MELANIE BACON: A Message From Commissioner Bacon from the 5th week of 2022 (Feb. 4, 2022)

Island County Commissioner Melanie Bacon (D-Langley) sent out this newsletter on Feb. 4, 2022.

Thank you for reading my County Commissioner update for the 5^th week of 2022.

• I had a great meeting this week with the new Public Works Director, Connie Bowers, and the manager of our Department of Emergency Management, Eric Brooks, to talk about emergency preparedness. DEM has several exercises planned for this year to ensure that all county employees know where to report and what will be expected of them in case of emergency. A couple of apps I encourage all citizens to download onto their phones:
  • (1) AlertSense, which will provide you with Severe Weather Alerts, Public Safety Alerts, and Community Notifications. Be sure to go into the “Current Location” page and then “Edit Location Setting” to make sure you’ve clicked on all of these, to always have the most current and accurate information from the county during events; and
  • (2) MyShake, which now provides earthquake warnings for people in WA as well as in OR and CA. With this app you may get a little extra notice (like, a minute) that an earthquake is imminent—which is at least enough time to find a place to drop, cover, and hold on during an earthquake.
• Connie also updated me on the Freeland Dock. It was badly damaged and is now closed—but Island County Public Works is planning their repairs and depending on material supply chain and state permits, we anticipate that it will be open this summer. We are also working on getting state permits to perform permanent repairs on erosion damage to the park’s buildings and beach.
• We had a couple of robust conversations this week on the county’s PBRS program, specifically related to the Commissioners’ thoughts regarding granting PBRS applications on parcels that already are protected from development. PBRS stands for Public Benefit Rating System, and very simply is a program in which citizens who have property that would benefit the public if it were kept forested or in agriculture can apply to the county to receive reduced taxes in return for maintaining that public benefit (note: this is an overly simplistic explanation—if you’re interested in learning more, contact our Planning Department).
  • The first conversation we had was at our regular Tuesday Board meeting, which can be found here: https://media.avcaptureall.cloud/meeting/81cc1bba-fa80-4c66-814b-0053d6396ce9.
  • A more educational and in-depth conversation was held at our Wednesday work session with Planning, which can be found here; the PBRS section begins at 2:02:45 on the recording:  https://www.islandcountywa.gov/Commissioners/worksessions/2022/02022022%20WS%20Audio.mp3. The person who gives the presentation is Mary Engle, the Planning Director; the first Commissioner who speaks is Jill Johnson; the second Commissioner who speaks is Janet St. Clair; I am the third Commissioner who speaks.
• On Tuesday night Puget Sound Energy gave a presentation to the Board about electrical outages on Whidbey Island. The public was invited to comment. You can find the video of that meeting here: https://media.avcaptureall.cloud/meeting/6294e4f2-89ec-4525-bea6-e4ace70a4b93.
• The latest COVID briefing can be found here: https://www.islandcountywa.gov/Health/COVID%20Manager%20Report%20Library/BOCC%20Brief%202-4-2022.pdf. Our case rate has dropped significantly from the last report, to 666 new reported cases this last week (Thursday – Thursday). Unfortunately, we had two more COVID deaths in our county. The federal government is providing free N95 masks for each household. This distribution is a walk-in model through almost all the national chain pharmacies in our county.
• Sometimes citizens send me very long emails about issues that are important to them. I usually go through my emails very quickly between meetings, and seldom have the time at the moment when I’m checking emails to respond to those thoughts or concerns. I always plan to get back to them later—but sometimes this doesn’t happen because their email falls on the list as new emails arrive. This is my request: if you have a lengthy document you want me to read and respond to, please write me a letter. Or make an appointment to visit or call me to discuss your email. I return calls on Mondays.

“I believe we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.”

–Rosa Parks