Remarks by Ben West
103 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 4 of 5
- Play at 3:12:50
“Yes, we all want it fixed. What is the... What is the man hours or the scope of the job for you right now if we prioritize that? What do you see the impact and practicality being for your department?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:13:53
“Do you have the bandwidth or the expertise to fix it?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:14:03
“So you have the knowledge and the skill set to get the job done. Yeah. In your assessment, can you tell us whether or not this is the best way to irrigate this or this is going to be an ongoing problem of breakage and equipment or infrastructure not working right?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:15:10
“So would we ever, I mean, maybe we should consider gardenscaping in a way that doesn't require gas or heavy irrigation. There's many things you can do for beautiful outside landscaping that is going to really reduce the use of the water if it's going to be a constant repair problem, if it's going to be wasteful because of just the makeup of the topography and the soil. And, you know, are there plants that are drought resistant that aren't weeds? Is there hardscaping that can be done? different things that we can do. Is it more effective to put turf down that looks like grass, right? But…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:16:30
“It's not cheap, but I can tell you a lot of suburban neighborhoods don't want to mow their lawn anymore, and they have very beautiful backyards, and they put turf in now. And guess what? It's dog-friendly, pet-friendly now. It is.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:16:44
“If it's done right. If it's done right. Sorry. But you know, it can be quite fantastic. I don't think it's the solution, but there are ideas out there and innovations that we should look at.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:18:14
“You can paint the brown grass green. There's special paint for it. Let's get creative.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 3:23:00
“Love all of you. Did you have something to share?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 25:31
“Agreed. Thank you, Commissioner Savas. Well, I feel also fortunate that Chair Roberts has quite a bit of experience dealing with this. Also, we have a chair who is well-versed in managing public crises and different events. So, I think that gives me some hope and some reassurance. Some questions around the public health aspect of this. There's a number of technical questions I could ask, but when we see the AQI spike like this, and then you spoke to different vulnerable populations that don't have access to clean air, beyond like meetings like this, where does the county step up? Do we have…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 27:54
“Do we have, do we have them? Can they get them at a library? Can they make sure they're fit correctly? Like it's a, yeah. Right.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 29:52
“But there's not like a stockpile where somebody can go to their local library and get one or go to one of our clinics?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 30:39
“Okay. Do you feel like you have enough resources for that immediate response, that intervention?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 30:53
“Because they're not reusable, so do we have some for the next fire? It's middle summer, right? It's early. And so I guess part of my question to the board and everybody is, You know, we have the authority, if we have to, to delegate and triage some some maybe funding to make sure that we are prepared, you know, or, you know, what is it going to take to get somebody out of the elements? Do we have resources to emergency resources to landlords and to renters and low income people that don't have the ability to have filtration and they need it? What if that person has a comorbidity? They have…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 32:14
“Right. But these are the conversations we should be having right now. Like this is we're in level one. That's it. That's to get ready. That's a get ready question. So that's my I would pose that to you to say if you do see something on the ground, if you do see any, you know, we're all ears.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 55:17
“All right, thank you. Commissioner Westmoreland. It's, yeah, we're all aware of it and we've heard the issue before and it's a difficult invasive species to control. I think the worm you spoke about was the cinnabar larvae. We've all seen the larvae. It's that striped one, that orange and black striped one. So are we still deploying that? Is that something? I don't know. You might know, Commissioner Helm, if that's been still an active natural deterrent because it voraciously eats it.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 1:16:45
“Can I second for the sake of discussion and questions around that, your motion? I'll second so we can discuss. Okay.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 1:17:13
“Yeah. Okay. I don't know if today I want to pull C3. I have questions, again, that I need to ask. And I see we do have some staff in the room. And I would like to discuss that and then make a decision. I don't know if that is the intention of your motion. Or do you want to pull?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 1:17:44
“And just focusing on what we have questions. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 1:20:39
“Yeah. So there is, I got the same comments, the same over the last few days, multiple phone calls. What is the process when we, because there's multiple BRCs, right? So there's, I know that doesn't, is, I guess my question is, Is the POA, does it have its own board that you work with? Am I right? Separate from the one that I sat on, like when we were talking about other healthcare coverage issues when I represented the board. Is there more than those two? No. No, so it's those two. Am I understanding correctly for everyone's knowledge? Okay. Is it required to have input from both those boards…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 1:22:40
“Can I ask a question about that? Yes. Just clarifying, because we're in the weeds a little bit here, but it matters to these groups. Does the POA have, by contract, the right to give their input on this decision we're making today? And have they had that opportunity yet?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 1:26:42
“Okay. So here's just what I'm feeling on the ground, and then there's probably a lot of communication that has to happen. A phone call, a couple phone calls, and then in-person conversations. I talked to my provider, and they said, if you go to Aetna, I can no longer take your insurance and no longer will. You will most likely need to find a new provider. So that comment automatically, like, raises some alarm bells. I don't know what kind of communication happened when Providence went to ASH and we saw the change and we are prioritizing some alternative care here. That's something that we've…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 1:30:28
“It's $200, $250. Does Aetna come and say, we only pay 50 and that's what we pay, and then the county just picks up from our own coffers the difference of whatever that billed amount is? And is there only a certain amount that we'll go up to for certain services? Because it can get really expensive real fast if we're just like prioritizing this and clearly our members want it, but that sounds expensive.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 1:31:33
“As billed? Right. Okay. And we've budgeted for that?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 1:31:38
“And that, is that included? That's not included or it is included in the six or over 6% increase through Aetna?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026
- Play at 1:31:56
“That would cover that, okay. Thank you for indulging me. I hope that helps me. And I do love the analogy. It's a fantastic one, Commissioner Savas, that we are buying a bakery, but the cake is not done being baked. And so that's going to be more tailored and custom to our needs.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 6, 2026