Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the July 15th Thurston County Planning Commission. The Thurston County Planning Commission is a resident advisory committee to the Board of County Commissioners on land use planning matters, such as the comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance amendments. Planning Commission actions are in the form of recommendations to the County Commissioners, the final decision makers. All Planning Commission meetings are open to the public. Community members are welcome to observe all Planning Commission briefings and work sessions. My name is Eric Ticino. I live in the Lacey UGA and I represent and I'm at large for District 2. We'll continue our introductions down here in the boardroom. Mr. Bumbarger.

I'm Daniel Bumbarger. I live in and serve District 1, although I am technically at large. Scott Nelson, District 4. Commissioner Pestinger.

Evan Pestinger, District 5.

Commissioner Fishburne.

Bill Fishburne. I live in and serve District 4.

Commissioner Kaiser.

Sandy Kaiser. I live in and serve District 3.

Great. Well, with that, I hope everybody's had an opportunity to look over our proposed agenda. And if so, I'd entertain a motion. So moved. Second. I moved and seconded to accept the motion. Is there any discussion on this agenda?

Minor discussion. I think item two is intended to not just say approval of meeting agenda, but also approval of previous meeting minutes.

You mean from last time when we were doing the June?

No, I just mean it says approval of meeting agenda only, but then underneath it, it strangely starts talking about minutes.

Yeah, just number two is missing and approval of meeting minutes. Just minutes.

Okay. Let's just scratch that out a little bit. All those in favor of approving the slightly amended meeting agenda, say aye.

Aye.

Right, we have an agenda. With that, has everybody had an opportunity to look over the meeting minutes of July 1st, 2026? And if so, I'd entertain a motion.

Move to approve the meeting minutes from July 1st, 2026, except the audio is the official record.

I second. We moved and seconded. Is there any discussion on those meeting minutes? Go ahead.

Uh, several things. Um, number one, uh, the meeting minutes say that I motioned to, uh, prove the agenda. I don't know. That may be true. I do not remember that. That does not sound like something I would have done, but that may be true.

Okay.

Um, also the, A couple of comments by me, uh, starting on page two, wine, uh, 42 to 48. Um, it says commissioner Pessinger expressed approval for Ms. Sorenson's consideration and inclusion of topics mentioned by the public. He asked if the section titled quote purposes was written recently. Those are true, two different things. Then Ms. Werger responded she's not made it as that section so it has not been updated since 2012. Then Commissioner Pessinger suggested providing details on how written process has functioned since implementation citing concerns raised in LACI that could be resonant. What I asked was about the purposes section and whether we could get any summary data of how we're doing in accomplishing those purposes. I don't know what this means about writing details on how written process has functioned since implementation. Maybe I meant to say writing details on how we are doing since writing, since the planning commission wrote that language whenever, 2012.

Are you suggesting an edit to these minutes?

Yes. Line 47 probably should be changed to from providing details on how written process has functioned to providing details on how the county is performing against the goals.

The county is performing against those goals.

I just listened to the meeting, by the way. Sandy moved and I seconded for the meeting minutes. Okay. So Sandy. Mr. Kaiser, yes.

Kaiser.

And was correct. Scott, did you happen to capture Commissioner Pessinger's minutes what he wanted and we can make that edit to the minutes? All right.

Is there any other last one?

Okay.

On page three, line 34, commissioner Pesinger raised concern that when providing suggestions to staff, they reply that they need direction from the planning commission. I think that's intended to say, I raised the concern that when the public provides suggestions to staff, they reply that they need direction from the planning commission. So I would request that edit.

Okay.

And then it says he asked how best to provide that direction, whether by voter discussion, Mr. Day suggested a verbal summary of the direction wishes with a show of thumbs for approval. I'm that's up to Mr. Day, whether he agrees with that was what he was trying to say. But I got to say for me personally, I don't even know either from this description or from the meeting we experienced. whether we accomplished that, whether we gave the direction and whether it was heard. I know I talked to you Chair Cassino about this separately and you thought most of the issues we had all given thumbs up on. I know I didn't feel that the topic of boat repairs had been addressed at all. So that's where my discrepancy comes from.

Okay, are you suggesting a edit to the minutes?

Um, no, just, well, other than the one I just suggested, I'm only suggesting that Mr. Dave might be asked if that's what he wanted, if that's a good statement of what he said.

Okay. Well then I'm going to call for a vote for approval of the amended, um, meeting minutes for June 17th and, um, using the audio as the official meeting record. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Do we have any nays? All right, we have accepted meeting minutes from the July 1st meeting.

Real quick, he should be here physically in person soon, but I believe we did skip over Colin when we were. What was Colin? He's online, but he should be here physically in person. I just showed for the record for the notes that Colin is attending.

Commissioner Bartlett, can you hear and see us and participate?

He can hear us, yes. He messaged me to say as much.

They're going to promote you to the attendee side or the panel side instead of the attending side.

Okay. Okay.

All right, with that, we're gonna move on to the public communication portion of our meeting. We do have some general speaking guidelines. Please introduce yourself, including the address you reside in the county. Please address the planning commission, not the audience or staff. The planning commission may not respond to public comments. Speakers are limited to a total of three minutes. The timer will show on one of the video screens to help keep track of time. Meeting attendees cannot donate their speaking time to another person. No comments that are lewd and offensive, inflammatory, hateful, defamatory, or discriminatory in nature. no comments that are commercial in nature all meaning materials provided all materials provided to the county may be subject to release pursuant to the public records act remarks on projects that have already had a planning commission public hearing will be forwarded to the board of county commissioners and we're going to start here in the boardroom with miss norton

Hi, planning commissioners. My name is Betsy Norton. I live in Olympia. I have a few comments for the FFA chapter. I just wanted to bring out a couple of things. As with all of these critical area ordinances, I would recommend that you apply maps that use the climate change forecasts out until probably 2100 for simplicity, but you could use 2080. I was on A DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY, OUR WATER FUTURE WEBINAR ON WEDNESDAY, AND THEY HAVE PROJECTIONS ON 2080. SO IF YOU WANT AN EXAMPLE OF ANOTHER STATE AGENCY USING THAT, I WOULD SUGGEST YOU LOOK THERE. BECAUSE I THINK THAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT. WHILE YOU CAN ADD THE FLOOD OF RECORD, IT'S STILL A BACKWARD LOOKING HISTORICAL FACT. IT'S NOT A FUTURE LOOKING ONE. AND ACCORDING TO THEIR PROJECTIONS, YOU KNOW, THE WATER The precipitation is going to vary as much as 45%, which is significant, particularly with frequently flooded areas. Those are vulnerable to that kind of change, variation. Secondly, I would encourage you to think about frequently flooded areas also as seasonally flooded areas that are habitat for migratory waterfowl. And they also, several of them will function as important habitat for particular species like Oregon spotted frogs that require a little bit of flooding at a very particular time of year and stuff like that. So consider those ecosystem functions for species. I would encourage you to rethink the whole idea about floodways, also in terms of ecosystem function, but also in terms of just sending the problem downstream. If you're going to have a big change, like 45% difference in stream flow, you're just fixing it in one place and sending it down a floodway where everybody else is also going to be sending it down the floodway. I mean, I think that cumulative impacts are really important. Technical modeling is probably a good thing. If you can get Kevin to help you with that, you know, applying those forecasts and seeing how different it looks in another 50 years sort of thing. I would also ask that when you're talking about contamination and protecting groundwater and freshwater, please add biological contaminants, including animal waste, which includes both cows, but also human waste. You know, we have lots sitting in the middle of a, of a sea level rise area and getting raw sewage can put bacteria out there too, and that's a significant hazard. In addition, animal processing waste, whether it's aquaculture waste or whether it's from a slaughterhouse, those are considered hazardous wastes coming out of those and they can create biological bacterial problems when there's flooding. So I think that's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Rhonda.

My name is Rhonda Larson Kramer. I live at 1814 East Side Street in Olympia. I want to talk about subdivision trees and turf grass in a changing climate. Yesterday, I went canvassing with an elected official through a 10-year-old single family subdivision in the Lacey urban growth area. Every yard was dominated by water hogging of grass. I saw no native species. As we walked, resident after resident complained about buckled sidewalks. The damage was caused by roots from the street trees planted in the narrow planter strips between the sidewalk and the street. Residents told us that the development code had required developers to plant trees in those planter strips and there hadn't been root barrier requirements in place at the time. I later looked up the city's approved street tree list. It contains 65 species, but only two are native to western Washington and only one of those is suitable for narrow planter strips. The few trees that were planted on private lots, as opposed to the planter strips, were generally pressed right up against the houses rather than located where they could mature into large shade trees. I assume this is because it's easier for the builder to put turf grass there when there won't be a tree planted in the middle. I'm just making that assumption. Many of those house-hugging trees were arborvitae, and this species is well known for its high flammability when planted near wooden homes and fences, and it's actually known as a plant torch. After I got home, I used Google Street View to look at a newer adjacent development called ovation. The medians in that development and the planter strips contained drought-tolerant landscaping instead of turf grass. They also included two native shrubs, tall organ grape and red flowering currant, along with some non-native drought-tolerant things. And so I was happy to see those native plants. So there have been some improvements. However, the trees were still planted in planter strips, The front yards were still mostly turf grass and the future yard trees that existed were still close to the houses and where they have room to mature. And there were still no native plants in the yards. Instead of requiring trees in planter strips, jurisdictions might consider requiring them to be planted in the yards and should require appropriate setbacks from the sidewalks, driveways, and houses. And that would still provide shade for the street and the home while giving the roots room to grow. If the future homeowner later cuts down this yard tree, they could be required to plant a new tree in its place. We should also rethink our assumptions about lawns. We can copy communities that have already faced significant water scarcity. For example, Salt Lake City limits turf grass to 33% of front yards in new subdivisions. Development codes could also require a meaningful percentage of native vegetation rather than leaving it entirely optional. A 2023 state law requires Thurston County and its three major cities to integrate climate change into land use planning. So I'm thinking these are low hanging fruits, this landscaping development code when it comes to grass, turf grass, street trees, and the climate change law. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Online, do we have anybody that would like to address the Planning Commission? We'll start with Loretta Sepinen.

Good evening, Planning Commission members. Loretta Sepinen, Olympia, Washington. I'm speaking to the Open Space Ag application. I'm so pleased to see that we are getting applications from people who need to move out of the Assessors Open Space Ag program. And we're now that we have no fee, the fee was reduced or doesn't exist. I can't remember which it is. We have applications and we've changed some rules. This is a large agricultural or moderate sized agricultural project here. And the one thing I wish I understood better about this project Is if there is water rights if water rights exist on any of the separate parcels. In order for future agricultural use given climate change and everything I think it's going to be essential to have water rights and perhaps. If if they have lost all the water rights on all the land already, we should have written the rules, such that large large moderate sized agricultural lands. must go to open space, open space, which would be excellent, but not to the agricultural open space. So I think it's something that we didn't put in the rules when we were making them before, but I'd like appreciate some discussion at the planning commission about that issue on this particular project. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Is there anybody else online that would like to address the planning commission? All right. Well, that will, include accepting the public. Is there anything that staff would like to address about public comment that we've had today?

Yeah, I can speak just briefly and very high level to the tree piece. And this is borrowing from a staff update I was going to give later. The board is going to have a briefing next week about the joint code updates and options for tree provisions in the urban growth areas. So there's opportunity for those issues to be discussed then. And when it all comes back and starts going through the actual process to work on those projects, there's going to be a lot of time to consider those things. So taking the public feedback through planning commission. So thank you for that. And there's going to be a lot more to come. Claire, I would ask Claire if she had any pieces she would like to speak to anything that was critical areas related. Is there anything you'd want to address or that you might address later?

I think that we'll have time to talk about most of the things that came up during the presentation. If there's anything the Planning Commission has specific questions about right now or if you want to bring it up in the discussion section later. I think it's definitely all stuff we can consider from what I heard.

Okay, we'll just do those during your presentation then. And do we know anything about the open space and water rights?

No, generally that would be outside the scope of what we're looking into for these applications. We're generally just determining whether they're eligible for the resource category applied for. I mean, I'd be glad to look into that.

Is it something that would be appropriate to even be on the application, even if it's not a deciding factor, if it's approved or not? Probably not. Not to my knowledge. Yeah.

All right.

Well, with that, why don't we just move into our next agenda item, which is work session number one on the Baldwin Open Space Tax Program application. And with you.

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Bear with me here. Find everything. Right in the middle. Let's see if that works for you.

Interesting. It doesn't respond to advancing. It's advancing for you. See, I tried to avoid technical difficulties by not being the one driving. This is my curse.

Good old next slide method will do it.

Okay. Okay, cool. Now it does work. Good evening, commissioners. Marissa Wissman here with community planning. I'm here this evening to ask you to review the Baldwin open space tax application. And if all goes well, to set a public hearing for August 19th. Now you may recall that this application had originally been scheduled to be discussed alongside the Gardner and McCown open space properties. However, during the day of the mid-April briefing, we had learned it was pending sale. So we decided just to walk it back and have some conversations with the landowner. That sale did fall through, but the landowner has stated a commitment to selling that property to somebody who would use it for agriculture or conservation, if it were to sell. And there's nothing in the statute to prevent us from moving forward with the application on that basis. So as usual, I'll begin with a brief overview of the program for any listeners who are unfamiliar, followed by a description of the application. So to begin, the Open Space Tax Program is guided by the Open Space Taxation Act, which was enacted by the Washington State Legislature in 1971 under RCW 8434. This act requires county governments to conserve open space lands. And under this program, property tax reductions are granted if qualifying properties are maintained in a rural undeveloped state. Next slide. And normally in accordance with Washington state law, all property shall be valued at 100% of its true and fair value unless exempted by law, but the Open Space Taxation Act provides this exemption. Under enrollment in open space, a reduction in property taxes is based on a change from highest and best use to current use and also based on the public benefit rating system score. Tax reductions generally appear after the second year following an application submittal and properties must be eligible for at least one priority resource and at least 3 points under the public benefit rating system score to be enrolled. Additionally, we do require supporting documents such as land cost conservation plans to be included with application materials. just to show what the intentions are for maintaining the property or in some cases as evidence that the resource exists on site. Next, please. The Thurston County Assessor's Office manages the farm and agricultural lands and the designated forest land classifications. And they also make the tax determination decision for all applications submitted, including for the board's program. Meanwhile, the Board of County Commissioners manages open space, open space, farm and agricultural conservation land, or parcels that no longer meet the assessor's requirements, and also those for other resource categories, including fish and wildlife habitat, private recreation areas, and urban growth area open space. Next. Applicants must meet the criteria in RCW 8434 and in the Thurston County Open Space Tax Program Guidelines in order to be eligible. And if the criteria is met, the taxes are reduced due to a change from highest and best use to current use and with the public benefit rating system score determining what the percent reduction would be. Next please do we need to go over the the tax shift process again or did you kind of get the just a bit from them it's still fresh in my mind. Because we can move on then to the current application review. And currently under the 2026 process we're reviewing the Baldwin properties for enrollment under the been agricultural conservation land resource category with no public access proposed. Now, these properties were formerly enrolled in the assessor's program, but no longer meet their requirements. Next, please. An overview of the requirements for the board's farm and agricultural conservation land classification. The most common eligibility is former enrollment in the assessor's program, which was the case here. And if they meet that eligibility, then they're just required to submit the land conservation plan that's describing how the property will be maintained for future agricultural use. So in this case, this application meets both of those eligibility requirements. Next, please. Robert Baldwin wishes to enroll all of his 159.66 acres in open space, open space with no residential structures requiring subtraction. This property has been farmed for at least 30 years, primarily for livestock. These properties are located just south of Tumwater on Case Extension Road and Driver Street Southwest, which is between 113th Avenue and Maytown Road Southwest. just east of Interstate 5. And I'm sure most of you have probably noticed that iconic barn that you see heading north on I-5, if you're heading north of Rochester, which currently has a minion keeping it company. But it has been a well-known, long-standing farm property. Next, please. The Baldwin Parcels are located in the Upper Chehalis Water Resource Inventory Area, or RIA 23, and are situated in the Allen Creek Basin of the Black River Watershed. The properties consist mostly of open pasture. There are some forested areas that have a pretty open understory. They were historically used for grazing and for sheltering of livestock in inclement weather. So those acreages are also included in the application. The applicants are currently grazing horses on the property. They're leasing grazing for eight rodeo horses, and they plan to continue this practice into the future. Next, please. So in order to maintain the properties for future livestock use, of course, they'll be continuing grazing. If necessary, they would also mow and clear large brush annually if needed. They would use herbicides only if absolutely necessary and according to the label, but it's expected that the grazing and then as a backup, the mowing should be able to keep the grass height low. They will also exercise rotational grazing so it doesn't get over grazed and get too low of a stubble height and grazing in wetter areas would be limited to drier seasonal periods to avoid soil erosion. Next please. The Baldwin properties meet the criteria for enrollment under the farm and agricultural conservation land category for three points and a 50% reduction based on the following factors. The lands were previously classified as farm and agricultural land in the assessor's program, but no longer meet the requirements. So they've come to the boards to apply for the board's program after receiving notification. The landscapes of the property remained open and suitable for continued grazing and proposed maintenance will keep them in that state. And supporting documents, including a land conservation plan were submitted with the application materials. Next please. Enrollment of the Baldwin properties and open space creates the opportunity to preserve farmland for future agricultural use in Thurston County. After review of the application materials, the Baldwin application meets the criteria for the classification of 159.66 acres, qualifying at a 50% reduction as open space land for current use assessment. Next please. Commissioners, I thank you for your time and consideration of the application and in the decision to set a public hearing for August 19th for the Baldwin application. Are there any questions?

So this came up with the last open space application where they mentioned that they are no longer eligible for the assessor's program. And I'm curious what changed to make them no longer eligible for the assessor's program. Do we know?

It was the activity. I know there was discussion about meeting income requirements, but it's beyond just the income. It's the level of farming activity. And I should have brought it with me. I had a public hearing for the last one, provided some documents that were kind of citing specific code for what would be the requirements for staying in the assessors versus coming to the board's program. But it was generally just lack of activity as was the case with the McCown property. Some people, they get older or they have disabilities where it's just physically not possible to keep up with the level of activity even beyond income generated.

I did. First of all, I think it's really important that we preserve minion habitat right now. Yeah. Um, I noticed I was looking at it on the map and there's development that goes right up to the edge of this area. So it does seem like it's really important to incentivize keeping it open. I am a little, well, I'm curious more than concerned at this point. We were talking previously during a public comment about intensive animal agriculture and the effect that can have on watersheds. And I'm wondering what safeguards there are in place with this designation. If someone's going from like, you know, a few horses or something like that to like an intense feedlot agriculture, for example, that would be interesting. That would be a very different type of animal agriculture happening in this space. And it would go from being an open space to being unrooted, which is different.

Yeah, I believe that would fall under Brickle Area's ordinance and just county regulated and management of a property. I think that would be beyond the scope of open space, but it's something that would be addressed per our CAO.

There are other avenues that protect them in that context. That's great. If they wanted to transition to some other type of agriculture, they could do so through whatever code pathway there is. If it's existing and ongoing ag, they may not necessarily need to apply for anything for any sort of use change. And this is just speaking to how the property is used for tax purposes.

Great. And then I guess finally, the fact that it is being sold in the near future, I actually think that would be a useful test case of how all of the properties we're looking at will eventually have to deal with that. And being able to see how they handle that sooner rather than later, I think is probably going to be a

Yeah, according to the landowner, it had been on the market on and off for some time and hadn't had any buyers. So he doesn't anticipate it happening anytime soon. But there's a lot of opportunity. Besides for ag use, it also would have conservation value, potentially as Oregon spotted frog habitat. If a new buyer was interested in fixing up that historic barn, which I did receive one public comment about prior to our pulling this application from the other briefing,

could perhaps get funding from historic society and you know fix it up but yeah definitely plenty of um appealing opportunities for a buyer thank you commissioner pestinger thank you chair um so a few questions number one about the owners um i don't understand on the application it lists robert baldwin as the new owner and Beverly Martin as the current owner. I don't understand what that means.

That was initially when they submitted the application materials, it was in the process of being deeded to Mr. Baldwin from Beverly Martin. And that took place shortly after it was submitted, but they had also spoken with the assessor's office and everybody knew that was going to happen.

So Robert Baldwin was the owner and he's trying to sell it and that sale fell through?

Yes.

Okay. And just curious, as Commissioner Barlett asked about a potential sale and how this will all work, but in that case, is there any minimum requirement for grazing? Like there has to be at least X number of animals for grazing or could they graze one animal and that would still qualify for this designation?

Yes, even one would qualify because under the board's program, all they have to do is be maintaining it so it could

the future you know serve as say livestock master or whatever use you know it may have previously and so another question is about zoning it's currently rr1 to five um and so if some order were to buy this property um and they could maintain at least one animal grazing but they could also build a house on the property Would that change this designation of tax exemption?

That would make it require a reassessment to determine whether it still qualifies. And in fact, that's also after discussions with Dorena Baird from the assessor's office, we're rating these multi-parcel applications to make sure each parcel in of itself would qualify individually. Just because sometimes when people sell, that can get be some muddy waters, say the least, because you're like, does each property then individually meet the requirements? If you know, if they were to, like, say, develop one and keep the other an egg. But yeah, it would require assessment and perhaps a subtraction of the residential structure from the exemption.

Thank you. And then just one last question. This is just a random one. But I noticed the land is right, as you said, adjacent to the I-5 and prime minion habitat. We've seen elsewhere right along I-5, people put up some odd billboards. Is putting up billboards and selling advertising space an allowable use on this property?

That's a good question. I would have to look into that. I mean, yeah, the The Minion's been there for, I know, for years, and I'm not certain I would really fall under an advertisement category, but... Well, I think everyone supports Minion advertising.

For those who are curious, I did find the listing for it. the sale was at least as least the all the properties collectively are listed for 1.5 million interestingly noted in the listing are that there was a permit a preliminary plat for it to turn it into 48 individual lots back in 2011 but it fell through so the concept of a potentially moving housing has at least been something that the property owners were considering at one point in time yes that's correct he did mention that actually during the site visit but

But that had been kind of a past thing they were looking into.

Looking at selling it and potentially listing as a selling factor could eventually be sold to someone whose interest isn't converting it into housing. So it's worth noting.

Commissioner Pestinger, did you have more?

That's it. Thank you, Chair.

Anybody else have any questions or comments for Marissa?

Yeah.

all right well with that um we could certainly consider this uh public hearing if anybody wanted to make a motion one second i'm looking for them oh um

I move to set a public hearing for August 19th at 7pm or as soon thereafter as the matter may be heard to accept public comments for the Baldwin open space application. Seconded.

It's been moved and seconded to set a public hearing for August 19th at 7pm or as soon thereafter as the matter may be heard to accept public comment on Baldwin open space application. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. Motion passes. You have a public hearing.

Thank you very much, commissioners.

Clarification, was that I or Commissioner Pessinger and I? It was I for yay. Okay. Oh, he was a yay.

Okay. So it was a unanimous yes. Okay.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful evening, everybody.

All right. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming in. All right. Well, we're going to move on to item six on our agenda, which is the CA work session number 19, the Frequently Flooded Area Gap Analysis and Feedback Incorporation with Claire Swearengen.

Interestingly, that is more than double the next largest amount of land for sale in the county. So it is currently the largest plot.

Oh, is that right? Yeah. The next biggest is 60 acres for the open market.

Yeah. And that one's pending.

Oh, Andy, could you stay back there? I think you'll need to promote me to panelists. I just haven't joined yet. Thank you.

You're in the meeting.

I am joining.

Recording. Sorry.

Daniel. What? I thought you fixed all the IT problems.

I have an aura of technical healing. It doesn't protect us. I'm just saying.

If I don't mute my computer before I join, we get the sort of strange ambient.

All right.

There we go. Tonight we're going to be discussing the frequently flooded areas chapter of the critical areas ordinance. We're going to be looking similar to the last two meetings at a sort of like matrix of recommended changes for this chapter. It mostly reflects changes that we've already recommended to you that you've seen in the drafts before. When we come back next time, we'll actually be doing it ahead of writing the chapters for wetlands and fish and wildlife. It'll go the other way around. Yeah, the format tonight should look pretty familiar. We're going to refresh ourselves on some of the key best available science and guidance points, go through the gap analysis itself, talk about the recommended changes that it calls out, and then have time for discussion. Some of the key points that we're considering with this chapter are the big one is that floods post a significant threat to human life safety and property. It's the most costly form of hazard that Washington experiences, costs us the most money every year as a state. Floodplains also play a key role in the health and morphology of aquatic habitats. And some more public comments spoke to that. And while the intent of the floods chapter is primarily hazards oriented, Those are also things that we can consider and that also sometimes play into other chapters of the code as well, like fish and wildlife habitat, conservation areas, which we'll be talking about soon. And the flood events are impacted by climate change and floods may become more intense and frequent as a result. So trying to be forward thinking as much as we have the resources to do so as far as data, maps, things like that. Other desired changes. These are kind of throughout the whole critical areas ordinance. We're still looking for transparency in screening tools or report requirements and other permitting requirements to try to make it easy for people to plan their projects ahead of time, know what to expect from the permit counter. flexibility where it's appropriate. This is another one similar to GHS where there are some areas where we can offer people flexibility based on engineering for safety and for avoiding a net rise in base flood elevation. We'll look at that a little bit in particular with high groundwater hazard areas. And then just making sure the code language is clear and easy to navigate. So the actual recommended changes so far here, like all the other chapters, we're looking at including the designation criteria clearly in the chapter itself so people understand what maps, what features on the landscape can indicate that they might be in this critical area when they're building. We've been looking at considerations for flood areas that go beyond the 100-year floodplain. That's kind of the baseline from FEMA is the floodplain and the floodway. There are other types that we consider as well. This is in an effort to reflect climate change and other best available science. We did not have previously in code language a description of the requirements in what's called the biological opinion. This is something that was issued, I believe is the result of a legal action, basically stating that the current standards for development near flood hazard areas may actually pose a threat to protected species in the Puget Sound. So for certain bodies of water, people need to also established through permitting that they won't have any adverse impact on Puget Sound species. And this is just something like it's our responsibility to implement. So now the code actually mentions it. So the people looking at the code, if that's going to apply to them, can expect that. A couple of smaller changes you'll see kind of throughout the table here are things like removing outdated references. So like we have points of the code that reference maps that aren't accurate to how we maintain our maps now because that code is from quite a long time ago. We had a different system for managing our maps. geospatial data. For the high groundwater hazard areas, this is one of the more substantive changes that we've suggested. We've taken out the no development zone in favor of allowing people to essentially use the building and engineering standards in Title 14. to ensure that they will be safe, they won't cause a net rise. And if that's going to be the case with how they've designed and engineered what they're constructing, if it's allowed in the use table for that area, they can go ahead and do that. So it allows people who are willing to go the extra step to work with an engineer and meet those extra standards to have some more flexibility on their property. And that's mostly based on feedback we've heard through like permitting staff and folks coming through the front counter It's just that desire for flexibility. We've also clarified the process for establishing that no hazardous area is present as far as high groundwater areas. This is something that I think is important to have across all our critical areas where it's a map feature that indicates the potential for that hazard or critical area to exist. So like steep slopes, potential wetlands, sometimes high groundwater hazard. If a professional comes out on site and is able to establish that no hazard is present, we want to give people that pathway clearly in the code so that they don't face an administrative burden there. We also want to establish a review distance. That's true across a lot of our critical areas too. And that's just more about that implementation piece. How far from that map feature do you have to be before you need to investigate or get a carp or whatever the permitting mechanism that we come up with this update will be. And then we had this chapter in particular had a couple of sections that were dedicated specifically to map amendments. The goal, I think, that would be better for transparency and usability would be to just address map amendments as a sort of general standards item rather than something that is happening in specific critical area chapters. So we've made that recommendation as well. That's mostly what these cover. There was a bunch of different short chapters on map amendments, essentially. I think we could address that process elsewhere in general provisions. We've added some provisions relating to sea level rise as far as the coastal flood hazard areas, just acknowledging that people may desire to put their home above the projected sea level rise, essentially just giving more provisions for people to elevate homes so they won't be damaged by that. For flood of record, we are recommending a switch to, rather than regulating it as strictly as we do with our other flood areas, switching it to a notice on title if that's the only flood hazard that's present. The reason for that being that the flood of record could really represent any probability of flood. If we got a 10,000-year flood, we don't necessarily want to hold people to account that rarity of extreme event in the future. But a flooded record does also indicate that there is the potential hazard there, that hazard has occurred there before. So the notice on title would let future property owners know that the house they're looking to buy is developed in an area that has experienced a hazard before. And for the more frequent flood events, like the 100-year flood, this would be taken care of by that designation instead.

Have we heard from anybody in the real estate community how that would affect things? Like we heard from people that do title searches or do title insurance or do real estate contracts in general. If that is going to be a big impediment to them, like if all of a sudden no property is going to be sold in an area because of this notice, that might not be worth it.

Yeah, I haven't off the top of my head. I don't think I've received any comments about it. But I we did go present more broadly just on the whole CAO is a topic to the Realtors Association. So I have a contact with them now. And I could reach out to them and just say, hey, we're thinking about this. We're hoping it actually makes things easier for people. But if it would have the opposite effect.

Yeah, I think anytime you put something on title, hearing from the people that do that for a living would be a really good idea.

The flip side of that is that that is replacing some of the code protections that are currently in place. So you can do more with one of those properties. We're just putting the onus on you to be aware and choose wisely.

I'm afraid of unintended consequences. Yeah, sure.

Yeah, I think that that would be, I think because it's something we also wanted to propose for some of the geologically hazardous areas.

Sure.

So I think I could just send a message to the Realtors Association asking. I think those are some of the folks who would be the most familiar with how that might impact.

I think that'd be great. Thank you.

Yeah, will do. Thanks. Let's see. We've rearranged or proposed some changes to the use table just to reflect the way that flood hazard areas are delineated at the top of the chapter. So making the column titles line up with those specific designations that we talk about. Also added one for the flood of record column since we kind of are proposing to change how it functions. So the flood of record column on the table is much more lenient compared to the others now because of the um the idea for the notice on title and so if nothing changes there that'll be how the use table is proposed to be set up Similar to I think we did most of our talking about this with critical aquifer recharge areas, but you'll probably see it as a use in most of the use tables that the infiltration of reclaimed water. So that's that managed aquifer recharge process of actually injecting or adding water back to aquifers and There's some language to clarify the kind of process around the restriction on new residential structures in the floodway. TCC 1438 is a separate chapter of code that does have a lot of impact on flood hazard areas in general. It's not part of the scope of this update. So we can't really like, we're trying to make sure that we stay well meshed up with that right now. And part of that, which some of our staff who work with flood specifically pointed out is that it might make sense to include the fact that that restriction on new residential structures in the floodway is from 1438. It's based on FEMA regulations. You can't get a reasonable use exception for it. So that's the language that we added there. And then throughout, of course, we have minor textual things throughout the whole code. consistency, clarity, corrections, appropriate language, all of that.

Please. So in public comment specifically on the 24-20-063, the flood of record, Betsy brought up using not just flood of record information, but some of the flood modeling that might exist out to 2080 or to 2100?

Yeah, I am. I think I can speak also more generally to that public comment at this point. I am I'm not currently aware of like, maps that are usable in a regulatory form that show that although I it's something that I think I could take back and research if we're interested in some of those projections. I pulled up like a quick search, um, after the public comment just to see what was out there. And I think some of the modeling is still currently labeled as experimental. And I don't think our region has all of that even developed out for it yet, even at that experimental level. I think it's something that warrants a little more time and research if the planning commission is interested in some of those like more climate or projection style models. we can look at what's available. I do think that makes sense as far as considering climate change. I think my concern or something that I would recommend considering if you're providing direction on that is whether or not we actually have the information in the form of a regulatory data set. I find with the critical areas ordinance, that's one of the things that can kind of be limiting is we need to have data that we can make publicly available that is appropriate for making regulatory decisions on when people come to the front counter.

I mean, I would support staff looking into whether it's applicable, because if it is, then I think it's worth at least seeing how that might look if we went that route instead of just a notice on title, which that's fair.

Yeah. I'm also interested in what we could do to like, if that does not exist now, but it's something that comes about in the in accommodate that when it does come in. They wouldn't bind us to something that doesn't exist now, but would include that in the model once we have that information. Because yeah, I do wonder what the utility is of, what the utility will be of entirely just backwards looking models, given how everything is changing. Like a lot of those thousand year floods becoming hundred year floods, those hundred year floods becoming 10 year floods, situations like that.

Yeah.

I think it's worth reminding folks that we're hoping that starting with this update and moving forward that we're going to be touching this code more often. And so as data sources change, it might not Hopefully it won't be 14 years till we're doing it again. It's three years. And maybe there are new things that are requirements or are test available science that are appropriate to include at that time. I think at the very least, leaving us basic.

Yeah. And this version of the code that we're working with now has language like that, especially around the reason we're addressing so frequently the reclaimed waters. Because there's lots of language in the code that says, basically, We know this should be addressed. We don't have the resources for it right now, or we don't have the right tools yet. At such time as those things come about, it should be addressed in this code. And so we might, that can be an outcome. Yeah.

Well, I'd be hesitant to put anything predictive in. I can give you a perfect example this week. I cut hay on Monday, no rain in the forecast. Yesterday, rain in the foothills. Today, we're supposed to get a third of an inch of rain tomorrow. So I don't think there's anybody, I always say this, I don't think there's really anybody that can tell us with very much specificity what's going to happen in 10 or 20 years when they can't tell me what's going to happen in less than a week.

I think that is my concern about... making sure we have something that is ready and prepared for use as a regulatory data set. Like I know we have lots of climate data and we have a whole team that is working on climate data, but whether or not that's something that is in a current state to be appropriate to use to regulate someone's property is kind of the question there.

I have a few things. And First, I just want to say that a lot of these kind of things, I think we're on the right track and doing the right thing here. But I still think that we are going to have a really terrible impact on some of these lower end communities that could be affected by floods through these regulations. And when we talk about how we have these things for human life and safety issues, I think back of all the flooding events that I've been around for from 1970, 76 was a big one, 96, big one and 04 were big. And I don't remember a whole lot of people dying because of floods, but I do feel like anecdotally every month I hear about somebody dying in a homeless camp. So I don't think that floods in Thurston County are anywhere near as dangerous as homelessness is in this county. So I don't want to make a trade for being safer from floods at the expense of putting more people in the jungle. And with that said, I believe that, especially in these communities like the Nisqually Pines and the Nisqually Valley, where there are mobile home parks that are gonna be greatly affected by this. When I think about the things that will either make flooding worse or make flooding better, Well, the thing that would make flooding worse possibly is climate change. That might make flooding worse. I don't know how much or how often or anything like that. It's very hard to quantify. But I do know the things that would make flooding better are at least two things. One of them being Tacoma Power being more cognizant of how they release water during flooding events. And they have proven that they're doing a better and better job of that all the time. And I think that they are going to continue to do better and better of that all the time. And then secondarily, which will help the flooding, is the replacement of the I-5 bridge going across the Nisqually River. If all of a sudden we go from 100 yards open for water to go through to a mile and a half of water to go through, our floodway is going to be different. It's going to be a whole lot different, and it's not going to back up. So I personally believe that the flooding risks in these areas is going to be lower, not higher. And so for us to have safety regulations that make it harder and harder and harder for people to maintain and stay in their homes, I feel like we're going backwards on this. And I know that I talked about this at two meetings ago when we discussed this topic. I didn't really realize the connection between the community rating system, the flood insurance program, the CAO, Title 24 and Title 14 until, it's a confusing topic for a layman. And I understand that a lot of this lies in 14 and not 24, and we're working on 24. But there's some things in there, and I think 14 needs to be revisited specifically because of this on these issues, specific to the areas of redevelopment. New development is a totally different issue to me. And if we want to have high standards for health and safety on new development, that's perfectly fine. But on current development or redevelopment, I think that we need to make things as easy as possible. And Title 24 does use the term substantial improvements. And that substantial improvement is 50% of the value of the home or of the structure. It's not of the land. It's not of the property in whole, but of the structure. So if somebody has a 1975 mobile home on a quarter acre lot down in the valley and The county is going to say that that has a taxable value of $3,000. Now, any substantial improvement would be anything that's worth more than $1,500 going back for the last 10 years to the last adoption. Well, $1,500 isn't going to pay for anything. It's not going to pay for anything. So all of a sudden, if somebody has a kitchen fire, they're on the street. If they have flood damage, they're on the street. They can't rebuild. I know that we talked that we're going to see if we can find some way to get redevelopment in here. I know Title 14 does have a provision for mobile homes for redevelopment, for replacement. I can't remember what it was. But I think that needs to be smuggled in. It was 24-50-070, replacement of mobile or manufactured homes. I think we need to smuggle that into 24 from 14 to make sure that people can replace their mobile homes if they need to without these 50% over the last 10-year limits on structures that have virtually no taxable value. So until we can get protections for these kind of people, I'm going to be a real heel dragger on a lot of this kind of stuff. But these protections need to be there for these people because being homeless is way more dangerous than a possible flood.

Yeah. For this issue, I think I'd mostly just be curious to see what the direction from the planning commission is. And I think what I can do is provide like a couple of pieces of information. I think you captured a lot of it. I wanted to point out that in Title 14, this is something that we can make sure is aligned in the CAO itself. There are provisions that exempt that substantial improvement 50% thing if it is related to the Health or safety? Yes, health, safety. Yes. So essentially, if something, like in your example, like there is a kitchen fire and the structure is not livable.

But it's non-discretionary.

So we could make that language clearer.

We need to have some discretionary in other areas. In 14, there are areas for discretionary replacement, but there's not a discretionary replacement in 24. There's only a non-discretionary replacement. And so, you know, some people, I mean, a 1975 double-wide's, Even if it had the best ownership, it's probably in rough shape by now. They're a depreciating asset. They fall apart easier. And sometimes people just, even if it's not a health hazard yet, and somebody does have the wherewithal where they want to replace it, I think we should allow them to do it. And even in 14, the replacement, you can go up to 600 square feet. bigger if you wanted to and if we smuggled that into 14 too that would be great because you know if somebody want to go from a single wide to a double wide i don't think that you're going to be putting a lot of people in jeopardy you know well certainly not flood jeopardy so i think that we need to get those provisions in please um i just wanted to answer your question so we our guts um

TRPC has a report from 2017 that examined all of the local water systems and floods. They document no fatalities in Thurston County since Since I think the 60s. Related to floods, however, there have been hundreds of evacuations, many injuries, lots of people who had to be medevaced. So it's not that there's no risk there, but the risk of fatalities is quite slow. There have been deaths from flooding in the Pacific Northwest just recently.

And connected to floods that started here, just not actually in the county. I would never say floods aren't dangerous. I understand that they're very dangerous. I'm just saying when I'm trying to rank things as, you know, what's the most dangerous, it's not floods. I will reiterate, if someone in a mobile home...

Someone in a mobile home is paying for FEMA flood insurance, which would be rather inexpensive on a very low value home. They are eligible to apply for flood mitigation assistance grants. That program has billions of untapped dollars and These are free money from FEMA. I would love to see an education campaign that would... Yeah, so the main risk here a lot of times is that these folks don't see the value in insuring their homes to begin with in that scenario because it costs a little bit, like an improvement for flood resiliency, like lifting it several feet on a foundation. I don't know if you could do that right now.

The way that the code's written now, I don't think that you can make those kind of improvements. It's a discussion that's come up and we haven't gotten a definitive answer.

Interesting. I largely agree with the direction of this specifically in the context of separating out redevelopment from fresh development, because that gets at one of my larger concerns here, especially when we're talking about, well, there would be a notice on this property if it went for sale that it has this kind of risk. And generally speaking, I mean, that's true for the person who's buying it, but that's not necessarily going to be true for the person who's living there, but they're going to know what they're getting themselves into. And that's usually, those are the people I tend to be a little bit more concerned about in this context is who's actually going to be living on that land. And they may not have access to that kind of information or may not know to look for it. So a notice alone won't help those folks. That said, yeah, if we're focusing on redevelopment, I think that like as a, as a set aside, I think that solves a fair bit of that concern for me. Yeah, otherwise I largely agree with where you're going with that.

I think to your point, I don't think that the solution to that is a difference between noticing on title or something else. I think it would be some sort of carried approach to get everybody that's in a flood zone to participate in the flood hazard mitigation program and get on the tech list and the phone call list and that kind of stuff.

Yeah, and that would actually address my second issue, which is like a lot of the deaths that we're getting from flooding are from the after effects of flooding. That's most flood deaths. And that has to do with the kinds of resilience that you build in these kinds of systems of connecting people. And that's a little bit beyond the scope of what we're talking about here, but it is directly relevant if we want to be able to plug, like integrate our, like put access to different aspects of our programs into our code.

Mr. Pessinger, I thought I heard you say something.

Just commenting that the most dangerous thing in Thurston County is probably riding a motorcycle.

Probably is. I think it's probably cheeseburgers and Coca-Cola, but it's probably the next.

Yeah, you're probably right.

Just to reiterate, with the redevelopment versus development, another thing that I do worry about is putting in any kind of carve-out that leads to people incentivizing putting in a lot of high-risk, relatively disposable housing. Essentially having what I grew up with in Tornado Alley happening out here, where you have all these high-risk floodplains ending up with low-income housing that then kills people.

development and redevelopment. And I'm afraid that if we don't have some discretionary abilities to improve these properties, Landlords are never going to make places better. Exactly. They wouldn't be allowed to make places better 1500 or 50% over the last 10 year look back or I think I can't remember how they calculated it's either 10 years or since 2012 when the last time it was passed or something like that. I can't remember what it read.

You could potentially cap redevelopment to under a certain amount of square footage or footprint to avoid some of his concerns with

I don't know. I think a lot of times that when people want to redevelop these properties, the most economical way to do it is to crush up the old mobile, roll a new one on. And even if we're only the new one on and lifting it above floodplain, I'm totally cool with that too.

But what I'm suggesting is yes, if you're upgrading or replacing them to his point though, redeveloping it into, to something substantially different, Is a concern, like if you're replacing a single wide with another single wide, you're not going to see.

I think that's where that 600 square foot carve out came in, just so it doesn't get bigger and bigger and bigger. Drastic, yeah.

You could potentially use a footprint or a square footage to curb maybe some negative impulses there. Someone buys a bunch of land on the cheap in a floodplain. done on the cheap and then big loss after they sell them all, that would be not great.

Yeah. And we can also, in considering this, we could use some of those like construction and safety elements that are primarily in Title 14. It's very similar to the approach we took with high groundwater hazard areas where it's like, all right, you can be here in this case. but you're going to be building for your safety and your neighbor's safety because part of the, one of the challenges with floods in particular is a critical area and as a hazard is that it, the impacts of the hazard carry over to other properties. If your home or your structure displaces water in the floodplain, that is worsening the risk for other people. And a lot of the injuries and casualties that happen after floods are people who need to go in and do remediation. And so this is why with this particular critical area, it's such a systematic effort. to manage just floods on the whole. That's why we have whole dedicated floodplain manager planners. But so those are considerations that I would just mention in the conversation. Yeah, I could see the sort of ability to improve or replace being contingent on like certain safety features, for example, elevated structures or something like that being maybe a happy medium here, something like that.

Commissioner Kaiser.

Yeah, I just wanted to comment a little thinking about what Colin was talking about in terms of making sure folks understand what they're getting into. Sometimes what looks to be a beautiful property may have hidden costs. And I was thinking in particular about the Oso slide disaster where it was known by folks that this was a slide area but the memory of it had kind of faded. And so when developers came in and platted it out again and sold these lots off at very reasonable prices, folks didn't really understand what they were getting into. And to great, great cost, as we remember. So I agree that we need lots of housing. We need to make it easy to build housing, but we also need to make sure that these really potential very serious hazards are known by folks and that they don't get sort of forgotten or kind of glossed over because there's no obligation from sellers to disclose that.

Really quick, too. On the other topic about those homes, there is a chance that putting that a change to chapter 14, about that could cost us a ranking in our community rating. But going from a two to a three is a 5% premium discount change. It is. I think that's generally speaking not enough to really hurt as much as it could potentially help in other scenarios.

I think that's a conversation that we wanted to have, but I understand that we're probably not having it because that would lie in 14 more than it would lie in 24. But like I said at two meetings prior on this, subsidized insurance for rich people at the cost of poor people that are not participating in a program that probably isn't going to benefit them enough anyways, that's not a fair trade to me. It's not a worthwhile trade at all.

Yeah, I know we talked a bit just as we were revisiting the flood chapter in general with our staff who works on the community rating system. And so far with what's proposed now, there's no major concerns. There are certain things where it's kind of like, well, we can implement that and then go through our next CRS review and see if it changes. But we did talk about like, well, who, like... Where are the priorities for CRS? Who benefits? And I think her impression of demographically was that there are a lot of people who rely pretty heavily, who are more economically disadvantaged, who rely on that CRS discount.

People rely on the CRS discount and rely on and can't afford to participate in it.

You wouldn't lose it. It would potentially go down by 5%. We're at 2% right now, so we're getting a 40% premium discount. So at a 3%, it would go to 35% premium discount.

From my perspective, if going from a 2% to 3%, you lost 5% discount, but then all of a sudden we could have discretionary redevelopment and we wouldn't have some of the other limits, that's an easy trade to make. That's a very, very easy trade to make.

and it's a it's something that the those kinds of percentages are going to matter more for the higher end houses than they are going to matter for the lower end housing we're talking about those percentages add up at the at the larger scales rather than the smaller ones yeah all right well i think the kind of

repeat the guidance process that we discussed last time. What I'm hearing is that we are looking for more flexibility for redevelopment specifically with considerations for in particular manufactured homes. looking to avoid displacement without, and then possibly bringing in additional safety requirements if that occurs to kind of mitigate any potential impacts to the floodplain. We do have a responsibility to do things like ensure no base flood elevation rise, things like that. So we would probably be wrapping in a lot of considerations and requirements from Title 14 if we add additional provisions to allow for redevelopment, but we can kind of package that all together so that it still works. And then I can always talk with our CRS staff about how they think we should approach that, what the impacts could be. But if we have a 5% change in the discount folks received from CRS, that could be desirable if people have more flexibility based on the changes. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah. And it would potentially incentivize more enrollment in the program.

Yeah. And also check for unintended consequences on title marks. And Commissioner Pessinger had something, I believe.

Well, thank you, Claire, for repeating that fact. That was nicely said. Um, I had a different question kind of following onto what commissioner Kaiser said about risks, like what occurred and also, and I just recently saw, uh, some news stories about Mount Rainier. Um, and, uh, just only within the last week, it experienced something called an outflow flood. And I don't know if that's correct terminology, but that's what they used. Um, And they described it, this was pretty eye opening to me. I've always heard about lahars and heard about the danger of lahars. My dad lives in Orting and that's site number one, a danger of lahars. But these outflow floods, apparently Mount Rainier has an enormous amount of water in the soil and the rock of the top portion of the mountain. And not due to earthquakes and not due to volcanic activity, but just rock itself getting weaker over time as the water seeps its way through and breaking it up a bit sometimes causes these outflow floods. And they had a pretty large landslide off of a slope of Mount Rainier associated with this flood. And they said it does not do anything to increase the risk of a lahar for ordine or any of the other valleys. This was in Tahoma Creek. And it doesn't increase the likelihood of a lahar in Tahoma Creek. But they did say also it does not increase the likelihood of an earthquake or of any kind of volcanic activity. It simply will happen when it happens. And these things will happen randomly, these outflow floods. I'm just curious if that would go, because obviously Nisqually River is pretty affected by this, maybe others, but I know within our county, that's the one most affected. Is this relevant to this section? Is it relevant to a different section under hazards or under other issues?

I think that between essentially the regulation of floodplains along the Nisqually River and then the regulations that are in the Lahar hazard areas along the Nisqually River, that type of event would generally be covered. I would also say, based on the fact that I know that the Carbon and Puyallup Rivers have a higher Lahar risk, um this i think based on the way the mountain like morphology functions i would assume that any similar risks of things that come down and out of the mountain are more prevalent in those rivers than in the squally but that's just conjecture based on what i know about the systems coming from that mountain but i think between those two chapters of the code that type of event would likely be covered and an outflow flood as opposed to a lahar Right, because a flood of water or other debris coming from the mountain are going to take the same paths as a lahar would. These are both like flows of liquid coming from the mountain. So if it's covered by the lahar hazard, and then also we have people protected from floods, which... In the Squally River area in particular, those things overlap pretty readily. Those are kind of double protections occurring if anything is coming down and out of the mountain.

Okay, thank you.

Do we have any other questions for Claire today or any other things that we'd like to worry about on frequently flooded areas or high groundwater?

right thank you very much i hope you didn't give me too much we're going to move on with staff updates i've got two updates for you so as i mentioned earlier on july 21st next tuesday the board of county commissioners will have a briefing on joint code updates and tree protection standard options so that will likely be at their during their morning session between nine and noon and then the following week july 29th we're doing a board briefing on the critical areas ordinance update so project scope, the process to date, including engagement with the public and interested parties, the overall project schedule, including future significant events and milestones. What day is that again? July 29th. So that's two Wednesdays, two weeks from today, and I believe that one's in the morning as well.

And those are my staff updates. All right. All right, we're going to move on to calendars. And on August 5th, we have a tentative work session over the wetland gap analysis and then new uses and related standards introduction. Is there anybody that is not expecting to be able is expecting to not be able to attend? All right. And then on August 19th, we're tentatively scheduled to hear about Grand Mound 193rd Land Use Amendment and Re-Zone. And then we'll have our public hearing for the Baldwin. That's it. For the Baldwin Open Space Tax Credit Program. Is anybody expecting not to be able to make that one? It's important since we are having a public hearing that we have a quorum. So if you're not able to make that one, please let us know as soon as you can.

We'll continue to do the public hearing first, the way that we have in the past. 7 o'clock is what it's set for, I think.

Yeah, so I can't do it before 7, but we'll do the first break after 7, break in the agenda after 7, unless you're en route, we'll wait for you.

If necessary. I'm going to be working starting at like 8pm immediately after the sessions basically from now on. I'm going to be a little bit late for those, but that means that I will have to be here on time. Okay. Okay. I'll try to get you out of here as quick as we can.

Commissioner Fishburne, you had something?

Yeah. What date were you just asking about?

August 19th.

Okay. Yeah. That's not an issue. Thanks.

Okay. All right. Well, with that, does anybody have anything for the good of the order?

I do. Please. Since you love how much I want to get Lola Flores this name, you'll also appreciate this for our meeting minutes. It lists attendance for 2026 and it lists Hanson as Commissioner Hanson as of attending 12 meetings. I'm pretty certain that's not accurate and probably should just be removed.

Thank you very much. We'll have somebody look over the attendance records. The attendance records at the bottom of the, yeah. The downside of the meeting minutes. Yeah. All right. Does anybody else have anything for the good of the order?

No.

All right. Well, having no further business, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

Thanks, guys.

I've been not physically here to make a smirk when he points these things out. I know. It brings me joy, and I don't get to experience it.

We need to somehow have emojis.