Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners meeting for Wednesday, August 5th, 2026. It is 2.05 p.m. My name is Ty Mentor, Chair of the Board. Vice Chair Commissioner Fournier is participating virtually as is Commissioner Grant. To my left is Commissioner Emily Klaus. To my right, Commissioner Carolina Mejia. County Manager Leonard Hernandez, Assistant County Managers Joshua Cummings, Jennifer Walker, Clerk of the Board Amy Davis, all present. We're going to begin with the Pledge of Allegiance, and I will lead that. So if you would rise and join me. No problem. All right, here we go.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Mr. Mejia, would you perform land acknowledgment today?

Yes, sir. We would also like to start today with a land acknowledgement. We would like to acknowledge and thank the indigenous Salish peoples whose elders and ancestors have lived on and stewarded the lands and waterways of this county with great care and who continue as sovereign nations today, specifically the Squaxin, Nisqually, and Chehalis people. Truth and acknowledgement are critical to building mutual respect and connection across all barriers of heritage and difference. The purpose of this acknowledgement is to disrupt ongoing erasure of injustices done and to remember history as a stepping stone towards healing. We commit to working together to honor our past and build our future with truth.

Thank you. Okay, thank you. We have an opposed agenda. Is there a motion to approve?

I move to approve today's agenda. I'll second.

Motion to second. To approve the agenda. Any discussion? Call for the vote. All in favor say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

carries now we have agenda related public comment there is no one signed up for agenda related public comment is there anyone that didn't get to sign up online for agenda related public comment okay yep I got you we'll get there shortly county manager update Thank You chair

Our Medic One team does a ton of training and education here in Thurston County for both residents and emergency medical technicians. In June, senior EMS instructor Aaron Bergman took 25 EMT students through a rigorous 14-week training program that ends in a required national registry test to get their final certification. Medical One has a first pass success rate of 93% for 2026, well above both state and national rates. We're committed to equipping our first responders with skills they need to save lives. Congratulations to these new EMTs and a huge shout out to the instructors, evaluators, and role-playing patients who made this possible. My next update is regarding fleet services. Your fleet services team has once again been named one of the nation's 2026 leading fleets by Government Fleet Magazine and American Public Works Association for their ability to outfit, maintain and repair counties 600 plus vehicles of every size and shape. Thurston County was the only Washington state team to get ranked in the top 50 across the nation. And this marks a double win for the hardworking crew after they received another award from the National American Fleet Management Association earlier this year. The skilled team of mechanics show up every day to maintain construction, road maintenance, and law enforcement vehicles that the county depends on to keep things running in our community. A huge thank you to Kim, Bruce, and the Fleet Services team for setting the standard in Washington State. a fun one. We're celebrating Bonnie Peterson's 47 years of service to Thurston County ahead of her retirement this month. Bonnie joined the public health and social services team in 1979. and served as the children, youth, and special healthcare needs nurse consultant for most of her career. Early on, she wore many hats, including school nurse, member of the Rural Health Mobile Unit, the SIDS coordinator, and longstanding member of the Child Death Review Team, wanting to develop educational programs for school, healthcare professionals, and military staff to help prevent baby syndrome, and was recognized by former Governor Gary Locke in 2002 for that work. She was also honored with a Margie Reeves Memorial Angel Award for Advocacy for Children in 2014. Bonnie represented Thurston County on community coalitions, including Safe Kids, Early Learning, and Partners for Children, Youth, and Families. More than anything, Bonnie brought passion, compassion, and a commitment to lifelong learning to enroll in the county. She generously shared her knowledge with colleagues, community partners, and future generations of public health professionals. Congratulations on a well-earned retirement, Bonnie, and thank you for your service to our community. She would be here today, but she's on vacation. So congratulations to Bonnie. And then lastly, but definitely not least, we're celebrating another great example of a County employee going the extra mile with an award from the National Nonprofit Water Now Alliance for one of our program managers. To share more about Brian Benjamin, I'd like to call up Community Planning and Economic Development Director, Ashley Arai.

That's what I get to hand out. Thanks for giving us time and space to do this. I would like to take a moment to recognize Brian Benjamin for being selected as the recipient of the 2026 Water Now Alliance Emerging Leader Awards. To put it in perspective, he's one of four across the whole country that were selected. I had the privilege of nominating him and what really stood out to me and it stands out to me every day is his ability to take what many people see as regulatory mandates and turn them into opportunities for rural community development. He has a way of asking not just how do we meet the requirement, but how do we use these requirements to build stronger communities, support our working lands, improve watershed health, amongst other things. That's truly cutting edge thinking. He sees government not simply as a regulator, but as a catalyst for lasting community and environmental outcomes. It's a vision that's challenged myself, inspired our team, and one that is helping shape a new way of thinking about water planning. This award, this very heavy, beautiful award, is a well-deserved recognition of his leadership and innovation, and we are incredibly fortunate to have him on our team. So Brian, there you go.

I appreciate the opportunity to be recognized. I want to thank our awarding organization, Water Now Alliance, for for recognizing my portfolio of work, which highlights the importance of local water leaders for innovation in climate resilient water strategies so that communities and the environment can thrive. I wanna thank you commissioners for providing me and the rest of the CPED team with the support and direction to develop leading edge policy frameworks and projects that we're implementing on the ground that will help build a resilient water future communities across Thurston County. I look forward to everything our team will accomplish in the coming years and for the board's continued support of our work.

Thank you, Brian. Can I put you on the spot? So we got a kind of a EMAIL, SUMMARY OF MORE DETAIL, SOME OF THE THINGS YOU'RE WORKING ON. COULD YOU TALK ABOUT MAYBE ONE THING THAT YOU'RE KIND OF MOST PROUD OF THAT WAS PART OF WHAT WAS RECOGNIZED IN THIS AWARD?

SURE. I THINK, YOU KNOW, THERE'S BEEN A COUPLE OF MEETINGS THAT WE'VE HAD WITH THE BOARD TALKING ABOUT OUR SCUCUM TRUCK WATER RIGHTS ACQUISITION. which will meet our minimum offset requirements for the entire Chehalis Basin. That's two watersheds, Raya's 22 and 23, and offset permit exempt well impacts to in-stream flows for a 20-year planning horizon. And as a part of that application, we were also successful in obtaining about 300 acre feet of water for climate resilience and fish habitat as well. So again, that emphasis on all of our programmatic work to seek opportunities to meet our minimum targets and to do more and to do significantly more than we're required to by law for the benefit of our communities and industries and for fish and all that good stuff. Awesome. Can we get a photo?

Yeah, absolutely. Up here. Director Arai. Yes, Director Arai, do it.

And the board members that are here. Turn it up. Yeah, that sounds good. Congratulations. Where am I now?

Right in the middle. Okay.

Chair?

Yeah. Thank you, County Manager, for taking this time to highlight the great work that staff are doing, you know, and some of the honorable mentions of retirement with Bonnie leaving. I know she's going to be leaving a huge gap on everything she's done for the Nurse-Family Partnership Program, but HEARING ABOUT EMS AND THE AWARD FROM FLEET SERVICES AS WELL AS BRIAN'S AWARD WITH WATER NOW ALLIANCE, I WAS SO EXCITED WHEN I FIRST RECEIVED THAT INITIAL EMAIL AND I KNOW I FORWARDED IT TO YOU AND ASHLEY, YOU TOLD ME, YEAH, I KNOW I NOMINATED HIM. I KNOW. BUT IT WAS VERY EXCITING JUST TO SEE, I THINK, ALWAYS A THURSTON COUNTY FACE, YOU KNOW, JUST DOING AMAZING WORK AND GETTING RECOGNIZED FOR IT. Thank you for taking this opportunity to recognize the amazing work that staff is doing across the county.

And real quick on Bonnie, I know she's not here, but I remember I met her like right when I got elected. And I remember, you know, she came in like, I've been here 39 years. And I was like, 39 years. And now I'm on year eight and she's on year 47. So that's amazing. And she's done a lot of awesome stuff over that time. I mean, that's a lot of service to Thurston County. A lot of service.

I think that's the most continuous service of an employee I've ever come across. So it's phenomenal to see her smiling still and engaged. What an attribute to our organization.

Awesome. Okay. So with that, we have consent agenda items. Is there a motion to approve?

Second.

Motion and second to approve consent agenda items 1 through 10. Non-available motion on call for the vote. All in favor say aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

And that brings us to, we don't have department items today, so that brings us to public comment for Non-agenda items, just general matters. And I have three people signed up. I'll call for anyone that didn't sign up. First up, Heath Howerton with Doug on deck. Doug, hey. Hey. All right, perfect.

No, you were called, sir.

Yeah, Heath Howerton is up first.

So you have three minutes?

Yeah.

When does that start?

Soon as you start talking.

Okay, so your assistants asked me to come to this meeting because I was trying to get in front of somebody this last week and only had about a week's notice and I was trying to get a few contractors to show up. I'm a contractor. I've been a contractor here for over 20 years and I'm finding a lot of problems with trying to get in to your building department, do plans permitting. You've restricted the timeframe down to 1230. And then after that, you have to have appointments to get in. And it's become increasingly difficult. Like that's a small frame, that's a small window frame for a contractor to get in here and walk in and meet with people. So that restriction, their answer to me was you guys are facing a budget deficit. AND I THINK JUST BASED ON WHAT BUILDING AND PLANNING AND PERMITTING IS DOING TO SMALLER CONTRACTORS TO COME IN HERE AND GET STUFF DONE, THE REGULATIONS WE'RE FACING, I'M GETTING A CARP ON EVERY JOB I ASK FOR, EVERY PERMIT I COME IN AND ASK FOR, EVEN THE SMALL ADDITION. 50% OF MY CLIENTS ARE ASKING ME TO DO THEIR PROJECTS WITHOUT PERMITS. And I'm telling them, no, I've seen firsthand what can happen if you're not doing permitting. But they don't care because of the cost of the permits. They don't care because of how long it takes to get a permit. I believe that a building permit went up 30 or 40% recently. So it's becoming very agitating to be a contractor here. And a lot of my friends who are contractors have went to Lewis County. And I've built homes all over the place. I've built homes in Arizona. I've done it in Florida, Missouri. By far, Thurston County is the hardest place to build in. The wetland regulations, the setbacks, we're 250 feet now off of any water. And it doesn't matter if you're building a non-living structure that's just coming out 15 feet. I've got a customer who's just trying to bump out his shop a little bit. and he was looking at an $1,800 permit. Now he's looking at spending almost $20,000 with engineers and wetland surveys just to bump his shop out a little bit. These aren't living quarters. And it's becoming increasingly frustrating. I have one concrete guy left in this town. Most of them moved to Idaho or gone to Lewis County or have taken off. And if you want to fix your budget deficit, maybe streamline things like Lacey or Olympia has done. They have pre-planned structures for ADUs. You go in, you can have a permit in two weeks and build in Olympia. I can't even put a duplex on five acres in the county. I applied to build for a duplex. Oh, no, you can't do that. You can't have dual living. You can't have a duplex in the county on five acres. I don't know if that seems silly to anyone else, but I could build a house. Whose phone is this? That's not my phone.

That's just your three minutes is up.

Oh, I can't keep going?

If you could wrap up.

I don't think you guys are packed in here.

I'll give you a little attitude.

Well, I appreciate that. All I'm saying is some compassion for some of these contractors who are trying to get permits through. It's so difficult to come in and go tell your client, hey, you're going to have to do a CARP. because there's a wetland 380 feet away. Or you're gonna have to do a wetland review because your house sits at 249 feet, which is literally where a customer of mine, his house sits within one foot of the buffer, they're saying. And it's, I can build a 20 by 20 though without a permit, right? if anyone knows the code, right? Yeah, he's shaking his head, yeah. So I can build a 20 by 20 without a permit for a storage structure anywhere I want. Well, not anywhere I want, but for the most part, it's not as complicated to come off of a building 15 feet. So it becomes, if you guys wanna fix your budget deficit, start letting some, I could have built 10 houses by now in the amount of time that people have been discouraged and said, screw it, we're just gonna sell the land. And then they sell it, and then the next person comes along and deals with the same thing. I think it seems, where was I going before I thought my phone rang? Oh, the duplex. I could build a house with an ADU, but I can't build a duplex. So it's very frustrating. I had a million notes, but then I found out that you guys gave me three minutes and I could go all day, but I don't want to do that to you.

You can send unlimited amount of, you know, things in writing, email. If you want to summarize your notes, that would be awesome.

I caught you walking in the hallway the other day, but you're not the district I was looking for. Well, that's right. But you were nice enough to stop and chat. But if we could, I don't know how we go about changing zoning or changing some of these codes that restrict us to do what we're trying to do every day. I don't want to have to tell my customers, sure, you know what, build without a permit. because they're doing it. They're not hiring me because I'm not building without a permit, but they're doing it, and you're getting tons of people who are just going around the county saying, well, I saved the money, and I can get it done quicker. I don't have to wait seven or eight months. So by fixing that is fixing the streamline way. I mean, you call in the inspectors. They're doing a very good job. They're running around making sure everything's inspected, but you can only get in touch with them between 7 and 8 a.m. It'd be awesome if you guys put someone on the line who could catch a call in the middle of the day and say, hey, look at these plans. Engineers calling for this, we're doing this, instead of trying to catch those guys, because I can only imagine the amount of phone calls they get between 7 and 8 a.m. It's gotta be ridiculous for them. So, is that me again? But I just, I'm not sure, which direction to go. I can send an email and I can say a lot of stuff. If this falls on deaf ears, so be it, at least I tried.

It's helpful for us to have as much information as you can.

Yeah, well, I asked a few contractors to be here today and one of them said, you know, it means a lot to me and I'll show up. So Doug came out here today and he got here and he goes, you know, this is what I've tried to do for years. He goes, and this is what happens. He goes, we need more contractors to actually come in and speak to you guys about how difficult it is to do anything in the county. It shouldn't be this difficult. Lewis County was a breeze. I mean, when I went built down there, it was a breeze. Built in other states, and it's crazy how easy it is. But in this county, I mean, you would think we were going to go on surgery. We're not. The regulations, the setbacks, they've become increasingly difficult over the years to an extent. Since COVID, you've had the matrix. Now you've got to reply to the matrix and put everything back into the matrix. And it makes you not want to contract in this town. But what happens when a lot of these contractors leave, like they have done, a lot of contractors have left this town, you guys are forced to go with the contractors that exist, and then your prices are even higher. All right, thank you. Yeah, well, you're welcome.

Doug, hey. You up? Is that you? Yep, you're up.

Oh.

My name is Doug Hay. BEEN INVOLVED IN BUILDING IN THURSTON COUNTY FOR 62 YEARS BEFORE THERE WERE ANY BUILDING DEPARTMENTS. AND JUST TO ME, THE THINGS THAT I SEE, THE DIRECTION THAT THINGS ARE GOING, I THINK IF YOU, I KNOW THINGS ARE MORE COMPLICATED NOW. AND I KNOW THAT JUST THIS IS AN ILLUSTRATION OF THE FACT THAT I CAME TODAY BECAUSE THIS PLACE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FULL OF CONTRACTORS. And I thought, well, I want to go up and see that. Well, obviously, most of them don't care enough to come today or didn't. And that's part of the problem. People that are strongly with strong feelings about environment and so on, which I have strong feelings about, too. But I think that some of the things that Thurston County has done that other counties haven't are self-inflicted. You have to do them. It takes time to get a permit to do them. They're not necessarily required by the state or the federal or anybody else, but they're done because of pressure from environmental groups. I think that that, and obviously by the turnout today, I guess we get what we, well, we're not here doing that. And my work day is such that I haven't got time to come up here and gripe to you about it. But there's just a few things that I can see right now. that would really help from this side of the counter. One would be the permit center should be open more hours rather than less. I know I won't get a hand like they did with the other people or a picture taken before I leave here today. But it, it, FACE-TO-FACE COMMUNICATION ON THESE THINGS THAT ARE VERY COMPLICATED. I SEE PEOPLE COMING OUT OF HERE AND TALKING TO ME, AND THEY SAY, WELL, I NEED A JARPA, I NEED A CRAPA, YOU KNOW, AND SO ON. THAT MEANS NOTHING TO THE AVERAGE PERSON WHEN THEY COME IN HERE. AND THE ONLY WAY THAT YOU CAN, YOU KNOW, YOU TALKED ABOUT THE BUILDING. I CAN GET ANY BUILDING INSPECTOR in every morning, I know I can call up there and I can get an answer to a question that affects my day. That's the only place now that's left here, is that, that. I can call up here and get somebody to give me, you know, but usually I'd like to, I can't even remember the last time I called up here generally and got somebody that answered the phone, other than the billing department. TO SEE A PLANNER NOW, YOU HAVE TO PAY MONEY. SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SPEND MONEY, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE TALKING TO MANY PLANNERS. THE PLANNERS HAVE ISOLATED THEMSELVES OVER A PERIOD OF TIME, AND I CAN SEE THE DIFFERENCE BECAUSE I'VE BEEN COMING INTO THE THURSTON COUNTY BUILDING DEPARTMENT SINCE THE FIRST DAY THEY OPENED. AND I CAN SEE THE DIFFERENCE THAT'S HAPPENED. You know, everybody wants you to email everything. There's no personal contact. If you're not good at doing that, which I'm not, I don't even know how to run a computer, that's not your fault, but it's a reality for a lot of these people that are coming in here to getting these permits. There are issues that happen that nobody says anything about. Like, for example, when the fees went up, people that came in got a permit a full permit taken in by the county. When the new fee schedule changed, we're charged when they came to pick up the permit that they'd gotten the fees for before the list of fees that we're going to be, they were charged the new amount. I don't, I, I was waiting for somebody else to say something about that. And I thought there'd be a big stink, but again, You see there's nobody here on this side. They want to gripe about it at the lumber yard, but they don't have enough time to come in and do anything about it. This new law that came out with the amount of days you have to get a permit, it doesn't mean that you can't do one quicker than that. You can come in to get a permit on a small porch overhang that's getting people wet when they come into their house, about a $2,000 job. And I got the permit in 70 days from the time I turned it in. And I thought, 70 days? Oh, no, I got it in 69 days. I said, well, they were supposed to at least have it in 65. but then I forgot there were three holidays in there, so they took the three holidays. Now, it's no coincidence that I got that in that amount of time. They saw it there on somebody's desk and said, hey, we're out of 65 days. I got to get that in. It's not a subdivision or something, and that's what that law was really put into place was for large projects. It's been using now all the way down to something that should be given over the counter. You used to have a planner on site that came up to the small projects and they were an experienced person. I don't want to get away with anything. I don't want to do something that's going to hurt the environment. But I don't like waiting 97 days to put a little roof over a place that's not even increasing the impervious surface at all. But they used to be able to permit techs who have been really stripped of any responsibility anymore here. They used to be able to take that in, look at that, say, oh, this has to go to planning. They could call a planner out, and they could say, this is a porch over an existing concrete walk and doesn't need any engineering. You've got plans. You've got your dev rev stuff. Everything is here. Let's call somebody out from DevRev. They can okay this thing. You walk out the door with a permit. But yet, these things are being kicked back to the very last day they had before the permit fees would have been given. And I just think a little bit of common sense and communication. There's other experiences I've had that I could go on with, but I'm probably over my three minutes right now. I need you to wrap up, sir. Being able to talk to someone face-to-face. Matrixes are a great thing if you're both on the same plane. But the matrix, most of them, I've had to go talk to the planner. And when I talk to them about it, I can say, oh, yeah, no problem. We get that done, boom, bam. Environmental health, I had it on a matrix. I tried for several weeks to call. I finally came in and talked to a very nice lady up there. I don't remember her name. And she said, well, that's not what we needed. She came down with me to the permit center and said, you know, this is what I wanted. And the planner, it wasn't clear to them what it was, but we cleared it right up there at the counter, something that had taken three weeks would have taken five minutes with people here, people talking to people, people explaining things to people in a language they can understand and keep all of the sophisticated back stuff In the back somewhere, back there, we call it the, you know, the people at the counter there are very nice and try to be very helpful. But they have no power at all. And it just shows in the way that, you know, that they answer their questions. Well, we'll try to get them, you know, very, very, very nice at the counter. Matter of fact, most of the people I can get to to talk to are very nice. But Somehow it doesn't get to the back there. You get a thing from the planners, for example, and you have a reviewer. That reviewer has to be reviewed by another reviewer before it comes out the door. Well, that's silly. If you don't trust them, don't hire them. If you don't trust them to do the work on the thing, don't give them work that they aren't ready to do yet. But don't just continually string these lines out. Okay, I've said enough. Where's the cameraman?

All right, thank you. Thank you. Next up is Marianne Harness-Kottmeyer. That's you. Can you just move the microphone to me?

Can you give them each one of these? These are, how many do I need?

You can leave two for the commissioners, I'll be back.

Do they need any more? Nope. Okay. I have to agree with these gentlemen. First of all, I have a background in government writing regulations and procedures in Washington DC for the whole United States and territories. I don't know who is writing your regulations. I don't know if people have the opportunity to comment on them. We could appeal every frigging decision unless it was a federal law from Congress. That's what I am used to. I've worked all over the United States. Okay, the reason I'm here, my dad died at 102, two months and one day, January 28th, 2025. Okay, I am the executor of his estate. In the packet I gave you is a copy of his will. Okay, I have done everything I could do, and I can go through this with you a little bit, and if you have any questions, you can very well call me. First of all, they want me to do a survey of six acres where three of the four sides have been in place for years and years and years and years and this is the auditor's office okay i've talked to planning i went at the assessor's office, he can verify for you how long these property lines have been in place. Three out of the four property lines have been in place Well, he got back to 1953 when my dad bought it for my grandmother. This has been in my family since 1888. And through the years, we've divided it up and it's gone to different family members. And that's what I'm trying to do. Okay, I've given you a copy of the parcel number that I pay taxes on. I pay my taxes every year like clockwork. This is a parcel number that's affected by this. I put in here the probate, my dad's probate, and I highlighted the part that goes to my brother and his two kids. There's no disagreement. Our family doesn't have a problem with any of this. We knew what was going to happen. So we're fine with it. But if you look at the part where it says Harness Estate Map, and I've got a copy of what the relookers did for me. I am not going to be a millionaire when this is over. I'm going to be lucky to have any money left. But this, if you will look at this sheet, This 90 acres is my brother's that goes back to 138. Okay, the top part of it here is the part I'm talking about. There's almost 2000 feet. And then 200 feet that my sister owns the property north of the 2000 feet. My neighbor, Roger Ricky, owns the 200 feet on the other side of that. My brother is getting all the rest of it to add in to his property. The only part that's going to me, and I'm losing property, there's here in this corner, there is like 200 feet. My dad put a fence in there years and years ago. We know exactly where the property lines are. Nobody is disputing anything. I do not understand why I should have to pay $7,000 for a survey where three of the four lines, except for the 200 feet, are in place and have been for years and years and years. And you can go look it up yourself. I put the parcel number in here. So on this side, so my brother's getting all of this. My sister's on the north side. And I'm supposed to get this off to the side here after we cut off that 200 feet. Anyway, I'm with this gentleman. There is no sense. Like I say, I did property development. I worked for what used to be Farmer's Home in this county. I worked in Farmer's Home Administration in Pierce County, and I worked in Kitson County.

Can I ask just if you want anyone online to hear you, including the commissioners, you'll need to speak to them.

No, I don't have anybody online.

No, we do. There's two commissioners online. There's two commissioners online. I think you're going to want them to hear. You should speak into the microphone.

Okay, like this? Okay. All right. So the problem here is 200 feet that's been delineated by my dad years and years and years ago that the six acres are supposed to go to my brother and his two kids. He wants Derek's children to inherit that 90 acres on the back.

Okay.

I have $10,000 left in my dad's account.

Microphone.

Oh, sorry. I have $10,000 left in my dad's bank account. I have spent about $40,000 getting this stuff already done. If I have to pay $6,700 for a survey that is not needed, I will be broke. I'll be down to $3,000 and I've still got over half the probate to finish. So I'm asking you and I talked to planning and I talked to a young man in the assessor's office and verified that you've been in place for years and years. if you wanted me to survey the 200 feet I'd be happy to do that I've worked with a surveyor he will survey this 200 feet the legal description is in the will The auditor's office said she can't do it without that because she doesn't have a legal description. That's not true. It's in my dad's will, okay? I say my family's lived there. My great grandparents came from Prussia in about 1888. My grandmother and all of her brothers and sisters, except the one that was born in Prussia, were born in the house, which the picture on the front. We just are trying to save our family home. That's all we're trying to do. I am not developing anything. Nobody plans on developing anything. If later on people want to develop, then that's their problem.

Okay, it should not be mine.

So, like I say, I gave you all of the maps. And here's another map that shows you how the line here goes. It's like a tail on the end of my property. And I'm just trying to cut it off and give it to my brother and my niece and nephew. That's all I'm trying to do.

I mean, I want to just tell you, we don't usually comment on public comment, but you've got obviously a detailed situation here. I'm not a land use attorney, but I feel pretty confident in saying that I don't think the county commissioners, I don't think we have authority over the issues that are causing you.

I've called the county attorneys and left a message for them to call me back. Nobody's called me back. Okay. You are one of my last options. And again, Rachel, God bless her, and Ashley have tried to help me. This is ridiculous. This is just ridiculous. Like I say, we were developing this property, and I've even got the... A state, what was estimated for this state, and this was done by a real attorney, the whole thing, including my brother's 90 acres, is estimated at $1,566,000. My part I'm getting is 45 acres, okay? Anyway, I'm just hoping, like these gentlemen, that there can be some common sense here. The attorneys are wrong. There used to be a way when my parents bought this property from my grandparents and my grandparents bought it from my great grandparents, they could transfer property with a deed. They could transfer it with a quick claim deed. This is not right.

I just want to say, you know, when it comes to our building department, we do manage through our county manager that department. When it comes to the auditor, assessor, prosecuting attorneys, those are elected officials. We can send in, we can encourage our prosecuting attorney's office to reach out or assessor.

If you would have them call me, there is no reason for me to get a survey that's going to cost almost $7,000 for 280.

Okay, thank you. Appreciate your comment.

So thank you very much for listening. I appreciate it.

Absolutely. Okay, thank you. Any other public comment from someone that didn't get a chance to sign up? Yes, sir. Come on up. We're giving a little extra latitude because we don't have a packed agenda, but it's supposed to be three minutes, so if you could shoot for that, that would be great.

Mr. Commissioner, thank you for having me. I'm reaching out to share my experience on navigating the permit process for a- What's your name, sir? Justin Lewis. Yeah, my name's Justin Lewis. I'm active duty military. I've been here for 10 years, and I've worked really hard to stay here. I love Washington. I love Olympia. It's an awesome, awesome place. I've been fortunate enough to live around the country, around the world, and I just keep coming here. I've worked hard for my family to stay here, even when I have to go away. We're trying to add an extension to our garage, 349 square feet. I've hit two snags. The property address is 9713 Johnson Point Loop, Northeast. My goal is not to complain about environmental or health regulations. I fully support protecting the Puget Sound and maintaining property septic standards. My concern is the sheer volume of administrative red tape and the financial friction imposed on minor, low-impact projects. All right, for instance, the automated GIS layers flagged a potential wetland near my lot. It's supposed to be across the street. Across the street are houses, people live there. My property is as dry as a bone, yet I have to pay somebody to come out here and prove that I don't live on or near a wetland. That's a lot of money right there. On top of that, environmental, kick back a permit for the same project because the county does not have the septic plans for my property. It's an old property, but the septic system is in your system because I keep getting notices, hey, every three years you got to service it. So they know it exists. They are concerned about the runoff that goes from the septic to the drain field that the pipe that goes between the two might be part of the project area. It's a fair concern except for to relocate that pipe is not a permitting issue. So when we start construction, if we found it, we would just relocate it and it'd be no effect on anything. So I have to now hire somebody to sketch out my whole septic system, which is a lot of money for something I don't even need a permit for. That's it. I just kind of want to be like the civilian here. I'm not an expert. I don't have a super long history here, but I'm just a guy who wants to stay here with his family and try to make my property a little bit better. So that's all I got. Thank you.

Let's go online. Is there anyone online who is here for public comment? The board? Just come off mute if you are. see okay thank you uh then we'll go to commissioner community reports commissioner fournier you anything to report none of this time commissioner grant i'm gonna pass it this time too as i'm still traveling uh to eastern washington got it commissioner

Thank you. I'll keep mine short. Attended, it's been a busy couple weeks, but attended the Thurston County Food Bank Breakfast. I've been attending with the Washington State Association of Counties, the Liability Reform Workgroup, and we've been meeting with a couple different agencies to try to find some middle ground for legislation next year in terms of our tort liability. As Many people know our insurance costs have continued to go up. And with some amendments to the legislature, it's definitely affected our insurance rate. And so we are trying to kind of work on some reform. We've heard that Snohomish and Pierce have filed a suit against the state. And they have noticed that publicly. Also attended Bucoda County collaboration meeting in terms of a future project they have. The board will be hearing more of that on the future. Attended the County Road Administration Board meeting. It went very well. Talked about just kind of, you know, we went through our strategic planning session through CRAB and came up with some goals on, you know, how CRAB could better, you know, HELP COUNTIES ACROSS THE STATE AND ALSO TALKED ABOUT KIND OF THE PLANNING ROAD AHEAD FOR NEXT YEAR. ATTENDED THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING ADVISORY BOARD WITH GOVERNOR'S OFFICE LEGISLATIVE STEERING COMMITTEE AND JUST TALKING ABOUT KIND OF OUR LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES FOR NEXT YEAR. ALSO GOT TO ATTEND CANOE JOURNEY. I WANT TO THANK THE TRIBE FOR THE INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE. IT WAS, YOU KNOW, VERY JUST It was really great to be and take part of that cultural celebration and be there kind of for the initial canoes, and the location was great. I'm sad it didn't get to be here in Thurston County, but I know they worked with what they had, and so they did it right off DuPont, and it's still going on. They're having... kind of the cultural celebrations right now. And then the fair, Thurston County Fair, just a huge shout out to all the volunteers and the staff who worked on it and, you know, did the pancake breakfast and we doled out several pancakes and WSU, thank you always for providing kind of the local buckwheat. It's always, I think, a huge success with so many people who try the buckwheat pancakes. So that is it for me, for my answer.

Thank you, Chair. I'll keep mine short as well. I was unfortunately unable to attend the fair welcoming ceremony, but my executive aide attended. And the fair welcoming ceremony officially kicked off this year's Thurston County Fair, which was last weekend, and celebrated America's 250th birthday. The ceremony included a performance by the Seahawks' Blue Thunder Drumline, a historical interpreter portraying George Washington, and a fun American history trivia competition between elected officials. I wish I was able to attend, but I had another obligation I had to go to, but that sounds like it was a really fun time. I also attended the local official social at our new Thurston County Sheriff's Office building. That's something, you know, last week we also had the ribbon cutting for the building, and I had another obligation during that, so I was not able to attend the ribbon cutting, but I did go to the social a couple nights before where we got to tour the new building, and it was amazing to see all of the improvements that have been made. The building, you know, now we get to own this building and we're not going to be paying on a lease. So ultimately in the long run, it will save the County a lot of money. So the building is projected to come in on target at $20 million. And you know, this is just a huge, it's a huge and much needed upgrade for the Sheriff's office and their staff who will, who will now be located in one space. And it's something that, the county, I think, should be really proud of. And congratulations to the sheriff and his team and everybody who made that possible, to our central services, and just everybody who brought that to fruition. And that is all. Well, actually, the only other thing to report on is I've been working on compiling legislative priorities for our upcoming conversation with the board and the county managers. to determine our 2027 legislative priorities as a board. So I've been working on that, and we'll have a work session coming soon for that. And that's all I've got.

Chair, if I could, just hot off the press is some fair stats. We had 20,000 attendees. We served 700 pancakes. There was 30 different entertainment acts, 3,000 plus exhibits. 105 animals in the youth market sale, 92 entries in the four-baking contest, and my favorite is there were 12 baby piglets.

Not to mention the most important, me and Commissioner Grant had 11 of those cupcakes. We got to judge them, and so it was pretty great. 20,000.

Sure, what do you want to do? Chair, a quick minute for the Director to talk about the Planning Commission and the information that she briefed the Board on on July 29th in relation to the critical areas ordinance. I think that it's important for the public to understand that you are providing direction for our staff to take action on a long standing issue. So CAO is an important place we wanna provide the opportunity to share with the folks here in the audience where they should be sharing their input so the Planning Commission hears that input.

Does that work for the chair? Yeah, let me just tick through a few of my reports. 20,000, is that up from last year on the fair? Up 6.6%. I thought it was.

OK, awesome.

I just wanted to highlight that. Just real quick, yeah, I was also at the food bank fundraiser. I was finance committee meeting, Salmon Recovery Council, the elected, the sheriff's office social event. I was interviewed by someone from, ha ha, I'm going to forget who it was. It's a documentary being prepared about forest protection. And I was just interviewed about the work Thurston County's done in that space. And then as I highlighted this morning and last week, lots of building code council meetings as we're taking a ton of public input and having work sessions to work through all that public input on the new code amendments to the building code. and then a few uh community meetings uh issues with regard to some bike trails that we're working on uh the shahela's western trail work and how public works has uh worked through some of the suggestions that that i made community made through me uh on how that will be handled and i'm i'm proud of their work uh trying to make that uh really make the big projects that we're looking at as least impactful as possible to our trail users. And then some stuff on the urban tree regulations that are being worked on. So that's my report. Let's go to Ashley. Yeah, it was with TVW. TVW, yeah. TVW. I didn't know if, I know TVW is where they're going to show it. I wasn't sure. But yeah, it's TVW staff, I think. I wasn't sure if they were the ones preparing the program. Yeah, they have a pretty great production team. But it was, yeah. Ashley, please. This is a little bit responsive to a lot of the public comment we heard. Yes. The board just got briefed on some of this work, so it'll be good for hopefully the folks who are here to hear that and the public at large.

Yeah, no, thank you. I want to thank folks for coming out and providing feedback. It really echoed a lot of the information that we shared last week in the board briefing. The critical areas ordinance is a known area of frustration for our rural landowners. It is very difficult to comply. It is very expensive to comply.

And actually, if I could just interject. That's not because staff are somehow doing something wrong. That's by design based on previous decisions. And now this board has given us direction to really take a look at that. And so we really do value, I can't imagine you taking time off, both of you, to be here and you as a civilian, but coming out, I'm sure there's a lot of other things you can be doing. So just know from our standpoint, we take that really seriously. that while there's three of you here, there's probably a lot more who may not be able to be here and that we're hearing that. And part of the reason why Ashley is responding today.

No, thank you. Yes, my team is implementing a code that was adopted in 2012, and it is very timely that we take a look at it. Right now, for the folks in the audience, those code updates are with the Planning Commission. They have a series of upcoming work sessions. There's public comment, a public comment portion of those work sessions that would be available for anyone that wanted to provide that. AND WE ARE ANTICIPATING HAVING A PUBLIC HEARING IN THE OCTOBER, NOVEMBER TIMEFRAME OF THIS YEAR WITH OUR PLANNING COMMISSION. NOW, THEY'RE THE ADVISORY BODY TO THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, AND THEY'LL BE MAKING A RECOMMENDATION. AND WE'RE ALSO ANTICIPATING THAT THAT'LL HAPPEN IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF NEXT YEAR. AND THEN THERE'LL BE PUBLIC HEARINGS WITH THIS BOARD ON THOSE RECOMMENDED CHANGES. SO AN INVITATION TO THOSE WATCHING AND FOR THOSE IN THE AUDIENCE TO PARTICIPATE, BECAUSE On the ground feedback is really integral to ensuring that those code updates strike that right balance of protecting the things that we love here in Thurston County, while also not putting up unnecessary hoops to jump through to comply. Yeah, cost as well. So Thurstoncriticalareas.org is the short link to the website where you can get a full list of all the upcoming meetings as well as all the information that's been produced so far and provide comments.

Say it again slower. Thurston.

thirstingcriticalareas.org or you can just search thirsting critical areas and it will get you there as well. I just tested that too.

And for those of us that kind of do this full time, I think it's important to convey making those comments known in that process is really, really important. because what a body like the Planning Commission and then ultimately the commissioners do is they look at what are the comments, they value so much what the public is saying, but if we don't have those voices in there, it can skew the determination or what it looks like people are supportive of. And so this is really an opportunity because I would say, Chair, you can maybe correct me on the timeframe, but for at least 18 plus months, this has been a conversation the Board has been having, and Ashley and her team have queued this up, and the Planning Commission and the hard work that they're doing, but that public comment is so important, and it's hard sometimes for the public to understand, well, where do I put that? So I love the expression at the lumber yard, I just saw a visual of folks going around, or go sniff, sniff, why is this and that? We are at a point where we want that input to help make this better. As the board balances, as Ashley said, preserving the aspects of Thurston County that make it beautiful and wonderful, but also streamlining certain processes so that we're not hurting the bottom line in the pocketbook of those that choose to live here because it's such a beautiful place and make it hard for them just to make their houses nicer. There is an imbalance right now that the board's very aware of. We're looking to try to balance that. And so input is really, we are very interested in that and it's very important.

Can I ask one question? Will this come out in the Olympia paper for us to make comments?

Because I've never seen, I get the Olympia every week, and I've never seen anything that goes, this is open for public comment.

We do send them notices for public hearings for sure. And so those will be advertised. And then we are always sharing information out and hoping that they pick up stories like this. So maybe they'll watch today and be like, that's a hot topic.

So I would also suggest not waiting for the public hearings, but you can provide public comment at any of the planning commission meetings. And this topic is often talked at, talked with the planning commission at each meeting. Um, so being there doing this same thing, and then there's thirst and planning.org. Is that the, how do you get the alerts, the newsletter?

If you go to thirstincriticalareas.org, you can sign up to receive updates on this particular project, as well as provide comment. And all those comments get shared with the Planning Commission. Oh, I've got flyers. I would be happy to provide you a flyer. So, yeah.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

And that brings the meeting to an end. We are in a public hearing at 3.30. So if you're interested or give back for the moratorium on detention facilities, that'll be heard at 3.30. But until then, we're adjourned.