Legislative Meeting - Regular Meeting

hey good morning everyone it is august 10th 2026 it is our nine o'clock strategic planning meeting for the board of spokane board of county commissioners let the record reflect that four of the commissioners are present commissioner kearns french jordan uh cute Brooks. And then Commissioner Waldrop is online, just joining us. So we do have a busy morning. We will be talking kind of all things fire this morning. So I just want to say to everybody. our hearts go out to all of you that are impacted. Thank you, Sheriff, for keeping everybody safe and for all the work that the first responders have done. We're happy that a lot of people were able to get back into their homes yesterday afternoon, knowing some people, you know, are not able to and most of those people that aren't able to have lost their homes. So Again, our hearts and prayers and thoughts are with them. And that's why we're here today so we can keep moving forward and try to do everything we can to help people that have been impacted. So with that, I'm going to start with Chandra and the sheriff to talk about the emergency management and what's going on there.

Good morning, everyone. I will defer to the sheriff if he had any opening comments or if you just want me to get into the data.

So let me just say a few things. I've got about 15, 20 minutes before I have to be in our next evacuation meeting with all the fire chiefs. Just to reiterate with the board, because I know you all have the opportunity to talk with citizens. You know, a lot of our citizens understand why the evacuation zones are what they are. But we do have a fair number of people who aren't very happy with the situation they're in. So I wanted to explain to you all directly and Please, in your conversations with people about why we're doing what we're doing, feel free to pass this information on. Obviously, we have collapsed the evacuation zones down to the areas directly affected by the fire. There are many seen and unseen and known and unknown hazards to people's health in these areas surrounding these burned and partially burned structures. The process that we're undertaking now is working with fire to make sure that there are no hot spots left into these places before we let the public back in, but also working with the EPA to identify the hazards that actually exist in these areas. And then after we identify what those are, how we begin mitigating those, and Chandra will probably talk a little bit more about that specific process. A couple of the areas that we're receiving some stress from our public is up in the Nine Mile area, particularly around the Charles Road closure. Just to be very clear and transparent with you as the board, While the area right on Charles Road is probably safe for us to open up, unfortunately, there's a lot of burnt structures in and around that area that would pose safety risks. And we frankly don't have enough manpower to keep the public out of those areas should we open up Charles Road. So I'm working with Chief Fincy very diligently to come up with a plan to get Charles Road open as soon as possible. But again, I am not inclined to let our general public into an area when I know there are hazards to their health and safety in there. So with that, and that'll be the method we're using to open up all these areas as we determine what those hazards are. and how we get them mitigated and open up as many areas as we can. So with that, Chandra, well, I guess, does the board have any questions for me around that before I turn the time over to Chandra?

No, I think you're doing everything you can to keep everyone safe. So thank you. I have a question. No problem.

So thank you. Actually, can I? Sheriff, I know someone asked a question yesterday as far as numbers, whether it's houses or acres, or I mean, I don't know how it's calculated. What was the shift in the going from level three to level one? Whatever measurement you have, whether it's acres or houses or population, whatever, just to kind of put it into perspective of what that change was. Do you have any type of number?

I don't know what it went from to what it is now. What I do know now is we have about 1,500 residences right now that are inside level three evacuation areas. And again, some of the data that we use to determine when it's safe or how safe of a distance it is from a house that's burned, a house that's been burned or a house that's been partially burned, it can, for a lack of a better term, it can spread contaminants up to 200 feet And so, we're kind of using that kind of information to determine, okay, how close to these burn structures can we safely allow people in whose house may not be affected by this? And then, of course, you have the problem of these homes that are near burn structures, probably considerable smoke damage in them. They do, you know, some of the materials our homes are built of and our carpets and everything like that, they absorb some of these toxic chemicals that may have been introduced into the air. So, even though a house may look fine as people go back into them there are probably some dangers for them that you know they're going to have to start working on at least consider mitigating as well so right as it stands now we have about 1500 residences inside the affected areas in the in the level three zones right now thank you

Okay, so I have several different topic areas to cover with you. I'm going to go through them and for each one, I'll present you the information and then if you have specific questions about that specific topic, we'll address them. Just to touch on a little bit more detail of what the sheriff covered on our evacuation levels. Our fire crews are making significant process or progress in achieving containment on these fires. So the Autumn Lane fire is now 61% contained. And within the remaining level three evacuation zone, we have 53 single residences, home sites identified as remaining on the Autumn Lane fire. The old trails fire is now 43% contained and remaining within that footprint are 1,314 structures. More than 30 of those are multiple units. So whether they're duplexes or small apartments, more than 30 of them are multiple unit structures. The Fairview Fire is also at 43% contained and there are also 53 structures, homes, primary homes remaining in that footprint as well. Any questions on that? Okay, moving on to our Disaster Assistance Center. We've had tremendous foot traffic coming through the Disaster Assistance Center over the four days we have been open. We've had more than 1,500 individual visits. That's individuals, family units. But the foot traffic has been terrific. The assistance center will remain open through Wednesday. So we've extended operations through Wednesday of this week. We are coming up against the return to school, so we'll have conversations about maybe minimizing the footprint or things like that following Wednesday. But for now, it's remaining fully active through Wednesday. And STA is continuing to provide transportation assistance from the shelter areas to the DAC. And that will continue pending change in our shelter populations with the newly reduced evacuation levels. Any questions on the DAC?

Chandra, can you remind everybody what the hours are right now?

So we're operating 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Until Wednesday, you said? Through Wednesday, yes.

Thank you.

Okay. So update from the Red Cross and their activities. So we'll be evaluating the shelter levels, again, related to the reduced evacuation levels. Red Cross National has approved direct financial assistance through their program. So intake has begun by the Red Cross for that program for them. And that is direct financial assistance, meaning folks get a prepaid, I think it's a Visa card, but you know, however they do it. It's actual cash in hand for the impacted folks. So the Red Cross has started their intake on that. They are also coordinating personal protective equipment, PPE, and debris cleanup kits provisioned to the public. We have several sites around the impacted areas and the change to the access points. where folks can pick up PPE and clean up kits before they move into their neighborhood to return to their home. So that's available and that will continue for the next couple of days and we'll continue to evaluate the availability of those resources as well. Any questions on that piece?

Just where do they pick up those PPE kits if they want them?

So we have several locations and I can get those locations to you. Our PIO group is working on that and that's been pushed out through social media, but I can send that directly to you all so that you have it. But I think we have five different locations where that's available. Okay. The donations, oh, sorry. Okay.

So I've been working with Amazon and they've got a couple truckloads of PPDs and other supplies coming over. I've asked them to coordinate through Cody Werbach. with Fire District 3 because they were also going to send supplies for our frontline firefighters. Is there a better location to send those supplies to or is leaving that to Cody and coordinating that through the fire districts the best way to handle that?

That is actually my next topic, Commissioner, so excellent segue. So our donation center is now open. And so specific to the commissioner's question, if the supplies are for the general public, for our impacted population, those supplies should go to our donation center. And that is the old Sears store at the Northtown Mall. And so specific to the Amazon question, we do have access to a loading dock there. And so we can, if you have a contact person with Amazon, I can connect them to our donation center manager and they can coordinate that. We are preferring to receive donations 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. And as I said, they have a loading dock available there for big amounts and things like that. It's opening to the public, to our impacted population to come and pick up things. It's opening today at 1 p.m. And it will be open today, 1 p.m. through 8 p.m. and then going forward every day until we don't need it anymore. And again, our PIO shop has a map and an info page that's been created on that and that's been pushed out through social media. But again, I will add that to a packet for you and send that all to you directly as well. Any questions on the Notation Center? Okay, seeing none, moving on to our Household Hazardous Materials Task Force. So this effort is part of our direct federal assistance that we received. That was our initial request, and we received the direct federal assistance for emergency protective measures. And so we now have FEMA EPA on-site, we're working and coordinating with ecology, you know, city and county solid waste folks, as well as Clean Air, State Department of Ecology and the Health District, because the Health District has a big piece of this and I'll get to that in just a second. So right now teams are on the ground and we're identifying staging areas And once that is done, they'll do the prep work for the staging areas. And then we'll see how we're able to get the actual work to start. So this is removal of household hazardous materials. And so that means teams from the EPA and their contractors go out into the burned home sites And they're specifically looking for hazardous materials. So that could be anything from household chemicals, paints. We're paying particular attention to lithium ion batteries. So whether that is your battery operated weed whacker, or you have an EV and you have a battery storage unit in your garage for your electric vehicle. Those are the types of things that they will be looking for and they will be removing. So this is the initial piece of the damage, or not the damage, but the debris removal process. This is not all caps, not asbestos. They are not doing asbestos testing. They are not doing asbestos removal. They're solely focused on household hazardous materials and the removal of those teams as they're on the property sites will also flag any other identified hazards they come across. just so that additional teams coming in after them to do other work are aware of those hazards. Our primary issue here is we are in the process of talking with Dr. V at the Health District to see if we can get a blanket right of entry which requires a statement from the health authority, and of course that's Dr. V, acknowledging the health risk that these materials present to the public. And so a blanket right of entry allows our task force to go into and work on the individual home sites. If we do not have the blanket right of entry supported by Dr. V, then we have to go down the line of getting individual right of entry permissions from each individual property owner. As you can imagine, with more than 600 destroyed properties, that will greatly increase the amount of time that this would take. It also creates challenges for our task force in that if we had the blanket ROE, we could organize the work in... in specific blocks. So we could do like an individual street or an individual cul-de-sac. That can be scheduled for a day and time so folks know when it's happening. But if we have to do the individual, then that becomes spotty because we can only go on the properties where we have actually received the right of entry from the individual property owner. We do have quite a number of properties. where the individual living on the property is not the property owner. They were a renter. And right of entry has to be signed by the property owner. So we would then have to track down who actually owns the property. And it's, yeah, it's a whole thing. So... As I said, we're working very closely with Dr. V and the EPA and Ecology to come to a decision on whether or not we're going to have the blanket right of entry or if we need to do the individual. Questions on that?

Is there a way to get a list of what is considered hazardous? Um, items that they're looking for. Just, I mean, people, people will be asking.

Sure. Yep. We can do that.

Okay. Thank you.

Anything else? Okay. Moving on to public information. Um, so up to this point, uh, we have been managing public information through our joint information system. We have been doing virtual coordination between our communicators with the PIO who is assigned to our Emergency Operations Center and then PIOs from our partner agencies and stakeholders. That has been accomplished virtually through emails and daily check-in calls. Given that we are now moving into recovery, the volume of information is going to increase dramatically here in the next week or so regarding testing and debris removal and recovery resources and all of that. So we are looking to stand up a physical JIC. a joint information center. We will operate that. It'll be a hybrid. So we will have some folks physically in a location and then other folks will be supporting virtually. So we're just in the beginning process of planning for that. So we have not yet decided on a location. I have a request out to some of my colleagues across the state looking for a qualified JIC manager. Simply because you're a PIO does not mean you're qualified to be a JIC manager. And so I'm looking for a qualified individual to come in and assist us with the management of that coordination effort. Any questions on that?

Shanner, do we have any estimate of time when that might be stood up?

Um, I'm hoping, I'm hoping to have it finalized and, and ready to go, um, by Thursday. So we're, that's kind of a priority, um, priority, uh, objective for us this week.

They have been meeting like there was, yeah. So, I mean, it's not, I mean, it's not that it hasn't been happening. As you said, Chandra, it's, you guys have been doing a good job and I listened in on the one yesterday. Um, so, I mean, I think you guys are, even though it's not an official JIC, you guys are coordinating really well to make sure that all the information is getting out to the people that need it.

Yes. Thank you, ma'am. So we're more to come on that one. And then finally, the big topic, where are we at currently for costs? I will remind you that we received FMAG declarations on all three of these fires. So that is the fire management assistance grant that covers emergency response activities. So we are still within the active incident period. So everything that we're doing right now still falls into that emergency response bucket, so to speak. And so The money we've spent so far will be routed through our FMAG declaration. That is a 75%, 25% cost share. The state is picking up 12.5% of the 25%. So the county's financial responsibility is going to be 12.5% of these costs. So right now we're at about $120,000 in costs. The largest portion of that is support services for the shelter and those types of items. This does not include operational overtime. We are tracking the overtime hours, but I don't have a number for you on that. But operational overtime is allowable under the FMAG. So we will be running those costs through the FMAG as well. I just don't have that number for you today. So the incident period will remain open until we have full containment of the fires. And then once that happens, then our FMAG incident period will close and we will then need to transition. Hopefully by that time, we'll have a good answer back on our presidential declaration request. And hopefully we'll be able to transition some of those costs on to public assistance if we receive our presidential declaration. Any questions on that?

So when does the presidential declaration do differently than getting the FMA?

So the presidential declaration, that is what opens up the public assistance dollars. So those are the recovery dollars for for our public entities. So whether that is road repairs that need to be made by county roads or whether it is impact to the parks or anything like that. And then the PA will also continue to support ongoing recovery work that we're managing through the Emergency Operations Center. And then Depending on if we get it or not, I hope, I am cautiously optimistic that we will receive individual assistance on this incident as well. And the individual assistance, those are the funds that go directly to our impacted households. So if you remember with our Oregon and Gray fires, when FEMA did eventually arrive, they were able to provide direct financial assistance to some of the impacted households, and that is through the Individual Assistance Program. So there's two sides to that. There's the private individual, and then there's the public assistance.

Okay, so we have to get the presidential declaration to start getting those.

Correct. So we're in the process of shoring up our damage assessment for that application. And that application will include us as well as five other counties. And there are three tribes, three tribal nations included in that ask as well. So that's why I'm cautiously optimistic because it is a fairly significant ask. um and so i'm hopeful that we'll have the the support of of um fema headquarters and the president thank you chandra does the i assume the fmag also can cover overtime for the fire districts it's not just the county correct correct correct did the f the fmag um supports um direct response costs through from the fire districts as well you're correct

And can that support communications efforts through the EOC in response to the fires?

What exactly do you mean? I'm not following.

We had an individual come to one of the press conferences who needed ASL sign language interpretation. And so my question is, can those dollars help provide for that interpretation and communications

Yes. So we have contracts with a company locally that does that. And so, yes, those costs can be rolled into our EOC costs. Yes.

Great. It'd be good to include that as much as we can. This individual was very concerned that they just weren't able to receive the information that was being shared. So I think that's important if we can pay for it out of these dollars.

Yep. Yep. No problem there. Any other questions? Okay, so that's all I have for you this morning. It was a lot, I know. So I will work on pulling together a packet for you of the various handouts and info pages that are going out and send that to you directly. Other than that, that's all I've got.

I just want to say thank you. I know you're working as hard as you can and you've been working tons of overtime yourself and it's been nonstop and I just want to make sure you take care of yourself.

Thank you. I appreciate that and I'm doing what I need to do. One more go back.

Just because there's so many people returning in close proximity to that people can access?

So the health district has, they've published kind of a one pager on that. I believe it's available on their website as well, but that's, as people go back, we're trying to amplify that information. And as I said, we're working very closely with Dr. V and his team to get out what folks need to, what they need to be prepared for, really.

Commissioner French has a question.

Chandra, for people that want to start to clean up the debris and stuff, Is the waste energy plant taking that debris or does it have to go to Graham?

So people cannot remove debris from their property until they have had the asbestos testing done. That's simply a requirement for fires. So because in order to remove the debris and determine where it can go, They have to have that testing result from their asbestos testing. So that's the first part of that. And that's one of the things that we're in conversation with Clean Air and EPA and everyone about. Because some folks have that covered in their insurance. Many do not. And if you remember, of course, from Oregon Gray, you know, that that can be significant expense for people. So we're we're trying to come up with a with a plan to. for how to help folks with that. Obviously there's nothing, we have no funding available at this point to be perfectly clear. There's no funding to support Um, you know, any, any type of, of assistance at this time. So that's going to be a conversation that I need you to have as, as our board of County commissioners. Um, you know, you guys need to have a conversation and, and decide, um, to what level the county has the ability to support and if that's something the county chooses to do. But that's an internal conversation I'm going to need you guys to have.

With regard to the asbestos testing, the challenge, and I think the Clean Air Agency talked about this last week, is that we're going to exceed the capacity of testing labs around the area to be able to get quick responses back. So there's a conversation about, you know, what could be set up as an interim to be able to turn these tests around so that people are not waiting months instead of weeks.

Correct. Um, so again, you know, hearkening back to, to our experience with Gray, Oregon, um, we worked with, we worked with our testing labs, um, to, to, um, expedite, uh, test materials to other labs around the country. So the, the labs here would receive it. They would, uh, overnight it to partner labs around the country and then they would do the tests and they would overnight the results back to the local labs. So I would assume that we'll end up doing something similar to support this particular response as well.

Chandra, I've heard that we got approval for like Part A, but not Part B.

Is that? Right. So our initial ask was for direct federal assistance. And if you think of what direct federal assistance is if you think that so we identify a problem on the ground and is there a federal department or federal agency that has the resources and the capability to address that problem for us then then that's what we do we put a request in and and they come and they and they take care of this problem for us and that's what's happening with the household hazardous materials removal. If you think of direct federal assistance, it's a service. It is a federal entity coming in and providing us a service. And so that's what's happening. We were approved for emergency protective measures under the direct federal assistance program. And so that's what I'm leveraging to bring in EPA to do the household hazardous waste removal, because that's considered emergency protective measures. And EPA is coming in and doing that for us as a service. So that's the distinction between direct federal assistance and then the individual assistance and public assistance provided through the presidential declaration. That's funding. Direct federal assistance is service. The other is funding.

So like the firefighters that are out at the fairgrounds, because that's directly from the feds, through the feds, correct?

So the IMT that is here managing our complex, they are here under a delegation of authority from the State Department of Natural Resources. So DNR is the agency administrator for the contract with the IMT. So the IMT is being paid by the state through DNR.

Okay. So they're, they're being taken care of through the state. So they're not part of our 75.

Correct. Correct.

Okay. And then, you know, I guess back to the asbestos, is there any way that the state can just do a blanket asbestos test? You know, just, I mean.

So the, um, I don't want to say no, but probably no. Where it's complicated because you're talking about property ownership and because the state cannot come in and provide services if the individual has access to resources themselves. So for the folks who have good insurance, the expectation is that people will always go through their insurance first. before they look for other resources. And so part of the intake that we're doing through the Red Cross and through the LTRG, of course, is determining what level of that insurance folks have, because that's a key criteria for a lot of recovery funding is what is your insurance status? And, you know, we did that through the Oregon Gray as well. But, yeah, the state doesn't have the capacity to do that. So we kind of have to figure that out as we go.

Okay. Thank you. Christopher, what about you?

I'm understanding on the EPA household hazardous waste removal, you're saying that that service is part of the approval that the federal government gave for the initial request for help?

Yes, that's being provided through our request for direct federal assistance.

And so from a homeowner's perspective, is that provided free of charge?

To the homeowners, yes. provided we have the right of entry to do it.

So that's one that would be regardless of insurance status.

Correct.

Well, hopefully we can get that moving quickly.

So, yeah, as I said, we're working closely with Dr. V and his team so that he... Ultimately, we want Dr. V to be comfortable making the statement supporting the blanket right of entry, but we'll be working on that today with him and his team to see if we can get there and get that blanket right of entry.

Chandra, I think there's five community meetings over the next four days in the evening. Are you going to be able to attend some of those?

I will be at the ones where I can, yes. I will try to be there.

Or if you're not, is someone with your knowledge going to be there?

Yes. So Sheriff will be there. And then if I'm unable to be there, we'll have one of my staff there.

Okay. Okay. I just, you, you've thrown a lot at us today. It's like, you know, more about this than anyone. And so just want to allow the public to tap into this as well, as much as possible.

Yeah, no understood.

And so can you state where those meetings are?

Um, I do not have the list, um, immediately in front of me. Um, but one there's, um,

Actually, Josh, he's got it. So maybe I'm going to have Josh read it.

Yeah, I can read them off. So tonight, Monday, is at Union Event Center. That's the old Meade Middle School at 12508 North Market Street. It's at 6 p.m. And that is primarily for the Fairview fire. Tuesday night, there are two events, one for the Old Trails Fire at Shadle Park High School at 6 p.m. and one for the Autumn Lane Fire in Stevens County at Lakeside High School, also at 6 o'clock. Wednesday night for the Autumn Lane fire at Meade High School at 6 o'clock and Thursday for the Old Trails fire again at Shadle Park High School at 6 o'clock.

Thank you.

Yep.

Okay, any other questions for Chandra at this time?

Just a quick question. You may have mentioned, Shannon, do you have any updates, even if not official, on the PDA, where that's at?

So folks, understand the acronym. PDA is Preliminary Damage Assessment. That's the data that we gather to support our request for the presidential declaration. It is in process. We have... FEMA actually developed a considerable amount of the data themselves prior to arriving. Our FEMA teams are on the ground with our state damage assessment teams. They're verifying the preliminary data. And I don't have a date yet from the state on when they anticipate pushing that forward, but I do know We have pushed out the requests for anticipated costs to our county agencies and the city. So the data collection is happening. I can check in with my state folks and get a better timeline and share that back out with you. But it is in process.

I think that'll be good because, you know, different... members of our federal delegation keep reaching out. And so I think as soon as we know that that's going to be moving forward, we want to be reaching out to them to make sure that we can show our support for that.

No, absolutely.

So, and just so people know, John Colton is at the end of the table, who's our federal representative contract lobbyist for the feds. So that's why he's here helping us guide us as well too, to make sure that we, um, can get to the federal designations that we need.

Yeah, terrific. Anything else I can do for you this minute?

I don't think so. I think you've got other things you've got to do too, so we should let you go. I knew you were on a time schedule, so we will let you go and hope for lots of good things to come in the future.

Thank you. I'll, I'll, I'll get everything out to you that I promised, and I will talk to you all later. Thank you.

Thank you, Chandra. That's a lot of information. I will say. So next we have Kyle Tewink talking about public works and what's happening there.

Absolutely. A lot of what we've been working on, Chandra already covered a little bit. Is Lindsay on? Can you bring her up? Just in case we want to get into the details on the solid waste side of things, that was kind of a big part of the initial gathering, kind of like with Oregon and Gray, getting all the regional solid waste providers and haulers together to make sure we have a coordinated response on that. And especially with clean air, the asbestos surveys being a big part of this. it really slows people down when they go to rebuild. If they don't have that asbestos survey certificate, they will not be able to get a building permit. So it needs to really be the first step. So trying to keep that information out for as many people as possible. The asbestos containing debris would have to go to Graham Road as where we would likely see the burn debris going as well. It's nice that we have a regional landfill actually. was evacuated as well but and Graham Road has confirmed they have capacity to handle what they're anticipating for the damage and the debris they anticipate on a structure loss about 20 to 30 yards of ash and then whatever brick and masonry is still left over as well per home So that's just kind of a general. The other one that is a part of this that we're going to start seeing a lot of is partially damaged structures and getting building inspectors out there and really making sure that both on the asbestos side and the building inspector side that people are getting certified firms that are uh and going through the lni site and checking we're already getting reports of out of town contractors coming up telling people sign right now or you'll never get a survey for a year and they're not a legitimate certified contractor people trying to use the urgency of the moment to make a buck, unfortunately. So. We saw Gray and Oregon Road, Tim. Yeah.

We didn't have a list of certified.

Yeah, it's on the Clean Air website. I just did a quick search. It's about 10 firms in town and many more that I think will probably be setting up shop here or sending crews over from Tri-Cities and maybe even the West Side. So there's a decent number of firms available.

There's a clean air agency at the center for people to go to.

I'm almost certain they were. I believe I saw them at a table, yeah.

Excuse me, is there a check sheet for all of this? Excuse me, ma'am, this is not a public meeting, so I can't take any questions. You can ask people questions as they leave.

So I've sent a few things to you and Jordan will be here later to talk a little bit more about the building permit side of things and a couple of fact sheets. On the sewer side from Public Works, we lost power to a couple of pump stations, but we had backup power Two of them were diesel generators and we were able to finagle our way in and keep those pumps running. One was on natural gas backup generator, which fortunately didn't get cut off by Avista. So we were fine. The city had some spills at a couple of their stations, especially in the midst of the fire, you know, a water line, you know, as things were breaking, but the water pressure is still there, water going down the sewer. So they had a couple of pump stations that got inundated with too much flow and and they did have a few spills on the city side of things uh but we've been good i i don't know that any of our lift stations uh damaged but we haven't been able to get in everywhere yet to check out uh kind of the same thing on the roadside it's uh We know it's going to be pretty extensive, particularly on the trees and guardrail. Don't anticipate a ton of actual road damage, but we have only as of the removal restrictions have we been able to go in there. So we've just kind of been respectfully standing pat and trying to stay out of the way.

Did we have any bridges that were impacted?

I don't know yet. So my bridge inspection team, I'm sure, will be out there, if not right now, because of the evacuation reductions. So we'll be checking that out to see what we could have on the bridge side. You know, The trees are always a little bit of a touchy one when they're right on the property line or its impact. It might fall into the roadway, but it is definitely a private tree. So we'll be working through a lot of that as well.

The other thing on trees, we still have hundreds of thousands of dollars not reimbursed. Looking at Heather from Oregon Gray, they want a certified arborist. to check every single tree, see whether it's under or over six inches in diameter and the longitude and latitude of every tree stump to get reimbursed by FEMA. And we're at $600,000, $700,000 that has yet to be reimbursed from the Oregon Gray. We were not aware of those restrictions. Heather's team went out afterwards and took pictures John Gerstle, On the picture you could find stumps measure lunch to latitude, but of course you can't go back and have an arborist beforehand we're hoping to get reimbursed from Oregon Gray. We were able to plead freshman ignorance. Obviously we're not freshmen to this again. So that's one thing, and it's a challenge. If the trees are impacting the roads right now, we need them down for safety, but just know we might not get reimbursed on the backside without going through what seemingly is a bit ridiculous of steps. So you're making sure it takes pictures.

Yeah, well, pictures and geotagging and measuring diameters and things like that. But the arborist pieces, we didn't know that on the front end on Oregon and Gray. And we've got to get roads open. So we will be working to get those assessments, get it rapidly. We do have on-call arborists we can reach out to. And theory, all of that will be reimbursed someday. We'll find out. If there are questions on, none of the structures lost in the county were on our sewer system. So they're all septic impacts. So they'll have to have that assessed and that'll go through the health district as well. Same thing with wells and going through ecology on that. Most of, obviously the sewer customers are all gonna be city of Spokane water and sewer. Um, there has been, uh, an ask, and I'm going to ask Lindsay to pop on and help me out of this, um, that EPA team on the hazardous, uh, waste removal, um, which again, that'll, if, if the health officer does grant that blanket access to the areas. It's my understanding that they'll be here in a couple of days and they think they could get the whole area taken care of. And Lindsay, what was it, 60 days?

Yeah, they think if they can get a blanket access agreement, they could be done in 60 days. If we can only grant per person's property access. They have to go try and contact everybody. It could take months. So if we can get an agreement to have everybody's properties accessible by EPA and their subcontractor to remove hazardous waste, that initial cleanup process could be done in 60 days.

So that's the blanket entry that we need from Dr. Vee. not as a blanket asbestos.

No, it is not asbestos related. This is hazardous materials. So if you think, especially nowadays, how many lithium ion batteries are in every single home, paints and solvents, any other VOCs, there's a lot that they can do, but it won't relate to asbestos.

So they go onto the properties, find those things in the rubble and remove them? That's my understanding. Okay.

That's correct. And they're also looking for like damaged propane tanks, basically anything under combustion that would delay the removal of debris in phase two. So this is phase one. They're trying to get rid of all the chemicals and hazardous material before they go and remove debris.

Okay. And they don't. notify the home did they attempt to notify the homeowner then that they're going to be there because i assume if they're doing this too they're going to be suited up in hazmat type outfits right and i mean that that could be jarring to an individual unknowingly seeing there's people on their property sifting through stuff um do they at least attempt to notify the homeowners before they go i mean i assume they don't have to if they have this blanket access i mean i just i i know there were red red cross folks at the gray and oregon road fires that were very visibly red cross represented that were met with some folks that were not happy to see them there i I don't know. It makes you think there could be some interactions or altercations that wouldn't necessarily be favorable for an individual. Looting was a big thing we heard about for the past week. If somebody sees someone sifting through rubble of their property and they don't know who they are or why they're there, I think that puts some folks in danger, too. Yeah. I think there's two sides to that blanket access argument there.

Totally agree. I don't know what their notification protocol is all. Their first ask from us and the city is for basically a piece of property. Right now, they're looking for a base of operations. There was a call with my team and the city's team yesterday. They're looking for about four to five acres flat, accessible. They want to set up a job trailer, have a bunch of heavy equipment on site. So we're looking at potential options on that. One might be to recall right across from our north transfer station. The city has that lot across the street. It was there. It was their own compost facility, right?

Yeah, that's correct.

Yeah. So that's an option. Ironically, we have a piece of property we're bringing to you to surplus again tomorrow at Market and Magnesium. It's not paved. I think they would prefer a paved one, but it is and meets the size requirements. So we'll be discussing options and let you know if a county property, we'll look at our pit sites as well and see what's nearby. And we'll keep you informed of what is the preferred alternatives on that. So that's kind of the, they want to be here Thursday. Is that right?

Yeah, they'd like to start, excuse me, they'd like to start shipping supplies and staging things by this week, Wednesday or Thursday.

But that's a decision up to the health officer, right?

The access decision is they're coming to do abatements. So the question of whether or not they have to do individual access versus blanket access is in Dr. B's hands.

Okay.

Anything else I can share on the public works side of things?

We've actually been relatively kind of quiet holding back at this point because we haven't been... Going into the area. So we'll know a lot more in the next couple of days.

I would just if you can touch on again, just. What can go to a transfer station and what can't so like. I know when I took a drive through with. District 9 a couple of days ago through some of the air. I mean, there are. Homes that are not completely destroyed, homes that were singed. I mean, there are lawn ornaments, things outside that are partially burned. I mean, you could still tell what they were, but they were burned. Can that go to a transfer station? So a lawn chair that's half burned or half melted, can that go to a transfer station? Does that need any type of testing before it can go? What do folks need to do for properties like that? What if they cut down a burnt tree themselves or burnt shrubs, bushes, can they take that to clean green?

Yes. So our transfer stations are not permitted to accept any asbestos material. And so if there's, you're talking, you know, burned vinyl fencing or burned vegetation or Those things can absolutely come to our transfer stations. When we start to see burned building materials, we're going to ask for an asbestos test on that. because we're not permitted to accept it. So anything that is with like an outbuilding or a home that looks like it's been burned, our staff are trained to ask for that asbestos test. So I would highly recommend, you know, if you have residents out there who are saying, I just want to do this cleanup on my own. I just want to get it done. please recommend that they look through the Clean Air Agency's fact sheet. It's pretty robust and it walks them through the steps they need because what I would hate to see happen is, you know, someone is doing the demolition themselves and they load it all up into a truck and then it comes to us and then we have to reject it because we're not allowed to accept anything that might have asbestos in it. So burn vegetation, burn fencing, not a big deal. But as soon as we start seeing ash or burned construction material, it's best if we have an asbestos test with that, confirming that it doesn't have asbestos in it.

Yeah, and it's... The other component to that is if there's no test, then we have to go under the baseline assumption that it is asbestos-containing, which has to be either double-bagged, and there's a certain thickness of bag, I can't remember what that is, and double-bagged, or burrito-wrapped and double-wrapped in bisqueen of a certain thickness, and it has to go to gram, and it's four times as expensive to remove. The other thing that even just, it sucks because everybody just wants to start the road to recovery. But even a piece of metal siding that is not asbestos containing, if they are dragging it through the ash to get it out, now they're mixing up the ash. Now it makes the asbestos survey when they do it harder because now the materials have been mixed. It's, you know, a partially damaged structure is easier to assess because they can get in and see all the materials that were used. When it's a pile of ash, then they have to do an alternative assessment where they're doing grid sampling.

And Lindsay, you said there's like a fact sheet or something on the Clean Airs website for folks if they're looking for info on asbestos cleanups?

Yeah, they recently updated it in the last week and they've got one specifically for 2026 Spokane fires. So it walks residents through that process pretty well.

Okay. Is that, is Martha Liu or Charissa's list, is that something we can link to, to our page, our county page too, as a resource? Thank you.

I believe I sent that out to you all.

Okay. I think it went around to all your offices.

As well as a fact sheet that building and planning have put together as well. Yes, I saw that.

You printed it at one page front and back.

Do we think it would be a good idea to have some of those on hand at the community meetings? I don't know. The IMT, I think, is kind of organizing those, right? But I would assume...

the DAC. Are they linked on our county webpage? Martha Lou put a bunch of the resources on. Is that kind of stuff linked or easily accessible to the public on our website? The fact sheets for building and planning?

I'll have to check.

Victoria is saying they are out there.

Okay, so maybe that's I've been asking to get information out.

Yeah, okay, okay. So as I said, we can always direct people at those meetings to go to SpokaneCounty.gov and easily accessible on there, so.

Any other questions? Thank you. I know you've got more work to be done coming forward now, so.

It's gonna be a long road.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Lindsay. Appreciate it.

Thank you, guys.

Okay. That's going to now take us to Tom Konas. I know you've been working hard, too.

Like everybody else. I just want to start out with a shout out to the people that set up the DAC Center. This whole thing, I heard so many comments. I've been there the last four days. So many comments. What a great resources is and how easy it is for people to get in. And of course, the added bonus of having especially drinks through this heat wave and food. Very appreciative of everything that's been done. We are currently mapping the area within the fires. We have a FEMA list of destroyed properties. It's, in our opinion, shy of what the numbers we're hearing. So we will hopefully get a new one of those. This was as of Wednesday was the last notification we had. So we will map out both all of the properties located within the fire boundaries and then all of the properties that are specifically noted as being destroyed or damaged. We have hired Eagle View again to do aerial imaging, similar to we did three years ago with the fires. Total cost is about $6,000. I mean, it's just, I don't know how they put air in the tires and fuel in the plate to do that, but they do. NC Tech, which is that the street imaging company that I talked about, I think probably the last time I was here, they have offered to come in and drive the areas impacted for free. Once it's all opened up, we'll have another record of the destruction through that. Tax implications. I think that's probably one of the biggest things we're looking at right now. And for the county, We are estimating, and believe me, it's an estimate at this time, because we don't know exactly where all the properties are within the county or the city of Spokane or Stevens County. So we're guesstimating, we're looking at right around a quarter of a million dollars from the August 1 to December 31 date, just for the county. And then there is a statute that will allow for us to do a refund levy on that portion if you choose. It would be any properties that were impacted value-wise before September 31. So depending on how quickly we can get our work done and get it to the treasurer, and I've been already talking, of course, a lot with the treasurer's office too. They know what's coming too, so. Hopefully we can get them all done by September 31, and you could actually do a refund levy from next year to make that money back. The only other thing that I have to talk about is for the Oregon Road and the Grayfire, we had a three-year tax abatement on new construction once they rebuilt. Unfortunately, there was a sunset clause in that bill of June 30th of this year. So I have been in contact with the governor's office and a couple of our local senators to try to get hopefully even a special session to get this done. But if not, we will present it first thing when the legislature opens up. And the governor's office is definitely on board as is the Department of Revenue. So it's just a matter of that's really the only way we can get an RCW change is through the legislature. Yes, sir.

So similar to what happened with the Gray and Oregon fire. You can have one house standing and several houses around it have been destroyed. And the fear was the house left standing also suffered a loss in value because it's now not in a neighborhood, it's in a disaster zone. Were you able to quantify that and are you able to replicate that here with these fires?

We had that more in the medical lake fire than the old fire just because of the type of properties it is. that there was any financial impact where the sales price on the few that have sold. And that was the problem. There were only a few that have sold since the fire. We did find that with the land, that increased substantially the people that sold their land over what we had had on it for our assessed values. But again, just real quick, you kind of hit a key point. For my crew, what we will do, we will take care of these values that we know the building's destroyed. And so then we'll have to do boots on the ground. That's also where we're looking to use the street imaging on the ones that are partially destroyed. And those are going to take us a little longer to get those Values completed. But yeah, to answer basically your question, we did not notice any change of assessed value from the sale prices.

And you saw most people were rebuilding.

Yes. Yes. Heard a lot over the four days that a lot of people don't want to rebuild right now, but a lot of it is just... But like in medical, like, yeah, there, I mean, it's not complete, but yes, most people have rebuilt or early starting to rebuild. We're getting a lot of the, especially with the three-year tax abatement. Now they're getting to be a hundred percent complete. So it's taken that long.

Can you just walk through how that three-year tax abatement worked? Yes. What, what exactly that means? Yes.

They, a couple of things. issues with the law that, again, I was already working with Mayor Cooper on getting fixed.

And like you said, it's sunset, so it's not in place for this fire currently. But how did that, did it work?

It worked in that they had to provide us with, we had to make sure that we knew before they began new construction. And then what they got was they got a three-year tax exemption on up to the amount that was destroyed in the fire. So if they had a $300,000 house, so we removed $300,000 of assessed value, and they built a $5 million house, they would have got $300 million of that exempted for three years. $300,000 exempted for three years.

Okay. Okay. And then all property taxes or just the county portion?

the nice thing is for us or for the taxing districts is we also did though get to pay credit for the new construction that was added in that year rather than having to wait until the exemption was out as we have to do with like the multi-family tax examples okay thank you thank you yeah so i'm gonna say

what I think I heard in a different way. So a neighborhood that had a total assessed valuation of, let's say, $1 million, just to keep the numbers. But after construction, with the cost of construction and everything, now that assessment could be $1.5 million just with the same neighborhood being replaced. Just because of the cost of construction.

Cost of goods, yes. But you're replacing a 1940s house with a 2026 house. The cost price of those things are different. I also do want to say that I've been in contact with Kyle and with Scott also, and we'll be sharing the aerial images with all of them as well when we get those all in. And they were actually, they finished flying on Saturday. I've seen the early images of it already.

I got to tell you, when I swung by the Disaster Assistance Center on Friday, I barely got a chance to say hello to Tom because as soon as one family would stand up, another family would come and sit down at his table. So Tom was sharing information. Boom, boom, boom, boom. So people wanted to talk to the assessor. They wanted to learn about this and what could be done.

I have staff up there this morning already. So we will have a man for the next three days.

And anything else for Tom?

Sorry, I sound terrible, but I just want to thank Tom as well. Great work.

Thank you. We've got a good team. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Jordan and I are probably actually can you can you grab Tom just before he John just one more one more question so I mean you're you're going to know on the properties where there was a complete loss of a home of a property that was partially damaged. Is it best that they reach out to you and let you know? Because the aerial images aren't going to probably, may not catch that.

That was the recommendation we were making at the Jack Center. If you think it's partially destroyed, please take this and fill this form out. So let me know. Even if they didn't know, because I met a number of them that hadn't been back to their property. They didn't even know. Only they heard that it was still standing. So yes, but we will actually drive the streets. And we're going to have to. We did that just, you know,

Six weeks ago at the Upper River Fire. So you're probably going to catch all the damage on your own. But just in case, so homeowners know for a fact that you know, should they be reaching out to you? Regardless, they should reach out.

I asked in the press release that I sent out to them to go to this. And because again, the problem with the Upper River Fire is some of the damages were to their back decks. We don't see that from the street.

Okay.

So, okay, we do. We do need that. We need the public's help. Okay.

All right. So, um, yeah, with everyone here, um, we want to sit. Um, you know, so I'm hearing the city is doing their own GIS damage assessment to house by houses to what's house has been damaged over partially, or is that getting coordinated at all? How is that working?

We're trying. I mean, it's hard right now. There's so many different entities that are working on lists of this and that.

We reached out to Steve and Tammy Baumquist to say, when we talked to Tom doing these aerials, we said, we'll make them available to you as soon as we get them. And we're getting our GIS people to talk to each other. So, yeah, we're doing what we can with the city to coordinate that.

Okay, because we're going to need to have the total assessment to get the presidential... um declaration sure um and then it's the assessor's office that doesn't assess on the city and you assess all the properties exactly so i mean so it really is important um to make sure that we're working together yeah we we reached out right away recognizing that you know we that we had a little knowledge we

If you've got questions, call us.

Thank you. Those are some of the things that it's like they can do their own things on certain things, but there's some pieces that if we don't do it well together, it doesn't help all the citizens.

When do you think you'll have a list of total damage and partial damage?

Total damage, I probably would have that by Thursday, this week. The partial damage ones, that's going to depend on when we get access to heat and be in there.

Yeah, because it's still pregnant. At this point, I can't tell you.

And there's just so much you can tell from the aerial imaging. I mean, you just really can't. know what all this on a partial especially what's there especially in the in the true in the area that's more heavily treated yeah thank you and you're all just yeah you're welcome to stay here for now yeah listen to the rest of it yes well we're uh we've been at the recovery center uh since it opened uh it's

of questions yet about rebuilding, but we're relaying essentially what we stood in with your blessing in 23, which is to say, If you are expanding in some way, if it is marginal and it is away from whatever the critical area is, we've got some flexibility that we'll work with the permitting staff on. If somebody wants to acquire their neighbor and build something much bigger, then they will be subject to the new codes. But for the most part, they will not be subject to the critical area of shoreline changes that have occurred over time, as long as they're essentially building on that same footprint.

Absolutely.

They didn't really almost know sometimes where they were.

And I was in person all the days of that disaster center, and I'd say the biggest questions we have at first in my city or county, how do you clean up which we coordinate them license verification, and then help them figure out if they needed to talk to us for a permit or if they needed to go to the city for a permit. Biggest notes I saw for concerns were, is there going to be any fee reduction, or is there going to be a permit expedition and vesting, which I think is the most challenging piece of it. The recovery effort is going to happen right at the code cycle change to 2024. That happens early May. So that is the challenging piece. I am going to be coordinating with the city of Spokane. I'm looking at what they're working on, what options they've found, and seeing what avenues we have for MISTI.

Because when does the code changes take effect?

May 4th off the top of my head is early May, 2027.

2027. And so is there any way for the building codes council to, for the legislature to?

There would be a couple ways I could see just off the cuff. I haven't dove down everyone thoroughly, but the way that I saw is if you re-register in sections of code, which is done by the Code Council, you could extend that date or you could put in specific provisions or the governor could write something to do it as well. So you could come down probably two different avenues or if you're looking for state help on it.

So last week on both Sunday and Monday in meetings that I was in, that the governor was in, he said, if he threw it out to the whole room, it's like if anybody has. ideas. He said, as governor under a state of emergency, he can waive certain laws and statutes. And so he said, if there's anything that I can do to help with either fighting the fires or fire recovery, he's like, let me and my staff know and we will look at that. So maybe this is one we send up the chain and see if he's willing to to do some sort of exemption or waive these or like you say delay the implementation but he he said it on both days sunday and monday he reiterated his power to waive statutes certain statutes and laws and said send those ideas to him and his staff so i think we should we should at least give that a shot make the request i have a rough draft outline already kind of working there i'm kind of

option for best name. We could rebuild with the current those today. And then we tomorrow on the two o'clock, the same demolition fee reduction, though, then for a reason for this disaster area.

Mr French and then Christian Jordan so uh last Friday the building code Council closed comments on their co-102 and so they are moving to adopt a new code what we did with the gray fire was bringing a set of plans get vested and then we'll work with you on whatever your final plans are and stuff for building. And so I'm assuming that you still have the authority to be able to do that. Feel free to say no if you don't. We do.

We can say what a complete application is for investing. That is the one thing we can do. I've seen it clear.

So what we did with the Grand Oregon fires, we did a massive public education and outreach effort to make sure that people knew that, hey, bring us a set of drawings and let's get you vested under the current code. I've heard from people following the new code, it'll probably add another $25,000 to the cost of a home. You might have heard different numbers, but that's what I'm hearing. So if we can save our constituents another $25,000, then that could be the difference between whether they build or they don't build. I guess Martha Lou or whoever, we need to develop some kind of outreach effort to make sure that people understand that, hey, here's a way to save yourself some money in the permitting process.

I'll work on that with these various departments. And I believe isn't Representative Schmidt on the Building Code Council. So I would make sure you reach out to her. But she's still active on that. What was her name again? Representative Suzanne Schmidt.

She and Shelly Short, I believe, are two of the ex-officio members. And she had told me that she shared her concern about the new codes and that there needs to be something to help the victims of the fires. Whatever the vehicle is to help them, whether it's delaying or exempting or something. But I think she went and carried that message to the meeting on Friday that you mentioned.

It reduces it by $300 to $300 for demolition.

It brings it from like $350 down to like $30.

Yeah, $33. $362. That's a state tax property. There's a processing fee plus a state fee for the state political council.

You mentioned people were asking you about expediting building permits. Is that doable? Is that something you guys were looking into?

Yeah, we're already advertising it. We're going to be doing it. Okay.

So that's something you can do without a further active board.

Yep, absolutely. Right now we have it advertised as five to seven days.

And is that for a substantially similar permit as the old structure or? public communication.

We had a flyer on our table at the event that still there.

Yeah, and that's been published on every website page and it was just made 500 copies to be spit around for emergency management.

But it still has to have this best test as part of the allegation. So that's once the permit's ready to be filed, then when we receive it, we'll hustle.

Yeah, don't happen. And demo permits are same day. So the delays a demo permit is the asbestos process, which is before we get involved. Once they have that, it's a same-day review or all-on-day if it's like added to business or something like that.

So that would be for like if a house is mostly destroyed, but there's still some degraded parts that need to be cleared out or only happen.

Yep. And then in that case, Depending on how damaged the structure is, if they don't fully degenerate, an immune alteration or mitral alteration permit could also be expedited.

Sorry, I forgot to mention this earlier, but My understanding is that Clean Air is waiving the fee to get their, to get contractor to go get the asbestos permit. And there's a notice that has the timeline associated and they're waiving the timeline as well. Is that accurate, Jordan?

That's what I've heard as well. If you go on their website, they're advertising to Clean Air Agency.

That's on Clean Air Agency's website.

Yep. They have multiple handouts. We actually coordinated with Spokane Regional Clean Air at the event and we grabbed their forms and had them at our desk as well so then people could all get the information in one spot.

So just for the sake of having accuracy out in the community, there is a group. that has suggested that the fires were set intentionally to be able to clear the land to be able to build data centers on. This is residential land. Can you clarify for the public? You cannot build a data center on residentially zoned property. And also in the state of Washington, it is illegal To use it in a domain to be able to take property for economic benefit. Commissioner, that's correct.

That is an industrial purpose that it cannot be constructed on residential zone plan.

Thank you.

Any other questions. I just appreciate all your hard work and just being proactive. It's sad that we had some of these other fires happen to make us more aware and know what we need to do now. But I appreciate everything you guys have done and being with us. The next few days, hopefully there's somebody out there that can fill the tables while you're here.

Folks, I hope you did a great job. Absolutely.

Thank you. And I'm hearing nothing but good things about the center. So I think that's been key for information they need.

When I was there on Friday, I was there about 3 o'clock on Friday, and I thought it was packed. And I was told, oh, no, this is actually a low point. And it's like this. People are like, yeah, this is probably the most empty it's been. And it's like it was packed. So, yeah, that's why a lot of people are using it, which I'm glad people are taking advantage of all those resources in one place. Thank you. Thank you.

I think George is out there soon. George.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning. We're here to brief you all on kind of a thought that we had last week as we were trying to strategize how we could assist folks um with recovery through through the buyer um led to several conversations with our friends over in the city of spokane as well as some of our non-profit service providers One thing that came to mind in the conversation was that we have an existing program with snap. And that deals with minor home repair since it's an ongoing program that you all as Florida county commissioners have supported. For a number of years, and we thought. What could we do with that existing program to be able to help out for folks? This isn't going to be something that's going to help someone that lost everything, but maybe someone that has some smoke damage or some other damage to their property that's preventing them from getting in once they get the go clear. So so we reached out to the city of Spokane. We reached out to snap and we started brainstorming and coming up with some ideas and Brittany is going to brief you on kind of what we have proposed right now as an initial response before Brittany. Phil Kleisler- shares more, I just want to say that we recognize the urgency and the need for folks that have lost so much. Phil Kleisler- And we also recognize that there's a lot that we that we can do and there's a lot that we can do. We're not going to be able to help everyone. We've got limit qualifications, qualification limitations on these funds. But we want to do something and we want to think outside the box and see what we can do to get things going. We're also mindful that this recovery is going to take a long time. The actions that we do today, we're trying to be mindful of six months, 12 months, 18 months from now. And so are our partners, as we've talked with SNAP, as we've talked with the city of Spokane, there's that recognition as well. So, Brittany, if you want to share.

So kind of setting the stage a little bit, like George said, we had that conversation internally and then also with SNAP and the city of Spokane and looking specifically at that minor home repair program and how can we maybe use some funds that we don't have committed currently in our portfolio to As well as the city and gear those towards an amendment to the current contract. So if we do an amendment, we're kind of fast tracking those funds. If we did a whole separate contract, we would look at having to do additional environmental reviews. We would have to look at doing amendments to different plans because this funding that we're looking at is CDBG, which is that federal source. Um, funding we're looking at approximately 500 K is what it sounds like. We'll start with, um, and adding that to the existing contract for the minor home repair program, but creating a separate scope of work for that 500 K that's specifically geared towards. So that funding line, if you will, within that current contract, um, we'll have the same period of performance. So currently the contract is three, one of 26 through nine 30 and 27. we'll start with that same period of performance, adding on that additional funding. They'll prioritize getting that fire recovery funding out before they spend the rest of the contract that currently exists, which is approximately 200K. And that will be for the standard home repair that we were looking out for. They'll also look at, we still have the same requirements of 80% AMI. So individuals served have to still fall under that area of median income because of our fund source that we're using. But looking at a little bit different eligibility in terms of they need to be affected by fire, the home cannot have We can't duplicate benefits. So they're looking at FEMA assistance that was received. They're looking at what their insurance status is. We're looking at a lot of those same things that you're hearing from other programs and things that we have to be aware of as we approach rehab of these homes or repair of these homes. And then looking at no cosmetic work being done. This is specifically for things that can repair the home and the essential items of the home to make sure that people can have habitat those homes again. and move back in. So this is, again, yeah, a small drop in the bucket. It's just looking at what can we do to help get people back in their homes that are still standing and look at those repairs that maybe cost 25K roughly or below. There is exceptions to go higher than that, but we're trying to serve more than a few people with this funding source, understanding though that we are still very limited. So think of the nervous system of the home, if you will, is kind of how I like to put it is looking at the structure and the essential utilities that people need to survive in those homes and safe. So that's kind of what we're looking at. The city of Spokane also has a single family rehab program, which is essentially the same thing just within city limits because this funding is kind of siloed. I think you guys probably heard the island talk with the federal funding that we can't fund with CDBG funds within the city limits and they can't fund outside the city limits. So looking at partnering with them to be able to serve populations both within the city and . So that's kind of, their program's gonna be probably a little bit delayed just because of their funding and they don't quite have as much funding available that's uncommitted where we actually thankfully had a little bit of funding, which was that 500K that we didn't have committed from other projects having to back out in the past for other reasons. So we're looking at getting these funds out as soon as possible and then hopefully the city of Spokane will be able to get those out shortly after. So it's kind of the gist of what we're looking at. There's still things work in progress. We're still working through the exact scope of work, but wanting to bring it to you not only for your opinions on it, but also just to kind of make sure that we're keeping everyone in the loop and doing everything we can with the funds that we do have.

And you've got to be 80%

Yeah, that's so that shrinks the pool of folks that would be able to the impact by these fighters. Yeah.

Especially we can only be in the county outside the city. Like, what does that look like.

Yeah, it shrinks even more. So fortunately, SNAP, when we talked with them, being mindful of some of the things that you all have heard already this morning with contractors and supply, folks wanting to get in line, those sorts of things, SNAP already has a pool of contractors through their existing contracts with the city of Spokane and Spokane County that they're able to tap into. So the other part of this is getting those contractors working for this recovery sooner than later before they get pulled on to other work.

Yeah. In the zones that have been affected, has there been any of our low-income housing projects?

We have not identified that yet, just kind of waiting for dust to settle to really figure out where, but that's a planned sweep today.

figure out not only for hindsight but also okay because i think chandra said like of the old trails fire like 30 were multi-structures um i mean duplexes are small apartments so i just didn't know if any of those were our i will make sure to let you know is phoenix the phoenix apartments

We'll look into that for sure. Yeah, the city of Spokane is doing the same thing that we're doing because HUD wants to know that information. So yeah, trying to get a good assessment of that.

I'm sorry, can you give a few examples of the types of repairs that would be covered again? HAB-Jacques Juilland, Yeah, I could be covered.

I think some of the things that we're thinking about. We have a staff member that their house was spared, but they have damage to the house as well. So, HAB-Jacques Juilland, In many homes, there's vinyl windows. Those are susceptible to heat damage. So in the event that the windows are no longer maybe on one side of the home, the windows need to be replaced. That would be an example of this. roofs, the membrane below the asphalt shingles, if that has been heat damaged, being able to go in and do work there and replace that roof. If there was an outside air conditioning unit that was damaged by the fire. fixing those sorts of things. And we're trying to remain very focused on, as Brittany said, the envelope of the building as well as the inner workings, the HVAC system. functioning appropriately so that folks can get back into their homes as quickly as possible. There's also going to be homes that were saved. Part of the reason they were saved is there was a tremendous amount of water that went into that house. So that means we're probably going to be dealing with water damage, smoke damage, those sorts of things. So those are the things that we're looking at right now. And in our conversation with the city of Spokane, the thought is, if we can be working together, the city of Spokane doesn't have some set aside that we had. If we're working together and standing this program up, then we may do have the resources to be able to put into it. we're able to put together a program that is seamless for the homeowners. So SNAP can figure out if it's city or county, but the homeowner, they just know that there's a program there that's able to assist them regardless of boundaries.

We had several homes that had vinyl siding where the siding literally melted. But when they came in to try and replace the siding, because the fading, one side of the house didn't match the other side, so we ended up having to re-side the whole house. With the SNAP funding, we do the whole house or just the side that was melted vinyl?

I think how we'd approach that is snap with the contractors, the established contractors that they've been working with over the years, which is really rely on their expertise to determine what the appropriate. Repairment.

And you were talking about like a $25,000.

Yeah, we're trying to recognizing it's a half, $500,000. That's a fair amount of money. But even with a small universe of homes that we're talking about, that's going to go pretty quick. So we're trying to make sure that there's enough that we're able to provide as much assistance as we can to as many folks as we can. So there will be a consideration there. I think another thing that I want to point out with this is, while we want to help these folks out as soon as possible, we We feel terrible if we were able to help someone, but we were able to give them $25,000 worth of assistance where they would have been eligible for $50,000 of FEMA assistance. So we're trying to take all that into consideration as we work with our partners to get folks back into their houses as soon as possible.

Yeah, I would say that we've got to be the last dollar in ensuring that any homeowners insurance or insurance insurance or And that was exhausted first, just because of the nature of the dollars. I think we can't supplant that. I don't know, former head director. I think it's a great idea. I'm gonna be curious how big of a potential pool we have. to look at that because trying to see what's, you know, the structures with, you know, we haven't really gotten numbers of county structures versus city structures. We've just gotten kind of total structures and knowing a lot of the residential or within the city. So I think that's, you know, one of the things is we're, you know, don't have all the information yet, you know, trying to assess. So, but.

Yeah. And we recognize that as well. As we were thinking and processing last week, we know we're really at the front end of this. There's a lot.

If we don't start thinking about it, it doesn't happen. So I appreciate the effort. And we need to be thinking about it and figure out how much.

Another part of this is as we approach our next our next request for proposal cycle. sure that we're able to respond six months from now when maybe some of the assistance starts to fall and then folks are still working with insurance and everything are we positioned in a way that we can help even limited universal folks are we positioned well for that that interim between some temporary funding running out and then the more long-term funding coming We're thinking about that as we prepare for future funding opportunities as well.

I think it's a great idea, though. Yeah. Thank you for this.

Yeah, thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, so you'll see an amendment to this contract coming forward at a future legislative meeting.

Yeah, I think I'd be happy to do it. But I think we got to get kind of a feel for what that population number is. Thank you. Okay, Josh. Perfect.

Has anyone heard how many have signed up with the Long-Term Recovery Group yet after that?

My understanding was everybody that came through the doors was being encouraged to sign up. I don't know if everyone was, or if some people were opting to not, but I think what I heard was it was sort of, if you were impacted by the fire, it was like, if you came through the door, it was sign up here first.

But I can see that becoming a bottleneck. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So I, and I don't know how many people actually stopped, did that or said not yet. I I'm not sure. I haven't heard.

Line was too long. Exactly.

Or line was too long. They went around pretty big.

All right. Good morning, commissioners. Of course, you all know me. This is Jamie Burchett. She is our benefits person. So she's been overseeing kind of the updates and changes to the employees who were impacted by the virus. So as of this morning, we have about approximately 48 people who have been impacted by the virus, either through loss of house or dwelling. who had been evacuated last week. That's just who reported to us. We know that there are more individuals throughout the entire county who did not report to us and a few of them have lost their homes. We were just asking people to report to us just so that way it came up later on that we knew that there was a record that day report to us their impact. So we're we anticipate we'll still get some employees to report to us as they're coming back, whether or not there's property damage or whatnot. That number could rise from So what we have done.

And I'm just going to clarify. So the 48, though, it's because we know, we all know a lot of employees that were, you know, in the evacuation zone, the houses are okay. Does that include those individuals? I mean, I guess, I guess now it's kind of like, in other words, kind of in the point where people are sending it back to their homes, it's important to know what the total impact was, but also then who's really impacted now moving forward that has lost their home and being there.

So we have four individuals who have reported to us that they have lost their homes. We believe there are a few more that have not reported to us. It is a self-reporting.

Right.

So at least four have lost their homes.

And of that 48, when is that number from last week? So a lot of them potentially are now back in their homes. Now the evacuation levels have gone down. Okay.

And so similar to the gray and Oregon road fires, we did modify our shared leave policy and our sick leave policy to make it more flexible for employees who were impacted to utilize those. For the shared leave policy, I guess the changes would be through the end of this year. And then it will go back to the . So far, we've only had one or two individuals, three, three request shared leave. We've had many employees who have requested to provide time and donate if need be, so we will be utilizing that. And we've also had people who have used their sick time due to the evacuation of loss of home to update that in Workday, so we can also track that as well. We don't have the stats on that as of yet, but eventually we will be able to see what the true impact to those.

And in PTO, it certainly was like for people that were on sick time and could share their sick time. And they did the same thing with PTO, or are we allowing PTO to let that happen for people that are on PTO for this?

Yes, we are.

Policy was also modified.

And that was similar to the gray in Oregon.

We mimicked the gray in Oregon policy, which also allowed that. I had the same memory as you. I didn't think we did. But then they showed me the words.

I think a majority of our office was kind of shocked because we didn't utilize it, didn't catch it the first time. And so after reviewing, it was the same.

No, which I think it's as we've moved a lot of people to PTO away from sick leave. It's just one of those things that it's that you couldn't share. Your own purposes, then this purpose is a little bit allowed.

Any other questions?

No, any other thoughts? I mean, I'm assuming that, you know, I know departments pretty much rally around their So if there's anything that we can do, or eventually, you can let us know. We're happy to try to help. I know a lot of businesses are doing that. Employees are trying to help their employees that are directly affected. Some of the school districts, some of the banks, some of the businesses. I don't know if I'm saying that. So, let's say, just let us know if there's things that, again, we can do as a county, but also things that we might be able to do personally.

And we've heard rumors that some of the departments, to your point, are rallying around their employees with the GoFundMe accounts being set up with their departments. So, nothing that has been presented to HR is additional items that could be utilized to help employees understand.

All right. Thank you. And then do we need to do anything to modify that or you guys can just modify that since it's within the policy?

We presented to our, I believe, Noel for the changes to Jeff on the policies and they were just updating the dates of the effective dates of the changes.

For the

Thank you.

Thank you. That takes us to miscellaneous items and then executive sessions.

I've got an executive session for about 15 minutes. THE BOARD AND OUR ACCOUNTY AND JEFF. THERE ARE NO MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS. WE HAVE TWO OTHER EXECUTIVE SESSION ITEMS. Eric Messenger, and the second one, Jeff McMorris, Matt Folsom, Devin Kurta, Wessie Kao, Heather Ockleton.

Okay. What was our time on that?

20, 40, and 15. 20, 40. 15,000. Yes.

Mine's not time sensitive. We could do it tomorrow if we run out of time today.

We're going to probably go to one. Okay. Yes, I have a miscellaneous too that I forgot about. So the cause will be coming up before the fair, which is coming up soon. So we'll be putting a save the date out there. Obviously, there's probably going to be a lot of things to talk about. with just fire-related things. Our fairgrounds will be available for us for the fair. There's discussions with the team that's up here using the fairgrounds. I don't know how that will all work, but we'll figure out how to make it work. I think it'll be important to do a COG this year ahead of the fair, just like we always do with Kind of kind of updating everyone on FIRE for RAD and then also on things that could help me and what's going on. So any other additional topics that anyone wants to please let us know. The agenda.

If I was quick, Ashley Kellan, they are applying for a grant in Superior Court. It's a partnership with the right to the UCA to provide an FTE dedicated to civil protection, civil protection under docket. They've applied in the past, not received it. Which I was told it was fairly certain. she would get, knowing today's agenda is going to be political drive. Okay, so we're going to go into executive session for the, they're all free 20% litigation.

Okay, one's 40 minutes, one's 20 minutes, one's 15 minutes. Pilsen already discussed who was going to be in those executive sessions. Mr. French discussed who was going to be in his executive session. So we're going to go into executive session for an hour and 15 minutes. Thank you. And at the end of that executive session, we will be done for the day and see everybody back tomorrow at 9 o'clock. And no action is going to be taken.