Board of County Commissioners - workshop

recording in progress okay good morning welcome to thurston county board of county commissioners agenda setting work session for tuesday september 1st 2026 it's 9 0 5 a.m um my name is ty mentor chair of the board to my left vice chair commissioner California commissioner rachel grant Commissioner Emily Klaus is virtual. Commissioner Mejia is excused this morning due to a medical appointment and will join as soon as she is able. Meeting is live streamed to the Thurston County YouTube channel and written public comment may be received up to two hours in advance of the meeting and distributed to the board. Action may be taken at this meeting. First up is a final review for this afternoon's business agenda. At 2 p.m. CHANGES OR ANYTHING TO FOLLOW UP ON? NO CHANGES TO FOLLOW UP ON. OKAY. SO ANY QUESTIONS FROM THE BOARD ON ANY ITEM? WE HAVE NO WORK SESSION. WE HAVE NO PRESENTATION, CORRECT? SO, YEAH. ALL RIGHT. THEN WE'LL GO TO THE SECOND ITEM, WHICH IS EXECUTIVE SESSION. Pursuant to RCW 4231101I to discuss with legal counsel representing the agency matters relating to agency enforcement actions or to discuss with legal counsel representing the agency litigation of potential litigation to which the agency governing body or a member acting in official capacity is or is likely to become a party when knowledge regarding the discussion is likely to result in an adverse legal or financial consequence to the agency. there may be an extension or action may follow. And then that would be followed up by a second executive session on a separate topic.

Correct, Chair.

Okay, so with that, it's 9.07 will be an executive session till 9.37. And we will close the boardroom and proceed.

Recording in progress.

Okay, thank you. We took a quick break and I need to formally come out of the executive session. That's item three. And so it's 1116. And that ended at 1107. That nature, no conformal legislative action is going to follow. And so we're going to go straight into item four on the morning's work session agenda, which is another executive session. Pursuant to 4231, 10, 1, I have the same subsection as the previous 1, which is regarding agency litigation or potential litigation when public knowledge regarding the discussion is likely to result in an adverse legal or financial consequence to the agency. RCW 4231, 10, 1, so I. 20 minutes is allocated as a starting point and board action may follow. It is 11.17. We'll be in executive session until 11.37. Again, we're on item four on the morning work session agenda.

Recording stopped.

Okay, so we have our live stream back up. I think we have completed the executive sessions. So we're going to jump into item five. The first sub point is the Thurston County Levy Lid-Lit Discussion.

Okay, thank you, Chair. I requested to have this item added on to the agenda and kind of what I sent over to you and the county manager was, you know, I wanted to go ahead and set something in stone. I think we've talked about this at a high level, but given the financial challenges that we are facing and we continue to face, I believe we need to be looking beyond the immediate budget cycle and begin having a serious conversation about, you know, long-term revenues and financial stability. I think we have spent a significant amount of time discussing reductions and how to manage with our existing resources. But I also think that we need to demonstrate that we are actively pursuing sustainable solutions. So I have a proposed motion, you know, and just to kind of add further, I think that taking this step now would accomplish several important things. I think first it demonstrates that the board is thinking just beyond the next round of reductions and is willing to pursue longer term solutions to the county's structural financial challenges. Second, I think it's important for our employees to know that we're doing more than asking departments to continue to absorb reductions, not just departments, but offices to absorb reductions year after year. I believe that our workforce needs to know that we recognize the instability this creates and that we are actively looking for ways to provide a greater predictability and stability for county services and the employees who provide them. And third, beginning to work on this now gives us time to do it responsibly. I'm asking to add this to the November, 2027, the general election ballot. It provides us more than a year to analyze our needs, determine what level of funding we would actually ask voters to consider and identify what services or priorities would be supported and understanding and understand the impact on taxpayers. But most importantly, it also gives us time to engage our community before those decisions are made. And so rather than developing a ballot measure, you know, away i think just presenting a public with a finished proposal we can really have those meaningful conversations with residents early on about the services they value the financial realities facing the county and what they would be willing to support and what accountability they would expect from us as well in return if they were to vote for this measure um I think that requesting my motion is that we request that staff begin to work. It doesn't predetermine the amount of the levy. I didn't want to put anything like that yet. I would like to see kind of some options being brought back to the board and we can kind of decide on that or the final structure of the measure. I think those are decisions the board should make after receiving a financial analysis, but it does establish a direction and a timeline so that we're not waiting until the final minute to begin considering kind of a long-term revenue solution. So I know that we also have a, we might have a proposal for the EMS levy in August of 2027. And kind of depending on those results, that would have to go on to the ballot as well. So that might kind of bump this, but I do have a proposed motion. I'm happy to read it unless board members would like to have further discussion on this. I'm willing to have that discussion first.

I don't want to do anything that, I appreciate you mentioning the EMS levy. I don't want to do anything that conflicts or would damage the EMS levies potential to pass. So that is important. And I've said it, I've already said it a couple of times today. I don't think we can just tax our way out of the hole that we're in. And I would have reservations proposing or advocating for anything if we're not also having economic development discussions at a real serious level. I heard the proposal or the possibility earlier of using savings, vacancy savings from that, the position that's open to potentially have it like a contract with the EDC to work with the County to update the economic development chapter of the comp plan. I think that's extremely important. I'm wondering if there's anything that we could embed within this that speaks to ensuring that we're doing a certain level of economic development work at the county and not just proposing a tax measure.

What would be your proposed language, Commissioner?

i don't know like i'm i'm just thinking out loud but if there's you know if there's some way to uh when we make the direction uh you know direct staff to you know consider options of like tying in the staffing of economic development ensuring that we maintain an updated economic development chapter in the comp plan or whatever else would be relevant to just ensure that we're not just saying, give us more taxes. We're also considering the element of responsible growth, proper zoning and all the different things that we touch that either prohibit or encourage economic activity, I think that needs to be a paramount discussion alongside tax initiatives. Commissioner Claus.

Thank you. I don't think Commissioner Fournier's points are bad, but I want to say I appreciate Commissioner Mejia for bringing this forward. I think it's necessary, and I'm wondering if mean I know when Commissioner Mejia brings something forward she's thought it through a lot I'm wondering if maybe the part the first part about planning and development necessary I mean I think that that staff planning and development would be consideration of other factors outside of levy lid lifts so I don't know I mean I would feel like I would defer to Commissioner Mejia on it whether or not she wants to include economic development components in this motion but I I think this looks well thought out and it's a conversation we've been having and need to really figure out what we're going to do on. So I support the motion as it is. I think there are a lot of components in here that include things that would pull economic development in like an analysis of potential levy amounts, duration, revenue projections, priority uses of the additional revenue. I mean, these are things that could, And at the end, it says with options and recommendations brought back to the board for consideration before final ballot language is approved. So this is kind of a preliminary step. So I'm comfortable with the motion as it's written, but I would defer to Commissioner Mejia since it's her motion.

I appreciate that. And I know that like saying options are good, but I don't want it. this is just me and so for me to support it i don't want it to be in there by inference i want it to be specific that we're saying we are going and this is we have all adopted this as one of our top priorities for the county is that economic activity needs to be considered and somehow embedded within this and that's just for for me to support it at this time i i want it specified i want it in the forefront I want to signal to the community that we're not just asking to increase their property taxes. We are committing to coming up with responsible growth options that are acceptable to the community. And we're signaling to the, you know, the development community, to the business community that they are important to us. And we're not looking at just one small piece of revenue streams. Commissioner Mejia. Thank you.

I hear what you're saying, Commissioner Fournier, and I think I won't reveal what was discussed this morning in executive session, but, you know, just given that conversation, I think that there is already inference that the board wants to invest in that piece. And I think that is something that we're going to continue having a conversation on. I think that is definitely a path that the board also needs to take and look at, you know, economic development as a whole and updating our plan, which the board didn't do because of, again, financial reasons and just where we were at when we were funding the comprehensive plan. And there were higher priorities on there that we needed to move forward with. I think that this is also another option. I think we've talked about it a lot, but we haven't set a hard date. And I think the longer we just put it off, the harder it's going to be making a decision, you know, the closer it gets to the timeline because then it's having to, this gives us ample time to talk to voters and talk to our employees and provide some sort of outlook that we need. And I think that both things can be done simultaneous. And just again, given the conversation this morning, I think that there is that sentiment among commissioners. So I don't see that adding specific language, given that you don't really have a recommendation for very specific language. At this time, I would just leave the motion as is, unless you have.

One suggestion, I know you have a hand up, but just to this comment, I thought that on the last line where it says brought back to the board for consideration, that includes a look at economic development strategies, comma, before the final ballot language is approved. So the added wording would be that includes a look at economic development strategies. Based on Commissioner's comments, I do believe there's already clarity to us as leaders that we're going to be coming back and talking about larger economic development strategies in regards to CPET, et cetera. This just, to Commissioner Fournier's point, maybe codifies it a little bit more in the motion

Last time we had this discussion, last time we even put our toes in the water to talk about this, there was immediately a newspaper article that said Thurston County Commissioners are going to raise property taxes. Whatever motion goes out, that's going to get cut and pasted into newspapers and people are going to go wild with it and there's going to be a lot of assumptions and people will just read the headline. I'm just saying I don't want to have that headline without, and this is just me, you guys, maybe you can pass this four to one. I think it is a much better narrative and I'm already hearing that this is the truth and this is the vision that we want. It would be a shame for this motion to go out and put into a headline and us to not also be explicitly signaling to the community that we believe economic activity is a part of the puzzle that will pull us out of the hole that we're in. Commissioner Grant.

Yeah, and I'm okay with if we add the language. I mean, I think I would agree with Commissioner Mejia where, you know, I think what's really important here is that we as a board have set our priorities for the year, and that's one of them. You know, I'll say that I think that that's going to be really important is that we, as a board set our priorities and stick to those priorities in order to keep this messaging going forward. I'm absolutely in support of this. I really appreciate Commissioner Mejia bringing this forward. I know that she and I have had discussions on this and that, you know, economic development is a tool that, and one of the many tools that we have available to us that help with some of these rising costs, but each year, the cost of employing staff, which is this a large amount of the funding that we have for our County is to employ staff and essential services like courts and the clerk and the sheriff and the jail, you know, these things all every year increase and this levy lift will help us catch up and we'll prevent cuts to essential services. And so I think it's absolutely, you know, critical that we think about when to get this on the, you know, to kind of start the work and get it on a timeline so that we can get moving towards it, so.

I'm curious to know, like functionally with the I know we don't have all of the staff here who would be working on this, but we have our management team. So functionally, like, what does this look like to do the work that's included in this motion? And what does it look like to add economic development as a component in that research process?

That's a good question, Commissioner Klaus. You know, functionally, what we would do is sit down with the project attorney's office and just kind of look at what the outline is for the levy process. There's work that the county needs to do to prepare the language, which I think that is part of the end of the motion is understanding what that deadline is, which I believe for November, it's about August, but don't quote me on that. then building it backwards we got to get that language dialed in and then there's things that the board will give direction on and then there's an aspect where the community is going to have to engage and we pick folks that are for and against and so there's a process to work that through the economic development strategies i think is a conversation that uh has been discussed, we plan to have anyways, because we need to come back based on some earlier conversations today and talk about what does it look like to implement that, our partnership with the EDC, identifying some available funding. Some of those conversations have already been started with the EDC. and how do we partner together i think what this does is give us two clear focuses about some of the work we need to do on the planning side and then some of the work we need to do as to the preparation of what does growth look like and how does that help the county with its bottom line figure for its budget okay so it sounds like these are two kind of separate tracks but

they're toward the same strategy or goal, which is to get some way out of this budget hole or at least mitigate the impacts of it in some way. So I guess if it, like I said, I would defer to Commissioner Mejia. It sounds to me like the economic development piece is going to happen anyways, but I understand Commissioner Fournier's concern is we don't want it to just be inferred. We want it to be specific. So I don't know. And to me, it sounds like those are two separate things that are both going to be happening, but I don't know how much that matters in the language here. So yeah, I'm open to whichever, but I think Commissioner Mejia, because she's the one that brought this forward, I would respect what she thinks is best.

Commissioner Fournier and then Mejia, and then I'm going to put my name on the list. Okay. Yeah.

I try not to be a broken record, but I'm feeling like I'm being, I appreciate what everybody's saying and everybody's saying this is a priority. uh, economic bill has been on our list of top goals for three years now, but I personally don't feel like we've put in the, you know, given it the juice and the support that's needed to actually make a meaningful impact. And, you know, like if you, if you look at, you know, property values and things like that, just, there you're only going to move the needle so far just relying solely on residential property taxes commercial properties you know active commercial properties are so much more valuable you know like per square footage that that's the only way that you can really like elevate the the budget is if you have a solid plan and you allow for that type of development where appropriate um so i i Again, I think it's necessary. I don't want to leave it inferred because I think that we've done that for the last three years. I want to take a hard stance in saying that needs to be tied to our overall strategy for a financial recovery and not just raising property taxes.

Thank you. I was going to ask Commissioner Fournier. want to respond to some of his points but i will first ask the language that the county manager suggested would you be comfortable with that language first off if i could hear it repeated i was i was thinking about what i was going to say next so he recommended that um towards the end of the line brought back to the board for consideration that also includes an economic development strategies before the final ballot language is approved yeah was his recommended language.

I like that.

Which Commissioner Grant said she would be okay with and Commissioner Klaus. Also, I don't want to put words in your mouth, Commissioner Klaus, but I inferred that you were okay with that proposal. I would be okay with that proposal. I think that while I disagree that we haven't worked on it. I believe that there's been a lot of things that we've done. Our CPAT team has done a lot of work to clean up our codes and there are a lot of outdated codes, the work that has gone into our comprehensive plan, those are a part I believe of just this higher level strategy of economic development. And I completely agree in investing and seeing if there's more things we can do for economic development, but with economic development, it's not a, thing that you just flip switch that you flip on it takes time to build and it takes time for development to happen and for you to actually start seeing on that your tax rolls i believe absolutely that that is an area that we need to keep improving and building on um but i also think that our immediate need and where we're heading also requires us that we need to um we need to put something on the ballot and we need to, um, I think there's, there's been a lot of years that this has been put off and that the, uh, many board of County commissioners, uh, before this board has considered it and not put it forward. And, uh, unfortunately, um, it has, it has led us to, to be in this position. And, um, I, I do not want to continue to kind of kick the road down the back, Ken down the road and, and, I think that we need to actually put something on the ballot. I mean, if the voters decide that it's not what they would like to invest in, that's gonna be a conversation that the board is gonna have to come back and do it, but I would like to at least ask the voters.

Can I put my hand in too?

Yes, you'll be next. I just wanted to say a couple things. just kind of going back to the beginning. Thank you. Yeah, I was gonna be bringing the same idea forward. I wanted it considered by the Board before budget. So I think this is timely. I would also like to add in there, it doesn't have to be formally part of the motion, but I would hope that we could dial in the details of it sooner rather than later to maximize the amount of time we have for community engagement. because it's going to take a major community engagement. So we cannot wait until like April to talk about, well, what's the amount going to be? And is it going to be the permanent or the short term? I mean, that all needs to be dialed in like in September or early October, you know, kind of timeframe so that we have really a full year to engage the community, which is what we're going to need to be successful. So I just wanted to say those things. As far as the language, I'm fine with the proposal with Commissioner Fournier's proposal and the way it was phrased by the county manager. I think that makes some sense. Ultimately, it's not a deal breaker for me because I think that what Commissioner Fournier is saying is what we're going to have to do as a board when we promote this or we don't, you know, in the legally appropriate ways that we're allowed to explain the need and in that and Because ultimately, we're asking the voters, as he said, we're asking the voters to make an investment. We're not raising anyone's taxes. We're providing an opportunity for continuation of county services that don't look to me like we're going to be able to continue them if we don't provide this. So we almost haven't. I mean, I'm at the point now where we almost have an obligation to provide this opportunity. Um, for the voters to say this, what they want to do, or they don't and, you know, obviously, you know, we'll, we'll deal with that result, but we have to do our best job of trying to. And I think that's where commissioner's ideas weave in as we show that we're doing that. We are. Turning over every rock using every strategy. Um, and that's going to be important as we, as we communicate this over the course of 2027.

Chair, we already have planned in a couple of weeks to come back and talk about levy lid lift. We committed to the board with that in August. Okay. So I know the budget team, that'll be, what this does, if the board decides to approve this, just gives clear direction because at the point where we were going to come back, it was going to be just, again, more conceptual about what is information for the board, depending on what the board's decision is, that this helps us to start to break this down into the options and decision points that are required in order to move it forward.

the amended motion that you have prepared.

So I would move to direct staff to begin the planning and development necessary to place a county levied lift before the Thurston County voters on the November 2027 general election ballot, including analysis of potential levy amounts, direct duration, revenue projections, priority uses of the additional revenue, impacts to taxpayers, and a process for the public and stakeholder engagement with options and recommendations brought back to the board for consideration that also includes economic development strategies before final ballot language is approved. Second.

Motion and second to direct staff to begin this process regarding county levy lid lift. Discussion on the motion. Commissioner Claus.

Thank you, Chair. So I'm supportive of the motion, but I did have a couple of thoughts I wanted to share. And after you spoke, Commissioner Mincer, the last thing you said about where you see that uh commissioner foreigner's ideas weaving in did help a little bit because i do see a path for weaving it in what i'm worried about though is um it feels like we may be taking the topic and people can totally correct me if they think this is not what they believe but it does feel a little bit like we're taking the topic brought forth which is clear it's a level of discussion and using it to move a separate goal forward for economic development putting the onus on staff to do that when we could bring forward our own proposals for economic development if we so choose. And I'd love to see Commissioner Fournier come forward with some specific economic development ideas because I think you have the expertise to do that and to be creative and bring something forward. With the county, it feels like economic development opportunities are so hard because we don't have the same abilities as the cities to do it rapidly. So I'm curious to know a bit more about what commissioner Fornia thinks we can do differently. Cause commissioner grant pointed out some of the high level policy things staff have worked on. And I don't want to just sweep that under the rug and say, we're not doing anything because staff are doing a lot behind the scenes that we don't see. And so those are just some of my thoughts on that. And then I don't want to inadvertently marry these two tracks, the levy and the economic development piece and make it an unintentional barrier if it doesn't so like for example if economic development ideas aren't coming forward then we're not going to actually move the levy forward because economic development was a part of the motion so i just don't want that to become an inadvertent barrier uh so that was what i thought but i'm in support of the motion any other discussion okay call for the vote all in favor

sorry Josh did I not give you your that motion was excellent fantastic I also think that the conversation on economic development was a really important one thank you for highlighting the things that staff have done for the record I think it's important just to dive a little deeper on that part of the role of government is to chalk the field is to set the rules and create consistency for businesses and homeowners to go forward in their development And sometimes it can be hard to remember things that happened a couple of years ago. But the Habitat Conservation Plan had created a complete block on all development in Thurston County, South Thurston County in particular. And so when you think about economic development, think about the fact that where we were two years ago, people couldn't do anything. It was almost impossible to build in Thurston County, whether it was a home or a business. And so from my perspective, making sure that that record is very clear,

that the county has done amazing huge steps uh in the past couple of years that feed uh and support economic development is important for the commissioners in the community to remember josh and some of our jurisdictions within the county are fighting that fight right now exactly are coming up against the roadblocks so i think um it's a step and we need to continue to work with our um our board to make continued steps, but it's a great highlighting of the progress that has gone before us.

I hope you don't take my comments as minimizing those efforts because I do recognize those and I do I understand how that is all tied together. It's not always obvious for everybody how that, you know, lifting that lid essentially opened up the door for a lot of important things. But and then to Commissioner Claus's comments, I don't I don't want to dictate, you know, what what it looks like. But I want to continue to chalk the field, as Josh said. But in our upcoming budget discussions, I know that our economic program manager position is on the chopping block. So like losing capacity for doing the work that needs to be done to get us out of the financial hole that we're in is dangerous to me. So chalking that field, ensuring that, you know, it is like completely articulated to the world that that is a priority for us. We're going to continue that work. And if we do pass this levy, you know, I would want to even say things like we will guarantee that some of that money will be used to fund those positions continuing forward and do that work continue.

Okay, thank you. Let's move on to our final topic of the morning, which is sub two under item five, Timberland Regional Library Levy Lit Lift Resolution.

Thank you so much, Chair. I'll hand over to Commissioner Klaus who brought the final poll.

Yes, thank you, Chair. I asked to bring this item forward as a draft resolution concerning the Timberland Regional Library Levy-Lidlip measure that will be on our November 3rd ballot. And I'm not asking to vote on this resolution today. After submitting this draft, I DID A LITTLE BIT MORE RESEARCH, AND I THINK THAT THERE'S SOME LANGUAGE IN HERE THAT WOULD NEED TO BE CHANGED BEFORE WE WOULD ADOPT IT. FOR EXAMPLE, SECTION 3 ON THE BACK SIDE TALKS ABOUT THE CLERK OF THE BOARD DIRECTED TO TRANSMIT A COPY TO THE REGIONAL LIBRARY AND THE YES FOR LIBRARIES CAMPAIGN, AND I THINK THAT THAT MAY BE A GREAT AREA, SINCE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT A SPECIFIC CAMPAIGN, AND WE HAVE TO BE CAREFUL MIXING GOVERNMENT WITH CAMPAIGNS. BUT I DID ALSO FIND THAT THERE'S A STATE law that actually allows, it does carve out the opportunity to support or oppose a ballot proposition as long as any required notice of the meeting includes the title and number of the ballot proposition and members of the body or members of the public are afforded an approximately equal opportunity to express an opposing view. So I don't know if that means we would need to have a public hearing or just have this on a regular business meeting and allow people to give public comment. So I think that we, would likely need to send this resolution to our legal team and staff to review the language to make sure it's appropriate. But so today, I'm just bringing this forward as a concept and would like to set action at a date in the future, rather than trying to get everybody to vote on this right now. So that's kind of the thought process behind this.

Commissioner.

Thank you, commissioner Klaus. Um, I was actually going to recommend that council take a look over it because I know there are rules around these kinds of resolutions. And, um, to my recollection, the board has never taken an action like this. I believe there was one time where we got asked, um, to, to do a resolution. And I believe council at that time, their recommendation was not to do it because of how it would open up the door, not just for that particular one, but since the County takes up basically a bigger part of what a city or a special district, right? So we would all of a sudden be asked for just school levies, fire levies, city levies, or different proposals from cities. And so the thought process, I think during that time was just saying no to everything. you know, I kind of wanted to hear kind of like the thought process of your thought process on, on kind of that, you know, that was kind of the advice we're given back then in terms of kind of not opening the can of worms. And then all of a sudden the board is having multiple resolutions for, for this. And so kind of for to break kind of that guidance now, right? Like what is it in the future, I guess, if we're getting requests to add additional resolutions for taxes. And I will say, you know, like I'm personally as an individual commissioner, I am supporting this, but as a board, I'm just kind of wanting to hear.

I'll throw in just, you know, cause yeah, I remembered that Like I brought, you know, when I was a brand new commissioner, I brought, you know, the Rochester school district asked me and I brought it forward and that's, we got the same advice. We were commissioner, a county manager and the prosecuting attorney, like strongly recommended that we do these as individuals, just because the county, I mean, we have four or five tax measures a year across all our junior districts and, know if we've got to go through legal review and have public hearings and then if we don't do this if we don't do yelm school district or we do rochester i mean it just becomes like you know it becomes complicated to navigate as commissioners to have all the different districts i went to the patron coalition uh session that they had at the lacy library uh i think a week and a half ago where they said that all five of us had endorsed the um had individually endorsed the campaign so that's pretty powerful i mean if If three of us did, then the board could vote. And then we could say the board did, even though all five of us did. But if all five of us have already individually said and made donations and everything else I know was happening last night, that's, I think, a very powerful thing that the campaign can use for their purposes of showing the community where we stand. so i'm a little nervous about the um you know getting into the business of these resolutions because like i say we have a lot but i do i understand where you're coming from on it and like i said i did the same thing with rochester school district back in 2019 and got talked out of it we didn't even do one for our courthouse measure and that was the biggest thing that that this commissioner's that this commission has ever tried to do in terms of a um you know, a measure like that for an increase for our own critical needs. So anyway, those are my concerns, but I definitely would like to hear what everybody else has to say. Commissioner Fournier.

I think your intentions are good. And yes, we have all individually endorsed the yes campaign. I know I have and everybody else has. And so like that is probably in my mind, that's absolutely appropriate. And that's where it's supposed to end up. I know like the Yelm group, the Yelm Schools group came to the county and asked to meet with us and set up a meeting and talk about their levy a couple of weeks ago. And they were told, no, we can't do that. And it's not a good idea. And I know that, you know, in the previous jurisdictions, I was elected official. That was the position was, no, we're not going to. uh vote as a body on individual campaigns or levies because as was stated kind of it just it opens up the floodgates and it makes things uh to where the the government is picking winners and losers and it really should be left up to the citizens uh and then like you know i i the section three where just coordinating with the Yes for Libraries campaign, that would be the government, that would be the government coordinating directly with a campaign. You can't do that.

Yeah, exactly.

And so like, just, yeah, I'm, I support, I endorse the levy. I'm not for having the Board of County Commissioners weigh in. Even if it was the EMS levy, I would be saying the same thing. We just had a discussion about us running a levy in a short amount of time. I want to stay consistent. I imagine I'll be saying the same thing when we're talking about our own levy. So I would want to stick to previous guidance and what I would consider the best practice and not have the Board as a whole do these types of resolutions. Mr. Grant?

Yeah, and I mean, I think I'm absolutely in support of anything that's in, you know, endorsing this campaign and moving this campaign forward. But I also I had some notes written down around, you know, some some of the language in this. So, you know, and just making sure that PAO gets a chance to take a look at it. So that's my, my feedback on it.

Did you have any specific that you wanted to talk through right now, or do you think it's just better to?

I'll forward them to you. Just a couple things around, you know, if you had something in here, it would be, you know, putting in exactly how much the assessed value, like the different amounts would be, and then also to kind of tighten up some language around the 1% property tax requirement.

Okay.

But I've got that in an email, and I can send that to you.

Okay. Okay. Instead of, you know, again, I would like to hear kind of your thoughts based kind of on comments you've heard, but I'm also wondering, instead of a resolution, maybe having the Timberland Regional Library kind of come and talk about their budget and like what the levy would actually do, would you be open to that?

Then we're doing what we told Guillaume they couldn't do. We already have board with the new interim director, Andrea.

I met with her a couple weeks ago, and in our conversation, she wanted to meet the board. So we're planning to have her come sometime in September or October.

September 23rd. September 23rd.

We already have a date.

Oh, okay.

So she plans to give an update, and I thought with everything going on, it would be great for the board

and now we have a new interim director, so that makes sense. And we can highlight what's going on. I think that's really the goal, to get some new attention to.

It was just an option. I don't know, I was just throwing an option. I'm sure it closed.

Okay, thank you. I tried to write down everyone's feedback, so let me know if I miss anything. But I think, yeah, I definitely agree. Some of this language, like I said earlier, the third clause, section three is, probably would need to be stricken from this just because of the campaign language. And I totally agree with that. Also, the exact value being in there is something I thought of after I brought this resolution draft forward. It was one of the things, while I was researching, I was like, we should probably be more specific about the exact values we're talking about. So I agree with that. Also, in terms of like the other types of junior taxing district levies that we haven't done this for, I think it is important to make sure we're staying solid on we don't want to violate anything or, or do something that's going to cause the floodgates to open. And all of a sudden we're getting all these requests. And I understand that. I think what's different about this one is that we appoint two members to the TRL board. So we have this directly impacts the County versus a city or a school where of course we're probably in support. We want to support schools, but we might not want to do a resolution for that because of various reasons. But for this one we have a lot of, engagement that all of us have taken on this issue. And so, because we actually appoint two members, I think it's a little bit different than a city or a school levy load lift. And then this is an opportunity for us to take a strong stance on this matter, but I also am open to what Commissioner Mejia is suggesting. maybe doing something that's not quite as strong as a resolution, but still somehow signaling our support and beyond the meeting with the interim director, I think potentially we could make a statement kind of like we did with the last letter versus doing a resolution because this I know is a bigger deal. So something that signals our support as a full board, I think would be stronger than our individual endorsements, which I think all of us have already done that maybe. And then the last thing is when we did the letter last time, it was critiquing, I'll try to use a nice word. It was critiquing something that had happened that was harmful to the community. And this kind of thing is supportive of the TRL board. So I think it would, It would be good to say something if it's not a resolution, maybe it's a letter or a statement instead, but something that signals our support for the board because the last letter we wrote was a critique in a way of something that was harmful. So I think balancing that by also saying, we're gonna come forward and make some sort of statement to support you as well. We're not just here to critique when you cause harm, but we also want to be here to say, we stand behind you we know that you need this and this is going to be in in a lot of ways the only solution to keep trl alive i think this kind of the gravity of the situation that we've heard so those are some of my thoughts and let me know if i forgot anything yeah i would be open to a statement because that doesn't have as many of the legal connotations that a resolution has um i think that

The resolution overall, they really have little sections there, like here and there, where I was like might cross into the gray area. That's why I was going to recommend making sure the PAO had a look at it. But I think maybe a statement and then having a commissioner go to one of their meetings and reading it on behalf of the board would be a good thing. And then that way it doesn't hold us to kind of the specific measures of holding a public hearing.

We don't know that. I mean, a statement or a resolution is semantics.

Well, I think maybe then just having the PAO.

A we statement is a we statement. An I support statement is different. And we've all made I support statements. But any we statement, whether you call it a resolution, an endorsement, a statement, that's semantics. That's supporting a campaign. That's supporting a ballot measure. And I would imagine that all those requirements are required. And then clear your calendar. I shouldn't say it like that, but like Lacey Fire District was running a ballot measure. Young schools are running a ballot measure. Olympia schools are running a ballot measure. And those are all very important to the people that live within those junior taxing districts. And, you know, I just, any we statement I think is problematic.

Mayor Mrakas, that's something legal, we could get probably to tell i'd be curious yeah cuz i'd be i'd be interested in anything that's short of. Mayor Mrakas, This full resolution process if it's going to require because I don't know that i'm persuaded that the two board members when we didn't do it for our own levy live live in our own courthouse measure. I'm not sure I'm persuaded that the fact that we have a different relationship with TRL that warrants us giving a resolution, but if there's something like you guys are throwing around, I would be open to hearing how that would be different.

Okay.

And hopefully achieve the same goal.

I like that idea. Maybe PAL can just weigh in and tell us if it's actually semantics. I do think Commissioner McGee is probably right that this does carry more of a legal weight to it because it's a resolution and statements don't have that same level of gravity.

But I would think that's right.

But I want to be good to have clarity. Yeah, yeah.

In the in the rules, it doesn't say anything about like, as I recall, resolution just talks about using facilities, property assets that belong to the county in coordination with the campaign. And still have to, we would still have to respect that piece. And if you're doing that, then you have to set up this You know, it is like, as I understand, it's like a public hearing where you allow equal opportunity for a yes and a no. And then, you know, people come in and do the, do the thing for and against it. And there is process and I don't think it would materially change it, whether it was a resolution or a bumper sticker. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I think.

Commissioner Fournier is right about the process because I did look into the RCW about using public facilities to support ballot propositions. But what I liked about that is that it carves out exactly what we would be doing here, whether it's a resolution or a statement, which might be different, might not fall under this RCW, I'm not sure. But Commissioner Fournier might be right. But the only thing we would have to do to be above board on this is to include the title of the proposition and the number and give the members of the public the opportunity to express opposing views, which we've, I mean, a public hearing is not a huge deal, but if there's a way to do a statement and avoid having to go through that process, I'm open to that. I don't think it's a bad idea to have public process in this, but I also know our schedules are tight and we're going into budget season. but this is something that the board has weighed in on a little bit because I think we mentioned in our statement, there was maybe a line about the levy lid lift, but I can't remember if we took that out and I don't have the statement in front of me, but yeah, but I know that individually we've all weighed in on this and we believe that this is necessary, so. I'd be open to having PAO give us their opinion on whether a statement is easier, more feasible. And if it's the same amount of, if it's the same lift as doing a resolution, maybe we could just choose as a board, do we want to do the resolution or the statement? Because I'd be open to either. I just want to signal our support.

County managers have that direction. Yep. All right. That would require a vote.

to bring back a direct county manager to do that work, I would believe, or direct or send that work to the county manager to work with the PAO on options in relation to supporting a levy for the Timberland.

I had a draft motion. Do you want, I can read mine and then see what you guys think. I shortened it a lot based on our conversation. So maybe, and I won't make the motion now, I'm just reading the language. So we would refer the draft resolution concerning the Timberland Regional Library levied lift measure on the November 3rd general election ballot to the county manager and prosecuting attorney's office for review as to form and legal sufficiency.

We're no longer talking about a draft. I think it would need to be added and alternative configurations. Okay. Okay.

Can you read yours again, Commissioner Mejia?

I just was talking about it. Yeah, I didn't have, I was just typing it right now as kind of, I was just going to very simple move to direct the county manager to work with the PAO on options in relation to supporting I love you for TRL.

That sounds good. I'll make that motion. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye.