Date: October 25, 2004

Time: 7:30 – 9:10 PM

Location: Woodinville Water District Offices

Board Attendees: Mary Filkins, Geoff Clayton, Nancy Stafford. Jerry Hicks, Kathy Ravenscroft.

County Attendees: Marissa Algeria, Jackie MacLean, Sherrie Hamilton

Community Attendees: Kris Bush, Dave Garland, Anne Dettebach, Ed Schein, Pat Haglin, Maxine Keesling, Matt McCain, Terry Lavender, Brian Bodenbach.

Geoff Clayton brought the meeting to order at 7:35 by announcing that the Critical Areas Ordinance had been passed by the King County Council at 2:30 that morning. There are a number of amendments that still need studying. He moved on to the public meetings to be held the first week of December (Northshore Sr. Center) to discuss the Salmon Recovery Plan. All UAC groups are asked to attend the Executive UAC Forum on Nov 9 th hosted by West Hills.

Jackie MacLean, Director of King County Dept of Community and Human Services was introduced. This Dept is supported by a $227 million annual budget. For each $1. that King County spends; there is $7.20 in matching funds from other sources. Four divisions of the Dept. are: Community Services, Developmental Disabilities, Mental Health, Chemical Abuse and Dependency Services and the Office of the Public Defender. King County is a state and national leader in many of these areas. Statistics are kept by Zip code and she was able to tell us how many people in our area have been served by each of her departments. There were several handouts, one included the address of their website as www.metrokc.gov/dchs/ . Housing is a big concern. Studies show that 52% of the available subsidized housing units in King County are occupied by people who can afford to move on and make space for less fortunate low income persons. In 1999, a coalition of churches took on a mission to end homelessness in 10 years; they will be releasing a report on progress in Dec 2004. Tent Cities were touched on.

Geoff next talked about the CAO and said it has 325 ages of difficult text, he wondered how well balanced the regulations are in identifying resources to be protected between rural and urban areas. He compared an 1895 map of the Lake Washington area showing home sites, swamps, rivers and lake shore lines. In a quest for ease of access and money, much of the urban area has been “re-plumbed” largely to the benefit of the urban areas. He mentioned the Tax Benefit Rating System as a tool of King County to encourage people with resource lands to get a tax break. Maxine Keesling gave a more thorough explanation of how TBR works and the penalties for withdrawal fro the program. Terry Lavender spoke on the plus side and noted that acquisition of resource lands is basic to maintaining the Upper Bear Creek Basin as we know it. Redmond is to be watched in their use of “resource” areas since they share the lower portion of Bear Creek with us. The Cedar Creek Watershed had a better run of Chinook this year than did Bear Creek and Sockeye are scarce in all portions of both basins…very few coming through the locks. Dave Garland from the Dept of Ecology spoke about clean water being nearly sterile, thus lacking predators of salmon eggs and fry. Contamination comes from bad storm water management, poor animal/pet refuse management, and failing “on site” systems. Brian Bodenbach pointed out that there are 50 square miles of Bear Creek Watershed containing many dog kennels and horse stables. Dave said high fecal coliform readings age not specific to animals and pets and that water not meeting good water quality standards often has high bacteria readings and may have other problems like ecoli and salmonella bacteria. Geoff added that Woodinville Water District serves 11 thousand homes with “on site” (septic) systems that eventually add to the flow of our creeks. More discussion followed but these are the highlights.

When those attending were asked what concerns they’d like to see addressed by the UBCC, they noted: Public Benefit Rating System, Parks, Enforcement, Rural road

Funds being used in rural areas and if unincorporated areas are being encouraged to join

Neighboring cities, why is County employment growing?

Election of Officers was discussed; a unanimous vote gave incumbents another term in their current positions.

Next Public Forum November 23, 7:30 PM at the Woodinville Water District Offices.