Legislative Meeting - Regular Meeting

additional lawyers or can we necessarily pay for existing positions that being said shell's done an excellent job of working with the office of public defense we've been working with jim um and we found a way to use the money without doing that for example the axon contract was about 150 000 between the two offices uh we paid for up to 10 101 funds so it's not a county printer, there is some salary that is essentially grandfathered in, if I'm wrong, Michelle, from back 10 years ago. So we are moving positions around to fund those and have been since January 1, 2026. So there is 10-101 money that's paying for some salary benefits. It will continue to do so going forward. So essentially, we're going to try to spend on obviously all of the money that they're going to give to us. At this point, it looks like we're expected to just about do that. There's about $50,000 by my math yesterday. um that would be left over but i'm sure we can find a creative way to spend that as well so we will be convenient to do that and then at some point we get to full capacity we may be able to use that money for additional attorneys thank you everyone thank you

absolutely so next miscellaneous the 44 million cdd gr that came from um the federal government after the fighters we put on an rfq to get firms who have worked kind of in the national level to help with rehousing some of the people who have still not had their houses put back together post-fire. This would be to augment the work of long-term recovery groups that were found. And what you'll see on today's 2 p.m. consent is just accepting the proposals, or even just like nine proposals, because it's an RFQ, accepting the four firms that applied, that they are qualified, and we're asking for it to go straight to the two o'clock so the grants team can continue moving forward in conversation with them and start having some the process forward so you will see eventually if you approve the two o'clock today they'll start working with these groups and then you'll be able to I believe two of them are ranked higher than the other two that's not part of that committee but that's what I was told they'll work with those two groups and you'll see those come forward so that's just when we ask the fast track to

So do these firms, do they work on helping households like rebuild or helping them find temporary housing?

This is to put up permanent housing. Well, they would say they have large contracts with modular homes, forced and built. They can go either way. And the two firms have scored well are one, South Beach Water Hurricane. Experience coming in after the really large storm. scale, putting stuff back together. Once they work on contracts, and you'll see at that point, it's a year based on.

that's going to then take us to this morning good morning nice to have found that damned and relaxed

So I have a couple of limited access requests for the board today to consider. First one's Hallett Road on the West Plains, and this is at the West Bow Arrow Interchange, the Medical Lake Interchange. And this is kind of a remnant of before all the development happened road shown in red there that runs behind the petro and the couple of commercial businesses and it's not used it was essentially abandoned when they realigned hallett in front of the petro um and it's become a real nuisance they get people parking slash camping slash living there so they would like they've gated it at maybe the request and we allowed answer any questions. Next slide, please. The next one is basically up on the side of Mount Spokane. Laurel Road is the name of the road, a very windy mountainous dead end road. The folks that live along it also get a lot of people trespassing. We don't do a lot doesn't want it and again we would support that request it's been a challenge for them making a lot of people tripping through wanting to get up into the woods and go hunting and do whatever it's not good access for those types of activities there's better access points all around them haven't answered any questions okay uh next is a traffic This one is for an all or adding two stop signs. And this is up north of Green Bluff. And what it is, is we have, these roads are getting busier. There's more and more people dividing up property and moving out here, which is difficult for rural areas. But this has really bad sight distance. When you come up to the intersection, until you were almost out in the intersection, you cannot see. And currently it's not controlled at all. And we've had some close calls. I don't believe there's been bad accidents. But when our traffic engineer named Thompson went up and drove it, he was like, Yeah, this can stay this way, because they're 4035 mile an hour roads and people come up to them. Anyway, we just like to have that off the two stop signs being proposed around the lower volume roads and just better control that intersection. Any questions? All right.

Okay, Aaron's online. We are updating Scott as on a panel this morning. So we're going to bump Scott chest A2 not before 1030. So it's available. But in the meantime, we have Aaron.

Good morning.

Good morning.

I don't even know how I got this really cool background. But let's enjoy that. Okay.

It looks it looks like that's what I was thinking.

Yes. All right. Well, I'm here to brief you this morning on the 2026 fair admission and parking prices. Next slide, please. Just another reminder on our super cool concert entertainment lineup. Good buzz out there hearing from many people that, you know, they love to attend all three. So that makes us feel pretty good about what we put together and ticket sales are tracking well. Next slide. OK, rundown on pricing this year. All prices are the same this year for fair admission, except for the three that I've noted. But I'll just run through from the top. Adult tickets at the gate during the fair Monday through Thursday are fifteen dollars. adults at the gates friday through sunday are 17 seniors and youth 12 all days military at the gate all days twelve dollars uh children six and under always free And then we have our adult pre-season pricing, so discount tickets now until September 10th. Adult tickets are $11. And then our change this year are our senior, military, and our group rate, which we have increased from $8 to $9. Our group rate program is where you buy 20 or more tickets and you receive the dollar rate. So those are the three changes that I'm requesting approval on this afternoon. I did want to highlight, we will have some great promotional days as we always do. On Friday, 9-11 is Heroes Day. So first responders will get in free, and military, veterans, etc. 9-14 is Senior Day. So that's always a popular day. 9-15 will be Sensory Day and we've programmed a really exceptional day with less sound and lights and making it a unique positive experience for our guests on Sensory Day. 918 will be holding a food drive, so there will be a discount available if you bring items for donation to the gate on Friday. It will be for the first half of the day. More information coming out on that. And then we always wrap up the fair on 920 with our Coats for Kids coat drive. Any questions on the admission before I go to the next slide? Okay, next slide, Ron. The good news is parking prices will remain the same for the 2026 fair, uh, $10 all day per car per entry. And then on senior day, we will continue on with our $5 parking fee. I know that's a big hit on that day. People love that. Uh, something new this year, we will be accepting credit cards for parking. Next slide, please. I just wanted to highlight where tickets can be purchased. Always available at the fair office, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. or 8.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Online through Tickets West. Fees will apply. We have a great partnership with Wheatland Bank where we offer our carnival wristband package where you get a wristband voucher and an admission to the fair for $40. New this year, we've partnered with Yolks. All the Spokane area Yolks stores are selling a four pack of admission tickets for $40. So these discounts are available until September 10th. Next slide, please. Again, requesting that the board approves our 2026 fair admission rates on the two o'clock agenda today. Any questions?

Just kind of needing to kind of keep up with costs and all of that.

Yeah, we just have tried to maintain everything and try to keep it affordable and offer a couple of new options that are a great value. If you pick up that four pack of tickets at Yokes or, you know, promoting out just in general to buy ahead and, and you can save in a lot of different ways. Okay.

Great. Thank you, Erin.

Thank you. Have a great day.

Okay. You too.

Thanks.

Or just here.

Well, a short one. I was out last week, but I just want to let you know that a seven mile road, that partial closure, this is technically a city of Spokane project that they have a private contractor working on. uh calls have been coming in because it's in that that area where it's like it's a county is a city so um I've sent out a couple of news releases about that uh you may have some media attention this afternoon about the fare tickets and also the demolition and I'll be up in the crow's nest so I'll get downstairs as fast as I can if you have interview requests. Otherwise, things are progressing nicely with wayfinding. We have finally jumped through enough hoops with the companies. The frames are in and we're hoping that it will be ready for an unveiling in September. Charissa deserves kudos. for walking this thing through. It has been a tortured process. So other than that, any questions?

Well, I just did the FAIR. So I know we're going to make a decision on FAIR admission, any price changes that we just got the briefing on. Is there something informational that can be provided to the press about that with all the details of the days when there's discounts?

I can put that together.

I mean, Erin probably has it. I was just thinking if you had it, then we could just give it out to folks after we...

I'll make sure it's up on the dais for you.

Okay. Because there's, I mean, there's a, yes, there's a slight increase in a few that's being discussed, but I'm really happy to see all the days that there's discounts and the new form packs and things you can buy ahead of time that are going to save people a lot of money. Yeah. Anyway. I want to make sure we get all that information out if there's a question. Now, what demolition are we talking about?

I believe that's something Commissioner Kearns It's later on the agenda. is going to be presenting, but it did receive some mention this morning during the morning news. Oh, related to the fires. Yes. So thank you. Thank you.

Do you want me to jump to that? So yeah, it is item M on our briefing here. So during the Gray's and Oregon Road fire, one of the things that we did following that is we lowered the cost of demolition permits because following a fire to haul off those things, you're supposed to get a demolition permit. So we reduced the fees down. And so one of the things that Scott and I had discussed before he went on leave was that um trying to find a standard of sort of what would trigger this and we're thinking and i don't think this is spelled out in the resolution that this will be an ongoing trigger but maybe something we discuss is that if it gets if if a fire receives the fmag money which is um the fire management assistance grants from the feds that maybe that would be a triggering mechanism in the future to where we would lower uh demolition permit so that the resolution that will be in front of us this afternoon at two o'clock is to lower the fee down to twenty seven dollars and twelve cents which is the processing fee for it and that looks like there's a a six dollar and fifty cent state surcharge application fee that we have to charge so it would lower it down to whatever those two numbers added together are. So $33 and 62 cents. So that's. I do not. Yeah. More than that. That's the lowest we can bring it down to.

That makes good sense. Thanks for bringing the idea forward. TAB, Mark McIntyre:" That could be a future conversation about the standard, I say let's go over today.

TAB, yeah because we didn't click an emergency on this one, but the there was a federal declaration yeah we end up getting federal dollars. TAB, that's what's driving it.

TAB, yeah yeah it says the federal emergency management agency approved the governor's request for the F mag support so yeah. So yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. We have city staff. Okay.

That's, I mean, Chris, if I could go next to get our sound.

I did text Preston, you might want to come.

Oh, okay.

And sure. I'm not sure about the sheriff. I text them both just to see if they wanted to come. I heard back from Preston that you will try.

And then George is ready. Good morning. Good morning. Congratulations on a timely meeting.

Yeah, much, much heavier, but normal. So, yes.

So, uh, Brittany's here today to talk a little bit more about the home electrification appliance rebate program, uh, or known as HERE. This is a program through the Department of Commerce. So Brittany, do you want to talk about it?

All right. So just kind of a quick recap. This, like George said, this is a commerce program. We did have it this last go around, and I'll kind of get into a little bit more details about that in a minute. And so today I'm kind of just updating you. We did apply in February for another round of this funding. And we're kind of seeking your approval today to accept an award that we received from Commerce after that application, as well as entering into contract negotiations with both Commerce and with SNAP as our sub-specific importance funds. So quickly, just looking at the prior contract outcomes, this is this last contract that's already been spent down for a while now. Roughly 108 households served, three multifamily housing projects served, two businesses assisted. And that kind of just did a little breakdown by zip code if you are curious. It's a little hard to do it by district, so I just wanted to get some information out there for you. But happy to provide more if you want to reach out to me and we can talk further about those previous outcomes. So then the next slide. So this is looking at the new award and contract. So as I said, we applied in February. They were a little delayed on getting back to us with awards, but they did. We got a $630,000 award. So the period of performance is kind of unknown at the moment. Working into contract negotiations, I'll have more information on that. Originally, it was supposed to start in April, but just because of all the delayed announcements and things like that, that's not going to be the case. So just kind of looking at the general budget breakdown, you've got a 15% admin cap on this funding. So we're looking at that $94,500. Spokane County will take a small portion of that. SNAP will take the majority as our subrecipient because they have to do the majority of these things. And then looking at that equipment and installation cost down below. So then the scope of work just kind of overall what the program expects is to provide rebates and incentives for the purchase or installation of permanent or semi-permanent high efficiency electric equipment with a focus on low and moderate income households, renters, nonprofit organizations, and small businesses. These can serve adult family homes. Our contract cannot, as you have to specifically outline that when you apply. We did get one or two that inquired about it last year, but just not enough to kind of go through the administrative extras that we would need to in our contract for this year. And then the next slide. Looking forward, after we are able to enter into contract with commerce, we would have our sub recipient snap. They did last year's contract as well for us, and it was great. Went really well. They have great outreach in the community, as you know, and a lot of people have been used to working with them, and they have other programs that have similar qualifications. So it's really easy for them to get people through the program quickly and get those rebates and incentives out to the community. So very similar agreement to what they had before. A little less funding this round. So just kind of smaller numbers there that you see on the screen with their admin and the equipment. Still happy to get anything out to the community that we can. So just little tiny program updates that they have, nothing crazy. Like I think last year they did allow refrigerators with some exceptions and this year they don't and just kind of some smaller things to try to target more low-income individuals in certain census tracks and things like that. But again, nothing significant worth going into too much detail about. Again, their period of performance is to be determined right now. With us not knowing ours, we can't really tell SNAP what theirs is quite yet, but we'll work on that as we go through the negotiations. And then next steps, please go to the next slide. So looking into the next couple months after we get the submitted work plan to commerce and enter into those negotiations with a few little language tweaks and things like that. I'm hoping to get most of that done in July and then bring a resolution to you all to accept the award and authorize a DocuSign of the contract. They specifically go through DocuSign, so I know it's a little bit different than how we normally do our contracts. um so looking to bring that to you hopefully this month if not early august and then i'll also be working on a few administrative things like tribal consultation letters that we have to do for the program as well as i've been completing and drafting that con or that contract with snap hopefully in august that's my goal but we know how things go so we'll see see how that turns out and then looking at getting the program started as soon as we can i know there's a lot of people waiting on these um these assistance that it's not provides and so just trying to get things as possible and that's all i really have for you today if there's any questions i'm happy to answer them um can i

So when I think about a program like that, there are certain ways that an individual would be able to utilize. So whether they're on natural gas shifting to electricity, they have an existing electrical or electricity powered unit or device that is not high efficiency? Maybe an individual has an appliance that goes out, maybe breaks. Are any of those prioritized above the others when individuals are being chosen for this program?

Yeah, generally speaking, they are prioritizing those transfers from fossil fuels to electric. It's not to say there's plenty of people that were served this last round that did have just electric inefficient and then upgrading from there. So there's still plenty of people served with that, but college does have a bit more of a priority this round on that transfer. So we'll kind of work out the nitty-gritty of those details and how exactly that prioritization works, but that's mainly through SNAP's program and kind of our intake process. So if you'd like to discuss more, I can kind of figure that out with SNAP and bring some stuff back to you.

That's great. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Great. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you all.

Next up, we have friends from the City of Spokane who are going to join us. We have Amanda and Dawn here. Chris McKinney is our Homeless Programs Manager. And we're just going to give you the presentation that was provided to the Spokane City Council as well as the Spokane Regional Continuum of Care. So this is the results from our point-in-time count. Commissioner Kearns, I'm always mindful of you and the time between when the data becomes available and when you all hear it. So we're happy to have Maida and Dawn here to share these results with you all.

thanks george so very first thing anytime we talk about the pig count i'm always to say a big thank you to all of the partners all of the volunteers that helped make it possible we really couldn't do it without them it is a county-wide community-wide effort with the point in time count There are two populations that we look at every year. We look at the unsheltered count, those who spent the night in a place not meant for habitation, a car, a park, an abandoned building, and then those who spent the night in a shelter. So that is emergency shelter, that includes all of our year-round beds, any of the income of weather, the scattered sites, as well as any emergency declaration beds, as well as transitional housing. The PIT count this year was on January 27th, 2026. When we look at the PIT as well, there are major population groups that we break down into, one of them being adult and child. So it's an adult with someone under the age of 18. Everyone in the household is over the age of 18, adults only. Child only is everyone in the household is under the age of 18. You have parenting youth. So those 18 to 24 with children or under the age of 18 also with children. You have unaccompanied youth. So they're under the age of 18 or 18 to 24 by themselves. No one's in the household. And then we also have the veteran groups as well. And the chronically homeless. So those that have been homeless for at least 12 months or four times within a four month, sorry, four times within a 12 month period.

Next slide.

As I mentioned, from January 27th, 2026, this year we had 1,738 individuals, 1,500 households. The majority of the population were adults only, so we had 1,419 individuals. We had 92 households with children and just 17 child-only households. Now, all of these were sheltered. None of the kiddos were unsheltered. Next slide, please. Okay. Now, looking at a further breakdown, when we focused on shelter, we had 855 individuals in shelter and 240 of them in transitional housing, right? And transitional housing is a program that has intensive case management. It's one to two years with pre-identified units out in the community. In shelter, we had 183 unoccupied beds and 56 unoccupied beds in transitional housing. Amy Nunez, Now zooming in on to the unsheltered count that was 643 I will take a moment to point out that we had 121 individuals that reported being. Amy Nunez, In their vehicles, maybe on homelessness is obvious sometimes not as visible as other types so it's worth pointing that out as well, and then we had 70 individuals that were in in campus. Amy Nunez, Next slide please. As I mentioned, we have parenting youth categories, right? So that's a child with a child. We had nine parenting youths with nine kiddos, and then we had 136 unaccompanied youths. 17 of those were under the age of 18, but all of them were in shelter. We had 119 of them that were between the ages of 18 and 24. Now, when we look at our chronically homeless, we had about 590 across the board. The number between mercy shelter and unsheltered and chronically homeless is pretty close, and it was very similar last year too, so we have a fairly even distribution between the two. We had 640 individuals report serious mental illness, and 404 of them report substance use disorder. We have 139 survivors of domestic violence. Now, in the VET count, similar to several years now, we have a decrease in the number of veterans that we are seeing in the point-in-time count. There's a continued positive trend. For the first time, though, in two years, we did have a veteran household of adults and children, but they were sheltered. They were not on shelter. Next slide, please. Now, when we look at the demographic, similar to when we present the LSA or when we look at any other demographic breakdown, it's fairly similar in the sense that the majority of the individuals are white, male, and between the ages of 25 and 54. That remains the primary demographic breakdown. The bar, the second bar underneath, is a breakdown of those that selected Hispanic, if they selected something else, what additional race that they selected. now when we look at the historical trends we're seeing about a four percent decrease this year compared to last year it's a pretty consistent downward trend uh which is encouraging because that means it's sustainable right it would be concerned if there's an incredibly sharp drop um As I mentioned, this is for the entirety of the county. And as we can see, this year, we had a pretty good distribution. I mean, the last couple of years, we've done a lot of work to make sure it's not just in the primary urban and suburban core of the county. But throughout, we have several surveys for Northwest Deer Park, and then we had some further down in Cheney and then Erie Heights. So this is a positive trend that is continuing. That sort of call out bubble that you see is all of the surveys that happened. during the Spokane Connect event. So they were all localized downtown in that convention center. And we pulled that out so that you could see that those were specifically done at the time of the event.

Next slide, please.

Now, as we're assuming an event more here, we see the distribution more in the urban and suburban core of the county. Again, this year we see several out in the valley, which is good. That means we have partnerships and are able to count in different areas throughout the valley, so we're not missing that population. Next slide, please. Now HUD has specific questions that you're required to ask. Locally, you can always choose to ask additional, and the Pitt community this year did choose to ask two additional questions. One of them being if the individuals had a photo ID or a social security card. And we can see that the majority actually don't have either a photo ID or a Social Security card. The next question that we asked was if they were from Spokane County before experiencing this episode of homelessness. And actually, this was the first year that we asked it in both the sheltered and unsheltered, because in prior years, it had only been something that we'd ask in the unsheltered county. Next slide, please. So when we look at those that that they were from Spokane County before experiencing homelessness in both the sheltered and unsheltered, that's over 75% of the individuals who were from Spokane County. And then if they said that they were from outside of Washington, there was a subsequent question to ask if they were from Idaho. And then the 35 respondents that said that they, I think it might be actually 28, no? Okay. That said that they were from Idaho, most of them were from Northern Idaho. And then on the next slide, we'll see the trend that continues in the unsheltered, which is that the vast majority, so over 75%, continue to say that they were from Spokane before experiencing this episode of homelessness. And we had almost a 90% response rate on this question. So we're very, very high certainty on this number. Next slide, please.

Can you repeat that one more time? The 90% was responsiveness on Black group.

Responsiveness for unsheltered, yes. Thank you.

Next slide, please.

Now, when we look at the takeaways, it's really important to remember that this was a snapshot one day in January, six, seven months ago, right? The BIPOC individuals, although they don't, Like we said, the majority are white male between the ages of 25 and 54. When we do look at the BIPOC populations, they are overrepresented when we compare that to our census data. The document check question did let us know that there is room for improvement and strengthening our document readiness for those that are experiencing literal homelessness. And we do have some availability to increase the utilization of emergency shelter beds, as well as continue to expand those upstream housing solutions like homelessness prevention, which are incredibly successful in diverting people from entering the system. And across the point-in-time count, the LSA, the system performance measures, we are seeing continued trends of improvement, which is that consistency is important. We do still know that there is room and areas that we can continue to grow, but we are seeing improvement across the board in several different measures.

Okay, that's it.

So can you speak to what you mean by document readiness support? So like being there when people are trying to get folks housed.

um with important information or what do you mean it's it's why they added the social security and photo id question to the plan time okay because we folks can't get housed without those two documents um so that question was asked specifically to try and identify how how ready are folks to actually be able to engage in housing because even if they're ready personally uh no property manager can provide a lease without those funds so i identified a real gap in folks document readiness by way of the identification required for a lease or even a temporary housing opportunity.

And then I like these takeaways. Thank you. That's helpful. It's like, okay, five takeaways. So the utilization of the emergency shelter beds, is that a trend? So 200 beds were unused during this period that you were counting, and there could be lots of factors, but is that something that you see

there's hundreds of beds that aren't being used it seems like a large number no i think it's a little bit larger this year a decent number of those beds were in our youth and young adult shelter which has pretty low utilization continuously um although their last month actually was up Yeah, they were close to like 75% for children, which was a great thing. They've averaged as low as 35% some months in terms of utilization. So that's part of it is trying to get that youth and young adult population to really access. That's the 18 to 24-year-old shelter that VOA operates. Crosswalk, which is the under 18, has a better pronto and utilization rate. I think part of it was we had a warm winter. And so typically when we count in January, it's quite cold. People are more motivated potentially to access the shelter bed. We had much warmer temps this year, and so we saw even our inclement weather beds, we would activate them, but they were also utilized less than years prior. And we think it was the temperatures just did not stay very well for very long this winter. And folks may have been able to be outdoors where they prefer to be without the same consequences. But one of the things that we want to kind of look into and track more closely this year as we watch that utilization to figure out, is this a system problem? Is it a connection problem? Kind of what's the barrier?

And I know these are not your definitions, these are the federal definition, but why do they classify 18 as adult, but then you go down and then they have sort of 18 to 24 can classify as youth? Why don't they just put straight, if it's 18, you're adult? under 18, it's you. I mean, that seems like that gives sort of a gray area on some of the calculations.

It doesn't. It used to be different. Several years ago, HUD launched the Youth Demonstration Homelessness Program. Spokane's one of a handful of communities that receives that grant. And it was really intended to try and pilot some best practices where we know that 18-year-olds are typically pretty resistant in some places like House of Charity. It feels very unsafe. There's a vast age gap. If they're 18 and their average population is 24, And your length of homelessness usually looks quite different in those age gaps. And so really trying to create a space where people who had not been on the streets a long time and were younger had an opportunity to focus with peers and more quickly exit the system and a space with services more designed to their unique needs compared to kind of lumping them in with a really adult population. And it was a safety issue too, especially for young women who might be 20 and on the street. And it's a little bit unique. Not every community has that, and also at the State level in Washington. We are unique state level office of youth homelessness that also has done some specific carve out to that age group who historically to your point, sure, was once you turned eighteen. You were strictly an adult, and it created a lot of exposure challenges that they're trying to mitigate against by creating more protected spaces and an 18 year old could still go access event at ugm or hoc because they are technically also adults okay you can see that in both places still and then um

Can I ask how many supplemental questions did you ask that were local, not federally required questions? Two. Oh, two? Two. Okay. Okay. Because I know in years past, I think there's been like 20 or so questions that have been asked previous years. Yeah.

This year, it was just the document readiness. Just the two. Okay. And the where are you from question.

Okay.

Really because we see that the longer those questions get, the fewer people want to engage with us. Yes. It's a pretty invasive process. experience it anyway and and it's kind of i think it's not enough to speak for a minute but data-wise like we we have data on all these individuals in hmis because they're engaging in projects so it's kind of a an additional point of tell us about yourselves yeah and the more questions we've added in the past the less people are willing to complete the survey they might answer the first four or five questions and then they don't want to do anymore so we're trying to keep folks more engaged try and get better data quality of the questions we were asking uh instead of media over data quality with more questions.

Years ago, there was a question, I think it was worded something, it was, you know, where was your last, like, I think it was asking like for an address or like an exact location, where was your last permanent address before becoming homeless? And that broke it down actually to where the city, so we were able to see, you know, okay, the individual is homeless now, they were from, you know, They're from Washington, they're from Spokane County, but where from within Spokane County, whether it was a city of Spokane, Valley, unincorporated county, Liberty Lake, Airway Heights, like you're actually able to, with that question, find, you know, where was your last permanent address?

Yeah, I think it was a zip code that we asked folks to identify, and I think part of the It was evictions.

So that one specifically narrowed it down into evictions.

So I do remember the chart that you were talking about. Yeah, where were you evicted from? So Matt Anderson with Eastern Washington University, I think it was 2022.

It was one or two or three. It was the models, the way you were able to click and graphs would adjust. I mean, it was a stellar presentation. I remember it.

So that was specifically on eviction. And Matt Anderson's team, Dr. Anderson's team at the university, they did a lot of research with those zip codes. And then they overlaid county eviction data on top of it. And they went by neighborhoods. It was... incredibly impressive. There was another, we did publish another study this year with Matt Anderson's team as well, for 2025. And we're working on the 2026 one. I feel like that's a shameless blush to go look at that report. But it was a lot of work was done by the students at the universities.

It'd be cool if you could just email it to us and then we don't have to go look for it.

That would be great. Yeah, it's good. And the university is helping out every year.

oh okay just one last question about like trends um you have some trend data into the fact in 2019 um are you seeing any other trends i guess around the substance use specifically people who report that they have substance use disorder or mental health challenges how do you get the percentage of folks that are sheltered and unsheltered?

I would defer that question until the 2026 report from universities comes out, because that is something we want them to dig in to a little bit more. And they do more in-depth statistical analysis and just like the percentage that responded. So they do more like you're three times more likely to have reported this if you were in this or that. Similar to what they did in last year when they said if you were surveyed in Like the downtown core of spokane you were those two times more likely to have been from spokane county and then from outside of the county.

So I would I have a pretty good breakdown as a report from last year on the likeliness of self reporting some of those indicators, the one thing I would say to self report is right. When I allegedly like I wouldn't assess it's like they're. it's not a super reliable statistic in our minds in terms of how we design services. I would presume it's probably under-reported in the point-in-time count. Honestly, because people are being asked, do you think you have a problem, which is very different than what somebody else might think to be true of somebody's current state. But the report they did for the 25 and they're working on for the 26 does dive way deeper into that than what we submit to HUD in terms of just broad

Yeah, I was just wondering if some of the opioid investments that have been made by the city and the county and then the beds that we have at SARS that didn't exist in 2023 or 2024 for folks who need to detox and enter treatment. I was just wondering if that's made an impact at all. But it's probably hard. You really have to dig into the data.

Yeah, a lot of it's been identified, so it's hard to, but we probably have other data sources that would more accurately tell those trends and the point in time down and share some stuff with George and Chris as well.

Well, thank you for giving us information today.

Good morning.

We have two items to brief on this morning.

and the first item is on our rco nova trails program grant and i'm going to turn it right over to jonathan smith here thank you doug um so you all might remember that in 24 we applied for and received grant funding for uh the leased study out at the airway night tour park So we are here to give you a briefing on that and then seek some support in our next steps. We've been very, very successful with the NOVA program. In 28, we received funding from RCO for this program to develop a master plan for the ORV park. And then in 22, we received additional funding to do phase one of that master plan. That was $540,000. And now that brings us to we received the grant funding for the utility study that we are pursuing now. In putting together that grant, we sought information from different consultants to provide estimates on what a utility study would cost. Then when we received the grant funding, we went out and asked for proposals from county, civil, on-call roster, we realized, oh, well, this is not enough money to get this amount of work that we have in our scope. So I reduced the scope. I sent it back out to the consultants. They said, still not enough money. It's a little frustrating. So I went to RCO and they informed me, well, for this specific program, we don't provide any grant increases after it's reported. So they recommended that we close the grant agreement and just reapply in 2026. I asked them, will this have any effect on our ability to get grant funding in the future? He said, no, this does happen. So just this is what we recommend. There is a caveat there, and I'll get to that in a second. But I did want to tell you that at this point in the grant agreement in this project, uh we haven't requested any money from this from rco for this grant they have dispersed any monies or at a place where we really are at a at a balance and uh the utility study is necessary for implementing next steps in the uh development rv part the caveat in this is that A couple of days ago I received an email that vaguely, you know, from our grant manager that said, I told you that there's no additional funding for this program, but there might be actually additional funding for this program. So now we're here to tell you, hey, we might want to close this grant agreement. We want to get support for that. But at the same time, We might have some funding, extra funding coming in. And we had already uploaded this. We had already scheduled this briefing. So we thought we'll just tell you all the facts that we know and seek your support for closing the grant agreement. Or if we get more funding, then forget that we were ever here. So yeah. our support in those steps. And sorry, additional slides. I'm sorry, there's one additional slide. Next slide there. If you provide our support, we will work with the grants department to provide a formal letter to close the grant agreements. And if

So if they do additional funding, will they just amend this grant agreement or is it a separate grant agreement?

I really wish I could tell you that I have not been able to get a hold of our grant manager. I imagine our grant agreement. But I'm a little bit guessing because I haven't gotten any guidance from the CEO, except for a cryptic email.

It would be great if they want to provide additional funding.

Yeah, I agree. And if they don't, we do feel confident that if we reapply for the correct amount, based on what we've learned, that we would be very competitive in receiving what we need. So one way or another, we'll stick with it and hope to accomplish it. Any questions? thank you and the uh second item we've we've received quite a bit of input i guess the last couple weeks and under the park system where um scott simmons asked that i come and provide an update to you just on how the level of service um Our level of service is being received out in the field this year, and we are different than last year. So I thought I would start here just with kind of an update of where we're at and what our park services season and adjustments look like. And we're starting with the positive and the best right at the top there in Lowell. In 2025, we had an 18 week service season. And with your support, we were funded additional dollars that allowed us, we were looking at a 16-week season for 26. And instead, with your support, we're able to extend and increase from 18 up to 20 weeks this year. So we do have an extended season, which we're very appreciative of. And that has already been, I think, helpful out in the field. But we have in combination with that, though there are several strategies that we've employed to work within the budget. And we have those include a reduction in the number of cans that we're able to provide out in each park and the frequency of collection. I think Curt and team have tried to target weekends, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, as much as possible as the busiest days, and then it gets stretched during the week. And so that That has been implemented, and I think he's been able to absolutely meet what we've lined out there. Frequency of restroom cleanings has been reduced, and we have definitely had some feedback there. And again, a restroom cleaning can last 20 minutes. It can last three days. It really depends on the patron who used it last. And so we've had some very specific feedback on that and some incidences. The potable water drinking fountains. We have those at Liberty Lake and Plants Ferry only. There's been a fair amount of savings in time by not activating those, so we're asking folks to bring their own water outside of those areas. We have the portable picnic tables have been left in storage this year. That helps greatly improve efficiency of mowing and And the thought is it may reduce some of the trash generated. So where the tables aren't bolted down, we've not placed those out. The shelter rentals were limited to Bear Lake and Liberty Lake. And then we have electricity within certain shelters. We've not activated those. Those require quite a bit of maintenance to keep them live. and then the irrigation and curtain team have tried to reduce that a little bit more. So that's what we lined out to accomplish as kind of those minimums. Next slide, please. And we have, again, a schedule that's out there. There's just a summary of the last several years. So I'm very pleased to increase the service season. Next slide, please. And in response to a fair amount of input from the community, we have worked in coordination with our communications team. to update our website to improve visibility of the service reductions that are out there we've also issued a park alert that makes it much easier to find so if you were to visit our our home website for the parks department there's a note there front and center where it's really easy to follow the link and again up there on the right side is the information that we're trying to provide or that we've provided. The green in this case are links to learn more. Bill, the one will take you to the chart. Some other challenges that are contributing. We have some unanticipated FTE vacancies. You may recall as part of the plan budget, we eliminated one of the project manager positions was scheduled to be eliminated halfway through the year. They left three months in, which was very helpful to using those savings to help provide the care for the dog park that we um took back on um but we did not expect to lose our um project manager landscape architect too so that individual left for an outside opportunity and our park ranger retired on us um with very little notice so uh those folks are very helpful in whether it be with website and responding to inquiries um signage that sort of thing and the park ranger of course uh and i'll i'll hand out a put together a summary of a lot of the input we're getting um so we are in communications with the sheriff's department in fact we have another meeting tomorrow um we put both of those vacancies on hold pending the 2027 budget so that we can look at a long-term solution we We've already done some consolidations and we will look forward to visiting with you as part of the 27 budget process for or how we'll look to manage that in the year ahead. And we have tried to make a point of tracking the inquiries this year as they come into the admin office. So I have a summary of that. You've had sometimes it's phone calls. We've had some email traffic. I've included one copy of an email correspondence from a concerned citizen that you'll see it's they were not aware of the service reductions, but they managed to list virtually every single one, which and then to round that out, we had a really nice compliment. we do receive compliments. And so there's a nice email from a community member that has just had a very positive experience out in one of our conservation future sites and has seen our staff out there and appreciates the work that's being done. And it's very visible as well. And so I'm going to hand this out and there's a summary. And then that said, Curt and team have also received quite a few calls um at the operations division and his folks are on the field so i thought he might kind of speak to um just what he's seeing out there as it might relate to the summary of the comments yes we tend to get most our comments um in the field as

Citizens see our program working and they're a little more upfront, if you will, or honest as compared to a phone call or an inquiry. Again, we get a few comments, compliments, I should say, but the comments are very similar to what you're reading. Why, what happened to our drinking fountains? Why there's a mess in our restroom? Why is this restroom locked? We do our best to respond and or address the issue or the complaint at the time in the best way we can. I think the summary sheet pretty much explains what we're hearing as a department-wide. Just in the field, it's a little, well, the delivery is a little different, maybe less tact.

So at the beginning of the season, I know we've put out information about the parks, they're opening. Did we communicate about the service reductions clearly? Maybe we missed that.

No, we did not call attention to the service reductions. We certainly provided a link where folks could find their way, but we did not call attention to the service reductions.

We need to leave with that. I mean, the positive news is the longer season, but maybe having that information at least around, I know I would want to know if I need to bring water or different things, just, you know, it's hard for what everybody has.

Yes. We're trying very hard to do that in an actual way, just in an informative way. way. So ultimately, I mean, the bottom line is the team really is doing a good job out there. If you're familiar with these, they are, they are deliberate and I spend a fair amount of time out in the parks and or what they're doing there, they're doing it well. And I think it can be challenging for the staff. As Kurt said, some of the direct feedback in the field is more sometimes direct and suggest that the staff isn't doing their job and what they should be doing and we do our best to explain. No, really, we are. And if you look out there, they look pretty darn good for the work that's being done. Other than these areas where we know we're not delivering the way that we have, The parks look pretty good and we've I think in some ways been really surprised to see just how frequently a lot of the picnic shelters are being used, even though. They are not picnic tables under a lot of people are bringing their tapes they're having their gatherings and. hurts team is utilizing the the efficiencies to be able to. go more park with fewer people in a fewer amount of time so but at any rate we wanted to relay um just what what we're experiencing and the pros the cons and um we're looking forward to 2027 and maybe things will look a little different

I want to look at this as a positive. How many people do you think have visited our park so far this year?

Oh, gosh. A million? Over a million. Pushing two million.

And 27 people have complained. That's pretty damn good. I think we got a pretty good parks department, if you ask me. Over a million people have visited parks and only 27 complaints. That is a fraction of a fraction of people that had an unpleasant experience. So I think things are going pretty well.

There you go. I want to go out on that note. And again, they really are working hard. We feel pretty good about what we're doing out there. Very good, I think, about what's being delivered out there. And yeah, they get to it. It may not be as quick as we would like, but we're getting there. They're getting there.

Just a quick question. Is it possible, and you're the operations tour, when people are saying, well, there's just a couple of garbage, is it, since you're going to the one spot to empty two garbage cans, is it possible to put more? Or is it just, does that just draw more? Is that just not operationally possible?

The reason for the reduction of quantity was we can get around the facility faster. So we're visiting the sites less Um, and when you visit them less, there's more garbage, obviously. So, if they can, if it's consolidated, the idea was that it's consolidated and fewer locations. We're only visiting fewer locations and we can skedaddle to the next. Park in order to make our rounds across the county and. And the working day there have been. properties though that we've went back and added additional because it was just over some of the water sites are in fact overwhelming and continue to be those are our hot spots we visit those four or five times a week but we have we have adjusted on the fly as needed a couple locations yes thanks for all you do she is welcome thank you thank you she appreciated all you're doing and yeah thank you

Karen Hollweg, You know if it was. Karen Hollweg, We have more complaints and. So I mean. John Kane, we're.

John Kane, Most folks are are are understanding and. John Kane, Go for that. Thanks very much.

Great.

John Kane, yeah Thank you very much.

It was going to be 1030, but I just was seeing if he. um.

yeah I Preston's kind of the meeting so good.

that are happening with the safety and health planning team and facility meeting. Do we want to talk about EPF committee at all? Or it's not on the agenda for today to vote on those individuals. So we could save that for next week.

No, we can still look at it.

Sure. Mike Sparber was tasked to reach out to the owner's rep regarding the architect position. So Mike, do you have any update on that? Just checking in.

yeah I just talked to him he's got one more clearance that he's got to do but he said he's in so it looks like he'll be able to fulfill that role for us okay great and then the other seat was real estate do you have a thought on that yeah so I think you talked to Emily with downtown partnership some thoughts were went from Cole's family um you know because they've got real estate outside the area, as well as downtown. And otherwise.

She had given us some construction names, too.

Yeah.

What was Walker Construction? One was about.

This is. Yeah. So. So you're still investigating those and. Knowing. some people from downtown were not happy running it downtown.

I was just thinking, do we want to appoint individuals who have a bias against the current location?

There's pros and cons to it. Sometimes it lets them know that there's not other locations.

Education.

I think that's the thought. So I'm going to be reaching out today to HAB-Juliette Boone, Betsy calls to see if there's somebody she would like to or someone else that she would like. HAB-Juliette Boone, To. HAB-Juliette Boone, The other because I think with them having property outside but they're going to know kind of the area, but they also will know. HAB-Juliette Boone, There one person on the committee to understand why, but what the purpose is and and all of that so.

The other thing to just share on the epf committee is I was a planning team media. I think it was Friday last week. That'd be great, Chrissy. Yes, I heard from Gsi Dsp and waters me that the board decided not to include a lived experience or system user perspective, and they continue to suggest that that be done as a good trust building measure. So I was asked to pass that along because it continues to be something the group feels it may have a resolution.

So, Mike, with MacArthur, there was discussions that there's public outreach that goes along with the EPF committee.

Is that correct? Yeah. And there's heavily I mean, the process heavily informs the community about what's going on. And there's reoccurring meetings along with a website that we've set up for it.

So is there a way for us to have a couple of people kind of head up maybe one of those public comment sessions to to help help with that so maybe um I know as they wanted someone with lived experience um I think it's it's to me it's like it's there's there's a balance between lived experience and and people on the other side of that as we know from courts um and so um we can talk about that later but you know having two people and then have maybe been on a team uh co-host one of the public sessions

Okay. Yeah, we could certainly talk around that. And I see that Jim's in the room, too. So that's something we can definitely try to put together. And I know that Clarissa is going to also be involved. So we'll look for those opportunities, Commissioners, to maybe help them then.

Because I think if we did something like that and specifically tasked those two people with getting the public comment, I think that could provide a better public comment if they got their groups to attend and and provide comment to to what the committee's doing so that's that's my compromise is coming up with a way to to get them to uh be part of the help lead one of the public comment uh areas yeah i don't i i think that we could definitely do something with that and then we can talk with um

bring forward is you know to participate in those meetings so we'll come up with something thank you yeah let's talk later okay you got it thank you further updates um at the last facilities work group meeting mr brooks and i kind of passed along to this group of elected officials the gave us I think last week, right?

I'm losing track of all time.

So just kind of laid out what those potential, you know, the current and potential new revenue streams are. That was well received. So thanks to the budget team for putting that together. I think it's been has been kind of a surprise to the group that the two tenths laid out clearly uh and so uh that's one thing that's been happening is just kind of a dialogue around what those options are uh based on our past conversation and Commissioner Brooks and Commissioner Waldrop visiting San Antonio right there's been increasing conversation about safe and healthy investments, what would be a potential phase one investment on the facility side? So this idea of an intake and assessment center has been talked about in the past week or two. It could do a lot of things. I could let either of you flesh that out. type hearing. It could have some medical services space beyond what we have now, which is very limited, some mental health beds. It could provide a kind of immediate connection to services for those kind of coming to the jail, and it could be kind of built to grow for the future as well. So that's been talked about so uh at the next facilities group meeting next week the idea is to really dive into that in more detail it is important to really flesh out what that looks like operationally what's required to staff it how do people get kind of uh directed through the different doors so to speak of like oh this is a person who just given us a release plan connected with services so that is important because even San Antonio's has some challenges around bottlenecks in their new intake Center we still have that book and release Center it's different is there is there any way that could be incorporated in along these lines I mean we I mean because this is similar to what happened in Montgomery County but it's just

we were trying to do was much smaller because we had limited dollars um and so i think it's just using that and playing upon it um i i don't think we could use that because you don't you don't have a whole sally port i mean part of the problem is you i mean to do it right you gotta have a really good sally port that brings everybody in you've got enough room our

I just wasn't sure if there's a way we could utilize that.

You'd still bring everybody in through that center.

Okay. There has been some discussion, the city's been very interested

take the time and there's their way to because it's not connected but we did pay to have like the I mean that's it it's a fully enclosed fenced off walkway from one to the other but you know I I don't know it has been that means there's a question and the city especially has been wondering what could be done in the interim so we could talk about that in the facility

that that really helped the system flow more efficiently, but also the critical piece that I've talked with Judge Hazel about is making sure to the maximum extent possible that when anybody is leaving the jail, whether it's for reentry or release, that they've got a strong plan, that the courts have weighed in on that, that there's a strong connection with service providers, let go into the street, so to speak, but it's being kind of connected to the maximum extent we can. That's very important for a variety of reasons, including to the business community here. So that's been kind of an emerging theme of discussion has been kind of the idea of phasing and is the intake center a viable option

you know task in that one so let me see what's never has to say it's barber yeah just to follow up I had a long conversation yesterday with Carter globally and we talked about the Bexar County San Antonio's model so they they're familiar with that they also have a model that they're looking at is out of Houston and one other one that I can't recall right now so In that report, it will include the things that you asked Commissioner Brooks and Jordan on that particular area. And as far as the intake and release center that we have right now, the challenge is staffing. We would only be able to staff it like we did before, which is during the day hours. So we certainly need to flesh the idea out. But it was a real challenge last time coming up with the staffing they would need for 24 hours. And so happy to have those conversations with the facility group.

But I think that when we look at scale of a bigger intake center, it actually is it's surprising that it's much less staffing than you think, where I think our scale here on a smaller one is probably about the same amount of staffing as what a bigger center takes.

And additionally, they could be doing other duties, Commissioner Brooks. You see what I'm saying? a bigger booking model and I apologize, Chris, I'm looking through my files for the one that we had last time. I think it's in the iterations, but let me go back through it and I'll send you guys a revised copy of that part of it. But it makes more sense rather than having it bifurcated like it is right now to have it in one area and then those staff can also be utilized for other duties in the meanwhile.

I just asked Mike to kind of go back through the past iterations and designs that have been done to see if there's any lessons or previous designs that could be pulled out to inform on the discussion now, because all of those had dollar amounts tied to them too. And then I think Mike is Carter globally. Part of what they'll do is to try to give us a rough understanding of cost. Is that correct?

Yeah, they'll give us a rough order of magnitude of what, you know, in today's cost. And they too have all those iterations, commissioners, to evaluate, you know, and all of them various dollars throughout the years, how much they cost. But really what they're looking for and what I really focused them on yesterday was this concept of it being more of a triage center. You know, when they're coming in and they're trying to, determine is there an opportunity to change the trajectory and have them head off for you know, either diversion or for treatment for mental health or behavioral issues that go along with that. And then the concepts that they have is that infirmary that has MAP, you know, MAP programs that are attached to it. So there's a lot of good benefits around what they're exploring. So yes, the short answer is they're going to give us some scenarios based on today's dollars on what it looks like.

I can't say everybody, but my sense is there's a strong feeling among many of the stakeholders to continue driving towards and drafting ideas for what that could look like um there was a group that i think mike and and perhaps the sheriff are going to be involved in around high utilizers and then there was another one kind of around data sharing and so those are kind of early candidates that if we could develop some initiatives that we could expand what's already being done in those that will be obviously those are decisions that come back to the board but it's trying to be vetted through this inter-jurisdictional group to see if there can be some level of consensus developed beforehand and then the other idea that came out of the last one was to see if we could designate a communications point from the last meeting we have another planning team next week so those groups will then come back and say you know here's what we came up with on a coordinating council idea what do people think is this ready to come for a larger public conversation a couple other ideas

So you touched on, you shared the different revenue streams that are out there, and there was that discussion with the group. The two-tenths that you talked about, folks were surprised at what the value of two-tenths is now compared to what it was a couple years ago. I mean, that's the one that has a deadline here on if we're going to move on that this year. Is there discussion around that? Is sort of consensus of the group that that will be a future year? rather than this year now? My assessment is it's still a discussion with nothing ruled out yet. Okay.

That's my assessment.

I think it's the 14th of July.

Nobody wants to say it's over. Okay. But also, I mean, I think people are I mean, I think we've got to have the discussion. Are we going to go for the two tents? Are we going to go for a levy lid lift and actually get enough money HAB-Juliette Boone, To do what we need to do, but we kind of I mean the problem is is we don't know kind of the cost of of things yet I know in San Antonio when they built it they started construction 2016 it was opened in 2018 their intake facility, it was 32 million so. I'm assuming double that at this point in time because of cost since then. But that's a lot less expensive than a $300 million facility. So until we get more information, I think we're trying to get there, but we don't have all the information we need to make that decision yet. So we're seeing if we can get that information as quickly as possible. And we can always do a special meeting if we need to.

A couple more things just to put on the radar for thoughts is to your point, Commissioner Brooks, about the public engagement piece. That was a big theme also from the last planning team meeting is that seems likely to be there's going to need to be a valid measure to fund to make the safe and healthy plan successful. I think the question is when and what does that look like? So regardless of when, So that's one. And Mike talked about the ability to unify the MacArthur funded community outreach we're already doing with this safe and healthy effort. And so when, as I talked about before, is our consultant on that. She's very happy to help. So the group was very positive on trying to not just duplicate and have kind of public engagement over here and safe and healthy over here, but try to bring those things together. So that was one theme.

And I feel like the EPF process as well. I mean, to me, it's all one and the same. And so how do we combine it so we're not, because as we know, it's not always easy to get public engagement. And so if the more that we combine to try to make that all happen and have all the discussions at once with people. And I think kind of have that lived experience and the victim side be the ones leading or helping get people there. And it could be a positive thing.

as part of an evaluation of what dollars could be brought to bear so there's a possibility of maybe having our budget teams get together or having some outside analysts come in and look at the options so opioid dollars just being an example of that we know for just as an illustrative example that we had allocated some funds to the health district that are no

recommendations as we continue to work on the bigger picture plan so that's a lot i've just thrown at you i just want to make sure to share information yes sir just discussions not anything that we're set set on again i keep reiterating that the county is kind of the bookends people come into our facility and they leave our facility they go back to their cities. And so we've got to have the cities be thinking about how they're looking at it. But it's just not the county that can provide all this funding.

You've mentioned several times it's, you know, if we were to do a ballot measure, the dollars that the county receives would go to the facilities, then we're going to need interlocal agreements with the cities if they want to fund the services, the programming within the facility. And TAB, Mark McIntyre:" That would probably benefit us more to have those types of agreements in place before availability passes or others right after so yeah yeah.

TAB, I mean I mean we don't want to say we're not going to have it put it on the ballot November but. John Kane, We also I think the reality we're all coming down the reality that there's just no way to do it. John Kane, But you can can we can we do it in a manner that if we don't put something on the ballot November that then we're committing to putting something on the ballot, you know because we can't do it again till next August.

John Kane, For. John Kane, August and November, the only two. John Kane, Yes, they can't right.

John Kane, All right, but then you know if we do that we've got to be able to show the Community. and the public that we're doing things in the meantime to engage and getting that positive feedback out there, communication out there to show these steps that we are continuing to do as to why we need to have people support that ballot measure. We don't want to put it on the ballot in November and have it fail because we don't have everything quite planned. But I think we're getting a path and being able to say, these are the things that we do need to have happen. And then positive things are happening. I mean, path's a little bit before that. Just things that we can show that we are investing, we are making a difference, but we still need something to happen.

There's just a real sense of momentum, I think, in the group right now. So regardless of timing of ballot measures, I think there's a real prospect of injustice-related activities. And I'll give an example. If we could, maybe we could give some thought to designating that kind of communications point person. I don't know if that's kind of but the city put out a press release last week on the expansion of their behavioral response unit within the fire department. Well, it was mentioned that it was funded by the county, but it was low in press releases. So my point is, though, that if we had a group, if we had a designated person to say, hey, if we're going to share information about a safety and health investment that's kind of in line with this topic, let's be in touch about how to do that together. John Kane, Or if if some initiatives roll out of these subgroups we could announce that and communicate it in a more coordinated fashion.

John Kane, I think I mean mark balloons are only person at this point in time, so sitting back here. John Kane, So either they stay stay aware of martha Lou and we'll stay in touch certainly. so that'd be a good idea because they've asked for a bar do i i can respond and say martha louis yes okay very good she'll be the contact person yes and if she needs help she can talk to them i mean i mean because this is where if you need help with that barcelona you could talk to the prosecutor's office or the sheriff's office and see if they can help you with that as well so i know both of their pios very well so that's good That'll be great. Hey, I know Scott Chesney's on. So Scott, let's get to you. Scott?

Oh, there you go. Good morning. Thank you for your flexibility on timing today. What we're asking for your guidance on is there's a potential grant or there is a grant being offered by Commerce for up to $75,000 to help jurisdictions improve their permitting process. There's a total pool of $475,000. It's a competitive grant. There are a lot of places interested in this, so there may be an award somewhat less than that. But the award is very flexible. It can be used for improved software. It can be used for training. A lot of opportunities or sort of unrestricted opportunities that would help us improve our permitting process. And so what...

Oh, Scott, you just muted yourself.

Scott, if you can hear us, I think you clicked the mute button.

They are hoping to unmute. I'm sorry. Thank you. Anyway, what we're looking for is there's an application date of July 31st, and we're simply looking for a consensus that we should go ahead and apply for this and see if we can use this to help our permitting improvement process.

Anything we can do to improve it would be greatly appreciated.

That's kind of what we thought, but we certainly wanted to touch base with you. And by the way, there's also no matching funds or no other obligation on the county's part to go forward. So if that's the case, we will prepare an application and we will get this started.

Can you please check in with Heather in the grants office so they're aware of everything also? Of course.

Of course. We'll do that and we'll get that started today. Thank you for your time. And again, thanks for your flexibility.

Okay. Thank you.

Now, I guess, Miss Lane is now on the last topic.

Preston just texted me. He said, feel free to indicate I'm committed to the success of the task force and hope to engage as much as possible to accomplish the mission. So that's for Preston. I just want to thank you again and the Sheriff and Commissioner Brooks for all the great engagement.

Yeah, I think it's important Preston's committed. I think the Sheriff's committed. We all know we still need um things a new booking facility i can do at a minimum so um great um okay any other miscellaneous items quite a few executive sessions okay let's let's go

Or executive session items today and one of those neighbors first period is pending and potential litigation under us know 4231 1001 I approximately 30 minutes again don't actually don't think Morris matt also occurred a Kyle to my father Michael. Louis Gratterton and Jasper Coulter. The second, 20 minutes, no action pending a potential litigated member of the same RCW. Jeff McMorris, Matt Folsom, Devin Kurta, Kyle Tuig, Ben Bradabout, Anthony Harper, Eric Messinger. The final two are pretty short, five minutes, no action, pending and potential litigation. Jeff McMorris, Matt Folsom, Devin Kurta, Jasper Coulter, Matt Zaricor. And pending and potential litigation, five minutes, no action. Jeff McMorris, Matt Folsom, Devin Kurta, Les Deco, Heather Arnold. No action, one hour total.

Okay, and closed session, shall we do that for a second?

Close session, seconded. That's probably our reality. I'd prefer this afternoon. I have a hard stop from the 12 o'clock to 2 o'clock. You don't have to do hard stops.

There's something going on.

He says jokingly.

I'll do just such.

Just under miscellaneous matters, Jeff McGorris, acting CEO, appointment. To the public development authority. I did. Did you guys discuss that when, before I got here, or we're good? Okay. And so what did we decide?

We're we decided to have Kyle to represent the county at both the Northeast and the West place.

Well, one thing I didn't bring up. I wasn't here. Al did ask for me to stay on. That's the R. Three. I didn't say that. You didn't say that?

Yes. I was waiting for him to come.

I asked. I said, was there discussion about who fills in on S3 archery? And you didn't say anything. Because all I knew about was NEPDA, which... You're good with NEPDA? No problem. Okay.

Yeah, and I'd much rather prefer... The nature of the conversations are different. I'd much rather prefer to have Jeff there than... Kyle not that I don't like Kyle uh you know I know his family going back to his grandmother uh but um just the nature of the conversations and because of who's sitting at the table from the city side I think Jeff would be much more effective okay I was I mean it's just temporary Brooke

TAB, that we need to make sure the resolution like that the resolution actually doesn't have things on it, the resolution says it can see see your acting CEO can employ based on board approval.

TAB, I would say let's let's just try to have the name.

Yes, it is. And just for the sake of flexibility, if it said, you know, the acting CEO and or his designee, it gives a little bit of flexibility in case, you know.

That could be the best way to put it.

Yeah.

I think that's how it's drafted. To provide the flexibility. Okay.

How long are the herbal palates?

three years monthly uh monthly for the board meetings and then activity-wise much more active than that i was just thinking about his time that's all it's from 7 38 30 and we provide breakfast got it anyway it doesn't conflict okay okay um

TAB, Then. TAB, Go into executive session for. TAB, Purposes as stated a total of an hour, which will get us up right. TAB, let's go. TAB, No action will be taken, so at the end of that executive these executive sessions, we will adjourn for the morning and everybody back to the two o'clock and then there will be a closed session at the two o'clock after the two o'clock.

with the general