MELANIE BACON: A Message from Commissioner Bacon (Aug. 5, 2022)

Island County Commissioner Melanie Bacon (D-Langley) sent the following newsletter on Fri., Aug. 5, 2022.

Thank you for reading my newsletter for the 31st week of 2022.

• Regular Agenda: Tuesday was another short summer Board meeting. In fact, this meeting may hold the record for shortest Board meeting yet—only 8 minutes long. You can watch this week’s meeting where pretty much nothing at all entertaining happened at this link.
• Resolutions passed this week:
  • Resolution C-49-22 (consent agenda): Defense and indemnification of Island County Sheriff Employee.
• Work Session:
  • On Wednesday, the Long Range Planning team presented a discussion item on zoning code updates to the Rural Service Zone RAID code. Our focus was on how we might encourage affordable housing in this zone. At one point, I kind of sidetracked the conversation to my new worry about Ken’s Korner (see next item). You can hear this conversation here, beginning at mark 01:43:00.
• The biggest concern I heard from citizens this week was worry about the businesses at Ken’s Korner, now that the property has a new owner whose business model focuses on manufactured housing and self-storage facilities: https://www.osprey-management.com/.  
  • I went to the Ken’s Korner rental office yesterday and spoke with a very nice office person. She said that the owners do not intend to turn the entire place into storage, but do expect to use spaces that have been empty for a long time for that purpose. She said there is a huge demand there for storage units.
  • As business leases have come up for renewal, the business owners have been negotiating with the owners and the owners have been increasing the rents. Some businesses have been able to adjust to the increases; others have not.
  • I share the concern felt by residents about losing businesses we all treasure and rely on, and business owners and workers we care about. But the government does not have any review authority over sales transactions between private parties. And our current zoning allows storage units in convenience shopping areas.
  • At the work session with Planning on Wednesday, I asked them to review the types of businesses that can be included in the “convenience shopping” definition, because a whole strip mall transitioned into self-storage units does not serve the citizenry as a whole nor does it reflect the rural character we want to see in our community. But such a review would not impact this developer with this project–only possible future projects might be impacted by this type of potential code change.
  • Some citizens have mentioned to me that they thought there was a moratorium on self-storage unit expansion in our County. At Wednesday’s work session, Commissioner Jill Johnson mentioned that sounded familiar to her too. But the Planning department said we have no current moratorium in place. So I called my predecessor, Commissioner Helen Price Johnson, who said that they put in a moratorium a decade or more ago while they were revising the code on storage units–but once the code was revised, the moratorium ended.
  • And now you know all I know about this. I will continue to monitor the situation. 
• I spent a fair chunk of my week in the elections office, observing the ballot logging, checking, extracting, scanning, resolving, and tabulating processes. I remain impressed and proud of the tight security protocols followed by our dedicated elections professionals and volunteers. Your vote was safely counted—and no ballots were counted that had not been verified in several ways as valid ballots from registered voters.
  • I did learn something new about write-in votes. Perhaps you’ve written in a name before in a contest where you didn’t like any of the official candidates, and then wondered why that name didn’t show up in the official vote tabulation (I have!). That’s because in the State of Washington, even write-in candidates have to file a declaration of candidacy with the Secretary of State’s Office. If they file as a write-in candidate up to 18 days before the election, they can file for free. After that day, they can still file as a write-in candidate all the way up to 8 pm on election day but they have to pay a filing fee (for offices paying over $1000 per year, the filing fee is 1% of the annual salary for the job. So if it’s a $90,000 per year job, that’s a $900 filing fee. To run as a write-in candidate.) So that’s why when you wrote in your dog or your brother or Santa Claus, you never saw that vote counted in the official report—those individuals hadn’t filed as candidates for that office.
• I serve on the Board of Island Transit, and we had an extremely interesting meeting this morning. You can access Island Transit’s agendas and minutes here
  • The manager of Link Transit in Wenatchee gave a presentation on their electric buses. That presentation included this video on their electric bus technology—which is not the type of electric batteries we’ve all been thinking of. I’m excited to think about all the options for zero emissions vehicles that will become available to us over the next 20 or 30 years, as technology evolves.
  • We amended the vanpool fare structures to allow passengers 18 years of age and younger to ride vanpool free of charge effective today.
  • Island Transit is soliciting feedback on their draft 6-year Transit Development Plan. Go here to access, to learn where to send your comments, and to find out how you can attend the public hearing on September 5: Transit Development Plan (islandtransit.org)
  • Island Transit is very committed to green energy. Their solar panel installation begins this Monday.
  • And…today we voted to purchase 5 zero-emissions sedans for the Rideshare (vanpool) program.
• As I’ve mentioned before, the Island Regional Transportation Planning Organization (IRTPO) is updating its Human Services Transportation Plan. To review the draft plan and find out how to comment on it, go here.
• COVID.This week’s COVID report. To obtain a rapid home test kit you can call the Island County COVID Response Call Center at 360-678-2301; or to have free test kits mailed to your home, go online to sayyestocovidhometest.org or https://www.covid.gov/.
• Reminder: 988 Suicide and Crisis Hotline: The United States’ first nationwide three-digit mental health crisis hotline went live last month. It’s designed to be as easy to remember and use as 911, but instead of a dispatcher sending police, firefighters or paramedics, 988 will connect callers with trained mental health counsellors.
• Reminder: Solid Waste Text Updates: We now have texting capabilities in Solid Waste, so that you can be informed if there is a shut-down due to lack of containers, or if some other emergency occurs that impacts our Solid Waste functions. To sign up, send a text to the number 8559997728, giving the message ICSOLIDWASTE. You’ll get a text back saying you’re now signed up.
• You can find the agenda for next Tuesday’s regular Board of Island County Commissioners meeting, including how to attend virtually, here. There will be no work session next week.
• I attended two fun events this week: the 50^thAnniversary celebration of Island Senior Resources held at Greenbank Farms, and the National Night Out fair at Windjammer Park. Beautiful weather both days. I hope you’re enjoying our lovely summer as much as I am.
• I have been sick with something for a couple of days (but testing negative for COVID). If I’m well by Monday, I’ll attend my regular Monday afternoon meeting with citizens. Monday Tea with Melanie usually happens at 3 pm at Crabby Coffee in Freeland in the WiFire Community Space, 1651 E Main St, Freeland. Tea is on me.
  • I will not be available at the WireFire on Monday the 15^th, Monday the 29^thor Monday Sept 5^th, however. The 15^th  is the initial meeting of the canvassing board that will certify the results of the election that was held this week. I will be on vacation with my grandson on the 29^th. And the 5^this a holiday.

Thanks,

Melanie

“Live in the sunshine. Swim in the sea. Drink in the wild air.” 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson