Legislative Meeting - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our June 23rd, 2026, 9 o'clock board briefing meeting. That's the record reflect that we have Commissioner Kearns, Commissioner Jordan, and Commissioner Brooks in the room. I think that might be all for today. But we do have quorum, so we are going to go ahead and get started. And we'll start off with Justin Johnson.

Good morning, commissioners. We are back to give an update on some of our upstream contracts and then subsequent downstream contracts. We'll be covering that for both our mobile disabilities, our BHSO divisions, and well, and not the VAERS division, those ones are already approved in January. But to start us off, I just wanted to provide to the board an announcement you've probably already heard, but Ashley McGee, our once behavioral health manager, has been promoted to our assistant director of community services with additional responsibilities in the department and to support some so that we can get a lot of this legislation off the ground. That has hit us pretty hard for July 1st, as well as some expanded programming that was really necessary to provide that. And we have not filled that since I took over as director. So it was really an evaluation. Dr. Biscott, the need was there. So we'll actually, we'll be assuming that role actually this weekend, but won't be transitioning fully until we look at the staff. So really exciting, actually. developed and demonstrated in history, not only a foresight in some of the planning that we have to do for the ASO division, but also the commitment and tenacity needed to keep us into the future. So I would say that.

Congratulations.

All right. Jumping right into the first slide, we'll Just give a quick update on the DSHS, DDCS, and DDA contract. The name has been shifting because of the state's changeover in the alignment of all DDCS back when they were being consolidating and then realigning back to DDA. But for now, the contract still have the Developmental Disabilities and Community Services, DDCS, title under DSHS. So next slide. This contract is one that the board has already previously approved in terms of the scope, which includes, of course, the individual employment, group support, community inclusion, among many of the other services. This funding, which was about $12 million in the last fiscal year, we are anticipating will increase slightly to about $13.5 million, $13.7 million. We haven't got the final contract yet. But that additional amount of funding will continue to support the programs that are already in place. But again, no significant changes overall in terms of our scope. Again, the board has approved the programs already. This is just a continuation as we look at the state's amendment cycle for the July 1st. So nothing to call out there. There have been some changes in the downstream contracts, which I'll let my manager here, Brian Nichols, The ASO contract there. for the most part, is relatively standard in terms of what services we'll cover. There was some changes, significant funding cuts in the last session, so that has been beneficial. And in fact, the state has made some determinations that increased our reserve amount. So we were capped at a maximum reserve amount with some discussions with the state and the fact that we were one of the first to pay back the clawback funds and be able to provided within the amount that they identified without having any impact to our services. They actually identified almost a 80% increase in our maximum reserve amount, which means we'll be able to do more without the risk of liability holding over our heads. It's still limited to the scope of services under the HCA contract, but that's good news for our uh division as we look towards uh challenging economic environment and we'll be able to have some there to protect uh programs which we have not needed any significant cut one caveat is we did identify in a recovery never data program the state made almost a 25 cut across the board, both in a previous fiscal cycle and now in this most recent one. However, because of changes state made and shifting some funds, they were able to dial that back. We have not needed to implement any significant cuts because of our ability to have forward picking on that. But we do anticipate that will flow at search point, generally probably after the 2027 biennium. So we hopeful or hopeful in keeping that program as it's currently funded state up and to, uh, Police shouldn't upstate fiscal year 2027, and then we'll have to look at 2028 in terms of viability. But overall, that program was the biggest one in terms of cuts that actually didn't come to fruition as bad as we thought. Other programs that we actually received additional funding include the CJTA. That was an area that had some significant stipulations and One that we could not put the funding out without some sort of batch on the county side, which goes to pose some challenges with how we put those dollars out. We had to return some of those in the past year because of our advocating to maintain those funds. The state removed some of those restrictions, and now we're receiving those funds to be lumped in our overall CJTA. base funding. So we should see almost a $200,000 increase in our annual allocation, which is great. We'll be able to expand funding out for individuals in an incarcerated setting who are sentenced to receive substance use involvement. Sentencing does not dictate medical necessity, which oftentimes their insurance can't cover. This covers those individuals so that there isn't a need to have to seek outside of it. And that ensures that individuals can continue to live and work without having any impact while not having to pay out of pocket. They're generally more successful and retain employment and better outcomes in the community. So really beneficial to ensuring continuity. Extra $200,000 there. There was also an increase for some of the new stabilization. I mentioned this both in Pioneer's stabilization facility as well as the new one up in New Alliance. That is roughly about $300,000. The state will re-look at it under Proviso 61 as well as rate setting in this new biennium. I don't know where that will stand because as you know, the state's challenging financial position, but they did direct that They had to evaluate and look at sustainable funding. Now, the question is, is it a must-pay? Will they be required to cover the existing facilities, or is it something that's within available resources? I think the Pioneer facility is on track to be named, and it has been in recent legislation to be counted as part of their review, which is beneficial long-term to ensure sustainable. This is key, non-Medicaid funding. The Medicaid portion has already been assigned. It's just the non-Medicaid. We're hoping to get the Crisis Relief Center named in that legislation as well. So that's what we're hoping to do, which we'll all be asking the board here in the near future. But this funding is helping to get those facilities up and running, which will actually reduce any impact as we get stabilization on board on July 1st and the new facility of the new alliance from using flexible GSF, which we can continue to put out to other programs. As we hit January, that's where it's going to get a little tight because they have not identified if we'll continue to receive those funds. So more to come on that. But we saw an increase about $300,000 to offset some of the startup costs. And then we got a new program as part of HR1. which helps for rural health access as part of the increase for rural health and improvement. Part of that was assigned for behavioral health access. And so rural health transformation, which is the tagline under the HR website, will be pushed out most likely in the October period. And I'll actually share a little bit more about that, how that will look. But it expands out some of our crisis work. So that's the additional amount. That'll be a separate contract. So although we're briefing you now on it, we probably won't see that till a little later because it comes out of the federal and it'll be the federal funding. It'll come out of that assignment. We saw this when we got the MRSS funding a couple of years back when it started our expanded stabilization services for youth, which we ended up hitting some roadblocks. We didn't get funded for a little while. They didn't give us checks. We ended up flipping it, funding it almost entirely with Medicaid and non-Medicaid We're hopeful to avoid that in the near future. So those are the main changes in the HCA contract are the highlights, and then we'll touch a little bit on those specific contracts here in the next slides. And next slide. This is just a highlight of some of the subsequent provider contracts that are already in place that will be receiving these funds. Again, this is not an exhaustive list, but it covers some of the major ones. All of our crisis providers and some of our other behavioral health providers. Some of these you won't see listed if they're solely funded by local funding. So like Maddie's Place is not listed because that doesn't follow up with the ACA contract. However, they're held to the same standard and rules. So to ensure continuity of data, sharing, collaboration, and quality. So if you don't see it there, that's most likely funded to different sources. Next slide. We'll turn this over to Ashley to get a little update on these specific partners.

Yeah, so as Justin mentioned, the Rural Health Transformation Project has many different initiatives. The state, in cooperation with the governor's office, DOH, HCA, and DSHS, went and put a project plan forward, and they were awarded $181 million. Initiative number six relates to that behavioral health. Services that Justin mentioned in 6.1 is actually specific to expanding mobile crisis supports in our rural communities. And that goes off of the counties with zip codes classified as rural Perry, Adams, Lincoln, Ponterey, and Stevens counties. And so that funding, as Jessica mentioned, will be moving forward likely in the October time period called the federal fiscal cycle. We're working with HCA to develop those project plans. And so we will have this moving forward. It's very specific to expanding mobile crisis in those rural communities. So there's not a lot of wiggle room there. And so we're looking creatively at how to do that. Anything else on that, Justin?

No. The amount that you see there is for the implementation period for the federal fiscal year. We do not know if they will continue that funding at that same amount or how it will be allotted out yet, which is challenging. It will also mean a change to our MCO contracts. which still have to be negotiated because this will increase the response uh responsible amount that they will be uh their members will be accruing for that service so it may reduce the overall impact for the non-medicaid which makes more available funding but again they have to report this what would be an example of workforce development that might be funded

Great question. I think there's a lot of creativity being put forward. A lot of things the healthcare authorities need to go back to SCMS to get clarification on if that's allowable or not. Some of those things could be increasing funding or sign-on bonuses for our rural communities to help work from workforce into the area. It can include trainings, different mechanisms to streamline response in those areas, vehicles, leasing that they're driving their own vehicle. That's some of the ideas that have been thought forward.

Licensing hours for individuals trying to get a supervision. One of the things that is excluded is paying for individuals' accrued loans or education. statistic really saying so yes because they've uh hospitals and local health providers have already been awarded a larger chunk of it so this has been carded out specifically as care we ask that too if we can partner with hospitals and they're very clear the federal restrictions prohibit that because they've already been given a lot and how those are being pushed out by the health care authority we haven't been privy to yet and part of the the goal is to reduce the strain on hospitals and

individuals receiving the involved crises and expand that service out in the community. Again, that's a challenge of our rural communities, so looking creatively at how to best do that.

Next slide, please.

So this contract actually does pertain to our CARES division. They're the ones who administer the HARPS contract, which is housing. I always get this. I always have to look because there's so many acronyms in our behavioral health field. Housing and recovery through peer support services. This is housing subsidies and supports for individuals exiting behavioral health in patients. health care settings or maybe preventing them from needing to go to those settings by providing stable housing supports for them and the community. We don't anticipate any significant change in the funding for this contract. And again, this comes through the ASO, but it's administered through our CARES division. Next slide, please. This contract comes through the Department of Commerce. And this is our CEBRA contract, our Community Behavioral Health Rental Assistance Program. So individuals who have a diagnosis, this provides long-term and emergency housing supports to those individuals. We see that typically through more long-term subsidy. This is an amendment of our existing contract that's already went through in the January time period. So no substantial changes there, no reductions in funding. And the next slide will show who we contract that with in our regional service area. You'll see here Adams County continues to be vacant. Though we put out interest in that facility, there hasn't been a lot of interest received in taking on that contract. And we, a couple years ago, switched to rural resources in our rural communities for Perry, Lincoln, and Stevens, and that's very successful.

And I want to call out, you'll see an increase on this one because we were doing such a good job. They funneled more money. We're taking on the contracts from another provider that you get more. And with the Phoenix housing that we oversee and the HARPS together, we almost, we're not the housing department, but we oversee almost $5 million worth of housing support to the community for those experiencing severe and persistent mental illness and or substance use involvement where that is the primary condition that's preventing them from being housed. So that's another thing that's not widely known in the public, how much So they're not cycling back to the system. So really a great benefit, but at the same time, it's always challenging because he's had been flown.

You're doing well. Yes. All right.

All right, I'm going to turn it over to Brian Nichols, Manager of our Developmental Disabilities. He'll give you an update on some of our downstream contracts, as well as the most recent mini grant, our annual mini grant award and selection for projects. So, Brian. Hi, thank you all for having us here today. Brian Nichols of Developmental Disabilities for the county. Just a second, Mark, before I do that. How many years, because this is an anniversary this month for you, how many years have you been with the county?

few over 30 years with that in the first year 31 years work for the county thank you very much i still got a couple more on me so we'll see thank goodness yeah as long as i as long as people think i'm doing a decent job i'm a stick around because i still love passionate about folks within my film development not exciting. We have at least as much money as we had last year. No major changes in this. As was mentioned, they're sticking with the name DDCS in this current, this upcoming contract year, and then they'll be tossed back to DDA. Nothing really major of the substance has happened at the top of the area except Jameson and the top leadership. So those are the services that we contract with the state to provide locally. Next slide. And this is just a list of the the subcontractors that we have one of those that we know is called you are seen they're doing the word employment and Community inclusion. Okay next slide. um. mini grants, but I'm excited to have these mini grants available to us. I've always appreciated the board's support on this. We're using local tax money, village, and a few years ago, we've been doing it about 10 years now, we decided, well, we have some additional funding that's not encumbered. Why don't we ask agencies in the community and other entities, whether we contract with them or not, to pitch us innovative ideas? And the rules are pretty simple. I always explain it. As long as it's legal and supports people with developmental disabilities for their families, we'll consider it. So we do get some innovative stuff. And I think we put out $120,000 this year. The contracts are going to start in July, around the quarter. Next slide, please. These are the ones that we will reward. Park of Spokane, just take some folks over to Advocacy Day next winter during the legislative session. Community Colleges of Spokane, they're one of our contractors for child development services. We have limited funding that we can give our child development services providers. Any grants have been really useful to support them in ways that we can't through our state contract. So we're buying them a bunch of equipment to be used with various early as starting classrooms throughout. Okay. Very pleased with the next 1. hopefully I'm pronouncing that correctly. We did an intentional effort this year to do some outreach to communities that are underrepresented in the services that we provide. And the Hispanic community was one, and also the Slavic Association, which we'll talk to next. But we awarded them money through... for putting on events throughout the year where they have connections with families, they know they have connections with families that have members with developmental disabilities, to get them together, talk about what their needs are, and encourage them to reach out and apply for support. We do find there's a lot of reluctance in some of these communities to reach out for support. So we're using middlemen, you know, so we can get them to connect to the families that we know that we really assume need some help and aren't asking for. The other one, the next one is Project Inspire. That's a soccer group, a national soccer group comprised of adults with developmental disabilities playing football, I guess they call it these days, but it's soccer in my mind still. This will support efforts in Spokane County to develop the team, support it, and allow them to travel to some national events. It was a very good presentation. They gave a very, they call it Project Inspire for a reason. The next one we're very pleased to have as well, Rosalie Murray Foundation. They're a fairly new not-for-profit entity. We push inclusion in all levels of our services. We want people with disabilities to be included, what I call part of the ebb and flow of everyday community life, including early childhood education and childcare. So this is some funding to develop and support inclusive services within an existing childcare early education system. I'm very eager to see how this plays out. And then again, the Slavic Association, again, reached out to this community. We know that there are members in that community that are not aware of or are not reaching out to us. And this is our effort to get them included. The same model, hosting events throughout the year, encouraging families with members with developmental disabilities to come and talk about what their support needs and hopefully connect them up to services that are available.

Okay, next one. And just to call out on the mini grants here, the intentionality of using the village funds for school and county residents really was to ensure that if the state funds didn't cover those, that we were able to provide for a very clear area of gap that really is a barrier to individuals being in the community and reaching those services. So that's where you see the services that are identified in the selection really said, how can we reach those that have been historically not receiving a service and then also aren't included in the community in a way that we would like to increase and provide, which benefits overall, allowing for individuals, especially for teen care family members, to have more time and availability, not only in the economic environment to be able to seek and pursue jobs, but also to provide them a sense of well-being. So that's where the key intentionality in using those millage funds, which are the Spokane County dollars for those residents, really has been a desperate request by the public that we've received year over year to say, hey, can we get more in these areas that we have not historically funded?

These are things that we typically can't and don't fund under our contract with the state.

So we rely on local funding.

Next slide, I think, shows those who were not awarded. I'll spend a lot of time on this. All of them were good presentations, but I forgot to mention our rating system. We have members of our DDA leader advisory board. We have somebody from DDA that participates. We have a self-advocate who works in business locally. We get together and listen to presentations and rate them. And then tally all the scores that come up with a ranking. And that's the basis upon which we reward over funding.

With how popular this is, too, I will most likely, looking at the availability of funds, come back before the board and ask for an increase in that allotment. $120,000 is what we've historically done for the last six years. But that need has increased, especially with some of the programs that we unfortunately can't implement. But our wonderful... waiting to connect, and we see a greater return once those individuals are connected than the amount that we're actually putting out. So that'll be forthcoming, but the popularity of this program, especially with the region, has just only increased the last couple of years.

Yes. And I think that's the last slide. Is that correct? Yeah, I think so. Any questions? Again, thank you for your support. Thanks. Appreciate it all.

Just to call us, we'll be coming back to the board for the annual report update and the Institute for Student Wellness school-based SBIRT update. So that has taken kind of a backseat. We would have come earlier, but with this new legislation, it's completely taken over Ashley and I's lives here. But we will be doing that in the next week. The 7th, sorry, July after the 4th. And then the amendment for the crisis relief and sobering center, you'll be seeing those come forward, both for the update for the project, which we've been kind of working through, which will allow us to actually carve out a certain area. This is what it should have been done sooner, but there was a parking issue. So we had to work through that. So you'll be seeing that hopefully here in the next week or so. And then there'll be another amendment. That was the amendment we discussed about restructuring current contract and then shifting some of that language as we transition it to the new contract for the master contract for the path center and then looking at the supplemental support as well so you'll be seeing that forthcoming probably not until mid-july because we have to get that first one under the next one so i want to call that i know mike and i briefed on this previously but i know it's been sort of a delay and it's been an issue of working on some other

small issues that turn into so much bigger but practically speaking they should come forward without any more uh concerns so that'll be forthcoming yeah i would just say as you were talking something i've thought about is you know as we develop our legislative agenda for the state and try to make sure that you know kind of point from the top so like if we can list one or two of those on cars you know to make sure that just it's it's out there and gets seen because it makes a huge difference, I think, for you guys. And the legislators have been hearing us talk about PATH and all that, so things that, making sure that we are included in the legislation. Spokane doesn't get forgotten. I think that's one that I can think of, as well as, you know, our key services. I think we need to do something there too. So I know there's lots, but if we could pick one or two that are really high priority to make sure we're getting to our legislators as well.

And I've got those already. The challenge is getting a feel on which direction they want to go. So part of it is like the carve out we'd asked for for the 1813, which delegated it. But now the question is, do they have to further go with legislation or can they do that through administrative action to do the same thing? Because it doesn't prohibit them from doing it. It just directed them to do a certain thing for the designation of the service. So that's where the state is trying to figure out which route they want to go. So that's what we're waiting for. They, of course, come August is when they start aligning those. So that's what we're thinking between now and August 1st is we'll get a better picture. Then I can provide that to you on which route we want to get a feel for where the ledge is.

Right. Because sometimes, as you know, the legislative people think they've done something. And then as the tools come down, it doesn't. do what they thought it was supposed to do. So that's what I wanted to make sure that we draw their attention if we need to.

And they're still feeling it out as well because we're supposed to implement on July 1st. And however it goes, they haven't been given an update on it yet. So then the question is, what are the next steps? They want to see how this goes on July 1st. I'm confident we'll have something by the August time period we'll provide to the board. The big one there again, and I keep saying this is that commercial chart. So we'll have something available to you. The work with Jeff in the past and I'll work with Jeff here moving forward to make sure you guys have it on the list. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you.

Actually, it's just both. Okay. Andrew, thank you. Sorry. No worries.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- No worry before I get to my items, I just wanted to give you a brief update on the status of the upper fire so right now the fire is 85% contained the IMT demo on Sunday and transition to control of the fire. to a DNR type four incident command team. And of course fire district nine is remaining very tight in with the command of the fire. So overall it's pretty much on its glide path and there's not much else for us to be doing. The assessor's office has the list of damaged homes that are in the process of connecting with those folks. And we'll just go from there as far as recovery goes. You are aware we received an FMAG declaration, so Fire Management Assistance Grants. That is the earliest FMAG declaration ever for the state of Washington. So we... Yeah, so I... It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. But anyway, that will provide us some support with the overtime costs and response costs. So a little bit of help coming from that.

Any questions on the fire structures?

So the final count was 14 primary homes, one of which was vacant, and that was the ignition point of the home. of the fire itself. So there was either a squatter or someone in that structure who should not have been. And so 14 primary homes gone. And then I believe the last count I saw was seven secondary structures. And then they're working on damage assessment for, you know, the homes that have partial damage. So, you know, part of their garage has been damaged. They've got, you know, melted siding, things like that. So that's where we're at with that. And how many acres was that total? Final fire perimeter was 213 acres.

And then someone has asked me this question, like, isn't it 100% contained? So what is 85% versus 100%?

So that means they have the line secured, the outside perimeter. And what they do is once the outside perimeter is secured, They work into the center of the footprint doing what they call mop-up. So that's turning the dirt, adding water, looking for hot spots. Before the IMT de-moved, they did two overnight infrared flights, specifically looking for hot spots in the footprint of the fire. And they address those with day shift. And so that's what that means is they've gotten 85% of the footprint locked up.

That's very good. Thank you.

On that topic, do they typically say it's 0% contained until the perimeter is established? Okay.

Yes.

That can be confusing. Yeah.

Yeah, so the challenging, this fire was challenging, not just because of the terrain, but of course, once we got into the built environment, there was less room for the firefighters to maneuver and obviously more fuel for the fire itself. So a little bit of a challenging fire.

They did well on the air support.

Air support was phenomenal. So the first day we had two air bosses and three helicopters on the fire. So air support was great.

I guess moving forward, I mean, the

recovery. I mean, what, how's this going to mirror kind of what we saw is with the grays and Oregon fire is the regional long-term recovery group connecting with the.

Yes. So we had our disaster assistance center open on Thursday afternoon, all day, Friday, all day, Saturday. Um, the long-term recovery group was there as was, uh, Red Cross. Our assessor's office was there. Building and planning was there. Um, Methodist Services was there. So quite a few of our community partners were there. And the Long-Term Recovery Group, I know for sure they did intake on three of the families that were completely burned out. I'd have to check with Craig, their executive director, on what their final count was. A little bit different population than what we had with Prairie and Oregon. So I'm hoping that the majority of these folks had adequate insurance. That remains to be seen.

I was really surprised. So. Chandra and I were both invited to that. Yeah. Thursday morning at high school. And what I found interesting was they said the previous night, not a single person had gone to the shelter that was set up at the church, which is just a completely different situation from the Gray's and Oregon fire that.

nobody utilized the the shelter that was set up so they were closing it down so i mean but it's like when folks have resources they choose completely different situations yeah anything else on that okay um so on on actually on the agenda today um by Operation Stone Garden Grant. That is one of our fairly stable grants that we get through DHS and specifically Customs and Border Protection. And we use this funding for overtime fuel and aircraft maintenance for air support unit within the sheriff's office for the helicopters. And this year's contract is $117,000. And you'll be seeing that's on your consent agenda for the 7th for acceptance of that. And then for our 24 SHSP, our State Homeland Security Grant, we have to do a sub-grant to Spokane Fire Department. So previously, for years and years and years, the practice had been with our Homeland Security money we would do the purchasing and then hand receipt out the equipment to the partner agencies. The purchasing director has now decided that she does not want us to do that practice, so she's requiring us to do sub-grantee contracts for equipment purchases under the SHSP. So we're doing a sub grantee contract to Spokane Fire Department for supplies and equipment for their technical rescue team in the amount of $16,948. So what that means is they will go do the purchasing and then they'll submit the invoices and everything to us and then we will reimburse them. And so that will be the process going forward for any agencies outside of our own who are going to receive Homeland Security dollars.

And how did it used to work?

It used to, we would just do the purchasing, emergency management would do the purchasing through the county's purchasing system. And then we would hand receipt the equipment to the receiving agency. And so everything was always documented. It was always fully documented. But Heather's decided she wants to do it, have this process in place instead. So we're transitioning to processing this. Any questions? Okay, so great. That's all I have for you.

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. Good morning.

So I've only got a few slides for you. As you can see, it's coming over some fee adjustments to identify the scraps that we like. First one is we are wanting to implement an administration fee across all of our transactions that is going to exclude our small marketplace within the building. For those of you that don't know, we have a kind of secondhand thrift store kind of corner in scraps where people don't need beds and carriers and old leashes. We can sell them for two bucks, three bucks, just to help us out a little bit. So we're happy to put it on something like that because we felt if we have an administration fee on top of a $2 item, that was pretty unfair. Nobody would ever buy anything again. But basically, this $2 fee is to help kind of offset some of the increasing costs that we face and needs to cover future costs of some software and providing company animals that we know we're facing and we're trying to generate some additional sources of revenue to offset those costs. So this is a pretty standard thing that you see in a lot of animal neutral, animal sheltering agencies. They have a administrative fee or a processing fee, whatever terminology you want to use. So what I did was I broke down all of our transactions from 2025. And so if we had this $2 fee, you would see it generate almost an additional $66,000 for us over the course of the year, which is a huge help for us. Scraps' budget is very tight as it is, but no further budget constraints, so anything we can get is very helpful. One thing that this is very much going to help support is providing food for the animals. Scraps historically has relied on donations from the community. Those are getting less over the last several months, which is the greatest feeling. The economy, everybody's budgets are tight, you know, fuel prices skyrocketed, and then we have to go out and buy additional food and supplements to make sure the animals can eat. No matter what, at the end of the day, we got to feed them. So we do have a wonderful program that we're working on getting on board with through Mars Corporation that can provide food at between 75 and 90% off of what list price is to help us feed the animals very efficiently and very cost effectively. And this would more than cover annual costs of feeding the animals. So we feel this is a necessary change to make. Next slide, please. The other change that we discussed in October is our adoption fees. They haven't been changed in a number of years. What I did was I reached out to several agencies and organizations across the state to see where everybody else was in terms of what they're charging for their adoption fees for their animals. So you can see on the averages line and then scraps, what we are currently charging is directly below that. Across the board, we are pretty noticeably below state averages of what people are charging for their adoptions. Obviously, some areas of the state have different financial and socioeconomic levels. So kind of putting all that into account and then also looking at our closest, I don't like using the word competitor, but it's kind of the best fit here, is Spokane Humane Society. And you can see for their puppies, they're at 350 and 300. What we're looking to do is take our puppy fees only up $25, going from $175 to $200. Same with our adult dogs, going up $25. Going up $30 on our kittens. And only moving our adult cats by $10. Adult cats, the cat population is looking extremely high, so adult cats are kind of the hardest thing to place. So we don't want to raise prices where people are no longer interested in coming to get them. But again, looking at averaging out those cost increases comes out to 2,250 per adoption. And last year we did 1,984 adoptions, which again, we've been almost $45,000 in additional revenue for scraps to help offset costs. So one thing that we've definitely noticed is, you know, medical supplies and medical care, I think they've had all drastic thing on over the last 10 years nationwide. So ways to help offset and keep us, and keep us competitive at the same time. We don't want to raise our prices too high because then people won't come to us and they'll keep going to other places. So we want to keep our animals at a fair and reasonable rate for the region over the end. And I think this does that. It gives us just a little more revenue to keep us in a good place financially as best we can right now. So these are things that I was planning on doing. I just wanted to give the board an awareness of it. Obviously, if constituency prices go up, it may be a little concerned, but unfortunately, inflation and everything over the last several years has just gone through the roof, and we have to do something to offset the cost. So my plan is to have these go effective August 1, so we have a full month where we can put social media messages out, press release, so there's no surprises. It's open there.

Anybody have any questions? Ron, could you share a little bit more on the food program? I think it's a very creative way that you've brought some ideas to scraps to help not only with the consistent flow of food, but same types of food, the dietary improvements for the animals in there as well that perhaps haven't been able to be accommodated because of the different variety of types of food and brands of food that have been historically donated to scraps.

Yeah, absolutely. So when you work in an environment with animals, when you have inconsistent diet, you know, you're rapidly changing. If anybody has a pet at home and you change food brands, if you do it really abruptly, they think you have very upset tummies. Us as stomachs and animals are used to gastrointestinal problems, you know, diarrhea, they are lethargic. Um, so when we are relying on donating food, we are basically at the mercy of what people are going on. So we have no idea necessarily what brand we're feeding from one day to the next. It depends on what's on the shelves and what we can pull. And then when we run out, we make a Costco run. We go to Costco because that pound for food is pretty consistent and it's a good piece of quality food. So, uh, looking at that and looking at how we can go to Costco more and more. started reaching out, there are several food programs from big companies across the country, and the one from the Mars Corporation stood out as the best in terms of cost efficiency and what they require of us. Some places, you know, require that you sell the product on your premises and things like that, and that's obviously kind of something Scratch can do. So when I was speaking with Mars and they sent me their cost list, It's using Iams brand food, which has been around for several years. It's a reputable food product. There are 35 pounds of adult dog food. They are going to provide to us $12 a bag. which if you've ever shopped for dog food, that's a really good price. And they're full-size bags of adult cat food we're getting at, I believe it's $3 a bag. So we'll be able to buy food basically bag for bag, almost three or four to one versus going to commercial. And what that provides us is it gets the animals on a consistent diet, which is better for their overall health, especially when they're already stressed out being in a sheltered environment. Because even though the animals may be healthy, when we start seeing them with diarrhea, you know, from a medical perspective, we're like, ooh, is this a contagion? You know, is it distemper? Is it parvo? Is it giardia? And then we're also spending money running tests, because we have to make sure the animals don't have anything. So those tests cost money, just because you all know we had a parvo outbreak right when it started. Every parvo test is $20 per test, just to buy the test. So we're running those kinds of things, and we'll save money on that end, because we'll have more kids at night, so we'll have more assistant output, as the phrase goes. Which, from a staff perspective, that saves time. It's much easier to clean. It takes less time to clean. And from a public perspective, when people walk through our kennels, when they do have those GI upsets, there's no polite way to put it. It's hard to convince somebody to adopt a dog with diarrhea. Nobody wants to take that dog home. So that's going to benefit us all around. And from an adoption standpoint, we get asked all the time with people about the dog or cat, what food are they on? Because they want to go buy it because they want to keep it consistent. And sometimes the answer is, I don't know what we fed today. We have to go find out. So they'll be nice and consistent. It is very cost-effective from our point of view from a budgetary standpoint. And additionally for the adopter, at no cost to us, they provide what we call adopter bags. So it will be puppy, kitten, cat, and dog, the three-pound bags of food of what we're feeding. So every adoption, they get one of those bags to take home. So that's great from a public perception because it's showing that we're giving them support right off the bat of how to take care of their animal. Like I said, the program doesn't cost us anything to join. We just have to agree that we're going to feed this food unless there's a medical need to feed something And they just asked us to put up some stickers saying, you know, we're on the, I think it's called the adopt-a-pet shelter program. They just say that's what we're feeding. We're feeding items products, which is not really anything other than being transparent to the public and saying this is what the animals are being fed. They do ask for an opt-in that we're going to build into our adoption contract where the adopter can either choose to or not to participate, where basically we share for pet products, things like that. So they can say if they're going to receive those coupons or they don't want to receive them, then that's the end of that. So it's a win-win all around. So these increase are going to help us fund that and keep it sustainable.

what will you do with the donated food that still comes in?

Donated food that still comes in, since we do not operate a pet food pantry at Scraps any longer, that stopped about a year, I think, before I started. Smoked animals still does. And so everything that we get food-wise will be donated to smoked animals. Put it in a pet food pantry for the public to be able to come in and get help. So we're not going to throw it away. We're not going to throw it away. So we'll still find a way to help the community. We just send it over to them. And they have volunteers to come pick it up. Some of our volunteers go back and forth. We have an incredibly good relationship with Spokane. Scott, you remind me of one other thing that I forgot to mention. Looking at the adoption fees and the transactional fee, I've had meetings with the Warrior Executive Director of Smokey Animal and they have agreed that they are going to include county pet licensing as part of their adoption process, which Spokane Animal, because it's an average country, says around 5,000 adoptions a year. So that'll be an additional 5,000 transactions being figured out with a $2 administration fee that will be added on, so that's not figured into the system. So that's hopefully going to really help us support the animals without having to cut any other programming.

Great reestablishment of a program that existed eight years ago, maybe seven years ago, and also helps for us in ensuring we have pets being licensed appropriately to jurisdictions as opposed to being adopted out.

We never know what happens to them after that. That's a big victory for everybody. Any questions? Concerns? So my plan is going to be to have these go live. August 1st is adjusted fees and we'll make sure we put out as much notice as possible to the community so that nobody gets any. I mean, looking at first, I don't think $25 is too much of a sticker shock and change, but in case anybody's concerned, they'll have plenty of notice that it's coming.

Thank you.

Hi Matt.

Good morning. So two quick items for the board for consideration. The first one is a franchise and it's with Kootenai Electric Cooperative. And you can see on the overhead map there, it's where you would expect. It's along our border with Idaho. And I'm assuming these are places where it was more efficient for Kootenai Electric to serve than our local utility providers. It's just the replacement of an expired franchise. And there was nothing exotic about the language. It's our standard template. Any questions? I'll get it scheduled before the board. If there are any concerns, please let me know. Next one is another traffic code revision, because we didn't have enough last week. And this is another school zone. This one's a little different than a lot of ours. It's on Farwell. You can see on the overhead there just a little west of Newport Highway. And what's unusual is you can see the blue there is our existing school zone all around the schools. And this is a signalized intersection. And we don't generally put school zones on signalized intersections because there's a signal stopping everybody. But talking to our partners at the cities, the Valley and the city of Spokane, they do put school zones around them. And the concern being people going too quick through the intersections and kids not paying attention to the signal and just crossing against the light. Wasn't a big step. Slowing people down when there are kids crossing the road to us is fundamentally a good idea, especially on arterials. So our recommendation is to support that and put in the school zone, and it'll go into effect. We also are going to put in beacons as soon as we can get grant money to support that. So we're going to be applying. Right now, it'll be when children are present at some point.

Any questions?

Busy street. Yeah, it's the best. You can imagine kids crossing Farwell there. It's very busy. People coming off the highway are very quickly. So slowing them down is good ideal. All right. Appreciate your time.

Bring us back on track.

Doing what we can. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of them. Patience.

Slowing down traffic, speeding up our

Thanks.

Have a good day. That was sort of an Alice type reminder. Something just came up. Thanks for filling the void, Chris. Good morning. Good morning, Chase.

Okay, I'm here for two different issues. One's policy updates. We were here in front of the board about two months ago. Quick update on policy. We're thinking about every two months will be about the right timeline between. Give everybody a chance to review. Let Justin give us a quick briefing on all the policies as well. So I'm here along with Sergeant Justin White, and he can give you an update on the policy updates.

Morning. So we just had a few for you guys today. The discriminatory harassment, all that is doing is removing any talk of retaliation because last time we added a new anti-retaliation policy. So that's just cleaning up that one. On the use of force, compressed air launcher system, that is for the pepper bullet guns that we've acquired and cleaned up the language on how and when they can be used. Inmate access to courts and counsel. It's putting it in their hands to mark that legal mail is legal mail. It's their responsibility. And then for our pro se inmates, how they can access discovery from the prosecutor's office or get discovery to the prosecutor's office. Um, on the grievance section, it's, uh, updating the, the, uh, clarifying the calendar days, um, for how long they have to grieve things. And then, um, cleaning up the, uh, process for the appeals of who, who they appeal to and the process that goes on, that goes on. Um, and then for inmate voting, we have just. when they can, how they access voting, how they can request ballots and things like that. And then the last two, we have inmates with disabilities. That is a new policy completely that puts us in compliance with federal law on American with Disabilities Act. It has to do with training, housing, all of those things. And then the last one is probably the biggest update is And really, it's cleaning up a lot of language on what can be sent in, how they have to address things, what is contraband, things like that. And then it adds in a new section on e-messaging for the tablets that we had not previously used. HAB-Jacques Juilland, it's kind of a quick down and dirty brief of what all that is.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, You know that's a lot. HAB-Jacques Juilland, And we talked about the last time, if this is the process you'd like us to on the game for the board on handling policy updates just get it to you guys and get it to everybody about two weeks at a time and come brief or questions.

Double question. Can you just remind me, I know you've explained this before, but what Lexapol is and where these changes come from, like best practices? Just refresh.

Yeah, Lexapol is a company we contract with as well as the Sheriff's Office. We started years ago when we were under the Sheriff's Office. Just basically, it's too big of a process for each agency to take on their own policy. So they create one of the standards in the industry for policy, not only for law enforcement corrections and fire departments. And they basically scour legal updates. And then we get those updates. They propose most of the updates. And then we sometimes make small grammar changes or operational changes just to personalize it for our agency. A lot of it is all proposed by them. And then we just have to go through and see if it works for our facilities.

On the projectile, whatever the right word is, should a compressor launch when you just

Sure.

So we have not used it yet. Our policy has always had it in there, but we didn't have them. So since we acquired them, we updated it. And really what it does is it splits it into two different sections. We have direct impact, which is. You actually get hit with the pepper ball. It's used as an individual deterrent. And then we have what's called indirect. And that is used in a volley. So three or four pepper balls hitting a wall, dispersing the pepper inside the balls to basically direct people in a search for just area dispersal or area denial in a riot situation. This is kind of what that's used for.

Haven't had to.

Don't think we've ever used them in either one of the facilities.

That's for a kind of out of control.

Yeah, a module that was out of control, a riot situation. We train for it all the time. We have a response team. We have officers that train for those situations. Mostly the teams used for them are maybe cell extractions or moving inmates. But worst case scenario, we have a whole module taken over.

And it's sort of one of the intermediate type force options to help be able to tailor specific use of force to the situation, you know, to be able to resolve with the least amount of conflict or issue possible.

That's all I.

Any other question about policy?

I think we're good on that one.

Okay. And I'm here along with Lieutenant Jason Robinson. We were here in May, I believe, about two months ago, about work crew updates and about a lot of questions about if we're willing to bring work crew back, funding for work crew, total cost recovery for work crew. Lieutenant Robinson put out a survey to the majority, maybe about 20. I'll let Lieutenant Robinson talk about it.

We put out a survey for our primary stakeholders. Most of them were non-responsive or did not commit to services. The few that I did get, I did get a lot of clarifying questions, questions about why there was a rating increase, what that meant for us or the number of us. We were going to be able to guarantee a certain number of workers were approved. So in the end, we had a couple stakeholders agree, the fairgrounds agreed. August, August 25, September 25, for two crews, so to account for 50 days, the valley said that they would be interested in using our services. But for based upon a budget that they'd already set, so they'd already set a budget. So the budget that it would have been for a year long for crew services, but that rate, but the new rate would be considerably less days. And once that budget was used, there would be no use of our services. And then we had the litter crews who were obviously interested in them. But based upon the grant that we used for litter services, the grant limits the amount of money you can tap into it to the salary of the officer only. So that's going to be well below the $2,000 rate. It's more of a $500 rate because it's specifically outlined what you can spend that money on. So if we were to do litter for the solid waste, it would be much less than the $2,000 rate. So again, I talked to Aaron at the fairgrounds yesterday. They are still, and that's, most of our events that we usually help with have already come to Festus this weekend. So the biggest one is coming up soon, Anchor Pope soon, is the fair. So we were going to get some guidance from the board as far as if we were to look at proceeding with the fair, which would be, a five week commitment, and then a pre week also to get the crews back together and get everybody oriented. 16 creation. Sure.

Do you guys have a recommendation to the board as to what you'd suggest the support for work crew versus not? Obviously, we're not doing it right now. That was a program that was eliminated because of budget last year. I believe it's challenging, not only in terms of eligible inmates to be able to qualify for, and also challenging to ramp up and ramp down the program, right?

Yes.

Yeah. So...

I guess the recommendation from us is we talked a lot about, and I think a lot of the focus in our last meeting with the board was about the fair is internal service. It's another county department. And it's put in, I mean, it's been a big portion of running the fair was having a work crew. And so I think the impact, maybe we can rediscuss it next year. But if we can move forward, we do have enough inmates. We have two crews of inmates, not what we did years and years ago. basically total cost recovery for that time, for the most part, for the majority.

No longer hearing, but just two weeks.

And I don't know if we did a good job of explaining that last time or this time. We can't just bring a crew out. It's such a visible, it's so wide open. There's just a lot of potential for inmates running off and inmates getting into mischief. So we want to get the inmates. We need to pick them. We need to get the officers selected and pulled out of the bid again. And... So that's why we're asking, is it five weeks or six weeks, Jameson?

It's five weeks, but also have some lead-in time before we just take it. The fairgrounds is almost 100 acres. It's a big area to manage, especially with a brand new group and everybody not being practiced at this point. So we need a little bit of time to lead into that to be ready.

The fairs, every...

I believe last time we met, I think they were good. I think it's about $100,000, and I think that's what their budget for it was.

Correct. So we would need to find for that tester, there's going to be some internal costs that we're going to have to bear, or we're going to have to find some work for that week to do litter or something to get these crews out and give them practice. So the fairgrounds is not agreed to pay for the lead-in time.

Okay.

just for the time we're actually here. But we need to lead in time to be efficient. We just can't show up on Monday, the first day of the fair, with it untested everything.

Did WhoFest lose their P&Q response to the survey?

P&Q, I got nothing. WhoFest, yes, but they were able to find labor considerably less than what we did. Really, the feedback that I got on the rating race, as far as the dollar amount, was trying to justify it was a high cost for low-skill labor. So when you start looking at a group per day, but you divide that into $2,000 a day, that's up to $30 to $40 per person per hour. So that unskilled, that's very expensive for unskilled labor. You have to pay for the convenience, you have to pay both the supervisor, but on a cursory level, it was hard to justify going from 385, which is five times to the $2,000 rate.

I'm sure this varies based on sort of the terrain or location of where you're doing the work, but how many officers or correctional officers does it take to operate a work crew? Even for the fair on a large area like that?

Yes, because we train them to work. We have image running forklifts, running cards, doing garbage. So basically they have a job assignment. The officer just does rounds. Okay. Typically in the past, we have extra staff on duty. We'll bring them down just to the South. We used to run night shift work down there. We used to run from basically five o'clock in the morning till midnight, but we don't have those resources anymore. So now we just do day shifts. So we just have a Our plan issue would be just to have two dayship crews down there for the whole duration. So it's obviously 10 straight days that you have these guys working down there. So one officer, but we haven't worked out to where the sergeant would be down there too. So that's an extra set of eyes being online. And just because of the fact that the fairgrounds is an atypical worksite because it's so big. So we've had to modify how we do things because we had seven Chris dollar versus two. We've had to modify that considerably. That'll manage that resource.

But I'm not sure if we got that on that condition was, you know, one officer for six to eight.

Okay. Transport to I mean, when they

They pick up their crew in the morning, and they bring them down there, and they work there all day. At the end of the day, they transport them back.

Okay. Just that the one correctional officer does that?

Yes, they have two crews, so you just double that. So the one crew takes his crew down, the second group takes their crew down. There's a lot of coordination on your resources. It really depends on how much resources you have, and a lot of it depends on... So pre-fair looks a lot different than fair versus what post-fair looks like. The types of activities you're doing are totally different. The goal, and again, we're not involved in as much in pre-fair. Typically, we would already be down there a month before the fair.

The fair is trying to be economical in how they're using their spending for questions.

So we're kind of coming in without the ability to help with that setup. So it's basically just managing the fair, a little bit of pre-fair, managing the fair, and a little bit of post-fair. Typically, historically, we were down there for much more time.

And the Valley's desire to kind of take advantage of their budget is kind of as needed, right? So that really only works if the whole program works on an ongoing basis. You can't kind of start it up and then shut it down whenever on demand like that.

That's a problem. 35 days, you're saying it's enough to keep this going.

They summarize. So the recognition of the to the board is established the work crew during the fairgrounds. The fair itself, the fair has enough budget to cover. the approximately five weeks of work that will be done, and then the pre- and post-number of days, the ramp-up and the ramp-down. There will be some additional internal costs, but you guys are also finding ways to live in your budget and identifying costs to reduce health sort of costs.

We are, and it's really the week before the ramp-down times.

So a net neutral impact to the budget for this year. There'll be an increase in some expenses, but an increase in revenues to offset that and still staying within your target.

Yeah, that one week. So that week, we need to go find work for that week, too. So until today, we haven't done that.

I appreciate you looking into it, but now it's Thanks for your time. I'm trying to figure it out.

We're in a minute.

Board members. Mike asked me to come over to be present, Commissioner Brooks and Commissioner Jordan, when you discussed the composition of the essential public facilities committee. And to remind the board,

Well, you're part of your life. Last time we got that.

And I have the need to add a lot of slide.

I think it's important if I could, Madam Chair, to kind of share with you why we need why it's a recommendation to have essential public facilities committee. The legislature mandated that cities and counties adopt an essential public facility process. And the process is applicable to an applicant who wants to cite an essential public facility. And under the process, the applicant has a lot of responsibilities. The applicant comes up with potentially 10 sites. The applicant performs a functional analysis. The applicant performs a qualitative analysis. The applicant performs a weighted analysis and then the applicant determines the ultimate site. Because the Board of County Commissioners in this case is the applicant, we are recommending that some functions be delegated to an essential public facilities committee. The committee will do the work with the assistance of staff And then the committee will make a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners on these various topics. For example, when Mr. Sfarber gets through coming up with potentially 10 sites, we're going to bring those to the Board and share what those sites are. Once we come up with the potentially 10 sites, then we turn the mat back over to the Essential Public Facilities Committee. And the committee comes up with what are called factors. And these are the factors which they use to determine which are the best sites, if you will. Once they come up with those factors, we publish the factors for the public to comment on. And then we make a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners of what these factors should be. So the Essential Public Facility Committee, if you will, board members, for all practical purposes, takes a lot of your responsibilities. They work them through for you, and then they make a recommendation on those to you to adopt. So I think, Mr. Sparberg, we're going to share with you the composition, not of the names necessarily, but the representatives who were on the prior Essential Public Facility Uh, committee that we had, and so Mike is going to mention that to you and then we're going to get the names. Once you give us the names, I prepare the resolution. We'll attach the names to the resolution because you're formally establishing the committee.

Okay, we have a list of the names right here and then just for purposes, the. Number one was the it from integras architecture who we were working with during the time for the project. Number two was from the public defender's office three prosecutors office for with Don Kuhn, who Bruce Russell took over for now, Carson has taken over for his role. And then some of them from the sheriff's office, then the jail commander john McGrath. And then Heather served as a project administrator, which Rebecca is doing now in her place. And then I was the project lead on. So really by type is what we're looking for. And I think that we can fill in the individual names as we go along, but we need to decide, you know, going forward, what roles we want or the types of roles we want for the competition of this committee. And then once we have that, uh we can begin our work but it's kind of right now it's kind of a point where we need to get that rolling and move forward on that so that's why i'm here today to kind of talk through some of that process and see how the board would like to address these so we've talked about the makeup a couple times in the facilities group um and so i think

ideas. I'm not vetted to it specifically, but it's my best attempt to try to capture feedback from that group. And so generally, basically it's county facilities, county jail, county prosecutor, county public defender, sheriff's office, city of Spokane, city of Spokane Valley, small cities, real estate or business representative, and system user representative. So that's just, that's a proposed some folks from the other jurisdictions in the most recent time I showed this just draft idea to the facilities committee the two additional comments that were made were one there was a request from the city to recognize that they have a different structure of government with a mayor elected and a city council so a request for an additional city seat and then there was just a comment that there's no judges So that's just, I just want to pass it on to the full board for ideas. But I think we could just hopefully coalesce and get it done soon so it can move forward.

Thank you. The composition of this is important because we need to have the staff available to do this. And it's pretty regular we meet on these. So when we're contemplating these names, I would to find people that are available all the time to do it.

So I think one of the things that we talked about when we were talking about this thing is trying to keep the group small enough so they can make a decision. So I didn't want to go beyond 10. So I was thinking the small cities, I mean, this is looking at a location. It's not looking at what's inside. It's not looking at any of that. It's just looking at the reality of what's the best location. And so I don't think we need to, there's other people that I think that need to be on it. It's like maybe the judges, because they are, it is a movie piece for them. I've heard that in other jurisdictions that, you know, it's how the location affects, if it's separate than, you know, you know, if it's going to be offsite, then here, how they get, you know, if they can get themselves there to a different location or not. So I think that is an important piece someone from the judges represented. And then number 10 was the other one that I, I think a system user, we've been very thoughtful in having system users be part of the whole process. But again, this is just a location. It's not any of that. And I think, you know, we're all going to be thinking about transportation, all of those things. So I don't feel like a system user on this committee is necessary. So the city has spoken wanting to, it's just, that's what I worry about with Mike is saying, you know, it's like, we need these people to be there to be available and hopefully they can communicate. Again, it's not, A facility is just a location, determinate location. So those are my thoughts. But I did feel like having a real estate business representative was new from last time, which would be worth to have, because I think they can help identify if there's potential other locations, sites. I mean, that's part of what this process does, is we put an ad in the paper seeking, correct, seeking anyone to come up with any other sites that could be available. But I think too, and we're getting who else that is to help represent the business community to know it's, nothing nefarious is going on in these discussions i think that's where um opening up just a little bit beyond the county so people know that it's not the county making the decision um but there's other thoughts that are going to be put in i would add to that um mr brooke is that here is um there is a lot

at this time. And so if there was a way that we could look at this as a clear representation of both of those, also from the court system, that would be a benefit too. So I don't know if that's possible or not, but it's something to consider. Rather than take it from the office. Someone has to be here all the time to do those type of things. And I know the prosecutor's office is equally as busy as coverage vendors, so there would just be one thing that I would add to that.

If there was a way to... Is there someone you can think of that it's... I don't know that there's somebody else within the Public Defender's Office or the Prosecutor's Office.

Or has the experience of both offices or you understand both offices. And I'm going to have to give that some thought. But when I was sitting here, I thought, it's not going to be one thing to consider, too. It's our ability.

Right.

But if it isn't, then it has to be a will be.

Yeah. And I think it's an important enough thing. And you just need to be timely in your meetings that they're purposeful. If you're going to have a meeting, make it count. Yeah. If they can't attend, then they're not part of giving the advice that they need. It's an important piece.

I would be good with the 10 plus two, but I totally get what you're saying. So I think the most important thing is just to make a decision, move it forward, get the committee meeting, and also be aware that there's a lot of public input built into that whole process with public notices and hearings. So I'll go with the will of the board, whatever that may be.

I agree with your original remarks, swapping small cities for judges, eliminating system user. I thought having a nine nice odd number, so there's no tie, I guess.

Why are there any other committees that have had ties on things? Oh, I'm sure they're elsewhere, maybe.

So, you know, I think your remarks were in line with what I was thinking would be a good idea as well.

For judges, Madam Chair, these are very tight superior court judges. Do you have a thought on that? Yeah.

Yeah. I, you know, it's probably not going to be a judge. I'll probably be like Ashley. Kind of who I was thinking, who understands the makeup and all that. I mean, cause cause yeah, you could get the clerk's office. I mean, you could, you could see where this could get expanded to a whole bunch and it's going to keep it kind of succinct.

We need the judges to say, to send someone to bring their, their will, their voice to the table. I'd leave it up to them on who that is. Because whoever it's going to be is going to carry what the judges are wanting.

Yes. The only one that we're missing from what we had before is the architect. I think an architect or a contractor should be maybe the 10th one because they're going to have that spatial ability just general. Again, for a location, we're not Is it going to, can they get the utilities. Can they this location to be big enough. Or small enough.

Would that be other than Yes, he's telling you. Would you recommend that and I think that

I don't know, because before you had Jerry Winkler, who is with ALC.

Or are you saying the county facilities representative would have that? Is that what you're saying?

He had that knowledge, though, to really be thinking through utilities, you know, just general size. Is it fillable? Is there issues with the You know, we're on the West Plains with the JLS, you know, the JLS stuff. You know, so that's where I wanted to be someone who can think, you know, just holistically on that. Because the real estate business person isn't going to be, I don't think, thinking that way. I'm just thinking construction, you know, is it, how constructible is it? Exactly. Okay.

So, Commissioner Brooks, looking at the list that Commissioner Jordan handed out, I eliminated small cities, number eight. I eliminated system user representative, number 10. I added 11 judges. I heard Superior Court, but I didn't hear District Court. And my question is, is it Superior Court or District Court?

I think we're going to go with Superior Court.

Superior Court, okay. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think just as long as we have one group of judges represented.

Understood. They can represent both groups. I understand completely. And then county facilities, we wanted a holistic person there because we're talking about electrical and those kinds of things that might be significant with regard to a site. Is that correct?

Yes. So which we would already have because that's the county design construction manager, which is Spokane County Facilities. I guess my question was, I wasn't saying it was how to be is, do we want to have someone from the construction industry? You know, like we have our hats before? Do we want to have that or not? I mean, it would be a volunteer position. It's not a paid position. I would just say something that to think about, because yeah, I'm not paying an architect to be on the committee. There's a protected I just, I just want to make sure, you know, and we can talk to our facilities person to improve their thinking throughout those things. So, you know, happy. I was noting that that was the one difference from the prior.

Yeah. And are we going to Madam chair as I look at these then I assume board members, that they're going to allow the entity to designate someone themselves. And the only person I see here is the real estate business representative. That would be someone the board would designate because I would, as I would understand it. Is that what your sense was, Commissioner Jordan?

Yeah, I think we could talk about that later.

Yeah.

And get a name from her. That would be fine. So that one will need a name. Exactly, yeah. We'll do that.

So Madam Chair, then at the board's direction, Mr. Sparber and I will take this, these designated, not individuals, representatives and put them in a form of a resolution. And then we'll probably have it on your agenda for the week of July would be, I'm looking at the clerk, 14th, Madam?

July 7th.

The 7th. Okay. Yeah. So be ready to go if that's.

Yeah. And we just need to make sure we get that name as well as I have a phone call with Judge Hazel today on another topic, survival atlas, to the topic as well and to see what his thoughts are.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Durham.

No decisions are made.

Final action will be on our legislative consent agenda.

Thank you. OK. That takes us to Miscellaneous Matters. So . So that meeting is coming up on Friday.

So if there's any objections to anything on the agenda,

And the agenda will go forward as it's printed. Then, Dr. Liu.

Thank you. Well, good morning. We had a short week last week. No proclamations for the board today. Last week, more inquiries about data centers As I'm sure you're aware, the city of Spokane voted in favor of a one-year moratorium. Questions about safe and healthy task force, the next steps, especially with the coordinating council. And then the upriver fires. So we assisted emergency management in helping them with the media and fielding questions and directions and all of that. So... One issue that I have for you or one opportunity is that Gill in facilities, thanks to approval, has purchased lights to light up the courthouse red, white, and blue for the 4th of July. And I was wondering what the will of the board would be about that, maybe July 1st through the 5th.

I love it. Thank you.

That's awesome.

And we already have lighting. It's just a disc.

It's simply a lens cover. And we can reuse these. So it was about $500.

They will be reused.

I just felt that we needed to be doing something before the 250th.

Yeah, so the first is a Wednesday. The fourth falls on Saturday.

Yes.

So yeah, if you did first through the fifth, or even longer.

Okay. So do I have three head nods?

No, no. You just have no disservice. Nobody is questioning it. Let the board know what we're planning to do.

All right. Well, thank you very much. I hope you've enjoyed some of the... historical highlights, the American Revolution A to Z. So on the Daily News List. Thank you.

It's been very fun. Thank you. Any other? No, thank you. Yeah, that's great.

Ready for executive session items?

Ready for executive session.

We have three this morning, one this afternoon. We'll redate this afternoon's end. This afternoon. First one is occupation 30 minutes pending and potential litigation under RCW . I, no action. Scott Simmons, Jeff McMorris, Matt Olson, Devin Kurta, Dan Gadd, Evald Haldim, Luke O'Bannon, Ethan Korkholm, Chief Hooper, and Mike Sparber. 30 minutes, no action. Second, far shorter, 10 minutes or less, pending and potential litigation, no action. Scott Simmons, Jeff McMorris, Matt Folsom, Devon Kurta, Jim Fabricio, Mike Sparber. And the final 10 minutes or less pending and potential litigation, no action. Scott Simmons, Jeff McMorris, Matt Folsom.

We're going to go into executive session for approximately 50 minutes. At the end of the 15 minutes, no action is anticipated. So we will adjourn for the morning and see everybody back.