Council Schedule Highlights Week of September 9th, 2019
Monday, September 9th, 2019
Douglas Richardson, Chair
Connie Ladenburg, Vice Chair
Dave Morrell, Executive Pro Tempore
Regularly scheduled meetings are broadcast live and replayed on channel 22 (Comcast and Click! Network) and channel 20 (Rainier Connect). Access meeting materials at www.piercecountywa.org/councilcommittees.
2019 Second Quarter Financial Report
Presenter: Gary Robinson, Finance Director
In each budget we require the Budget and Finance Department to update the Council quarterly on the County’s finances. Although we receive more regular written reports on revenue to ensure any signs of danger are caught quickly, the department must also show that expenses are in line with expectations. There’s always some contingency built into costs, but we sometimes need to make mid-year corrections. Additionally, because so much of the work we do is grant dependent, we’re never 100% sure what work will get done.
Tuesday, September 10th, 2019
9:30 am Economic and Infrastructure Development Committee
Douglas G. Richardson, Chair
Connie Ladenburg, Vice Chair
Marty Campbell
Dave Morell
Pam Roach
Regularly scheduled meetings are broadcast live and replayed on channel 22 (Comcast and Click! Network) and channel 20 (Rainier Connect). Access meeting materials at www.piercecountywa.org/councilcommittees.
Regional Airport Baseline Study
Presenter: Josh Brown, Executive Director, Puget Sound Regional Council
Anyone who has been to SeaTac lately knows it’s an extremely busy airport. What you may not know is that the current growth trajectory puts it on target to match the busiest airports in the country. This is due to our booming tech sector and position as an international hub.
We reviewed this report at the PSRC Executive Committee a couple months ago. It shows that if the current trends for passenger service growth hold, we may need another satellite facility similar to Snohomish County’s Paine Field. Perhaps somewhere in South Sound.
Regularly scheduled meetings are broadcast live and replayed on channel 22 (Comcast and Click! Network) and channel 20 (Rainier Connect). Access meeting materials at www.piercecountywa.org/councilcommittees.
Proposal №2019–59, Shoreline Master Program
Sponsored by: Councilmembers Derek Young and Douglas G. Richardson
In 2015 we passed the long overdue update to the Shoreline Master Program. It had not been updated since before I was born… I am not that young anymore. As you can imagine, it did not reflect the best available science as a result.
I was proud to sponsor the bill in part because it contained a number of provisions to protect critical habitat like estuaries and eelgrass from aquaculture development, particularly the proliferation of geoduck farms. Unfortunately, the industry challenged our plan and the Growth Management Hearings Board ruled that state law requires many of those provisions must be removed.
The industry has done an impressive lobbying job convincing state lawmakers that their practices don’t do any harm. Unfortunately we know that’s not the case. With populations of forage fish fish collapsing in South Sound, a critical part of the food chain leading up to our endangered salmon and Southern Resident Killer Whales will again be at risk.
I sponsored this bill because I believe it’s the best we can get at the moment, but I’m not done yet. We’ll seek a legislative fix in Olympia so that we don’t let the industry reverse the hard work being done to save our Sound. Aquaculture has its place. Anyone who has grown up on the peninsulas is familiar with traditional practices. But I can’t support the idea that we have to allow it without guardrails.
My Weekly Calendar
A couple of years ago we got a request for my forward-looking calendar. Rather than have staff waste their time on public record requests, I decided to publish screenshots. Now I’m adding a link to the calendar as well. If you have questions, feel free to call. Keep in mind, my schedule isn’t static. Things will get added, deleted, changed, etc. There are conflicts that I have to pick between. But if people want to see where I’m at and who I meet with, that’s fine by me.
