Upper Bear Creek UAC Meeting Minutes

Date: May 28, 2002
Time: 7:30 - 9:10 PM
Location: Woodinville Library
Board Attendees: Mary Filkins, Geoff Clayton, Nancy Stafford, and Peter Lamanna County Attendees: Marissa Algeria,
Community Attendees: Barb Sullivan, Ken Scheve

Nancy opened the meeting with an announcement and update on the county Parks issue. She then asked for the new attendees to introduce themselves.

New Business:
1. KC Growth Management & Unincorporated Areas 2002 Growth Plan will be discussed at a meeting on Monday, June 2nd from 6-8 PM at Juanita Elementary School, 9635 NE 132nd Street in Kirkland.
2. Music in the Parks appears to be a go for 5 programs but that has not yet been confirmed. Nancy asked for suggestions on musicians. Nancy would like to use some local talent. We need to use the KC catalog but we can also use local people.

Old Business:
1. Report from Mary on Mary Cash Farm: Mary said that some plantings need to be done and the gate is now open.
2. Report from Geoff Clayton on Brightwater:
a. Edmonds and Route 9 sites have now had a couple of community meetings. The first meeting that was held focus on fact finding. The second meeting ended up being confrontational though. Some people did not want the facility at all whereas others wanted to see mitigation from it. The people living near the facility were concerned that the migration would not be spent around the facility but spread throughout the county.
b. There is also the concern as to how do we hold KC responsible for any mitigation. Participants do not want KC to mitigate for odor but instead make it part of the design. Mitigation for land acquisitions for parks; active and passive is also an issue.
c. They are now examining the environmental impact; traffic, lights, odor, etc. One point of concern is that if you build a waste treatment plant on the rural line you will invite urbanization pressures.
d. City of Woodinville is worried about loosing its commercial land on the Route 9 site.
e. This has been a complex process moving on a fast track.
f. The next meeting will be held on Thursday, June 6th at the Hollywood School house from 5:00 to 8:00 PM.
3. Nancy reported that Rebecca Wells says the county is currently looking at the following options for the Woodinville-Duvall Road project; do nothing, add turn lanes, add one lane, add two lanes, and rework intersections.

Peter then introduced Sheriff Reichert to discuss our current service level and how the budget crisis will affect current services. Dave gave a handout outlining the county's budget. His budget currently comes from the general fund and 46% of the budget is with contracts; cities, metro transit, etc. which ends up going back into the general fund so that effectively it is only 11%. As far as expenditures, 82% goes to benefits and outfitting officers and 4% is allocated to supplies and computers. They are also billed by other departments like facilities for auto repair. During the last year two or three council members have said that the sheriff got a 6% increase where as the department actually had a cut. The 6% was carried over from the 2001 to 2002 budget. The sheriff has been talking to the all UACs and is excited about working together. He urged us to make use of email and telephone calls to our representatives. The council is now asking the sheriff to take a 2-5 million dollar reduction. Ron Sims is very concerned about these cuts. The sheriff will either stop doing certain jobs or take longer to do them. This could also mean a reduction of 50 officers. The sheriff has responded by saying he can't take these cuts. If he doesn't identify areas to be cut then the executive will. The challenge is for our council and legislative people to find a way to fund our criminal justice system. The sheriff has been actively seeking ways to economize. He has been appointed by the governor to a commission that is looking at how they can be more efficient in providing regional services. KC is 2100 sq miles in size and just under 700 commissioned officers. Seattle has 1200 officers. The committee wants to define the role of all law enforcement jurisdictions. Often there are state mandates for them to do something but no additional monies. There are also tasks that state officers don't get to that the sheriff then has to do i.e. inspecting VIN numbers. Need to look at how they can all work together and use their resources more effectively. The sheriff has 9 dogs. Some of the cities also have canine departments. There are obviously ways that they can pool together and share these dogs.

The sheriff then asked for questions:

1. Do we have reserve officers? Yes, have about 100 to transport prisoners.
2. Where does the money go for the traffic ticket? About 30% stays in the county the rest goes else where in the state.
3. Nancy asked why has this taken everyone by surprise downtown? They are using the GMA act, 695, and other reasons for driving costs up. Why? They knew that new cities were forming and annexations were happening.
4. Nancy mentioned that officers are loosing a lot in travel time. Sheriff has talked to Kathy Lambert about this. They want to use the car pool lane. Currently they can only use them if it is an emergency or there is a prisoner. The sheriff may issue a mandate though on this shortly.
5. What is the response time? Are there deputies within the regions? Can I expect to see someone with 10 or 20 minutes? If you say your life is in danger then your call is given priority. The average time county-wide is 6-7 minutes on an emergency.
6. An attendee said that burglars are now targeting homes instead of convenience stores. He was concerned. The sheriff said he was right. Over the last 6-7 years the rate had been coming down but now it is going back up. He mentioned that part of it is due to the connection between meth labs and crime in order to get money to fund that enterprise. Sheriff says a lot of people have installed alarm systems and gotten dogs.
7. Nancy mentioned that people are having trouble getting responses from the sheriff. Dawnell brought up her home shooting instance. Nobody came out when she called. Sheriff explained how the incident should have been handled.
8. The sheriff said that if you have a problem to call Robin Fenton, the precinct commander.
9. The sheriff is striving to be an organization built on service. He wants to hire people who have the heart of a public servant.
10. Barb Sullivan mentioned about the present danger of the Mink RD NE and Bear Creek intersection. Sheriff offered to help.
Peter to forward emails on issue. Sheriff will right letter to Ron Sims.
11. Ken Scheve mentioned about how Roads and Sheriff go back and forth between traffic safety issues.
12. Geoff mentioned that there was a thought that the rural area would get money for services. He felt that this has been lost downtown.
He also asked how do you recruit local officers. The sheriff has officers taking their car home so that to and from work they are on duty. This way you become the neighborhood cop. The sheriff also explained that as cops noticed that taxes were lower outside the county, they have moved to its borders. When the sheriff became an officer, there was a rule that you could not take your car 10-15 miles into the next county. It is currently therefore very hard to find qualified candidates. In the past they had lost candidates to .com companies. Today, many are not sure about coming into the profession with all of its liability worries. The department is not having any more trouble recruiting people than anybody else. They do attract a lot of people from the city departments.
13. The sheriff is looking for funding for the Green River investigation because of the impact this high profile case can have on our area.

Meeting closed at 8:57PM. Next meeting in Norms House on Cottage Lake April 10th at 7:30 PM.