City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

Alright. Good morning. Welcome to the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners board work session for Wednesday, 05/20/2026. It's 09:04AM. My name is Ty Menser, chair of the board, vice chair, commissioner Fornier. Commissioner McKee and commissioner Klaus are virtual, and assume Krishna Grant will be in shortly. The meeting is being livestreamed to the Thurston County YouTube channel, and written public comment may be received up to two hours in advance meeting and distributed to the board. Action may be taken at this meeting. Let's see. First up is a Thurston Regional Planning Council Human Services Transportation Plan update.

Thank you, chair. We have our friends here from TRPC that are going to present. We'd love to welcome them to the table. They can come and introduce themselves. And I believe we have a presentation that they've prepared for us to go through. Good morning, and welcome. Good

morning. Thank you for having us. ALISSA Good to see you. ALISSA Yeah, it's nice to be in this room with you all and virtually. So I'll kick it off. I'm Alissa Gertler. I'm the executive director of TRPC, Thurston Regional Planning Council. And I've got my colleagues with me who will do most of the talking in a minute, and I'll let them introduce themselves. Just quickly, most of you, I think, know Thurston Regional Planning Council is the regional transportation planning organization, federally and state designated to do regional transportation planning, as well as make transportation investments in specific community projects that you guys have been beneficiaries of. One of the key things we do is we make sure everybody can use the system in all ways and in all modes.

And today, we're working on the human services transportation plan, focuses on specific users and specific needs for transportation. So I will let Katrina Van Every and Chelsea Embry take it away.

Alright. I'm Katrina Van Every. I am the transportation manager at TRPC. My role is to make sure we meet our state and federal obligations, and that concentrates a lot on our core work program, which includes the human services transportation plan.

And I'm Chelsea Embry. I am the engagement specialist at TRPC. So I do community engagement for lots of our projects, get to talk to people, hear from people, and make sure that we are getting all the voices represented that need to be represented.

You're welcome.

Alright. Thank you. So, yes, we're here today to talk about the human services transportation plan update. Let's see. Are we awake yet? Forward. There we go. So what is the Human Services Transportation Plan? It really is intended to be a plan that identifies and addresses special transportation needs that exist within our community. So think about it as human services transportation means connecting people with special mobility needs to the social services available to them.

So there are many types of transportation providers, both private and public. You have, like, intercity transits, dial a lift, but you also have private providers that help people get connected to the services that they need. And there are many social services available in our region. So you can think of that as simply your typical social services that you might see from a government organization, but also medical services and other things that are essential for people to be connected to. So what we're trying to do is identify and address special transportation needs, specifically for people with disabilities, seniors, and people with low incomes.

So that is the heart of the human services transportation plan. But we also, as part of this, are looking at the needs of veterans in our community, students experiencing homelessness, and also considering the, the needs of members who have historically underrepresented groups. So those are kind of the core people that we're looking at for this human services transportation plan. This is a plan that we are required to do every four years. So it is a federal requirement.

It's also a state requirement. The information that we provide or gather in this plan goes into the statewide human services transportation plan, And it helps determine eligibility for WashShot's consolidated grant program, which a lot of our transportation partners in the region rely on, including, for instance, rural transit. These are the baseline reasons why we do this plan, but it's also because we do care about people. We recognize that not everyone has the same access to transportation in our region, and they need different things. And so we care about people and what those needs are and trying to meet them.

So in the human services transportation plan, we look at understanding needs. So who has those special transportation needs and where do they need to go? We look at assessing transportation services. So what our service gaps and unmet transportation needs exist for people in the Thurston region with special transportation needs? Looking at addressing service gaps.

So what can we do to address those specific service gaps and unmet transportation needs? And then finally, looking at identifying regional implementation priorities. How do we prioritize the strategies and activities that we've identified? This is a key piece of the plan because as we go through the consolidated grant season, our washout goes through that coming up. We have a say in the funding that comes to our region. We have a say in what the priorities are and what gets funded. And so this is a very important step not only to talk about with our stakeholders, but also with Thurston Regional Planning Council when they adopt the plan. So I'll turn it over to Chelsea

to talk

about how we're engaging the community.

All right. Thank you, Katrina. We can go ahead to the next slide. The ways that we are engaging the community are kind of like a two pronged focus. We want to make sure that we are working with the providers in the region and the public. So when we're thinking about providers, we're thinking about those who provide transportation services and those who provide social services, making sure that they can connect with each other, learn from each other, and hear about the needs of their, customers and clients and work to solve those together. So, we started out this portion of the engagement process with a provider questionnaire just asking, you know, who are you? Who do you serve? What are some barriers and concerns that are on your mind? Things like that.

And then we're doing two provider workshops. The first one was in January. We'll talk a little bit more about what we heard from providers at that in a moment. That one focused really on the barriers that clients are facing, the places that they're trying to get, basically just trying to gather all of the information that we can about, like, what is the current state of affairs when it comes to getting people to the social services that they have access to. And then coming up next month, we will have our next workshop.

This is where we will share what we've heard from the community, what we've heard from, the survey that we're gonna be doing in the focus groups as far as, what their needs are, what their concerns are, what their priorities are for transportation. And with the providers at this workshop in June, we will discuss any solutions that we can identify and work to prioritize those. On the public side of things, we did a community survey. It, asked about, what types of transportation options are available to people right now, the barriers that they're facing, trying to get where they wanna go. And we also asked about their experiences using rural transit, the, fare free public transportation service that TRPC administers serving South Hurston County.

And, we also asked about specialized transportation services, so things like dial lift or paratransit that usually have some sort of requirements or other markers to meet to be able to use those services. The community survey, I will talk a little bit more about in a little while as well. But we didn't get as much of a response from certain groups. And so, later this month and into next month, we will be doing a couple focus groups so that we can be sure that we're getting all of the voices represented that we need represented. And then the final aspect of public engagement will be the public comment period.

Once we have a final draft of this human services transportation plan ready to go, we'll make sure that anyone who wants to read it can and give us feedback on it. Alright. So the January 29 provider workshop, this is where we were really trying to learn from the experts, and we had wonderful attendance. We had 14 providers there representing both transportation and social services. So we had representatives from rural transit and inner city transit.

We had representatives from Squaxin Island Tribe, their transit entity. We had representatives from school districts. We had representatives from really across the board. I'm not gonna be able to list all 14 off the top of my head, but it was great to have everybody in the room and be able to discuss all of the barriers and the concerns that we have at this time. So that was really the focus of it.

I'm wanting to figure out what the needs are in the region, what the needs of their clients are. And we spent a long time asking them a lot of questions about how people get to places, how people aren't getting to places, if there are any issues with timing, a lot of transportation services, if there is traffic that affects their ability to meet people's needs. And then finally, we talked about any safety concerns that clients have been expressing as well.

All right. So what are we learning from the public? We shared the survey through a a variety of means, but primarily, what we started with was a postcard mailing to select mail routes across the county. What we did is we used the everyday direct mailing, routes that the postal service has and identified those routes with higher incidences of people 65 and older and folks that are lower income and tried to identify the right mail routes to send those postcards to. We couldn't do a full county wide everyone gets a postcard, but we wanted to make sure we were targeting the folks that this plan is meant for.

So we chose one or two routes depending on where you were in the county. In South County, we tried to do two of those mailing routes. And we did it by zip code. So every zip code had at least one mail route identified. And then in South County, it was two.

And each route is about, I would say, 800 to 1,200 people. So we did capture a lot of people in this mailing. Chelsea was also in charge of getting the word out via social media posts. We also worked through the social service providers that we have been talking to and have been emailing. The surveys and the social media posts were translated into and the and the postcard, I should say, were all translated into Spanish, Korean, and Vietnamese, which are the primary languages, other than English that are spoken in our region.

We also had paper surveys available if any of our social service providers or transportation providers want were able to provide it to, folks in the region. And we also spent two days at the Thurston County Food Bank trying to, get the word out that way. As Chelsea indicated, we didn't hear from as many people, especially the folks that this plan is intended for, as we wanted to. In total, we only had two thirty five responses. Of those, that provided their demographic information, thirty percent have a disability, fifty three percent are 60 or older, thirty one percent have a household income less than 50,000, thirty percent are veterans, and thirteen percent were people of color.

And the image on the right is just an example of one of the images from a social media post that was translated into Vietnamese. So we asked a lot of things, on this survey. We asked about the types of trips that are difficult for folks because of their current transportation options, how often it's difficult to meet, your household's need because of your transportation options, and destinations that people want to get to but couldn't with their current transportation options, using rural transit, and using specialized transportation services. I do want to note that we did not ask in-depth about intercity transit in the survey. That is because intercity transit is a great partner.

They can do their own survey. The other thing that's important to note is they're in the port while we were doing this, they

were

gearing up for a pretty big change in their service. And it didn't feel right to start incorporating those questions when everything's gonna change in two months. And as you know, Interstate Transit has launched its revise of their system services. And so we're going to wait for them to tell us how it's going.

I'm glad you took that into consideration because that could have unintentionally maybe confused folks. Good thought on the strategy.

Yeah. So we heard a lot from people. These are just some of the direct quotes that have been cleaned up a little bit for this survey from what we heard from those people that did participate. There is a big desire to get to destinations like parks that just are out of reach for people who don't have a car. We have people who have transportation issues because they don't have the resources to fix their vehicles.

We have people that use the bus system, but there are barriers in place when a bus stop gets removed or if the infrastructure doesn't support someone actually getting on the bus. A great example of that is that when a new sidewalk is put in place and there is a ditch next to it for water retention, If there's no way for a person to get from the sidewalk to the bus, it's a barrier. You know, there's a desire for people to support their families. So if you have elderly members of your family that you are caregiver for, you you need help. And having having a safe way to get a family member to a medical appointment is really important for for that demographic.

We heard a lot from people that, you know, some of your essential trips, getting to medical appointments, are covered. But the social aspect, nonmedical appointments, are also important for keeping people healthy and connected to their families and community. And that's a pretty big gap right now in the sis system. And then just, you know, dial a lift serves a certain portion of our community. It doesn't serve South County.

And while rural transit is great, it's it doesn't do everything that inner city transit can do. So this is just a flavor of the things that we've heard, through the survey so far. We are working on finalizing the survey summary so you can see the breadth and depth of the comments that we receive from people. And we will make that available once it's done.

I'll turn

it back to you.

Thank you. So next steps, we are looking at completing our update to the human services transportation plan by the end of this year. In the next, end of this month into June, we do know that the notice of funding opportunity for WSHTAW's consolidated grants has come out. Like I mentioned earlier, we'll have our focus groups. We will have a focus group at the Lacey Veterans Services Hub and at the Ranier Senior Center just to be sure that we are hearing more from, both veterans, seniors, and those living in our rural communities.

And our final provider workshop will take place sometime, towards the end of June. August through September, that is big review time for us. We'll send our draft plan to WSDOT so that they can take a look at it. We'll have our public comment period start in this time period, and this is also when we will have our first review with our transportation policy board. That will lead to, October and December. Transportation policy board will have their second review of the plan. That's also when they will make a recommendation to our council on whether to adopt and approve it. And then council, of course, will kinda go through a similar process. They'll have a first review and a second review and a decision on whether to adopt this plan.

If I could just note, of course, that Thurston County has representatives on both the Transportation Policy Board and the Thurston Regional Planning Council. We're actually here because we saw the connection between Thurston County's work in serving some of the same population and this plan. Commissioner Grant is on the Transportation Policy Board and I think has been playing some role in making sure that the county is connected to this work. And then, of course, Commissioner Mahia will be on the council to adopt the plan. So just wanted to sort of make the connection of why we wanted to make sure the county was involved and sort of had the opportunity to weigh in at this stage.

Yeah. We're thankful to Commissioner Grant, for highlighting and making this connection, and also Commissioner Mahia for the good work that they do and keeping the board updated. We're glad that you came.

Yep. So last slide is just Chelsea's contact information and my contact information. If you have questions or need time to think about it but want to ask us questions, feel free to reach out to us. We welcome any feedback that you have, and there will be more opportunities to be involved in this plan as it continues.

Questions time? I'm sure Brad.

Hey. I just wanna say thank you. No questions, but just give a big thank you to all of you guys for for coming in. Sorry that it's a ghost town in there. And as most of us are are off-site today. But thank you so much. I mean, the work that you guys have been doing is incredible. I think this is really important work, and and I think it was great that we had a chance to highlight it publicly. So thank you for that.

So I have a question. So your plan, is is it it results in a set of recommendations or something in terms of how to bridge the gaps? I mean, I'll just preview my next question, which is that, you know, looking at what you outlined a lot of know, every now and then there's something where, oh, that that thing, if it was done, no one's nine times out of 10, it's just a ton more money. Mhmm. And everything I saw in the from those quotes to to to fix those gaps would just be, like, a ton more money, which we don't have.

So what kind of recommendations do you make to say I mean, okay. Here's the gaps. Okay. Elected officials, go find some money. I mean, is that what it's gonna say at the end, or is are there things that you think that there's suggestions to be made that can be acted on?

The hope is that we have suggestions that can be made, strategies that that we can enact that are low cost, low barrier. The reality is is what we're hearing from service providers and transportation providers is that the environment at the federal level is changing what where the focus is for a lot of these transportation providers. And what we're seeing is a shrinking of their ability to serve people beyond a a very narrow window. So it is it is a big concern as we can list all the strategies in the world, but if there's not resources behind it to actually get it done, it's gonna be problematic. Where the pavement hits the road or where we hit the road on this one is the consolidated grants program that WSDOT runs.

So that is a program that provides funding for transportation service providers. Rural transit is a great example. We fund that solely through the consolidated grants program. If we don't have that money, we don't have rural transit. But you will also see that a lot of the other services in the region rely on grants.

This plan, as part of it, when we talk about what are the gaps and needs as well as what are the focus areas or what should be our top priorities, that is going to be laid out in the plan. And that is how we, as a region, help determine how WSDOT approaches the needs here. So what we say is the top need in the region is going to be what gets funded. And so that is something that needs to be represented in the plan as well. It's kind of a tandem process.

So we're building the plan this year. Consolidated grants, NOFO, just went out. And in the fall, TRPC will be asked to essentially rank projects that are proposed for funding through the consolidated grants program. They have to be represented in our Human Services Transportation Plan. And we need to submit our priorities to WSDOT so that they know what projects rise to the top for funding. It's a lot and not enough.

That's good. I you know, I'm glad you're able to do this. I mean, everything you're trying to accomplish in this plan sounds a lot like equity and inclusion, which I have a memo from the White House that says that's Marxist waste of taxpayer resources. So I'm glad to see that we're still trying to actually help people in the community with these types of plans, and federal government's interested in hearing that. Commissioner Fornier and then and then assistant county manager Walker.

Thanks. I I was thinking, you know, like, the importance of this is not necessarily in, like, what's the next new thing that we can back bring on, but there there's a lot of importance in this in defending and, you know, highlighting the importance of the RT service that's already provided. Because I I know that, like, you know, it's not necessarily TRPC's mission, but it is absolutely vital that TRPC continues to support that program and and that we all understand. And, you know, I guess this could've I I I'm thinking this would explain to, you know, like, the state the absolute importance of the RT program and to ensure that it continues getting funding and support. Is that is that fair to say?

Absolutely. I I I and I do I agree with what you're saying is, again, given kind of the the federal posture right now, this plan is more defensive, saying these are still important things that we need to take take note of. We are seeing those gaps and needs increase, not decrease, because of the changes in priorities. They're not going away. We have people in the community that are negatively impacted because of that.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We need to we need to defend RT, and we need to ensure that RT is supported because it like, it is absolutely critical to our unincorporated Thurston County.

Thank you for supporting it.

Yeah. 100%. Thanks for reaching for your assistant county manager Walker.

A great presentation. You you mentioned that the NOFO got issued. What's the total dollar amount? Is it the same, or has it increased, or has it decreased?

I don't know. It was just released yesterday. I got three notices about it. So I haven't actually looked at the entire thing. So just so you know, because TRPC is a recipient of consolidated grants, they we will be applying for it, for rural transit service.

We are also you know, TRPC is the decider of who what the priorities are. We So kind of have a bifurcation of that process. So our RT staff, Amy, Hatchwinica and Sarah Porter, are pulling together that application packet. I am removed from that so that I can support council and policy board when it comes time to identify what the priorities are. But I don't know off the top of my head, what, the total is that is available.

What I will say is the process for WashDOT is, you know, they go through a first screening and determine who is eligible, and they forward those that list of applicants to the regions or the MPOs, RTPOs. And then we have to go through that packet of applicants and determine who's the priority. We're given, based on our population and some other factors, we're given letter grades. So if you have, for our region, we have three a's, three b's, three c's, and unlimited d's. A means it will be funded, essentially.

At least in the past, that's what it's meant. Bs are you might fall above or below the funding line. Cs, less likely. Ds, less likely. And so in the past, we have, provided rural transit our a's.

The last time we went through the consolidated grants ranking process, we had to make some hard decisions because both our rural transit was looking for funding, but we also needed buses for the transit provider, our chief transit provider. And those were two separate applications, two separate requests, two separate grantees. And we had to make a decision because we only had one a available to us for the region. So it just depends on where those a's are committed. So right now, we have an a committed to rural transit.

We were thankfully able to get the we had two grants growing going at the same time, one to support the base service, one to support an expansion of that service that provided for Saturday service in the region, and also some to Yelm. And and service to Yelm. So we've seen expansion of service. We're able to consolidate that into one this go round. So we have two As available that we can grant.

But again, those are just two examples of needs in the region. Catholic Community Services is an example of an agency that also seeks funding for Thurston Bus Buddies program, which is a partnership with Intercity Transit, if I got that correct. You know, the the veteran services hub would also be an entity, for example, that's eligible for that type of funding. So it just depends on who is applying and what letter grade we can give

them. Thank you. How long this is your

as you're updating this plan,

you say it's every four years. Mhmm.

This is version number. It's been

I don't even quite some. Okay. Yeah. It's it's been around for quite a while. So this isn't a new requirement at the federal level or the state level. It's been around for a while.

Questions, Jennifer? Are there any other questions for our TRPC guests? Alright. Thank you guys so much.

Thank you.

Thanks for

having us.

K. Next up is chapter two bylaws. Had a couple of sessions working through changes, and I will ask the clerk to tell us where we're at.

Thank you, chair. So back in February, the board provided direction on the changes to make to chapter two. It included revisions from both, commissioner Menzer and commissioner Klaus. In late February, these two documents in your packet, the red line version and the clean version, were emailed out to you. So we are just bringing this back to you today for,

board approvals, and then we can

combine this final chapter to chapter one and proceed with distributing chapter three.

So you're just looking for final Yes. Any final comments? Commissioner Grant, go ahead.

Hey. Yeah. There was just one little edit, and I'm sorry. I'm trying to get it open right now to find it section it was. It had to do with quorum. Alright. Here. Quorum. So 2.4. So in with the quorum, it says on 2.4, except as otherwise allowed by state law, a quorum shall consist of three commissioners as it's required for the con for the conduct to for the conduct of business.

So one of the things and I have to give Ashley credit for this, for pointing this out this morning to me that, you know, if there was ever a a time where we were down to four commissioners, you know, let's say someone gets appointed to the senate, that, we would quorum would then be two. And so or would it be three? And or should we just change this to say the majority?

I mean

So it I think it the

it's still would be three.

Written because it would depend on state law. And if for some reason we had a four member commission, our quorum would be three.

Okay. So it's okay like that.

Right. Still be three anyway because that's would be a majority.

It couldn't be two. That would be half the board and Yeah. Of course, the majority.

It's a 51% or more. Mhmm.

Right. We just wanted to to to double check just to kind of make sure that, you know, that was that was the only thing on on my end.

Yes. We did. I see your hand go up.

No. I had I was gonna say that the language be put to the majority, but it was explained. I was kind of on the same wavelength as commissioner Grant.

So it was there a reason to say three instead of a majority? Commissioner. I mean, I I think it's fine either way, frankly, but I was just curious if there was a reason to choose that.

Yeah. It's just more standard language. It's regardless of the makeup of the board. A quorum must be present to conduct

Takes away a layer of, like, interpretation. Mentality. Mhmm. And just makes it very explicit. So I guess that's the value. Commissioner Fornier.

I just I've reviewed it. I'm comfortable moving it forward.

Okay. Wanna make a motion?

So moved. I I move to, direct the the clerk to place this into the bylaws for approval by the board. Is that fair?

May vice chair, it could be a motion to approve chapter two of the bylaws.

Okay. I move to approve chapter two of the bylaws. Thank you.

Thank you. Second.

Second from commissioner Grant. Any discussion on the motion? Okay. All in favor, say aye.

Aye. Aye. I

believe that. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Okay. Okay. Commissioner items, reports on committees, external committees. Anyone have a report? Wanna draft?

Commissioner We had the we had the fire commissioner's meeting last night. Public commissioner of public lands attended, Dave Up the Grove, and he gave kind of a an overview of wildfire response readiness. You know, I I it's been well reported, but when he first took office, the the state reduced the wildfire budget by 50% from a 120,000,000 down to 60,000,000. It it's been restored fully, so it's back up to a 120,000,000. He feels that the DNR is ready for the wildfire season, but it recognizes that this is the fourth year that we're going into a drought.

We're getting fires early, earlier than our typical for the season, so they're expecting potential for a a pretty big wildfire season. And then there's additional complexities at the federal level where the forest service, its its resources have been kind of depleted. There's contracts that typically have been reviewed by all the different organizations that are involved in mobilizations, and nobody's seen any of these contracts yet. So there's kind of a concern that there may be, like, policy, like, you know, like, policy requirements that don't necessarily have anything to do with emergencies that are trying to be rolled into some of these things, or we don't know because there's been a lot turnover at FEMA. There's been a lot of turnover at DHS.

So, you know, as is kind of the the norm now, nobody knows what's going on at the federal level. The state sounds like it's somewhat squared away, but then, you know, the some of the the local jurisdictions are kind of, you know, signaling to state and feds that they need to make sure that reimbursement timelines for mobilizations are met, and they're not just sending out resources and waiting years to get to get paid. That kinda shakes up the whole system. So it was a good meeting. It was it was good to speak with him.

Awesome. Any other any other external board reports?

So yeah. If anyone has a report,

I'm happy to go kinda last until I get there. But

Go ahead.

Okay. Looks like no one. So with legislative steering committee, I think I mentioned yesterday that the board decided the approved the steering committee approved kind of the priorities for next year. How it's usually divided, it's two urban priorities, two rural priorities, and usually two all counties priorities. Last year or two years ago, we ended up doing seven, so three all counties.

And so this year, we ended up changing changing kind of that structure again. The split between urban, rural, and all counties came from, like, a bylaw change a couple of years ago where urban counties felt they weren't really being represented. And so part of what was decided was for urban counties. It was in regards to the short term rental priorities and establishing a short term rental tax. And this was pushed forward by Snohomish County and Yakima County.

And so that's going to be the urban priority, so we chose one. Rural priority was in regards to rural energy and kind of the those energy updates. And then one of the things that staff did different this year is there were several o counties recommendations. All basically, all of the county's lobbyists as well as Wasatch lobbyists got together and just kinda based on conversations of what they've heard, they came up with four different priorities for the counties that included jail. The jails was a big big topic of discussion just based on kind of the study, which is, of course, I think also a priority for Thurston County and one where we're, you know, going to be involved in.

The other one, of course, was county finance. And there were two others. Just one second. Public defense was the other one. And the

the

and then, of course, housing. So those were kind of the the four big topics and the motor fuel vehicle taxes put under county finance. Of course, the all these other pieces are are included. One of the things that proposals that was really interesting that Skagit County put in is the clarifying the authority to meet during declared emergencies. And so this happened with kids with Skagit County during, you know, the flooding event, and they had to be present for, like, news releases and when the governor was coming down and when federal teams were coming down and there was a quorum of the board and, like, having to be able to have those be able to notice those special meetings and and, like, just such a quick turnaround.

I think that's one of the ones that we should keep an eye out. And that's something that schedule will be, I think, putting forward. It's not gonna be a WSAC priority per se, but it's gonna be under kind of the WSAC support agenda. So that's just kind of a very high overview of kind of what the priorities are going to be. And they're very broad right now. They're going to be breaking down into subcommittees as the year goes by so we can kind of hone in on on the specifics of those priorities. That's it.

Thank you, commissioner Mahia. Any questions for her? Any other commissioner items, before we adjourn? Alright. Thanks, everybody. We're adjourned.