Briefings - Mar 1

Let's talk about attendance first. Ross and Tim started off the meeting at 830 AM with Lynda absent. Lynda arrived around 9 AM with Tim leaving at 930 AM. Then Lynda took a thirty minute break to make an important phone call leaving folks standing around waiting for her to come back.

No media were in attendance which may help to explain the "standing around waiting" for a commissioner to make an important phone call.

Now for the topics discussed:

1. Belfair Bypass: State Department of Transportation representatives were there again today to talk about the Proviso they are working on which will be completed by June 30, 2010. On Mar 17, (4PM to 7PM at the North Mason High School Gym) DOT will hold a town hall meeting so that members of the public can provide input. If you can't make the meeting, you can provide input by completing a public survey. Go to this website for the survey: www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/sr3/belfairbypass.

Alternatives for the Belfair Bypass are being considered by DOT. The upcoming town hall meeting on St Patty's day is your opportunity to have your say.

2. Emergency Management Staff Vacancy: An unplanned retirement of an Emergency Management staff member brought this topic to the commissioners' attention. Public Works assumed that they'd just put this on the consent agenda for the next meeting and just move along on filling this position. Greatest push back came from Tim who asked them to look at other ways of getting the job done. Tim suggested they combine the workload with other positions on the Public Works staff. Also suggested they look at doing more with less. Charlie Butros tried to wrap this discussion up by saying this will be on the consent agenda on March 15. Tim then came back with a request that before the fill of this vacant position could be approved, Public Works would need to come back in and provide more information for him.

3. Noxious Weeds: Appears the county is looking at doing an assessment on each taxable parcel in order to come up with funds to properly establish the Mason County Noxious Weed Control Board. Bob Simmons, WSU Extension said what they are looking for is a full time position to head this effort with a cadre of volunteers similar to the Master Gardener program.

(I wanted to ask Bob - "how's that Master Gardener volunteer program working and what makes you think Noxious Weeds would be any more successful in recruiting volunteers?")

Just before Tim exited stage right, he said that he needed to have all of this spelled out more completely to include budget estimates. Over the next several weeks the Noxious Weed Board will be developing scenarios to bring before the commissioners and then there will be public hearings held in May or June of this year.

Key point is that to do this assessment the county doesn't need to take a vote of the people. The Board of County Commissioners can simply decide that we will be assessed for proper funding of a Noxious Weed Board. Stay tuned on this one.

4. Advisory Groups and Conflicts of Interest:

This problem just won't go away.

Barbara Adkins, Co-Director of Community Development provided an email written by Ken VanBuskirk (private citizen and member of the Planning Advisory Committee). In the email Ken points out that the county commissioners should "take a closer look at some of the advisory committee applications and ask for disclosure statements and conflict of interest statements from all applicants and current members for all Mason County advisory committees." He went on to ask that all advisory committee members be given training in the 'appearance of fairness doctrine'.

Not much was said by Ross or Lynda. But how can someone argue with "the promotion of public confidence in the fairness of decisions by the elimination of actual bias, prejudice and improper influence or favoritism"? Kudos to Ken for bringing this forward. The ball is in the county commissioners' court.

5. Landfill: As you probably are already aware the Landfill is closed on Sundays and Mondays. But what you probably haven't heard is that the reduced hours are okay because none of us are complaining. Grumbling yes - but there are not many real complaints.

Mason County, have we heard about the squeaky wheel?

Or should we be happy the Landfill is open on Saturdays when 300 to 350 of us line up to empty our trash cans which is three times more than the number of customers Tuesday thru Friday.

Hardly any of has complained about hazardous waste being disposed of in the meager four hours allowed on Fridays down from eight hours a day five days a week. But then the absence of complaints may help to explain why there isn't much hazardous waste coming into the Landfill since the change in hours.

Mason County, where is that hazardous material going?

Practitioners of good public policy would be looking behind the data to find ways to protect our environment and support working people who don't have time to waste sitting in line on Saturdays.

6. Drag Strip in Mason County: Here's all that I heard. Lynda told Barbara Adkins (DCD) to brief Ross on the drag strip. That's it. Not sure what this means. Tim wasn't present for this.