Island County Commissioner Melanie Bacon (D-Langley) sent out the following newsletter on Fri., Mar. 11, 2022.
Thank you for reading my newsletter for the 10th week of 2022.
- We have a number of Public Hearings coming up in the near future. In accordance with current State COVID mandates (and if nothing changes!), all of these meetings will be open to the public at our regular 10 am Tuesday Board meeting, both in person and virtually, at https://meet.starleaf.com/4919878603/app
- March 15: Public Hearing regarding the petition to open unopened county road right-of-way in the plat of Whispering Firs.
- March 15: Public Hearing for a new community septic system, Franchise No, 449, in four plats of Maple Grove Beach.
- March 22: continuation of the Public Hearing on HB 1590, the resolution to adopt a 1/10th of 1% sales tax for Affordable Housing. The Board has already completed its public comments portion of this hearing; we continued the public hearing in order to allow Human Services an opportunity to draft a framework for the use of these funds prior to the Board voting on the issue.
- April 5: Petition to vacate and dedicate a portion of county road right-of-way known as Miller Road.
- April 12: Public Benefit Rating System (PBRS) application from Whidbey Golf Club to classify 140 of 147.41 acres into the PBRS system.
- Date TBD: Public Hearing on a revision of the Planning Code, regarding Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
- The Board of Island County Commissioners has been following the directives of the Governor and the Department of Labor & Industries throughout the pandemic. As State mandates ease, we will revise our requirements for the public and for our employees in accordance with changes to the State guidelines, which now include in most circumstances ending the mask mandate on March 12. Personally, I will not be wearing a mask when I come into the office on Monday, March 14. But my colleagues and I fully respect and support any of our employees or members of the public who choose to continue to practice this public health option.
- Last week I said that Island Transit would need to keep its mask mandate through March 18, because it has to comply with the federal mandate rather than the state. Well, this week the federal government extended their mask mandate on public transportation through April 18. So be prepared to keep wearing your mask on the bus for another month, and be kind to your bus drivers when they reiterate this unpopular information.
- For those of you wanting to make a reservation on the Coupeville/Port Townsend ferry: Yesterday I received an email from Washington State Ferries, with this information:
“Due to the high volumes of reservations being made this morning at the beginning of the release for both the next two weeks of extended winter service, and the entire first release for the spring season, customers are experiencing delays on the WSF website. Our IT and Customer Service teams investigated and found no systemic issue other than so many people logging on to the system at the same time. As we get away from the initial 7am release time, reservation times are speeding up. I’ve heard from San Juan Islands residents who were struggling the make reservations early this morning that they have now successfully done so. Our customer call center has also been very busy this morning helping those who’ve called in, so you may hear frustrations from constituents regarding both the website and the Call Center. Customer Service agents use the same system as the public, so the slowdown affected them as well.”
- You can find Island County’s most current COVID information at https://www.islandcountywa.gov/Health/Pages/COVID-Report.aspx
Thanks,~ Melanie
“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!”
— Audrey Hepburn
