Legislative Meeting - Regular Meeting

Crazy. Yeah. It's crazy how fire moves around different houses. Oh yeah, totally.

Okay. Welcome everyone to our August 17, 2026, 9 a.m. strategic planning meeting. It is Monday. Let the record reflect that we have all five commissioners are present. Richard Kearns, French and myself are in the conference room and Commissioner Waldorf and Jordan are on Zoom. So we are starting off with an executive session this morning. So we will go into executive session

from 9 to 10 and I will look to our attorney to give us the thank you madam chair three exact sessions this morning the first is pending and potential litigation under RCW 42301101 I 20 minutes no action present Matt Folsom Jeff McMorris Devin Kurta Shandra Fox Chris Anderson the second pending potential litigation under the same statute no action 20 minutes. Matt Folsom, Jeff McMorris, Devin Kurta, Noelle Muzim, Madison Bryant, Josh Grote, Dan Gadd, Mike Sparber, Chris Anderson. And third is performance of a public employee. Matt Folsom, Jeff McMorris, Devin Kurta, Mike Sparber, Weston.

Devin McMorris. So we're going to go into executive session for this research is stated. No actions will be taken. So at the end of that executive session, we'll come back into full session at 10 and continue on with our agenda. Thank you and see you back at 10. Okay, welcome back. We did end up extending, just trying to get technical issues of getting this back on and stuff, for a minute. So it is 10.04. So we're back in regular session. No decisions are being made. And we'll start with the two of you.

Hi, how are we all doing?

Hand out.

my actually maybe it's best for uh scott to lead off into general i have i'm passing out a document right now that's just um recommendations to the governor for building code vesting and similar it's a full analysis and comparison um i know scott has some stuff to go through and i know my packet won't take the details

Sure. Our part is probably easier. We're proposing to simply replicate the path we took in the 23 fires for land use, which is generally speaking to let someone rebuild. And if they rebuild substantially on the same footprint, they would not be subject to the current shoreline or critical area rules and setbacks. They would be able to reconstruct that structure as it existed before the fire. If they choose to expand in a modest way, and by modest, we're leaving that pretty well open, it could be 15, maybe 20% more square footage. If that increase is designed away from the hazard, so to speak, away from area or wetland buffer that would that would not trigger any changes however if a landowner wanted to do a substantial rebuild 50 or more then the current rules would kick in and so in terms of what we're suggesting if as long as ecology would go along with that and in some cases we don't have to have a state blessing for this this is part of our local shorelines management program But if ecology would at least acknowledge that, that would help us. More importantly, if they were to oppose it for some reason, then we would need the governor to intercede and give us the flexibility to do it this way. So that's kind of the simple part. It's complex in its own way, but it's a pretty simple process on our side. It worked particularly well in 23, notably in Medical Lake. Michael Leccese, SRA22 Panellist, he started out as cabins along the lake and became permanent homes over the years, but almost certainly not be permitted for rebuilding under the current rules at all, so it was really a critical change to allow that to rebuild.

I wasn't really clear on all the governor's proclamations that he made. And can he make those proclamations directly to the legislature to support some of those?

What we're proposing, we're really proposing to modify the county's shoreline management program and the ordinance. So it doesn't require a governor or a gubernatorial action. What we would be asking the Department of Ecology to not say no to what we're trying to do, to not want to extend their authority into those shoreline rules. And if they were to do so, then we would ask the governor to provide that waiver from his perspective. Right now, we don't think it's necessary.

If somebody is located within one of the urban neighborhoods No, let's say out on 291 and wanted to build back. What we did with the Great Fire and the Oregon Fire was they could submit a set of drawings and get vested, but they didn't necessarily have to build that house. They could always come back and modify the designs, but at least we could vest them in the current code. planning to do that again here?

Yes. I'm still planning on doing that. I can kind of start diving into that if you like. That's part of this whole package. Even with doing that, we still only got 40% of applications received tested, so we would still do that practice, but a governor's action would give more relief than what I can do for relief. I can invest them and allow them to revise. I will be doing that, but I can't change the vesting date if they don't get their application in.

Right. So the one thing that I was struck by at the Tuesday night meeting last week was I probably had six people come up to me and talk to me about the fire and all that kind of stuff. And I asked them, I said, are you going to rebuild? And they said, oh, heck no. We're going to collect the insurance money. We're going to do the minimum we have to do for the lot, and then we're gone. And all six of them said we're heading to Idaho. And so my concern is for the level of debris cleanup, if somebody had a basement, for instance, do they have to just... excavate the concrete in the basement or could they just come in and fill it in with dirt collar done and so what level of cleanup do we need to be able to ensure for the neighborhood so that somebody is not building next to a lot that has been destroyed by fire but has not been fully restored Does that make any sense?

Yeah, that's more of Spokane Regional Clean Air's portion of that process. Someone, if they had a basement, they wanted to rebuild off the basement, they technically could, but they would still have all the asbestos testing requirements and still there would probably be some remediation on average. That's more of the beginning process before they get to me. But you can rebuild off an existing foundation if it wasn't damaged and certified by an engineer or if the damage was reasonable where they could do a repair. There was a case I heard specifically someone want to do fill and maybe put the footing all the way down the native, but then just do fill and kind of remove the basement plan. They could do all those things. It just really depends on

what how are the soils are they are these are hazardous material end of soils it's probably the bigger question yeah i'm i'm more concerned about what is left but i mean somebody could come in and say well you know the house was destroyed by fire i'm not going to rebuild on it all i'm going to do is i'm going to do whatever debris cleanup i can get away with and sell the lot or just let the lot sit idle while they go to a different community. What I'm concerned about is the status of the neighborhood that is left and what the neighbors or what the surviving houses have to put up with until the entire neighborhood is rebuilt.

Well, then for that scenario where someone wanted to just demo and what's the lot going to look like, our code says you have to leave it in a safe manner. So you can't leave like an open pit or something like that. You would have to properly tie off utilities and you would probably have to backfill to a flat lot or relatively flat lot so you wouldn't have like a fall hazard. Yeah. Okay. Similar to swimming pools, I heard another example of swimming pools over the week was You need to protect your swimming pool. There used to be barriers there. Now there's no barriers there. I can start going right into the document here. So the beginning is really just a summary. What is the code problem that's happened? The code problem is, in summary, there's a code change within a year of a disaster. When you're designing a building, no one has the finalized code right now so it's all specular it makes design challenge the designers aren't familiar with the new code because no one is it's not even adopted we don't know what it is yet so what ends up happening is forms will change requirements will change and that will create far more receivables required far more consulting required and on average cost of construction goes up with every code cycle change so these factors make a bottleneck at permitting during the during a vesting year We saw a similar happen in the Grand Oregon fires, and the dates are only two months different from the code vesting date from the fire. And like I said, we saw 40% not make that submittal date. So 40% were not vested at that time to 2018 building codes. That's the main purpose of why I think if the government can do something here, that would do a lot of value in helping that rebuild effort. My recommendation is pretty straightforward. They'd be longer vesting, two years from the current adoption date, which would then not battle the next adoption date because they come in three-year cycles. So two years would give a good adequate time for rebuild. Ninety-something percent of our rebuilds came in these two years, six months to two years time frame. And then that's the number one is do longer vesting allowance to 2021. But my second is allow two years, same timeframe for the 2021, but allow the 2015 energy code. And the key reason for allowing 2015 energy code, it was the last simple, effective code to be able to use for energy code. The forms required are minimal. You can help someone fill out the forms in office very quickly. easy to understand, they save a ton of construction costs, and they are energy efficient. It was a great code. I thought the 2015 energy code was a great code. That's just a general outline of the recommendations. If you look at the 2018 and 2021 codes, that's where they started adding in forms like the C3 form, and there's been a lot of challenges with that form. For example, Apple products can't fill out that form. So if you have a back or an Apple product, you clearly cannot fill out that Excel form. It's confusing. Normally, if you need to do that, if you need to do a 2018 to 2021 code, you would have to get multiple trades or a very familiar builder to figure out every code credit option for you because it's very technical. Most people are going to have to go to their plumber their mechanical person, their insulator, they have to use every trade to get to the finish line on it. So it's very complex and creates significant delay and additional consulting cost. So 2015, someone came in with a 2015 proposal, my staff could easily help them get right there. It'd be very easy, very helpful for not bottlenecking that process down.

Any questions before I kind of continue? Can you remind us what was the what was done for Gray and Oregon Road fire on the question of energy code?

For Gray and Oregon, we just helped with deeming what is an approvable application or complete application and allowing them to do revisions after received. So for that it was more internal policy related. We allowed people to submit We took it in and we vested them based on their submittal. And then we also allowed elimination of their trust documentation because that normally takes longer to get the trust documentation together. And we allowed deferral of their energy code information because that takes longer to get together.

So there was no look back to a previous code for that fire for energy code?

There wasn't. Okay.

So just so I'm following here, so are you, you're suggesting that the governor or the state would need, like the building code council would need to take this action? And you're just saying this is our recommendation. Okay. Is that what you're saying? Okay. All right.

John Pimentel, yeah i'll be looking at additional local code amendments, we could do in this next week to see if there's any anything I see or if there's any direction, the board can give me on something we like to look at i'd be happy to start diving. John Pimentel, I am meeting with the building officials I see a Spokane later today to put our heads together and see what options are seeing start collaborating. Um, if you go to the second page, I think this is, uh, the beginning of the conversation had started a debate here. Authority. This is what gives the governor the ability to make this change. So the governor can do this. Um, the governor is looking for four different options right now for it. Uh, he's tasked the state building council for providing her for it as well. I'd be happy to bring this out to the that board as well, so they can take a look at my analysis or any additional suggestion or edits. I'd be happy to make them really the the main piece is the first the first page. I summarize quite through the other pages, but I want to make sure it's included, so everyone can take their time and kind of read my analysis. Really, the rationale is want to help i want to help people rebuild as much as i can and a new code cycle creates a lot of challenges in that final year it really does and then i had there's a good paragraph on why the previous energy code was helpful i kind of summarized earlier and then on the last page or second last page page four that's where i uh i drew some data from the last fires Morgan and Gray Road, and that's where I did the left-holder permitting history and found 40% of submit applications did not make that besting date.

Yeah, the early estimates that I'm hearing from people in the construction industry is that the proposed code, if it survives final adoption, probably add about another $25,000 to $30,000 to the construction of a home. So while the governor and legislature is saying, how do we build more homes? Well, I got an idea, let's make it more expensive. Yeah, there's the wisdom out of Olympia.

One thing that we're also proposing to try to put this information out so we get a better return than having that 40% gap. We're holding September 1st and 3rd for a meeting between us, the City, and the Home Builders Association. At a site to be determined, Joel is organizing that for the home builders and their building is too small for it. Tom Gregoire- But it'll be a chance to roll out anything we can get from the governor anything we're prepared to do on our own code and give all of the builders and overview, whether your city or county. Tom Gregoire- You know here's the fast forward, so we we think that'll be a better way of first off getting the information out, but also trying to get better at better responses and having that 40% missed the deadline for reasons, as I might just not have known about how all the builders will know where that deadline is. Tom Gregoire- i'm.

sorry josh go ahead i i was just gonna say i i think this is great this is what we asked the governor made it clear he was willing to uh to waive statutes or laws or something you know to help fight the fires but also with recovery uh if you're confident this will move the process along i'm i i trust you and i support you in moving forward with this whatever avenue you'd like to go if you want it to see a dish if you want additional eyes on it let us know but when you're ready i think we send it directly to the governor's office send it to his local representative over here whatever liaisons he's got over at olympia and contacts we've got to make sure that they get it through as many avenues as as they can from us go ahead chris

I was just going to ask more about the process for homeowners that do want to rebuild because I've heard from folks who do and they want to move quickly. So that's a theme I've heard from several constituents at the meetings as well. So my understanding is in order to apply for a new or a building permit to rebuild, you have to have the asbestos test done, correct? Yes. And what other steps have to be done before that application is filed, if any?

Spokane Regional Clean Air has a process where they get a notice of intent and they have a list of contractors who can do those is going to Spokane Regional Clean Air. The second step I would always recommend is go check in your contractor with Washington State Labor and Industries to make sure they're a licensed contractor. And then once you have that NOI done from Spokane Regional Clean Air, you come with a building permit and a site plan, which we can help people with site plans, but we just need a basic top-down view of the property with the building circled or the area circled. Can they do that before they've cleared the property? Yeah, they could do the site plan now if they want to start getting prepped.

how does the household hazardous waste fit into issuance we don't have a specific check on the permitting side of that um our only check for like a hazardous materials is through spoken original clean air at this point so it's a separate requirement that will be addressed but not necessarily through the permit process yes And then just, I'm newer to this than some of the other commissioners who've had past disasters in their districts, but is the debris removal, who typically does that? Is it the same contractor that's doing rebuilding or is it a different service?

All of the above. It could be some are a one-stop shop. Some do as, you know, I'm the main contractor and I subcontract this piece out. Some, they piecemeal every piece. It just depends. Depends on the contracts.

And then if you're rebuilding on substantially the same footprint, you don't need a separate demolition permit. Is that correct?

We are requiring a separate demo permit.

Even if it's the same footprint?

Yep, we have been requiring that. Commissioner, maybe it was not as clear that the footprint requirement is a land use evaluation basically to ascertain whether the original footprint would be in a current shoreline governance zone or in a wetland buffer zone or some other critical area that was not delineated when the structure was built. If the structures is rebuilt substantially on that foundation, the newer rules would not be applied, only if it was to be a substantial expansion with the current critical areas and shoreline rules put in. But in no case does that change the need for a demolition permit up front.

And the Clean Air Agency, as a result of the experience that we got with the Gray and Oregon fires, we have increased the number of labs that can do the testing on the asbestos and have streamlined the process for the report and stuff. So hopefully people will get through that process a lot quicker than we were able to do with the Gray and Oregon fires.

I might suggest that we clarify the fire FAQ document that we put out because the first question on there is, do I need a demolition permit? And it says a building permit to rebuild in the same footprint or location includes the scope of the demolition work. Then it says, if you want to build in a separate location as separate permits required. So that just confused me as Joe Schmo might want to just make sure that's clear to the public.

Fair enough. Yeah, absolutely.

And just kind of for clarity too, with a demolition permit, that also includes an inspector going out, inspecting the property that it is prepped and has been properly cleared, correct?

It does. We're going to be looking at doing a virtual process for maybe so we can take a photo for quick verification. That's one of the fees we removed off of the permit wasn't

And just another question for the group here so I can direct constituents appropriately. So for the debris removal, I've heard that the ash can only go to certain landfill. Is that only if it's a positive for asbestos or does anyone know what the disposal requirements or locations are?

My understanding that the ash cannot go to the waste energy plant. It has to go to Graham. It's got to be a certified landfill site that is capable of receiving inert product. Is that true, Kyle?

Yeah. Even if it doesn't have asbestos, still the only place that can take it is Graham? Is that right? That's where we'd like it to go.

Thank you.

Waste management has been telling everyone at the DAC and beyond that it can go to either the north side or the valley. If it's not hot for asbestos or gram, any of them can take that. And then if it is hot, it can only go to gram. And the important thing is whoever is disposing of it must have that NOI in hand or that asbestos test in hand that says it's either clean or hot, but it can go. The only place it cannot go is the waste energy plant that those are. So that was the message from waste management when I met with them last, just a couple days ago.

I thought Lindsay, because Lindsay gave the analogy, if someone showed up with a truck bed full of ash and burnt debris, that they would take it if they had the negative asbestos. But if they didn't have the negative asbestos, then they wouldn't take it.

In essence, what's happening, we'll relocate it to Grant. So they can, but we're going to take that and take it to Grant.

Okay.

And that's with the okay, because we're running the new so it's not waste management any longer. That's running Northern Valley.

That is so we're giving out all three addresses. So I think clarifying that from the county, that's very clear where that was as of just in public meeting and ground road was there along with some other folks. And that was the message.

Okay, yeah, now we need to make sure we get clarification on that. Lindsay is online and raising her hand. Okay, Lindsay, if you want to go ahead and speak to that.

Yes, I would love to. Can you guys hear me?

We can. Thank you.

Yeah, so Kyle's right. We can take commingled ash and debris at our two transfer stations as long as there's a clean asbestos test with it. We basically do divert a lot of our construction demolition debris to the Graham Road landfill. So all of that construction and demolition debris that has a clean asbestos test will go to the Graham Road landfill. But if we are the closer, more convenient option, we want to make that

um option available to our residents but graham road is the only landfill that can accept asbestos waste thank you and we may want to just make sure if waste management is giving out that information that they're clear to um on that as well uh commissioner jordan

I'm just going to be a little bit of a pain in the neck here on this, but, um, I think the one pager FAQ that we have online is a really good starting point, but I might suggest that several of the agencies that touch on the actual rebuilding process, whether it's County building and planning city waste management, um, clean air, just kind of be in regular communication. And maybe it'd be good to have a one single FAQ document for all of these agencies if possible, um, because it's nice for constituents to have everything in one spot rather than have to kind of bounce from agency to agency for particular slices of the answers that they're looking for. So if I could, uh, in charge for a day i'd say let's get together and have one single document where the whole process is laid out so that's my request to the group absolutely we could

I think that'd be great because as I mean we just keep learning and understanding more and so again further clarification and keep putting your vision dates. As we do that, so that way we know it's the latest and greatest. OK. Any other questions? And I think we're going to. you know uh get into our 10 30 discussion which is just a continuation of all those things um so we may uh rotate chairs and and get people situated why don't you come down by the assistant chief mayor why don't you come down from then i'm expecting shelly o'quinn any moment from nobody trying to get groups together

John Gerstle PB, David Ensign PB, David Ensign PB, John Gerstle PB, John Gerstle PB, John Gerstle PB, John Gerstle PB, John Gerstle PB, John Gerstle PB, John Gerstle PB,

should we go around the table to introductions everybody knows everybody let's do that so i want to say thank you all for being here today it's important that we're all just getting the same information and understand what's going on as you can see in the previous discussion we're still learning as we go nothing's perfect these days as we know and trying to make sure that we've got all the right information and trying to really help people get you know, rebuild. You know, so I mean, it's important and a lot of those people want to rebuild the home they had. So that's why the building code figuring out what we can do there. So I just want to say thank you all for being here. We really appreciate it. We'll have this discussion. So I'm County Commissioner Mary Brooks, Chair, and we'll just go ahead and go around the room.

Jared Keene, I'm an inspector with the Spokane County Sheriff's Office.

Chandra Fox, Deputy Director, County Emergency Management. Go ahead, Shelly.

I'm Shelly Thompson. I'm the Deputy Clerk of the Board. Okay, and Kyle?

Hi, I'm Suid, Senior Director of Public Plans.

Scott Chesney, Planning Director. Jordan Neal, Director of Building and Co-Enforcement.

Rebecca Comerjeet, Executive Assistant.

Mike Barber, Senior Director of Law and Justice.

Josh Kern, Spokane County Commissioner. Al Fringe, Spokane County Commissioner.

Victoria Leifer, Al Fringe's Office.

Hi, Declan Skloot, I'm with Senator Murray's team.

Brett Harvey, Eastern Washington, Director for Senator Murray.

I'm here representing long-term recovery group for the executive director, Craig Sanders, who was invited, couldn't be here today, so. Now I can see senior director of human resources for Spokane County.

District member of public. Martha Lue, weekly billeter, Spokane County communications manager.

John Holt, I do federal affairs first. Matthew Folsom, legal.

Jeff McMorris, I am acting CBR right now in Wisconsin. Okay, good.

And then Chris Jordan. Chris Jordan, County Commissioner. Here we go.

So we have invited, or we, Mr. Coulton here, one of us knows Senator Murray's team was going to be in town, so that's why he's here. Back room two. I understand you're wanting to hear from us versus present, so just jump in if you have questions of anybody. My thought was we'd start with the Sheriff's team and Chandra, just kind of where we've been. Got a chair right over here for you.

And then tell me what introductions sorry. Thank you.

So we're we're gonna have the sheriff's team, Chandra, kind of give just an overview of where we've been, where we're going, any needs on the ground. And then after that, I thought Charlotte could talk about philanthropy and how that's been going on the rebuild in the community. And then Mayor Cooper here to talk what's going on, but feel free to ask questions and stuff anytime.

Yeah, sounds like a great plan. We have lots of questions as well too, so we want to make sure we get your questions answered and I think it's just going to be a great discussion for us all to learn.

I think first just wanted to say thank you guys for taking the time. I think Declan, we Declan and I and our team has been working on this and just know it's a big priority for the I just want to make sure we're here available listening to you guys on how we can best assist and what your needs are.

Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, just for your awareness, I do economic development, agriculture, nutrition, and then FEMA and disaster response for Senator Murray's team in DC. I'm also from Spokane. So this is a huge priority for multiple reasons. And once I thank you for all the work you've already done in this response, and just create an open line of communication for how we can be of assistance as we work to recover together.

All right, so for the fires themselves are cal seven IMT demode on end of shift on Friday, so the fires are now back under the control of dnr they've got a regional type for team. Managing the mop up of the fires, so they're all three fires are at this point 97% contained. What that means for us is that's significant in terms of ending our FMAG incident period, our fire management assistance grant. So up until that date is actually confirmed, all of our response costs are going to be run through the FMAG program. And that has, of course, the 75-25 split that we've talked about before. The state is looking to close the incident period for our presidential declaration on last Friday, so the 15th. That is tentative. That's still under discussion. As a reminder, the presidential declaration ask includes us. five additional counties and three tribal nations. So it's not just us on this particular declaration. That's helpful in that it should make it more likely that we receive IA, which is the individual assistance. Here locally, especially within the Old Trails Fire, we're running at about a 78% insured. which is fairly significant for folks who are carrying homeowners insurance, which is good for their recovery, not so good for our ask, but hopefully that'll be supported from the other counties and tribal nations. I'm pretty confident about public assistance. We did have some significant damage, inland power. I believe the tentative amount that we received back from them was 3.8 million in damages that they suffered, just inland power itself. County departments have done a very good job getting their information into us. So we're on track for getting our information rolled up to the state for inclusion in the presidential ask. So that's all going well, the PDA process. So the shelter at the convention center closed. We had 13 remaining shelter residents and they were transferred to Spokane Calvary Chapel. Sorry. Most of them have their elderly and or have mobility challenges. So Red Cross is working to really make sure they have a firm transitional housing plan in place for all of those folks. We did have two adult family homes which were completely destroyed in the fire. So we had a number of folks who had issues that were directly impacted.

Is it those adult family homes where those 13 remaining people were from?

Not all of them. Some of the folks from those homes were placed through family and stuff like that. So it's not all of them are from those two homes. Some of them were folks whose own primary residence was destroyed. The state has opened their individual assistance program. They have three in-person locations for people to go to and submit their paperwork and receive that assistance. They can do it online as well. They can apply for that online. As a reminder, that is direct cash assistance from the state. So for individuals, it is $750. For couples and couples with up to two children, it is $1,500. And couples with four or more children, it's $2,250. And so their verification, their identity is verified. And then they receive, I think it's a Bank of America Visa card, but it's a direct cash card. And then in addition to what the state is doing, the Red Cross has opened 205 cases so far who have also received direct federal or direct financial assistance from the Red Cross. In terms of finding, oh, sorry, Commissioner.

Hey, Chandra, on the state individual assistance, are there income eligibility limits on that?

There are not. The state waived all income eligibility for that. So it's anyone who was directly impacted, lost their home in any of the fires.

And do you happen to know what those locations are off the top of your head?

Or where would we direct someone to find that information? Is there a website with all that?

Well, it's been distributed pretty significantly across all media. Today, they did move one of them up to Fire District 1 in Stevens County to help the folks who are north of there. The other location is the main branch of the city library, just down here. um and then i believe they're out at i can't remember what the third one is sorry off the top of my head but there's three so wasn't one of them a fire district nine station so it was they were they were yeah so that was the one that was shifted up to stevens county for today but it will shift back to 91. um i think they're in stevens county today and tomorrow and then it will shift back to 91 is my understanding

If I may, I did send information in the daily news clips that includes links. So thank you.

And then regarding our damage assessment of primary homes, we're in the process of de-conflicting. We have nine different data sources that we are pulling together. We're in the process of de-conflicting that and that should be done. Hopefully by end of day today, we will have our final firm number. of primary fully destroyed major damage and then other structures that were damaged. Let's see, Household Hazardous Materials Program, EPA is ready to go on that. They're doing a media day out at the staging site at 1 p.m. And while we have not received any opt-outs through the portal as yet, they did report in their 9 a.m. meeting that they did receive some verbal refusals as the recon teams went through the neighborhoods, but those individuals are being redirected to the actual form. So we have that refusal documented. So end of report, unless there are questions. It's a lot. It is, yeah. And we're, you know, fairly at the start, so.

Yes, thank you.

Michelle Estrella, know anything else you'd like to share no don't have been working nonstop to really.

Michelle Estrella, keep updated with all the information available and that big.

It's been really, I mean, the amount of support that we have received in this response, if you've not been out to our EOC at the training center, we have had partners from multiple agencies, you know, not just from the county, but around the region. We did make use of the Washington mutual aid system. And so we have folks from other counties who are actually staffing positions. as well as from the Department of Corrections, IMT. They're super, super capable people. And so it's been really, really good. We've been able to get a lot accomplished in a fairly short amount of time.

And one of the things I did want to ask about is, so having those nine different lists kind of get culminated into one, and then ensuring that that meets with the assessor's office.

So that's part of the data is we're pulling from the assessor's office and everybody else. So it's all included in that.

So I think in the end, that's going to be the official list because the assessor's office will be putting their tax bill burden to zero. And so I think that's the one that we'll eventually, you know, for me as the auditor, it's like, that's going to be the official list because he's, you know, looking at everything across the county, city and county, because every city parcels all go through the assessor's office to get that designation. So to me, that's kind of going to be our official list is what As as that all comes together, because I know Tom was saying that may take him a little longer I don't know.

So we yeah we have we have their data, we have FEMA data, we have data that was generated by the IMT on the ground so. like I said, it's de-conflicting it and making sure that, you know, because one of the challenges we had with Oregon Gray was we had parcels that were, you know, in the county records as undeveloped, and yet we had family homes on them. So making sure that those corrections are being found and made and all of that, so.

Excuse me, Commissioner Jordan. I could tell the stage was coming.

Just for the clarity of anybody watching the County emergency management page has shared out the information on the state disaster assistance. So it's on the state emergency management division page, wildfire disaster assistance, and there's lots of guidance in there. It looks like it's, you have to show your primary residence was destroyed or seriously damaged and it's available to homeowners and renters as well. So there's tons of Q&A, useful information on that page. So thanks, Chandra, for sharing that out.

Shelly, you want to add to that?

I did expand on what Chandra already alluded to. It's just the generosity of so many partners that have come to the table to support everyone from our first responders who are responding to the community. And we always say at Inovia that generosity is time, talent, and resources, and we saw that in abundance on this disaster. Specifically for the resource side, we have seen as of this morning over 4,000 individual gifts that are totaling Well, I have a new number for you today, so I'm going to say first pulling 5.6M 1.5 of that is actually for the Eastern Washington fund. So we'll help us respond to the fires up in Stevens County. So, as we receive national attention for the Spokane complex fires, we actually had many folks who were like, wait a minute. Stevens County is on fire and Ferry County is on fire. And so we received contributions into both. We have about 4 million in the Spokane Complex Fires Fund. And then this morning on the way here, actually, we have a $1.5 million gift that will specifically support the Nine Mile community first, and then we'll support others if there's nothing left over. So that's an incredible donation that's not counted in those numbers yet. um and so the community has shown up it's what's really an interesting uh if you dive further into the data over half of those 4 000 individual gifts were all less than a hundred dollars And so what we always say is that it doesn't matter whether it's $5 or whether it's $5 million, it all comes together to make our community a better place. And then in this response, we've had the community step up and they gave what they could give. And then we had some really incredible businesses step up that supported our community generously. And we've actually had partners from around our state and around the country that have sent philanthropic partners that have sent resources. And so I would say unlike past philanthropic responses that maybe was mostly local, we have close to would say two million that we know of that came outside from outside of this region which is really you know important for those who have been impacted one of the things and i guess i will i just also want to say that doesn't include the generosity that is going to our partner city of spokane set up their own fund on catholic charities salvation army i know those three are over a million in their own i don't know the exact numbers but i know they've they've hit that and then many other organizations set up funds and so when you look around the community there are so many people from churches to our non-profits that have um just been out in force helping families we will be putting together a coalition to be able to have those folks to be able to share out the impact because we do think it's really important um that people understand where those dollars are going We can always tell the story about where the dollars go that come into us, not necessarily how they're spent if they come into other organizations. So we're going to partner together with the different groups to be able to share how these dollars are spent. I think what is always hard, it's always hard for people to understand is that when you have a response like this, The majority of the money comes in literally within the first few days, and everyone has an expectation that those dollars go out the door immediately. But it's not how it works. Recovery, as Terry's going to talk about, is actually a multi-year process. If you look at the Okanagan fires from back in like 14, 15, whatever those were, it took 10 years. for them to actually fully recover we're still working with malden i think we just have one more home to build in malden that was 2020. we have multiple homes that still need to be rebuilt um through our oregon and gray road fires and we're three years past that and so um when we take a look at the philanthropic dollars that come in the door it's really easy to want to have every penny of that spent in the first you know Two weeks and it just that's not how disasters work, and so, yes, there is money that comes in the door, right now, that immediately goes out the door. And that you know, has been to gift cards for you know for clothing, because if you think about this first this first response is really about making sure people are safe. housed, fed, clothed. And so that's where the initial dollars from all the agencies have gone out the door, gift cards or food, clothing, gas cards, housing vouchers or hotel vouchers. That's the first phase. Then you go into what we internally refer to as the stabilization phase. And so now our dollars as folks, the immediate disasters passed and folks are now looking at getting into their new home. And that could end up being they need rental assistance. Could be that they need furniture. It could be that they need additional resources to stock their pantries. So this is now moving into the stabilization phase. Then it moves into the long-term recovery phase. And that's when all the other resources come into play. It's FEMA, it's the state's IA grants, it's the individual person's insurance money. And then it is also the philanthropic dollars. And that in the long-term recovery piece, this is where the long-term recovery group is such an important partner because we do have to make sure that the dollars are spent on the folks that were most impacted. We do have to counter fraud. Anyone think that there's not fraud? It's happening all over the place. And if you don't think it happens in the big fires, like all you have to do is look at LA and Hawaii and all this. People come out of the woodworks to take advantage of these situations. And so, while I think it's one thing for someone to get $100 gift card for, you know, Rosars that maybe shouldn't have got it, it's a completely other scenario when you're talking larger dollars. And so there is the need for that verification process to make sure that the dollars are going out the door to impact families that were truly, that truly lost their homes or significantly, their homes were significantly damaged. And so it's just a process. And then because our dollars are the most flexible dollars, fee was not that flexible. They have certain things that they can spend the money on, right? Insurance has certain things they can spend money on. So when the philanthropic dollars can come in and actually fill the gap. So when you look at how we supported the families in the Elk and Makale communities, and we did some of the I'm missing my word, the tree cleanup, the hazardous tree cleanup that we supported, debris cleanup. We supported families that winterization because families have been living in their little campers for a couple of years now. And it's one thing to live in that in the summer and it's another to have to spend a winter in it. So some of those dollars were spent for helping winterized campers to keep families warm. There's all these little pieces where dollars are going out the door to help families through a vetted process to make sure that they actually have a need and to make sure that they were one of the impacted families. And it's community driven. So we are one partner at the table, but where the dollars go are driven by the partners at the table and by the need that's identified. So anyone who is watching this that wants to know how do we um benefit no we're not going to write one large check to every single family that's just not how it works um and if you think about you know the four million dollars for the spokane complex fires and you divide that by uh i don't know what the number is today 700 800 homes that are lost it's not going very far it's not going to completely replace what people have lost That's why these philanthropic dollars, paired with all the other resources out there, are really meant to help create that wholeness for someone. But they're not giving one large check from the community. It is through a vetted community process. And I know you all around the table know this, but nobody doesn't take a fee. because of the generosity of our donors to our partnership fund every year, that is what allows us to do the work that we do. And so we partner with our nonprofits, primarily with the Long-Term Recovery Group, this round for those dollars to go out through that committed community process. So I think I have covered everything I had on my list, but if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

I think I was talking to Council President Betsy Wilkerson, and that was one of the things you touched on is that there's all these different groups and trying for electives to understand how these funds get get dispersed, you know, like City had their home fund, Catholic Charities was taking money, you know, Red Cross. So we have our Council of Governors coming up September 11, and we would like to have kind of want to say an accounting of all that but we'd like to kind of know what what has happened that you know that gives us a little bit of time um and to know what what is you know what each of those groups are doing uh so since you're kind of bringing them together um i think that'd be a great thing to let them know that i think it's going to be important for us as as electeds um in that room to kind of know what how those dollars get used and why it's important you know some organization to different things.

So well, I think it'll be really important. Well, there's a slide that was provided at a training that a couple of us attended on last Thursday around the long-term recovery group guide. It would be really helpful if you showed it. And it shows that literally 75% and this is all disasters, 75% of the money comes in at the beginning and only 25% of the needs left unmet. When you look at long term, only 25% of the dollars come in and 75% of the need is of that. And so it is really important when you look at all those philanthropic resources to see that as they come in, you have to remember to put the context into phases. and to understand that that recovery is long-term. And so it is okay for there still to be dollars in the door on September 11th when people are meeting that have not been spent because those dollars actually need to be leveraged with other resources. I mean, people look at the Elkin Medical Lake Fire recovery and we've already completed 13 homes and those were the ones supported under the 1.4 million we raised. Well, how do you build 13 homes with actually less than that? Because we use that money on other things too. Well, you do it because it's volunteer labor and you're leveraging resources from other partners. And so it's all these other, it's coming together that is allowing us to actually maximize those donations. and so when you look at that in september what's really important for people to understand is that it's okay for dollars to come in the door and for anovia and catholic charities and salvation army to still have money there to help with this multi-year recovery and so um we can ask the ones that we know of to to share what they've done so far um the ones that we don't know we're gonna put an invite out to everyone to be part of the community report um that will be an ongoing like monthly sharing back stories and then it will culminate with kind of an interim report long-term report um so we'll invite them but only there's nothing that requires them to work so you know that yeah we know that but i think it's important i think again you know some some people want to contribute

the long-term side of it you know so i think it's just important for elected officials to understand the process um and how it works so that way we can help guide people thank you um so long-term recovery here we go uh so the long-term recovery group was created in response um to stand in perpetuity was our role for Uh, we had currently members came at the beginning. She showed us this model and I said, we need that. We need one in every county in Washington. Thirty-nine of them. But anyway, still standing in perpetuity to to activate in these responses. The critical need for long-term recovery groups is that funding that has that needs to be available immediately. And that's one of the things I want the commissioners to think about. We need those first dollars for case management. We have about three hundred responses already. We have them in there, they're tallied up, they're ready to go and we need to start responding to those folks because we promise to take them from beginning to end. So disaster recovery begins the moment that disaster happens and continues for as long as 10 years later. We had an incredible response from Grand Oregon Road Fire where uh three years out this week um and um we're probably 95 built back if not more um and that was because Spokane is generous Spokane is kind um the state and federal government both came in and so that Gray Road fire work is going to continue we have dedicated case managers that have been funded that That $44 million, they're dedicated to that and can't work on anything else. We are ready to hire three more. We already have applications in and want to start the interview process, but feel a little reluctant to do that without having some funding. So we have other national partners that are willing. Almost everybody wants to match. And once you get those first dollars out, then the matches follow. So that is just a need off the get-go. But what we do that is so important is, which is that? So we wrote a budget. It's $640,000 for a year for three case managers. There is 25% of the executive director and one admin support person. That also includes their laptops or phones and Microsoft devices. um uses the the software support so 640 000 per year and we're asking for three years of funding and we think if we could get one year of funding um then we'll have a theme of dollars who could come in and maybe some state dollars but we've got to get moving now with the just this morning we had about 20 more people come in so they're good the word is out um and we have really with the novia's help too and the county become trusted of community partners so what we do is we offer those first steps of guidance if you go to spokane public schools put up a resource page we added that to ours because it's really valuable we worked with clean air they made it very clear first steps document that's on that and we share it also. When you were talking earlier about debris management, that's the first thing and people don't understand it. It's confusing right now. I guess I'll go back and forth between mission and what's happening. A little confusing right now for folks is the EPA. They think the EPA is going to come through and once they select what's hazardous and they call that off, that we're good to clean up and you're not. You have to still get that asbestos test by a licensed person. those go off to the lab. As Al said, you know, they're expanding those labs and Clean Air is working with that. Clean Air also put up on their page the steps, the list of all the licensed people and then the list of all of the those can mitigate the asbestos. So it's really important to understand the asbestos. That's where all the bottlenecks happen. Also, nobody can read, will be able to rebuild on their same foundation. And that was something I had to learn. I'm like, oh, the house burned down. You just rebuild it. No, because it was too hot. The rebar pops all the concrete. Then it's just not, there's no integrity left foundation. It has to go down to the dirt. And so, and then your, your NOI there, that, and your asphalt that comes out. That can go to Graham Road, but you're not going to let anyone dump that doesn't have that asbestos test report. It's a 32-page report, and we need to train our case managers on how to read those reports. I know how to read them, and those who helped with the Grand Oregon Road fire, but how do you get to the page with those results and what are the numbers movements? That's just a little nuance there. Okay, so I'll get out of the weeds, back up to where we are. data sharing agreements. So we have started those. We need those with the county and state emergency management. FEMA. We have those with the print. So anyone and everyone we're working on those down data sharing agreements, even different departments within the county. I just spoke with Tom Conis this morning. So as everyone gets reports of, you know, and Chandler knows this, what houses are destroyed? What are Amy Nunez, We can now just all those will kind of come in and gel together, why is it important long term recovery has all of this, because the case management case might get to the end and the theme of dollars roll in, you have to have case management. was leading at FEMA for seven months. And we had been doing case management, working through all of that. And we had our community partners working in Novia and New Hope and Reimagined Medical Life and Salvation Army and all these other partners. When FEMA came in, they're like, you guys are beautiful. They were here four weeks, broke checks, packed it all up because we had vetted cases. Vetted cases means that the case managers are trained in disaster recovery. They meet with that person. They do an intake. They validate that that is the person who lived on the property. That is your house. And then they also collect all of their bank statements. It also proves they are who they are and that they have you know, belong to that property. They also collect every bit of funding that you've received, so they have to provide that case manager proof of all of the support they received, even from the beginning. It's like, well, ballpark it. How much did you get on the first day? Oh, about $750 from Red Cross and something else. All of that's documented. So any support they've received comes in and that becomes a case. So from there, the case managers, they sign an affidavit that says, I swear and affirm that this is that person, we've validated them, we have all their receipts, their bank statements, their insurance. what was paid out, whether insurance covered and did not cover, the cost of rebuilding their house, and what is the gap. So we find the gaps and they become a case number. That case number goes under that sworn affidavit, but they are who they are and this is what they need, goes to this Unmet Needs Roundtable that Shelly was talking about. And that is where all the community organizations come together and we say, This is a family that's situated this way. They've received this much money. This is where they were short. This is the gap. And this is what they need either to get to their next step. There's continued case management or this gets them on their way. So we call it a sit, stand, walk. So everyone's knocked down to the ground, right? And so we need to get them sitting, standing, and then walking. Once they're walking, we don't want to create dependency, but we want people to have a path forward that they can walk um so case management they can come in and out as those needs come around again it's like okay i think i got this and we're ready to build and then now we're stuck again they can come back anytime and come through us so um Those, why might someone not be funded through the long-term recovery group? So long-term recovery group, someone might not be funded if they built back and their insurance covered everything but their fence. Well, fences are not really essential needs unless you are a farmer. You have to keep your cows in advance and your situation is thus and such, which You know, I saw one little goat farmer and it was pretty small, a half acre fence. But so it's those things. It's like there's like I said, we help people get back on their feet and get them going. And then they have to be able to work out the rest of the recovery and take responsibility for their own recovery for those things. So it's for necessities. Are they safe, secure and sanitary? Right. They got water. They have septic or hooked up to their sewer. I think you might find some folks, the city, they're responsible for the sewer as it comes up to the house. But from the house, you know, from the property line to the house, well, that's on the person. So the city doesn't typically pay for that. So the insurance company has to pay for that. Some insurance companies don't pay for that. So we're going to see, it's very unusual things that come up. Everyone's uniquely situated um and so those cases are vetted and then those funders have no obligation to fund that we can take it and we can say here's the thing we all think it's a real need um and they're like that's not our mission that's not our purpose that's not our um but that's why those dollars from anovia um and you know they're the dollars of last resort right and that's why they come out last and like community they really understand that so uh funding case work is a it's a tree triage phase is where we are now the names come in we're not doing case work we're doing triage you know what's your name what's your address what's your immediate need and this is a quick answer you need to know about spaces or is this going to be a longer term we'll enter into a case so uh places 300 could come in um you might only find 50 of those actually end up being cases. I imagine out of this fire, we'll end up with two to 300 cases where we'll work with them a little bit longer. And at the end of the day, I'm guessing it's a ballpark, but I'm guessing. So even with the best of insurance, a very small percentage say we would bring. Good insurance means you're going to be underinsured. Most people still have not. updated their policy for replacement and then you have to realize the cost of everything is so much more expensive so there's a cap so you have the little buckets that your insurance company will cover um and you can move the money around and cost more for asbestos or it costs more for this or whatever it is um but uh at the end of the day it's like you hit your max that's that's it uh folks will have to remortgage to rebuild um and it's tough when your insurance company pays you out they want to pay off your mortgage and now you have you know a dirt lot you're over mortgage to begin with you have no ability to build back we're going to it just happens um so and those are the folks that need the case how do we navigate that or we can give them counseling and um and direct them to work with the So SpokaneCommunityResources.org. There's some great information on there that public schools put up. We're watching that list. We're updating that also. Working with Clean Air on those steps. Talked about time for recovery. We talked about that. Resources and partnerships are something that we're continuing to work on. And we have those. One thing that I learned in our fire, and it's true of every disaster, is this immediate response. We talked about all of the money that comes in immediately. That lasts about five weeks. And then all of these organizations pack up their kit back and go to the next disaster. So they're there to help you get food, shelter, clothing. Like those that are in the emergency center now, we're not leaving people destitute. We get them somewhere before we go. But they're leaving. And when they leave, it's the community that has to say, so now what do we do and how do we do this? And that's where the case management and the Disaster Recovery Act starts. Housing is going to, the temporary housing is going to be critical. And of course, we're already in a housing situation, so we'll see how that shakes out but that's something that's probably the first thing besides the cleanup and and those that are rebuilding those who are displaced now while they're rebuilding or were renters um and the renters are the ones who really are living on that razor's edge you know paycheck to paycheck most of them are making them and where do i live and i already paid my rent and had it so that's where these early dollars for that will go and terry on on that like know because if you're looking at the assessor's entities you know we're saying the owners um not the you know we don't know who the renters are how do you find that out so the renters also come in and that's the the questionnaire you go to our our contact page and it's like your name address you know your phone number email and then were you a homeowner or a renter where you completely destroyed, misplaced, you know, and so there's that little checkbox questionnaire because we have to categorize all these people, you know, on that. So the other thing that will come up is legal. You'll find many people leave that interesting. There was a divorce and then i'm somehow still on the property and now i want to come in and take the insurance claim and the person who in the house says but it's my house and um you know and so it gets really complicated legal um partnerships where they weren't married but they were right now but anyway they were legal um domestic partners um and so and then like someone has died since then and then the person who lives not on the property and so now who does it belong to so there's a lot of legal and uh that's really important that we get some some funding to help with with legal so as I said shelly said 13 homes Those are the last, you know, we start looking for those folks that own their property. We're not insured, have no way to rebuild. They love their land. They're not leaving. They're living in tents and all kinds of jacks and all kinds of stuff because they are not leaving their land, of course. And we're the frontiersmen. But anyway, so helping those folks get those homes built back. And we just did our math on it here a few months ago. 40x on the dollar costs $140,000 to build a house. That's with all of our partners and everyone who's contributing. And even our national partners said nobody did it as well as we did. And it's because of who you are as we go to Spokane. The county came in with the first dollars. um so chan remembers back in june of 2023 or 2024 when that money came in and it's like you got five weeks put together you know eight home packages and have it delivered and secured and you know we all ran around like crazy people uh and the county you know came forward with that first 400,000 reimbursement. Novia helped us with the first dollars out. If it wasn't for Novia, we never would have rebuilt anything because government dollars are reimbursement. And if you do not have first dollars out, and that's our nonprofit partners too. We had UMCOR gave us $300,000 for case management. We had other partners, business community came in with like $20,000 here, $50,000 there. And it's like, can you make that unrestricted? Because we have overhead costs and without administration, you can't run a program. You have to have some administration. Our administration, we run us on 7%. So we've done, we're lean, we're mean, but that's... the work that we've done. But I think I've said probably more than anybody could take in one sitting, but happy to answer any questions. But that long-term recovery group, we're there. We've got the 300 names queued up. We need to get people hired.

May I ask, Commissioner, is there any question that you've been asked by a constituent or a partner for the science office that has not been answered yet?

Covered a lot of it, or I just want to confirm how many people have reached out to you 300 300 and how many people. Six 44 as far as case managers.

Three case managers 25% executive director and one. admin support person. And then, that included their equipment laptop phone and software something. We have an additional office. We have additional office space. We're on the road, newly remodeled little space, but they just had another office come open, which is great. We are really just contract with a new accounting firm, which is great. And we also have working with civic initiatives. We're going to make sure that all of our people are dialed in. They'll do that work for us. And um we just finished our taxes of 25 so all of it is in really great shape but we want to keep everything completely separate so we have to be on it we will trigger it on and this is I mean I feel like this is an ongoing because we don't know how many people are going to reach out yeah do you think that's enough case workers for the amount of home

that you're looking for? I feel like that's a hard question to also answer because you don't know who's going to reach out.

So there's a recommendation that you start with three on any big fire like this because this is triage phase. When you get down to case management, then it's 30 to 40 cases per case management is really a case. But we don't know how many real cases. But through triage, we'll get there. And so the three, we can work triage with people. And those are not cases. Those are just what's your next step? Where do you need? How are we getting you in the system? And in partnering you up and being ready for the funding. So three, we think we're very confident with that, and that's kind of what they do nationally is bring in three at a time. We have training that starts Next week, UMCOR is going to be providing all of our disaster case management. So we hire people with bachelor's degrees, with social work experience, and then that's who we bring in. Then we get them the disaster case management training. And then our three that we have have been through the advanced training. So there's three levels, but the entry level disaster case management will keep them training along the way. And that dollar did include those training.

I think it's good to keep in mind, not every single family who lost a home is going to come in and seek help. I think that's something too. So, I mean, when you hear 700, you're not going to get 700 families that are going to come to you seeking help. For many, a variety of reasons. I'm good. I can handle it on my own. Some probably should come in and are just not willing to, and they want to handle it on their own.

So it's usually kind of middle or end of the field.

We have people that are just now in this phase three because they're like, we're tough and we can make it without anybody's help. three winters of living in a shed or a tarp or something. It's like, I don't know. And they're complicated. Problems, and even probably those who think, when you think to yourself, I'm insured, I got this, I can figure out a system. There's others that need more help. So they're very kind-hearted. They're like, we're going to be okay. Others need help. And we're saying, come in. One, there will be federal funding that comes in the future that may be available for you for reimbursement. If you spent $80,000 on debris removal, that's something that we want to contend for. when we get the fema money back even like this 44 million we're talking about individual assistance okay so you were insured and you did work a job and you you know you were in maybe this income level but if you couldn't build back or you had this three thousand square foot home and you're building back now at fifteen hundred square foot home because you had spent eighty thousand dollars to clean up asbestos and those are those case-by-case things we don't know But you should come in, everyone should. That would be my message. Go ahead, get on the list, be validated as a person. So as those funding cycles come through, the case managers can reach out and say, that's actually you. We want to come back and chat about that.

You guys have questions of anyone else outside of our building planning here?

I think this is all incredibly helpful. Once again, I want to send a huge thanks for our entire team for how you all handled this and let you know that we remain extremely committed to stop priority as we move through the next couple of years of supporting these efforts. I want to ask really quickly, and if this is something answered later, on the legal side of things, you mentioned it's really interesting handling those difficult cases. Is that something in this 645,000 budget? Are you bringing in folks to help with that? Is there outside council you're contracting with? How does that get worked out when you're dealing with this?

We need to contract with outside council. We just put in an initial, I think we, I can't remember now because we have also, we have three buckets right now that we're working from. One of them has $30,000 in legal, but I think that's related to the Great Road Fire, but we just put that in there as a starter. So for instance, one the one case that we're trying to work on um it's five thousand dollar retainer so it was like seven hundred dollars for the initial screening and five thousand dollar retainer to help them get that title cleared um and work through so that's the first dollars out so we need dollars for legal and we really need it earlier we think about legal comes later but if they're tangled up legal they can't get a permit can't move you know there's a lot of things that get in the way So we do need legal funding out to get going. That's not something that many people thought of initially. And then we realized we don't have money for that. We don't have money for that. So that's three years later. We're just now starting to work with those who need legal and asking that that will be something that's funded in the next nofollow out of the 44 million is legal. But for this fire, why don't we get it in on the front end? we didn't get fifty thousand dollars for legal and you know it's reimbursement we used going that that would really be beautiful and we didn't get an idea how much i was really needed

I guess one question for the merchant management and county folks in terms of timeline and where in the process you are on FMAG reimbursements. If you could just give me a quick update on what that looks like.

So really we have not, we're still in the incident period. I expect that to be, you know, ended here shortly. So once that ends, then we'll see our contract and all of that. So we're at the very, very, very, very beginning. We don't even have a contract yet for our FMA.

Okay.

Any other comments? We're almost at 1130 here.

I just want to say thank you to Sean and the whole team. Really, honestly, I feel like we were doing maybe calls every single day throughout our internal team and for the clear communication and those updates and truly appreciate it. I truly appreciate it. I think as we move forward, and we've gone through this before, but as you move forward, both with FEMA, EPA, all the other federal things that come up, please keep us updated on how we can best assist, how we can best help you.

Absolutely.

Senator, you know, she wants to do everything she can to help you guys and continue to be there. So just please stay in touch.

Yeah, please. And you all know that I'm running short on cards, but you can get my information through her as the please do. And feel free to reach out on absolutely anything. And we'll make sure to be a resource over weekend.

Thank you. And thank you for all the senators.

I mean, our delegation has been so helpful in trying to help us. And and I say, you know, these fires are.

less tragic because of the work that Senator Cantwell and Senator Burry did in getting, you know, fire apparatuses, you know, for fires, you know, the last several years to make sure that we have, you know, firepower, airpower, I should say, you know. I know Senator Cantwell is a huge supporter of that and making sure that happens. I mean, without our federal delegation, I mean, we could see more of a disaster than we have. So I certainly knew that in the Upper River Drive pilot, you know, there was planes in the air all the time, you know, fighting that fire. So we were only 12 homes destroyed, you know, and this one, I think it would have been much worse had to not have that fire powered. And that's really been the federal government that's been helping make that happen. So I think that's been seen in the last seven years. So just a huge shout out to those senators. the horse runners as well during that time was very very active so just huge thank you to you guys yeah the 44 for a lot of those is huge and it was incredible yeah it was incredible

I do have one thing I forgot to share, and just briefly, and you'll want to know this, the Autumn Road fire went up into Stevens County. So anything in Stevens County, the Long-Term Recovery Group also is going to assist with those cases. So you also know that's why we said it's Spokane Region Long-Term Recovery Group, because the last fires went a little bit up in Monterey County. So if there's people displaced in Stevens from the Autumn Road fire, there are people. i have questions about that but we could do yeah another time yeah anyways you know how to find me you know how to find me but i never i failed to mention that but i want to also reiterate what an incredible response we had um in the great fire and what incredible response we've had with the northern road and this fire um our state and federal delegation are incredible and we're able to be able like other states just whether we just don't

Justin Fields , City of Boulder OSMP, Sure, I think I know you guys have a time of 1130 to go so appreciate you being here, thank you for. Justin Fields , City of Boulder OSMP, Things a lot Thank you all for your work really, really appreciate it. Justin Fields , City of Boulder OSMP, Okay, thank you. Justin Fields , City of Boulder OSMP, Okay, Mr Jordan I know you've got to jump off 1130 so we'll let you do that and. I'm not sure what we have left. Miscellaneous.

Thank you all.

Keep smiling. I know what that means.

See you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Zaire. Yeah, he says, I'm . Thanks for hanging out, Spot.

Sorry. By the way, . I'm in the process of thinking .

TAB, Mark McIntyre, will look at. TAB, Mark McIntyre, me now let's try. TAB, Mark McIntyre, Thank you all.

TAB, Thank you. TAB, Mark McIntyre, Well, one miscellaneous kind of involves.

TAB, Mark McIntyre, We need him to perform so. TAB, Mark McIntyre, We will not.

TAB, Mark McIntyre, We lost amber to. TAB, Mark McIntyre, Oh yeah.

TAB, Mark McIntyre, And then Chris said he had 1130 so.

And preview for tomorrow of tomorrow and she's going to be walking through. We go and start testing will be walking through the. and then from the first working draft of the bots around data centers well that will be um a long policy driven meeting one of our meetings the one miscellaneous i have is related to the efas task force they put out a request to expand the scope of the task force and we didn't have enough Public meeting, but this is the board that authorized the task force. And it was really authorized around spending the 7.5M. If you state gave us that is. Only for systems, there's no admin, there's no indirect. Just put in the port systems. So, talking with staff here who's involved. None of us see a reason to expand it because. If there's no funding. what's the purpose? And we know that the POET, there's millions more needed to get the POET system. So you have to get more money, there'd be more POET, maybe some navigators, but there's been a request to expand the scope really to anything related to the West Plains water. I would say maybe even looking in the data center conversations, almost, I'm not part of any of the neighborhood associations, but almost feel like the city neighborhood associations, which, My view doesn't make sense for this group, but. Just needed to get board feedback. So the next time we have a meeting, we can respond. I think you all also receive a letter from Craig. Well, the same at the last meeting requesting. Requesting this, so just looking for.

direction and feedback if staff said again on the right road saying this isn't the right timing or form right now to have an expense go about yeah no Jeff Jeff outlined it very well and and uh you know the the they want to know they want to have an organization that talks about you know, what's going to happen in the next five, 10 years, 20 years? How did they make themselves whole? I mean, there's a whole litany of things, and this task force was not set up to do that. We were set up to deal with the poet systems and stuff. I'm not sure that to make it with the task force is the way to make up to have this bigger conversation. But, you know, the time commitment and everything else, there's no budget board and stuff. So I'm really challenged with trying to expand the scope of the task force. But it's the board's task force. It's not mine. So I yield to the wisdom of the board.

I I think what you said, I mean, I don't think this task force would exist if it was wasn't for that 7 and a half million dollars or whatever that was that that we got from the state for the poet systems. That was the purpose.

If we get more money, it can be revisited. Yeah, if we have more money with expanded usage. then it could be revisited with that diameter right now. I mean, Ben's putting in a ton of time, Ben Brad, about his expertise is what we're discussing. Yeah.

I mean, my understanding, it was how do you get those POET systems out to homeowners, out to impacted properties? I mean, if you're going to pile on a bunch of additional, you know, areas or different issues surrounding pifa it's like when when are you going to do that does that mean more meetings does that mean more staff time uh are you going to burn out the task force that's currently showing up to handle the poet issue which is the issue at hand here because that's all the money can be spent on i just those would be the questions i would have and i i think unless

I don't think the capacity is there. And we all know our budget situation as far as putting funding to create the capacity.

We used funding to pay for the Navigators.

The county has paid for the Navigators. 100,000 reserve fund dollars for that. Because we couldn't use the state funds.

Yeah.

So we've we have put in and staff yeah and they're still doing their purpose are they no they're doing a great job um the health district dr v is hired to um both women who are really out there i think kind of like talking long-term recovery group building the relationships building some trust being the back and forth we have two groups now that have come through the rf q process request for qualifications um so there's choices on who you want to use if you are one of the impacted homes they have identified the top group of people for the first round which was generally customers but if there were children in the home and people with cancer and pregnancy there's a few qualifications that will bounce you up to a higher priority but outside of those few things it is worst numbers down to best numbers but right now we have funding for Maybe the first 50 to 100, depending on the cost of each one. We're going to know a lot in the process, and hopefully we'll get more funding to continue it. But the job at hand is still a multi-year process, probably. So are we good continuing our original stated purpose? Somebody getting the feeling here?

yeah that's my only muscle I guess okay okay the only thing I would add is I think rephrasing that as the scope of the task force is going to remain the same unless there's a deadline to get those funds spent in the and the scope and change the mission for why it was funding for lack of using funding if we didn't stay. Nothing further.

And hopefully we'll get some more funding in the next legislative session.

But we know budget challenges with all government.

I had Tuesday's meeting, I did ask Senator Vercelli about the availability of funding, and his suggestion was submit a request to the capital fund, capital budget, and he thought that there might be some money there, clearly not any money on the general fund. So that'll be a challenge in terms of scope of what we can use the money for, but money is money, so.

that's everything then okay back at 9 00 a.m tomorrow okay then um there any uh executive sessions we wanted to knock off the board again

HAB-Juliette Boone, And then the only other thing i'd say is i'm on the Council of governments, except for Friday September 11 development, please, I still need to prepare. HAB-Juliette Boone, we're going to start at 830. HAB-Juliette Boone, They're opening and ribbon cutting again is a 1040 so it's just pretty limited, but. HAB-Juliette Boone, We did think that we want to talk about it kind of with what are it's probably going to be mostly on fire stuff at this point at all. nonprofits, you know, kind of inviting them to talk about what they're doing. Because there is a lot of confusion, I think, for electives as to the different groups that have been receiving funds and what they're doing with those funds. And I don't think we expect that they're all out the door, you know, immediately. So it's a great conversation today. And I think it's a conversation with other electives. kind of where we're at on the FEMA process and then kind of where we're at on the Safe and Healthy Task Force.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll have four exact sessions, maybe just three that we'll try in the morning. We were thinking the data zoning would last about two hours, so we should have time to knock out one of tomorrow's .

Great.

And then at this point, no other business is coming before the board. So we will adjourn for the morning and see everybody tomorrow morning. Thank you.