As part of this roundtable. I think that's a great idea so that we're the incredible leaving that religious face-to-face meetings. It's getting smaller and smaller like coast is shutting down and maybe going to distribute some funds but that is other groups are starting to come together. I know there's a Buddhist Sangha that's really growing right now. Are we going to have a follow-up conversation [Viola Ware (she/her)] 16:32:03 I'm… [BoCC] 16:32:05 Well, we're talking about having fun board. That might be the next. Okay. Yeah, that's a good idea. And then I'll work with this group to kind of set up