[0:01] Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the weekly agenda meeting for the Board of Yakima County Commissioners. Today is Tuesday, September 22nd, 2026, and even though yesterday I informed the group that it was the start of fall, actually, today is the start of fall. So sorry to lead you yesterday. I'll now call the meeting to order. President, today we have Commissioner Curtis, myself, Commissioner Lindy, and Commissioner McKinney is excused this morning. We also have Julie Lawrence Clerk of the Board.

[0:30] Dan Clark representing Corporate Council along with other guests and staff.

[0:35] So welcome to all.

[0:37] We'd like to begin today by asking those in person to please join us in standing for

[0:42] the Pledge of Allegiance.

[0:43] I

[0:47] pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for

[0:52] which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[1:04] All right.

[1:05] Thank you.

[1:06] Next up is our public comment portion of the meeting and you'll see that Julie has put up the basic parameters surrounding public comment.

[1:14] The one thing I'll just mention is that we do have a three minute time limit.

[1:17] Let me go ahead and start with those that are online. If there is anybody online who wishes to make public comment, please go ahead and raise your hand or put your name in the chat and I'd be happy to call on you.

[1:26] Okay,

[1:37] not seeing e-takers online, so is there anybody in person who wishes to make public comment, okay, please go ahead see to the microphone. I think the make sure the green lights on, but I think it's on and just turned on the green light already. I think she did. Yes, so just give your name and area residents, please.

[1:51] James Liddickson, I'm a resident of Yakima County.

[1:55] I'm here again because of the lack of response from the commissioners, which disappoints me in having no response pushes me to additional responses.

[2:06] It's unfortunate that we find ourselves in these matters, but it seems necessary.

[2:12] I'm going to leave a copy of a letter with Julie when I leave that I've given to Kathy Kramer at State Fair Park.

[2:20] I've also handed it to the office at Mr. Bruce's office this morning as well.

[2:25] This explains to her my next steps and I want you to be understand that in each of my

[2:30] letters that I've sent to you, to Mr. Bruce and to now Miss Kramer, legalize a

[2:36] vent on each of these. And I'm not being told to sit down and shut up yet. I'm not

[2:42] sure where we're headed in this, but it's disappointing that the commissioners

[2:45] continue to give me no response and as we all know, no response is a response. I think

[2:53] it would be very simple for the commissioners, Ms. Kenney, Mr. Brucey, if necessary, or

[2:58] other legal staff from his office sit down and we have a discussion about this to come

[3:02] to some sensible end. But this is not going to go away. So I just have that to say this

[3:09] morning. I'm going to hand this to Julie rather than read the whole thing to you. It's fairly

[3:12] short to the point, but that's my comment for the morning.

[3:16] All right.

[3:16] Very good.

[3:17] Thank you.

[3:19] All right.

[3:20] Is there anybody else here this morning?

[3:21] Wish to make public comment.

[3:24] Okay.

[3:26] Apparently seeing no others.

[3:28] Let's go ahead and go into the consent agenda.

[3:30] I wish your courtesy.

[3:31] Any items that you wish to see table removed?

[3:33] No, I just for me.

[3:34] Commissioner.

[3:35] Okay.

[3:35] Nothing for me either.

[3:36] So I'll go ahead and ask the clerk to read the consent agenda in the record.

[3:39] Commissioners, for your consent today are the following auditor payroll warrant certification

[3:44] issue date August 16 through August 30, 1st, 2026. Accounts feeable warrant approval

[3:50] issue date September 15, 2026. Commissioner mentioned this September 8, 2026

[3:55] regular agenda meeting. County Rose Resolution 232, 2026 setting a public hearing day to consider

[4:01] changing ordinance 5, 2026 to reduce the speed limit on green valley road from an unposted

[4:07] speed to 45 miles per hour from Midvale Road to Snipes Pump Road for all eastbound and

[4:12] westbound traffic. Resolution 231-2026, setting up public hearing day to consider changing

[4:18] ordinance to 2026 to change the intersection of Old Prasser Highway and Mountain View Road

[4:23] from a two-way stop to an all-way stop to the site distance and safety issues. Resolution

[4:29] 232-2026, selling asset 4809 to Oregon Department of Agriculture. Resolution 233-2026

[4:37] Declaring certain county vehicles and equipment surplus, I'll eat at less than $50,000.

[4:43] Agreement 233-2026, supplement number one to local agency agreement and update the project

[4:48] prospectus for the West Powerhouse Road Improvements Project to authorize right-of-wave funds.

[4:54] Financial Services Agreement 237-2026, certifying the completion and close-out of the community

[4:59] development block grant.

[5:00] Human Resources Resolution 234-2026 editions or deletions to budgeted

[5:06] budgeted positions in Fund 121 County Roads, Fund 125 Public Services Water Resources,

[5:13] Fund 450 Public Services Building and Fire Safety and Department 640 Public Services Planning.

[5:20] Human Services Agreement 235-2026, 2026 Mental Health Sales Tax Contract with Comprehensive Health

[5:26] care for behavioral health and substance use disorder services to Yakima County

[5:31] Therapeutic Court participants. Public Services Resolution 235-2026,

[5:37] revising the solid waste disposal fee schedule for county-operated solid waste facilities,

[5:42] establishing an environmental compliance surcharge and a landfill closure assurance fee,

[5:47] providing for sunset of set assessments upon completion of their intended funding purposes,

[5:51] and providing an effective date.

[5:54] Resolution 236-2026 authorizing the Public Services Water Resources Manager,

[5:59] design amendment number four to the Gap to Gap pre-construction

[6:02] and construction project agreement with the Washington Department of Ecology.

[6:07] Resolution 239-2026 setting a public hearing date to consider adjusting monthly sewer rate

[6:13] for the county-owned and operated view and a wastewater system.

[6:16] Purchasing Resolution 238-2026, Authorizing Advertisement for Bizz for Retirement,

[6:22] Plant Administration, and Record-Keeping Services.

[6:25] Sharing Figurement 234-2026, Authorizing Approval to Purchase 2026,

[6:30] Chevrolet Silverado 2500 Work Truck for Search and Rescue, Mountain Rescue.

[6:36] Technology Services Agreement 236-2026, Contract with Paramount Communications to Repair

[6:42] network line to the view and a water tower. Treasure Resolution 237-2026, a sale of certain

[6:48] tax title properties by Private Negotiation. Agenda items are available to view on the Yakima

[6:54] County's website at www.yakimacounty.us. Agenda items have been reviewed by the Board in a work

[7:00] session prior to today's meeting. Thank you, Julie. I would entertain a motion at this time.

[7:05] Commissioner, I move that we adopt the consent agenda as read into the record.

[7:08] And I'll second that motion. Any further comment?

[7:10] I'll just add that all meetings of the Board of Yakima County commissioners both online and in person are open to the public and anyone attending may request translation and or additional accommodations.

[7:19] Thank you, Commissioner Curtis. All in favor, signify by saying aye.

[7:23] Aye. Motion carries.

[7:25] Well, next up we have the regular agenda which to start off, we have an accounts payable warrant approval for McKinney Glass. I would entertain a motion.

[7:34] Commissioner, I move that we adopt accounts payable warrant for McKinney Glass dated 91526.

[7:39] Are you good?

[7:40] And I'll second that motion.

[7:41] All in favor, signify by saying aye.

[7:44] Aye.

[7:45] All right.

[7:45] Motion carries.

[7:47] Next up, we have a strategic plan presentation by our strategic planners, or actually, I should

[7:55] say, by the head of the strategic plan, effort, uncommon bridges.

[8:00] So, Andres, the floor is yours.

[8:11] Thank you, commissioners.

[8:13] I'm very pleased to be back here in front of you today to present and report back on a close

[8:21] to final strategic plan for your consideration.

[8:26] Today I want to preview at a high level.

[8:30] You have a more detailed brief that I sent to you last week at a high level what some of

[8:37] these recommendations and actions are as well as some other components of the final deliverable

[8:42] that you will be receiving with the hope that any kind of final questions or comments that you

[8:46] might have we might hear today so that we can then move forward to finalize the document. Go to the

[8:52] next slide.

[8:55] Go to the next slide. Before we do that I want to just kind of center us a little bit

[9:00] on the process, the methodology, and the components of the plan just to kind of make sure that you

[9:08] kind of remember the timeline of the work that has taken place over the last kind of seven, eight

[9:13] months in this process, so we can go to the next line.

[9:17] As a reminder, we launched the strategic planning process in Q1 of 2026 with an assessment

[9:24] phase where we reviewed current data, economic data, planning data, other trends, and some

[9:32] county reports and budgets to inform strategic priorities.

[9:36] That work was enhanced by several one-on-one meetings, focus groups on issues of public safety,

[9:42] issues of economic development issues of workforce and what that allowed us to do

[9:49] is really get a kind of sense of some of the emerging trends we provided to

[9:54] you a report of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats as part of our

[9:59] assessment finding and that led us to anchor us in the five

[10:04] years you priorities that you're going to see today. With that information we also

[10:08] review and refined the county's vision and mission and in so much that the county has

[10:16] is taking on a kind of new way of thinking about strategic planning, taking a look at a

[10:20] consolidated mission and vision was really important to us as well was to develop a set of core values

[10:26] to guide the county's work and I'm going to go through each of those here in a second.

[10:31] Once we've, you approve the strategic priorities, we formed working groups of those strategic

[10:38] priorities to develop and deliberate on goals, objective actions, and metrics.

[10:43] In each of those groups met four times throughout the process.

[10:46] It was a very dynamic conversation, good participation, and what you see here is a reflection of that

[10:55] feedback paired with some of the data and analysis that we brought to the table, then finally

[11:00] we presented to regional partners including YVCOG and several other one-on-one meetings that we did

[11:06] with regional partners. Go to the next slide.

[11:11] Seen a slightly different way. You can see we started

[11:14] on the left in the yellow with the assessment phase that answered the question of kind of who we are

[11:20] as a county or who the county is moving to planning where it's answered the question about where do we

[11:25] We want to go that resulted in the goals and objectives and then moved into implementation.

[11:31] How will we get there?

[11:33] The finest detailed implementation metrics of the plan and then the final plan here in

[11:39] September and October, which where we are in the orange here next slide.

[11:45] So the final components of the deliverable here are three different things.

[11:50] One is the strategic plan that asks answers the question of where is the county going.

[11:56] It's a framework for setting direction, measuring progress and delivering results.

[12:00] That is the one that we're going to post depending your approval on the website.

[12:04] We have hard copies of. It's not a dense document. It's probably four to five pages at most.

[12:11] That's paired with an implementation guide that's also submitted to the county

[12:14] that answers the question, how will the county deliver results based on the strategic plan?

[12:20] So it's a much more in depth document that translates the strategic plan into a framework

[12:28] that is relevant and implementable, an action oriented for you all to consider.

[12:33] In addition to that, we have tools around dashboards, what we call executive dashboards,

[12:39] which in accountability measures, which answers how will the county stay on track.

[12:44] And that gives the commission the tools to stay and understand at the higher level, you know, are the things that we propose in the plan actually moving forward? Are they stuck? Do we need to reevaluate?

[12:58] So it really provides those tools for oversight and then course correction.

[13:03] Next slide.

[13:05] So, just as a reminder, the vision, when we think of a vision, we think of the future

[13:09] that Yakima County seeks to create.

[13:12] This vision was anchored in kind of three themes around diverse and resilient economy,

[13:18] quality of life in Yakima County, and then retention and recruitment of workers.

[13:23] So, Yakima County is a thriving region where agriculture and innovation power, a resilient

[13:27] economy where communities feel safe and healthy, and where families choose to stay in

[13:33] invest and build their future.

[13:35] Next slide.

[13:37] The mission is the county's purpose and role in serving

[13:42] its residents to achieve that vision that we just read.

[13:45] And the mission is to deliver excellent public service,

[13:47] strengthen communities, steward resources for a thriving

[13:51] Yakima County.

[13:53] And the conversation with stakeholders and the working groups

[13:55] as we were reviewing these missions, there was a strong sense

[13:59] of a culture of service to bring to the county.

[14:01] and really important to communicate to partners, citizens that the county is effectively

[14:10] stewarding the resources that they put in charge of tax-paradolors.

[14:15] Next slide. Core values, this was something new,

[14:20] that was really excited that we were able to get to this list here because this was the principles

[14:24] that guide county decisions and operations both in terms of how we do our show up and do our work,

[14:30] but also how employees kind of, what does it mean to be a county employee?

[14:34] You're operating with these principles, so that's around accountability and transparency,

[14:38] responsible stewardship, service excellence.

[14:41] I mentioned that, we had really great conversations around putting residents first,

[14:46] delivering with excellence, leadership and collaboration, a lot of the recommendations.

[14:52] Consider the county as an important stakeholder for sure, but as a convener in a leader in certain elements.

[14:59] Thanks for watching, see you next time, bye bye.

[15:00] And so, leadership in collaboration was an important core value. And then, of course, people and resilience where we're investing in our workforce, building organizational capacity and adapting to changing needs. Next slide.

[15:13] As a reminder, we work from a framework of where we consider priorities or the strategy and actions that will move the county toward its vision. We think about strategic priorities, we think about disproportionate investment. And so, not everything can be a priority. And the strategic plan and

[15:31] the implementation guide are not substitute for individual work plans of your departments

[15:36] or employees. It is a prioritization document that helps you make decisions to set kind

[15:43] of policy courses and directions and be able to understand trade-offs when you need to

[15:48] change that direction. So each strategic priority was supported by its own goal and then

[15:55] a series of objectives and the implementation actions and metrics that we'll go through now.

[16:01] Next slide. The first strategic priority,

[16:04] Crow Yakima. The goal here is the resilient competitive and diverse to fight regional

[16:09] economy where business is invest. People can find housing and family wage jobs and coordinated

[16:15] leadership strength and prosperity across Yakima County. That was the future condition goal that was

[16:21] articulated. Go to the next slide. In each of these, we answered what must change? That is

[16:26] the list of objectives. What must change about the way that we are doing our work? And then what are

[16:30] the key steps within those objectives that we need to prioritize? So here, there was clarity

[16:37] around improving development capacity and infrastructure readiness targeting permitting, diversifying,

[16:43] and strengthening regional economy, expanding housing choice, and specifically workforce housing

[16:48] capacity and then strengthening regional economic leadership and investment.

[16:53] The actions as part of this plan is a launch of a Yakima fast track. Yakima fast track

[16:59] is an attempt to provide clarity, predictability, and transparency in the permitting process.

[17:08] We heard from a lot of business stakeholders, developers, community that having more clarity

[17:15] around that process could incentivize more economic development.

[17:20] And to that end, then establishing a development concierge to be able to not just work on county projects,

[17:26] but to be able to coordinate with the other county entities, other governments in the area,

[17:30] to make sure that we're all rowing in the same direction towards a economic development vision.

[17:36] There is the comprehensive economic development strategy that already exists,

[17:40] that the action here is just to move forward and support those elements. Strengthening development partnerships through inter-local agreements, and there's more detail in your packet around what that looks like.

[17:55] Using housing and market data to guide investments in policy decisions, and then aligning workforce housing with economic growth.

[18:04] In a lot of these, there is a need to establish a baseline of data so that the county can make data informed decisions on things like housing.

[18:15] So that as folks come and say there's a housing need or housing shortage in certain areas, there is a consistent level of data truth.

[18:23] I like to say like that everybody can say okay, we agree that here is how we are moving forward.

[18:28] And so that baseline needs to happen in this first year if this plan is adopted to be able to support some of these decisions.

[18:34] Go to the next slide, and then measures how will the county know it's being successful.

[18:39] And these are the measures that we would report publicly reduction and permit review timelines articulated by kind of reduction in calendar days.

[18:47] And then the number of family wage jobs created to retain and

[18:54] go to the next strategic plan.

[18:56] or as an extra priority, which is around community safety.

[18:59] Community safety first, a public safety system

[19:02] with the capacity resources in public trust needed

[19:04] to keep communities safe.

[19:07] Next slide.

[19:08] The objective here is to prioritize strategic public safety

[19:12] investments, grow public safety capacity, build a community trust

[19:17] within the public safety space, strengthen regional

[19:20] public safety coordination.

[19:21] So specifically here, great consensus on consolidating and modernizing a new public safety footprint,

[19:30] conduct the public safety staffing assessment, so another kind of baseline action there.

[19:37] A request to hire a public information officer to provide proactive communication and engagement and

[19:44] outreach with communities around public safety information, this kind of correlates back to building

[19:49] community trust the idea with that being centralized at the counties instead of kind of in each

[19:55] department but centralized as a kind of core function and to help support a regional public safety

[20:00] committee to improve community communication and coordination amongst several public safety

[20:06] officials that are interacting in the county. Really great relationships happening right now

[20:10] in communication that are people dependent so you know this is about building the system that can

[20:18] kind of support relationships, but kind of as folks move on, not whether as folks transition.

[20:27] Next slide. The measure here is around public safety staffing capacity,

[20:32] a number of public safety officials or officers or personnel, and then in increase in emergency

[20:39] emergency response time, meaning emergency response doesn't take as long.

[20:47] Next slide.

[20:49] Future ready.

[20:51] This is about financial resiliency, so financial resilient county that makes strategic

[20:54] investments, maintains critical infrastructure, and responsibly manages public resources for

[21:00] future generations without placing additional burdens on its taxpayers.

[21:05] Next slide.

[21:05] But certain things here are already happening, but we're orienting them into the strategic

[21:12] plan for continuity and for prioritization of them.

[21:16] Aligning financial planning with strategic priorities, addressing urgent county justice,

[21:21] facility needs, expanding financial capacity and regional partnerships and demonstrating

[21:25] value for taxpayer dollars.

[21:28] Here are the actions, development, advance of funding strategy to replace the jail.

[21:32] implement a multi-year financial strategy that aligns budget, revenues, debt, and assets

[21:37] with long-term service and infrastructure needs, partnering with the region to secure

[21:42] state and federal funding and advance shared priorities that one's around shared advocacy

[21:47] at the state and federal level, and then increasing budget transparency going back to kind of that

[21:53] build community trust piece in the previous strategic priority around a annual report in with

[22:01] centralized portal. So folks can understand what's happening with the budget, what's happening with

[22:06] tax dollars, and there's a little bit more clarity around that. Next slide. How will we know it's being

[22:15] successful, the amount of funding and partner investment secured, priority capital needs funded

[22:20] with the specific eye towards gel injustice, and then cost savings and efficiencies achieved.

[22:26] Next slide.

[22:30] Talent for tomorrow.

[22:31] This is our workforce priority.

[22:34] Yakima County has a stable, skilled and adaptable workforce, supported by a strong talent

[22:39] pipelines, supported by strong talent pipelines, effective recruitment and retention strategies

[22:45] and partnerships that prepare workers and leaders for the future.

[22:48] Next slide.

[22:51] What much change?

[22:52] Develop a regional workforce pipelines for critical occupations.

[22:56] This is a space where stakeholders are looking, I mentioned the county showing up as not just another stakeholder, but a convener that you can, the county is best positioned to connect employers with workforce organizations with institutions towards a common vision, improve recruitment and retention, up skill existing workforce.

[23:19] course and then building the county's internal future workforce.

[23:26] So that is about Yakima County as workforce.

[23:31] As part of this, and you'll see this in a bit around some of our major moves, we're

[23:37] going to launch Choose Yakima, which is an effort, as I mentioned, this coordination effort

[23:43] that aligns employers, institutions, and workforce organizations towards a common goal.

[23:48] Some of this is happening in pockets, and the attempt here is to make sure that everybody's

[23:53] at the table rowing the same direction again.

[23:56] A first action there is to assess workforce needs and talent pipelines for priority industries

[24:01] and emergency occupations, or emerging occupations.

[24:05] This one needs to work really well with the Grow Yakumus Treaty Priority, and in fact, this

[24:12] strategic plan, and this is a good thing, there's a lot of overlap in our lines.

[24:17] and dependencies on things moving forward.

[24:20] So attracting workforce depends as much on having a job ready as quality of life.

[24:28] So all of these things need to be oriented.

[24:31] This strategic plan calls for and requires good collaboration in the implementation, and

[24:37] we'll talk about that here in a second, but this one in particular needs to be very aligned

[24:40] with economic development.

[24:43] Expand career pathways in high demand fields, so not just the industries, but the occupations

[24:49] and fields within those industries, and then looking internally, strengthen internal

[24:54] county workforce with development pathways, succession planning, and performance expectations.

[25:00] And then the measure here is vacancy rates and critical occupations to go to the next slide.

[25:07] And then participants connected to workforce pipeline programs.

[25:10] Next

[25:13] slide.

[25:15] The last priority, better together, Yakima County operates as a single, coordinated, accountable,

[25:22] high-performing organization in which leaders have clear roles, departments work collaboratively,

[25:28] performance expectations are understood, and residents experience consistent effective public

[25:33] service.

[25:34] Again, we had a great conversation in this work group around what does it mean to have a

[25:40] culture of service, and how does that actually, how is that embedded in our employee agreements

[25:47] and the way that we do our work in this kind of one county approach? You go to the next

[25:52] line. So what must change? We consistently demonstrate the value of county services. We

[25:59] need to clarify roles in executive leadership, build an enterprise approach to county operations,

[26:06] meaning modernizing systems and certain workflows. In certain cases, a lot of this is already

[26:10] happening around workforce. And so this is about scaling the workflows and modernizing some of the systems.

[26:18] The key steps here, create a county administrator role is number one.

[26:25] Conducting a county wide organizational review.

[26:29] Setting a clear county wide performance framework, we talked about setting a appropriate baseline of expectations

[26:36] without kind of overreaching into the work that departments are doing, but having consistency across employee expectations and then using that to build a one county culture would share practices and service standards and modernizing administrative practices.

[26:52] Next slide.

[26:55] How do we measure this?

[26:56] Resident satisfaction with county services and improved state audit findings on good governance.

[27:05] Next slide.

[27:06] Another tool for street you planning is something we call major moves. I've talked about

[27:10] this in front of you before, but what you, this isn't meant to be kind of one major

[27:17] move per street you should priority, but this is what I would say kind of like our bold

[27:22] commitments that we're putting out there as part of this plan.

[27:28] So we've named four here. The first one is Yakima Fastract, which is we're committing

[27:32] through this plan of transforming the development system to make it easier to invest in Yakima County,

[27:39] to build and to grow here. We're doing that by looking internally into what Yakima County can do.

[27:45] We're doing that by partnering with other agencies and governments out there,

[27:49] again, growing in the same direction of what type of business and industry we want to encourage here

[27:54] in Yakima County. And the incentive, an incentive to do that is a fast track permitting process

[27:59] that's predictable and is kind of transparent.

[28:04] Tuesday, Yakima is our workforce and talent pipeline,

[28:07] so we're again coordinating in line

[28:10] with those economic development key industries,

[28:13] you know, the critical occupations

[28:15] and workforce needed in Yakima County

[28:17] to make sure that we're retaining and attracting employees.

[28:22] Government that works, building a coordinated

[28:24] accountable organization that delivers

[28:25] better results for its residents.

[28:27] And then the last bold commitment is around the modern jail facility, which is the modern

[28:32] justice.

[28:33] And you can call this also a justice facility addressing critical needs at the jail

[28:37] and justice facilities to meet our public safety responsibilities.

[28:42] So these can be seen as kind of what we call bold commitments as part of the plan.

[28:48] And they're four.

[28:50] They're easy to remember, and it's a typical structure planning tool that we use.

[28:56] I'm going to pause there before we go to the implementation guide and see if folks

[29:00] have any thoughts or questions around what you've seen so far.

[29:08] I appreciate the presentation, appreciate all the work that everybody's put into this

[29:14] so far.

[29:15] I guess I would say some of these, well a lot of reflects comments that I've heard from

[29:22] county employees and staff and all, so it seems to melt pretty well.

[29:27] Instead of looking at this, some of it is, something is very much done internally while

[29:34] other aspects really can't be done without external outreach, and I know that's addressed

[29:38] in the plan too, so that's going to be probably, in my estimation, the harder hill to climb,

[29:43] but not that it's impossible, but it's, you know, just, those are my thoughts for the moment.

[29:50] Absolutely.

[29:50] I'll just add Commissioner, I mean, those are my same thoughts, you know, the beautiful thing

[29:54] that I think of the work product that Andres has brought to us so far is it recognizes

[29:58] that the county can't do all the things.

[30:00] And so it leans into other strategic plans that have already been done and other groups that have already done the good work, you know. So throughout the document it talks about building workforce. Well, our South Central consortium already does that. It has a strategic plan, but it takes components of that where the county can and should lean into to further implement their strategic plan. So I'm really excited to see where we ended. I think it's very, it's very crafty, and I also think it's very, as you said,

[30:29] While some of the strategic priorities are focusing under the hood inside the county governance,

[30:35] it's important to have a well-running machine in order to do all the other things that we're going to be leaned on to accomplish.

[30:45] Thanks for that, Commissioner Curtis.

[30:46] I guess I will say that when I stepped into this office six years ago, one of the things I really did notice was siloing of departments

[30:56] and silos of local jurisdictions, you know, there wasn't, really wasn't enough collaboration.

[31:03] And we've seen progress in both of those areas, I would say, both internally and externally,

[31:09] but I think it's a good path to continue on.

[31:13] We can go to the next slide. So the next part of this is the implementation guide. And this

[31:19] translates the plan that you've just seen into a framework that's relevant for execution for

[31:24] for the county. So there's the strategic plan is a prioritization document. But one of the things

[31:33] that we see some of our clients, one of the errors that we see some of our clients make is

[31:38] once they pass the plan, they say go on everything allowance. And that's just not the reality of how

[31:45] government does its work, nor is there's capacity issues with that, there's not the reality of how

[31:50] departments work and it's not just not feasible. And so the Implementation Guide helps you kind of

[31:56] be deliberate in thinking about your implementation timelines around the partnerships that are needed.

[32:02] Commissioner, you mentioned it internal to the county but also external and names some dependencies to be

[32:09] able to do that. So we'll go here next to the next slide. So specifically in your packet, you have a

[32:19] recommendations around accountability and ownership.

[32:22] We'll talk about the operating model

[32:24] that's embedded within the implementation guide

[32:26] here in a second, implementation timelines

[32:28] and milestones.

[32:30] Not everything is, you know, be done

[32:33] by the end of quarter-four in 2027,

[32:37] internal implementation measures.

[32:39] So there are things that we're reporting externally,

[32:42] but there are things that our teams need to know

[32:45] that we need to hit internally

[32:47] to make sure that we're on progress,

[32:48] that maybe aren't as interesting to the public but it is important for our workflows.

[32:54] And so we need to make sure that those are articulated.

[32:57] Resource and investment needs.

[32:59] A lot of these are going to require resources, which means that there are trade-offs.

[33:04] And so we need to understand that.

[33:06] We don't want to put something in motion like in a performance metric.

[33:10] That's not, you know, resources in the way that it needs to be.

[33:14] Or else you're setting yourself up for difficult conversations on the line.

[33:18] and performance management and reporting processes,

[33:21] and then regular leadership review and adjustments schedules.

[33:25] And that's where the executive dashboard,

[33:27] which we won't go into today,

[33:28] but the executive dashboard comes into play

[33:31] around what level of information is the commission receiving

[33:33] at what cadence to understand, again,

[33:36] that the plan is moving forward,

[33:38] where are the needs for kind of evaluation changes

[33:44] and you're able to do that with a good transparent

[33:47] process and a dashboard that we have in your packet, but we won't go through today.

[33:52] Next slide. I mentioned not everything needs to start right at once.

[33:59] And there's a lot of foundation building that's required as part of this plan.

[34:07] And so we've provided kind of these phased approaches and have made specific recommendations

[34:12] recommendations of which elements of the major moves

[34:15] and others should go in which phase.

[34:17] In a lot of cases, you've already established a foundation

[34:20] and you're moving into phase two already.

[34:22] So not everything needs to start at phase one.

[34:24] In other cases, you need to be able to collect

[34:27] the right level of data, make sure it's organized,

[34:30] make sure it's relevant to the conditions

[34:32] that you're operating in.

[34:33] And so that first 12 months, we call established a foundation.

[34:37] Then you move into phase two, where

[34:39] you're tackling more organizational transformation

[34:41] based on data-informed decisions,

[34:43] taking a look at your major moves,

[34:45] phase three is then scaling success

[34:47] and demonstrating results,

[34:49] and then really throughout your sustaining,

[34:51] your evaluating, your improving as needed.

[34:54] Next slide.

[34:57] There's a constant prioritization tool

[35:00] around the implementation guide

[35:02] that's really important.

[35:05] You need to continue to prioritize

[35:07] your investments in initiative

[35:10] based on urgency.

[35:11] This is the issue affect the county's ability to meet its core responsibilities, impact

[35:16] while the action significantly improves outcomes for residents, businesses, or employees.

[35:21] Readiness, this one's really important because the county have the information, the partnerships,

[35:26] authority, or the capacity needed to proceed.

[35:30] Leverage can county action unlock additional public, private, or regional investments.

[35:35] So it's very common that in one of these actions, your action is not a financial contribution,

[35:44] it's a convening contribution, but it would really help to leverage other funding sources

[35:49] if you took a certain policy perspective or a policy or programmatic approach or a different

[35:57] level of commitment. That's leverage, right? And so that's a high leverage, high impact without needing

[36:03] kind of a funding commitment.

[36:06] In other cases, you need to identify funding

[36:08] before you can move forward,

[36:10] so that you need to kind of take a look

[36:14] at all of these for as you're making your decisions

[36:16] and implementation of the strategic plan.

[36:20] Next slide.

[36:21] The operating model.

[36:23] So for each of the actions,

[36:25] you have an executive sponsor,

[36:26] responsible for overall outcomes,

[36:28] a department lead responsible for execution,

[36:31] key partners. These are external partners typically. In some cases, other elected official

[36:38] offices. In other cases, nonprofits, responsible for coordination and support. You have defined

[36:46] milestones in performance measures, regular process reviews, progress reviews, and issue

[36:51] escalation. The implementation team is responsible for collaboration for breaking down silos.

[36:56] As we mentioned, the success of the strategic plan is really dependent on people working

[37:01] together because the issues are so overlapping and then defined decision points for resolving

[37:06] barriers and adjusting implementation approaches. Next slide. So where we're at is we'd love to,

[37:15] if you have any questions here, any final edits to the plan and the implementation guide.

[37:19] Our team is ready to move to kind of final drafting for a web ready and printed version in October

[37:27] And then we, of course, are available to continue to support implementation guide components

[37:32] as needed.

[37:33] There are the last slide.

[37:36] Any questions?

[37:40] I don't have any questions, but I do have some final comments.

[37:43] Thanks, Commissioner Curtis.

[37:45] Yeah.

[37:47] No, I don't think I have any other questions at the moment.

[37:50] I appreciate you walking through this.

[37:52] I mean, appreciate the process.

[37:55] Appreciate the fact that there's an implementation guide.

[37:58] You know, there's not just, okay, here's a plan.

[38:00] And here's my D is go do it, you know, I like that idea a lot.

[38:04] I also like the executive dashboard, where we're possible.

[38:08] We can in a tangible, measurable way demonstrate results.

[38:13] So I think those are definitely positives.

[38:17] There's that as we said, I think there's still things for me to adjust and

[38:21] think about and ruminate on and before I make a final statement or decision.

[38:27] but I think this is, you know, in general terms, I think this has been a very good approach,

[38:34] and I appreciate the work that you have led the county on.

[38:40] Well, I'll keep my comments brief. So first, I just want to say thank you, Commissioner.

[38:44] I want to thank the Board for supporting this endeavor last year in our budgeting process.

[38:48] You know, I've been reflecting a lot, and well, it would have been nice on day one of my term

[38:52] to have something like this. I'll be honest, in my fourth year as a commissioner, I can actually

[38:58] the implement, I can actually see pathways, I can actually put the pieces together and so

[39:02] I think the timing, at least for me, is right and I know you've got six, seven years under

[39:07] your belt.

[39:08] I've got four in Commissioner McKinney about the same and so first I just want to say thank

[39:13] you for that.

[39:14] The second I want to thank the countless stakeholders that were involved in this process.

[39:17] I think we had over 72, 75 individual stakeholders, stakeholders from our Ag sector, our business

[39:23] community, our higher education institutions, our council members.

[39:27] I mean, the list goes on and each one of them really brought a great perspective and they didn't hold anything back.

[39:33] And that's one thing I will call, call out, Audrey's on his unique ability to hear minority opinions and weave them into a collective agreement essentially.

[39:44] And the last thing I will say, you know, when we set out to do this process, you tasked, this board tasked myself.

[39:52] our county clerk, Bailey Maggard, and our budget director,

[39:55] Brown Carlson, to bring forward a consultant that we thought

[40:00] could do this work.

[40:01] And we had over, I think, 23 or 21 applications to go through.

[40:06] And of course, uncommon bridges rose to the top.

[40:09] And I'll say it today.

[40:10] I'm very proud that we chose uncommon bridges.

[40:13] Andres, you and your staff and the techniques that you guys deployed.

[40:16] I thought we're very, I'll say wholesome.

[40:18] I don't think that I've heard of a stakeholder that's

[40:21] been upset about us undergoing this process, and the last thing I'll say is I just echo

[40:27] your sentiments. It's nice to have a strategic plan, but it's equally as important to have

[40:31] that implementation guide, and so I'm really hopeful that this board will support the final

[40:37] work product in the end, and then I look forward to getting to work alongside you, Commissioner.

[40:44] Thank you very much, Commissioner Curtis. Appreciate your leadership on helping pull this together

[40:48] as well. I know it's taken a lot of a big investment of time on your part as well as others.

[40:55] All right. Thank you, Andreas. Appreciate the presentation. We're getting closer, aren't we?

[41:01] Okay. So with that, any new business spring for the board today?

[41:06] Nothing on my end, Commissioner. Okay. Julie, anything?

[41:10] Nothing for me. Okay. Nothing for me either. So I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

[41:13] Commissioner, I move that we adjourn today's regular agenda. I'll second that motion for adjournment.

[41:18] All in favor signify by saying aye.

[41:20] Aye.

[41:21] We're adjourned.

[41:21] Thank you, everybody.

[41:22] Appreciate you being with us today.

[41:24] Have a great rest of your day on this official first day.

Yakima County Commission

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