Island County Commissioner Melanie Bacon (D-Langley) sent the following newsletter on Thu., Nov. 10, 2022.
Thank you for reading my newsletter for the 45th week of 2022. I am sending this out a day earlier than usual because the County offices are closed tomorrow, November 11th, in recognition of Veterans Day. Solid Waste facilities will also be closed on Friday this week.
Power was finally back on at my house yesterday. As I type this, the PSE outage map shows there are still 7 customers in Freeland and 1 in Clinton without power. The situation is worse on Camano: Snohomish PUD shows 805 customers there still without power, 6 days after the event. And I’m told there is still one road closed on Camano. I like this video from SnoPUD, talking about this storm’s impact on residential power.
During regular Tuesday meeting we spoke with a representative from PSE about this most recent of what seem to have become regular outages. See link below.
Regular Agenda
You can watch this week’s Tuesday meeting at this link.
During the Public Comment period, Carryn Vande Griend of Puget Sound Energy spoke about some new solutions that PSE is investigating for Whidbey. The Board expressed our anger over the dangers faced by our citizens when they lose electricity. You can hear this conversation beginning at mark 00:13:28. We raised our concerns again at the end of the meeting during Commissioners Comments, beginning at mark 00:41:37.
We held one public hearing on Tuesday, the continuation on a petition to open the County Road Right-of-Way known as Ander Park Road. The petition was approved. There was no public comment.
The Commissioners will be at the annual Washington Association of Counties conference next week, so all our normal meetings have been cancelled. The agenda for our November 22nd 10:00 a.m. meeting, including instructions on how to attend virtually, will be posted here on Friday next week. The agenda for our December 6th meeting will be posted at the same link by Friday, December 2nd.
Work Session. You can see the agenda for this meeting here and listen to the audio here.
| During our discussion with Public Health, we talked about soft armoring on shores versus hard armoring. Mark 00:03:17 on the above audio. |
| We talked about the importance of local control over local issues a couple of times on Wednesday. The first of these was in the conversation about funding for the Island Local Integrating Organization (LIO). Mark 00:28:48 on the audio. |
| In the 2023 Docket discussion with Planning, we had another conversation about local control, as we talked about how long it takes to update our Shoreline Master Program (SMP). The Docket conversation begins at mark 00:57:16 on the audio. We will bring the Docket conversation back to regular session on December 6th. |
| We talked about revisions to the codes associated with Boundary Line Adjustments, Lot Combinations, Boundary Line Corrections and Large Lot Segregations. Mark 01:24:48. We will bring this conversation back to a regular session in January. |
| Our annual meeting with our lobbyists in which we finalized our priorities for our legislators for 2023 begins at mark 01:45:16. |
| There will be no more work sessions this month. The work session agenda for December 7th , including instructions on how to attend virtually, will be posted here by December 2nd. |
Upcoming Public Hearings, Tuesday, December 6th , 2022, 10:00 a.m.
| Resolution C-75-22: Adopting the Island County Budget and Diking District No. 4 Budget for Fiscal Year 2023 |
| Ordinance C-76-22: Increasing the Taxing District’s Prior Year’s Levy Amount for the County Current Expense Property Tax Levy to be Collected in the 2023 Tax Year |
| Ordinance C-77-22: Increasing the Taxing District’s Prior Year’s Levy Amount for the County Roads Property Tax Levy to be Collected in the 2023 Tax Year |
| Ordinance C-78-22: Increasing the Taxing District’s Prior Year’s Levy Amount for the County Conservation Futures Property Tax Levy to be Collected in the 2023 Tax Year |
I will not be publishing a newsletter next week because the Board of County Commissioners will not be meeting together (we’ll all be at our annual WSAC conference). The following week is Thanksgiving, and I may not publish a newsletter that week either—it will depend on what happens at our regular Board meeting on Tuesday, November 22nd . And the week after that is a 5th week of the month, when the Board doesn’t meet—so there will be no newsletter the last week of the month either. I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving, and I’ll certainly reconnect with you with a newsletter on Friday, December 9th.
County offices will be closed for Thanksgiving on Thursday November 24th and Friday November 25th .
Monday Tea with Melanie: The commissioners are in Renton next week for the annual Washington Association of Counties meeting so I will be unavailable on Whidbey for my Monday Tea with Melanie. This is the schedule for my Monday community meetings for the rest of the year, which I will hold at the Crabby Coffee in Freeland at 3:00 p.m. on the dates shown below:
| DATE | MONDAY TEA? |
|---|---|
| 11/14 | NO |
| 11/21 | YES |
| 11/28 | NO |
| 12/5 | NO |
| 12/12 | YES |
| 12/19 | NO |
| 12/26 | NO |
| 1/2 | NO |
Thanks,
Melanie
“And God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light, but the Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected.”
~ Spike Milligan
