[0:00] or the courthouse clock tower clocking in. I wait for it and I'm like, oh, it's not
[0:07] going to chime, not yet. It's getting fixed. So there was a contract on the agenda
[0:13] we're getting there.
[0:16] Um, so, um, it's 9 o'clock and welcome everyone to the March 10th, 2025 meeting of
[0:23] the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners. Um, as we always do, we'll start with
[0:29] public comment, but I just want to first shout out to, um, all of us and the production
[0:36] alliance and the entire community for showing up this weekend at the connectivity
[0:40] summit at the Ticum school. It was an awesome display of community spirit and it
[0:46] really lifted, lifted my spirit and I, I, I heard some. Uh, similar sentiments coming
[0:53] from you guys too. Oh my goodness, what a great weekend. So nice, nice, um, show
[0:59] of community engagement,
[1:04] agreed. It's a privilege to participate in. I'd love to see more and more, more things
[1:09] grow from it. Yeah, yeah. So, as we always do, we'll start with public comment and
[1:14] we'll start with folks in the room. Is there anyone with us today who would like
[1:18] to make public comment? Is that everybody? No? OK, let's start with our elder
[1:25] statesman, retired commissioner John Austin. Come on up, John. And the,
[1:33] the owl is the microphone, so you don't have to just, you can hear me all right.
[1:38] We can hear you.
[1:42] County commissioners, thank you for your service. And uh I have uh two comments.
[1:49] First is, uh, I was going to be serving on jury duty this morning and uh I've been
[1:55] relieved, um, and I was talking to my son who's a, uh, who's a, uh,
[2:03] Who works in uh for Pierce County as a public defender, and I told him that I was
[2:09] going to be earning the princely sum of $15 a day. Which is considerably less than
[2:17] I would get if I were substitute teach, which I had scheduled to do, um, and I'm,
[2:23] I'm quite willing to forego the about, you know, about $60 or $70 per day, um.
[2:32] Because I feel it is the duty of every citizen to be on a jury, and he noticed or
[2:37] told me that, uh, in Pierce County, they're going to start uh paying $100 a day for
[2:44] their jurors, and I thought, well, maybe we could go for half that. We're a smaller
[2:50] county. So I'd like you to at least consider raising how much is given to our um
[2:58] citizens who serve as jurors. Uh, the second is once again we have the problem of
[3:05] road closure on your western access to the national park, and I know that this has
[3:11] been a thorn in the side, particularly Monty and uh and other folks who work for
[3:18] the county, and in the past there have been some efforts to have. The access road
[3:25] to the rainforest turned over to the uh to the park service similarly to the way
[3:31] that race road is out of Port Angeles and um. I'd I'd like to know if we are
[3:39] continuing to urge our representatives in Congress to take over that access road
[3:45] because I know that eventually we supposedly get reimbursed for the amount of money
[3:50] that we put into uh fixing it up, but this means that every time it goes out, we
[3:55] have to have our county engineer or some other representatives of the county go over
[4:00] there and uh that's time that we have to pay for it so. Thank you for your attention.
[4:07] Thank you, John. John.
[4:13] Um, I'm just gonna say for folks who've joined us online, if you're with us online
[4:18] and you would like to make public comment, please use the raise hand button at the
[4:23] bottom of the zoom screen, and we will get through the folks in the room with us,
[4:27] and then we'll move to the folks online who have their hands raised. So Maggie, would
[4:30] you like to come up?
[4:37] No, you're, you're, you're already on your way. Come on up.
[4:43] OK, so the connectivity summit was cool. I connected with some people about, um,
[4:50] marrying environmental justice with social justice and making that, uh, the Porthosin
[4:58] Yacht Club a day center and using the two docks in front for environmental justice
[5:04] programs. OK, so now I'm gonna talk about something else real quick. OK, back in
[5:11] the Depression era, there was a woman who created a board game called Monopoly.
[5:19] It turned into. A capitalist BS game, but it originally was a game to show
[5:28] citizens how banks worked and how the banking system worked, and during the Depression
[5:35] there were 1000 foreclosures a day on people's homes, and so they created that federal
[5:43] bank, I forget the name of it, you can go look it up. Um, that kind of like, um,
[5:49] the precursor to Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac, and they were supposed to give, uh,
[5:57] mortgage loans to people who could not. Uh, who were too low income to afford uh
[6:03] loans on homes. So there, there were some regional banks and they across the country,
[6:11] and eventually it ended up with 6400 members. So today, only
[6:19] 42% of those banks that are a member of this federal loan place.
[6:27] Have have originated mortgage loans since 2018. And
[6:35] the rest of the money is tied up with private equity
[6:43] companies who have grabbed all that money and put it in their own banks and then
[6:49] they're making $200 million off interest. So, um, there are
[6:56] 6400 banks, only 42% of them. Have
[7:04] originated a single loan since 2018, which the purpose of
[7:12] was supposed to be for low income people. So you know this is and and the rest of
[7:18] the money has been taken by private equity firms who are making $200 million a year.
[7:25] Off in interest off of money that was supposed to be loaned to low income people
[7:33] for affordable housing. So you wonder why everybody's ending up on the street who
[7:39] should be in housing who, you know, they're kind of a little maybe a 100% over the
[7:46] poverty line, 80% on the poverty line, that's why. So then, of course, then we go
[7:52] down to people with disability. Um, who are trying to get permanent supportive housing
[7:58] in those empty units and those landlords, if they, if they, if they have a big portfolio
[8:05] and they have people going, um, you know, they leave a few units empty because they
[8:11] don't like the fact that their tax is over, they will leave those units empty, so
[8:19] that's the problem. OK, thank you, thank you.
[8:25] Come on up. OK. Try this again. So Linda Shad and
[8:32] I'm here for the upper room. So I just want to explain that I've given my entire
[8:37] life to mentoring and encouraging young people, first as a juvenile probation counselor
[8:41] for 17 years. Uh, for Clown County and Jefferson County too. I worked on the, the
[8:47] west side of, um, uh, Clown County, um, and yeah, so my students today are not the
[8:54] students I taught or worked with 50 years ago or even 30 years ago, virtual experiences
[8:59] have replaced actual participation. Frankly, all of us need to get out, inhale fresh
[9:05] air, fill our sights and our memories with the beauty of nature, the exhilaration
[9:09] of hiking a challenging trail and making it to the top. There's nothing like hiking
[9:15] the Heidivide Trail or the 18 miles up the up the whole rainforest trail and encountering
[9:20] the Blue Glacier. How many of you have done that? Yes, so you know exactly what I'm
[9:24] talking about, depriving hundreds of thousands of visitors, the actual experience,
[9:29] the actual experience of the Hall of Mosses Trail. It is not acceptable. Many families
[9:35] come from cities where they live frenzied lives and visiting the rainforest is the
[9:39] therapeutic, is therapeutic for body, mind and spirit. People come from all over
[9:45] the United States. They also come from Europe and Asia, the Middle East, Turkey,
[9:50] Saudi Arabia, and India. Everyone in search of a peaceful, majestic and magical place,
[9:56] and this is the one that is on their bucket list. I had not planned on being here
[10:01] this morning. I didn't sleep all night but felt compelled to speak after last night
[10:06] when it was brought to my attention that we needed to raise $20,000 by Tuesday at
[10:10] noon or there would be no funds available for the upper repair of the upper Road.
[10:14] I've never raised money through a GoFundMe account, but it seemed like that that
[10:18] would be the only hope of coming up with something. My reply to here's what I got.
[10:25] Most figured that it was a scam. They ranted and raved about how money is spent in
[10:29] Jefferson County. Some claimed the federal government should fix this. Others said
[10:32] the state would fix it. Others said the road needed to be moved. Others made statements
[10:36] that use language I don't use. I'm an English instructor, and by the way. George
[10:42] Orwell in politics and the English language uh instructs us to let the meaning choose
[10:47] the word and um that's what I teach in English 101 and force my students to read
[10:53] that. Um, my reply to many of these very angry responses was simply that this was
[10:58] what was offered to us, and yes, it meant paying more taxes, but at least this tax
[11:04] is a choice, and one could choose not to pay the tax without losing a home or going
[11:10] to jail. So, um, with that, I just want to say I was up all night because I've never
[11:17] had that kind of reaction. Um, I don't know if there was any money, uh, uh, received,
[11:24] but that I, I think the most important thing is that there would be transparency
[11:29] and that the meetings that are had by various people. That we know about them and
[11:34] we know what's going on and I was told that this actually was an investment and if
[11:40] it if it's a duck, and I mean if it walks like a duck and cracks like a duck and
[11:44] looks like a duck, it's probably a duck, and George Orwell would say let the meaning
[11:49] choose the word. It's a tax, but I'm willing to pay it. And so are a lot of other
[11:53] people. But I guess we just call it a tax and. That's it. Thank you.
[12:01] All right. Thank you. Would you like to make a comment this morning? No, but I will
[12:05] anyway. OK. I love that.
[12:12] I haven't slept in a week. I'd like to start with a quote from the Ironman of the
[12:17] Ho, a settler who moved to the upper hoe in 1890. He doesn't it.
[12:26] Go ahead. It said, uh, his wife, his daughter wrote a book, uh, about the, the legend
[12:32] of the Iron Man of the Who, and she said he spent his life waiting for the road,
[12:36] but he realized, he said, uh, our numbers are insignificant and our, and our votes
[12:41] don't count. But and so, but the thing about the Iron Man and the whole, um. And
[12:47] maybe you know his legendary Packer who got paid double wages for packing double
[12:52] loads. I wrote about him about carrying a, a load of frozen pizzas in a microwave
[12:58] oven from Forbes. It's just totally erroneous. He's actually packing a stove full
[13:02] of potatoes, you know. And so they could never get roads, but what did they do? The
[13:07] locals went to work to pay off their taxes. They built something called the Pacific
[13:12] Trail, a road out of split cedar from Forks to Moclips with side roads to Oil City,
[13:18] Goodman Creek up the, up the Clearwater, up the Queets, all with local labor. And
[13:24] so now, of course, we can't cut cedar, you know, without getting arrested. And so
[13:29] we come up with every idea we can for the locals to help open this road. One of them
[13:34] was the GoFundMe, which, you know, got no reaction and is now we get 48 hours to
[13:40] raise. We don't know how much money we need, but you know we probably can't raise
[13:43] it in 48 hours. But the point is. Uh, since 1890, the Hillstocks have paid a lot
[13:50] of taxes. Glenda's grandmothers started a ranch for packing up though in 1927, 98
[13:58] years ago. They've been paying taxes. They've been trying to help, so we're trying
[14:02] to stop, you know, open the road as part of an effort to Preserve our national parks,
[14:10] which you realize are under attack being shut down, and we're trying to do it through
[14:14] local action and we really appreciate some help. That's all I gotta say. Thank you.
[14:20] I'm wondering if I should It was a big review before more public comment. people
[14:25] are out of the loop,
[14:29] yeah, maybe before you go online, OK, so before we go to online comment, I would
[14:34] like to share some news with the community. Um, I, I can't believe we're getting
[14:40] criticism this morning, but I have been working double time for the last two weeks
[14:43] in Washington DC, Olympia, and right here at home, including on Saturday on a Zoom
[14:48] call with our Good governor Bob Ferguson, who has pledged to the money to repair
[14:54] the road, the upper Hill Road. The issue is that that source of funding because this
[15:01] is different. Um, than the way we've repaired the road in the past. In the past,
[15:08] we've repaired the road using Federal Highway Administration emergency repair funds.
[15:14] That were administered through the Washington State Department of Transportation.
[15:18] I've been on both coasts of this great nation trying to see if we could free that
[15:22] money again to do the repair before the spring and summer season, and the answer
[15:28] has been unequivocally no from the Federal Highway Administration. We can all speculate
[15:35] as to why that is, but our governor has been awake at night worrying about this
[15:43] issue since he saw it on the front page of the Seattle Times and came up with a solution.
[15:48] And the source of funding that we're going to use to do this repair comes from the
[15:53] state Department of Commerce, and it requires a private match. Of $5 to $20,000 was
[16:01] the range that was given to us on Saturday. So Commissioner Randy Johnson, I'm just
[16:06] clarifying this for everyone. Commissioner Randy Johnson from Clallam County put
[16:10] out an email with the low end of the range. I, being the eternal optimist in the
[16:16] room, said our community can do more than that, and we'll I'll put out the high range
[16:20] of the the high range. I was on a Zoom call with 20 people on Saturday. 10 of them
[16:26] have already pledged $100 each to this effort. I pledged $500. OK, great. So I'm
[16:33] gonna add you to the list. Put me down for 100. Yeah, OK,
[16:40] OK, I'm doing this real time, but anyway, um, so we've been working very hard to
[16:47] come up with a solution, a new, a new recipe to repair the road, and we've come up
[16:51] with one. And our public works team has already talked to the contractors and already
[16:56] has materials in place. We just haven't had the funding to hire the contractor, so
[17:01] we're optimistic that um a repair will be. Imminent and that's why it was 2 days
[17:07] because we want the money as quick as possible to get the repair going, to get the
[17:12] contract signed and the repair going. We're not going to sign a contract without
[17:16] the funding, so the private fundraising we're doing is to free up the over $600,000
[17:22] in public funding. That the governor has pledged to do this repair and just to be
[17:27] clear, Heidi, we couldn't use county funds for this match. It has to be private,
[17:31] right? And the requirement for this source of funding is that it's private. I said
[17:35] that private dollars that match. Do we need cash in hand or will pledges sledges
[17:43] will suffice. So what do I do with if I actually, if I even get anything in the GoFundMe
[17:50] I've never done. You've gotten $250 so far. I just because Anna sent me the link
[17:55] and I've seen so I put out an email yesterday saying the money needs to come to Jefferson
[18:01] County. That's what we agreed to on Saturday on the call, and I put out a PO box
[18:05] 1220 Port Townsend, Washington 98368. I posted that and everybody said it was a.
[18:11] It's not a scam. So that's that's that's personal prerogative, right? It's not a
[18:18] scam. I can show you the picture of the Zoom room on the call. It was the city of
[18:23] Forks, um, Claudam County, Jefferson County, many people from the state of Washington,
[18:29] all participating in this call and coming together on this solution, and I have $270.
[18:35] That's what people were saying to me and so I got. Lots of pushback. OK, we're not
[18:40] gonna do back and forth because now the list of people online who want to make comments
[18:45] is growing, so we're gonna go to them now. So, um, that was a brief update, but I
[18:51] just want to wanted to share that with folks because I felt like it was going to
[18:55] waste a lot of public comment. Um, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna go to the top of the
[19:00] list. So let's start, let's bring everyone over and we'll start with Anna Peterson
[19:05] when she gets into the Zoom room. I think that's Anna Maia.
[19:11] Well, I'm reading what's written on that Zoom list.
[19:16] Good morning, Anna. Hi, and I'm actually here at Upper Hill Road. Um, I do want to
[19:22] say we are very grateful for the progress that has been made over the last 24 hours.
[19:28] Um, I think it, it was very exciting to get some of these emails. I do have to
[19:36] say the level of confusion now that we've heard this update was immense because we
[19:42] heard from two different sources, two different numbers. And so our excitement and
[19:47] our optimism with the $5000 was immediate. We knew we could do $5000. We have $4000
[19:54] in pledges already, and I've sent that to Ryan O'Connor because that was the address
[20:00] that I got to send that information to. So I'm sorry if that hasn't been shared with
[20:05] the commissioners. Um, so it's $1000 from Hard Rain Cafe, $1000 from Whole Valley
[20:11] Cabins, $1000 from Peak 6, and then from Glenda $500. So amongst our friends,
[20:19] family, employees, everyone we knew, we were up to $4000 already. And then what happened
[20:25] is yesterday I was driving, I stopped at a rest stop. I checked my emails and I got
[20:30] the emails from Ryan O'Connor and Ms. Eisenhower, and it said 20, and it just felt
[20:36] like we had been hit with a load of bricks. We felt hopeless and as soon as I got
[20:42] home, then I talked to Glenda and we set up the GoFundMe account. Um, and I do, I'm
[20:49] I just have to say, on one hand, super grateful that we're making progress. On the
[20:52] other hand, we need transparency and we need more open communication. I think that
[21:00] the situation is developing by the hour and so it's difficult to get that. But at
[21:05] the same time. I really feel like something that I learned in college in terms of
[21:10] communication when you're a business, is that you have to be as open and transparent
[21:16] as possible, and that needs to happen in a timely manner. And I think we're struggling
[21:21] with that, and I would ask for Maybe when we review the situation in the future,
[21:27] if we can look at how can we be more clear, like if we have a goal between 5 and
[21:32] 20, that would have been so helpful to just put that out as a blast email to everyone
[21:38] that's on these meetings or everyone that has written emails in, so we're all on
[21:42] the same page, so we don't have this panic and confusion, so people don't lose sleep
[21:47] at night, um. I think transparency brings trust. That was what came to me this morning
[21:53] when I was thinking about this meeting. Transparency brings trust and we'll be better
[21:57] partners as residents and as business owners if we get that. Um, I'm glad that you
[22:02] all had a meeting and all. The important powerful leaders were in that meeting. It
[22:07] would have been nice to know that that kind of meeting was about to take place, even
[22:11] if you didn't know what the results would be. But just knowing that those meetings
[22:14] are happening is very helpful, um, for our sleep and also for our planning. Um, it
[22:20] was just a wild scenario of emails that have happened that's, that's 3 minutes. OK,
[22:27] thank you. I thank you.
[22:33] I don't know who's back on here. Let's see. You have you listened
[22:41] Liy Andros.
[22:45] Good morning, Lucy. Good morning. Thank you so much. I'm sorry I'm in my car. Um,
[22:50] I wanna thank the commissioners for all their hard work. Um, I know that, uh, the
[22:55] meeting after Rod let me know about it on Saturday, I was super excited about it,
[23:00] um, with, with Anna's, uh, pledges and, um, including Melinda's and so forth. We
[23:07] our list is at 12,000 here in Fork, so, um, and I know people are still willing to
[23:13] contribute if necessary so that doesn't include any of the pledges, you know, outside
[23:18] of the area because I'm not aware of those, but anyway, um, I'm hoping we can get
[23:22] this done quickly and I appreciate all y'all's hard work and I'll be sending my list
[23:26] over to Rod when I get it all finished. Thanks, Lucy. If you'll copy me and Ryan
[23:34] and um Representative Birnbaum's office, that would be great because those guys and
[23:40] Representative Birnbaum and Ryan are officially collecting the compiled list. OK,
[23:46] absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. OK, Ed Bowen. Uh, good morning, Ed Bowen, West Jefferson.
[23:54] I normally comment on the topic of this today, but in hopes that you are gonna have
[24:00] public comment during the upcoming work session next, I'll switch topics to something
[24:06] I'm hoping the chair has sat in on a while back in DC. So Secretary of VA Collins
[24:13] gave a briefing to the counties uh regarding veterans benefits. I hope the chair
[24:19] in the county is paying attention to that. It is a golden opportunity for not just
[24:24] getting the money in, in the service connected disability claims, but it's actually
[24:30] a way of connecting with the counties to get the actual benefit itself. The, the
[24:35] purpose of the benefit is not just money, it's medical care, it's everything. And
[24:40] uh I did take away from that listening to the secretary that he is very interested
[24:45] and very Engaged with the idea of uh bringing the counties into the equation. So
[24:52] I hope the chair participate in that. If not, maybe it's something to go back and
[24:57] take a look at. Thank you. Thank you.
[25:02] Uh, next on my Zoom screen is Shelly Arnell.
[25:09] I know Trisha has her hand up and so I think I'll just need her. Good morning. Good
[25:14] morning, Shelly Yarnell Brennan. Um, I too would like to talk on the Ho River. Um,
[25:20] in my opinion, it is, um, really dramatic that those who are hurt the most by
[25:28] this, um, problem with the river are the ones who are giving the most, and I think
[25:35] that needs to be noted. Um, you can feel the Heartfelt, um.
[25:44] Request for help. There has been an offer of a contracted piece of equipment that's
[25:51] meant to do this job, to be donated. We don't hear anything about that.
[26:00] This can be done. It, uh, you know, I. I agree with the transparency. We have this
[26:07] problem in the county with everything. The county can be way more transparent than
[26:12] they are and should be. All of these issues wouldn't be coming at you screaming and
[26:19] angry if we knew what was happening, and it's a simple solution if we would just
[26:24] do it. It's not the hoe. It's not the. Resort, it's not taxes it's not the pool it's
[26:30] the fact that it's not transparent we need to address the problem and address it
[26:35] as soon as we can and when there's comments that come through to the commissioners,
[26:41] be careful of your comments back to the public. That's a problem that needs to be
[26:46] handled and it needs to be handled immediately in my opinion. Thank you. Thank you,
[26:53] Shelly. Uh, over to Jean Bob.
[27:01] Good morning.
[27:04] Well, loop indeed. It it a little disturbed by the lack of pushing of information
[27:12] out to the public. If I didn't know about this, you know, I kind of tend to be ahead
[27:17] of the curve on information gathering. I'm, you know, kind of everywhere. Uh, It,
[27:22] how can other people know about this? How, how, how come I didn't know about it?
[27:27] How could I have found out about it? Why wasn't there an, an effort to push it? This
[27:31] is, that damn, this is exciting. My God, what shouldn't we be screaming this from
[27:35] the rooftops? Holy smokes. I'm coming unglued over here. This is really, really exciting.
[27:42] Why aren't we amplifying this message? Um, OK, so I have a concern. Um, I
[27:50] still haven't heard a whole lot from Doula or the National Park. Things are kind
[27:55] of, you know, undone over there. And I don't know if we can take advantage of the
[28:02] opportunity to repair the road. Can we then staff the visitor center? Can we get
[28:06] the, the trails open up the hoe? Um, Uh, those questions certainly need to be
[28:14] asked and answered. Uh, that should not, regardless of what those answers are, that
[28:18] should not stop us from getting this road repaired. Um.
[28:23] 20 grand? Are you kidding me? I could raise 20 grand this afternoon to get this done.
[28:28] Seriously, that is, that is not a problem. Tell me these things. Oh my God. Thank
[28:34] you. Get this done. Send me some information so I can put this out and we can get
[28:37] the money. Please send me information.
[28:43] OK, I'll send you the link to the GoFundMe right now, um, and Tom Tears.
[28:50] Good morning, commissioners. Uh, thank you for keeping this public comment period
[28:54] open. Uh, switching subjects a little bit but also related to the, to, to roads in
[29:01] general in the county. Um, I, I wanna address this set of comments to the Transportation
[29:09] Benefit District, uh, board, if I could, which of course, are you folks, um. The,
[29:16] uh, you, you enacted a 0.1% sales tax increase, which will start in April, uh
[29:24] as, as a first step in funding the transportation benefit district of the county,
[29:30] but more money is needed for the roads because inflation is going to be increasing,
[29:36] I'm sure, and the cost of everything is going up very fast. So that money is gonna
[29:41] disappear pretty rapidly. Uh, so I would just encourage the Transportation Benefit
[29:47] District Board to put a measure on the ballot this November to increase that sales
[29:53] tax by the allowed 2.21%. Uh, that'll bring in another $2 million or some dollars
[30:02] a year desperately needed by our roads department. And uh, so again, I encourage
[30:09] you to, to add that to the November ballot for the voters to approve. I'm sure it
[30:13] will pass just like the one in Port Townsend did uh by what was it 80%, it's gonna
[30:19] be well supported because everybody knows that we need and want good roads in the
[30:24] county. Um, different subject. Last week, uh, in the discussion of uh putting the
[30:31] ordinance for the short-term rentals on, uh, your, uh, schedule for a hearing. Uh,
[30:37] you heard from, uh, Josh Peters DCD. I heard some something that, that caused me
[30:41] a great deal of concern. He said, well, there's capacity issues. I don't want to
[30:47] hear about DCD not having enough capacity to do their job. Uh, the short-term rental
[30:54] program is gonna involve, you know, 5, 600 properties that, that are. are going to
[30:59] need to have permits in order to operate a short-term rentals. And if you simply
[31:04] apply a reasonable fee such as those imposed by Shalan or San Juan County, uh, to
[31:12] each of those permits, you can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in permit fees
[31:17] each year without hurting any of these uh rental owners very seriously. They're making
[31:23] plenty of money off their rentals. And you could basically operate the short-term
[31:27] rental program as an enterprise fund. There's gonna be enough money coming in from
[31:32] the permits in order for you to fund two people at least full time to do enforcement
[31:38] and managing of the permits, uh, do the math, it only comes up to one person having
[31:44] to deal with about 1 to 2 permits per day throughout the year averaged out, so it's
[31:50] perfectly doable. And again, I don't want to hear DCD complaining about lack of capacity.
[31:56] This is gonna be one of those programs where, you know, it does not have to cost
[32:01] anything out of pocket, it's just gonna be paid for by the people that are using
[32:04] the program. So, more to come in writing, but I just wanted to, to surface that concern
[32:09] before Josh Peters goes off and writes a proposal that says, oh no, we can't adopt
[32:13] the the the ordinance as written because it's gonna be an odious amount of work on
[32:18] our staff. Nope, not good enough, sorry. Thanks for the uh opportunity to comment.
[32:24] That's time, Tom, thanks. OK. Anybody else, uh, I see Patricia, you have your hand
[32:32] up. You're gonna need to accept the promotion to panelists to come over to make a
[32:38] comment, or we can unmute you from where you are, correct? So we are unmuting you
[32:44] from where you are. Oh, there you are. You're in. OK, you have 3 minutes for comment.
[32:50] OK, thank you. It's a, a different issue again and not necessarily as important as
[32:55] what's been going on, but important to us. Patricia Ernest from Marrowone Island.
[33:00] Good morning, commissioners, administrator and staff. Thank you so much for your
[33:05] consideration of Maristone.