[0:10] All right

[0:12] reverb situation? There you go.

[0:25] Okay. Okay, great. I will call this September 8th regular meeting of the Board of County Commissioners to order. I hope everyone had a good Labor Day. We'll get started with public comment in a moment, but thank you, Heather, for bringing an ukulele in for me to try an ukulele today. It's nice. I just I've had a few moments with it.

[0:49] Ukulele is really easy to play. I like it. You guys, everyone has this, like, the one instrument that we all have at home, too, right? Right, right. I enjoyed

[0:59] learning it, never really played it before. I will say Cynthia Lin is the online YouTube teacher that I use the most, and this is an arrangement from Morristown Youth Jam that I'm going to be playing, kind of. So here's an ukulele song.

[1:14] It's actually a Nina Simone song made famous by the animals.

[1:21] Baby, do you understand me now? Sometimes I feel a little mad

[1:38] But don't you know that no one alive can always be an angel when things go wrong? I seem to be bad But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good O Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood

[2:02] Baby, sometimes I'm so carefree With the joy that's hard to hide And sometimes it seems that all I have to do is worry And then you're

[2:18] to see my other side But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good If I see Meggie, I want you to know that I never mean to take it out on you

[2:36] Life has its problems and I get my share And that's one thing that I never mean to do Cause I love you you don't you know I'm human I have thoughts like any other one

[2:51] And sometimes I find myself Lord regretting some foolish thing, some little simple thing I've done. I'm just a soul whose intentions are good O Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.

[3:13] Yes, I'm just a soul whose intentions are good O Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.

[3:33] Nice. Thank you, thank you. Thanks to the animals for getting a great Nina Simone song and making it sound as possible.

[3:40] All right, and with that, we will open for public comment. Anyone who would like to make public comment in the room, we can. Good to see you. I thought we might see Lila with a flat on the consent agenda, but anyone online that would like to make public comment, you can hit the raise hand button or star 9 if you're on the phone

[3:56] Bring you over, you have 3 min to make public comment.

[4:00] Mr. Friedman and move on to Mr. Bowen.

[4:07] I haven't seen Jim in a while. Yeah, Mr. Freeman, when you get yourself unmuted, you have three minutes to make public comment.

[4:19] Hello, had to get through some permission items there. It has been a while and so good morning, everyone.

[4:27] And for the folks who don't know me, I'm Jim Friedman from Quillsine. I'm also the District 3 representative for the Solid Waste Advisory Committee.

[4:35] So my comments today is regarding the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, and to some extent adding county staff to the lodging Tax Advisory Committee and CCC.

[4:45] In April, when attempting to gauge if the Solid Waste Advisory Committee had interest in meeting more often

[4:54] Through special meetings or subcommittees.

[4:57] I was told by county staff three times, no, the group could not meet more often.

[5:03] Yeah.

[5:04] Members of the committee have shown interest in meeting more often, and this led me to requesting information from members of this group

[5:12] Members of this group about what is possible and what the associated costs would be. Following the meeting in April, I sent an email regarding the cost of added support

[5:23] and followed up before our meeting in August

[5:26] The response is still outstanding. I understand people are busy, but I'm hoping that speaking today will elevate the importance.

[5:34] The last schedule meeting… the last scheduled meeting for the year is in October, and I'd like to have an understanding of the options available to bring back to the committee.

[5:44] As some of you are painfully aware, the TCC and LTCH have met every month, sometimes multiple times a month

[5:51] And thank you, Heather, for your effort in that group

[5:54] This is very different from the support received by the Solid Waste Advisory Committee.

[5:59] the equity and county focus is off balance. The solid waste advisory Committee has 3 new members

[6:07] The solid waste is rewriting the solid waste management plan. They're planning the building of a new facility. There are issues with the new recycling implementation

[6:18] There is a multi-week closure to the public during the upcoming scale replacement. There are issues with the overall health of the enterprise Fund.

[6:25] Any subset of these items could fill the scheduled meeting times and leave no time for the others. We need time to engage each other and broaden our collective understanding. And at this point, county staff is hindering this effort.

[6:38] I believe this also relates to the tourism committees as the BOCC continues to push for adding county staff to these committees

[6:48] I highly recommend watching the April 23rd SWAC meeting and looking at the cancellation of the meeting in July due to lack

[6:57] of availability of a single county staff member.

[7:00] That is not on the advisory committee. These are examples of bottlenecks and challenges created when advisory committees become overly reliant on county staff to function.

[7:12] And thank you

[7:15] Thank you, Mr. Freeman. As always, we'll respond to all public comment after we receive it. So we'll move on to Mr. Bowen and then Ms. Yarnell.

[7:25] Morning Commissioners. Ed Bowen, Wes Jefferson. So as usual today, South Shore

[7:34] issue still continues. Park service is not being communicative at all regarding the culvert, which is my background.

[7:44] In this view and boy, they don't even want to talk to us anymore to let us know what's going on

[7:50] But this actually brings up the bigger issue, which I would hope you would embellish on today. And that's the Ho Bridge

[7:58] which becomes a serious problem on the 14th of this month.

[8:03] Fortunately, it's going to occur right after your next meeting, if I get it right. But I don't know what Jefferson County is doing. I don't know what Jefferson County emergency management is doing nothing heard. So maybe, since I can't participate in this radio call in thing, I have. We don't have that radio station out here

[8:23] Maybe you can bring this up with emergency management at 945, but what's… what is Jefferson County Emergency Management, and what is Jefferson County going to do to keep us informed?

[8:34] My big question I will leave for you, please just provide us who do we contact

[8:40] When there's a glitch with all these closures with the Ho Bridge coming up through October.

[8:46] Please, don't leave us as the 3rd District Commissioner did in October 6th of 2023 when we were left with the answer that it's a plus 900 million

[9:01] issue to deal with the Ho Bridge and the queets Bridge. So please tell us we know we know we've been briefed by county Commissioners in the past when out here that we're on our own when these bridges go down. So please give us

[9:17] who we contact at Jefferson County regarding any glitches we run into with these bridge closers. Thank you.

[9:26] Thank you, Mr. Bowen.

[9:28] Ms. Yarnell, will you get yourself

[9:31] Unmuted, you have 3 min.

[9:44] Still muted, Shelly.

[9:47] Is that better

[9:49] Yep, now we can hear you.

[9:50] Okay, all right. Shelley Yarnell Brennan, I just wanted to comment a little bit on Jim Friedman's post because it's not only solid waste, LTCH You also have issues with

[10:06] The Planning Commission they don't have regular meetings because of staff problems. There's all kinds of issues in the county, and there's a few people that have individual problems with individual issues

[10:22] But nobody's really looking at the overall problem. If you look at all of the places we're having issues, that's a crisis and we really need to get it solved. Not everybody can attend all these meetings to help advocate for their own things. It needs to be looked at

[10:40] much more strongly. And on the LTCH front, I would hope that we can see that the reason LTCH has had so much more attention is because of community output, and because of Heather's listening to what people want. There needs to be much more

[11:01] emphasis put on that fewer meetings, but more happening. Thank you.

[11:05] Thank you, Ms. Yarinell.

[11:07] Anyone else with us today that would like to make public comment, you can hit the raise hand button or star nine if you're on the phone, we'd love to hear from you for 3 minutes on any topic.

[11:19] Make one more call for

[11:21] public comments seeing none. We'll we'll keep public comment as is our want open till 9 30, and we can

[11:30] Star Reply, would you like to kick it off? Maybe I'll kick off today. Why don't I start? All right.

[11:38] let's see 2. I'm not on swack. I'm not really familiar with those, so I'll kind of defer to you on that, Heidi, but I did want to jump in to Mr. Bowen's comments about, I assume he's talking about 101 on the whole bridge, and that which is really outside of our domain. Of course, it's a project and everything, and

[12:00] Unfortunately, Willie Vince will not be joining us for the health update today at 945, so we can… I can have some more answers. I don't know what's happening other than, yeah, it's going to be closed. I mean

[12:15] I tell you, because I attended

[12:19] The optic meeting, the Olympic Minnesota Tourism Commission meeting. I felt like that was the most information that I had heard, because the tourism folks are list. They are paying attention to what's happening with those roads. Wash dot did come and make a presentation

[12:35] there, and it made me really aware that we've been pretty focused on the national parks and the National Forest Service as our font of information, but I really do think it's a good shot. So, I mean, so Mr. Bowen's question is, who do we contact regarding glitches with the bridge closure? I'd say that's wash dot and don't focus too much on national

[13:00] Park Service or National Forest, they were really had the most detailed information with the project. It's their project and really it made me so clear that

[13:16] that going anywhere else rather than directly to wash dot is just filtering the information through, with the exception of Lissy Andres from the Forks Visitor Center was really is really involved in the community effort to kind of get the communication out there, and she's working really closely

[13:38] with school districts, and to make sure that kids can get across. And so they're really they're working through that issue, and it looks like Washdot is going to provide some sort of direct opportunity for people to walk across the bridge at certain planned times of the day. So, but it sounds like the details of that weren't completely worked out, but washed out really is the resource, and maybe we could put that link on our website

[14:06] Just directly into that meeting. Well, a link to the US 101 whole river bridge emergency repair page on the washp website. I just put that in the comments so people listening can. That's great. Yeah, I think that's maybe going to be the one for for our Liz

[14:21] Anderson to directly link to so people have that information on the website. Great. Thank you. And then on the Park Service, we are planning a meeting to have Sula and other parks staff who can answer the questions that we've asked on the 28th of September. So they're planning to be here in person on that

[14:40] And then I also wanted to ask Mr. Bowen if you can stick around or pay attention. We are going to actually there's a little bit of movement on the South Shore road. So we're going to walk on something with Mr. Kuzma here when we have a moment that is directly applicable to the South Shore Road and starting

[14:55] More than that. So

[14:57] And then, yeah, that's my only response. So I don't know, you would just Heidi, you want to dig into SWAC a little bit? I could

[15:05] Yeah, the first thing I'll say is

[15:12] The structure of how we work as a county.

[15:16] is such that

[15:18] We worked through staff

[15:20] To accomplish things like solid waste management plans and, you know, all these complicated processes. I understand the desire for more meetings, and actually have been kind of missing Slack meetings myself.

[15:33] But I understood that there were kind of

[15:38] Special circumstances with the delay in bringing the SWAC team back together, which I regret.

[15:47] I think it would be important at some point to remember to folks

[15:53] who come to our the BLCC meetings with 3 min to give comment that you can call any of us at any time, and we can have a… I just spoke to a man for 40 minutes this morning from my district, you know, I mean, we can have a longer conversation

[16:09] brainstorm solutions and bring ideas that we can then take to staff. But I think that continuously showing up at VOCC meetings

[16:20] and feeling like you're not being heard makes me think, make an effort to be heard more

[16:27] with each of us individually, and with me as the SWAC commissioner. So I'm sorry, Jim, for your frustration and

[16:38] You know, I just really encourage you to reach out and let's brainstorm how to

[16:42] how to make this work more effectively, because we all want to do that. And there's a lot of work on the swack plate right now.

[16:50] Do you anticipate there being… are they meeting quarterly right now? What is the cadence for every 2 months, but then there was a gap in meetings, and then they met in August and I was gone. So I didn't attend that meeting

[17:05] And then the next meeting is in October. So we're trying to get back on the two month cadence.

[17:11] Which is more frequent than many of the committees I sit on, but I understand that it's frustrating when there are so many big projects, and I think maybe one idea would be to create kind of subcommittees of Slack to work on things like the solid waste management plan, so that there could be more focused work

[17:27] And less just frustration. That's the way a lot of these committees are going. A meeting gets eaten up just by the existence of the meeting. If you've got work to do getting a smaller group together, housing fund board has been doing that pretty effectively. And that doesn't require staff support, which is

[17:47] more

[17:49] Agile. So let's

[17:54] Yep, Jim's still there. Let's… let's connect, Jim and brainstorm some solutions, because I feel a lot of the things that you're expressing, but also understand that there's a lot of things going on in the background that I can't really affect.

[18:09] Yeah.

[18:10] All right

[18:11] Any other responses?

[18:15] No, I mean, I think

[18:17] I think the regular meetings and the issues with

[18:21] A lack of regular meetings. You'll see that we're appointing a whole bunch more members to the advisory committees, which is really our focus as Commissioners is we're kind of tasked with finding

[18:33] Citizens from our districts to staff those committees and

[18:38] You know, it feels like some of the committees have been working with a skeleton crew, right? And so it's important to get those, strengthened

[18:47] Yeah

[18:49] And it's exciting to see all these new appointments and sort of that new energy coming onto committees. This is the perfect example why that's so important and is so exciting.

[19:00] The only other thing I'll add is that it's just it's an interesting juxtaposition. Some of these, the 3 different comments

[19:11] Today, because you know we heard today in these comments both

[19:17] We need staff in order to move the work forward.

[19:22] And that's limited. We heard that being overly reliant on staff

[19:29] Can be a roadblock

[19:32] And we also heard we don't want too many meetings. But we want more meetings sometimes, right? And I

[19:40] I don't highlight that to be to say that those things are somehow wrong because they're in opposition to one another. It's like they're all true, and we need to work toward

[19:51] toward really finding a way to problem solve. And I think your your comment, Heidi, is really right on that and also yours, that we… we can sort of find these smaller groups of people to work through maybe one-on-one, or in small groups, and then as long as we're bringing that back to the larger the larger group and putting that back into public process, we can be more agile and we can move forward

[20:17] I mean, it's just been it's

[20:20] This is also

[20:23] This is what we're working with. This is the environment that we're working within. When we're… when we're doing sort of this process statewide, nationwide of maybe crunching local government down to this kind of very small

[20:40] Unit, right?

[20:43] And that has, I mean, I think we're clearly seeing that has pluses and minuses, right? We're really struggling with it right now. I feel like I'm really struggling with that right now is to find the right balance between how do we really efficiently use the resources that we have. And I think we're all in favor of that.

[21:02] And also, I think I'm seeing the real costs when we don't resource something well enough. And then we end up really spinning our wheels. So I think we're in this place of trying to find that balance and find the right spot that is

[21:18] you know, for this time that we're trying to lead in. It's a real challenge, which is why we're going to need everybody at the table, and we need everybody to really be solution minded. We're bringing these ideas, and we're not attacking one another, we're bringing how are we? Here's a problem

[21:35] How are we going to solve it together? We have to assume that everybody at the table wants to say

[21:42] Guys disagree on what the problem is.

[21:45] We… I think that's a good point. I mean, that's a whole separate issue, right? The green one, what the problem is, is a whole separate issue, but that takes conversation that takes people coming together.

[21:56] So pretty much meeting, not enough meeting. Right. We have to be able to do things like agree on what the problem is, and that takes

[22:03] communication. I'm reading this really good book, Why Things Don't Work Right Now, and it's all about the tension between kind of the Jeffersonian progressive democratic model and the Hamiltonian progressive, you know, and we very much sit in the Hamiltonian mode, right? We have

[22:20] Bureaucratic agencies that do good work, and usually they just aren't really noticed and are doing this good work as bureaucratic administrators, be it the roads or the sheriff's department or this or that. And then the Jeffersonian side has kind of come in as

[22:36] The OPMA and transparency and making sure everything, you know, pushing the power down too and making sure that the people are listened to. And I would argue that we're very transparent and that often the

[22:49] The Jeffersonian impulses restrict the ability to effectively administer on the Hamiltonian side, and that that is kind of the balance that we are always have going back and forth. And every advisory committee is different. This whataboutism kind of comparing different committees, they're all staffed differently. They're all funded differently with different amounts of staff, you know

[23:12] So to compare Tcc to LTAC to to SWAC to the MRC, you know there there's 4 different models there that are paying for those staff. So it's always a challenge, and it's

[23:27] But I see we have another public comment from Julia Cochran, so we'll open it up for you, Julia, and make another call. Anyone else online that would like to make public comment would love to hear from you. You can hit the star 9 if you're on the phone or hit the raise hand button and we'll bring you over

[23:44] And Julia

[23:46] Go ahead.

[23:47] Good morning.

[23:49] I actually took most of Labor Day weekend off. It was amazing. I spent a day actually gardening, and you must understand, I'm from Manhattan. I don't mess with dirt outside. Everything's in pots, and the dirt's in pots, and the plants are in the dirt, and there's

[24:07] 39 of them in my little space

[24:09] So anyway, I had a fascinating experience just spending the day playing with dirt and plants and pots. And

[24:18] I think that's the first time in my life I've spent the day doing that. Anyway, not a gardener

[24:24] But what I wanted to say is that last Tuesday, I believe, I met with the city of Port Townsend

[24:33] With Ben Cassard, my manager, and Paul Hines, my partner in the Welcoming Center

[24:40] And Robert and Paul Hines, he's the pastor of First Pres. And then I and who we met with was Steve King

[24:51] Michael Todd

[24:53] Attorney Austin

[24:55] Anima Bowd. And, and it went spectacularly well

[25:01] We will have, controllability. We are leasing the building as of November 4th, I believe

[25:10] And to April 15th, which is what last year's season was

[25:17] And, we will be open 8 hours a day, like we were last season. Hopefully, with the help of nonprofits. So the whole existential crisis we went through went away.

[25:30] Yay

[25:32] That's great news, Julia

[25:33] That's what I'm reporting.

[25:34] Yeah, so I relaxed for the first time this summer because I had this herd of people in my head and sometimes in real saying, when are you opening? When are you opening? We need you now

[25:45] So, that's why I spent a day playing with plants, is because it was like.

[25:52] Yes, let's do

[25:53] What a relief.

[25:55] That's great.

[25:56] So

[25:58] Have a great day

[25:59] All right. Well, thank you for sharing, Gina.

[26:00] And that only happens because of your leadership, Julia. Good job. Yeah, nice work.

[26:06] Yeah.

[26:07] I think it was a variety of reasons why it works, but I'm delighted.

[26:11] You're a big part of that recipe. Great news. Glad to have the Winter Welcoming Center in its same place as Pope Marine Building. So same time, same duration as last year. Still something to build on.

[26:23] That's great.

[26:24] Yeah.

[26:26] It's all good. And the shelter's full, as is reported every shelter coalition meeting, and I was there. And there are

[26:35] I would say there are four women who are very much like me. They're my age, they're my level of functioning and sanity and whatever you want to say. They just

[26:46] you know, due to breakups, due to evictions, due to whatever their story was, I've ended up in the shelter

[26:54] Thank you, Julianne.

[26:55] So

[26:56] Yeah, take care.

[26:57] All right, talk to you soon.

[27:00] All right, I'll make one last call. Would anyone else like to make public comment today? We'd love to hear from you. I'll just add that we got an interesting note from

[27:10] Philip Hunsucker about committees saying that in addition to staffing them, they also have to be open public meetings act compliant. Right. So it requires a whole nother level of staff support. And that's not true if

[27:25] One member of the committee wants to have a conversation, or you know it's it just creates a whole nother level of logistics. Right?

[27:35] It also creates another level of transparency, like what Greg was saying, you're sort of you're paying for that open process, and I think we just need to be thoughtful about where is that necessary? Is it necessary at all levels

[27:50] No. Where is it necessary and we should be thoughtful about that. Maybe that's more of the conversation we have with the communities. Where do you want that to happen

[28:00] And where do we not want that to happen, or it's not necessary, or it's not worth paying for? Well, and it's just that

[28:07] Good ideas can come from a smaller group of folks and they can be brought to the bigger committee table. It's a really important tool. Yeah.

[28:16] Very important

[28:19] Okay, any other reflections before we move on to maybe our proclamation 1st and then we have Sheriff Prince Steiner with us. Are we waiting for Chief Black's not going to be able to make it okay

[28:35] The city also wasn't able to make it so.

[28:40] All right. Well, we should be doing this out of the bell tower.

[28:46] Oh, is that where they are? Is that where Chief Black is? No, because they're doing that too, right? They're going to be there Friday, right? Oh, right, right, right. And do we… we don't need to do this at a specific time? Nope.

[28:59] Okay, well, it is 9:30, so I will close public comments and let's turn to our proclamation proclaiming September 11th, 2026 is National Day of Service and Remembrance.

[29:12] We have a proclamation that why don't we read it in alphabetical order of our mother's maiden name. My goodness. Hayden.

[29:26] Mother's maiden name Brown. Brown. All right. You. You, and then Heather and then me.

[29:32] Okay

[29:35] And are you going to come up to the table? And then we'll, yeah, we'll have Sheriff Bernsteiner a few words after we read this.

[29:44] National Day of Service and Remembrance

[29:47] Whereas 25 years ago, the United States endured one of the most unconscionable tragedies in our country's histories

[29:53] The cowardly terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center at the Pentagon and the onboard flight 93 cut short the lives of 2,977 innocent people.

[30:04] These attacks tore a hole in the heart of our nation, and the pain of this tragedy still remains

[30:10] Each year on this somber date, we remember the horror and bravery shown that day, just as we remember how we came together, united in grief and in purpose. Each year we renew our solemn vow to never forget what happened on September 11th.

[30:25] 2001, or those who lost their lives and whereas we also remember the patriotism and valor of our service members who pursued our attackers, delivered justice to Osama bin Laden, and degraded al-Qaeda

[30:42] Whereas over the last two decades, the American people have demonstrated that the harder the circumstances, the more resilient and stronger we become. Our shared love of country and our shared values, regardless of race, gender, religion, origin, or economic status, unite us as Americans against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

[31:00] And whereas Congress has requested the observance of September 11th as an annually recognized National Day of Service and Remembrance, and… Whereas on this National Day of Service and Remembrance, we honor every life that was taken to

[31:16] We honor the first responders, firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency workers and service members who answered the call of duty. And the brave civilians who rushed into action to save lives that day.

[31:30] Their courage embodies the American spirit and resilience and their heroism continues to inspire new generations of Americans. Now, therefore, the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners does hereby proclaim September 11th, 2026 as National Day of Service and Remembrance in Jefferson County

[31:49] And encourages all residents to join us in observation of this important day, proclaim this eighth day of September 2026.

[31:57] We get a motion. I'd like to make a motion to approve and adopt this proclamation. I'll second. Okay, all in favor of approving the proclamation as read. Indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And we'll turn it over to Sheriff Ernsteiner. Thank you for being here to share a few thoughts

[32:13] It's an important day of remembrance. Thank you very much for letting me come here and say a couple of words.

[32:21] Good morning, 1st of all, this is one one of those times in our life that you remember where you were at when you heard about it. You know, I remember I was I was working at Dragard shift

[32:33] and my wife came and woke me up and said, something's going on. A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center. Something just like it takes you right back to the moment when you first heard about it, and you're like

[32:45] watching the news, is it an accident? What's going on? And it's just one of those

[32:49] times in your life to think about like when maybe like President Kennedy got shot, obviously that was long before I was born. The space shuttle Challenger, you know, blew up in the air. Remember, I was just a… just a kid, and I was actually homesick, and watched it

[33:04] On the news, and it was just kind of one of those times where it just kind of takes you back, and it just, like, everything stops for a second. And this is one of those times in our life, and I think it's important for us to remember and look back 25 years

[33:18] It's crazy. It's been 25 years already this year.

[33:22] And to think about all the people that have

[33:24] Perished since then from cancers, you know, from working at ground zero. More people than have been over 9,000 people have actually died from the cancers from working around ground zero, because obviously everybody was helping out, you know.

[33:40] Does anybody that was… just wanted to help, people are coming from all over the world to come there and help.

[33:45] And I just think it's a good time for us to stop and think about it and remember it, of course.

[33:50] So Chief Black actually wanted to be here today, but unfortunately, something came up, and he wasn't able to be here. But on Friday at about 959 we're going to be at the bell tower, and we're going to do a little service there. So if you guys want to, if you can make it, that'd be great

[34:07] And I would also be awesome if I could see you guys there.

[34:12] All right, thank you very much. Thanks, Andy. Thank you, Sharon.

[34:15] And it's, yeah, 25 years this year is amazing to think. I remember exactly where I was, the conversations I had with the boss on the 13th floor of the U.S. Bank Center in Seattle, where I was working at the time, and yeah, you know, it's a moment that is a scar we all share. You know, even my daughter, who wasn't alive at that point

[34:33] has

[34:34] Has a memory kind of the impact of this, you know, the scar scar remains and the service. And as you say, more people rushing in after the fact, you know, and cleaning up for the weeks after have suffered, have given their lives

[34:49] And dealing with this tragedy and all the dogs, too. And all the dogs who helped with the rescue. Yeah, there was a lot of dogs involved in that effort. You know, everyone knows I'm a dog man, but, you know, yeah, I'm reading a book right now called Familiar. It's like

[35:04] thousand-page book, and I tried to read it while I was taking my break, but I only got to page 700, but it's a pretty amazing book about dogs, and you know how smart they are, and reading this makes me think… I remember that the week after

[35:20] Hearing stories of dogs finding people in the wreckage of the towers and just, you know, it was all hands on deck, and I'll pause, too.

[35:34] Yeah, it's interesting that we, you know, these things that we talk about or remember year after year after year and then 25 years later

[35:45] You know, I admit there's sort of like the thing in the back of your mind going like, do we still need to do this? Is this still relevant? And then reading this, yeah, this is still incredibly relevant and important. There's something

[35:59] just deeply connected and important about remembering

[36:05] All the things about that, how it happened, the way people responded and came together, why it happened, all those things, right? And everything that's changed since then. So thanks for coming.

[36:17] Definitely. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you.

[36:20] Friday at 959.

[36:24] All right. It's Friday, though not not the 11th. 11 Friday is the 11th. Today's Tuesday. That's right. It's a Monday. Thank you. Yeah.

[36:41] Okay, well, maybe we can take a quick look at, of course, we're getting on to KPTZ and we will be joined by Dr. Barry at 945. But we do have Lila, even though there's no mylars anymore. There is a Mylar. There is a mylar. Yes. Oh, okay, good, fine. Okay.

[37:02] Got to sign a few more of those before. Yes, indeed. All right, so let's take a look at the consent agenda. Are there any questions or concerns?

[37:12] Don't have any concerns this time I talked about it earlier, just grateful for new members of our community stepping up to serve in roles

[37:22] And I've had, you know, a hand in recruiting some of them, and I'm grateful that they're saying yes and showing up at the committee meetings and being appointed. So yeah

[37:36] All right

[37:38] I think I just want to highlight the importance of some of these you know the Cascade community connections and the wise contracts. These are really important hitting the ground services that are

[37:53] I'm so grateful to see them continue in this time right now when we're seeing these kind of services sometimes being cut. So it's really

[38:04] That's like a real opportunity and benefit to be able to continue. And these are small dollar amounts, but they really get in the community in meaningful ways. I'm really grateful to be able to sign these contracts.

[38:17] For sure. I'm grateful for our central services team working on the Community Center and the courthouse Annex and all projects we've been talking about for

[38:27] over a year or more a year or more, and it's good to see things moving forward. And

[38:34] Look forward to seeing those come to come to life.

[38:39] Yeah, go ahead. Just a comment about number 15 about public defense support from the state.

[38:48] I want to give thanks to the staff that have worked on this, Amanda Christopher and grants specialist and others who have from the Commissioners office and the courts that have collected data that allows us to access these funds from the state. And the funds from the state, my understanding, have doubled

[39:03] recently from past support. So that's all good. And up to 63,000 shy of 64,000 is is

[39:14] A drop in the bucket for what the expenses actually are maybe 5% or something of what we have to spend for public defense. So just reminder as a sort of a unequal way of dealing with public defense relative to other states is my understanding. So it's a constitutional right, but

[39:30] There's a definite lack of support for local government to provide that service, and it's expensive and it's getting more expensive. And just know that this is one of WASAC's top priorities for Washington Washington Association of Counties, and I spent a lot of the last legislative session

[39:46] Marching across the street from the WASAC office up to the hill, talking to our legislators and other legislators about public defense challenges that we have as a county. It's huge, and it's… I feel like it's

[40:03] I'm not going to say that I want to say. But it's just it's a big problem.

[40:09] the disparity between what's needed and what's

[40:13] given to the county. Counties across the state to provide public defense services is really laughable. It's a word I wanted to say a minute ago but yeah, it's it's really hard.

[40:27] and it will be a big part of our conversations in the upcoming legislative session, because we're going into a full budget cycle in 2027, 27 to 29, and it'll it'll be a key priority.

[40:40] It just feels like this is the the thing we're asking

[40:45] residents of the State of Washington, and then, you know our local residents to really

[40:51] Be problem solvers around, and to be thoughtful about. I mean, it's one of the things that I'm trying to think about as a resident

[40:59] is to say, what do I want my government to be doing versus what I want the rest of my community to be doing and

[41:07] Because when we ask them they say the State says you need to provide

[41:13] more public defense services

[41:17] We say, how are we going to pay for that? We'd like you to pay for more of it. That means they have to make the choice about what they're not going to pay for at the state level, right? And I feel like we all need to get a little more involved in

[41:32] Really talking about what

[41:34] Okay, how do we shift?

[41:36] Do we want this to be paid for? What are we not going to pay for and or are we going to chip in more? And that's a real… it's basic math, but it's also a really

[41:47] It's a really important conversation and I guess we're having all the time and I'm just more aware of it because I'm a commissioner now. Indeed. Yeah

[41:57] probably been said millions of times from this dais and others.

[42:02] Okay? Well, I'm happy to make a motion that we approve the consent agenda for September 8th, 2026. Okay. And I will second that. Okay, it's been moved and seconded to approve and adopt the consent agenda as presented for September 8th. All in favor, indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye

[42:18] Hi, okay, that motion passes. We can sign a mylar and maybe just do a touch base. Thanks for being here, Eric. We're about to go on the radio with Dr. Barry. Can you wait till 1015? Okay, great. So we'll get to do this signature and then get started? What's up? I said, does she have a special special pin? All right

[42:41] Either way. All right. Oh, I didn't bring my glasses. Oh, no sign there? No. Right, right here. Do you want your glasses? Nope.

[42:50] He's doing it. All right.

[42:53] We hope it was in the right spot. Good to see you, Lila. Thanks for coming and finishing it up. Yeah. And this be really good. I when you get to this point, I always think of when I got to the point in college or in high school when you're you've turned in the paper right you've got it. There it is. It represents so much work. Yeah, I have other short class that I'm trying to get to the final stage

[43:22] Yeah.

[43:29] Perfect. So yes, it's great to get to the final stage and have one more project. All right. For those property owners. Thanks. Have a great day. See you guys, too. Thanks, Zila.

[43:42] All right, and now we will join the listeners from KPTZ and bring Dr. Barry over

[43:51] I know that

[43:54] Willie was hoping to give an update on the Horseshoe fire and other issues, but is did not have any questions and is not able to join us today. So

[44:03] We aren't going to start with Willie today, Dr. Berry. I don't know if you're ready. I guess we're 9:45 now

[44:10] And so

[44:12] Good morning. Thanks for being with it. It's a solo show today, Dr. Berries. Are you ready for your 15 minutes? Oh, same.

[44:18] Sure, I'll do my very best. It's nice to see you all. There's plenty to talk about in the infectious disease realm, so happy to kick it off today as we move into the fall.

[44:30] We are actually starting to see a small increase in COVID-19 activity in our region, both in terms of wastewater surveillance and also in terms of emergency department utilization. And we're seeing a similar trend around the state.

[44:46] Small so far, but it does look like we're starting to move into the fall respiratory season. I apologize if you can hear my dog barking in the background. There must be someone upsetting him. I apologize.

[45:00] But so far it's relatively early. But that kind of shows us the signal that we're moving into the fall respiratory system, and it's time to take those steps that we know make a difference to reduce the risk of severe outcomes as we move into the fall

[45:16] We are also starting to see the fall respiratory vaccines show up in our community, so we're starting to receive questions from the public about what we can do

[45:28] And what vaccines are available and which ones would be best for them. So I'm happy to answer any questions about those. There is a little bit slightly more complex guidance this year than in years past, so I'll walk everybody through that

[45:42] First of all, when it comes for influenza, the vaccine recommendations are relatively simple. Everyone 6 months and up is recommended to get a flu vaccine this year. If you are over 65, it's recommended that you get one of the high-dose vaccines

[45:57] or the new approved mRNA vaccine for influenza, but get whichever one is available when you go to the pharmacy. But everybody 6 months and up is recommended to get an influenza vaccine to reduce the risk of contracting influenza and getting the more severe

[46:13] Disease from influenza this fall

[46:16] When it comes to COVID-19, it's a little bit more complicated than in years past. So when it comes to adults, everyone is recommended to get a COVID-19 vaccine. When it comes to kids, it's just a little bit different on the recommendations this year. For kids 6 months to 2 years of age

[46:33] All of those youngest kids that are available to get a COVID-19 vaccine are recommended to get one for kids 2 years to 18, it's recommended for all kids who have an underlying health condition that puts them at risk of more severe disease from COVID-19

[46:50] And anyone who has close contact with others in their household who are at high risk from severe disease from COVID-19, but for otherwise healthy kids who don't have a known risk of exposing someone who's at high risk of severe disease from COVID-19

[47:05] There is not a blanket recommendation for them to get a COVID-19 vaccine this fall. However, it is important that all of those kids still have access to a COVID-19 vaccine if their families want them to be able to get one. And so in Washington state, there's a standing order from our state health officer, which means that anyone six months and up

[47:25] can get a COVID-19 vaccine at any pharmacy. So if you or your family wants your kid to have that added layer of protection, it's a safe vaccine. It reduces their risk of severe disease from COVID-19, but it's not a universal recommendation this year

[47:40] And I'm sure some folks might be asking kind of why the difference? And the main difference is that we have seen less severe disease in recent years from COVID-19 in otherwise healthy children than we saw in years prior. It used to be all kids

[47:56] were at potentially high risk of more severe outcomes from COVID-19

[48:00] This last year, when we looked at the data, really clustered in kids under 2 and kids who had underlying significant health conditions that put them at risk of those most severe outcomes from COVID-19. So that's why the change in recommendation this year

[48:16] But it is available and there is an order from our state health officer so that you can go to any pharmacy in Washington state to get your kids vaccinated regardless of their underlying health risk.

[48:27] Both flu and COVID vaccines are recommended for all pregnant people. Pregnancy continues to be a risk factor for severe disease from COVID-19, both for the pregnant person and for their baby. So making sure that you get vaccinated in your pregnancy to protect yourself and your baby is very, very important.

[48:44] Last but not least is RSV. So the RSV vaccine is not quite available yet. We're going to start seeing that come out around October, but that's recommended for everyone 75 and up and everyone 50 and up who has underlying conditions that put them at higher risk of severe disease from COVID-19

[49:01] It's also recommended for all kiddos going into their first COVID-19 season this year, so kids less than 8 months of age and kids up to 18 months of age who have a significant risk factor for higher risk of RSV

[49:16] That's very premature kids, kids with significant cardiac disease or pulmonary disease, like pulmonary disease of prematurity, Down syndrome, neuromuscular disorders, and all American Indian and Alaska Native kids are recommended to get

[49:32] A vaccine going into their second RSV season. The reason is, unfortunately, we see more severe RSV outcomes in our native communities, and so it's recommended that children in those communities get access to an additional dose of vaccine to give them that

[49:48] added layer of protection.

[49:50] And so with that, I'm happy to pause to talk about kind of the big three and then we can talk about some of the other viruses that are in the news these days.

[49:58] Thank you, Dr. Berry. Any questions about that? I'll start with a question. Two questions, actually. One, you mentioned that waste surveillance is ongoing. And I guess I thought for some reason that that had stopped because that was a state. When did that? Can you go into waste surveillance a little bit

[50:16] Yes, totally.

[50:17] I wastewater surveillance. And then I'm also curious just about the, you know, kids older than 2. I appreciate the the nuance. I guess I'm a little confused by the recommendation that they can get it if they don't have under, you know, unless… and it's, you know, suggested if they have underlying

[50:34] Conditions, but isn't it safer? I mean, it's not like there are more negative outcomes of the vaccine for kids 2 and up. Why, I guess, why not the whole full-throated recommendation for vaccines if it's

[50:50] Yeah, great question. So to take the wastewater surveillance first, yes, it did stop for a few months because of state funding cuts that led and actually some federal funding cuts as well that led to the loss of the

[51:06] The courier system that would pick up samples and take them back to the State Department of Health lab. They were able to find funding and also a new contract to make sure that those samples could go back to the state labs, so wastewater surveillance has restarted

[51:21] in the last month. So we have wastewater surveillance again, which is good. It's an important tool to know how much virus is circulating in our communities. As far as the question about vaccines, yeah, I think it's an understandable question of like, well, why not

[51:38] Get a kid vaccinated who's between the ages of 2 and 18, and I would say there's not really a strong reason why not to. It's not that we know that it's not an increased risk of vaccine in that group, it's that whenever we make a vaccine recommendation, we're balancing risk-benefit

[51:54] And the risk of severe outcomes from the infection that we're talking about, and so when it comes to COVID-19, in all the years prior, that risk-benefit really was very, very clear. The risk of severe disease, even in otherwise healthy kids

[52:10] was so high that everyone should get vaccinated. This year, and looking at recent data, we've not seen those more severe outcomes as often in otherwise healthy kids. That doesn't mean that it could never happen. It certainly does happen. And so adding that added layer of protection

[52:26] is, I think, a good idea. Most of the health officers that I know who have kids in that age range still get them vaccinated every year. So it's not that it's unsafe or there's concern about the vaccine in that group, it's just that we don't have as much

[52:43] Evidence of the risk of COVID-19 causing those more severe outcomes in that group, and so we always try to be thoughtful in our vaccine recommendations, so we don't, you know, we want to be intentional about how we recommend vaccines

[52:58] That said, it should be available. It's a safe vaccine. It can give you that added layer of protection going into the fall. Very reasonable choice for parents to make sure that all their kids get vaccinated. But if you have a kid who has an underlying health condition, a kid with asthma, which is an incredibly common condition

[53:15] Kids with developmental disorders, kids with neurologic disorders or cardiac disorders, very strong recommendation that they get the COVID-19 vaccine, just not as strong of a recommendation for the otherwise healthy kiddos

[53:26] Thank you for going into that.

[53:29] Any other questions for Dr. Berry about the big three? Dr. Berry, my question is more around just if you would

[53:38] kind of reframe for us where we are in Washington State with regard to where we get our recommendations, as opposed to where we're getting them nationally, and just kind of reframe that for us. I think it's

[53:51] Good reminder

[53:52] Yeah, absolutely. So good question of kind of when I share these recommendations, where are they even coming from? Especially with things like the kind of chaos that we're seeing at the federal health system level. Right now, we don't have an ACIP, which is usually where these recommendations come from

[54:10] In this year, as in year prior, this recommendations come from the major medical societies. So when it comes to kids, we get our recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is a group of pediatricians from across the country who look very carefully at the data around risk and benefit, and that's actually where that small difference in the COVID-19 vaccine recommendations comes from

[54:33] Is from the AAP taking a deep dive at that data of which kids are getting really sick in most recent years.

[54:41] When we look at adult recommendations, those come from the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American Medical Association. That's who we really get our adult recommendations from. When we look at pregnant folks, we get the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. So

[54:56] Each of the professional groups of the doctors who care most often for these patient populations. That's where we get our recommendations from. In Washington State, we also have the Washington State Department of Health and the West Coast Health Alliance that align their recommendations

[55:12] with the professional organization, so we don't have kind of separate recommendations that are different than the ones that we're getting from the major medical organizations in the country. One thing that is different in Washington State and several other states throughout the country is that

[55:28] We have a standing order to make these vaccines available. In some other states in the country, even though it's recommended by the major medical organizations, by the doctors who take care of you, you still can't get access to that vaccine without a physician appointment.

[55:43] And we know that that's a really significant barrier for folks, especially for folks who are uninsured, who don't have the funds to go and get a doctor's visit every time they need a vaccine. And so in Washington state and many other states in the country, the state health officer writes a standing order, and that's what makes those vaccines available at pharmacies

[56:01] Not just at a physician's appointment

[56:05] Thank you.

[56:06] Any other questions about vaccines or the viruses that we're following at this point?

[56:17] Hmm.

[56:18] Like I said, I got something on my little vacation break I took and I think I think it was a flu bug, but it started on Saturday and I feel a lot better now. But it was like, I haven't been sick in like six

[56:27] 7, 8 years. And so it made me think of you almost instantly, Dr. Berry. I was like, what would Dr. Berry do? I think sleep. I'm gonna sleep. So, but it was… it was just this moment where I'm like, oh.

[56:39] You know, now it's in my body.

[56:43] Well, I'm really glad you're feeling better.

[56:44] Not sure what I have, but look what I got, but I was cold plunging along the way, so might have… You just might have chilled myself out a little bit, trying to chill myself out a little bit. Anyway.

[56:57] All right, I guess KPTZ question.

[56:58] And yeah, I think vacation is a time where a lot of us do get exposed to things, whether you know it's most commonly kind of the planes, trains and automobiles, but also the in-person gatherings that tend to happen when we travel or we go out to restaurants more often. We get, especially if they don't have good airflow in those spaces, those

[57:14] kind of the common ways that we see a lot of these books spread.

[57:18] I mean, I had an interesting conversation

[57:21] Over the course of the last few days where it's like you

[57:26] You let down your guard in a way, you know, you relax, you

[57:30] I was reading a book. I was doing all the relaxing things, drinking a lot of tea, you know, not… not, you know, nothing nefarious going on, and I just was like

[57:39] I got sick. And so I was like, well, I let down my guard, and I and we were having this conversation that other folks that I was with and have had that experience where you know when you when you give yourself a little space and grace, it's often the time when you can

[57:54] End up with a bug, a cold or a flu.

[57:59] I don't know

[58:00] Well, and even the idea that, you know, you've been working really hard for a long period of time too. And when we run our bodies down for a long period of time, and then we finally get a vacation, sometimes it's all the rundown before that vacation and then unfortunately it does make us sick on our vacation too

[58:15] Yeah, yeah.

[58:17] I want to answer a couple questions from KPTZ that are on these topics, and then we can talk a little bit about measles, little cyclosporine, a little pertussis as well.

[58:27] All the fun stuff

[58:28] One question we got was when will the vaccine be available when it comes to COVID and flu vaccines, they are starting to show up in our community. Some pharmacies are starting to get them, but they're not widely available yet. They should be widely available in the next couple of weeks. So if you don't have a particularly high-risk activity coming up

[58:44] I'd probably wait a couple weeks and then go ahead and go to the pharmacy. If you really want to get your COVID-19 and flu vaccine right now, just make sure you schedule online to make sure you have an appointment and that they have the vaccine available, or that you call ahead to make sure that they have it.

[58:58] Another question was about COVID-19 vaccines for people over 65. And the question was whether or not they're going to need two vaccines this year. And yes, the recommendation this year, like last year, is that folks over 65 get two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, one right now

[59:15] And another one in the spring and that's primarily because of the immune systems of older adults that have a harder time maintaining that prolonged immunity from vaccines that you get, and the funkiness of the COVID-19 season. In the flu season, we really have a very consistent

[59:31] fall winter time period when we see it in COVID, we actually often see the beginning of a surge towards the end of the summer, right before the fall vaccines come out. And so that's why you need that added protection to kind of get you all the way through the year when it comes to COVID-19

[59:48] Another really good question that was about the vaccines for Children program. And so that's a program that funds free vaccines for all children in Washington state, and there's actually a vaccines for Children program nationally and then a state program as well

[1:00:03] And that's funded by a mix of state and federal dollars. And this person asked, is that program at risk? And are there any changes that potentially are affecting pediatric access to vaccine this year? And that has been a worry because it's a federal program and they've been cutting funds for lots of different public health programs

[1:00:22] Thankfully, they have not touched the vaccines for Children program, and so we still have access to vaccines across the country and in Washington State. Washington State has been very intentional about working hard to adequately fund that program. So all children in Washington state

[1:00:39] have access to vaccines regardless of their ability to pay. Most pediatric practices participate in the Vaccines for Children program. I know Jefferson Healthcare does, as well as your local public health department, and so we want to make sure that all kids, regardless of their family means, have access to vaccines, and that thankfully.

[1:00:57] It's still true. They haven't touched that program yet, and I hope they don't in years in the future. But right now all our kids have access to vaccines.

[1:01:08] A little bit about some other bugs that we are tracking. We continue to see pertussis cases pop up in neighboring Clallam County. We've been following an ongoing outbreak throughout the summer that started towards the end of last school year, primarily affecting under-vaccinated children

[1:01:24] Thankfully, so far for Jefferson County, we have not seen spread into Jefferson County, but it is nearby. We're moving into school season, and so the best thing that all of us can do to make sure that we don't see an outbreak in Jefferson is to make sure we're up to date on our pertussis vaccines. That one's packed

[1:01:40] Packaged with the tetanus vaccines with the DTaP vaccine for kids and the Tdap vaccine when it comes to adults.

[1:01:47] If you are an adult and you don't remember the last time you got a tetanus vaccine, it's a good idea to go ahead and get another one. They're recommended every 10 years, and there's a pediatric vaccine schedule that has multiple doses of the DTaP vaccine. If you check in with your provider, you can make sure that your kiddo is up to date.

[1:02:03] We continue to see cases from the cyclospora outbreak across the country. So far, over 18,000 cases have been diagnosed. 14,000 alone in Michigan. There are still 13,000 cases still pending investigation, so we're likely to continue to see that number rise

[1:02:21] I did hear a news report lately that said that basically that outbreak is over because we went from August into September, and I would say that bacteria, parasites, viruses don't really care what day it is, and so we're likely to continue to see cyclospora cases related to that ongoing outbreak.

[1:02:39] Thankfully, we have had no spread of that outbreak into Clallam and Jefferson County. We have had cases of cyclospora in Jefferson and Clowham County residents who traveled, most commonly who went to Michigan, or we've had folks who came in a road trip

[1:02:55] So they drove across the country and then arrived back here and got diagnosed with cyclospora, but we've not had any cases where they contracted the parasite here. We continue to recommend good food safety practices, rinse your fruits and vegetables, cook the ones that you want to cook

[1:03:11] And then buy local if you can because none of our local farms are affected by this outbreak. So it's still safe, and I highly recommend eating salads. They're good for your health. If you can, try to buy them locally. And if you can't, try to purchase the whole head of lettuce

[1:03:26] peel off the outside layers and rinse them before you turn it into a salad. It's the bagged and pre-chopped lettuces that have been driving a lot of this.

[1:03:34] And last but not least, measles. Measles has been in the national news for quite some time and it heated up in recent weeks, particularly around the outbreaks that we're seeing in Pennsylvania.

[1:03:45] So far this year, there have been more than 3,000 cases of measles diagnosed across the country, and the likely number is quite a bit higher because those are only the cases that we know about. And in the states with massive outbreaks, their own state health departments will tell you that they are unable to track

[1:04:01] All of the cases that are in their community. Thankfully, Washington State so far does not have an outbreak of that scale. All of our cases have been able to be isolated, and the outbreaks have been able to be stopped, so we don't have an ongoing outbreak in Washington state

[1:04:17] We have no known measles cases in Clallam or Jefferson County at this time. Current nationwide hotspots are Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Utah, South Carolina had a really massive outbreak. And then really we haven't seen a lot more cases from that one

[1:04:33] It is possible that that outbreak has wrapped up, but also possible that there's just still transmission that's going undetected in South Carolina

[1:04:41] The major controversy in recent weeks was about two deaths that occurred in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, tragically, two infants died in Pennsylvania in recent weeks in relation to the measles outbreaks that are going on. And I think, sadly, it was an example of how not

[1:05:00] to how not to talk about deaths in an infectious disease outbreak. One of the things that we learn in public health and that we work really hard to do is to share what information we have as soon as we have it and be honest about what we know and what we don't know

[1:05:17] In these cases, they were two children who had been diagnosed with measles, who had been exposed to measles in the outbreak, who died. And unfortunately, the first person who made that notification was the governor. I strongly recommend against

[1:05:33] politicians being the people who notify the public about deaths in public health outbreaks. It really needs to be the province of public health departments. And that, just that choice of messenger, I think, really affected public trust for many in the community about how much they could trust those answers.

[1:05:52] In both of those cases, it's very likely that measles was the precipitating event that led to those deaths, but one of those deaths is still very much under investigation, and it's really important that we be honest about how much we know and how much we don't know. And

[1:06:09] I hope that public health departments and governments across the country are learning from this experience so that we can make sure that we share information from trusted messengers in a way that is most easy for the community to understand.

[1:06:24] Every death of a child is a tragedy. Every death of a child from an infectious disease is a terrible tragedy in many cases, a preventable one, and it shouldn't be used as an opportunity to score political points from either party. It just should be used

[1:06:41] It should be shared so the public can understand what's going on and so that they can take effective measures to protect themselves and their families.

[1:06:50] And so with that, I'm happy to take any additional questions from the Commissioners or we can close for the day.

[1:06:57] Other questions?

[1:06:59] Sobering ending there. Dr. Berry, I was just reading a quote recently at that reference dragnet

[1:07:11] Yeah, the television show Dragnet, and it was talking about sort of that iconic just the facts, ma'am. And how important that is, even though it's a funny reference, but it's a really important sort of reminder in this time right now to really try to stay focused on

[1:07:34] facts and where we're getting our facts, so that that's accessible for everyone, and we can hopefully in that way, de-politicize. But the agreeing on what the problem is and agreeing where our facts come from, and agreeing on what is fact and what is not a fact seems to be a real challenge for us. So thanks for always citing your sources and

[1:07:54] And we're really working so hard to get us accurate information, Dr. Bed

[1:08:01] Thank you.

[1:08:03] I have one thing to add while we're on the radio, if we can, which is public health related, and that is that we are in September and that means we're in the middle of the great diaper Drive again

[1:08:16] And Dr. Berry, I don't know if you have time to comment on the need for diapers, but we know that one in two U.S. families with young children struggle to afford diapers, and there is a diaper bank here in Jefferson County, which is supported through First Step Family Support Center. You can drop off

[1:08:34] Diapers and wipes at the Jefferson County Public Health Office next to QFC in Fort Townsend here at the Jefferson County Courthouse. There's also spots at the Tri-Area Community Center in Hadlock and at the Quilsen Public Health Clinic behind the post office and at Chimakum Creek Primary, which is a new drop-off location this year, and that diaper bank is available for people who need it all year round.

[1:08:58] Thank you so much for bringing that up. Yes, diaper need is a critical need in our communities, both in Clallamh and Jefferson counties, and we have an active diaper drive that's supported by family services in both communities.

[1:09:11] I think one pretty compelling piece of data that I learned as I moved more in these spaces is that diaper need is a critical driver of perinatal mental health outcomes. And so particularly mom

[1:09:26] who don't have enough diapers to take care of their kids. It's one of the primary predictors of postpartum depression. It's very, very painful as a parent to feel like you can't provide the adequate care for your kid and to try to ration diapers over the day, knowing that that increases your child's risk

[1:09:44] Of rashes and skin breakdown. It's very, very painful for families that have that shortage, and we want to make sure and reduce that burden as much as we can, both for the health of those children, but also for the mental health of their caregivers. And so if you do have access and the ability

[1:10:01] To give diapers towards this drive or even throughout the year, you can support this program even when we're outside of the diaper drive. It's a really meaningful step we can take to improve the well-being of our most vulnerable families.

[1:10:16] Thank you so much. I've talked to a bunch of grandparents in town who have some leftover polyps and wipes and diapers that are still packed up that they kept in their homes and they're like, oh, this will be a great opportunity to get rid of those, but you can also buy new boxes

[1:10:33] Absolutely. Yeah, there

[1:10:34] and deliver them. I have the last name

[1:10:52] Yeah.

[1:10:53] As a parent, you often have a chunk left over as your kid sizes up. This is a really great way to get those into the hands of folks who need them. And yeah, when I go to Costco to buy the diapers for my kiddo, I often just pick up another box. And so if that's accessible to you, that's a really good option to make sure that

[1:10:54] All kids in our community have access to what they need

[1:10:56] And free up a little space on your shelves. For sure.

[1:10:58] Absolutely, and prevent waste, all good things.

[1:11:01] I remember the celebration last time when we filled the trap, you know, and we're gonna do that again this year. Let's let's burst the trap this time. That's right. And we do win prizes in Jefferson County for collecting the most. So we want to win

[1:11:16] For sure. Haven't had kids

[1:11:17] Healthy competition is good for these scenarios.

[1:11:20] Having not had kids, then I've saved a lot of money not buying diapers, so I guess I should go buy a lot of diapers. Yeah. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Berry, and thank you to KPTZ for accommodating us on this Tuesday and observations of Labor Day yesterday. So I think we're interrupting near and far and appreciate them making space for us

[1:11:43] Sorry, will the Vince couldn't be with us, but we'll be back next month with both an update from emergency management and from Dr. Barry. So thank you so much.

[1:11:54] Thank you.

[1:11:55] Thank you.

[1:11:56] All right, we'll return KPTZ to their normal schedule and invite Eric Kuzma to come on up. We're going to walk something up briefly. Talk to Eric about this last week and couldn't put it on consent or something, but you know when we get good news, it's good to

[1:12:11] Bureaucratic good news, I don't know, movement at least, but maybe you can

[1:12:17] tee this up, and I don't know, Josh, do you have a copy of it you can put on the screen?

[1:12:22] I don't think I have the actual, and I dropped it in the group folder in laserpiece for people to see in the packet. Plus, it's nice to see you, Eric. It's been a few weeks since

[1:12:38] Okay, so yeah, take it away. Why are you here today, Eric? Good question. Thanks for letting me come in today. Last minute, just it's kind of time sensitive, so I appreciate it. The Quinault South Shore washed

[1:12:53] In 24 and the end of the year, and we've been pushing really hard to try and get that funded that happened the same time the Upper Hope washed out when the governor came through on that front with the unplanned lottery winnings, as I think it might be

[1:13:08] It's been interesting and challenging, you know, to try and get this thing through. We went through seven iterations of the DDIR, which is the Fed form, before it got approved, and then got caught up in a DFW process. In the meantime, they kind of, FHWA came back in heavily conditioned the approved DDIR

[1:13:28] And so we just keep negotiating, and no one's really at the federal level

[1:13:33] Working together, so I'll process these bets are off. Last Friday, they came through with a soft… FHWA did a soft approval. I guess you can go ahead, but we have a drop dead date of September 30th

[1:13:49] This month to get an advertised awarded, constructed well out of water by September 30th. Wow. Did you say add water out of the in water work has to be identified. September 30th

[1:14:05] We submitted an LA agreement. You guys are familiar with LA agreements back in March. You guys approved that LA agreement. DOT misplaced it, lost it, something. But that's our guarantee of funding. The DDIR is sort of

[1:14:21] A first step. So I want, you know, we need to move ahead. Time is of the essence.

[1:14:29] The LA agreement is what, once they sign that we'll commit the funding. So we're going to go out to add this week. We have food called pre-bidders. They appear interested. We'll see how interested they are based on the numbers we get back. Roglins is currently working on the river with the tribe. So I mean, maybe there's a nice marriage there depending on what their capacity is

[1:14:50] But the long and short of it is we need you to re-sign the LA agreement because DOT said, oh, it's been too long since they signed it. So they're revised, but nothing… the only thing that's changed on the form is at the top

[1:15:04] be useful about the type of work there. It says advertisement date, the previous one said maybe March, something like that, that Josh has the previous one there, but I don't know if it matters. We updated that date, and then at the bottom it just has the signature date. So it needs to be re-signed with a

[1:15:22] A new signature date and that'll commit the funding that will be off to the races and we'll see what happens. Does this resolve at all the mitigation question, or is that still up in the air? No, that was part of the original seven iterations that DDIR. I mean, there's three. I don't have I have it here in paper, but there's three columns or rows on there. One is

[1:15:42] Temporary emergency repair. Second is incidental repair, and third is permanent restoration. Typically, we don't fill out that incidental repair, because there really aren't any. There's the emergency, how do we restore access, and then there's potential after-the-fact actions, and that could be putting asphalt down, because oftentimes we can't do that in the middle of the winter, right after a storm that we can't guardrail down later

[1:16:04] And then the mitigation is usually a byproduct of the after the fact of permitting process, NEPA, etc. So we'll put a placeholder in there, but they didn't and traditionally, I mean, those numbers can vary hugely. So a pretty good placeholder is about 80% of

[1:16:20] the repair cost, that's what we put in, and they said, well, you need to just take that out. They didn't want to commit to that, but what it does commit them to is once we do their repair, there's an acknowledgement that mitigation will come, and that mitigation will be the byproduct of the after-effect permitting. Now, in this case, as is

[1:16:38] was the case in the previous repair. We negotiated with the tribe, and we did a payment in lieu to the Bia to the Bia. And so there's discussion of doing that again, and the super supportive throughout the process. You guys remember we've signed some joint letters with them that unfortunately don't seem as though they've done a lot, but maybe they have in terms of just getting us

[1:17:00] To this point today. Okay. And so great. So we're being asked just to sign the the new La basically update this. Okay, and we will, once you take a motion, we'll open for public comment since this wasn't available to people on Friday. But it is in the packet now, so anyone can go and look through this, and you'll see that

[1:17:19] We signed this fair one March 23rd, you know, so we're just updating it for, you know, the last one that was round filed with extreme prejudice or whatever. I'm happy to make a motion that we sign an updated LA to get repair of the South Shore Quinault Ro

[1:17:35] Going

[1:17:36] I will second that. Okay, it's been moved and seconded, and I will open for public comment. If anyone would like to make public comment on just this action, we would love to hear from you. Bowen raised his hand, let's bring him over.

[1:17:51] Anyone else that would like to make public comment on this action, you can hit the raise hand button or star nine if you're on the phone and Mr. Bowen, when you put yourself unmuted, you have 3 min.

[1:18:03] All right, I'm

[1:18:06] I think I'm go. Okay, here we go. Yeah, Ed Bowen, Wes Jefferson. So this was actually a great briefing. I kind of figured out who's in the room, but

[1:18:16] And I expected this a long time ago. The reality out here is what you're faced with today, we knew was going to take place many, many, many moons ago. So, I'm glad you are moving to pass this resolution today. I support your efforts

[1:18:34] I would note though, a factor here again is this culvert, which is my background, and I'll put my face on it now.

[1:18:43] That's our short-term solution after you pass this resolution. So on the 28th of September, you're having a meeting with the park superintendent. She should have a solution, too, about this culvert and how can we keep that area open? That's my key piece here

[1:19:00] But I do support you passing this resolution today. Thank you.

[1:19:04] Thank you, Mr. Bowen.

[1:19:06] I thought you meant my background, like your

[1:19:10] employment background or something, but I see now. You mean your literal background?

[1:19:11] Oh, no, no, the culvert with a temporary bridge is my background picture.

[1:19:17] Yes. Thank you. And just for clarification, what cohort is that?

[1:19:23] That's

[1:19:27] Ubershore

[1:19:28] This is that temporary bridge that prevents us from going across the Canalt River from the North Shore Road

[1:19:30] From the river level, but yeah

[1:19:32] Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is from the culvert level.

[1:19:36] Thank you, Mr. Bowen.

[1:19:39] Would anyone else like to make public comment today on this action? Hit the raise hand button or star nine if you're on the phone.

[1:19:46] To hear from you

[1:19:48] All right, seeing no hands, I will close public comment, and you know assure Mr. Bowen that we are. We're we've already asked the question to Miss Jacobs. So I believe the appropriate staff are here to talk about their their plans on the North Shore Road and the culvert. You know we

[1:20:05] We're asking. But on this, it's great to have support. I mean, it's really just kind of continuing to move the project forward. It fits and starts whenever we have the opportunity. So thank you for bringing this to our attention quickly and

[1:20:22] Let's get it moving forward, I think. I tell you that this is something I've heard you talking about, Eric, since I took office, and that's, you know, not been forever, but, you know, a year and three quarters now, and so I just want to say that as much as I understand from the public perspective that these things seem like they take forever and

[1:20:44] But rest assured public that from a staff perspective, these are things that people are working on every single day, and you deserve so much credit, and I hope you get a little moment to just celebrate in your mind that it's one one thing checked off the list, and

[1:21:03] And it's worth celebrating. Congratulations. Thanks. We'll see if we get through. Definitely. Okay.

[1:21:11] Well, I will call the question all in favor of approving the signature on the La as moved. Indicate by saying aye. Aye, aye. Aye. Thank you, you guys. All right, we'll get it updated. Do you need it updated right now?

[1:21:22] We'll get it in. You have to bring that to the paper.

[1:21:27] And for your posting, is that time critical as well or we need the signature to upload to DOT. Okay, well, just sign it. Yep, perfect. Can you refine the office before you head up? It's just Greg's signature, too, I think. Perfect. Yep.

[1:21:43] One less thing to have to talk about

[1:21:47] Thank you. Thank you, Eric. For participating in the health update as well.

[1:21:55] Okay, so send back to our

[1:22:00] agenda with a few untime, but sort of semi-connected items. I see we, before our hearing at 11 for

[1:22:08] Appropriations

[1:22:11] Yeah, you can walk them on. Yeah, well, let's just get started. Maybe we can have a minute before the hearing, too. So, let's,

[1:22:19] You want to come up, Judy, and we can get started on the resolution regarding extending the temporary hiring freeze on new employment and vacant employment positions.

[1:22:30] So the original resolution that we approved last year ended has the ending date of this year, fiscal year 2026.

[1:22:42] Based on the current

[1:22:46] State of her deficit for 2026. We are anticipating with the especially the lower

[1:22:55] The below budget underperforming sales tax that we very possibly could be in a 2.5 million deficit for 2026 at the end of this year

[1:23:06] It's projection

[1:23:07] Okay

[1:23:08] So, and with deficits that carries into 2027. And so given that we are deciding and putting it before the board to update the resolution or present a new resolution that would go through

[1:23:24] Not the end of 2027, but that it can be removed by another resolution by the board to stop the hiring freeze. And so then that way, if it has to extend beyond 2027, or we want to stop at mid-year 2027, it's easy to

[1:23:42] do that without just having to do a yearly update. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's ongoing unless they renovate. And so

[1:23:54] And honestly, I'd like to say from a finance perspective, having the exemption in place has really shed some light on what departments are doing, what they need to do, what they need to do to be able to continue to do the work that they're doing. And it gives finance and Josh, of course, Josh sees them

[1:24:16] Was appropriated all along the county administrator was approving it all along. But when you look at it from a finance perspective first, and I'm looking at it from a different lens, then it has actually been really helpful and know a little bit more about the positions and the inner workings of those

[1:24:32] staff positions within the department. So it hasn't, in my opinion, been a bad thing. It's we haven't rejected very

[1:24:43] Many of them, which is good. Okay. We we offer maybe a different solution. So from a finance and account administrative perspective. So do you want to go ahead and

[1:24:55] Tik?

[1:24:58] I appreciate you summarizing and shooting. I would say that it has been a useful process from our perspective. I think it's been palatable for the departments. I think it just enables us to consider

[1:25:12] The ramifications, not just for the rest of the current budget year, but moving forward into the next year. Those are the types of questions that we ask about anticipated funding sources

[1:25:23] ways to… ways to achieve our staffing needs without continual reliance on the general fund or exceeding what has previously been authorized for expenditure. So

[1:25:34] We would recommend last year when we did it, we just put a one year time period on the resolution on the policy. So we're looking to extend it into next year. And I know we put

[1:25:48] Sorry this cough comes back, so I'll try and

[1:25:53] Talk between the coughs.

[1:25:56] I know we put practices in place to for departments to make a pitch for filling positions and kind of how has that gone? I know you just said it's gone well, but I mean, how many positions have been approved

[1:26:12] Through special authorizations of departments making their pitches. I mean, I don't have a sense of the whole picture. Can I add something on to Heidi's question too before you start answering? I'd love to know, because it's kind of a soft freeze that we had last year. What's the

[1:26:29] difference in process as with without this temporary hiring freeze, because Josh would still have to approve it to us. If you could compare and contrast a little bit, that would be helpful. Well, fortunately, we have our human resources director, Sarah Mellens, on here to add anything to the answer I'll give

[1:26:46] I don't have a precise number of the number of exemption forms that we've processed, but I would say that we're looking at perhaps

[1:26:56] 15 to 20 over the past year. That's about right. I forget you a firm number on that. That sounds about right. And just in specific, the answer to your question

[1:27:07] The only difference in process with the hiring fees exemption form primarily is that it goes through finance. So there's a direct link then to the budget. And all of the hiring freeze exemptions that were approved were positions that had already been

[1:27:23] prove through the budget process, but then there was analysis to determine that yes, indeed, there was budget within those departments to fill those positions.

[1:27:34] Yeah, so normally we have a series of HR paperwork that we've always had, like an ad request for a position. And then when an offer is going to be made to a candidate, then that also is something that comes through human resources to the county administrator's office. That was sort

[1:27:52] Traditionally, we did have a county administrator sign off essentially on almost all personnel actions of that nature. This exemption form has additional information which talks about

[1:28:03] The nature of the position, discretionary, mandatory, critical, vital, just different information about the role that it plays, and then, most importantly, perhaps that budget piece. Most of the time it's someone left the organization, and that position needs to be replaced. Right. And then on occasion, it's, oh, there's an additional state or federal

[1:28:22] funding source, grant funding that came in, so we need the budget authority to support the expenditure, both to receive the funds and then to expend them with new capacity. Yeah, to get a little more granular, when a request comes in to fill a position on the HR side, we do an analysis to ensure that that position is one that's listed

[1:28:41] On our… in our classification plan, and that there's a budget or a wage scale associated with that. So we're also doing a review of every request

[1:28:52] And without a hiring freeze, that's not happened. That happens without a hiring freeze. It did. Okay, great. The hiring freeze form actually is quite a bit more in-depth. It asks for more detail in terms of background

[1:29:08] more detail and terms of the nature of whether this is a required position or not a required position. What will happen if this position is not filled

[1:29:20] Great.

[1:29:21] Other questions? That's helpful. I just had no idea the scale of what we were talking about. I had grown, too, over the last year.

[1:29:30] Okay?

[1:29:31] So we have a resolution. Both of these things on the agenda today where we have a position that's being added and an extension of the shy increase. And it's actually not an addition of a position. It's just

[1:29:43] A restructuring of how that position is resourced. Yeah, the brain doesn't add in position, but we'll hear more about one more comment, which is that

[1:29:54] This board previously adopted a budget message when Judy was here last time, I believe, or one of the last appearances, where we talked about the budget process for 2027, and there's a budget message and goals that went along with that, and the idea of extending the hiring freeze was mentioned as

[1:30:12] In that budget message. We're now bringing the actual resolution that

[1:30:18] Implements that decision.

[1:30:22] I don't have any… I mean, it seems like well founded and I appreciate you kind of going into the nuance of what it actually means because looking at it, it reads different than what it is. So how does it actually impact different requirements abilities to rehire critical staff, move on or what have you

[1:30:42] I'm happy to make a motion that we

[1:30:48] pass a resolution extending temporary hiring freeze on new employment and vacant employment positions for hiring review

[1:30:56] I'll second that. Okay, I think I have one more question. Go ahead.

[1:31:01] Just, I think this is for you, Sarah.

[1:31:04] And maybe both Judy and Josh, you might have insights as well. But do you feel like, what do you feel like the impact on department leads has been in some ways, I feel

[1:31:16] This

[1:31:18] implements and ensures a process where communication is happening and a thorough analysis is happening, and we're really checking against the budget

[1:31:28] and the county administrator is is fully briefed on

[1:31:33] why a position is continuing

[1:31:36] I just… and to me, that all sounds like prudent. Yeah, fiscal policy and prudent planning

[1:31:43] And at the same time, I think, okay, well, there's also a level of burden on department leads

[1:31:53] to maybe provide a level of bureaucratic information that becomes unnecessary at some point. So I can see a reason why we would lift it, but for the most part, right now, it feels like it's actually a really good process to have in place at all times. Yeah, I agree with both

[1:32:08] Those statements that you said, yes, it is a burden on our admin contacts, our management staff to fill out a form

[1:32:18] And yet that what that form is doing is documenting you know kind of in a really pragmatic, straightforward way what this process, why they need this position, what it's for, how it's going to support the program that it's supporting

[1:32:33] And how it's going to provide service to Jefferson County. And

[1:32:39] In that way, and in providing that information through

[1:32:45] finance to and Josh, it's actually provided another level of analysis that I don't think we had before and questioning, because Judy is really into the details of the budget, and she

[1:33:02] Her position and her role, she knows exactly or she has, she can have more questions about where the funding is or knowing that in three months maybe there's going to be snag in that budget or so she has that ability

[1:33:18] To know that information and then have a conversation with Josh so that there's planning, and there's analysis, and then the ability for then a decision based on more information.

[1:33:32] And there's a documentation of that in the past, it was just a single form and then it was signed off by HR and the county administrator, I think, but there was never really, and then conversations, I'm sure it happened

[1:33:47] But those conversations are now documented in their form because we're asking those questions. And then, if I go back to the department head and ask more questions, because there's been a few times I've needed clarification. I include that in the documentation. So if we ever question, why did we do that or we're questioned by someone else in another department saying, Well, why did they get a person and we didn't we have documentation to

[1:34:15] go back and say, this is why we did it, and it supports it. Yeah, it's interesting. I guess the only thing I take exception to right now is that it doesn't feel appropriate to call what we're doing a hiring freeze

[1:34:28] Because we're not doing a hiring freeze. We have hired 15 to 20 people since we put this in place. And filling positions that are already previously filled by staff, so… I mean, it's also

[1:34:42] temporary is strange word to put on it, since it has no end date as well, right? I mean, is this just the kind of financial oversight that we're going to continue with? I mean, do you really anticipate this going away? Is this… I mean, I agree with Heather, it doesn't really seem like a hiring freeze so much as an additional level of rationalization for a decision, right? And bringing the finance department in. I can't see that that need is going to go away

[1:35:05] Next year or year after. Just from the HR perspective. In the last budget that was put together, there were some positions that departments agreed not to fill because they were not filling those in order to meet the budget goals. Yes

[1:35:23] Those positions are not being built. So

[1:35:28] the this process ensures that those positions are not being filled, and if they did need to fill them because of some

[1:35:35] Other reason, then they would have opportunity to discuss that.

[1:35:41] And the necessity to determine whether there would be budget for that

[1:35:45] So in a way it is sort of routine that all the positions that have been asked for have already been approved in the budget for the year. Yeah

[1:35:56] And coming up in our 2027 budget that you will see a lot of those positions that were not filled in 2026 are being put on the

[1:36:08] Add request to be filled

[1:36:11] So

[1:36:13] I'm aware of several of them that are already being pushed forward.

[1:36:19] which signals that

[1:36:22] For the most part, we really were already at the point of functioning at a pretty minimal level of staffing in order to do the work that we're asked to do as a county

[1:36:34] Okay, well, I mean, it's important conversation. I appreciate you taking the time to entertain the dialogue and

[1:36:42] Just feels very much like it's this has got to be a collective conversation that we're all having together and how to run this.

[1:36:50] Local government with

[1:36:52] the resources that we have

[1:36:55] Hopefully the feeling continues to be or it evolves to be

[1:37:01] that this isn't some sort of draconian oversight. It's really kind of creating a process in order for all the questions to be… for us to ask ourselves the questions. Is this… is this necessary? Is this the right use of funds? Does it check with the, you know, the projections that we need to be doing for the whole overall budget

[1:37:22] And in our collaboration meetings also that I've had with the general fund and other funds. They've been made aware of this continuing. So it's not a surprise. Yeah

[1:37:33] Okay, fine. A couple of additional points. So back to your question of

[1:37:38] Is it… is it working for everyone, or is it an undue burden? I mean, I was careful to say at the beginning, it's working for us, but acknowledging that, yes, it's additional paperwork, some maybe half a dozen pages worth of a form that somebody has to fill out, so it's acknowledging that it is additional work

[1:37:56] I guess I would suggest that it's

[1:37:58] The dynamic is different in the sense that the defaults may have just been, of course, this is just going to be a side. We're just going through the process and now there is an additional filter. I will also say that I'm looking at a presentation from last July when we talked about the 2026 budget goals. And one of the bullet points was enact a staff pause policy

[1:38:17] parentheses, aka a form of hiring fees. So we did actually talk about naming it something else, because perhaps it isn't an absolute

[1:38:24] I think we just decided that hiring freeze is very chill, common. I think we actually even maybe came up with that one, too. But common nomenclature would be a hiring freeze, you know, with an exemption policy, and that's what we know

[1:38:37] And honestly, too, I believe that some of what comes out of this is that when our leaders are feeling a little bit stretched anyway

[1:38:47] This just reminds them because the budget

[1:38:51] there's the budget tightening about tightening for the budget. We don't know really what we're going to see next year, and it's a it's additive to other

[1:39:01] other work that people have. So I think sometimes there really is feelings like that

[1:39:08] You know, in some in some departments, we've had quite a few people retiring or resigning, right? Their lives are going in a different direction, and it's the sudden and suddenly there's all these

[1:39:22] You know, vacancies that they need to have filled and then you have to do this big process. Yeah. Yes. So hopefully we're making a process that isn't

[1:39:33] That flows and that facilitates conversation and facilitates a thoughtful process, but isn't so onerous that you can't do your job. And so hopefully we invite lots of conversation from department leads to make sure they're if they have ideas about how to keep that part of the

[1:39:51] Dialogue going, but make it more efficient that can evolve that process as soon as we go.

[1:39:58] I mean, it comes back to the conversation we had a little bit earlier about public defense and

[1:40:04] You know, the impacts, the external impacts to our budget. Yeah. And, you know, all of all of these positions are part of our budget. And so this is how we this is one way we look at

[1:40:17] what our capacity is to fund

[1:40:21] positions that are required by state RCW in a lot of cases.

[1:40:27] So it's just

[1:40:30] It's an indication or a reflection of the continued challenges we're going to have when there's big things, big forces at play

[1:40:40] public defense funding.

[1:40:42] For example, so I, I mean, I think it's

[1:40:45] I appreciate

[1:40:47] The team

[1:40:48] grabbing an oar and being willing to do this extra work. So we actually know where we're at.

[1:40:54] I remember when we made this decision for the 1st hiring freeze, and it was

[1:41:02] At that moment, it felt like a little more of a hair on fire moment. But now we're seeing the benefits

[1:41:08] of having had the the freeze in place, the process in place

[1:41:14] for a while now, and I mean, what we're hearing is that it's been a good process. So I appreciate you guys bringing the process to us

[1:41:24] Way back when

[1:41:26] Yeah, you might hear some different perspectives during the budget presentations, too. But for now, you know this is yeah, it seems like a good policy to contain. So any more questions or comments before I call the question.

[1:41:40] Yeah. All right, all in favor of motion on the floor of approving a resolution in the matter of extending temporary hiring freeze on new employment and vacant employment positions hiring review as presented today. Indicate by saying aye. Aye. All right, that passes. Thank you guys for your consideration

[1:41:58] And don't go too far, Judy. We'll be back, but we will invite Mikey and Judge Mack up and talk about this new position. And I guess you're staying too low, Sarah. I am.

[1:42:12] No puppy for this? No one? I thought your dog, your dog might be able to fill this position. It's a dog friendly chamber. She read a thousand pages on dogs. Don't be stressed for that patient. You should see his new perk. He's dressed in his, yeah, in his perk shirt today. Nice.

[1:42:29] Thanks for joining us, have a seat.

[1:42:32] You want to give this up, Josh, or he's going to start this conversation. I'm going to defer to HR Director

[1:42:40] Good morning again. I appreciate Judgment and my team coming along.

[1:42:47] to speak to this issue. So kind of in a larger part of the overall

[1:42:53] Staffing and compensation system that we have in Jefferson County is that we have a classification system. And that is scheduled or set up so that it provides the ability for our county departments to provide services to the community

[1:43:10] that we're required to apply. And so the Board of County Commissioners approves the salary schedule, the positions and the funding for those positions

[1:43:22] This new position is brought to you today in order to review the position that is being requested in order to include that in our traditional classification system.

[1:43:33] There is some history just briefly to go through. The Board of County Commissioners established

[1:43:42] New salaries for elected officials in Jefferson County, and that includes for all elected officials

[1:43:52] And the Washington State Commissioners commission establishes the wage rate for Superior Court and District Court judges, as well as other positions. So our positions are benchmarked off of the wage that's established by the State Commission

[1:44:11] for Superior and district court judges.

[1:44:15] This

[1:44:17] In the Superior Court specifically, the issue of whether or not there was appropriate staffing came to mind or the appropriate way to provide the job and paid for the role of court commissioner

[1:44:32] was actually brought up to me in 2,023 when one of the Hr. Professionals that I work with

[1:44:42] asked us, which is commonly done, what we pay our park Commissioners and based on their analysis we were actually paying our judges

[1:44:52] 30% lower or court Commissioners 30% lower than what other counties were paying. So

[1:45:01] In terms of providing an organization that's required or that's listed in our strategic plan to support our employees, we were actually not doing that in Superior Court. And one of these positions had to do actually with what a position Maite is in, because there was only one person who could support

[1:45:22] the operations of the whole court. And so, two years ago, the board approved an additional half-time position there, so that the court's work could be done, but staff could also go to training and take a vacation.

[1:45:37] So now, thanks. So now we're coming to this halftime court commissioner where traditionally this has been only clerk hire positions. As you are aware, clerk hires are important staff

[1:45:52] tool that we use when we need kind of intermediate work done, but these are not benefited positions, and they work only less than 69 or up to 69 h per month

[1:46:05] So this request is to create a half time 0.5 FTE position as a court commissioner in this period court that would have a rate of pay that's benchmarked off Superior Court judge pay, and that would also get benefits

[1:46:22] And benefits on a half-time FTE position or any exempt position are determined by the FTE. So

[1:46:33] And I'll let Judge Maddock and Mikey do more of the conversation, but that's kind of the background of this

[1:46:41] why we're here today.

[1:46:44] Great. Thank you, Sarah.

[1:46:45] Judge Mack, you want to share with anything else from your perspective. Yeah.

[1:46:52] You know, when I think the biggest thing is that

[1:46:57] When I'm there's a number of things. If the commissioner is a 0.5 FTE, it opens up amazing opportunities for training in particular.

[1:47:07] Through the Superior Court Judges Association, the administrative Office of the courts, and other avenues where you might ask, why would that lead to training opportunities? This is the main thing. We can't afford to… we can't afford to pay somebody to go to a training.

[1:47:21] Right? Because if they're a clerk hire, I got 69 hours a month, right? And that… those 69 hours are used for court work. Then, I can't say, hey, go to this 3-day conference, and we'll pay you your hourly rate, and then that would basically use up half of your time

[1:47:38] And let alone we don't have much of a travel budget. But as a .5 Fte, you can go to conferences, you can go to trainings, develop those skills.

[1:47:50] Second, alongside that is that

[1:47:55] Yeah, being a one judge superior court. If I'm out

[1:48:01] Do you want to add a training or on vacation.

[1:48:05] You know, everything is put on this commissioner.

[1:48:08] You know, whether it's handling warrants, whether it's fresh arrests, people who've just been arrested, determining their bail, whether it's emergency protection orders, they

[1:48:19] I'm gone, right? And so to have somebody who we are paying by the hour, not training to basically just be in charge of the court of general jurisdiction.

[1:48:31] That's a lot, that's a big ask.

[1:48:36] You know, they they handle domestic violence protection orders, family law cases, dependencies. So an ever changing laws

[1:48:47] you know, we have very active legislature when it comes to family court dependencies, criminal staff, you know, criminal law, all of that. And so just to be up on all that it's a big ask. It's a big job, and

[1:49:02] And then, you know, we had Commissioner Remsen was just an amazing commissioner that we had for 3 years, and she left because it was like just couldn't. It just wasn't feasible, you know somebody who had 25 years of experience as a lawyer had to go to Clown County to get a job where she could actually

[1:49:20] Make a living. And now we have another

[1:49:23] Spectacular commissioner who will really only be pretty limited in that job if she can only work out to 69 h a month

[1:49:33] When she, you know somebody in this job could easily go open a practice and make well over $300 an hour. And obviously, we're not going to compete with that, but to be able to offer some sort of benefits

[1:49:46] as well as a little bit more of a of a wage just to encourage somebody to stay there. And it's not a it's not a requirement of the job, but one of the things that I really appreciate about a court commissioner is if they're not also practicing as an attorney in the courtroom

[1:50:03] Just that's an appearance of fairness, access to justice kind of issue, whereas one case they're a lawyer, and then maybe the next case or the next day they're up on the bench. That can be hard for

[1:50:14] the community to to adjust to. And so if somebody says, hey, I'm just gonna do this job, and this is the only job I'm gonna do, even even those 0.5, I think that's really valuable to our court as well.

[1:50:26] You know, and overall the Superior Court budget is, if I'm not mistaken, correct me if I'm wrong, Judy, is less than 2% of the county's general fund budget for I would say we do a pretty big job. And we're asking for I think when you add in the cost of the benefits, we're asking for

[1:50:44] That it comes out to about $2,000 more a month, which is, if my math's right, with the benefits and everything? Yeah. Yeah. Would be 0.042% of an increase. I know it's a… it's a tight year and every, you know, and then we have a hiring. I know, everybody's not, you know, has a lot of needs, and I don't think our needs are any more important than any other needs. So we're just this is what we would

[1:51:06] are seeking and certainly happy to ask any more questions, but are answering his questions. So in the agenda request

[1:51:15] under the fiscal impact, it said the Clark Higher Court Commissioner position is fully funded in the FY 2026 budget. So it's fully funded as a clerk hire. Yes. And this would this change would take effect

[1:51:31] Okay, so would there be an increase

[1:51:36] Above the clerk higher salary amount

[1:51:42] That's funded in the 2026 budget. Yes, a small increase. There is a small appropriation for a few thousand dollars. It's in the appropriation coming up in the today. Okay, and then the

[1:51:56] the incremental cost for benefits, the $2,000 a month is just for the benefits portion.

[1:52:03] Yeah, because ultimately this the commissioner would be making less per hour than you know if you break it down, their salary would be commissioner salary across the State is generally 90% of the judges. So this person's salary would be 45% of my salary. So if you break it down by hour, they're making less per hour than they would be making as a clerk hire, but then they have the benefits on top of that. And then I would just say that the person that we, first of all, there was

[1:52:30] a bit of a gap between the previous commissioner and this commissioner that I appointed, and then this commissioner who's on there now has been sort of slowly coming up to speed. So we… they haven't been using the 69 hr that's been allotted in our previous budget, so that's why I think the… I did want to talk about that. That's like the biggest value to the court last year. Commissioner Rimson we spent

[1:52:54] 96,000, approximately, $96,000, and she was able to work 1,032… I'm sorry, 660 hours. Next year, we're going to be able to get 1,032 hours from Commissioners Fesser

[1:53:10] And we're going to spend the 100 K. So we're going to almost, you know, get almost 400 extra hours for just a few extra thousand dollars.

[1:53:22] the value is just astronomical. Yeah

[1:53:26] Yeah, I'm super supportive of this shift just because I hear the constraints

[1:53:33] I know the person you're talking about. I know how fantastic she is and has been in all of her roles at the county and the state. So we're lucky to have her in that role and want to keep her in that role.

[1:53:46] As long as we can.

[1:53:48] And so the reason we're talking about this now as opposed to all the other similar asks that we're looking at Judy that we're going to be talking about in

[1:53:59] for the budget process is because you're starting now, so that you can get going on this and yeah, and because you have already appointed a commissioner to fill this spot.

[1:54:10] Okay, so let me just to add that we're… I agree with all of the things said here.

[1:54:17] I'm happy to make a motion

[1:54:20] Supporting a resolution, establishing a new part-time 0.5 FTE position and appropriate compensation for appointed Superior Court Commissioner of Jefferson County.

[1:54:32] I will second that. Do we need to

[1:54:35] Yeah, I guess that was the resolution title. Yeah, okay, I'll second. It's been moved and seconded. I'm also quite supportive of it. It seems reasonable, and I appreciate the the additional capacity that it's going to bring to employees. So that's that is thanks for amplifying that

[1:54:52] All right. Well, we have a hearing at 11, so it'd be great to give us just a few minutes to get set up. All in favor of the motion on the floor indicate by saying aye.

[1:55:02] Aye. Aye. All right. You have a 0.5 Commissioner. Thank you all and to Sarah and

[1:55:09] John Sport. Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you guys. We'll talk to you soon. Bye.

[1:55:14] Dream work is DreamWorks.

[1:55:16] All right, let's take a recess until 11, and we'll come back for our budget appropriations again.

[1:55:27] Go ahead.

[1:55:29] All right, I will call this regular meeting of the Board of County Commissioners back into session. We're still waiting for Commissioner Eisenhower to make her way back. So we'll

[1:55:40] We're teeing up, we're obviously sharing the screens and with the budget appropriations. And this isn't a quarter's budget appropriations. This is just these are some budget appropriations. Correct, yes. All right. You want to walk us through this? So there was actually

[1:55:57] One particular one we really needed to do, and then a few more got added to it due to timing. So

[1:56:06] But just under the superior court what you just approve that position administrator will get into that in a minute veteran services, an increase there, and then the one I really needed was the employee benefit reserve

[1:56:22] So we can go ahead and jump into the forms, and we'll see what they're all about. As I hear anything. Oh

[1:56:30] Yeah, I will now open this hearing for budget appropriations, and after the staff presentation from our finance director, Judy Shepard, I will open this for testimony. Anyone that would like to make testimony before we approve these appropriations or do anything with the appropriate. We'd love to hear from you

[1:56:48] And you'll need to identify where you're from and your name when that time comes. But first we'll start with the staff presentation. So take it away, Judy. Okay.

[1:56:57] So again, this is just a summary, and we'll jump back to that here in a few minutes. Once we've gone through the forms.

[1:57:07] We will tee up the first one. This is for the general fund county administrator department. And there's two things happening with this. The first one is that the time for the

[1:57:24] Central services director is split between county administrator and central services, and the central services side gets split to everybody across the county through their cost recovery as an internal services fund

[1:57:42] In the budget last year and when through the process of approving the budget. The second half of his time has been being paid out of county administrator, but we didn't have the budget in there for it. And it's an addendum to, it's a manual entry

[1:58:02] It's not part of our salary projection that everything gets generated and rolled into the budget. This one is due to CAMS as part of CAMS. So therefore, it was. I'm sorry, when CAMS, which is central services and public works accounting system

[1:58:20] They handle all their work there, including payroll. And then everything gets moved in and uploaded and this did not get put into our general fund county administrative department for the year

[1:58:35] And so

[1:58:37] It will be in 2027 for sure. But there's several positions that are split like this between general fund or and the

[1:58:51] So we have to manually enter them. Can I just asked the question

[1:58:56] The position was fully funded in the budget, the budget

[1:59:00] Right? The universe of the budget

[1:59:03] Central services director position was funded in the county budget for 2026. Correct.

[1:59:14] So

[1:59:16] The reason we're doing an appropriation is the money was not in the general fund budget.

[1:59:23] For half of the position. Okay, so we didn't budget for that. We did not budget for it, which now and it came to light because of the other action that's going to happen with this. Okay

[1:59:35] The other half of his position is in central services budget. Okay. And was adopted in 2026 for the 2026. I just wanted to be crystal clear on that for myself. Thank you. So my understanding is that the central services director position

[1:59:51] has at least

[1:59:53] From

[1:59:54] In the last decade or so, maybe more, has been half

[1:59:58] cost recovery, central services. So all of the departments pay into cost recovery, and then half out of the county administrator's office budget, because that position has traditionally served at the pleasure of the county administrator for special projects for extra stuff. We know that, for example.

[2:00:15] Mr. Frederick has was tasked with working the whole community center Rfp process, just as an example, or to deal directly with the animal shelter or work on other county assets like that as part of the facilities extended, if you will, and other

[2:00:33] things that I've asked Sean to do over time.

[2:00:36] Also traditionally, the central services director position has been the Deputy county administrator. I think since the origin of that position, which is dates to the late 1990s when Jefferson County first established the county administrator position.

[2:00:50] There's been rare occasions when it hasn't been the Deputy county administrator. And so part of this action is to rectify last year's

[2:01:00] budget

[2:01:02] Or I should say the budget process from last year, the results of the 2026 budget

[2:01:07] and also to reinsert the deputy county administrator title for our central services director, Sean Frederick, who has done fantastic work. And I think there was a process that involved

[2:01:20] Human Resources, I was trying to see if the finance director was still here, where we, examined your position. I'm sorry, sorry, the human resources director. Sorry, Chris, yeah. The, HR Director and I

[2:01:36] Work to update that essential services director position and to

[2:01:44] more accurately reflect today what that position does. And so there's a number of things that we're achieving in one fell swoop, if you will, with this. And back to the

[2:01:55] what happened last year, and of course, Judy

[2:01:58] Knows more about exactly how that information is teased out of Munis to get all of our salary and benefit projections. But it's a bit of a legacy issue. So the county, as you know, switched over to the Tyler family of products, Munis being the principal one

[2:02:13] Energov, which is now an EPL is another extension of the Tyler family.

[2:02:18] a while ago now

[2:02:21] But WingCams is something that was produced for Washington State only. And much to do with county road administration board and how the road fund has handled it, etc. And then over time, it's very specialized and that's one of the reasons why we haven't let go of it, if you will, with respect to

[2:02:41] How we deal with fleet management, the payroll of the roads. And for essential services, facilities and so forth.

[2:02:49] Even though I think the dynamic for that program has changed, I don't think it gets the same level of support and attention and customization that it has had in the past, and some other counties have

[2:03:02] are thinking about switching to another product, or have switched, but then realize that there are still things that that product was providing, and they need to switch… they needed to switch back, so we're kind of in a

[2:03:13] limbo status with respect to WinCams and Munis, and unfortunately, I think the communication between those systems isn't ideal. I know that with respect to payroll, it's usually that's the one of the biggest issues is trying to rectify the payroll

[2:03:28] Towards the end of the month, sometimes at the 11th hour between the information that Wayne camps produces and then has to get integrated into Munis rather than being one consolidated system only going through this because it's going to be something that the county is going to have to face in the next couple years as we have retiring staff, staff that are experts

[2:03:45] wind camps. And so Tyler does have a product, an extension that deals with some of the same types of needs, but it hasn't been tested yet, I think, to the level that would make us comfortable switching to it right now. Canada would need a new level of expertise, and I think

[2:04:01] The transition in that staff, longtime staff expertise is going to be when we tackle that. All that's to say that last year in doing the budget process, that is essentially the reason why

[2:04:13] And I think the rest of the chaos that ensued is another reason why none of us, unfortunately, caught it at the time, but we didn't integrate the half time of the central services director appropriately into the county administrator's budget, but it's always been that way, though

[2:04:28] But it did not end up reflected in the budget. So this just functionally increases how much

[2:04:34] We're spending into our reserves. And can I ask sorry

[2:04:43] is the ratio correct

[2:04:46] Is 50-50. Is that the appropriate split you've just done redone the The job description with HR and everything and is

[2:04:54] It doesn't, I mean

[2:04:56] in my head, thinking through Sean's duties and responsibilities, it feels like more is on central services, at least as it's envisioned now. And I'm just curious if that ratio of, you know, and the big question is, you know, it's not just

[2:05:11] One is general fund and the other is cost recovery. So it's like a real fundamental question, I guess

[2:05:17] Yeah, you know, I think it's a better question for Sean. I think that

[2:05:22] I think the answer is it's about right because we went through that process and Sean had a chance to look at the revised job description. So my speculation is that he would concur as well

[2:05:35] The central services piece is mostly the supervising responsibilities that he has over information technology facilities, records management

[2:05:45] And then

[2:05:47] And then all the duties as assigned through my office. So

[2:05:51] I think is about right, but it's a good question, Fisher, and something that we could certainly revisit again.

[2:05:57] If that's enough for me. Sorry, Heather, you had a question. Is the pay grade the same between

[2:06:02] Central Services Director and the deputy

[2:06:07] No, there is

[2:06:14] 12,000 that covers the difference in salaries and benefits associated with converting

[2:06:21] Sorry.

[2:06:24] With the Superior Court, if I add to that

[2:06:29] 2383. Yeah, the difference between the original budget amount and the revised amount is $2,383.

[2:06:40] But that's not quite accurate because only half the salary was budgeted, right?

[2:06:45] Well, that's for the general fund. That's a general fund amount. Okay. Total that $2,383 is related specifically to

[2:06:56] to adding the deputy county to the fair. Right. And to the general fund, the

[2:07:03] So do we know what the two different grades are? Right, that is a great question and

[2:07:13] No, I really do wish Sarah were still here because I know that she had some precise answer to that.

[2:07:19] So my question, I just need to search for it. Jerrylan's calling her. I wish I'd come up with this question when I was doing my research over the weekend because I could have looked it up myself, but maybe you

[2:07:29] No.

[2:07:30] You know

[2:07:32] When you carry a budget forward from a previous year

[2:07:36] you know, it's only the stuff that changes that is subject to mistake. So how was the central services director position funded in 2025? In the county administrator's budget

[2:07:53] Yes. And we don't carry forward. We carry positions forward every year for anything.

[2:08:02] So we're just carrying positions boldly

[2:08:05] You gotta have clean. I'm looking at the paperwork and Sarah can confirm. But manager 22 to manager 23. Okay, you're sharing that actually

[2:08:17] Great.

[2:08:28] Oh, I pulled the wrong file. But anyway, and my rush to get down here. We did an analysis. HR did a complete analysis on this position relative to our comparable counties, and most of our comparable counties did not have

[2:08:43] A specific deputy director, but some did some work that was done by this position or positions. In that analysis that came up with that this, the work that was being required or requested of a

[2:08:59] the position that Sean is in when was

[2:09:03] meet that of a deputy director and the reclassification request was from, I think, grade 22 to grade 23, which is established in the exempt classification schedule by resolution.

[2:09:19] And I would, I believe that's how

[2:09:23] You came up with the numbers. Yeah. So there's just to re-emphasize that there's no change there was already on already classified that way when we had a deputy county administrator last time

[2:09:37] And in the somewhat recent past, that position was moved down to 22 and only the central services director

[2:09:48] And then, so how has he been paid

[2:09:52] all this whole year has it all been coming out of the central services budget? Oh, it's it's 50. It's being paid out of out of county administrator budget. Okay, we just had no provision for that in the budget. So we've been

[2:10:08] I mean, we haven't exceeded our budget. We've just exceeded budget for county administrator. We're simply putting that line in there where it belongs. But in the monthly budget meetings, you may recall that there's been a percentage here. That's why we were attributing it to other factors

[2:10:30] But that is the explanation.

[2:10:35] Oh, interesting, yeah, that's why that county administrator budget has been

[2:10:40] Heights drawn one more

[2:10:43] Okay. All right.

[2:10:46] and

[2:10:48] I mean, I guess the only other question that I would, if I were a member of the public, I would want to know the person who's been in this job.

[2:10:58] had already been doing that job split

[2:11:02] 50-50 in previous years. So this is not a and came in with a skill set

[2:11:08] To be able to do those 2 jobs. That's something.

[2:11:12] Yes, just reconfirm that that's something they're confident in. It's a question I would have if I were a member of the public. I don't know, having been on the hiring teams for

[2:11:22] the previous county central service director. And then on Sean's hiring team

[2:11:29] You know, there was Sean had an

[2:11:33] extensively higher level of experience in county operations leadership, you know, so it makes sense to me

[2:11:43] This shift makes sense to me just because of his experience.

[2:11:48] So I can see why I can see the path that brought us here.

[2:11:53] And I will say part of it has to do with

[2:11:57] stability, succession planning, those kinds of things. I know that

[2:12:02] the Commissioners who have been here a little bit longer certainly would recognize that that central services director position

[2:12:09] hasn't had the type of stability that other department director positions have had enjoyed really. And it is a very important position vital to the organization, especially the internal functions of the organization. So

[2:12:23] When Sarah took a fresh look at the position description, we wanted to make sure it reflected specifically what it did and the interests of the future, like if we had to do recruiting again.

[2:12:35] They wanted to accurately reflect what that what that job entails

[2:12:40] And so that was part of the purpose.

[2:12:43] The other purpose was that

[2:12:46] Kind of like similar to what you heard Judge Mack talk about when Judge Mack is on Pto, whether it's sickness or or vacation or what have you, that just having

[2:12:57] somebody there at the ready who has the insights and the skills and the understanding of what's happening in the organization should be able to step in. I will say that. And so, as you know, we just went to an evaluation process. I've been at the job now a year and change during a few months. I can count

[2:13:12] Probably are less than a hand like the Mondays that I've missed, right? But that's not really necessarily sustainable that I'm going to be here every single time the board meets

[2:13:21] And so having somebody, I know Sean's subbed in a couple of times, but I think as we move forward, and maybe I

[2:13:29] I'm able to take some time away than having him just be right there, you know, in the know exactly how to sub in and do it effectively as if I'm not as if you wouldn't miss me at all, but miss a beat as it were misimportant, I think, for our organization, especially where we're at right now

[2:13:50] Just the timing of it is unfortunate. I mean, it's just

[2:13:53] It's unfortunate to discover an error, but I know I just appreciate everyone

[2:13:59] Getting it where it needs to be.

[2:14:02] You want to share your screen again, Josh? Ready to move on to the made it through one.

[2:14:11] The hardest one, hopefully. No, I don't know. That one's going to sting too. Yeah. So page two is just a continuation of the one we were just talking about that because it couldn't all go on one page.

[2:14:26] The next one is

[2:14:31] Commissioner

[2:14:35] And this is putting budget in here for that position you just approved. Possibly we would exclude 5 without needing the 4,000 for salary. But that is the impact through the end of the year. And then the 8,000 for benefits, adding the benefits to the position through the end of the year

[2:14:55] So that's a 12,000

[2:14:59] To the budget to last what you just heard.

[2:15:05] So for a full year, it'll be 36,000

[2:15:08] Well, no, it'll be different. Okay. Okay, you'll see.

[2:15:17] Yeah, we'll see. I don't have that number with me. Okay.

[2:15:21] And then the next one is veteran services. Just increase that to 100,000, and this is just something we're keeping an eye on. Veterans Services Fund is its own fund outside the general fund. And so

[2:15:37] Requests

[2:15:39] Against that fund have been pretty steady, and with the increased service amount

[2:15:46] And funding, we felt we needed to add that to it. But it doesn't. And maybe this is a question for Carolyn. We're not

[2:15:55] spending it too fast as we as we get, you know, we raise the limit of what we can support folks and and

[2:16:03] Is it still sample? I guess the question from the small… And I think I've alluded to it before. Earlier this year, in the first quarter, we had so many funeral benefits at $800 a piece to end up being over $23,000 or more. And so it was a lot of budget, which was 60,000

[2:16:19] And so we have been keeping track of it. And years past, we had a lower amount for the annual, and we didn't use it all. And then the next year we needed lots of appropriation, so it's kind of variable. During COVID, we saw kind of a lull in

[2:16:34] veterans seeking services. But now it's ramped up and and also since the policy has raised amounts for food and necessities and annual amounts that we are seeing the need to increase it more. So next year's budget when we we've already prepped is 400,000

[2:16:53] Thank you.

[2:16:56] Okay, and then the last one is the real reason I started this. We have a situation with the employee benefit reserve where unemployment claims post retirement is all paid out of here. So with the uptick of

[2:17:13] Unemployment claims. We've had quite a few. And so we're actually sitting on a bill right now that we're not able to pay because we do not have budget. Okay, please look how big it is. And so we used to, we used to not have a lot of unemployment, and I see this as being

[2:17:34] Probably a trend forward that we're going to be paying more in unemployment. So I'm going to be looking at this fund in its entirety to make sure we have enough for post employment or post retirement, which is people leaving the county and getting their PTO

[2:17:50] I've said this, before when we paid sick time for an employee that left the county or retired from the county. We only paid 25%. But when the decision was made to make it all Pto, now they get that whole amount

[2:18:05] Okay? Because there's no differentiation between sick and vacation except for some people. Some, I think one of there's one bargaining unit that still has that. But PTO is all paid out

[2:18:22] when they leave the county. Okay, so that that was a shift and puts a little more strain on this fund as well. So that shift to Pto came in 24. No, it was at the beginning of

[2:18:35] Yeah, it's with the contract process that began at the end of 23, and the exempts had already had PTO. And there was a desire from a couple of management and the union

[2:18:52] to move to Pto. I remember that. It was a decision made in the negotiating process. Yeah, it's part of the bargain. It was made

[2:19:00] Yes, and it was agreed to by

[2:19:04] County Commissioners here

[2:19:06] Okay.

[2:19:08] And then there were just a couple of other lines where I saw were kind of getting close on budget, so it made sense to do all of them since we're talking about this fund. And then Miss Payroll line is primarily where we pay

[2:19:25] Any audits. So we've had just a plethora of audits with our payroll and our payroll staff, even though they have reduced staff, have been amazing in how they've been able to timely do these audits because when an audit request comes in, they pretty

[2:19:42] They have to focus on that besides if they're number two. Whereas number one is paying the employees, right? Get the payroll out. Yeah, so it's a lot of work. But there was some audit adjustments where we had to pay some additional funds

[2:20:00] where they said we needed to pay more. So that's what this adjustment is. So there, you know that 25,000. Make sure we have enough budget in there. Okay, so that

[2:20:13] That's the last the last one.

[2:20:17] And so that brings us, if we want to go back to the summary

[2:20:26] So what we're looking at for the general fund is 12,001 time, and I put that as a one time, which is the court commissioner. Because ongoing, it's a different amount. And so there's a new calculation for the whole request for 27

[2:20:43] Right. And then the salaries and benefits for county administrator. That's an ongoing amount because it's a pretty. It's just going to get updated year to year.

[2:20:54] And then again, so the impact of the general fund with this appropriation is 92,600.

[2:21:02] Veterans relief and employee benefit, you can see those numbers as well there.

[2:21:10] So where are we at now in our

[2:21:13] Overall budget.

[2:21:15] Our deficit

[2:21:18] We're teetering towards 1.3

[2:21:22] And then, but that doesn't that's expenditures because I'm not or and then you add the million of that were right now underperforming sales tax

[2:21:33] That kind of back up a little bit. I'm sorry. The June, the August remuneration for June sales tax was better. But will it resurge all the way through to get us through the end of the year and not be

[2:21:50] A million dollars underperforming. I don't know the answer to that. Yeah, I hope not. Yeah, my hope is, I know I'm using the word because I have hope. Hope is that it will improve definitely

[2:22:06] Yeah, definitely. We'll see what it's just that projector probably next year, too.

[2:22:11] Okay, any other questions before I open in the hearing for public testimony? No.

[2:22:17] I just have one question about unemployment

[2:22:21] How much… can you just describe how much of that is retirement related as opposed to designations of people actually making unemployment claims? Is that… are those… Unemployment has nothing to do with retirement.

[2:22:36] Unemployment is where a position either is let go from the county, a person is let go from the county

[2:22:49] They're laid off, you know, we had some positions that were riffed this last year, so they got unemployment. And there's a certain time period how long they can get unemployment, which is roughly around the year, give or take. So there's a specific period on how long they can receive, which is why I did the number I did

[2:23:11] Right, so you… so you've separated those 2 out post retirement benefit payout versus 140,000 and unemployment. This is people

[2:23:25] Being riffed or choosing while they can't choose. They can still file and file unemployment. The interesting thing this time around is because normally we don't have this issue with unemployment, but with folks who were with this time, or even some who were separated during their probationary period

[2:23:48] They filed for unemployment and they've stayed on it

[2:23:51] So normally what what we would see is that people would get another job and then once they had a job, they wouldn't receive unemployment

[2:24:00] But now that didn't happen with this group. So I'm not sure what that is. Interesting. In addition to that, if hours are reduced for an employee, they can file unemployment for the other portion of those hours.

[2:24:14] So the 140 is the maximum liability. If some of the folks, then it could be much less than that. But if we had the budget authority to at least pay the bill when it comes in. Okay.

[2:24:27] We're looking for the budget authority to to pay the bills as they're submitted.

[2:24:34] And just, I mean, just important for us to note.

[2:24:38] the you know to project project for these impacts of of rifts and and reductions of all crimes and projecting for those retirements. So thanks for bringing that. I know you have been saying this.

[2:24:54] Turns up often JD and Sarah know what they're talking about. Entertain the questions, Taurus. Thank you.

[2:25:04] Okay, any other questions or cons? All right, why don't I open this hearing for testimony? This is a hearing on these budget appropriations that we have been walking through. We would love to hear your thoughts on it and to give testimony, you can hit the raise hand button or star nine on the phone and we'll bring you over and you'll have 3 min to give testimony on this hearing

[2:25:28] Regarding the appropriations, budget appropriations, you'll need to identify yourself by name and tell us where you live as part of that testimony.

[2:25:45] All right, Ms. Ciaranel, when you get yourself unmuted, you have 3 minutes to give testimony on these budget appropriations.

[2:25:52] Hey, can you hear me?

[2:25:53] We can. Go ahead.

[2:25:54] Okay, Shelley Yarnell Brennan. I just have, I guess, a question. I'm concerned about the number of mistakes that come up and how they're approached before budget negotiations

[2:26:11] And it seems to me, I'm hoping maybe somebody can explain to me why this isn't cart before the horse, where we're putting all of these new positions in and all of this added money when you're gonna next go into budget negotiation. Shouldn't that happen after budget negotiations? Maybe I just don't understand. But could somebody explain that

[2:26:32] Thank you

[2:26:34] Thank you, Ms. Yarnell. Anyone else like to give testimony for this budget hearing? You can hit the raise hand button or star nine if you're on the phone to identify yourself and where you live

[2:26:44] I don't think Ms. Urinell did, but I'll do it. She did. Okay.

[2:26:49] Anyone else like to make

[2:26:52] Testimony today

[2:26:55] Like, one last call, if you'd like to give testimony on this public hearing, you can hit the raise hand button or star nine if you're on the phone.

[2:27:03] Okay. With that, I will close public testimony. I don't know, Judy, do you want to reply to the public comment at all? What's the difference between basically the process for appropriation and the current year versus

[2:27:20] prediction into or projections and negotiations for I think the question was more specifically, why are we approving jobs positions right now before we go through the budget process? And we had a long explanation of why that the court, the court commissioner moving into a

[2:27:37] You know, 5 FDA FDE was

[2:27:40] A good idea right now, so I guess specifically on that one, and of course on the central services director, that's just reconciling an issue that you know I think was acknowledged to be an error. But it's not a new position or anything

[2:27:55] Change it. Josh, you want to dig into that in here? Sure.

[2:27:59] So when I hear negotiations, of course, I think about collective bargaining agreements, because we actually are beginning to engage with multiple unions for collective bargaining

[2:28:13] Because we have, I think it's four or five or four contracts that expire at the end of this year. So I think that's when I hear negotiations, that's why I'm thinking. But I guess you could also more loosely associate negotiations with the budget process, which we have started

[2:28:29] And we're now getting into earnest in the sense that the preliminary budget requests have come in from the departments now, and Judy and company are putting together the preliminary budget to see what that looks like so that we can get into the process by which we would

[2:28:45] Work with that preliminary budget to get to a final budget for 2027. Appropriations are something that happened generally every quarter. I think we went to try to go to a three times a year process at one point. And really this, as we stated at the beginning of this hearing, this particular appropriations

[2:29:04] We're doing now, instead of waiting for the next regularly scheduled appropriations, which would be mid-October because we have essentially the driver, the principal driver was the unemployment reserve being precipitously low or not being able to pay a particular bill on that one.

[2:29:23] So we decided that because these other things are timely that we would add them. But as Commissioner Broshen just described, the only change really is to move from a clerk hire for the court commissioner to a 0.5 Fte fulfemic equivalent for that position, and

[2:29:38] You heard the arguments put forth by the court. The court really is driving that quest

[2:29:44] All of the other requests that are coming from other departments about trying to rebuild back to the capacity that we had in 2025, are going to be coming through the budget process for 2027.

[2:29:59] Yeah, and I think we acknowledge, I mean

[2:30:02] That's why I asked that question when we were talking about the position. Why are we doing, you know, I think the reason we're doing this now versus waiting until

[2:30:12] The budget process was was clearly described

[2:30:17] Keeping someone in that role who needed to be appointed because of a

[2:30:23] Someone leaving the position. That does happen, and it doesn't tend to happen on a calendar year basis. And with regard to the county administrator position, I appreciate you

[2:30:34] I think it's important to acknowledge errors and acknowledge them as errors and to analyze why they happened and to make

[2:30:43] to make sure that they don't happen again. And at the same time, I think it's pretty important to acknowledge

[2:30:51] How many literal moving parts

[2:30:55] every… how many lines in this budget that create opportunities for efficiency or error and to come out of it with you

[2:31:06] with effectively one significant error is a huge feat. And although I think it's really important to daylight that and make sure we highlight it and learn from it

[2:31:17] We could also acknowledge that the probably 1,000 correct assumptions

[2:31:25] Okay. This is

[2:31:28] I mean, I appreciate that. And yeah.

[2:31:31] In retrospect, we should have caught that. I will say that the budget changed quite a bit though from the commissioner's office and the county administrator's office last year because we had reduced staff. You might recall, but to partial. We didn't riff an entire position, but we had to reduce someone

[2:31:48] From 1.0 to 0.6 FTE. We had a lot of stuff about the vehicle completely. We were trying to, just like every other general fund supporter department, trying to handle the budget situation last year, and there were a lot of moving parts there

[2:32:05] I will also say that marketing back to when there was 1st a county administrative position established for Jefferson County and essential services director. That central services director position is where the budget responsibilities resided. Yes, all the way up until

[2:32:21] My predecessor, Mark McCauley, who became the county administrator because when Mark was central services director, he also had those principal budget responsibilities. It was only a fairly recent change that we went to a finance director model out of the auditor's office and an agreement between the county administrator's office and the auditor's office. We had before

[2:32:40] or financial team

[2:32:43] And now I believe we've strengthened that team by inviting our central services director who has budget experience in for that team. Just another set of eyes so we can all be looking at the information. I will say it's a lot of responsibility into one person being Judy, the person to my left here too

[2:33:01] To be… to make sure that everything is completely accurate, and especially when we have multiple systems, we're extracting data around payroll and benefit, projecting those out to the next year.

[2:33:12] So I think it's understandable that something could be missed. And having additional capacity on that team and other eyes to just look things over and just ask ourselves the questions and make sure that the information that we're presenting as accurate as possible. Do we think it is is going to improve this year

[2:33:31] When you learn, you learn from mistakes. So

[2:33:35] Okay. Other thoughts or questions or if there's

[2:33:41] People are so moved. I'd welcome a motion on the resolution. See, I think I might have it. If I can get this screen

[2:33:50] You can get there.

[2:33:57] Okay, I would like to make a motion to approve a resolution approving 2026 additional budget appropriations for various county departments.

[2:34:08] And I will second. Okay, I'm not sure if I… Did I close the hearing? You closed public testimony. I will close the public hearing as we vote on this. So appreciate the work. We've got

[2:34:23] You know, acknowledge the issues that we missed and be responsive to changing conditions on the ground. The conversation with the Superior Court staff is clear.

[2:34:35] I'm obviously in favor. Okay, all in favor of the motion on the floor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. All right, that motion passes. Thank you, Judy. Thanks for your work. Thanks for bouncing back, Sarah. Appreciate your insight

[2:34:50] Okay, so we have a little bit of

[2:34:55] dedicated time. We could probably do a little bit of briefing, just looking at our schedule this afternoon, really, for the benefit of the public. We'll be coming back from lunch, going straight into executive session at 1 30. We'll be coming out for a 2 o'clock, or maybe a minute or two after conversation with our grant administrator regarding a pivot

[2:35:16] for Habitat for Humanity and their community project funding that we helped advocate for, and then we'll be going back into a closed session regarding collective bargaining, as we were discussed a little bit. We're going in for 2 30 to 3. We'll come back at 3 o'clock

[2:35:34] Ish, where we'll talk about the LTC Rfp and finish up briefing. So I guess first are there other topics that folks need to walk on or want to walk on today?

[2:35:47] Just to note, I don't have calendar invitations for our executive sessions. I don't know if they've come. Okay, I mean, we just need to

[2:35:58] I can't think of anything.

[2:36:04] If we want to talk, we've got the housing fund board special meeting coming up on Thursday, the 10th, so if we have time, I might

[2:36:14] I just appreciate your insights, Greg, and kind of just so maybe you and I can fill in Heidi a little on what's going on there. Pass Heidi for a little bit. Yeah, we should have time. Yeah, okay. And we can talk about it a little bit in the context of our briefings as well. Okay, great. That sounds good.

[2:36:35] Yeah, you know, it's big decisions and things to do. Yes, it's interesting. I have looked through the memos and everything. So holy cap for your benefit, Heidi is really kind of changed their tone and

[2:36:49] A little prickly in ways that well they also laid out a really good case for the county taking over. I don't know. So I you know I guess I'm trying to be dispassionate when I look through the memos that they and other other housing providers did. This is whether the county takes over the the continuum of care lead responsibilities which we've been talking about, and we had a really good meeting. Yeah, yeah, for for years now. But this is like

[2:37:18] We've got to make a decision here if I soon you know it's for the end of January would be when we would apply the budget for that. We don't need to apply. Well, it comes we would need to make the decision yeah to opt in you need to opt in, but it comes with a budget because it comes with the CHG, which is a million dollars a year right so that that includes capacity for some staff, but it takes it comes with a lot of responsibilities that

[2:37:46] You know, one of the only capture very clear messages is that it takes more money to administer than we are getting to administrator from CHG. So that's kind of the detail that's the devil a little bit.

[2:38:01] But let's… I think we'll have time to come back to that more robustly. Heather, you want to dig into the last week while we have a few minutes? Okay.

[2:38:14] Sure. And you can go back two weeks for high points, because of course we did not have a meeting last week, so really just high points. High points. A couple of really great ceremonial opportunities in 2 weeks ago on August 24th, of course, we all got to attend Catherine Doyle's memorial, which was so meaningful

[2:38:33] Glad to be there and the Habitat for Humanity.

[2:38:40] Groundbreaking also Adrianne Goolsbee, the senior vice president for

[2:38:45] Habitat for Humanity International came on Tuesday evening, the 25th, and I got to go and listen

[2:38:52] to her speak about sort of the national

[2:38:59] Housing landscape and

[2:39:01] And kind of the role that Habitat for Humanity internationally is playing in that. So it's really interesting to hear her. Congresswoman Randall was here on Wednesday, the 26th, and I got to listen to a maritime economy listening session that she did

[2:39:17] And it was… for me, it was really interesting almost to hear that listening session process from the congressional and made me really interested in those kind of listening sessions. So

[2:39:30] I'll tell you a little bit more about my thinking around that. The continuum of care housing providers. We got together on Wednesday morning, which are then reported out on at the Housing Fund Board. So I got to meet one of the things that we had said we would bring back to the Housing Fund Board was

[2:39:49] To sit down and kind of really get feedback specifically from the executive directors of the 4 housing organizations. So I got to do that with the 4 providers on the 26th, and that morning

[2:40:03] Got to do a little sort of that week was somewhat preparation for some of the LTCH and TCC conversations so that was still kind of one on one talking with individuals about

[2:40:18] their input and thoughts into that process. So I spent some of that week doing that. Jefferson County's employee picnic, of course, we got to do as well

[2:40:31] Fairgrounds Association doing some budget preparation for the for the

[2:40:40] board meeting, which was last week

[2:40:45] Interesting. We really kind of came to the place where we actually think we don't need to adjust the budget. We're actually pretty we just need to report on how budget is different than actuals. I just wanted to do a real

[2:41:03] you know, kind of deeper analysis of what the impacts had been after not having the executive director and making some projections. One, to make sure that the additional staff we were taking on in order to compensate for not having an executive director were sustainable. It turns out, you know, we look like we're in very good financial position

[2:41:23] the fairgrounds Association was projecting to to dig into its

[2:41:31] It's bank account basically by upwards, you know, up to $96,000. Looks like they're not going to need to do that. So that's one of the benefits of not having an executive director. There are major impacts that we want to resolve, but in terms of financial picture, it's actually put them in a good

[2:41:48] Good position, about $220,000 in the bank right now, so that hopefully gives us a good foundation to jump from in order to make some new choices for what next year is going to look like, and we'll be talking more about that. I'll tell you about that in a sec. But in terms of other highlights from that

[2:42:09] We didn't we didn't get to do a fair debrief yet for the Fairgrounds Association board meeting, which was that evening Thursday, the 27th. We will do a brief

[2:42:22] debrief affair, but it'll be pretty… pretty much just highlights and pluses and minuses at this upcoming board meeting, because really the focus of that is going to be to talk about what are some options for moving forward

[2:42:38] with the Fairgrounds Association. So I'd say that's really something big on our list right now to hire another EV or not to hire another? Exactly. That's one of the options to hire or to not to hire, to continue… I mean, really, we're questioning all the foundation, you know, is

[2:42:54] It's the nonprofit model still working? Or should we go back to a fair board model? I think the meaning right now in analyzing it is that the nonprofit model still has a lot of value, and we want to continue to think about that. But I think we just wanted to really put all the options on the table. Josh and Sean are both engaging in that conversation. Sean being our central services director, Jos

[2:43:18] Our county administrator, and they've done some research, and we're going to be talking with the fair board about there's some options so that we can quickly narrow down to maybe just a couple different choices that that board could then make some decisions about. But really, it's got to be focused on what are the opportunities to raise revenue at that fairgrounds

[2:43:40] sustain what needs to happen going forward, because we're… that's really the the crux, right? It's just not enough opportunity to sustain to bring in revenue, and you need staff

[2:43:54] to support that. And so it's just a whole kind of picture that we're putting on the table, really inviting a lot of public dialogue around it, and I hope there will be people there. So the next meeting

[2:44:08] August meeting was delayed because of fair, which means that only 2 weeks between board meetings. That means the next Fairgrounds Association board meeting is coming up on this week on Thursday the 10th, 6 Pm. It'll be in the art building

[2:44:23] there at the fairgrounds. So that's kind of look back and a look forward. Also

[2:44:31] We had a special LTC meeting which we'll be talking a lot about this afternoon, so I won't dig into much

[2:44:40] KPTZ was interesting that week. I brought my mother on which was actually a really great dialogue. I had been wanting to do it, but it wasn't kind of finding the right time. And so we talked about trust in government. We talked about just some conversations that she and I have been having a lot lately that I just felt like was a really

[2:45:02] Like, I wanted people to hear what my mom had to say. It was really great. It's been very interesting because, you know, she tends to vote more conservative, will often vote Republican, but also votes on issues. I am a, you know, long-standing lifelong Democrat, often vote Democrat. I'm pretty

[2:45:24] But pretty much most of the time.

[2:45:28] And so it facilitates a lot of interesting conversation in our household. My father has an even more conservative perspectives. He and I don't always find a great way to have the conversations, but we try. And so it's created this sort of interesting conversation between my mom and I that I wanted to just kind

[2:45:47] talk about in public, and it was really interesting to talk about, you know, to hear her perspective. And then you put Jim Burke in the in the middle of that, of course, co-hosting. Yeah. And it was a really interesting dialogue, which I think then kind of jumps into Josh and I both, I don't know

[2:46:04] Maybe you have contributed to this PT leader. Yeah, the annual. So I think it's the new commissioner I was asked to do it this year, and I think Josh contributed as well. So you'll see what I wrote for that if it comes out on

[2:46:21] On Wednesday has a little bit to do with this as well, and I kind of re-announced there then that something that we've talked a little bit here, but I wanted to share with you both, is that I am officially put the word out that I'm going to start a series called Bring Your Own Mug

[2:46:39] Okay. A conversation with a commissioner. And I'd love to invite you as you as you are still here, and you and any new Commissioners to talk about whether we do this together. I didn't want to commit any Commissioners to doing this, but

[2:46:55] I think there's conversation to be had, but if it's just going to be me, I'd probably want to rotate through the districts and show up in different places. But if there's interest in other Commissioners participating, I think we could talk about how it works. I just didn't want to commit anybody to it, because it's

[2:47:10] If we don't do it, it has to be a special meeting. It would just be one commissioner in our district. Yeah, either I think it's a great idea. If we do it in our own districts, then we could just focus on our own districts, or we could rotate through and, you know. So I think there's lots of conversation to be had there, but

[2:47:28] you know this conversation with my mom, and actually I've talked with a few other residents in the community about it. Several people I've been talking to about it over the last several months. Actually, more you start if anybody knows more, you start helped come up with the name, Morning Barron Med

[2:47:46] So I give her credit for that.

[2:47:49] Anyway, it was a fun conversation on KPTC, and I hope leads to some new tools in the community. I showed up. I actually tried to show up, I believe Community Build had an open house on Saturday night. Yeah, I didn't get enough information about it, but it's led to I'm going to go do my own special tour there.

[2:48:09] Yeah, let's see highlights from last week. I got on

[2:48:15] Monday the 31st, I got to show up at a wooden boat festival economic impact meeting, which they did remotely presenting the results of a study that they did on the economic impact of the wooden boat festival

[2:48:30] And a lot about the economic multipliers in the community coming up, you know, they… their study shows that almost $5.5 million in economic multiplier throughout the community throughout the year. So as a result of the Wooden Boat Festival. So I think those results are going to come out into the community more formally. They'll probably do a press release. But that was really interesting getting to hear the impacts and really study the impacts

[2:48:59] of those kinds of events and activities. I'm not surprised for a second. Yeah, it's a huge, it's a huge benefit and impact, and it's all through… I… of course, a lot of my conversation… my questions in that

[2:49:11] presentation were about how much they were studying the impacts throughout the county as opposed to just in the city of Fort Townsend. And so they did have some data that was specific to the county that I think when they put it out to the community, I think would be interesting to share. Get a hold of that

[2:49:35] On a personal note, I got to do a little film shoot with Tamooki Sage and his group for at Stellar J Farm with the Harvest Festival is coming out, so keep an eye out for a little Harvest Festival promo that several of us get to be a part of

[2:49:55] Still, this last week, lots of conversations with individuals around what we're going to be talking about Tcc and LTC related. So we did have a TCC meeting on September first. It was a I almost canceled that meeting because I thought

[2:50:11] Preliminary to this conversation, it felt a little maybe premature, but they were willing to meet and talk about, okay, if let's talk about if the Board of County Commissioners goes in one direction versus another, and it turned out to be really important. We'll talk more to really get

[2:50:30] the one willing to do, and what would they do if we moved in one direction versus another? So I'll get to share some of that. Of course, we have the oh, I met with Elizabeth Dahl from Braver Angels on September first. She is the the national

[2:50:49] Politics lead for this organization called Braver Angels. So I got to learn about what are the tools that they use when they're working with local elected officials. Can we all get along? Can't we all get along group? Exactly. It is very much about

[2:51:07] Learning specific skills for

[2:51:12] how to have dialogue when we disagree, right? You're like, have you met my father? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so I am gonna do a Braver Angels training on my own, and it's on a Saturday, no cost, and it's called

[2:51:29] Disagreeing better skills for disagreeing better. So and that's just one of the skill sets to kind of

[2:51:38] Prepare to facilitate conversations and listen fully and try to find the common areas when people are coming from very different places.

[2:51:50] I got to sit down with Jeremy Williami on September 1st to talk about this introduction that we've gotten to bring in planners from Mark Rose. So really just trying to hear the history, hear what DCE

[2:52:07] You know what his opinion was about how to respond around bringing planners and the introduction to that group and sort of what DCD has done to develop a relationship there

[2:52:22] So that was really interesting to hear his perspective.

[2:52:28] This housing fund board meeting, of course, on Wednesday the 2nd, maybe when you brief, we can talk a little more about about where we are and that but we for your benefit, Heidi, we got to hear the other piece that the housing fund board really wanted before they

[2:52:45] meet on it, you know, to kind of deliberate more fully and make their thoughts and recommendations about specifically

[2:52:55] the one of the two remaining pieces, besides hearing from the executive directors of the housing organizations, was to hear from the Department of Commerce staff. So I asked Sarah Emota and Sam Schroeder, who worked for Oli Cap and is a local Jefferson County resident

[2:53:14] Sam heads up the continuum of care for all

[2:53:19] For all of Washington State, for the Department of Commerce, and Sarah Emota is focused specifically on the consolidated Homeless Grant element of that. So they came and presented balance of state. Yes, sorry.

[2:53:32] The companion of care balance of states, which is not doesn't include the four counties that have their own continuum of care leave. Thank you for that clarification. Anyway, we heard from them and they presented very clearly and specifically on what are the responsibilities

[2:53:49] of taking on that role, and what's the funding that comes with that? So that that was really helpful, and it was great, because we had done kind of committee members had done presentations on that. Even Oli cap had done some presentations on that. And so this was really just

[2:54:05] Yeah, it goes right to the stores. It was more thorough and kind of not interpreted through any of our potential biases. And so I think that was… it was a really good piece of information. Feels like that would be a great presentation for us if we're going to make this decision. Yeah, and I have the slideshow, so you could just go listen to yes, anyone actually that's a great, yeah, to go listen to the September second

[2:54:30] Housing Fund Board presentation. It is the first half of the meeting, and so it would be about an hour just flip through the slides. I mean, the slides are also in the packet. Yeah, so that's a for anybody interested in this conversation, that would be a great

[2:54:47] Is it perimeter or primer

[2:54:50] I think depends on how fancy you are. I guess I know I say it both ways, I think I feel fancy and less fancy on any given day. Last few things you might want to know about. I met on Thursday morning with Stacey

[2:55:06] Larson and Aaron Stark who have put together an organization called Food Lab. Food lab is now officially a program of Stronger Towns, and so we'll be umbrellaed under their under Stronger Towns 501c3 and Food Lab is putting forward a proposal to rent the kitchen that is at the Erickson building kitchen that was built out by

[2:55:35] by Jefferson Healthcare and a lot of that then equipment

[2:55:41] and build out was donated first to the county to the fairgrounds by Jefferson Healthcare. When they departed, they were providing about $2,000 a month for revenue for the Jefferson County Fairgrounds Association, which, of course, that revenue was lost.

[2:55:56] The Food Lab is not proposing to fill that $2,000 gap completely, but they are proposing a ramp up and a huge community benefit to then rent that kitchen. So that's something that the Fairgrounds Association will be considering and hopefully making a decision on really quickly. And those are the 2 people that really know how to use this kind of proprietary kitchen, right? You really described it is not something someone can just walk into and start cooking food and something that really needs to be

[2:56:26] I know you'll see that up close and personal on my corn shucking activity like yeah you wouldn't want to be here without the knowledge. Absolutely. Yeah. So it includes kind of a good stewardship of that. I attended the Olympic Peninsula Tourism

[2:56:41] Commission meeting in person at the Seven Cedars on the 3rd, which was really great, and they typically have a hybrid option. But we were in person. And then Josh and I had lunch on Friday the 4th, and

[2:57:01] extensive list of things. It was a working lunch. Yeah, also always fun to hang out with Josh. But yeah, long, long list and I think he has similar lists for each of you if he hasn't already gone through them. But some district specific issues

[2:57:18] Just things we're working on together, and some that we've already talked about how to how to prepare from a staff perspective, and which direction we go in with the how to prepare if, depending upon which direction we go in with the Housing Fund Board decision

[2:57:34] some briefing on what what we're trying to prepare for for Fairgrounds Association and all kinds of other things that we

[2:57:44] ticked through the list on. So that gets us all the way through Friday the 4th and

[2:57:51] I got to row over the Labor Day weekend. I painted my living room. I hung out with my kids. What color

[2:58:00] It's yellow. It's like a bright yellow with a black with

[2:58:07] All right. It always feels good to have a fresh coat of pain good rework my bookcase stuff that I don't get to do. A lot of

[2:58:19] vacuuming cobwebs and cat hair. Yeah, so it goes.

[2:58:25] Okay, well, thanks for the briefing, and we'll recess for lunch, and we'll come back at 1 30. As I said before, we'll jump right into an executive session and be out right around 2 to talk with Habitat for Humanity and Amanda Christopher. Do we know if Habitat's going to be here for that

[2:58:43] Or they might just because we try to move it and say, here, let's know the time. Okay, great. All right. Well, we are recessed. We'll see everyone at 1:30. Have a good lunch.

[2:59:01] All right. Good afternoon. We are coming back into session and we're going immediately into an executive session for 30 minutes with the county administrator and Chief Civil Deputy prosecuting attorney and the central service director.

[2:59:15] And the central service director regarding actual and or potential litigation exemptions outlined in the Open Public Meetings Act, RCW 42.30.11 going in at 132 will come out at 202.

[2:59:37] Commissioners should hear that hasn't been brought

[2:59:40] All right, and not escalating. And back in session.

[2:59:50] And

[2:59:52] No action taken, so we will jump into our next item. I will also note that I don't think I noted it, but we had as well as the Chief Civil Deputy prosecuting attorney. We also had the civil deputy prosecuting attorney. But now we'll invite Amanda up to the table

[3:00:09] And I don't know if we have anyone from are we expecting guests? So please invite Jamie. You'll have to accept the promotion, Jamie, to be a panelist.

[3:00:23] Doing the same thing myself. It's a session

[3:00:27] Okay.

[3:00:29] So thanks for being with us today, Jamie.

[3:00:34] And maybe, Amanda, do you want to tee up this situation and then we can pass it over to Jamie for her context of habitat. So as you all know, in

[3:00:48] Last

[3:00:49] Winter, we applied for a congressionally directed spending or community project. And I'm pretty sure we applied to almost all of the different federal

[3:01:02] our different federal

[3:01:04] representatives and senators, and Senator Cantwell picked up our project.

[3:01:09] And it was included in the fiscal year 27 appropriation for 1.5 million to support workforce housing development

[3:01:22] And it was given a very broad title. So just strictly workforce housing development.

[3:01:29] And we have… it's sort of a slow roll through. They directed it to HUD, so HUD is overseeing this funding.

[3:01:40] And they've released different, like, administrative guidance

[3:01:46] Supplements and things like that. And we're just now we should receive the contract tomorrow

[3:01:54] And then when we receive the contract, there's it goes from being just workforce to being an address for a specific set of projects and a budget associated with those activities.

[3:02:09] Habitat and internal conversations and after learning more about sort of like the administrative and regulatory requirements around that funding

[3:02:26] They have some strategic ideas for how they can best use it to achieve workforce housing goals. But possibly not for the habitat

[3:02:35] Mason Street project. So I'll say, so there's 2 components, and then I'll let Jamie speak to how that's affecting or and has impacted habitats

[3:02:46] thinking one is that once you you

[3:02:55] Include federal funding in a project. You have to do a national environmental protection act review, and that hasn't yet been accomplished for the Mason Street project. So as of February of 24th of 2026, when the appropriation occurred

[3:03:14] Habitat uses it for Mason Street, they have to not do any earth moving unless they… until the NEPA is done. And the NEPA can take for such a large project, it could take at least at least 60 days, if not significantly longer.

[3:03:32] And so that's the first sort of

[3:03:37] element that it's impacting this decision. And then the second one is that the appropriation is for 1.5 million dollars, but it also has a requirement for a full

[3:03:49] Buy America, build America regulatory compliance. So that means that all construction materials, the whole project, all of it, all steel, all and all manufactured materials that are

[3:04:04] That if you… this is a funny thing. So they say that if you could pick up the building and turn it upside down and shake it, if it wouldn't come out. So things like your air handling units, your heating units, water heaters, things like that

[3:04:21] All of those must also be purchased American move. Okay. So

[3:04:27] And it does apply, it's, like, aggravated across the entirety of the project. So all of the utility improvements that they do, all of the vertical improvements that they do

[3:04:39] Habitat calls these horizontal and vertical, so all of their horizontal work, all their utility, and all the houses. So not just for the segment of the project that the funding would be applied to, but for the entirety of the project. Yeah, it kind of aggregates

[3:04:57] Okay, so the habitat

[3:05:00] I'll let Jamie speak to how Habitat is appraised those impacts. Yeah, take it away, Jamie.

[3:05:08] Thank you. Thank you so much for your support. It was really good to see all of you at the groundbreaking, and I think you can tell that one of the reasons we

[3:05:17] are eager to look at the how we can best use this money is that we don't want to stop what's happening at Mason Street. We've done some assessment and in addition to the impact of Build America by America

[3:05:33] on costs. The other large one is Davis Bacon prevailing wages. And right now we don't have Davis Bacon or even state prevailing wages applying to a significant part of the project

[3:05:48] So somewhere between 10 and 20% increase of costs, and it Mason Street, that means between 6 and $12 million in additional costs over the 60 million

[3:06:02] You can probably do the math and say that one and a half million doesn't cover that. So we've looked at some alternatives, and in talking with the senator staff and with Amanda and Amanda talking with HUD

[3:06:17] We've looked at the fact that this money was not specified in the law to which address it should go. It doesn't say Mason Street neighborhood. And if we could apply it to a smaller neighborhood

[3:06:34] Say one that's coming up for us in about two years in Port Townsend, which is 11 homes. That would be a significantly smaller compliance burden. That project that we are looking at is at the corner of 10th and Hancock

[3:06:54] It's zoned R4. It would be smaller homes one and three bedroom homes that are attached homes just like at Mason Street

[3:07:04] And the 1.5 million would be significant on that project because it's a $2.8 million project overall.

[3:07:13] And that the compliance on that would we estimate somewhere between 400 and $500,000. So the one and a half million makes a difference. But what I think is really important to note is that it helps Mason Street

[3:07:29] Because the money that we would have applied for state grants from the Housing Trust Fund for this project at at 10th and Hancock, we would instead direct to Mason Street. Similarly, with private philanthropy that we would have

[3:07:47] ask people to support this project at 10th and Hancock, we would ask them, we would be able to have them direct their funding support to Mason Street. So it feels to me as though the impact still is Mason Street

[3:08:05] It's just that the compliance is over a smaller budget because it's a smaller set aside number of homes. And that's our current thought. We've talked with Senator Cantwell's staff about that

[3:08:22] They are very interested in HUD's openness to this, and I think Amanda can speak to that more, but HUD does seem to think this is a good way to deploy the funding.

[3:08:36] And how do we get at the NEPA and BABA requirements with this piece?

[3:08:42] Yeah.

[3:08:43] Sure. Because this is further out, we wouldn't be starting to build it until 2028. We have time to do the NEPA

[3:08:51] And we need to set up a meeting between the county and city since it's the city has jurisdiction over NEPA, I believe since it's in Port Townsend. But that can be done. And when we add up the compliance requirements of both BABA

[3:09:09] And NEPA, and Davis-Bacon, all of those and the other things on this project. It's well below the one and a half million dollars. It would be more like 400 or $500,000.

[3:09:24] That's correct.

[3:09:26] That's correct. And that money

[3:09:27] It's still a million dollars to the good for that project. Okay, yeah, that makes, I mean that's the math works out. Yeah. Whereas on Mason Street it doesn't.

[3:09:33] And that money then can be

[3:09:37] Prioritize what's freed up from this project can be prioritized for Mason Street, which helps Mason Street a lot.

[3:09:45] Yeah. That's great. Totally makes sense to me. Amanda, can you talk about what is the ask here? What would we be doing to facilitate this? We just wanted to air it with the bird as you

[3:09:58] Were the requests near the source of the request, and the

[3:10:04] The original request was sort of in your minds possibly was intended for its minds originally was intended for Mason Street, and it was just, I think we're becoming more sophisticated in terms of our awareness of how to strategically use these congressional directive spending

[3:10:21] Opportunities. And so this is a really good opportunity for us to learn. And as Jamie said, when we spoke, when I spoke with some HUD representatives last week, they were like, oh yeah, that makes much better sense for, you know, for the benefit, strategic benefit. I can't see a problem with it at all. It makes perfect sense to me. Yeah, and it's really your savvy with both

[3:10:45] your savvy Amanda and your kind of really getting familiar with this role and and what it's going to take to keep these dollars and yours too, Jamie, and you know sort of because sometimes the outcome is we have to give these dollars back

[3:11:01] Right. And that's not what's happening here. Yeah, we're still going to be able to deploy these to house people in Jefferson County, and that's a huge win. And and you know, thank you for working to make sure that the answer isn't

[3:11:18] We have to say no to these dollars, because that that is it's a real possibility and we sometimes have to do that. And

[3:11:26] That's not the case here, so that's really exciting.

[3:11:28] So there's no action that we have to take, just as long as we agree it's listed as potential action. Great, you will see. So we'll get the contract from HUD in the next

[3:11:38] 2 days, and then when that is ready to be signed, executed, you'll see that. And it won't be a big surprise to you that the activities have changed from working on Mason Street to possibly to working on this project of 10th and Hancock

[3:11:53] I appreciate both you and Jamie taking time to daylight the changing situation and and the strategic pivot, which seems absolutely appropriate. So yeah, I can't find any reason to fault what you guys are doing. So nice job, you guys.

[3:12:07] Well done.

[3:12:08] Thanks. I do want to just give some kudos. Amanda has been terrific to work with and we're not just working on this project right now. She's working on getting the contracting done for CHIP grant for the first phase of infrastructure at Mason

[3:12:24] As well as a request for CHIP for the second phase of infrastructure. So that's a lot. I've really appreciated, Josh, your help with getting the permitting moved forward, and so happy that the permitting was released on the day that we did the groundbreaking.

[3:12:41] And I know that there's some that your team has really worked hard on that. So want you all to know, Commissioners that we're really happy to have the partnership with Jefferson County

[3:12:55] Well, thank you, Jamie. And yeah, that's I appreciate the shout out, and right we're all rowing in the same direction right now. You guys all know how excited I am about this one. Yeah, no, it's a great project.

[3:13:07] Okay, thank you.

[3:13:08] All right, thank you, Jamie. Thank you, Amanda, for making time.

[3:13:13] Okay, so we have about Aaron

[3:13:17] 13 minutes until our next closed session. And oh, the finance director is joining us for that meeting regarding collective bargaining. So, Junior, just a few minutes early, but good to see you again

[3:13:32] Well, we have a few minutes. Do you want to quickly go through your… I mean, on a boat your last two weeks? I was well

[3:13:42] Yeah, I was on the boat.

[3:13:46] I was here the week of the 24th, and

[3:13:51] I was obviously with you guys on the 24th

[3:13:54] And then

[3:13:58] Participated on the 25th in the weather watch meeting

[3:14:02] Which has been a weekly thing I attend as I can

[3:14:05] We, at that point, were not changing our fire danger warning, and still, though, are feeling very high.

[3:14:13] And I saw a message from Chief Manley

[3:14:18] Over Facebook yesterday, I believe, and he was talking about how, you know, it's really Christy out there and more appropriate words, but it's dry and I think we can all feel it.

[3:14:31] And it was interesting being in BC and

[3:14:36] Coming down from Nanaimo to Victoria and everywhere, just the whole region is

[3:14:44] Feeling dry.

[3:14:48] And then I participated in our forestry check-in

[3:14:53] and then went to the Catherine Burrell Memorial, which was

[3:14:59] A little heartbreaking, just

[3:15:02] To reflect on that woman's impact on her community. Then I

[3:15:10] Went on Wednesday morning to a

[3:15:14] planning session with Amanda, who was just with us and others to talk about the next round of community wildfire defense grants and just kind of planning for our approach there

[3:15:26] Feels like everyone's ready to grab their oar and start rowing together again. So there were some new ideas

[3:15:35] for things to thread into the grant. So looking forward to that process getting off the tarmac.

[3:15:42] Then went to the Mason Street groundbreaking, which was

[3:15:47] As I said to everyone was there 27 years in the making, right? I mean, and it really… a lot of credit to Jefferson County for writing that first comp plan under the growth management act, which designated the port headlock Urban Growth Area

[3:16:04] You know, I mean, this is like all the steps that have gone into, and they're all hard won victories, right? Yeah. But all the steps that it took to get us to that point were not lost on me, and I think a lot of other folks in the audience that day. So that plan, and then you see it come to fruition, it gives you hope in some part of the process. And then our public works team building that sewer over the last few years

[3:16:27] I mean, just all the things that have happened, it's just amazing. And I mean, I think if we were to give any one person credit in this moment, it would be representative there and who came through with the enabling

[3:16:42] Appropriation for the sewer. So anyway, great deal, big deal. Good. Good news. Can't wait to see the ground… well, so was funny

[3:16:54] I never try and laugh today. It's when my cough comes up. But I was up there with the shovel

[3:17:01] And I was like, the ground is so hard. It's very hard. And

[3:17:08] Senator Cantwell said, oh, wait, I'll show you guys how to do it. She's done it a few. She's like, hey, you just work a little bit of the dirt into your shovel. You had it ready. And I was like, oh, gee. Oh yeah, so pro training

[3:17:24] And then to the perk public employees recognition picnic, which I always, I think is a great event. And it was a lovely afternoon. It was at H.J. Carroll Park and to the team who pulled it together, grateful for all of you

[3:17:41] And then I

[3:17:46] On the 27th

[3:17:48] and missed the SWAC meeting which

[3:17:51] I was sad to do, but

[3:17:55] There's always going to be something one misses. Pretty easy look back for me, though.

[3:18:03] Great. See if I can

[3:18:06] Wrap it up quickly, too, or at least start.

[3:18:10] So going back to, I guess, 17th, right?

[3:18:17] Yeah.

[3:18:22] I thought the Catherine Braille service was touching. I'll share one thing to my mom I took my mom to the service and she was carrying around this box the whole time. I'm like, what are you doing? And she says, oh, like one of the first times she met Catherine Burrell, they were on a farm tour or something and mom

[3:18:39] Complimented her earrings and Catherine Burrell said, oh, they're a family heirloom, and took them off and gave them to her, so I'm glad you like them. And she said the family heirloom a little later, I guess, but yeah, mom felt really bad, like, oh, I don't need it, and that was just a kind of a very

[3:18:54] Catherine thing to do, so mom brought the earrings back to give to her niece, who gave a great energy, and after the service she did and her niece, I forget her name now, said, you know, I had a section in this on giving away earrings in my speech that I cut at the last minute, because that is a quintessential Catherine Burrell thing to do.

[3:19:16] Right. I mean, I could… I have my best Catherine Burrell story is

[3:19:24] Shortly before my mom, the summer before my mom passed I was walking on lunch break from here in Catherine's house was just a couple blocks that way. And I walked by and she was having a garage sale or a lawn sale. And I said, I said, are those piles of linen? She

[3:19:41] Come take whatever you want. And I'm like, are you serious? She's like, yeah, I'm trying to close this up. And so I took a bunch of the linens

[3:19:49] And when my mom passed, we're like, we need a big, we need something to carry her in.

[3:19:55] And we had this big, gorgeous linen sheet that Catherine had given me, and I was like, perfect use for that sheet. Catherine would love it.

[3:20:05] So yes, Catherine typing of the community for sure. Great to hear all the other things she has done as well. We had capital facilities meeting and

[3:20:19] You know. Kind of dickered about criteria for 2 hours and then left the room and I think Sean and Eric pretty much figured it out in 10 minutes to just kind of stacking up the projects from their two departments, which would probably be the first thing that we do rather than the last but trying to figure out a structure, you know, and

[3:20:37] to develop, you know which I've suggested for PIF and LTC and others is just develop projects along, you know. So you have a 6-year rolling priority plan. It just it's a model that works so well. But almost like the road

[3:20:51] Exactly. Yeah, it's a transportation. Indeed. And so with you guys, of course, at the Mason Street, and then the picnic and all was great

[3:21:04] Jeffcom

[3:21:07] I don't pick anything too substantive happened at JEFCOM.

[3:21:11] Moving forward there. Any ongoing conversation about

[3:21:17] about DEM? Yes, we did talk about that and kind of need to get it. What are the different… who do we need to talk to, building it up. I think at this point, it's, kind of

[3:21:32] Map, ED of Jeffron 911 and Willie and probably Josh too, just kind of putting together a plan. Everyone seems very

[3:21:43] They recognize that there's more funding needed, they recognize that

[3:21:49] Jeff comes a natural place. There's also a lot of, you know, we don't need Jefferson Healthcare kind of sorting through the management of that policy direction at the JFCOM board level. So when is there a smaller committee? I don't know. It's still we the details of it. So staff needs to

[3:22:05] Developing a plan that people can use a straw man to talk about, but so far I don't have not seen any

[3:22:13] opposition to it, just recognition that everyone's budget is pretty constrained and

[3:22:20] and that that we want more emergency management capacity, right? I mean, it comes up all the time, every fire, all these things, you know. It's just continually comes up. And it's always tricky to to kind of do that analysis of

[3:22:35] Do you change things just to try something new, or is it actually going to gain an efficiency and or give us opportunity to access more revenue or are we just making a change in order to

[3:22:50] I feel like we made a change or made some progress like to assess and project those things is… takes time. Yeah, I mean, we had an emergency meeting on Friday. We were at a out of communication. I was in the land jot as well, but you know coming together. Yeah, we had to declare an emergency while Heidi was on vacation. But

[3:23:14] You know

[3:23:15] That the IMT being set up by DEM to help coordinate these Jefferson Fire and Rescue response and coordinated response. I mean, it just shows, I mean, there were 25. Did you hear about the fire? No, it was like Shine Quarry. They think in Alder went down

[3:23:33] And it ignited something, and the fire left over 104 and was going towards houses in Port Ledlow. There was almost an evacuation. No, no, I did not hear about this. There was, 104 was shut down for

[3:23:46] 10 h. About yeah so pretty significant. And you know there were airplanes and helicopters from Canada and and Yakima, and and also 25 Dnr firefighters from across the Hood Canal Bridge. And so it was a pretty got involved. Yeah, it was a lot of mutual aid going. So it was

[3:24:09] It's a testament to how strong the network is and to how important the network is, which I think which resources you can use up. Just like that. Just like that, for sure. So

[3:24:21] And then last week, I'm not going to be able to finish, I don't think, but the housing, the shelter coalition

[3:24:29] It had an interesting meeting. You know, we're trying to as directed by the 5-year plan, kind of come up with a proposed plan. So we have a memo that I worked on drafting in response to the shelter coalition. Now everyone's reviewing it before we try to get it to the housing fund board, maybe at our Housing Fund Board meeting next

[3:24:48] Oh, no, it's not. It's not time because we're gonna… we gave people two weeks to get through it. But basically, it says there should be a coordinated framework for city and county. This framework has many of the

[3:25:04] pieces already in it, but then maybe update our code to add something like a supported interim encampment, which is basically what the city did at DSHS or

[3:25:19] or the county did to a degree at the mill roads in Cammet, but kind of

[3:25:25] talking about when that is the appropriate response, how to mobilize that response, and building it into the other framework, whether everything from

[3:25:32] Nothing or to a sanctioned encampment to a sanctioned shelter to a also there's kind of focusing on

[3:25:42] The faith-based organizations that have a lot of protections in the state law for doing this kind of thing, say parking and all this, but we've run into issues under working on

[3:25:52] pushing safe parking down in South County as a response, but all the churches that I've talked to are having huge capacity issues as their congregations diminish and managed program. Oh, yeah. So coming up with the framework ahead of time, if the county and city had a coordinated framework, this is what you do. These are the these are the forms you fill out. We had talked about waivers before

[3:26:16] Waivers aren't very powerful, according to my legal research. Always needs to do is go through legal, of course, after it goes to the housing fund board, and then hopefully the city council and Commissioners but you can't waive your basic human rights or anything. So just an acknowledgement of responsibilities and kind of doing some risk management at these

[3:26:35] Supported interim impairments for size. Okay. But that's legacy. With that, we are at 10:30, and we have a scheduled closed session to start

[3:26:50] So we are going to go into a closed session with the county administrator, human resource director and finance director regarding collective bargaining. Exemption is outlined in the open public meetings act 42.30.140 parenthesis B.

[3:27:04] I'm sorry, parentheses, 4 parentheses B going in at 231, and we'll come out at 3 Pm 3:01 P. Excuse me, and we don't need the camera or anything since we're all here in person

[3:27:19] We're not getting freeze today. It's just kind of still air, which not as good for the 10.

[3:27:27] I almost didn't bring my sweater. I'm like the day I don't bring my sweater will be the day it's randomly cold in here. Should have left it on. Maybe it would have helped us. Maybe, I know. There's chairs between oh more chairs?

[3:27:43] Yeah, we have someone feel like I'm in that chair where there's a floor between

[3:27:51] Can we back up?

[3:27:53] All right, I will coming out of executive session with no action taken, and we will jump into our next item, which is schedule of 3 o'clock. Sorry, we're a little bit late

[3:28:07] So the continuing saga of the LTCH RFP, you want to tee this off, Heather? It sounds like you had a couple interesting meetings. Yes, we've had some interesting meetings, including OPTIC, which was great. I

[3:28:21] Maybe I'll start there just because although not as relevant to what we're going to talk about right now.

[3:28:29] It is an example to me

[3:28:32] of what is working. And

[3:28:36] You know, having that table to go to where there's a lot of regional collaboration, it does give me hope that, you know, when we figure out

[3:28:46] How to engage in this piece. That there's a lot happening that we can kind of be a part of, which I think, you know, you all did lay the foundation for in the in the tourism master plan. And so I know

[3:29:01] I've been trying to frame that as kind of part of the guiding principles of what can we focus on that we can do well together and that we can kind of be a part of. And I think maybe that's one of the silver linings here is that there has been a growing sense

[3:29:19] Between the various different areas in our peninsula, not just even within our county, but within the peninsula of how we can work together to lift

[3:29:32] to lift everyone. And I think tourism is one of those places where it actually does work that way. You know, tourism and marketing, it can work… it can work better. You can leverage dollars when you're, you know, you're kind of lifting together. So, I'll just say that's kind of a

[3:29:50] goal of mine is to be able to participate in that Olympic Peninsula tourism

[3:29:56] network more specifically and with more direction. And that that other thing that was really driving

[3:30:05] my sense of of how to move forward here in a in what has felt confusing and

[3:30:12] In terms of like how can we there does at times feel like there's such disparate opinions about how to do this work and what's going to be the best contribution of the county and the best way to use the LTCH dollars and who gets to make decisions and all those things that we've been diligently trying to kind of work out

[3:30:31] and do well.

[3:30:35] This idea of how to get those destination marketing dollars out there

[3:30:42] in a proportionate way that doesn't over-focus on marketing and still leaves room for all the other uses of a lodging tax feels like it has been an important part of the conversation.

[3:30:57] So I guess the only other thing I really want to frame is, of course, I tried ADL and I tried to kind of give a little bit of the background and history just for anyone who was totally new to this conversation in the

[3:31:12] In the agenda request

[3:31:15] So that we can see the board of county Commissioners had already has already made a recommendation to hold some of the dollars that are

[3:31:28] Finance director has kind of advised are available in the full 1 million for came back to the lodging tax advisory committee with the $625,000, and there was some question on their part for Tourism Coordinating Council and

[3:31:44] LTAC around how we came up with that, so I tried to, you know, kind of go back through the conversation that we had had to try to come up with what was a reasonable amount to say, this part is we want to go towards destination marketing

[3:32:00] And to make that clear from the county perspective that we really needed that work to be fully appropriately staffed.

[3:32:08] So I'll say that with the lodging Tax Advisory Committee, there's still really this I'd say one of the sticking points

[3:32:18] For logic for LTC is that competitive process

[3:32:23] really still wanting this destination marketing work to be to be open for a competitive process and not a foregone conclusion that the county

[3:32:35] You know, staffs that work

[3:32:39] I think there is

[3:32:42] Probably not. Not unanimous. But their support

[3:32:48] from both TCC and LTCH

[3:32:51] To at least try to understand why I was really strongly advocating for at least these two positions, the two committees to be fully staffed. And I think

[3:33:03] You know, there were enough questions and

[3:33:06] And I think in good faith, questions about why is it cost? You've been charging 5,000

[3:33:15] dollars for this

[3:33:18] Why now do we need a, you know, do we need positions for this

[3:33:23] And so my response around that has been

[3:33:27] that we're at a point with county budgets where we really need to look at the the real cost of of doing this kind of staffing work, and that's happening all across our various different counties or committees.

[3:33:39] So without going any further into that, there is a true analysis that tells us what does it actually cost to staff this work, and also, what are we losing by not staffing it well? So we did have all of that conversation

[3:33:58] So does this

[3:34:00] It's complex to summarize these things because we're talking about LTAC conversation and we're also talking about a separate conversation in the Tourism Coordinating Council, right?

[3:34:11] So we talked about, okay, if the goal could be

[3:34:17] We use the whole 1 million, $4,000 that we do administer an RFP that distributes those two things separately, like we do with housing fund board. There's multiple funds within one RFP. So that's what we're coming back to propose

[3:34:37] and said, Okay, yes, that 379 would be up to amount for destination marketing specifically in the 625,000 would be for everything else.

[3:34:51] Then having the conversation with Tourism Coordinating Council, would you be willing TCC to still oversee that work? And would you be willing to put forward an RFP that asks for a Rfp request of proposal

[3:35:08] That asks to staff that. And so where we got to was and allowing for RFPs from other entities. Yes. So it would be

[3:35:19] So what Tcc is working on now, and of course they won't work in earnest fully on it until this decision is made here, otherwise it would be wasted. But they're prepared and starting to have some preliminary conversations would be to put forward

[3:35:34] and a proposal that does propose to staff the 2 positions fully. I've asked them to really use all of the preliminary work that TCC has done for upwards of a year now. We have

[3:35:50] I know there was comment in the public around, you know, throwing this idea out at the last minute, but really this is not a last minute idea. We've been having this conversation over and over in all kinds of different angles for since last year's RFP

[3:36:07] And so this is the sort of culmination of that.

[3:36:14] And what the TCC has committed to do is to put together a proposal that would propose to staff that LFAP and the TCC using as a baseline, the job descriptions that Sarah has put together for us, and they're looking through the line by line marketing budget. And that's all the material that we use to come up with the $379,000. I'd say the areas where they really

[3:36:43] Are holding their ground and disagree with

[3:36:48] Your proposals, Greg, and or that has to do with

[3:36:55] They do not want to commit to

[3:36:59] staffing the actual marketing work.

[3:37:03] They want to put that into the budget as professional services and be able to assess is there someone within the county that has capacity and skill set for that? And if not, they want to be able to go out and contract that out and have that managed by

[3:37:20] the staff person. That wasn't my proposal, was it? I mean, that was… I thought you were

[3:37:25] Also saying the same thing

[3:37:28] Yeah, how is that different than what they've done in the past? It's not. Well, actually, I don't even know if you've done that fast. It's not different. It's not different. It's the exact same.

[3:37:39] Okay, I don't know about that, but I'm just going to tell you what the, but I'll think about that. Let me get through the two pieces, right? And then I'll

[3:37:49] I'm not sure what you're saying. I'm not sure what your question is, so let me think about it for a sec. They're saying they would go forward with the budget have one or two. They said

[3:38:00] what they're going to work on is

[3:38:03] A proposal that had up to one FTE. So that was their motion. They would make a put forward a proposal that up to one FTE. So they don't want to go above

[3:38:16] one Fte for the this first

[3:38:19] proposal that would have a full marketing budget that would be administered and sort of managed through TCC.

[3:38:28] And

[3:38:31] I feel like I'm missing a piece.

[3:38:34] But so it would get us staffed TCC and LTC would be staffed. And the marketing work would get done.

[3:38:44] But I'm not sure what you're asking about.

[3:38:47] Well, ask your question again, because I didn't understand it. I haven't participated in this for two years. So to say my proposal, I thought we had talked about wanting to bring staff capacity to build that consistent staff capacity. That's county and they've said no to that

[3:39:04] So, but you kind of portrayed it as my said yes to staff having staff capacity on a competitive basis, whoever they think is the appropriate staff to do separate things separate things. So, okay, thank you. That that helps.

[3:39:21] It would be a county staff person to staff TCC and LTC. But going up they they want to reserve the right to to either go with a contractor. Yes

[3:39:36] To do the marketing work, and I'm gonna… I hope you'll open this for public comment to make sure that I get this correct. But you can also see in the materials that we've proposed

[3:39:46] That that the marketing work itself would that they would

[3:39:52] Put it in the budget as a professional services line, and that way it could either go to a staff position or

[3:40:02] be marked contracted out, and that could potentially be. So the the staff positions would staff the 2 committees or position could be a single position, or it could be 2, depending upon what they what you know what

[3:40:18] Who we have in the county who has this skill set, right? So it could be that they come forward and say, okay, half position 0.5 FTE is going to stop TCC and LTC

[3:40:33] That

[3:40:35] they've agreed as a staff county staff position

[3:40:39] And then that person could also administer a contract

[3:40:44] With a contractor in the community, or in Kitsap, or wherever, you know, they would do an RFP to put that work out there to get that actual content creation, the marketing work, all of that that could go outside

[3:40:59] as professional services.

[3:41:02] Did I answer that accurately?

[3:41:05] Sure

[3:41:06] Okay. So you

[3:41:11] And I think this is a good proposal. I'll add that. So there's two ways this proposal. But first, I mean, we haven't really addressed the LTCH actions yet, have we?

[3:41:21] LTCH has asked their preferred

[3:41:28] Action would be to authorize the 1,004,000 to go out with a split Rfp $625,000 to go to

[3:41:40] Well, we should start with the 3 upwards up to 379,000 to focus on destination marketing and the implementation of the tourism master plan. Including staffing those

[3:41:53] You know, the position within the county to staff LTCH and TCC and the other, the rest, 625,000 would be all other purposes of use of LTCH funds. So that's what they're asking.

[3:42:08] And then TCC has said we will write if they do that, we will write a proposal that gets at that. And

[3:42:20] And then, has there been discussion of whether

[3:42:23] The county would submit a proposal. I don't… Well, we could… that is an option. We could… we could submit a separate proposal

[3:42:32] That

[3:42:33] Competes

[3:42:34] I'm not sure that's the

[3:42:38] I mean, that's possible.

[3:42:40] And the LTAC would consider it. I know you've been talking with us for county about filling this need. I'm just trying to figure out where this

[3:42:49] all comes together.

[3:42:51] I think where it comes together is we get TCC and LTCH staffed

[3:42:57] at an appropriate level that gets the needs of those committees

[3:43:02] completed and we get destination marketing done in the community. And I think it's a win. With the 329,000. You said 29. So I'm just 379

[3:43:18] Okay, it's up to 3 79

[3:43:23] Depending upon what proposal comes forward.

[3:43:27] And that includes the destination marketing budget that we

[3:43:32] Reviewed in one of our last meetings. So somewhere we were in our back of a napkin conversation before you left, that was somewhere around 220,000 for the destination marketing budget. So

[3:43:47] position is above and beyond that.

[3:43:52] Does it feel like a win to you, Heidi?

[3:43:54] It feels like a solution.

[3:43:57] It's just

[3:43:58] the… I think the part that

[3:44:01] I'm still not clear on is TCC's role. I mean, I think what we've had in the past is

[3:44:10] He's easy doing a lot of this work through contracts, isn't that? TCC for when I came in, they had eight contractors, Steve Shively, that was, you know, basically performed that role and had the primary. They were always kind of

[3:44:25] Kind of give it first crack. Originally, when we were getting $250,000 a year from LCAP, which happened in 2012, 2015 until the short-term rentals, you know, bolstered our floor

[3:44:39] And there was no oversight within the county. It was kind of optic and TCC would get report outs about what the contractor did, and that kind of precipitated the county saying, we'd like to be more engaged and connect what the county's doing with what these efforts are. And this, to me

[3:44:56] goes back to that model, which I thought was unacceptable to begin with. And it was unacceptable because there was no metric. There was no oversight? No oversight, no metric, yeah. There was no

[3:45:09] alignment between county strategies and tourism strategies. There was no ever

[3:45:15] As there still is not investment and destination development and infrastructure, which I identified as the biggest problems as we see, you know, we can go back to causality and why is our LTC or lodging tax down this year? And I would argue, well, there's fewer rooms at our biggest place by 2020 rooms less at Clay Lock Lodge. And we had the short-term rental

[3:45:40] You know, there's structural floor issues, I think, going on. But I'm confident that this will… this is just restoring it to exactly like it was. It's not restoring it to exactly what how it was. If the issue was

[3:45:56] So this would include TCC oversight. It would include metrics and measurables. Is the investment working? If it's not, then let's make a change in the way the dollars are invested and that's managed through the TCC

[3:46:12] And I think these are people who have that skill set to assess that because I see them do it at optic. I see them do it at the optic table all the time. They have their ability to measure is significantly moved and their actual

[3:46:29] developed metrics, and when things are down… when the numbers are down, they're making adjustments to, let's do let's do something different next time with the next campaign. I'm seeing that

[3:46:42] work, and that seems. And you know there, and the counties around us who are participating in that optic table, their tourism numbers are increasing significantly, whereas ours are increasing a tiny bit, and we're staying the same

[3:46:58] So

[3:46:59] You know, and I agree with you, there's all there's all kinds of different things that are contributing to that, but I think that we want to get on that train and participate with the group that's making that

[3:47:11] That kind of

[3:47:13] Progress. Well, this feels like a win to me in that there was an acknowledgement that there needed to that

[3:47:20] the division of kind of entity and project investment and then building the capacity

[3:47:28] That's a win in my mind that we need to build the capacity. Yeah, and get to that point. I mean, I hear what you're saying around

[3:47:38] investment in destination infrastructure as well. But we've had that conversation up one side and down the other, and what I hear at the end of the day around that that's conversation specifically is that these are not the dollars to use. It's too small of a pot

[3:47:56] And the impact of removing them from the way people are using them to market is and support local events and all those things is too high. So we need to find

[3:48:10] We need to find infrastructure dollars and capital dollars that we can bring in from other sources. And I

[3:48:17] You know, I think that's a reasonable

[3:48:24] assessment. I think there I can also envision circumstances where we use LTCH dollars to leverage against another destination development kind of project, and that should come proposal by proposal. Okay, we've got

[3:48:40] potential to do a project, we want some matching dollars to put into that project, or we… we need to fill a gap in a capital stack for a project. Yes, will you… we'll propose to use LTCH dollars for that. And I think I can absolutely envision a world where an LTC would say, yeah, that sounds

[3:48:57] Like it would be a great investment and we can say yes to that or funding a process to identify destined development opportunities through LTC. That feels like a good use of the funds to me. If I could add a little, almost hesitant to jump in because, you know, I'm a late comer on this whole all appreciate it because I listen to some of these you have more context from a historical perspective, Commissioner Brotherton, but I was listening in the last meeting

[3:49:25] Couple details, and maybe just to add the impression I got was that

[3:49:31] LTCH in particular was uncomfortable with the concept of just shifting over the marketing duties to the county, the county staff following the city model or what have you. Wasn't completely close to it, but wasn't was more comfortable with

[3:49:48] Having an outside consultant involved.

[3:49:51] in some of that work, someone who has the connections already

[3:49:56] And there was some consternation or some concern about you know who is going to supervise this staff person? Is it me, county administrator? What expertise do I have in marketing? I didn't weigh in because I was just listening at the time. Of course, I don't pretend to have that expertise per se. I'm getting more familiar, but I guess if given the opportunity, I would have said something to the effect of all county staff need to have someone to supervise them

[3:50:19] from the personnel management standpoint, and to assist with things like contract management and so forth. But but I did. So there was that element. I guess I would say that there was acknowledgement from both LTAC and TCC members that

[3:50:34] County staff

[3:50:36] Support for the 2 committees is warranted. Not to say that the support they've gotten so far has isn't appreciated, but everyone understands that

[3:50:47] that we're talking about, you know, Carolyn's team, essentially lending assistance through ADL specifically as much as possible, which is really just

[3:50:55] agenda development and communications running the meetings, which isn't isn't sufficient, yeah, and contracts, which also is, you know, but just from the process of putting the contracts through the process and paying the bills, but that having a staff support with some skill sets dedicated to the mission of those two organizations would be helpful

[3:51:15] Then there was a discussion around, well, who's going to direct this staff person's work and it would be a county administrator or someone I assigned to that duty or would it be TCC itself? And I think that maybe there's where the compromise came, where there was a motion and people were comfortable passing the motion. Maybe there was some opposition or concern still, but

[3:51:33] That TCC would develop this proposal, which would include a county staff component. I believe it was between 0.5 FDE and 1.0 FDE to principally be staff plus to the committee, like supporting the committee's objectives and mission

[3:51:49] to a higher level than would just be what we're able to provide just from the

[3:51:55] Committee Administrative Office team, Commissioners team so far. And so in that would be also, for example, some pretty serious work which is developing an Rfp together with those communities, putting out that Rfp, evaluating consultants, providing all that assistance

[3:52:13] Choosing contracting with negotiating with and then contracting with a consultant, which I do have experience. I know can be a lot of work to do that. And then managing that consulting, which brings back to what you were saying, Commissioner, about just the ability to sort of manage from the in-house now perspective, not just having relying on a committee to manage a consultant, it'll be a combination of forces

[3:52:33] And so I think that's where the compromise is perhaps that and then and in that execution, I think of the work product, the scope of work through that process, there could be efficiencies discovered. Like we have communications capabilities in-house, we have some software capabilities, we have things like that. And could there be like kind of a

[3:52:50] balance that happens through experimentation in this new reset, which I do think is different. I think it's different from the past, at least in this format. There could be some

[3:53:01] work that's handed off to a consultant, and some work that happens in-house, kind of like, again, through my direct experience at community development, you know, there's some things that the planners do, and some things that the consultant does, and that balance happens sometimes over time, depending on how quickly you need it, and where's the efficiency, and so I can picture there being a balance there between outside assistance, if you will, managed by the in-house county staff

[3:53:23] in collaboration and coordination with, in particular, Tcc, perhaps that's because that's where let's get TCC to submit a proposal, and that would be a kind of a collaboration with the county team.

[3:53:34] That just really is making decisions about the funds, which is an entirely different. So then under this proposal, the staff

[3:53:43] Person people are overseen by TCC

[3:53:47] Yes. Well, so

[3:53:52] In this ask of the BOCC, that's just us releasing the funds a thousand or a million for to include 379 for destination booking purposes. TCC will put together their proposal

[3:54:08] But yes, all the materials that we've put together so far have indicated, yes, TCC would oversee this this staff people, but they would report to the county administrator. I think, like the specific details are yet to be worked out. I think that's part of what the narrative management drive committee is a recipe for they would need more like the way

[3:54:33] Yeah, I think that it will be a county staff person would have to have a county oversight and most likely would be the county manager's office. And there would be the scope of work or the direction in which the county together with TCC pursues the objectives would

[3:54:49] Would be coordinated, would be a joint mission. Yeah, absolutely. It's the… it's the setting, the one of the marketing metrics that were goals that we're trying to make, and assessing have we met those goals with this campaign?

[3:55:04] That's what TCC would be doing and saying, okay, is this the right

[3:55:09] If we're contracting out the web development, is that web developer meeting our goals? Are they and if we're not meeting those goals, they come back to Josh and say, why aren't we meeting these goals? Or they come to that staff person and say, why aren't they? Why aren't we meeting these goals? Just the point and adjust the point

[3:55:27] Yeah.

[3:55:28] Exactly.

[3:55:30] But I'm going to write down a few things that are

[3:55:34] Your

[3:55:35] You know, absolutely. I mean, this is

[3:55:38] That I can then go to the TCC members and say, okay, we need to make sure this is included in the proposal. But I don't really have a problem with the TCC proposal. I mean, it seems like maybe it makes progress. It feels good work feels like trying to get the 2

[3:55:54] Different groups talking to each other and working on the same issue. I'd say LTC, I still have a very different perception about that. And it feels like

[3:56:05] They just flecked back and said no, and that's what we're acceding to now

[3:56:10] Again, I mean, it just

[3:56:12] I don't see it that way, but… I mean, they've denied more a county position at the same 1.0 FTE, and they could… maybe they approve it this year, and then don't next year, and choose someone else. And there's just no

[3:56:28] consistency to it, I would still I would flex back, but I, you know, if you guys want to do this, that's fine. I won't… I'll vote against it, but I won't stand in the way. I don't want to argue about it. My concern is that we

[3:56:43] I mean, I think

[3:56:45] Again, one of the silver linings here for me is that we have gotten really clear what the authority of LTCH is, what the authority of the Board of County Commissioners is, and we know this is a law that is written very much in favor of

[3:57:01] lodging tax advisory committees having

[3:57:04] pretty strong authority around what can and cannot be done with these dollars. And they've used all their authority. We just haven't used our authority. I disagree. And I think that

[3:57:15] The best thing we can do right now is get these dollars out into this community and and what we have gained is a clarity around how much of this we want to be used for that purpose. And I think we're gonna come up with a really great system that works

[3:57:32] to market Jefferson County and to increase these dollars, and that's what I care about. I want to get these, I mean lots of things. It's what I care about getting these dollars out into the community so that we can be engaging in this and lifting our economy. And I don't want to hold dollars,

[3:57:50] because we're flexing

[3:57:52] my 1st 2 or 3 years I was in your position of being a lot of it, not all the funding committees, and then the same

[3:58:01] Kind of spiral with a lot of it where it was like

[3:58:04] Are we doing this the best way? I don't think we're doing this the best way we could be. So I really appreciate you spending the extra time to get to this. I feel like this is progress. Acknowledging that there needs to be capacity for this work, because I watched our staff

[3:58:21] Yeah, pointing at you, Carolyn, but I know there's other ones of them down the other end of the hall. You know, juggle an insane amount of tasks, and

[3:58:32] It just feels like acknowledging the capacity is needed for this task

[3:58:38] Does both of these committees credit? Is LTC acknowledge that?

[3:58:44] I heard TCC acknowledge it, but I'll have an LTCH acknowledge it. We've had the same conversation at LTCH around that specific thing, because that's not their job, right? Their job isn't necessarily to come up with this proposal. But then the gender request of LTCH

[3:58:58] I mean, the paragraph I'm looking at it over your shoulder, Heather, LTC would like to ask the VOCC to consider a compromise. Yes, so a caveat to what I just said is that we now are joint with I mean, there are LTCH numbers on TCC. So when so the the primary ones that object

[3:59:17] have objected in the past have been part of both conversations. Say that and therefore have said yes, would make this compliments. So II do see it as an absolute coming to the table and acknowledging that we need the capacity

[3:59:35] We're willing to to

[3:59:37] fund this

[3:59:41] Okay?

[3:59:43] Someone want to make a motion?

[3:59:47] Well, we had many words in that motion at the bottom there. I mean, I'm happy to make this motion if it doesn't create any kind of

[3:59:58] I need… I need my screen to if you can show me the second page. I can make it Heather. Oh, here it is appreciation of I'll make a motion to authorize the issuance of a lodging tax RFP in an amount not to exceed 1,004,000

[4:00:16] Version 2. Next sentence. A second option. No, the second option is. And I will absolutely second that motion. It's been moved and seconded. This motion was I think you asked for a public comment anyway, so we'll open it up for public comment. So anyone in the room can make public comment. You have up to three minutes or you can raise your hand online

[4:00:39] And make public comment, you can hit the raise hand button or star nine

[4:00:44] If you're on the phone, we'd love to hear from you. Anyone in the room like to make public comment.

[4:00:51] Even online like to make a public comment

[4:00:55] Ms. And if the caller would like to make public comment, you can hit star nine and we'll bring you over and then you hit star six to unmute. I'll just note the public comment that we got in

[4:01:08] Or emails? From Natalie Maitland. It was a good comment. No, there's not.

[4:01:18] On the Portland Main Street program. Anybody doesn't know Natalie? Gotcha. And oh, this morning came in. Yeah, it does.

[4:01:34] All right, I'll just make a little plea for Hamiltonian oversight. I think that we do have a role on this, and I think that you are

[4:01:44] giving up the control over the direction of some of these investments. You're giving up authority over a staff member, you're giving it to LTC very explicitly with this by not making a separate

[4:01:59] RFP, I would still… I would propose responding to LTCH by not

[4:02:06] Compromising again with them, I don't think that there's any compromise coming from them. I would say we should

[4:02:13] start with the 379,000 Rfp. And say, after you process this Rfp, we will consider the other Rfp. And structurally build it so we can have a staff member that can build the relationships with the tourism community over years instead of

[4:02:31] Hoping that LTAT agrees with you next year.

[4:02:34] Okay, quick comment. Was there a previous motion I'm recalling from another meeting? Does that need to be recanted or revised, or this affected this is affecting that, but it is. There was a response from LTC saying we proposed this and we're accepting that proposal.

[4:02:51] Okay, because I recall the other amount, so 620,000. Thank you. So how does that affect that motion?

[4:02:59] It cancels that. So do we need to specifically say that in the record said a previous motion was made, but it was explained that that is

[4:03:09] Maybe you should take official action on that after you take a vote on this one. But basically this one overcomes that one. Okay. Is that enough clarification? I think either works. I'll just put in the rec and the minutes that reflect those explanations of receipts. Draw a picture of a dog with its tail under

[4:03:30] Not at all like that. It's not my perception. We're just trying to give a pictorial note. But, all right.

[4:03:36] All in favor of the motion on the floor, indicate by saying aye. Aye. All opposed nay. All right. Motion passes

[4:03:45] Thank you.

[4:03:46] Thank you for participating as we go. Thank you to all of the LTCH and ECC members. Appreciate you

[4:03:55] problem solvers for this.

[4:03:59] I'm excited. I think this is a step forward. I hope it is.

[4:04:04] You'll be watching on the bow crazy. I will not. All right, onward. I think I've lost my agenda here.

[4:04:16] Sorry to clarify, because I was typing you voted against I voted against

[4:04:21] Thank you. Good to see you guys.

[4:04:24] 25 windows open, not the one I need. That's always the case, especially when you're trying to share your screen. Yeah

[4:04:33] Okay.

[4:04:36] I guess we've got briefing and then we want to talk maybe a little bit about the housing fund board before we complete. So I think I was

[4:04:48] Halfway through. This week is a train wreck for me, so… Oh, yeah. No, I mean, just, like, in terms of meetings stacked up. Yeah.

[4:05:02] Let's see… Oh, really? Yeah.

[4:05:08] All right, we talked about the shelter coalition, the memo come in, and then worked with PRTPO executive board on our transportation outlook trying to

[4:05:21] Keep working on the progress made with the Hood Canal Bridge operation process. It's really kind of our biggest legislative ask, coupled with a study that wash dot and says we'll take $150,000. So that's our our big ask

[4:05:37] A little extra budget capacity of PR to PO, which is great because there is our contractor putting our plan together. I forget what it's called now

[4:05:48] HTTP, human transportation plan together came in under budget, which is great. Let's see. And so, of course, the the housing fund board was on the second agenda planning and all that stuff. But maybe we should talk about the CoC stuff

[4:06:07] We can, well, I'll go through first. We'll come back to that. So I'll table that for now.

[4:06:13] EDC board of directors, good meeting on Thursday. We have a full board now. We've outgrown the room at the port, you know, so Scott Mock has been on the board now, as well as Mike Lynn from the hospital, and so

[4:06:29] Full up board, so probably be starting to go to Jefferson Transit despite their lack of fire flow for our meetings.

[4:06:37] It'll highlight me if an important economic development tool. Yes. And then went to the PLVC meeting and had not a warning, but a heads up from several members of the PLVC that there were folks

[4:06:54] Probably going to be a lot of people there about the falls terrace development that has been proposed, and there's a the end of the sepa was September first. It was extended because lots of people commented that a PLVC was indeed packed to the gills

[4:07:10] And so Falls Terrace is a proposal by the Port Ludlow Associates to create 53 houses in the area that right now has the little mobile home park there, and the pla offices, you know the trail to the waterfall down there. It's like Breaker Lane over to replace those 2 things. Not the falls, of course, and with the setbacks and everything, but

[4:07:32] It was a large moment of comment, you know, too close to the proximity of the falls being an impediment to it. So was it part of their master plan?

[4:07:43] Well, yeah, Diana was there too. Luckily, it was a lot of back and forth. It has been listed as a high density residential from the very beginning, and it's on that map, but that still took people by surprise. And so they were mostly opposed to it, and I made it clear that this was not the hearing and delegate that quasi-judicial authority to a hearings examiner

[4:08:05] kind of went through the process and everyone, and I think it was

[4:08:09] it was it was good. I mean, it was positive, you know, I mean, there was no progress being made. They just, you know, and I think I allayed

[4:08:18] concerns that political jockeying to me would have any impact on it, just that, you know, that's not… that's not our lane, because we don't want to make these decisions politically. Someone asked a pointed question. So if this

[4:08:30] meets all of the codes, then the hearing examiner should approve it. I'm like, yes, that's how it's supposed to work. So, yes, it was, I think, fairly positive, and thanks to Mochi, who prepared the presentation, you know, or the packets, the lead planner on this, and it looks

[4:08:49] It all looks in order to me. So it was interesting. But I don't think I'm welcome.

[4:08:57] Met with Jeff Johnston as you know orca board prep on Friday, and then I went on Kptz with

[4:09:07] No guests

[4:09:09] No guests at all. I DJ'd and played a couple songs and talked about different things. Talked about the opioid crisis and played a song, recorded out of the disco bay detour by Megan Traneri

[4:09:24] Lost her brother this year in the opioid crisis. Yes, CB, who's a great guy, used to play softball with him

[4:09:32] He's always the big hitter.

[4:09:34] As… as well as a couple other songs talked about planning and, you know.

[4:09:40] What's next? I have a gym participate. He asked me questions about what I was going to do and what I was most proud of and things like that. And yeah, it's good. We had a conversation at that time I had, I brought four songs and we could only get to three songs.

[4:09:56] Really, we just chatted. 25 minutes. It goes awfully fast for sure.

[4:10:02] Okay. And those are the high points. Oh, and we'll come back to the housing fund board and Josh, you want to take a look back two weeks and share any high points that were already discussed?

[4:10:13] Great. Thank you.

[4:10:16] Try to avoid overlap, things that have already been mentioned.

[4:10:24] You know, senior management team meeting on the 25th.

[4:10:30] And

[4:10:31] I did attend the capital facilities planning committee meeting with Mission Brotherton and our central services director.

[4:10:39] On 26th

[4:10:44] Right after the Mason Street groundbreaking ceremony, or I should say I had to leave that early to go over to something I mentioned to you before, which was a four corners infrastructure summit that Commissioner Eisenhower then

[4:10:57] Came to and involved all of our ICG partners, intergovernmental collaborative group plus Jefferson Transit.

[4:11:06] And and there's a lot of discussion just about that entire area constraints at the transit facility site itself, bigger plans for the port of Port Townsend around the airport industrial park, some resource limitations. Fire flow was mentioned, but there is

[4:11:22] A solution there that involves the city of Port Townsend water line. Okay. But it wasn't just

[4:11:27] Fireflow is also potable water for the port's industrial development plans and the costs associated with that. So there are some constraints there, which even has caused the port to reconsider

[4:11:39] The level of effort for that site relative to other places, including Port Hadlock.

[4:11:44] Or within the city of Fort Townsend, is there another site that should be looked at sooner because there'd be fewer obstacles and less expense to get there faster.

[4:11:55] To where we have

[4:11:58] had ready sites for like industrial development. So that was an interesting outcome with that meeting because we looked at, you know there's

[4:12:08] There's costs associated with that airport development network.

[4:12:13] Maybe unanticipated or the refresh on evaluating how much it would actually cost to get there has caused port officials to reconsider the priority of that site relative to others, which is interesting because you know that the last time this board met with the board commission, it was all about the airport. So

[4:12:30] Doesn't mean I don't think they're giving, you know, they're not giving up on the airport, of course, but it's just a matter of

[4:12:37] Is there a better site we can move on quicker? Yeah. That includes taking a new look at Port Hidelock area.

[4:12:44] to talk about. Is there a big enough site there potentially no matter who owns it currently that could support like industrial development.

[4:12:52] Because they're already zoned in the Port Hadlock area for land industrial development?

[4:12:57] There is over by where the retention pond is it big enough would be the question.

[4:13:06] Then, of course followed by the and then I was off for a couple days. So I also missed the fire that occurred on SR104, but fortunately, I had already delegated county administrator authorities during my absence to the central services director. So Sean was in contact with Chief Black from East Jefferson Fire Rescue, for example, on the response.

[4:13:26] So

[4:13:29] Yeah, it worked out well. It was very smooth. Carolyn did a great job coordinating. Excellent. Thank you.

[4:13:35] And I think we're again fortunate that it wasn't bigger. Very fortunate it was.

[4:13:42] And then last week

[4:13:45] I was off Monday, but I was back on Tuesday.

[4:13:51] Met with Amit to talk about different ideas about

[4:13:56] WFCU Jefferson County has

[4:13:59] I mean, we solved one small problem in a sense, from a budget perspective by giving up the classroom and poor had luck

[4:14:07] But we created a new problem by opening the question of where are we going to find another classroom type facility or and or a more permanent location for WSU Jefferson County. So we had that kind of conversation. We're exploring different ideas

[4:14:22] And they've been looking at the farm as a

[4:14:26] Yes, but I think the conclusion is that that that site on Marestone that you're talking about, I believe, Commissioners and Mr. Ranch

[4:14:34] has advantages for certain programs that WSU runs.

[4:14:39] But isn't looking like it would be the ideal solution for permanent offices accessible to the public. Because those structures there are older and we require

[4:14:51] significant investment to bring up to speed plus the access issues there on Marestone relative to other places. But we do have some other items in the fire which

[4:15:00] which we can get into

[4:15:03] At any time, really, but I think that more analysis is required to really go into a conversation about what those are.

[4:15:14] Then we had our risk management committee meeting on the 1st of September. Which went a little bit long this time, but sometimes it's short, but that one was not.

[4:15:22] Then I did listen in on the TCC meeting, which is where I got some of those ideas. Last conversation.

[4:15:28] people more one on runs the administrator meeting on the morning of the second

[4:15:38] We did listen to the Housing Fund Board meeting as well. Good afternoon.

[4:15:43] long meeting with HR on Thursday. A lot of things going on at once

[4:15:48] Long meeting with Public Works with Eric at Public Works, a lot of things going on there as always almost, but

[4:15:55] Every time you see

[4:15:57] Every time you say, yeah, there's so much going on, I guess it's always been like that, but it always seems like it's a little bit more now.

[4:16:03] The list keeps growing longer, it seems, fewer things get checked off as opposed to getting added. It just seems that is these days. Long meeting with the prosecuting attorney on Thursday. There's things afoot there, as you know, one of our recent hires is leaving very soon

[4:16:19] So that is creating

[4:16:24] Another challenge for the prosecuting attorney staff

[4:16:31] And

[4:16:34] I think that wraps up my contribution to the briefing. All right. Just keep going and look at this week

[4:16:42] Just FYI, I need to get out. It'd be great before 4, 3. I'm going to the COIL meeting tonight, so I got to get home and grab a quick bite and everything. So we'll do agenda prep with you on the phone, or we can at least catch you tomorrow. Maybe we should reschedule

[4:16:56] That would make it easier, too. Just on that note, Commissioner, if you could take a look at what Carolyn and company have come up with so far, maybe send me a note about it because I'm out tomorrow we can consult on Thursday. Yeah, there's not a lot to do

[4:17:12] So if there's any questions, I guess you can also just email both of us. Both of you on any questions. Excellent. Okay, let's do that and touch base on Thursday. Great.

[4:17:20] Okay, so

[4:17:22] So I am out tomorrow, as I mentioned, and then Thursday I'm back and I aspire to listening on the housing fund board meeting and then a series of one-on-ones that afternoon. One-on-ones on Friday morning at the capital facilities meeting. There's the Port Hadlock area tour. Commissioner Eisenhower, which

[4:17:39] branch right up against the capital facility so I can leave that early if we should talk about whether you want me to be there, I should be there, and whether or whether it's not necessary, but I don't care. I lost track of how this compares to the last meeting. I think this is more of the state legislator focus.

[4:17:56] This is with Lisa Parsley, who is Vice Chair of the Capital Budget Committee

[4:18:01] And would be really good for you to be on. And I also reached out to Sam and Eric to see if either of them were available. I do want to make that. So I'll tell Sean, and I'm going to leave the capital facilities meeting early so that I can meet you out there.

[4:18:12] on Friday afternoon, early afternoon.

[4:18:17] All right, great. I'll go next. Let's see. I am hopping in a car with Eric Kuzma tonight to go down to the Coyle Parks and Rec Board meeting. Follow up on the conversation about the Parks and Rec levy and

[4:18:33] Supporting them if a basic idea that will run by them, not a proper ILA yet.

[4:18:42] And then

[4:18:45] Tomorrow morning at the ORCA board of directors meeting

[4:18:50] nothing particular on that. And then the Jefferson transit finance meeting to agenda planning and and go over the finances

[4:19:00] And then I'll be here for the Housing Fund Board meeting. Then I wasn't going to go to this thing. I don't know what it is. It's OS Connect Advisory board. I got an invitation to that too and I don't know what it is. I think they're just trying to sell something, but

[4:19:16] I'm planning to go to the tech advisory committee at that time, so I won't be there if someone else wants to go to that.

[4:19:21] And then Friday morning, I'll try to go to the 9-11 remembrance up at 959 at the bell tower, and then come down here for the Capitol facilities planning committee meeting

[4:19:35] And that's Maui. Heidi, yours is packed with meetings.

[4:19:40] I feel like when it's too bizarre, but

[4:19:43] Let's see

[4:19:49] I'm just trying to shuffle some stuff around as we talk.

[4:19:53] Okay

[4:19:55] And let's see.

[4:20:01] This week

[4:20:03] Tomorrow, I am driving to Aberdeen for our annual in-person meeting of the Olympic area on aging

[4:20:13] Council of governments meeting

[4:20:15] And so I'll be gone doing that most of the day. Cool.

[4:20:20] And then Thursday

[4:20:23] I'm meeting with a constituent early in the morning

[4:20:26] And then have the ecosystem coordination board

[4:20:30] September meeting is virtual, so that I'll just be here doing that.

[4:20:35] And

[4:20:38] Friday

[4:20:42] I'm doing this tour with

[4:20:44] Kelsey and Rep Harshly and Josh and hopefully Sam or Eric

[4:20:49] from 12 to 1, 12 to 12 to 2, and Haddock. And then

[4:20:58] We'll race into town to

[4:21:01] Staff the majority of my time at the inseeing the MRC booth, I wouldn't vote festival

[4:21:10] And then Saturday, I'll be at the MRC booth at Wind Boat Festival again in the afternoons.

[4:21:19] So this week isn't

[4:21:23] Crazy of next week where next

[4:21:27] So next week

[4:21:30] Is the WASAC

[4:21:33] Pre-legislative

[4:21:36] Conference

[4:21:38] LSC Meeting and the timber counties caucus both in Owensburg, which normally I would go to in person and I'm still trying to figure out how to make that happen, but

[4:21:50] It's also the LSC meeting overlaps with… completely overlaps with Board of Health.

[4:21:57] And

[4:21:59] I don't know if we have any sense of whether the Quorum for Board of Health with Glenn gone, I'm not sure who's

[4:22:06] clerking board of health board is not showing up on my calendar

[4:22:16] Is it not on your calendar? No, I just have a hold on my calendar. I have to put up. You put a I've always just put a regular hold on my calendar because they don't send it out until so close.

[4:22:29] But I don't I don't have it on my calendar this week. Is it supposed to be this week? Next week. Oh, next week, the seventh. Yeah, yeah, I have it on my calendar for next week.

[4:22:40] During the LFC. Yeah.

[4:22:45] So, I mean, if just one of us is missing from that, then there should be a quorum. Yeah, if I was to attend in to LSC in the beginning, and then go to attend Board of Health. So I'm still trying to decide whether I'm going to attend LSC in person or virtually, but I'm honestly leaning towards virtually, because there's

[4:23:01] Also a drainage district meeting in the evening that evening. So anyway, I'm doing the board meeting virtually.

[4:23:10] Since we're going to get to go in person for the county leaders in November. Right.

[4:23:18] So just generally feels more confusing and trust is my problem though.

[4:23:24] All right, well, thanks for learning that we have a regularly scheduled Board of Health meeting. Yeah.

[4:23:29] Heather, how's your week like?

[4:23:34] Just looking at that OS Connect Advisory board local data stewardship and maintenance. Yeah, they sent us a note about it, too. It's for statewide pedestrian infrastructure data set.

[4:23:48] Developed through state legislative appropriations covering

[4:23:52] 23 to 25 and 25 to 7 piano provides a consistent representation of sidewalks, crossings, curb ramps, pedestrian pathways, and related accessibility information across all population centers

[4:24:06] I see why you're

[4:24:09] anticipating that they might be trying to sell us something. It's like it's a data traffic system that they just want to. No wonder spam is what it looks like to me.

[4:24:17] Yeah

[4:24:18] OSO might be advisory. Boy, they really frame it like it's some committee that we need to show up for. There's anybody we can find out. Anyway… There's a note here from Darsh Iyer

[4:24:34] At the UW

[4:24:36] No prior knowledge is necessary to be sold this project, this product.

[4:24:43] Yeah, I don't know where they're meant to end that, but this week

[4:24:47] I will attend the first portion of the Ferry Advisory committee meeting, but we'll need to step out of that after half an hour to join Sean Frederick and Josh and Linda Noble from the Jefferson Fairgrounds Association. We're just going to do some

[4:25:05] Linda wanted to come and meet with Josh and Sean prior to the board meeting on Thursday night to just really review in detail the financials and also just talk through some

[4:25:19] Some from her perspective, being a longtime board member and now staff member, she's no longer a board member because she's actually doing bookkeeping and managing the campgrounds grant. So

[4:25:34] She was asked and agreed to step down from the board in order to not create a conflict there, which has worked out well, because she's really just been a stable force there, kind of maintaining

[4:25:46] Some history, she finds it curious that she's the one with history, even though she's only been there for like four years. Yeah. But it's been great to have her. So she's going to come and just kind of share some of her thoughts. I know I've kind of briefed Sean on this, and I

[4:26:02] For you, Josh. I know one of the things that Linda really wants to make clear is that she actually did participate in the kind of

[4:26:13] I won't call them negotiations, really. I think they were, it was a more open conversation than that, but that led to the operating agreement between the county and the operating agreement that exists today.

[4:26:25] and and in those meetings she reports that she was very consistently trying to make it clear that there, you know that her concern for the decades of deferred maintenance in those buildings and and you know she was arguing for more money, obviously, and and very successful in

[4:26:47] you know, making that shift to have the county invest $100,000 where a year and where you know the county was investing something more like $4,000 prior to that. And less than that in years

[4:27:02] So I know she's not sort of balking against that win, but she wants to just really kind of go through and detail her with Sean in particular from the central services perspective to get a really clear understanding

[4:27:19] What is needed there in terms of infrastructure investment?

[4:27:24] And to just kind of make sure that we're going into these conversations with the level of understanding of what it's really going to take to get those fairgrounds up to speed, and the level of revenue generation

[4:27:40] and or finding infrastructure dollars and invest in order to invest that it's going to take. So she just wanted to be able to kind of have a one-on-one or one of four conversation

[4:27:51] before the board meeting. So we're going to do that tomorrow.

[4:27:55] Wednesday we will have a special housing fund board meeting. We'll also have also have a biweekly Jefferson County early learning and family support center check-ins. I expect this one

[4:28:09] to be a little more information about what we're looking at timeline-wise for reopening the bids for that childcare facility. So I'm excited to hear a little more update

[4:28:19] Then the housing fund board meeting which will finish my week, which is a little more limited this week, which is great. Fairgrounds association meeting in the evening on the 10th. I will also would like to go to the 911 remembrance

[4:28:36] So I don't know if we noticed that. We can just show up and be ceremonial. Okay, and then Kbdz, I'll bring on some folks on Friday

[4:28:46] from First Step Family Support Center. So we'll talk more about the diaper drive and go into a little bit more detail about why it's important to provide those kinds of resources for families. Talk a little bit about prenatal mental health

[4:29:02] And postnatal mental health

[4:29:04] And then I am meeting with Bly Windstorm, who has been active in our climate action committee, showing up quite a bit for Climate Action Committee conversations. So just hearing some of his perspective. He's been

[4:29:19] Starting to get active in our

[4:29:22] Food resilience planning work has been through

[4:29:27] a catastrophic breach in all of our event in somewhere tropical like I don't know where he lived before, but lived through a pretty significant

[4:29:40] event that tore up his community, and so he has some great perspective around what it takes to be resilient from those kinds of things, and what it takes to build food systems that will stand up to a regional emergency like that. So

[4:29:53] Can you hear some of his ideas? He's also a wonderful human being. Yeah. I know

[4:29:59] So back to Housing Fund Board on Thursday, the tenth. It is a special meeting. We set it outside of the normal cycle in order to finish up the Rfp. And

[4:30:16] We have because we spent a lot of the time on this last meeting talking about the CoC conversation. So we have some final priority questions to to kind of come to grips with and maybe define further in the Rfp

[4:30:33] It's one that we've been grappling with and that not everybody on the housing fund board, I think, has been willing to kind of really

[4:30:43] put forward any specific

[4:30:45] priorities, but we've come up with maybe a new way to approach that. So we'll and not to put too high a point on it. But there's one priority specifically that also comes up in responses to the county taking over the COC, which is

[4:31:01] Since we took over the contract for the emergency shelter at the American Legion with Bayside as a contracted manager, right? Which was only supposed to last for less than a year.

[4:31:16] As these projects do, it's gone on. It'll go into March and everything. So Judy came to the housing fund board meeting to ask for more money outside the RFP so we can pay not necessarily what Bayside wants us to pay, but the budget that we

[4:31:31] agreed to already, outside of the RFP process, and many were willing to do it as we did last year. We took some of the extra recording fees that we got, and directly, and I only learned at this meeting that was a result

[4:31:48] was part of the CHG, really, you know, but it comes straight to the county, regardless of who the CoC lead is. But we've directly pushed money into those projects that were the county had responsibility, and despite what some people think, we don't have a lot of revenue opportunities to

[4:32:08] bolster those right? We don't go out and, you know, once you have, but I don't think we will again go and just, you know, ask for donations to do county services. So that's one big dilemma, and it's, I think, tied up in people's perception, not just of maybe priorities for the Rp. And whether we

[4:32:23] Make a night by night emergency shelter the top priority for the RFP, which is one way of kind of saying this is important and or just, you know, taking the county project specifically out of the RFP

[4:32:39] And funding up to the six-month funding for it. So there's a kind of the… that's a big point that that's what's the delay in the RFP, I would say. It's a really big point, because there's, you know, there's other housing providers that also then come forward, and like, for example, DevHealth Advocacy Services has long made the point that

[4:32:59] They also run a shelter and emergency shelter that serves people that the night by night shelter that the county supports does not serve and specifically children

[4:33:13] And families with children

[4:33:15] So then is, you know, are we saying we're going to support all emergency shelter or not? And you can see how the conversation gets complex from there. So we will attempt to

[4:33:27] identify whatever common priorities we're going to. There you go mechanism we're willing to kind of facilitate within that. And you know, and also to address Judy's very clear point

[4:33:41] And which is if you're gonna take on this contract, you need to give me a tool to pay the bills. And we have taken on a contract to potentially tell

[4:33:51] Right now, until July, July 1, of 2027, right? And I brought up an additional point, which is that another in in several other counties that night by night shelter, emergency shelter function gets can be paid for through the consolidated homeless grant

[4:34:09] But OLCAP doesn't identified dollars for that. And so that's also a conversation that can be had, but it's also really complex because in this limited funding environment that we're in

[4:34:24] Anything you pay for means taking dollars away from something else. That is also often

[4:34:31] Also needed. I think it's pretty clear, though, that, I mean, it was a totally different management structure at that time, but OliCap did use the CHG when they were for the emergency shelter when they were operating the emergency shelter, right? I mean.

[4:34:47] Same thing, we're kind of doing, you know, in a different fun, but I mean, it's, you know, yeah, good point.

[4:34:56] I mean, that very dynamic is the reason that we have an RFP process at all because of other, you know, kind of discontent with the way that we were distributing. At this point, it was just the recording fees money before we had authorized House Bill 59 and

[4:35:13] And it's also a good reason to have that CoC lead conversation to say that anybody who's going to be using the dollars, the best practice is to not have

[4:35:27] You know, that entity make the decision about how the dollars are going to be used and for who gets the dollars. So, that'd be a function that county steps into. So we'll need to talk about how that would work, and there's just like we're asking, you know, you started to ask questions about

[4:35:45] Okay, if we're going to go in this direction with the TCC and LTAC around destination marketing, now we gotta get into the details of how and what, and how are you going to make those dollars work, all those things. So there's lots… there would be

[4:36:00] A lot to be worked out if we go in that direction.

[4:36:06] But this special meeting this week is really focused on getting the RFP out and making this priority, having this priority conversation. So not talking about the COC this week. So we'll need to talk. I think we'll get that work done

[4:36:22] I hope so. Fairly effective. I mean, there's not a lot… most of the RFP is essentially done. Yes. Ready to go. But that priority and how how and how

[4:36:35] How are we defining emergency shelter and what are we committing to paying for is

[4:36:41] It's going to take a little

[4:36:43] compromise

[4:36:45] Can I go back to LTAC a little bit? There were several projects that the county has been thinking about. Is anyone going to put those in RFPs? I mean, I mean, the only cap

[4:36:58] Cost sharing on the sign is a very LTCH eligible program. I was at the capital facilities. We don't have money in the capital facilities things to do new things. It's maintenance of old things, essentially. So the septic design that we pay $50,000 for with COVID dollars

[4:37:17] still sits out there with no way to fund it. I mean, maybe LDAC doesn't think that this is a good use to spike the LTW of LTC funds. We still… I mean, I wouldn't… I don't think anyone should make that application, this, but that those dollars are going to go away

[4:37:33] If we don't find a way to fund that, but more pointedly, I think really just the holy cap sign, someone should apply. I'm pretty sure that my name on the top of a form is not going to help it get across the LPACs

[4:37:48] Wouldn't be able to catch on the

[4:37:52] I don't know. I mean, it's really they've already said this. I mean, yeah, maybe it's only cap, I guess it could be

[4:37:59] fully cap, or… Was there a community group that raised half the money? Where there's been… it was their full name. Count me in for quilting, as they're folding, gave money, donated money to Holy Cat for this project. Holy Cat put in a third, too, and asked the county for the

[4:38:14] Last part, I would say that it's more a county

[4:38:19] Didn't we already put the funding for that piece into the mix? No, that was that was a roundabout sign for that is so somebody reaching out to Ole Cap and Field 5

[4:38:34] Yeah, no, I mean, I… I can talk to Linda because she's reached out a couple of times. Linda Herzog more from the Count me in for closing perspective. She's been from the community perspective, she's been the one really pushing this and just find out if someone's going to be applying. My understanding is, though, she she

[4:38:55] wanted to find dollars sooner than because LTAC dollars aren't then available until the 1st of the year. They permitted, you know. And hopefully, maybe the the other funder can work on the accrual method and and just acknowledge the dip it in and the contribution of it. I mean, it's going

[4:39:11] 4 months to get through our facilities. I'll certainly check in with her. She's I I I would like to follow up with her anyway, because she's called me. We've talked about it a couple of times.

[4:39:23] Just on the phone, and so I'd like to just let her know that our RFP is going to go out now. So as a it'll go out at the end of the day today, which was what ADL was prepared to do.

[4:39:37] I'll follow up with her and

[4:39:40] Was that the extent of your

[4:39:44] But did you want to talk about the COC lead thoughts? Is that what you want to talk about or do you want to talk about the priorities, which is the CoC. I mean, I wanted to just fill Heidi in on all of that. So we've done that, but

[4:40:00] I don't know, I guess I feel like what's the next step if we were to go and if the county… we've done all this analysis of what you know what the housing fund board thinks we should do and what the community thinks we should do and what the other providers think we think we should do. But I think we're getting close enough to

[4:40:19] You know, the potential for the proposal to lean towards, yeah, the county should not defer it and should then take on a piece of it. And I think I'm leaning toward being able to support that

[4:40:36] And having it be pretty focused on the county keeps the managing the funds, making, you know, managing the whatever distribution of funds

[4:40:49] You know, process diets. Any staff member. I mean, there's 15% admin fee built in new staff hired to be supported by the consolidated in the past I've had conversations with Gary at Bayside

[4:41:05] about Bayside's interest, and I have, too. And we talked about that at this executive director meeting and also Beulah is, you know, deaf house advocacy Services is potentially

[4:41:20] The same structural problems are there, though, that you're overseeing a pier. Right, and that's… and you don't have that much authority to make them do it. So the same issue is… Distribution of funds, nurturing those distributions. So once those funds go out, then the lead is also responsible for going and auditing

[4:41:41] At those locations to make sure that each of those providers is maintaining the consolidated Homeless Grant guidelines, which includes, like, going and checking files and making sure that they're fulfilling a CHG guideline rules around how they keep their

[4:41:56] their client files and all of that. So it really needs to be someone who has that monitoring skill set

[4:42:03] And then, you know

[4:42:05] Probably working through our finance department.

[4:42:10] And then does that person also like Renata's position at the city, are they also working to

[4:42:22] See, you know, to find grant applications for us to apply for. Is there any, you know. How do we leverage those CHD dollars against other things? Is that worth considering? But basically everything else I think we should contract out for those dollars. So all the other point in time count and coordinated entry facilitation, all of that. And that was the recommendation of Sarah and Moda from

[4:42:48] you know, when she was asked that question at our meeting

[4:42:53] I think she fairly clearly came out and said this this consolidated. Well, the continuum of care system really wasn't built for you know it was built for counties to run it. And and I think that's the way it works well and in a county your size

[4:43:14] It also can work well to not to build an entire department around it that has that skill set in-house, but to contract out most of the provider work, which will include the things that

[4:43:26] Practice listed. Though holycap also said, we think that the county should do it

[4:43:31] We were supplementing with other funds and we don't want to do any of those ancillary administrative tasks either. We'd need to find we need to start. What I'm interested in the most right now is starting to do the math

[4:43:46] And really just starting to work through like, what are the position, what's a position that we would need to hire? What's that job description? What's that going to cost with benefits all in? And then start looking at what would that cost less than 150 because that's 15% of the administration. Are there other counties that Grays Harbor County does it. I mean, similar size. It would just be interesting to get a model right so we've done 4 models that was the previous meeting

[4:44:15] You can find that in the previous meetings. So I did that presentation where we reviewed 4 other. I know you guys go to a lot of meetings, and you offer for me to review meetings, but I it's just like, oh, I'm like, how to answer your question. Why do I have time to review other people's feedings? But this is such a

[4:44:33] It is a topic that likes, I mean, I feel this way about SOLIDWOS. I feel like

[4:44:39] I don't understand three quarters later, I do feel like I understand the system a little bit better, but it was one that I came into going like, my head is swimming, all the things that are involved in solid waste or the, you know, the forestry work that you're deeply involved. And, you know, I personally have a little background in that and I still feel like what you're swimming in is a whole different world and it's got to feel that way around housing

[4:45:03] You know, Greg and I have been really involved in it for years now. So it's understandable, and we can't all be experts in all the things. That's just impossible.

[4:45:12] So we have to get back to Hamilton. We can do this and see

[4:45:18] I'll just say that, I mean, Heather and I talked about one of the things we talked about last week, and we talked to other colleagues like like the public health director, for example.

[4:45:28] I think things that I totally understand the reasoning why and it totally makes sense that the county would be the CoC. And I guess what I worry about is CoCC lead. You got

[4:45:42] some kind of

[4:45:44] So kind of staff person with expertise or the ability to develop that expertise, right? So like a housing coordinator type of person similar to what we have. You like the czar. Similar to what we have in behavioral. I'm going to spell that with a T or see that with a C. I said a C, CZ, of course

[4:46:03] The behavioral health coordinator, similar to that kind of position, right?

[4:46:08] Right. But that's not the only need the financial infrastructure, fiscal capacity to deal with all the invoicing and all that grant management stuff, auditing capabilities. That might be one and a half. There aren't that many people

[4:46:24] There's one big one that you have to administer, and there's some administrative tasks that come with it, right? But there's economies of scale too, right? Because you're really supposed to with the CHG monies, you know, even I think the buy and for money, the 10% that's supposed to go to buy and four, is supposed to go through an RFP process

[4:46:41] So we're really structurally fits into the Housing Fund Board in a lot of ways where you're just making a clearinghouse. You have an administrative oversight agency that we already do, you know a lot of contract management. I mean, we're not adding more contracts than we already have, believe me. I mean, at least in, you know, from our side

[4:46:59] It's like this, this system is halfway there. I believe that if we structure it correctly, it would lighten a load on Carolyn and others if we

[4:47:10] staff appropriately, and maybe that means I think you just have to build the systems, and you know it's been pointed out that most counties do this with at least 2 employees. So let's just… let's just think maybe it's 2 employees that are staffing the housing fund board and doing all these different things. Or one and a half, maybe, you know this could be a portion of someone. Yeah. But

[4:47:31] Those

[4:47:33] You can also go into the other fund systems that we have if we have to, you know, but it

[4:47:39] Finding that $150,000 plus is 15% admin on any of the ancillary programs, right? That's how I understood it. So if you if we're say that we want OLICAP to keep doing the point in time count, and they, you know, that

[4:47:55] On that point in time count cost that they could subcontract that could also come with 15% admin rate, which is you know their memo, I think also I found occasionally disingenuous when they were talking about there's not enough capacity when Sarah quite clearly said that they're using 10% of the admin, less than 10% of the admin capacity that they could then be for admin. So

[4:48:18] There's an advantage to starting everything again and having that nine to nine months before the end of the next fiscal year to kind of go through setting it up, you know, have a staff member

[4:48:33] That maybe is paid for in a different method that has 0.5 capacity to start building these systems ahead of time. I mean, it's going to cost something, and I think the costs are going to be in preparing it to be able to take over

[4:48:48] And that's building, you know, continuing to build the relationships with the different housing providers, housing fund board

[4:48:54] And

[4:48:56] I don't know.

[4:48:57] Getting ready. I kind of hit my point before I got to the end of the sentence there

[4:49:02] Happens to me too

[4:49:05] But yeah, more and more can we'll have a recommendation coming from the housing fund. Yeah, I

[4:49:11] I empathize as a member of that housing fund board. I'm continually and that in them certainly now as the chair, I'm continually trying to take steps toward that question. What do we need in order to be able to make a decision? And we had come up with this

[4:49:27] These two remaining things, you know, input from the executive directors of the housing providers of the housing providers, and the input from Department of Commerce. So we fulfilled those two things, and now I feel like

[4:49:40] In order to really accurately or

[4:49:44] meaningfully assess whether now we need to assess, does the county have the capacity to do this? And what would what would it look like if we in order, you know we need to start digging into a real model of what that would actually look like. And you know I think we start with

[4:50:00] You know, what would the job need to do? What would that cost? What bite does that take out of the funds and then have those conversations with the providers. We've got these, you know housing providers like these only cap willing to continue taking on through a contract

[4:50:16] What would Bayside be willing to take some of that on with 360 has also been part of the conversation. Kelly came to the table, and I had just, you know I had invited her because I know for one they are getting CHG dollars right now, and that's new. That's brand new for them this year, and

[4:50:36] And they are really building their capacity to be a bigger player system. So I've been just wanting Kelly to stay close to this conversation and feel like she's, you know, able to build her capacity and be part of the dialogue about how these dollars get distributed

[4:50:51] And then maybe one of the last things to make sure you're

[4:50:55] No to get up to speed that you know the distribution of CHG dollars has not happened through a request for proposals process

[4:51:06] OLECAP has not conducted an

[4:51:09] And in many ways

[4:51:13] that is preferred by all the providers. Not… not to do an RFP. It's perceived as a whole nother level of task and bureaucracy that is not necessarily desirable. Are they just decide

[4:51:30] has really just decided. And so I think and that's also caused problems, right? So that's a conversation that we're going to need to have if the county were to take that long. What obligation does that come with? Do we have to do an RFP if as a county as a public entity? Are there other options

[4:51:49] And how would that go? Right now, the executive directors are saying we're willing to come to the table and talk it through every year and talk to each other and put on the table. Here are our projects, here's what they cost, and try to come through to some sort of negotiated

[4:52:05] conclusion. So that's another piece we need to talk through. Is that even possible when a county runs it? Are there requirements that come with how we distribute the dollars? And

[4:52:17] make sure that the providers know that. So I know we need to end this. They're all doing an RFP already. If you just make it part of the annual Rfp cycle, it's no additional work, and it's just an extra line to qualify for CHG dollars, too, because I think it is more equitable to do an RM

[4:52:33] Yeah, but that's a good… that's a perfect… that's a great idea, I think, to throw that out there as

[4:52:40] It's a good suggestion. Just a teaser, little almost bouche for that conversation that we'll be coming back before us, but I am pretty confident that

[4:52:50] You're going, we're going to get a recommendation to take over. I mean, I think that's because I think multiple members of the Housing Fund Board have been calling for that explicitly for years.

[4:52:59] So anyway, we just wanted to kind of like give it to you iteratively so that because it's so much, and then gives you some chance to percolate on it a little bit. Thank you, Josh. The only point I was trying to make there was

[4:53:12] Without a human services department that would do this kind of thing, plus veterans and other services. Where would we house the housing

[4:53:21] program. Out of my office with health, out of the auditor's office, basically, where would we put in another space

[4:53:32] Yeah. Yeah. When you're trying to find space for WC Extension

[4:53:39] It's not just housing like the person who supervises that person, but just making sure we have the capacity on the fiscal management side. And it could be exactly, it could be half a position, but where is that going to be? Where's our infrastructure the strongest? Is it in the auditor's office? Is it in the public? Is it in the CAO's office or is it in

[4:53:57] But many things can be solved. Yeah.

[4:54:01] Well.

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