Island County Commissioner Melanie Bacon (D-Langley) sent the following newsletter on Fri., Oct. 21, 2022.
Thank you for reading my newsletter for the 43rd week of 2022.
We transitioned to Teams as our virtual platform and are experiencing some growing pains. As I type this, our IT group is still working with our Commissioners’ Office staff to try to make the recordings of our meetings from this week available. So if you click on the links below, they may not contain recordings yet—you might need to wait until next week.
Regular Agenda
You can watch this week’s Tuesday meeting at this link.
Resolutions Approved
| Resolution C-72-22 (consent agenda), Limited Delegation of Affordable Housing Technical Assistance Grant Signing Authority |
| Resolution C-72-22 (regular agenda, public hearing), Adopting of Island County’s Six-year Capital Improvement Program for the Years 2023-2028. You can see the capital improvement priorities for the County for the next six years by clicking on item 7 in the agenda link above. |
| The agenda for our November 1st 10:00 a.m. meeting, including instructions on how to attend virtually, will be found here. |
Upcoming Public Hearings
Tuesday, November 1st, 10 am:
| Franchise Renewal PW2022-0103 – Sandy Point Owners Association for a water distribution (Whidbey Island). |
| Petition to Open County Road right-of-Way known as Ander Park Road, Parcel No. 23035-220-2270 (Whidbey Island). |
Budget: Again, we had two budget meetings scheduled for this week but held only one—this time because our 2023 budget questions are pretty well answered already. On November 8th we will set a date in December for holding the public hearing on this budget.
This week’s Budget meeting recording will be posted here.
The agenda for this week’s Wednesday work session can be found at this link; the audio is here.
| Shawn Morris of Public Health and COVID Response Manager Don Mason talked about our process in moving from a pandemic response to an endemic mode in which COVID is treated in the same manner as our other communicable diseases. Because of our citizens making informed decisions, Island County had the third lowest case rate in the State despite our higher-than-average citizen age. You can hear this discussion at 00:02:17. |
| We discussed increasing the Solid Waste rate structure in accordance with the Garbage & Trash Collection Services CPI. As we talked about benefits we could provide to citizens by keeping up with this CPI, one thing mentioned was how this will help us save up for the new trash compactor that will allow us to have a more environmentally-friendly transfer station. Mark 01:05:00. |
| Next week is a 4th week, so there will be no work session. |
Next week’s Wednesday November 2nd work session agenda will be found here.
Members of the Board of Island County Commissioners, sometimes the entire Board, serve on many other boards, sometimes making up a quorum. Two of these boards are the Coupeville and Camano Library Capital Facility Area Governing Bodies (LCFAs). These boards meet once a year to review and take funding actions as follow-ups to decisions made years ago to take out bonds to build or remodel these libraries. The 2022 meetings for these boards were held this week, and we voted to approve the 2023 levies as scheduled when the bond debts were first incurred. We also heard about the exciting remodeling planned for the Langley library.
6 of the other meetings I was in this week:
| the Finance Committee, at which we reviewed our county’s investments and activity over the last quarter. |
| the Council of Governments (COG), at which the various jurisdictions in our County all shared our priorities for next year with our State and Federal legislators. |
| the Island Regional Transportation Planning Organization (IRTPO), at which we approved the allocation of Surface Transportation Block Grants (STBGs) as recommended by the Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC); |
| SWISS, a consortium of commissioners and council members from San Juan, Whatcom, Island, Skagit and Snohomish counties who meet to discuss mutual issues–this month we discussed our draft organizational charter and priorities. |
| the North Sound Transportation Alliance (NSTP) meeting at which transportation staff from these same counties and representatives from WSDOT and Washington State Ferries discussed mutual issues and gave updates (one great update from WSDOT: they are now receiving bids for the Clinton sidewalk project); and |
| the management committee for the Whidbey and Camano Island Tourism Board (the Joint Administration Board—JAB), at which we heard about tourism goals for 2023. |
Tuesday afternoon I attended the Planning Department’s presentation at the Clinton Community Hall, an event which gave citizens a special opportunity to input their ideas for the future of Clinton. Everyone seemed really engaged in the process—I saw a lot of exciting ideas—and the Planning Department intends to hold another of these in the coming months.
Next Friday, November 4th, from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m., the Trust Board of Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve and Friends of Ebey’s are hosting their first community potluck since 2019, at the historic Crockett Barn in Coupeville. This event is free and open to the public—just bring a dish to share along with your own plates and utensils.
At my last Monday Tea, one thing we talked about was community preparedness for natural disasters and the importance of finding a way for each local neighborhood emergency group to connect with the others in the county. I mentioned this at the regular Board meeting, and Eric Brooks, our manager of DEM (Department of Emergency Management), sent me the following info:
| We have a group on Whidbey Island that we organized for just that purpose. It is called the Whidbey Preparedness Group and was established a couple of years ago and meets monthly as well as communicates regularly. It is similar to the Camano Preparedness Group on Camano Island that we helped establish several years ago. We continue to add more communities as well as faith-based and volunteer organizations as they learn about or expand their preparedness efforts. Most of these we give presentations to on a regular basis. It has been a great way to collaborate and provide resources to neighborhoods. The meetings are typically the last Thursday of the month at 2:00PM. They can send an email to: DEM@Islandcountywa.gov to be added to the list and included in the calendar invites |
This week’s HEALTH MATTERS newsletter focuses on flu and RSV.
Monday Tea with Melanie: 3:00 p.m. at Crabby Coffee in Freeland in the WiFire Community Space, 1651 E Main St, Freeland. I always appreciate meeting constituents to talk about their personal issues or county issues in general. But as we move into the last two months of the year, there are numerous weeks ahead when I will not be available due to either county or personal reasons. This is my schedule for those meetings for the rest of the year:
| DATE | MONDAY TEA? |
|---|---|
| 10/31 | YES |
| 11/7 | NO |
| 11/14 | NO |
| 11/21 | YES |
| 11/28 | YES |
| 12/5 | NO |
| 12/12 | YES |
| 12/19 | TBD |
| 12/26 | NO |
| 1/2 | TBD |
Thanks,
Melanie
“Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows’ Eve.”
~ Ray Bradbury
