Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

good morning you're here with the skagit county commissioners and it is the 15th of september 2026 and we're here for a public comment period as before we start let's please join me to salute the flag 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 We don't need to because the two people present are very civil, but I'm going to go ahead and read the public comment period script just one more time so people realize, so people who are watching realize what we expect. And there is one point of, oh, I'm sorry, Commissioner Wiesen is online. He's in Greeley, Colorado. Actually, he's in Wyoming last I heard, I think. But he's... doing some work with his wife who's a really, really quite famous dog handler. And so she's teaching people how to teach their dogs how to herd sheep and cows and things like that. And she's actually really just tremendous fun to talk to. i'm going to read the public comment period but at the end before we get to start i have to point out one thing that's kind of unclear that there's been some discussions about about um first amendment rights people have the right to speak yes they do but we don't have an obligation to have these meetings and so these meetings can be stopped or cut short at any point or not done at all we do it because we want to hear what you have to say it matters to us and some of the stuff that you've you two have offered us has been very helpful in discussions with the community about alternatives and to best and things like that so it's really good this is a really good opportunity to get good information from people who care about how government works and works successfully so and uh always lorita has been just a treat to talk to and i feel very guilty sometimes i can't get her everything she wants but it she keeps it on our forefront of our list of things we must get accomplished so that's the intent we won't squelch public comment unless of course it becomes disrespectful at that point we will stop things and and shut the meeting down so and that's not a that's not a denial of the first amendment rights it just says we are not obligated to give you the pulpit for those rights so that's all right i think that sounds about right okay So anyway, thank you for all attending the commissioner's public meeting, comment meeting. We schedule these televised sessions almost every week as our schedule allows to provide the public with frequent opportunities to share feedback and concerns about any county program or service. Each speaker has three minutes to speak. You will hear a timer ding at two minutes and at one minute warning, and then again when three minutes are expired. We ask that you direct all comments to the Board of County Commissioners and to keep your language appropriate and civil. Please understand this time is to take feedback from the public and the commissioners will not be responding to comments at this time. Written comments or follow-up inquiries may be submitted to our office by email to commissioners at co.skagit.wa.us or by mail to 1800 Continental Place, Mount Vernon, Washington 98273. We genuinely appreciate the time you all have taken to attend today's meeting, and we're looking forward to hearing your comments. We will first start with our attendees online via Zoom and then move to attendees in person, which means we go right to Tweety. Loretta, there you are.

good morning thank you so much good morning commissioners loretta humble aka twitty lake cavanaugh today we revisit curbside recycling or lack thereof in my community as i have mentioned previously that because we live on a lake many residents have guests especially through the summer season creating much more trash and recycling that also holds true of our lake kavanaugh community center with all of the various activities and events it is so very sad to see all of the recycling going into the trash cans when it could be reused repurposed and recycled into a plethora of new usable items If you haven't begun the process involving your various documents and meetings, I'm once again begging you to do so and help to save these recyclable items from being transported to the landfill unnecessarily. Thank you for your time.

thank you and i'm not responding to tweety i'd just like to point out that we love good vocabulary and when plethora comes into our conversation my little just the school librarian's son just my heart just sings so thank you all right with that who would like to be next one of those is commissioner weeson so is there someone else besides commissioner weeson who would like to unmute and speak not that we're saying you can't commissioner weeson but somebody else we have two numbers all right no one is unmuting great let's go ahead hello hello oh wait wait wait wait okay yeah yeah no no no yeah okay it's probably my can i proceed go ahead have at it

because I have a plethora of stuff to go and so yeah after I got off the phone last time I remembered the other comment um by that lady at regarding ice and I'm just an advocate for uh law enforcement and following the rules and the laws as much as you know reasonable which should be 100%, but of course there's always some kind of stipulation. That said, the most important thing for me today to say is I found what I call senior auto insurance. I have been struggling for eight months trying to figure this out, and it doesn't make sense to me, and many seniors, I've spoken to several seniors, senior centers and seniors that we're paying the same price today as if we were going to work daily and we are not i didn't use my car for six weeks So I called the commissioner's office for Washington State Insurance, and they were useless. And you talk to the different agents and agencies, and they're useless. And even the AI gizmo, I did seven of them. I think, boy, now I'm getting all kinds of phone calls and goofy emails. But that said, I remembered I had a 1937 Buick. I sold it in 07. I had Hagerty Insurance. And I remember parts of the stipulation for that was older vehicle, but also limiting to, I think, 4,000 miles maximum per year, which is perfect for me. In fact, maybe double what I need. $220 a year, $18.33 a month. Agrity Insurance for older vehicles. I don't know how old or anything like that, and I don't know that they actually have that classification. I'm just saying I had it for my 1937 Buick, and today I have it for my 1994 Honda Accord. So I'm just happy as can be, and I'm passing the word because it seems that the only way to get information across, including with Social Security, is word of mouth. So there you go, Skagit, and anybody else, share it with your friends and family. This is a nationwide problem. You know, seniors seem to be under attack or dismissed or something. And back to your civility comment earlier, yeah, it seems like we are of an age of disrespect and immorality as well as lack of civility, and I'm probably to blame for one of those or two. Okay, thank you. Ed Johnson out in La Cona, Washington. Bye.

thank you ed so i was a treasure to hear from you appreciate it all right you're up is that it that should be it i thought i saw something over there okay um just for the record i do not take these comment sessions for granted i feel blessed and um I'm really glad that I have this, and so I'm back. My name's Elka McCartney, Anacortes. I'm here to make my 33rd comment to stop the madness of building lithium best units anywhere, anywhere in this valley. Today, I ask about evacuation plans in the likely event of a geothermal runaway fire. Are there any evacuation plans, really? Tell me about them. In Skagit County, the main evacuation route from both the proposed Cedar Woolley site and the Padilla Bay site is Route 20. Yet let me remind you that in nearly all best fires, people beyond the evacuation zones and the shelter-in-place zones suffer from exposure symptoms even when 13 miles or more downwind and away from burning best units, as evidenced in the two Southern California best fires. So where are we to go to escape the toxic fumes and gases that travel farther than ash from a normal fire and contain hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, phosphorus compounds, metal particles, the list goes on and on. And how long do we shelter in place? Days, weeks, months? And let's think of our firefighters fighting lithium battery fires that can exceed 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit up to about 6,000 degrees. The world over, firefighters are gravely injured by smoke and fumes inhalation, even after the fires are ostensibly out. so for instance in sacramento a tesla crashed into a tree driver was likely drunk the extinguished 75 kilowatt tesla battery had already burned itself out over eight hours but started off gassing when the now hunk of junk was loaded onto a tow truck This put four firefighters in the hospital because they no longer had their gas masks on, and so they inhaled the toxic fumes from about 300 feet away, like a long distance, and for less than three minutes. Many months later, they still deal with terrible symptoms, including reduced lung function, racing heart, mouth lesions, kidney problems, toxic levels of lithium heavy metals showing up in their blood work, and forcing them to go through experimental blood replacement to reduce the toxicity levels in their blood i mean is this what you want us to face in our so-called clean energy future of course not step best now thank you very much thank you thank you welcome laura you have something to say how do i talk that

I'm having to think of a new saying. Hi, my name is Laura Stansbury-Wiese, and evidently people expect me to speak again. Last I was with some friends who were talking about political topics, and we were discussing if I had a question to ask the coroner's department here, what would I ask in a town hall meeting and I actually have a very good question to ask which is do we have any kind of facility for storing tissue from unidentified bodies in this county and if so what is it and if not have you guys considered using the kind of Basically, it's like a liquid nitrogen container like we use for storing semen at a veterinary hospital, and instead storing tissue samples or bone samples from our unidentified bodies in the county. And these individuals are probably the most helpless people in our county. They have no voice, no name, and they were victimized the ultimate way. And they deserve names. Their families deserve closure. And, you know, it's only a thousand to three thousand bucks to buy one of these containers. They're not very expensive. A lot of farmers have them. A lot of horse breeders have them. And they're not that expensive to keep running. so that to me is a question i really wanted answered and i had no idea if anybody in the county knows about this or has even thought about it so anyway this is my thing for right now since i had to think up something really quick to say and i think it's a question worth asking about what are we doing about these unidentified individuals. Anyway, thank you very much for listening to me. And that is my thought for this week.

Thank you.

And we don't respond back, but I can say that anybody who has a question that is not answered can contact the commissioner's office and we will direct that question to the most appropriate place. And we will wait with bated breath for the answer because some of these things are really important and they are good questions. And so if such person in our audience would like to make one of those, please do so through the commissioner's office and it will be followed up. so with that seeing no one else we can go ahead and uh adjourn this meeting and we'll be back at three i can tell you Oh, we know our own reports. Heck yes. Thank you. What have you been up to? In its age. So we will be meeting back here, and then we'll go to reports. Meeting back here at 145 with Public Works, Michael C., and we're going to be talking about... Oh, the TIP, the Transportation Improvement Plan, where we look at what streets, what projects we need to work on over the next six years. And the TIP is one that we're adding to and taking off constantly as projects are finished, and there's always a plethora of new projects that we can put on. So, all right, with that...

So my report, last week I went and spent some time at Superior Court. I went and sat in different courtrooms to watch proceedings that were happening at that time, spoke with the judges, just gave me a better understanding of their day-to-day functions, the challenges they face. I also had somebody reach out to me about Gilligan's Creek Road and traffic issues there on the South Skagit Highway. There's a closure in South Skagit and Gilligan's Creek does a nice little detour for people that they're not supposed to be taking because the road's not meant to handle that kind of traffic. um i came in the office this morning with a voicemail from somebody who lives over there saying what the county did in response has been working so they said the sheriff's been out there writing tickets and that the the signage that was changed was adequate so i hope that that is uh continuing to function let's see here tomorrow afternoon i will be in ellensburg i have a wassac timber counties caucus tomorrow and then on thursday lsc fall meeting just picking up some meetings there to help fill in for others make sure that we have somebody showing up to these and being part of the conversations friday i have a tour scheduled in the morning with the island unit tour with wdfw And so that'll be interesting for me. I always enjoy getting out of the office and doing a field trip. So we're gonna go out and check out what they've been doing there for habitat recovery for salmon. then saturday evening i'll be going to the family promise gala to show them some support for the good work they do in our community great so good i think that's all i could think of thank you yeah definitely stay busy oh my gosh that's a lot of driving yeah oh and that's just part of that's just the stuff that he didn't already know about

well tomorrow was tomorrow is the beginning of the the flood awareness um preparations and so I will be at um I think dice like District 12 I think but then we have to go over to the schedule Council of Governments we're meeting for a couple hours working on projects where we meet with our the mayors and then some other people's uh like city council members all come together we talk about what ways we can work together on projects on big picture projects later in the day i'm going to be at the the skagit transit where we talk about changes in transit transits under a lot of pressure i went to a conference a couple weeks ago in Detroit and it's under a lot of pressure because our current administration is not real transit friendly. So we're looking at some somewhat significant reductions in the money that's been designated for transit to improve transit. On the other hand, We talk about this locally. We've got to figure out ways that transit can be cost-effective, and sometimes a 28-foot bus for not a whole lot of people is not as effective as a much smaller bus that are designed for smaller populations. And so that's part of the role, the upcoming role of transit. We can certainly grow the size of buses as needed, but it would be nice to start at something that's a little more economical and certainly a lot less money. People don't realize new buses can cost up to $1 million now, $800,000 to $1 million for a new bus. that's a lot of money for for a whole lot of whole fleet that are being underutilized so so it's and we've got our our director with the sketch trans is really good about looking at alternative ways to make money work um after that we are the um Later in the weekend, I'm going to be going down to Olympia to help. I'm on the State Board of Health, and our director retired, is in the process of retiring, and we've got to come up with a new person. Generally, that position is held by, you know, 12 to 15 years. It's a really sought-after position because we look at all those structural things in government that addresses the health of people, things like immunizations or public safety, or what I'm doing next week. down in Olympia is over food handler permits and ways to make them be more meaningful. So when people are actually learning enough that they can keep people from getting sick. So it has a real breadth of information that addresses the health of the community. And some of it is also looking at ways to make cities more walker friendly and make people more active, get people more active. So it really has a massive impact um over time and those then go to the legislators the legislators agree to or don't agree to things we're recommending for uh laws to be to be implemented at the state level so that's my two days next week and it's me i really enjoy it but it's really time consuming because skagit is still my primary focus and always will be sometimes i have to tell them i gotta step back and remember scad just my number one so

with that again lorita it's great to see you both of you okay laura thank you for being here and we will see you all in one week with that we are now adjourned oh commissioner weeson talk talk to you soon yeah i just had i was last week i was able to do a presentation from the chamber of anacortes so really appreciate that and also i did a little discussion with the new leadership scadget

group their first meeting was last week and it's always nice to see people going through leadership schedule programs so that was my highlight last week thank you very much yeah i'm talking to those young leaders today so we're going to bombard them and then i heard fantastic things about your meeting with uh with a um in anacortes they people really loved it it was good good information all right so we'll be back at one 135 for Public Works with Michael C. Again, on the TIP program, Transportation Improvement Program. With that, we are now adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you. So we have a signature here to make that happen. And I don't know the technique.

Good afternoon. It's Tuesday, September 15th. It's now 11th, or 145, and we're here with Public Works for a discussion about the TIP, which is the Transportation Improvement Program. We do this every year. We've already had a presentation, so we're at the moment of decision. I'm here with Commissioner Burns, but also online is Commissioner Wiesen. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Wiesen. So,

tom tom weller county commissioner yes and this is only an amendment to our six-year tip um so we're just adding one project to it um certainly uh later this year devin willard our transportation program section manager will be giving the um the annual update to the six-year tip but today we just have given um talking about our jordan creek road project so take it away given okay good

good afternoon commissioners my name is given kutz i'm with the transportation program section of the engineering department of public works we are here to present to you the revision two uh for the public hearing uh for the revision two of the six-year tip of 2026 through 2031 and originally the six-year tip was approved last december for these years. And then we did revision one on March 3rd, earlier this year. And today we are doing the public hearing and hopefully we've given you a resolution, should you agree, for one additional project that we need to get on the TIP for this year so we can program the monies for that, at least begin to. The 2026 and 2031 six-year tip is, as all of them are, is the revised code of Washington explains how we can amend them once they're approved. And, of course, the program may at any time be revised by a majority of the legislative authority, which is you. but only after a public hearing and that's what we're here for today and Revision two is an additional project and what this project is It's actually an emergent project a permanent replacement for the Jordan Creek bridge Over the Rockport Cascade Road near Marble Man it goes over the Jordan Creek and and you may remember that the approach to this bridge on the western side was blown out by our december 25 flood event and right now underway as we are building a temporary replacement for that bridge but that is only a temporary replacement and so what we're looking at here is to begin um using FEMA funds to fund a permanent replacement for that bridge. The bridge we're doing now is just a temporary. This is what the location looks like. You're looking eastbound here. And this photo was taken on april twenty first of twenty twenty one in these photos actually come from our uh... cycle media street smart uh... program uh... that we have uh... kind of like uh... google street view on steroids where we can measure and do all kinds of fun things in the field with this information but this is twenty twenty one and today that project that location looks like this you can see It's kind of hard to see because the angle's not quite right, you're not overhead, but there's a whole chunk of road missing prior to the bridge. And it took out the guardrail and all kinds of other things. So that rock you see there is actually feet, many feet down from the road surface. And this was taken in June 25th of this year. The specifics of the bridge replacement, you can see our project number, the mile post on Rockport Cascade Road where the project is being located, the permanent replacement, it is FEMA funded, this project, and this project would permanently replace and lengthen the original bridge and the currently under construction temporary replacement because of the flood event in December of 2025, as I mentioned earlier. And this is the basic phases and costs for those phases. So we're looking at about an $8.6 million project. and we're happy to say yes to FEMA funding for this. Anyway, we wanted to get this on this year's tip so we can begin that project in earnest. And that's my presentation. Do you have any questions?

Yeah, will that bridge be elevated so that it's less likely, or you're stepping it back so it's longer?

It will be longer, and therefore it'll probably be higher as well than what we currently have.

And then a couple of things to that end. So it's the length of that bridge is uncertain because based on our preliminary assessment, it appears to be an alluvial fan. And so the permitting agencies are making noise about this needs to be more of an elaborate creek style crossing where there's multiple bridge crossings. And that would add a whole extra dimension to this project. But we're too early on to have any kind of hydrology and hydraulics analysis to determine should it be 170 foot long bridge or should it be a multi-span? We'll certainly figure that out. And then also to the finances part of it, This current round of FEMA funding comes with a 12.5% match that the county would be responsible for. So if we're talking about an $8 to $9 million project, 12.5% is a significant amount, a million plus.

And so we don't want that to multi because the 8.5 million could easily turn into 12 or 14 million.

That certainly would be our preference to avoid the multi-span approach, but certainly we're quite a few months, maybe years out from kind of getting that figured out. So we'll certainly keep you posted as things unfold.

mr burns i know the residents are excited to see the temporary bridge go in and i'm glad that we are planning for the future and what uh the permanent replacement will look like and do you know roughly when we would find out um if we're going to do a single span or multi-span is that just completely up in the air at this point i wish i would have brought my magic eight ball i suspected i was asking you to predict the future i'm happy to give you my best guesstimate um

With the understanding of a successful passage of the resolution here today, we're probably, I would say, a year to 15 months out from getting the 30% design report from the consultant that would say whether it's a single span or multi-span bridge.

OK. All right. Well, thank you for that. I know that the FEMA process has gotten extremely long. So I appreciate the diligence in getting something temporary up while we work through their process to get this done. Absolutely. Thank you.

Commissioner Wheaton, do you have any questions?

No, I don't have any questions really. Thank you very much for getting this relatively quickly compared to our December 25th flood event. So I appreciate staff getting us on the tip and getting out for funding for the permanent bridge repair. So thank you very much.

Good, thank you. so the temporary bridge will be completed how soon it is actually i'll turn that to devin yeah if current pace continues we're looking thanks devin yeah

So if the current pace of the contractor out there continues, we're looking to have this bridge open sometime the first week of October, which will also coincide with the Marble Mount bridge construction project, so both bridges should be free to traffic.

That's great. Wonderful. They've been very good about this. So the whole Upper River crew has been very nice about the inconvenience, and so good. So let's get it done as quickly as possible. Great.

Thank you.

And do you loan out your magic eight ball for questions?

You can certainly swing by, and I'd be happy to lend it to you. It's not always right, though.

I have some questions about my children right now.

All right. All right. So you have a...

you have the resolution in front of you should you decide to to sign it uh but i know this like i said this was for a public hearing we have lorita uh humble on if are you here for a public for public comment or just uh eavesdropping lorita there you are okay it's always nice to see you there i know you're listening okay we'll move on then so with that i'd certainly entertain a motion to close the public hearing i still move commissioner all right it's been moved and seconded all in favor say aye aye aye all right great hearing no no no no nose that one passes good so now we can go ahead and make a motion for to add this to the tip i move to approve the 2026 2031 six year transportation improvement tip revision number two well second that it hasn't moved and seconded all in favor say aye aye aye

All right.

Any opposed? Hearing and seeing none. That passes. Great. We will sign this. It'll be on your desk right away. All right. And thank you for the time you spent. Thank you, Commissioner. This is a big project. This is a... Yeah. I just came from a flood meeting. I'm heading to another one. And we hear over and over again that this county... came out of the flood better than most counties because we had a really organized group but also we had a very organized public works that immediately got on some other some other attempts at getting things taken care of so we really appreciate that so you're you're not legendary but you're heading there that's good thank you so much thank you great anything more from tom nope thank you all right all right with that we'll go ahead and adjourn and we'll be back tomorrow morning at nine o'clock at skagit council government's transportation policy board meeting as with me at the burlington all right with that we are adjourned thank you

Good morning. I call this session schedule cutting commissioners to order. It is September 11th, a little after 8 o'clock in the morning. We are here for an appointment for our coroner. But before we begin, can you please stand and join me to salute our flag.

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.

thank you very much everybody for being here as everybody knows haley thompson put in a resignation and so we as kind of commissioners our job is to make an appointment and the county democrat party gave us