Community Budget Forum - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. Snohomish County Council is called to order for our Budget, Finance, and Administration Committee. Today is Tuesday, August 25th, 2026. At 10 a.m., we're meeting in the Jackson Boardroom and also remotely. I'll read the script for public comment, and then our clerk will take roll. We'll take public comment beginning in person and then remotely on Zoom. Click on the hand icon to raise your hand. If you're calling in by phone, press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute. Each speaker will have three minutes to speak, and please start your comment with your name and city of residence. Next is roll call.

Committee Chair Dunn. Here. Vice Chair Neering.

Here.

Committee Member Lowe. Committee Member Mead.

Here.

Committee Member Peterson.

Here.

Chair, there are four members present. Thank you.

Next is public comment. Did anyone wish to provide public comment today? You can use the podium in the center of the room. So any public comment? Yep. Welcome.

Monica Vanderveeran, Okay, can you hear me okay okay i'll try not to scream I am Monica vanderveeran I live in outside of Snohomish in drainage improvement district 13. Monica Vanderveeran, Today, the conservation district will be talking about a project in our district, I am here to provide testimony supporting their request for a personal wide assessment increase across the county okay. And I'm not going to really focus so much on what they've done for me and my district. I will include some of that. I only have three minutes. What I really want to talk about is the ripple effect of their work that does benefit everybody in the county. I've worked for government for 20 years, and I'm acutely aware that we don't have the resources to actually measure that return on investment from that ripple effect. So I've worked with them since I moved into my house, started out with a native plant sale, just going to it to add native plants to my property, which, lo and behold, have moved down the dike and have actually, by wind, water, and wildlife, created more restorations. Snohomish County Roads repaired the dike and they planted the same plants I planted. I followed Snohomish County guidelines. That is a really low-level, trivial example of what this ripple effect is. I've also donated a lot of that plant material to other entities for sites. So you're going to see an infographic that says so many plants from the plant sale. Those things grow and expand. That's what a ripple effect is. So we have a small drainage district, very few people, and we had failing infrastructure, tide gate pumps. We had a collapsed culvert. I partnered with them and my district. I wrote grants. We replaced all that infrastructure. We were required to do habitat restoration. We're in a farming district, right? We built this trusting relationship throughout that process. And when time came for this opportunity for the Swan Slough multi-benefit project, our farmers were willing to sign up even though there was a Samaritan recovery component, which a lot of farmers in the valley have been really reserved about. And we signed up saying, we know we're going to do this. And it's a very substantive salmon recovery element. And it was because of that ripple effect of those relationships. There's a ripple effect of this project. So with this teeny district, we have a lot of infrastructure in our district. So you know Olympic Pipeline, that when it went down because of that leak? Governor Ferguson had to declare an emergency because CTAC couldn't get jet fuel. That runs through our district and the valve in our district was actually used during the commissioning of the new pipes and during the leak repair. We've got Puget Sound Energy power lines. Remember that flood where one tipped into the other and they had to spend $17 million putting them up on concrete? They're on wooden posts in our district and we don't get power from Puget Sound Energy. We have a road that people take to go between. Oops, I'm going to run out of time. We have a road that people take between 2 and 9. That was all underwater in December 2025. So when we do projects like the one that they're going to do, that actually benefits everybody. And I have a lot more examples than that. I will send in written comment so that I can share those with you so that you really understand the return on investment from the assessment they get.

Thank you for your comment. Other speakers? Welcome.

Good morning, council members. Tom Campbell from Bothell. Also here to speak to the conservation district proposal to increase the amount that they get over the next three years. I'll take a little bit of a different tack. I totally agree with the ripple effect. But I understand that you're really in this affordability challenge. You're in a situation where you have to balance to what extent you can raise different revenues from different sources. And with the lack of a federal partner that we've lost, having an entity like the Conservation District to step in on so many different projects is really important. And I did a little research on kind of where we stand on your revenue expenditures per resident. King County has $4,286 per resident that they have on expenditures. Pierce County is $2,172. And Snohomish County is $1,853. So we're 15% less on our expenditures than Pierce County. But we're growing faster. So my point is that these little revenues, whether it be public safety or whatever, we need to step up. and fill some of these gaps, because I think that there is a return. The ripple effect is really important. And by way of story, the Clearwater Commons, the Clearwater School of which we've worked intimately with the Conservation District, has put in rain gardens. We have kids out there at our camps looking at the forest, learning about salmon. They've designed ways to manage invasive weeds for us. So it's really been an incredible partnership. We won an award. for our stewardship with the conservation district. So when I think about long-term, the ripple effect again, the ability to really have these kinds of investments that last for generations is huge. And so I really urge you to support that proposal, the graded proposal for the revenues. I serve on a foundation board in the Northwest, and we reviewed 150 proposals for all kinds of restoration work. There was a point at which we said, oh, you know, why don't we just cut it down, nickel and dime a little bit, cut it in half, maybe do this, make sure that they can find other revenues. And then when he shifted, we said, you know what? They know what's best on the ground. We should fully fund it. And that's what I would like you to do for the Conservation District's proposal today. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Other speakers? Welcome.

Thank you all. My name is Steph Frenzel. I live in Lake Stevens. And I'm also here to support the proposal here for the Conservation District. I have not a huge background with the Conservation District. I live in sort of a suburbia hell over in Lake Stevens. So I'm not a farmer. I'm not a logger or a forester. But I do care and I do have a strong value for protecting the native areas around our property. We have a native growth protection area right in our backyard and I happened to find the conservation district and they came out, they helped me learn what kind of plants they are, what I can do to be able to help. It used to be all blackberries, now it's actually this gorgeous native growth protection area. And that's just a small little thing in my backyard, but I saved $1,000 from their plant sale because of that. So it's really tangible in my own pocketbook for the benefit that I've received from them. Also just want to say that I volunteered for a couple events with them and really got to meet really cool people who were doing great things. And that gave me a sense more of community, more of a sense of like this place and how important this place is and what we can do to be able to come together and do protection for it. So please support this proposal in full. Really appreciate your help.

Thank you for your comment. Other speakers? Welcome.

Go ahead. Hello, my name is Carol Lucas, and I too am here to encourage support of this proposal. I'm on the board of directors of an HOA in southern St. Homage County. We're actually considered Woodinville. And we have a 200-acre tree farm as part of our HOA. There are 65 families. We jointly own it and we manage it. As far as we know, it's the only community-managed and owned tree farm in the United States. Several years ago, a couple years ago, we had a harvest and we had a big conversation. I'm going to just really give a very specific example of how these organizations helped us, as opposed to you guys' really more global comments, which I think were fantastic. But specifically what they did for us, we needed to have a little community education on is it appropriate to use herbicides after our harvest and before we went in to plant our little seedlings? And so we called the Conservation District, and they did a grand scope of all the latest research on the herbicides that are in question here, the legal herbicides, which ones are best to use, and really put a ton of effort into this project and came to our neighborhood. and had a public meeting in a facility that we own, and I think we had about 50 people there, not only our neighbors, but neighbors in the outlying broader community, and just gave us a fantastic educational overview of what the current science says about herbicide use, specifically in tree farms and forest areas. And it... I just got to say it felt to us like this is what government service should feel like, really personal, really effective, very good communications. And we couldn't have been more pleased with working with this group and in partnership with them. So we are obviously big fans, and that's why I'm here today. So thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comment. Any other speakers? Welcome.

Good morning and thank you. I'm Mark Craven. I'm a farmer in Snohomish Valley. And I grew up on a dairy farm and my dad and uncle were milking about 400 head of cows. And I remember back then the Conservation District came in. They helped our dairy with the manure lagoon at that time, manure separator, flush system, and developed the best management practices that we could do on our dairy to protect the environment and the water quality. I was asked about a little over, not quite 30 years ago, to serve on the board. And because I saw what the conservation had done on our farm, I was very interested in joining up and serving and see what I can do. Well, I'm still here almost 30 years later and It's been an honor to be on this board. It's been great to see the projects in the growth the district has made over the years. At that time we're working a lot with farmers now we work with the urban we work with the uplands we work with everybody in the county, the cities. To get projects done and improve the water quality and protect our environment and our natural resources So being a board member and a farmer I of course I'm help I'm here now looking for help to raise money so we can continue those programs and One thing about the districts, you know, we do get a lot of grants in on the federal state level but we also need the seed money and this gives us the opportunity to to go after that money and have matching funds a lot of times to help the producers. All of these producers that come to us, they offer to do it. We don't force them. They're cooperators. They want to do something good. We want to find the funding to help do those projects, and this is a great way to help us get that. So we would really appreciate your support. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Any other speakers? And then are there any hands raised?

Yes, we have Kate loose for it on the line. Followed by pack on.

I'm Kate Lunsford and I'm speaking today on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Snohomish County. The League supports the rate increase and changes requested by the Snohomish Conservation District. The Washington Department of Ecology recently reported that the Snohomish River streamflow reductions in the summer and fall by 2080 are projected to be a thousand times greater than all current water use combined. It projects reduced water for housing, worse water quality, worsening flood events, increased fish disease and mortality, less water for agriculture, and increased wildfire. The SCD works with property owners and communities to find opportunities to promote and encourage conservation and responsible use of natural resources. In 2023, the League wrote to the USDA Forest Service, Urban and Community Forestry in support of SCD's efforts to expand urban forests and address the tree inequity that affects our underserved communities. We fully supported SCD's growing urban forestry in Snohomish County proposal to expand their reach in helping us serve our communities in addressing this environmental justice need. A powerful alliance allowed us to accomplish the delta neighborhood tree project to overcome generations of pollution in a vulnerable area of Everett. These efforts, these efforts produced benefits in terms of improved tree equity and the environmental services provided by trees for residents. The SCD's other programs are supporting sustainable agriculture and local food, salmon recovery and habitat restoration, green stormwater infrastructure, and wildfire resilience. Our investment in the SCD helps avoid the costs of floods and extreme weather events. We urge the county to approve the rate increases and charges for the Snohomish Conservation District. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker. Patrick Gann is no longer on the line. Any other hands raised? Anyone else wish to provide public comment? Use raised hand. No hands are raised. Okay, so we will close public comment and move on in the agenda. We have four action items and then we'll get to our discussion item. So first is item one, ordinance 26-040. Thank you.

Good morning, council members. For the record, Jim Martin, council staff. Supposed Ordinance 26-040 would amend County Code Chapters 9.01 and 9.16. The passage of Senate Bill 5974 introduced new statewide requirements governing special commissions from law enforcement agencies, specifically mandating that commissioned individuals be directly supervised by the agency issuing the commission. This ordinance amends County Code to align with state law by removing the requirement that all animal control offers be specifically commissioned deputies and by clarifying the authorities and duties of animal control officers.

Action is to move to GLS on September 2nd set time and date for public hearing Thank you questions from council Will there be budget changes these staff will move from the auditor over to the sheriff's is there a budget change?

No, they won't be they won't be supervised, but they won't be necessarily be commissioned deputies They will be under the supervision of the animal control officer, which is the county auditor Okay, any other questions

Is there any objection to putting this on the admin agenda for the two on some September 2nd? Okay, hearing none.

This will move to admin on the second to set time and date for a public hearing Next is ordinance 26-0 for five Closed ordinance 26-0 for five would approve a supplemental budget appropriation in general fund zero zero two in the amount of eight hundred forty nine thousand one hundred twenty dollars and thirty one cents This would provide expenditure authority for government governmental fund lease costs associated with leases for prosecuting an attorney in the sheriff's office at Dawson Place. The accounting interest for these costs is a requirement of GASB 87, which modified the reporting requirements for recognizing lease activities. Requested action is to move to GLS on September 2nd to set time and date for a public hearing.

Questions from counsel? Okay, any objection to putting this on admin as well? Oh, it's for any objection to consent.

It would be admin to set time and date.

Okay, it's not on the agenda. It says consideration on the agenda. So this would be for setting time and date. So if there's any objection.

Yeah, it would be set time and date. It's an ordinance, so it would have public hearing.

Okay. So this can move to the September 2nd admin agenda for a public hearing, setting time and date for a public hearing. Okay, next is Item 3, Motion 26-318.

Opposed motion 26-318 authorizes the county executive to sign the interagency agreement for reimbursement of Blake decision costs between Snohomish County and the administrative office of the courts. The maximum reimbursement for the period of July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2027 is $300,000. The requested action is to move to GLS on September 2nd for consideration.

Questions from council? Any objection to consent? Hearing and seeing none, this will move to the consent agenda for the second. Next is motion 26-326.

The proposed motion 26-326 authorizes the county executive to sign Amendment 12 to the Contract for Professional Services with Aon Consulting. The amendment is to extend the agreement from its current expiration date of August 31, 2026 to August 31, 2028. This is the final two-year extension authorized in the initial contract. In addition, the compensation schedule is updated to include services for the two-year period at a rate of $186,072 for year one and $195,381 for year two. Requested action is to move to GLS on August 26th for consideration.

Questions from council? Objection to consent? Hearing and seeing none, this will move to the 26th on the consent agenda. Okay, that concludes our action items, and next we have a discussion item. Did you want to introduce some, Jim? Okay. Okay. We'll let you guys introduce yourself. Welcome. We have the conservation district.

Good morning. I'm Linda Lyshell, the executive director for the Snohomish Conservation District. And I really appreciate your time this morning. And we are looking forward to talking a little bit about our work and the value that we believe we bring to our county and why this proposal is so important to us. Last year, the state legislature voted to increase the cap for rates and charges to twenty five dollars parcel for all 45 conservation districts across the state. They recognize the importance of increasing funding for conservation. And we're here today to ask you to increase our rate $5 per year for the next three years to cap at $25 per parcel starting in 2029 and continuing thereafter. Today we're going to talk a little bit about our work and why this funding is so important. So we work with everybody in the county. We work with our farmers to help their farms stay viable. We work with urban residents to help them grow food when they don't necessarily have the land to do so. We don't regulate. We really focus on solutions to help our county thrive. We also work in our schools. We provide curriculum to students to help them understand the importance of conservation and local agriculture, where their food comes from. Our programs are hugely popular and oversubscribed. So this funding will help us to reach more students. We are the students, the teachers really like our programs. And when we open them up for sign up for the year, they are full within hours. So there's a need and definitely a desire for more of that youth education in our county. We partner with churches, with community centers, for community gardens, and this helps to provide food security for some of our residents. A lot of this food is going to food banks. At this particular location, at the Renewed Church, we have 27 raised beds, and we have community members that helped to sustain that. We provided the expertise and the materials to construct these and the seeds, and they're doing the work to continue this work. And this is just an example of many. We do about 10 of these a year, and we have a waiting list for more. We also install rain gardens and bioswales. We partner with our cities and with homeowners to help manage stormwater and reduce that pollution going into our streams and waterways and Puget Sound. It also helps to reduce the flood impacts for some of the homeowners. And again, we have a waiting list for these. We're really helping our communities thrive. We provide free technical assistance and project funding to add value to our communities, our neighborhoods, and our residents. I wanted to just talk a little bit about what happens when prevention isn't there. We have seen significant flooding here in this county and damage to our infrastructure. $18 million in public infrastructure loss in the December 2025 flood and $5.5 million in private property damage. The wildfires in our state have burned over 500,000 acres so far this summer, and with a low snowpack and fourth consecutive drought year, the risk is increasing here in our county. We have a lot of untreated stormwater runoff that carries pollution into our waterways in Puget Sound. And one in nine county residents face food insecurity. And without local food growing support, the gap has fewer ways to close. So I'm going to have some members of our staff here speak today about some of these areas and provide a little bit more detail. We're going to talk about how we support local working farms, what we're doing to improve flood storage, fish passage, and habitat restoration. and how we're helping to reduce wildfire risk in Snohomish County. So I'm gonna start with David.

All right, thank you. So yeah, David Marcel, I'm our Natural Resource Director for Agriculture. So I manage our team of farm planners, as well as our engineering team at SCD. So I just kind of want to set the stage with some data here. Snohomish County, as of the last ag census from USDA, we have 1,400 active farms. That covers 73,000 acres, which is up from five years prior by 15%. So that's just an interesting figure. But I think the thing that stood out most to me about the data was that the ag products sold over that same time period where we saw 15% growth in farm acreage. was up 78%. So to me, that means people are getting more efficient, they're utilizing practices, maybe taking some of that technical assistance advice we provide for free, and getting more off the land that they have. So that's really encouraging. In Snohomish, out of the 39 counties that produce ag products, we're ranked number nine. But another census will be put out next year, and I'm guessing we're going to continue to see that growth. So that kind of, again, just sets the stage for demand and a look at agriculture Snohomish County But you know it I think we all are aware of the flood last winter and Linda slide had mentioned this but 5.5 million dollars of private property damage came from that Including nine greenhouses that supply our food banks here through the food bank farm So my point is our agriculture is growing and these challenges continue to happen And the district, I think, provides a great service with the technical assistance and financial assistance to try to get farmers back farming as soon as possible after those events happen and are likely to continue happening. So, yeah, let's talk a bit about technical assistance. It's kind of the meat and potatoes of what we do, I think. Being a farmer is hard. I'm sure some of you council members have heard that. It's a good year when you break even. But it's not just the financial and the labor challenges you face as a farmer. We often get calls from farms that have been cited noncompliant with an ecology regulation or maybe another regulatory agency has said, we have a problem here, you need to remediate that. I think... They have to figure out that fix on their own a lot of the time if it wasn't for an environmental consultant or a conservation district staff person. And again, we are free. We provide hundreds of hours of technical assistance to a single farm to implement a project. So it's not just the capital money we're going to write grants for and put on the ground. It's the multiple site visits, all of our time that's spent in the planning phases of that. So anyway, the process for us is you know, we get a request we're putting together a comprehensive farm plan That plan becomes a project plan which we then go seek grant dollars to fund and you know, we do millions of dollars in grant writing every year and Some of these projects we do cost millions of dollars So again, these rates funds just help us to get on site initially to go then write that grant funding to ultimately complete the whole planning and project implementation phase and And we're helping farmers navigate really complicated permit situations cultural resource requirements Finding and vetting a solid contractor that's gonna do the job on time and on budget and then we provide quality control during the project implementation, so we really try to see that project from start to finish and Our success in doing that is really what builds that trust with these landowners and that's why they continue to come work with the district on a voluntary basis and I think that's important to understand. That's how we operate is only voluntary requests. So Canfield Farms, it's just kind of a case study, if you will, or a specific project where we're able to do that technical assistance to financial assistance and see their problem through to completion. Long story short, Canfield Farms, sheep farm, floods happen and these landowners are having to rush back from their day job or something like that just to try to move their sheep and get them in a safe location. So when we observed that with our farm planners on site, we were able to move that housing for the animals, move their feeding areas, but also help them get back in compliance with some water quality concerns. Manure piles left uncovered by waterways, right? That's going to run off and negatively affect water quality. So we provided that technical assistance and wrote funding to get them a covered manure storage area. It sounds like a shed but it can cost a lot of money and take a lot of permits just to build that So we saw that whole process through as well as a heavy use area to stop erosion where those animals are feeding and then a rain collection system or a roof runoff structure, so Less mud less erosion during the winter and those rains But then they're also able to collect that water and utilize it later in the spring for watering animals the garden nearby you name it so And yeah, I just keep going back to the flood last year. It was my first year at the district and it was a challenge right out of the gate. And I've really empathized with the people we reached out to and worked with. We started making cold calls. That was like kind of the reactionary response we had last year to the event. About 50 people answered. Everyone's busy. It's an emergency. That makes sense, right? But we were asking them questions like, what's your estimated loss to animals, to equipment, infrastructure? And now the folks we were able to get a hold of, only three of them could provide a rough estimate. Everything is still underwater. They're really stressed out. They're just trying to keep livestock alive at that point. It's tough for them to literally get out in like a boat and go start counting pieces of equipment or, you know, acres lost or miles of fence that's been damaged, things like that. And, you know, the timeline is important. That happened December. And then this last June, we get this notification, hey, there's a federal grant now you can apply for to recoup your losses or to reimburse you for your time spent getting rid of spoiled hay or removing debris from your fields. Well, farming had to start in March and April. didn't wait till June and then wait for an application and come through through a federal agency. So these landowners are using their network they have with their neighbors to get debris off the fields as soon as possible to remove the hay and get it disposed of much earlier than these opportunities come out. We were really lucky that King County, our neighbors down there, they shared some funding with us in Snohomish County last year, some emergency dollars that they had saved up for. And that made an actual tangible difference. And I think the big difference was the speed. They were able to just give people funding to get things repaired or get their animals back out in the fields because those fences could be mended right away rather than waiting for some federal money. So it's available, it's just the timing is tough and I feel like this rates increase could provide us an opportunity to have a pot of funding to address these issues quickly so that farmers can get on the field farming when they need to to have a successful growing season and improve their bottom line. So anyway, next one. Yeah, so this just is some data sort of internal that just shows not just what we're doing last year, but where we hope to be in 2029. So I think I'll start at the bottom. We had a public comment around the Swan's Trail Slough project. So that is a single project, but it's in between the marshland project that you've probably heard about as well as Chinook Marsh. So it's a comprehensive reach scale multi-benefit project. But Swan's Trail Slough is unique. Yeah, there's 400 acres of farmland that were underwater for however many days last year, close to 30. And so that project's going to bring additional ag drainage to the area, get positive drainage. And again, it's all about getting farmers in the fields when they're accustomed to without having to wait for drainage. But then there's also a large salmon habitat component to that project. And again, we're It comes with a very expensive price tag, you know, $15 million for what we have. And that was a 2023 estimate. I think we all know prices go up every year. So my point being, you know, this money helps us seed our ability to write grants and bring in more federal and state dollars. And today we've had about five or $6 million that we've written and gotten in-house from external sources to move that project along. So we'll be in phase one construction by 2028. hopefully moving into that second phase by 29. You know, something that seems like low-hanging fruit but is really impactful and saves farmers a lot of money is our free soil testing. You know, they're not just broadcasting every fertilizer or chemical that the companies are willing to sell them. They get an actual look at what's in the soil, sort of like taking a blood test before prescribing a medication is how I like to think of it, right? It just makes sense. And then last but not least, I mean, the core of what our ag team does Again, seeing a project from start to finish. We're doing, like just last year, 110 site visits. And that's not total visits, that's individuals that we provided site visits for. So 110 folks were able to get free consultation. And from that, we're writing technical assistance letters, which is a very in-depth document that says, this is what you could do on your own time and dime to improve the resource concerns we observed out here together. And then farm plans are also generated from that. That's sort of that foundational step to writing a grant. You know, we have the technical details in those farm plans. And based on that, in our staff capacity, we then moved those requests to nine actual projects on the ground with ag producers. So essentially, over the next five years, we're trying to Well, double those numbers. We have a backlog, too. I think that's worth mentioning. Our wait list is pretty extensive. Our services are in demand, but we're only so many people with so many hours a year to do it. So another positive outcome, hopefully, of this rates increase is going to be providing additional capacity, additional time and money for us to make those site visits and get through our wait list to leverage more state and federal dollars. So with that, I'll conclude and pass it over.

My name is Thomas Boltheis, and I work as the riparian program manager here at the Conservation District. And my role is to support how we manage the habitat in our watersheds from all the way from the mountains through the ag fields down to the urban areas. And one of the ways that we like to think about this is our watersheds are our neighborhoods. Whether you're in Upper Watershed, Woods Creek, or if you're down in the ag fields, the water and how it moves through our system is incredibly important to our agricultural values and success. It's important for salmon and the cultural values that surround that. And it's also important for the water quality for everybody in Snohomish County. And so what are the ways that we are able to install projects and work with landowners to improve that across the county? Next slide. So where we are the most effective is we are able to, a lot of what David was saying was we are able to work with landowners voluntarily in a non-regulatory way to move them through these grant applications, move them through these programs that allow us to bring hundreds and thousands of dollars to these watersheds, to these communities where we are able to ultimately directly put money on the ground for them. And then these projects are supporting the watershed at large. If we get more of these projects, the more of the community and water quality benefits we are able to see. Next slide. Our track record has been phenomenal, and there's more to come. We have been working for an example is in Woods Creek. We've been working for 15 years. We started our retree Woods Creek campaign and that allowed us to do some studies to say what is the what it was the number of trees and the amount of shade we need for the stream to improve water quality in this community. And we started by recruiting kind of the base of landowners. Over time neighbors have turned over and we serve the new property owner. Over time, as people move, the new neighbors are talking to their neighbors. And we are maintaining these relationships so that we are able to recruit projects as people move into the county. As they move along our waterways and along our wetlands, how can they manage them well? They already know neighbor to neighbor, farmer to farmer, who they should go to for help. They don't know what they're doing. They bought a property and they say, I'm not sure what to do. I bought this in the summer and now it's winter time and I'm not sure how to manage all of this water. We're often the first call because we have developed a relationship with their neighbor and where's the first place they go? To their neighbor to say, what do I do about this? They call the conservation district because we have done this and we have managed a lot of the habitat and the water quality on their properties. And so that is one way that we are continuing to build a relationship over time. So over the past 15 years, we have recruited more projects. We are recruiting neighbors, and they are recruiting neighbors for us because we are showing up and doing the work that they need to have done. A lot of our work is grant funded, and that's an incredibly important piece of our programming because our rates here cannot fund the amount of work that we want to do, and it in no way is going to complete the number of projects that we want to complete to see the changes in Snohomish County that we want to see. Most of our grants span two to four years, and so that's a wonderful relationship, and that's opening the door with a landowner. But after those four years are up, that funding is gone. So we are looking for more funding. We're trying to string together these funding sources, and we are not funded to do that except through rates. And so what we are able to do with grant funding, where they are deficient, is providing short-term funding. And it's a lot of money, and it's essential to what we do. But it's not enough to span that 15-year effort in Woods Creek to develop the relationships that are going to continue to build our programming. So it's incredibly important that we continue to fund those interstitial periods where we don't have grant funding, but we need more because we want to continue this work and we're generating a workflow with these landowners that we want to continue to serve them through our work. Next slide. So the rates funding is important for three main reasons. One is we can move quickly when there's issues with landowners. A lot of these grants take a year plus just to get under contract and start spending money. And then there's things like cultural resource review and finding contractors. And so the timeline of one to two years when a landowner has a problem this season is prohibitive. And they're interested, but they don't want to wait. They need another way. So they look in a different direction if we can't help them right away. Our rates funding can open the door and keep it open by providing help, providing support, so that when that grant funding comes, we're still in relationship with them and we can get on their property and do some good work and serve them where they need to be served. The next thing is that we're flexible a lot of our grant grant proposals are limited to the eligibility eligibility requirements of those grants whether that means they need to set aside 215 feet from their stream all the way into their AG field is that really feasible for them what this rates funding allows us to do is spend the time to Modify a plan that's going to work with the habitat work with the water quality goals that we have but also work with the plan for the landowner we're not coming in saying We have funding, but you have to do it this way. We say, if you want to use this funding, there are requirements, but we have other ways to do this, and we want to match this to what you need for your property. And that's the most important way that we maintain trust in relationships, is to say, we will work for you to get something done that will work for you. Lastly, our rates dollars, because they bring in so much money, what we have here is about every $2.50, every $1 of rates funding leads to about $2.50 of state and federal money, and that's millions of dollars that we are bringing into The county which is an incredibly important resource So not only are we asking for an increase in money for landowners? This increases is going, you know more than twofold to the communities that are asking for help in these areas One of the projects that we have Recently completed is a culvert replacement on sister Friar Creek in the Woods Creek watershed and This was a neighborhood of seven landowners that were at risk of being basically stranded by flooding because the road is going to wash out. The culvert is undersized. Water cannot move through at the rate it needs to move through. And so they call in and they identify this issue in infrastructure. We see this and we say, well, salmon are also not able to move through this undersized culvert. They're getting forced out by tons of water being forced through a small pipe. And so what we are able to do is replace this culvert with something, as you can see, is adequately sized for that stream, preserves the infrastructure, allows salmon to move up in a stream that they haven't moved up in years. In the first season back, we see coho running up this stream. So the landowners are pleased with increased infrastructure and the salmon habitat is improved. So we need to keep water moving where it needs to move. And a lot of times these are on private land. private parcels where the county isn't as good as accessing these parcels. The tribes are working on mostly their own properties. And all together in these partnerships, we're identifying private landowners who need support. And we have found we are the best resource to do that. These relationships that we're building with them allow us to work at small scales. Seven landowners doesn't sound like a lot. If we can keep doing this, we are serving the people of Snohomish County and where they need infrastructure and habitat improvements. The second piece, a lot of our work is dealing with water storage. We work in a lot of upper watersheds where a culvert, we want to keep water moving. In the upper watershed, we want to keep water on the landscape. And this does a few things. One, it holds water. So when we get big flows in the winter, it holds water and it slows it down and keeps it moving down the watershed slower. And so some of those downstream impacts are mitigated. In the summertime, all this held water is slowly being released. So our low flows in the summer are a little less low. If we can do projects like this one, which is 1,000 feet, raising kind of the water storage on this site, if we can do more of these, we're slowly creating more water storage across the landscape. That's going to directly impact the water availability in the summer and then mitigate some of the flood impacts in the winter. We need to do this at scale. We need to be able to string these grants together and have a rates funding that allows us the capacity and funding to identify the right projects with the right funding sources and then put them on the landscape. So by the numbers, what we hope to do is kind of increase our scale of these things. We see a need for increased salmon habitat restoration, increased water storage, and increased conveyance where there's fish passage barriers. It's a direct relation to infrastructure issues. What we're hoping to do is increase that by 2029. I'd encourage you to look more at these numbers, but essentially, with an increase in raised funding, we can do more work. There is, as you're hearing, there's a backlog. There's a lot of work to be done. And we are able to do that work. But we need the capacity and we need the support. And the people who are asking for these projects and directing where we need to put our money, they are the ones that are in the most need. And we're able to serve them better if we are able to leverage more grants and spread those across the landscape.

Hello, my name is Stacy Dixon. I'm the forestry department manager for the Snohomish Conservation District and today I want to talk to you about our forest health and wildfire risk in Snohomish County. So as Linda mentioned, we are having a big wildfire season already in Washington State, fourth consecutive drought year. Our forests are under increased pressure. And we're seeing kind of the worst case scenario in our communities in Spokane and even in the news today, Reno. And there is a risk to Snohomish County. So we had the Prairie Mountain Fire here in Darrington just this summer, 138 acres contained, thankfully. But there was also a campfire that went out of control in the French Creek drainage area going out to Darrington as well that could have been a lot worse and could have affected a lot of communities. So what we're trying to do is prepare our forests and our communities to that worst-case scenario. And the residents recognize this increased risk. So Snohomish County did a survey in 2024, and they found that 59 percent of respondents were more concerned about the safety of their family, home, and assets from wildfire compared to five years prior. So our residents are aware of the situation. So the Snohomish County also completed the Community Wildfire Protection Plan in 2024 and 2025. And Snohomish Conservation District is written into that plan nearly 30 times. So we are written in as the main actor, one of the main actors to complete this work for our community. We want to expand our chipping services to deal with excess wood on people's property. We want to provide technical assistance to help landowners harden their home and prepare for a wildfire. But we need the additional financial support to build that program. It's one of the main things that we'd like to do with this rate increase DNR currently has funding to help with some of those efforts, but they're seeing that funding get cut So they expect the next biennium biennium to have less support We'd like to step in and provide additional funding and cost share for landowners to prepare their homes for wildfire So just a couple examples of what this work looks like for forest landowners in Snohomish County. So one is Lake Connor Park. They have almost 300 acres and a lot of it forested and they have a ton of forest health issues, lots of hazard trees. We've worked with them many times over the years providing technical assistance. We were able to coordinate with them and connect them with additional resources so that they could write a forest management plan. And that plan is in place so that they can reduce the hazard trees on their property and increase the forest health. And that's going to help withstand our droughts and help them be more prepared for wildfire risk. The second example is an 83-acre forest that's in between Granite Falls and Lake Stevens. And just in this last year, we wrote them a forest management plan that required at least 80 hours of staff time. These are not small plans. These take a lot of effort. And this forest management plan was required for them to maintain their designated forest land taxation status. That's a really important tax program for a lot of our forest landowners. It helps reduce and defer their annual taxes so that they can afford the acreage. And so these tax programs help keep our forest working and help keep our county green by keeping our forests intact.

So thank you very much for the comments you've made. Today we are here with this proposal and hoping to express the value that the conservation district brings to the county. And as was mentioned before, we leverage these funds. We put these funds on the ground to really do good work and create our community resiliency. So we really hope that you consider this, and we look forward to more conversation with you and really appreciate your time today. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Questions from council members? Council Member Neering?

Thank you for the presentation and all the information. That was really helpful. Just a couple of questions. So first, it looked like on the slides, I think it was called the in the numbers slides, you show sort of an expansion in services if you were to get additional revenue. Is that accurate or are we looking at new programs or projects?

Yes, definitely expansion. I did submit to council late July more detail on that and happy to provide that to you. and talk to you more about that. But yes, definitely we would like to expand some of our services.

Okay. And then I know several years ago when the conservation district was last year, we raised the rates or we doubled the rates over, I can't remember how many years. At that time, there was a commitment made to the council that the district would not be back asking for an increase. So I recognize that the legislature increased the cap or the threshold, but is there another change in circumstance that warrants the the request for an increase given that commitment that was made some time ago?

Yes, definitely. So along with just general cost of living increases, we've also seen decrease in some of the federal funding sources, which is putting pressure on us and almost every local government on trying to find other sources of revenue, but also increase of need. We're really seeing more flooding, more drought, and more requests coming in from our farmers and local residents.

Okay, thank you. And I think the struggle I have, and this isn't a reflection on the Conservation District, because I think you do a lot of great work. I've had the chance to go and see some of the great projects that you've done, and so really appreciate all that you do in the community. But it's, you know, like we've talked about at the Council before, it's a death by a thousand cuts with all the different various tax and fee requests that we receive. We approved just a couple in the last couple of weeks, and we've got several more coming up in the budget process. And so the primary concern I have is, again, just that concept of a death by a thousand cuts and the current tax burden that our residents feel with all the various increases that they have faced over the past few years. And so, again, I appreciate the work of the Conservation District, and I think this is some great information you've given us, but that is a concern I have, and that I'll have as we deliberate on this into, I think, the budget process. So, thanks for your time.

Other comments? Council Member Peterson?

Thank you, Chair Dunn. Maybe similar along Councilmember Nehring's lines, but maybe a different take. You mentioned the cuts in federal funding, and I think one of the public commenters mentioned that as well. Do you have an idea of how much that is? Is that just kind of a, you're just waiting to see kind of what the next funding decision is coming from the feds?

Sure. I'll give you an example. We had a $4 million grant that was supposed to be signed. We had everything lined up for signature February of 2025, a week before that was signed after months of negotiation and refining that contract, that funding was pulled. So we have, it's real funding that has been pulled and less, much less funding that's available now for any kind of natural resource work, programs that have been shut down. So yeah, it's significant, significant loss of funding.

Okay. And then kind of speaking of riffing on the ripple effect term, I would imagine then the state is probably getting less funding, so there might be less state funding available. So it's not just specifically federal funding, but that kind of bad ripple effect.

Yeah, yeah. State also is having budget shortfalls, and so, yeah, we're also seeing some reduced funding. We do receive a lot of funding through the state, through the State Conservation Commission that's approved by the state legislature, and that funding was reduced this last year, and we're going into another tight budget season.

Yes, we are. Well, thank you for the work, and thanks for the presentations. Unfortunately, I could see that that great ratio of $2.50 for every dollar might end up going down a little bit because we don't have the partnerships, but I think it's important that we, and these are critical investments as you noted and you all noted with increased floods, increased drought, risk of fire, so really appreciate the work that you all do on the ground. Thanks.

Other comments? I appreciated the comparison and the 2027-2029 work plan included with the estimated budget. If you lose this kind of local dollars, would that impact some of the matching dollars and then could impact Snohomish County receiving some of those dollars? So if we don't have a local match, we would lose those dollars and lose those resources that would be coming to the county. Is that correct?

I believe that's a correct assumption, yes.

And then you've outlined some of the increase in your costs and new projects, lack of federal funds. Anything else on establishing the need? I understand it's important to have that local match. Anything else on increasing costs or big project ideas?

We have a lot of ideas that I did present in there. One that David mentioned was we would like to have a small disaster relief fund. We did have a state disaster relief fund that we were able to access last year, or sorry, the year prior when there was flooding, that those funds have been eliminated. So we would like a fund that we can access quickly to assist these landowners to get out there and clear their land and repair the damage from the flood. So that's just one idea. The other one is the wildfire preparedness. We really like to do more wildfire preparedness. There's such a huge need here in our county. So having, be able to provide more planning for neighborhoods, for homeowners, and also to do more of that chipping. We have a really nice chipper that we did purchase with grant funds, and we have a crew that can operate that chipper and go, it's mobile. We go to different homes and neighborhoods and chip wood We also want to do more community gardens and more youth education. So there's a there's a lot of work in there that we would like to increase Thank you any other questions or comments?

okay, so we received the The cover letter and the rates and changes estimate as chair. I'm happy to submit this as you presented in your request To consider my recommendation would be that we move it along with the budget. So it would be considered along with our budget timeline and voted on along with kind of the overall budget package. So we'll have that draft. I got the draft just today so we can submit it, share it with council. Did you have anything to add, Jim?

Yeah, the draft is ready. It needs to be reviewed by the PA's office for approval to form, but then it'd be ready to be introduced, yes.

Great, thank you.

And yeah, I'm happy to share it with the rest of council.

Okay. All right. So that'll be moving forward in November.

Okay.

Great. Thank you so much. Yep. Thank you for the presentation. I appreciate everyone being here. Council's now in recess until our 11 o'clock committee meeting.