Robbie Myers 0:00 Introduce Miss Mary Lynn. She is one of my favorite people on this earth also, along with a few other people. Um, and she is the as you all know, the head of the Legislative Committee. She does a fine job at that she's an excellent writer. And she and the guy, I was on the panel, I mean the committee for a while, but very scattered there towards the end, because I had hand surgery. Unknown Speaker 0:34 But they did such Robbie Myers 0:35 good work on this bill. Oh, my goodness, it was such an in and out thing, and up and down. So it was a pain. Yes, it was. So I'm gonna let Mary Lynn introduce her crew here. Mary Lynne Evans 0:51 Thank you, Robbie. You're welcome, sweetie. For those of you, whom I haven't met, and I see there are some new folks with us. As Robbie said, I am the Chair of the Legislative Committee for the Washington State boundary Review Board, I've been president of the association, and chair of the King County, brb for I don't know longer than I care. Sort of like lindora. But this last session was really fun. It was really an interesting session. And we call this Chandler in and art and I call this the dance of legislation. And both are in Chandler and myself are going to give some perspective on what happened. But I need to mention and I would be remiss if I didn't have Bob Skaggs, from Pierce County and Mary rebar from skamania, both of whom were really integral to what we did this year. And we'll ask them for some comments as we move on. So I want to start with art, who has done a really great job of showing what happens how our board gets through the legislature. So go for it art, Unknown Speaker 2:10 oh, I'm gonna start with something really simple. And, and I did some searching around on how a bill becomes a law in Washington State. And I'm gonna show we have a slide here this is so bear with me here, it can be reduced or introduced neither the House or the Senate by a member, it's referred to a committee for a hearing. This is really this is so simple for a bill to become law. The committee issues that report that Pat, passed on the bill to the full house to the full Senate. It goes back to the other side, it also goes to a Rules Committee on second reading of bill is subject to debate and amendment before placed on third reading. And after passing one house, it goes through the same process in the other house. When the bill is accepted to both houses. It's signed by the respective leaders and sent to the governor. And I'll tell you, when, as we looked at one bill, in particular Senate Bill 5368, this year, we found that isn't quite the case. But before we get that, because the next picture. It was so simple in Washington, but this is the other Washington then just the roadmap is just wild here. It's not nearly as easy as we know, as we all know, but anyway, that's that's the background that really is what I have looked at it, it's it's so easy to get a bill into law, but it is not so easy, really. And and maybe we have Chandler can pick it up here as we starting on the on the next year talking about Senate Bill 5360, which we Mary Lynne Evans 4:04 actually all do this part art. Okay, a bit later. Yes, I thought arts graphics were very illustrative because when you see what happens at the Washington State Senate, the bills have a very simple process. However, Oh, and one other thing I should tell you is all of them, unlike the US Senate, have to have a title. And the title must be descriptive of what the bill is. So for example, if you want to pass some legislation on car licensing, you cannot put it out as affordable housing. It has to be car licensing. However, as we found out, this isn't always the gates. So the legislative committee is a group of volunteers from the br the wirsching state Brb, and we are very happy We do have had people from all over the state with us this time. Some people have been with us before, and some people not. So just to tell you that our process is relatively simple. We get together at the beginning of the session as a committee, and we sort of assign, we talk about what we do. And then we sort of assign roles. The roles have to do with researching the legislation, researching the legislation is not as difficult as one might think. Unknown Speaker 5:31 I don't know about that. Mary Lynne Evans 5:36 Some people thought it was harder. We look at any of the bills that might have code words, and then we go to the code words through two places. One is called leji scan, or ledge.va.gov. So we will always look up brb. And that was our sort of codeword to see if any of the bills that were coming up, would have affected us. Generally, that process worked pretty well. However, this year, we did not, or we almost missed a bill that turned out to be very important. It was Bill Senate Bill 5368. And it began as a collaboration between three GOP senators, and the Washington State Association of cities. It played out because unlike the national scene, the Washington State Legislature wanted to do something that was bipartisan. They were looking for bills and approaches to things that both the republicans and the democrats could get behind. And they were doing this consciously, because they hated the divisions that had been given all the headlines. At from the National bill, this bill started out to be something that both Democrats and Republicans could go by. We wanted to find something also that would meld the differences between Eastern Washington and Western Washington. We're all Washington in urban Washington. So we have many ways that we can be split up, but they wanted to come up with something that was really good. And so they modified or thought about how they could modify some of the existing problems that they had seen with the GMA, and they wanted to tweak it on behalf of cities, and counties, both of whom were struggling in ways to bolster revenues primarily for the cities, and to streamline some complicated processes. They see the annexation process as being very cumbersome and very hard. The truth of the matter is, it is but it's not our fault, is not the br B's fault. So we almost made a mistake in looking for legislation that was directed towards the Brb, I found this bill just by chance, I looked up under the code word annexation. And there lo and behold, was a whole section on annexation, which we wouldn't have picked up if we just looked for brb. The Washington State Association of cities, and the association in Washington counties jointly wrote this bill was senator Shelley short staff and brought it forth as an example of the collaboration. And it was called World Economic Unknown Speaker 8:46 Development. Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, Mary Lynne Evans 8:49 everything's looking good. You know, it's a poster child. And it was supposed to provide more flexibility to the growth management, our act, and to address the desire of rural towns to index land for growth. The three sponsoring senators were looking for ways to bolster the economy of small towns and to take care of this annexation process. When we looked at this bill, we found that it was many, many pages long, there was only one section that really applied to us. And it talked about making an annexation process that would be simply done between a city and a county through in order to local agreement. That's all it said. It didn't say anything about citizen participation. didn't say anything about public hearings, didn't say anything about balancing pros and cons. It didn't say anything about existing annexation laws. And we looked at it and said, Wait, this is not good. If it goes through. We'll have to Who annexation processes in the state of Washington, the ones that are through this particular bill, and the ones that go through 3690. That's, that's just not good. And this bill doesn't talk about GMA counties versus non GMO. So GMA counties likely if the bill had gone through would still have to go through the process that we go through know that those of us who are in GMA counties, but nine GMA counties would have this flip. May I say, slippery slope, to get the annexation crew, and it wouldn't make things look very easy. From one standpoint, the rural standpoint, are very hard, from another standpoint, the urban standpoint. So we thought about it, um, and we listened to some of the hearings, they were all done by zoom. It was really quite interesting and easy to do it. You could go on and see them at the time, you could go on and see them afterwards. You could send in comments on either through zoom, or you could send in letters, you could do all sorts of participation. And in early February, most of the long bill Well, first of all, they had a hearing they were going to have a hearing. Mr. Skaggs was our timekeeper. He watched all of this, which you can also find out on ledges scan, what's coming up? What bills are coming up? Where are they in the process? Is this a public hearing? Is it just a committee hearing? Who is testifying? And how long will they be up? And how can you provide information without him keeping track of all of this, the rest of us who were trying to write responses to that bill would have been just sunk. We couldn't have done everything. He kept us on track all the way through, as Bill ended up his channel will tell you on the governor's desk, the day that the legislature closed, we thought that it was going to be a slam dunk, it was going to whip right through and away we would go. But no, that wasn't the case. So we put together maybe in two days, we found out from Bob that there was going to be a hearing and we needed to get our comments in. We put together comments, the Committee met sort of ad hoc, we figured out what it was want to say what we didn't like about the bill, and how we thought we might be able to constructively engage with it, rather than just going in and saying, Take this section out, just wipe out. We don't like it, take the whole bill and just chuck it. We looked at it and said how can we work with it? So we identified the following things. We said that the interlocal agreement that was suggested in this particular bill had to be consistent with our cw 3690. It had to be the same as the factories and objectives that we use had to be the factories and objectives that non GMA counties used and rural counties use. That was the first thing. The second thing that we looked at was we said this has to have more public involvement. There isn't. It's not sufficient to say that this IRA can go through with just the city and county government representing it in voting yes or no. So we included a section on public involvement, and we included a section on voting. So the senate hearings, as we said earlier, were focused on the economic development, but all of a sudden, the scope of the bill just went zoop. And now I'm going to turn it over to Chandler for chapter shoe over for it. Lenora Blauman 13:57 before that happens, this is Lenore again, of gentle correction. It is 3693 not 30. Sorry. Mary Lynne Evans 14:06 I'm like Bob, I can't get 36 That's why Lenora Blauman 14:10 you pay me the big bucks. Unknown Speaker 14:11 Bye. I was one important to keep in mind. Unknown Speaker 14:18 And one thing quick Dave asked the question was 5368 limited Unknown Speaker 14:23 to non GMA counties? Mary Lynne Evans 14:25 No, it was not. That was part of the problem. It would have passed as state law would have applied statewide would have thrown the whole process into conflict with what we were doing. So it was Unknown Speaker 14:41 one of the one of the problems, I think, was that it didn't mention the Brb, it didn't also go around the beam ob which meant that they would have to come through the Brb, but it's sort of hinted that it didn't that anything does need to go through the brb. It's sort of like this. In the bill, Mary Lynne Evans 15:02 thank you all right. That's a very good comment. That was why we didn't pick it up in the beginning, because under the keywords and never said Brb, under annexation, it was found. Okay, Chandler Unknown Speaker 15:16 j, if you go to the second history slide Yeah, as as Mary Lynn said, we we kind of stumbled onto this bill, which was labeled Rural Economic Development. And it was only after we really looked into it that we realize it had the the problems for br bees that Mary Lynn has described. Bob Kaufman reminded us this morning that the, the notice of intention process really is valuable for the public, because it highlights the importance of boundary review boards, and provides mechanisms for public input that are embodied in state laws, specifically in 3693. So when we figured out that this, this bill that was ostensibly about Rural Economic Development actually seemed to sidestep the drB process and not include provisions for public input, we were we were kind of alarmed. So we, we employ a three pronged strategy to try to address this and see what we could do with it. First was conversations, phone conversations with association of Washington cities, lobbyist, Carl Schrader. And the fortunate thing here was that I knew Carl pretty well, I'm new to the brb as of just a couple years ago, but I knew Carl with association of Washington cities quite well because of work that I had done with him on the growth Management Act when I was working for King County government, four or five years ago, so there was a, you know, a friendship and a relationship of trust there that when I let him know that this bill draft seemed to create problems for br BS. He, he really listened in. And it was also fortunate that he was the guy who actually drafted the bill in the first place in collaboration with Senator short of northeastern Washington as, as Marilyn pointed out, so a couple of fortunate relationships there worked in our favor. The second strategy was for us to contact known legislative aides. And Bob Skaggs was instrumental in in that he had a good relationship with his Pierce County legislator and their legislative aide so he was in touch with with those people and that that helped a lot to raise consciousness about this issue. Third, we use the old fashioned mechanism of writing letters, about lost art, but but I think it made a difference this time. We, when it got out of the when the bill got out of the local government committee, the one that Senator Kudu her share chairs with our revised language that we wanted in there, it went to the Ways and Means Committee of the Senate, chaired by Senator Christine Rothfuss. And we wrote a letter on behalf of the WSH vrb. To to the Ways and Means Committee emphasize emphasizing the importance of the little amendment that had been made by Carl Schrader and Senator short, to really acknowledge 3693 and the need for public input. So the combination of phone calls with lobbyists and legislators, and a formal letter and testimony to committees, underscoring the importance of the brb role really made the difference. Unknown Speaker 20:39 Yeah, I kind of skipped over one thing, and that was that after some conversations with Carl Schrader of cities, he actually on his own initiative, prepared a paragraph two, add to the bill, and presented it to Senator short. And that became part of the revised that is substitute Senate Bill 53 to 68. That came out of the local government committee and then out of the senate as a whole. Mary Lynne Evans 21:22 January, might I add something in here? Unknown Speaker 21:24 Yes, please do. Mary Lynne Evans 21:26 Our Lang when we wrote our first letter, we not only said that this is what we objected to. But we suggested language be inserted. And we gave actual wording of what we wanted to have put in, so that the staff and the lobbyists wouldn't have to go to the extra work of representing us, but that we would have it there and make it clear to them. And we really emphasize the idea of equity, the idea of community participation, and the idea of making annexations. I shouldn't say bound by but at least considered considering factors and objectives. That would not be just willy nilly, but something that could be really substantially talked to. Unknown Speaker 22:14 Exactly and Karl and Senator sharp picked up on those recommendations, including the balancing of factors and objectives from 3693. And actually wrote those into the language of the bill, which was, you know, really, really gratifying to see. The the revised bill went to the house after passing the full Senate. And the house local government and Environment Committee, chaired by my own representative, Jerry Paul out of Seattle, added new sections to the bill that provided for broadband extension and broadband funding. It didn't seem to me to be very related to the original content, but I guess, you know, it had to do with economic development in rural areas that had limited broadband. And the bill then passed the House with the broadband additions and our language about the importance of Barbies and public input was still intact when it passed the house. So now we had a bill that had been passed by both the Senate and the House, yet went back to the Senate to approve the the broadband additions to the bill. And it was sent to the governor. Well, here was the last twist in the thing that Governor Inslee had issues with using the mechanism of this bill to deal with broadband extension and broadband funding. I'm not sure exactly what they were but he has the power of Section veto. And he vetoed all of the sections of the bill that that the house had added leaving only three sections of the bill just about the same as it had come out of the house local government committee with our little addition. So the final enacted law consisted of very little else then our recommendation that the RBS be recognized 3693 be recognized, and the importance of public input be recognized. So it was a nice win for br B's. Mary Lynne Evans 25:18 And Taylor, if I could intercept here also, part of this dance that went on was Chandler and Carl, and also the county lobbyists. So we were dancing with the lobbyists as well as with the staff. And we were giving testimony on an art had talked to some of his folks in Bob to and and i think Mary report did also. So as we were working with them, you know, we got all of our stuff together, and we presented it. So the last thing that had to be done was the hearing in the house, and nobody else on the committee could go. So I said I would testify. And as chairman said, Representative Polet ran the hearing. So I testify signed in and they said it's time for you to talk. And so I said, This is what we believe the bill should say and we like what you've done. And please pass it just as you have it. And he said, okay, that off? And I said yes. And then I could have gone off, I could have left the meaning but for some reason I did not. He turned to the lobbyist for the housing folks for the builders, I believe. And he said to her, I'm going to make up names. Miss frost, is it true that you have called your membership and told them that they should inundate the legislature with this sentence that the Washington state legislators are the ones that are causing the affordable housing crisis? He drew herself back. And she said, Yes. And he said, you get on the horn right now you call that meeting off, you take that statement right out of anything that you're going to put out, you know, good and well, that we are not the cause of this affordable housing crisis. And she said, Okay, so I thought, what, look, we didn't get reamed out for anything. We did everything, right. This is an example of what can go wrong. First of all, don't ever assume that they don't know what's happening out there. And second of all, don't ever second guess him or surprise him. So Chandler dig it out there for the lessons learned. Unknown Speaker 27:53 Yeah, well, that was a lesson learned. And maybe Jay can put up our last slide about lessons learned. This afternoon, Chief Well, koski emphasizes the importance of lessons they learned from their regional fire authority work and we learned eight or nine lessons from our experience this spring to first, it's important to begin meeting and tracking bills as soon as the legislature starts. In fact, by starting day, there are already a bunch of bills draft bills in the hopper that are submitted by legislators before the session begins. So start looking right away. And then secondly, use use a search function as Marilyn was describing a few minutes ago, either the legends scan app or the ledge.va.gov. Part of state state government website. Use the search function there to look for key words among all the bills in the hopper. For the current session of the legislature, that was a mistake that I made. At first, I forgot to specify the year and the alleged guado. gov seems to focus on the previous year, unless you specify as the current year. And it's important to be very precise in the search terms you look for annex and annexation. Two different words will bring up two different sets of bills where those specific words show up and look at boundary and try to be creative in the relationship words that that you think might be important, maybe public input. do find build numbers that seemed to have some relevance and keep tracking them diligently week after week, because these bills often change radically as ours did. Within the ledger.va.gov. app, referred to Bill history, which has all of the actions that have been taken by committees, and all of the documents such as staff, Bill reports, and the actual language of the bills themselves. You know, check those to try to understand the bills potential impact. There are also recordings of committee meetings and hearings. Here's an important one do talk with people, you know, legislators, legislative staff and lobbyists. It is kind of a cliche to say, it's who you know, but but it's, it's really true. In this case, you members of the br B's of Washington State, know some really influential people, so you too, can be an influential person. We made good use of friendships such as mine, with Carl Schrader and previous relationships of trust and shared value with Olympia people to find out more about the bills, and even to suggest changes. Another important one is to engage in real dialogue. By listening, we learned some important things that we didn't know such as how the Association of Washington cities and counties had really been trying to reach out to the minority republicans in the legislature to build bridges and proposed legislation that would be more more bipartisan and win win for all. And we also are at least I didn't realize the extent of frustration in some of the rural towns of Washington State over the complexity of annexation procedures. Here's another one, if a bill looks potentially harmful, consider instead of just trying to kill it, consider seeking an amendment to it. as we did in our negotiations with a WC that that worked out as a win win for everyone that that Unknown Speaker 32:54 we found a way to amend it more to our liking. Finally, be persistent. A dormant bill has a way of coming back to life and even a dead bill can suddenly spring to life late in the session. So that's a lot of lessons, but it was a fruitful year. Dave Hambelton 33:18 The one thing Chandler Yes. Alison Sing 33:22 It's really important for everybody understand this was a team effort of everybody you see here on your screen, wouldn't have come off unless we had this team effort going on. Because we all had very specific duties to do. We always talk to each other. I think the really, most important thing is we never attack the bill and said it was bad. We've asked how we can help make it better. And that went a long way. And working with the legislative advocates out there. All the senators and representatives staff went a long way because they could see that we were working together as a team for one particular purpose, and it was to help them as a good bill. Thanks. Unknown Speaker 34:07 Very well put Bob, thank you. Mary Lynne Evans 34:09 Thank you. Yes. The experience with Miss frost, indicated to me that you really don't want to get on the wrong side of people. You need to always look as though you're ready to help. Yes, you have your own concerns. Everybody has their own concerns. But it can work on with somebody else. That's how you get somewhere. And so I thought senator cooter today made a very generous offer to us to be on a working group to talk about what we know best. Why annexations are difficult, why the boundary review process is sometimes hard. What the influxes and flexes are with the growth Management Act that make it difficult, how the average Joe on the street has to somehow enter To act with government to make these things work for them, or at least understand why they're not working for them. And so I think for next year, we have a real chance of working with her as an organization to see what we could do about making some of the changes that we all in our own boundary Review Board processes have found that needs to be done. And so I would like to offer to all of you who are interested in being on this committee, the opportunity to do so we can show you how to do the ledge scan, what to look for, it might seem formidable, in the beginning, there are pages and pages of bills, but you learn how to scan them, you learn how to find the sections that are important. Learn how to see that this really had something to do with bipartisan work, it didn't have just to do with its subject matter. And you also learn to see that the very end that the governor's office is the one that really makes the final decisions. And so up to the last hour of the legislative session, he was vetoing section vetoing adding changing things, even down to the climate control bill, which I thought everybody thought was dead. And then all of a sudden, when the budget came out, and the transportation budget came out, it was real clear that part of the budget would not let me look, it wouldn't get passed, if it did not include some of the things that the governor wanted in his climate bill. So this trading, and you know, maneuvering, and taking care of things just goes on constantly. If you want something that's pretty cut and dried, if you want something that's black and white, if you don't want to see sausage being made. This committee is not for you. If you believe like Senator Kennedy, said john F. Kennedy, that politics is the only game for adults, then we would welcome you being on this committee. And I'd love to take any questions that you all my staff might have. Unknown Speaker 37:18 I think it's a Mary, that has to put her hand up. Unknown Speaker 37:23 Yes, just done the notes. Well, hi, I'm back. I finally got the cat out of the vets. We this morning, I think we got an offer from the senator to make our association, better known to legislators, by telling them all the things that we have seen in our experience and your experience, mainly, I'm not handled very many, brb issues in my home area. She's she told us that, hey, show me where the laws conflict, and we can work to change them. So I don't know if that falls in the purview of this of what we're discussing in the legislative panel. But I think that is an offer that we shouldn't refuse. That was Mary Lynne Evans 38:25 referring to Mary, about a good doing. Yes. And it's not a simple matter. You know, we have in the past as a committee, not had the firepower, to do much analysis, we've not had the firepower to get things changed. We've mostly played defense, which meant that we looked up on legislation, we found out if anything was bad, and then we would, you know, comment on it. But quite frankly, we didn't make a huge difference in playing defense in this one difference, because we played offense. And I think committee and the organization now is much more representative of the state of Washington than it was in the beginning. I really am heartened to see all you folks from other counties in the new people that are on the brbc because we need to talk about things as a state association, not as a Puget Sound, not as a GMA county Association, we all have our own difficulties. But the beauty is that we all belong to this process. And protection process was the thing that we really wanted to have happen through this bill. We weren't saying, you know, don't get rid of us. We weren't saying don't use IRAs, we were saying, look, you know, you need to have an equitable way of doing things you need to involve people. You need to make it a transparent way. And you need to have some way of adjudicating between all These parties, all of which we are assigned to do. So one of our factories and objectives talks about processes. And, you know, as you saw this morning when Bob talked about him, so that was our foundation stood on when we evaluated this bill. Lenora Blauman 40:18 Irwin. Yes. Nora, excuse me, I just wanted to add in. Historically, as we've gone down to Olympic years, one of the things that we've done when we met with legislators is just to walk in and say, Okay, what are your interests? What are your goals, and I'm, obviously it's great if they're related immediately to what we do. But sometimes we got an interest, let's say, in parks, and we could connect those to our interest in what we did. And we thought of cooperation that way, for we didn't move any mountains, but we move lots of mole hills. Mary Lynne Evans 41:02 And having folks from the association who were willing to go down when that's even possible to do anymore. You know, we went in with our little one pager that Jay has put up on our website, says these are brb counties. This is what B Arby's do, and you turn it over, and it talks about the process. And we've been able to hand it to them and say, Do you know anything about br B's? Are you familiar with them? And most of them would say, No, you know, we're sort of a second line agency, and they don't have direct frontal interfacing with us. But we have it was the people. And so they oftentimes were ready to listen, and most of them would say, Oh, this sounds right, good. You know, we could go to one of the legislators who was not really on our side and say to him, as Linares saying what are your concerns? And he said, Well, I'm basically I work with the firefighters. And we were concerned about those situations, too. Here's what we do, if we happen to have a merger, or a boundary dispute in between a fire district, and one of them is to look at level of service, who's delivering the service? How's the best way to get it done? Are we looking at the financial impact of this? What goes on with the retirement funds of those fire fighters in that district that are taken over? And he could say, oh, okay, so Unknown Speaker 42:36 that brings up something that I should have mentioned in my presentation, which is that one of the good things about my relationship of trust and understanding with Carl of cities and Paul jewel of the Association of Counties was that they admitted they didn't know much about what br B's were about and and what we do so that was a great opportunity. And, and walking us through the website this morning, Jay pointed out that there's a two pager, describing the role of vrb is nice and compact, concise, and yet you know, pretty thorough. So I sent that to the lobbyists that we were working with and you know, I think it it helped them understand a little bit more about what we do and they they offered to meet with with us to to learn more about Brb, so that's something we should take advantage of. Yes, the Mary Lynne Evans 43:44 flyer that Taylor is referring to is the one that I said we go in to the office we hand this to them because it's so concise and so quick. Dave Hambelton 43:55 It's a base to talk to Robbie has a question when you hurt Did you finish Marilyn or did you want to Mary Lynne Evans 44:00 know, I know I am not finished but I would like to have Robbie's. Unknown Speaker 44:06 Okay, it's just a Lenora Blauman 44:07 couple of comments. I want to reiterate how when we go on the hill, it really is a fun time together because we get to know each other so much better. We congregate in the cafeteria in between appointments. And one of the things I love to do is gather the names of all the brand new legislators or those that are new on the committee's that pertain to us and explain who we are. I get a lot of pleasure out of that. There was something else Unknown Speaker 44:49 we go to dinner. Yes. Lenora Blauman 44:52 And we go to Anthony's or buffet we just walk over there. It's great. There was something notes. Okay, I'll think but, okay, I'll raise my hand again, Mary Lynne Evans 45:05 I want to call on Dan Anderson, who is one of the members of the King County boundary Review Board. I haven't had a chance to tell her I was going to do this. I'm hoping it's not too much of a surprise. But then has had a long and trusted relationship with many of the legislators. She knows these people from a long time ago. She knows their ins and outs, she knows their families. She knows what things move them. She knows how to bring forth her or our agenda, so that it fits in with their so then would you like to tell us a little bit about what you've done? Lenora Blauman 45:41 She's also the only one that could talk to Pam Roach. Unknown Speaker 45:44 She's back then you're muted. You're muted. There we go. Now you're still muted. Sorry. potty, is there helping? Yeah. There you go. We already know, okay, then the thing, the thing to do is to get with them before the fact work on their campaigns, and then they owe you. Oh, that's good. Okay. Oh, and you can ask for favors because it's payback time. And it's not hard to do. And it's not hard to get other people to do. So. It's worked out for me for all the years, I've been politicking, it still work. Mary Lynne Evans 46:33 And you can't Of course go and work on their campaigns as a member of a board. But you really do it isn't? Unknown Speaker 46:40 Because an individual, right? And then when you show up there, you've got the face of the other hat on Mary Lynne Evans 46:48 ban without using any names. Can you tell us about your relationship with one of the most contentious female legislators that are named? Unknown Speaker 47:01 You know, the neat thing about it is my memory is starting to slip a tiny bit and I forgotten her name, but she was the witch of the Wild West. Camera approach. Unknown Speaker 47:14 She's now in Tacoma. Unknown Speaker 47:17 Yeah, she on the city council. She was well, I urged her to run for that. Get her out of our hair. You owe me You owe me one big time there. I urged you to run for that. Mary Lynne Evans 47:35 And I remember you. Well, we all went down. And we had a time on her slot to go in and talk to her. And I said, Rob, are you going to go in and do it? And she goes, No. And so he said, You got to do it. Marilyn? I said no. We said, Steve, are you gonna go in? And he said no. And then said, I'll do it. Unknown Speaker 47:56 Yeah, I went. I went in and talked to her and got her talking about her pottery is ornate Chinese pottery, that are diffused and all softened up. And she went along with this as I would call. Lenora Blauman 48:11 Yep, she did. Yep. Yeah. Mary Lynne Evans 48:14 So the idea, of course, of friendly relationships and never getting yourself into trouble. And knowing them personally and knowing what their interests are, is just, it's just like sitting down and making a new friend. Unknown Speaker 48:29 Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Mary Lynne Evans 48:33 Anybody else on the committee that like to say anything about it? Mary, do you have other things, Robbie? Thank you, man. Lenora Blauman 48:40 I really, really enjoyed being on the committee. I really, I hope we can go to the Hill this year. Because it's just it's just a lot of fun. And we learned so much and Unknown Speaker 48:56 and i still I'm in the wheelchair when I have to walk very far, but I'm still available. Good. No dimension. God. Mary Lynne Evans 49:07 Hmm. Marcel Goulet 49:09 Marcel, can Mary Lynne Evans 49:10 you hear me? Yes, yeah. Mr. seller. I want to commend I'm sorry, you were part of our group valued part. Marcel Goulet 49:18 Thank you. Well, I want to commend everybody in the group because as has already been stated, and I want to throw my two cents and worth. This is well structured group, it worked very well together. And as was pointed out, the communication was excellent. So I think it was probably one of the most effective legislative committee groups that we've had in a long time. And I want to commend all of you for great work. Mary Lynne Evans 49:44 So we have a little bit of time left, and I'm wondering if I might probe the membership here now. When we were listening to Senator cooter in the morning, about the problems with annexation, and also with Bob Kaufman's report about how sometimes boundary reviewers are looked as looked at as the criminals, the wrongdoers, the problems. I'm wondering if any of you have had any experience with this kind of feeling when you've done your own work as a boundary Review Board, have you run into any of the state laws that you thought somehow were bothersome to what you were trying to do? Were things clear. In the state law, were you frustrated by anything that was confusing? Alison, us some really good questions this morning. Yeah. About the factors and objectives and so did Chandler. So maybe that's a place to start? What do you think about the factories and objectives? Are they easy to work with? Do they yield the results that you want to do feel like they're in the way? Unknown Speaker 51:07 Well, we've had a couple in Skagit. County a couple of major annexation request, actually, one was an urban park district that straddled both webcam and scheduled counties. Yeah. And it was, it was a tough, tough problem. And, but the factors and objectives of the laws really made it easy for us. What made it what our job what made our job really hard was misinformation being passed around in the community, especially at least among farmers in Skagit. County and northern Skagit. county that would be in the park district. bencher. It was that in that case, it did go into Superior Court. Mary Lynne Evans 52:00 But why was it difficult? Unknown Speaker 52:04 Because it it, because there were two sides that were really at each other. And almost to the point of shouting at a public hearing, we ended up having two public hearings or we are having it in two parts. It was fire farmer that, yeah, the farmers and people in both counties were so nervous about having what essentially is it was an overlay Park, this is just a district, they were worried that some people worried that they were going to have that. To get home, they're going to have to go through a park gate. Just Wow. And But meanwhile, they were circulating fliers in the in their communities without flyers that we we didn't see a couple of them anyway, we didn't see until late in the process. But But it took it was pretty, we had to be pretty careful paying attention to the factors and objectives. And frankly, it could have that almost could have gone either way we ended up we scheduled county did reject the park district in watkyn. County then followed suit a couple of weeks later. Mary Lynne Evans 53:27 And were the factors and objectives were worthwhile in your evaluation. Unknown Speaker 53:32 Oh, yes. Yes. That actually they made it easier to evaluate the proposal. Yes. I don't know what else to say is if the factors and objectives are like a guidepost or roadmap and we use then you can use to work out just how, what kind of the whether the outcome would be positive and who would be positive or who would end up might be paying a price with that. Lenora Blauman 54:09 Well sometimes they're like a safety net too, because it's the law and we go by the law and you know, people really shouldn't argue with that even though certain you know, nationally try to but yeah, Mary Lynne Evans 54:29 great. We are you I think it's you have your hand up I can't tell us the telephone set you marry rebar. Lenora Blauman 54:40 Well, then Nora will speak into the silence in my experience, because I get some questions from other staff from their boards. Um, it is not the factors and the objectives that are so um, hobbling it is such acts as the inter local agreement annexation, which still have some opportunity for public comment, but not nearly as much as there would be in a standard petition or resolution, annexation. What is to be done about that? I don't have any immediate ideas. But I do know that that comes across my desk four times a year, Mary Lynne Evans 55:29 say some more about that. Why is it a problem, the inner local agreement? Lenora Blauman 55:34 Because some of them allow a friend random, some of them don't, most of them are not appealable in any way. You know, if we take something public hearing, there is some issue with it, somebody can appeal it to Superior Court. But with an inter local agreement, annexation, there are fewer tools, I don't have the tools in front of me. So I don't want to wade into that. And but in some of them, there's no way that even invoke jurisdiction and get a public hearing. And it's a source of some frustration as well. Mary Lynne Evans 56:19 Do you feel like the IRA is sort of an end run around us? Lenora Blauman 56:23 Sometimes? Not always. But sometimes it's sometimes it's a pretty simple thing to do. You're looking at one section of roadway, for example. And the county, the county can't serve it anymore. The city is interested in taking it over. And yes, there are some objections that there could be some objections from the public but really, in a situation like that public safety and efficiency are the order of the day. And you you will remember Mary Lynn from working in shoreline. So it was the past I think or two Oh, fifth, I can't remember which Street to 20 line and and Seattle. And um, if if there was an accident on the road, you either got five fire departments or no fire departments and they would quarrel with one another over whose responsibility it was. So that kind of an annexation is great for an inner local agreement and and it may raise hackles, but it really doesn't have much of a justification for doing so. But it gets it can get Messier if it is more complicated. And there's there in less opportunity for the public to come and have a rolling Mary Lynne Evans 57:51 thing. The the other board members have anything that they feel was frustrations that were really legislation oriented. Dave Hambelton 58:02 Oh, this is Dave Hamilton up in Snohomish County and this interlocal agreement thing The first time I heard about it, and maybe Pamela or Alison put put a couple of words in also. But the first time I wrote about it was for a large annexation out by Lake Stevens. And it just sort of seemed like we've been dulled out of the game. And I didn't I had no idea that had gone on. And I'm not sure exactly what step that annexation is in at this point in time. But from what I read in the paper, there was nothing that resembled any public input. Now, I don't know if that's fact or fiction, but that was my impression. Mary Lynne Evans 58:41 Good case study. For lack of process maybe, huh? Really? Yeah. And so we don't know did it go to a vote? Dave Hambelton 58:52 I don't think it was gonna go to a vote. It was just if the city and the county agreed it was a done deal. You know, anything babble on about that one out there. Lenora Blauman 59:05 And local agreement annexations generally do not go to a vote. That's the point of the interlocal agreement. Dave Hambelton 59:11 That's the whole point. I thought yeah. And if you Lenora Blauman 59:15 say go because there's an exception to everything, okay. But the general goal of an inner local agreement is let's get this agreed upon and move forward and have it be not secret but also not allow for much before anybody notices. Dave Hambelton 59:33 Yeah. Unknown Speaker 59:36 Right. But do they not come before the boundary Review Board anymore? They're gonna go the inner local agreement annexation, Lenora Blauman 59:43 oh, they do come before the review board, but there's a very limited opportunity to appeal to court. For most of them. You can't promote many of them. You can't even have a public hearing. So please the board is not entirely a rubber stamp, because I think most people do what I do, which is don't let them to the door unless they actually have all of their parts in place. But the exam optimal. It just means that they, you know, yeah, they took the garbage can out to the sidewalk, Mary Lynne Evans 1:00:21 right? Someone who's a telephone 3607 to 67052 has her hand up. Unknown Speaker 1:00:29 Yes, it is. Can you hear me? Hey, Mary. Okay. Yeah, this sounds like a good issue for us to discuss more, and perhaps the do something legislative leave in the next sessions. Because I'm a proponent of transparency and accountability. And it strikes me that something that is just between two political entities is not a very transparent way of doing things. So maybe this is something that we can bring to the legislature to especially the senator who spoke this morning, and see, perhaps this is where we can make our mark. I don't know. But it seems to me that anything that smacks of not involving the public should not be allowed. You know, it's always easier to do something by Dick Todd, than to open it up to the public and public comment, because then, of course, you have more views than just two. So that's a good point. And thank you very much for bringing it up. I had not realized that there was such a thing. And I appreciate knowing that. Thank you. Lenora Blauman 1:01:44 You're welcome. Well, and you want to look at really carefully because there are different kinds of mineral local agreement actions, and some of them really do make sense just the way they are. But some of them probably could benefit form from more opportunity for public input and public action. Unknown Speaker 1:02:06 Some of us don't see those things. I don't think we've had an inner local agreement in this gadget or even watkyn county that I'm aware of. There, it's feels kind of foreign. When it comes to looking at what we might do ahead of time in the legislature. We I wonder how proactive or how pushy sort of we want to be with proposing legislation as a as a body that's out there that I don't know it, it almost feels a little inappropriate to try to propose new legislation. But But I'm certainly open to discussing that. Mary Lynne Evans 1:02:48 I think that's a really astute observation art, and one that Bob Kaufman would, you know, jump on that wagon, he has been through the wars, he's seen how boundary Review Boards of some people have said, gotten too big for their britches, and started doing things that they didn't think were, you know, within the scope of the boundary Review Board, we are caused by judicial, we are nonpartisan, we're supposed to interpret the law, not make it. So I think if we are going to do anything with the legislature, one of the things we could do is to say where the problems are that we see. So we're on the front line, we see these problems. We may not even have to say, you know, this is the answer. But these are the problems. And we could probably do that it probably is a two year process. If we're going to do this. The next session is a short session. So we could get started in you know, putting together a working group and talk about the problems. Everybody loves talking about problems. And we could wait for that legislative session to pass. And then we could talk about what solutions might be. And the solutions part is always the hard part. As you saw with Joe Tovar, his roadmap on he did a ton of problem dredging up for years. And then when they tried to put it together and come up with some solutions, it really got difficult. And people didn't fall into line and they weren't as clear as people had hoped. So yeah, talking about solutions is problematic. I do think that this is a organization wide decision. And I not just the legislative committee decision, I think the organization should weigh in be given some options and then weigh in on the way they that you think we should do it. Yeah, Allison. Oh, but I myself I didn't say oh, Marcel Goulet 1:04:49 well, the thing I wanted to comment on I believe that's what I see. As the most important and valuable lesson learned this year and the outline that you broke out here. About how things were done, how we worked in collaboration with the powers that be. And I was extremely pleased and very happy to hear from Senator invited us to continue that flow continue that process. I see that as our most viable way of having influence, and of having some good positive collaboration with folks that can support our efforts. So I think that's why this year, as I commented earlier, I found that the committee did some fantastic work and established a good, good methods, if you will, a bit process that we can replicate time and time again. Mary Lynne Evans 1:05:43 Thank you for that. Allison. Allison, Unknown Speaker 1:05:49 you're muted, Alison. Alison Sing 1:05:55 No, now, you're still muted. or something's not right. I think it's my There you go. Yeah. My apologies for that. The inner local piece of legislation that was passed last year opened the door, that allow for counties and jurisdictions that were annexing within their Moogle area where they have contiguous boundaries, made it easier for counties to sit down with cities, along with any other particular special use districts to negotiate and clear the the books on the annexation process. And it doesn't allow for the citizens to vote on that. It just is a negotiated agreement. And that was something that was passed last year. So before we challenge it, I think somebody should do some research and go back and look at who sponsored the bill. And what are the arguments for it because it was passed to implement our lease ease GMA issues like, you know, get the annexations moving along, right? Mary Lynne Evans 1:07:00 I think it was two years ago, or whatever. Alison Sing 1:07:02 But the bottom line is, yeah, yeah, we just saw that happened to us this last year. And we didn't get to say anything about it. Mary Lynne Evans 1:07:11 And that was with Lake Stevens. Right? Yeah. Lake Alison Sing 1:07:13 Stevens, Dave Hambelton 1:07:14 the link to the lake Stevens web page that talks about it, if anybody's interested in looking at it. It was effective as long as 10s 2021. Online, all these acres are in Lake Stevens. I mentioned that. That's what that's the article, or the summation of the article I saw in the paper. And I was really surprised. Mary Lynne Evans 1:07:37 Right? So huge annexation, wasn't it? Yeah. Very low. Alison Sing 1:07:44 The arguer. The argument that is put on the table is that now that you are citizens in the city, you can go to the city hall and lobby your council members. So a lot of those people didn't really have any say, regardless of what I was saying. The thing was to cut out the the citizen participation and allow the county and the jurisdictions to negotiate the transfer property, who has the right away who's going to pay for this and it's going to do that. And all jurisdictions that are affected by the annexation, like a fire district or sewer district. Do you have a say then they negotiate all that into the interlocal agreement. So my recommendation is find out who originally sponsored that bill before you pursue it and why why Yeah, right. Cuz you you may be fighting. I agree some big guys. Mary Lynne Evans 1:08:35 Yeah, it may be a David and Goliath. Point, right? So we are getting a little close to our ending time. Does anybody else have anything else they'd like to say? I do. Unknown Speaker 1:08:47 All I do remind you of the funny night you wouldn't let Durkin speak. And when I got the floor, I said, What was that? You would you would have said if she had let you talk to all the wind out of his sails. Mary Lynne Evans 1:09:04 There's this for the rest of you that don't know this story. There's marriage more to the story. I didn't not let him speak. It wasn't like that. But yeah, she did. She did take care of all the bad feelings. With a simple statement. It was masterful. Anybody else? Okay, Robbie, I think anybody from the legislative committee wish to say anything more. All right, you have a committee sign up. All right. possibility. And we would love to have you on this committee. so considerate Thank you Dave Hambelton 1:09:46 already got two signed up like last night I think or the night before Yes. Mary Lynne Evans 1:09:51 Claudia was one and Claudia was one of our very good ones. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 1:09:55 Great. like to be on it also please. Okay. Mary Lynne Evans 1:09:59 We got Banda, thank you all for your participation. Thank Unknown Speaker 1:10:02 you. Alison Sing 1:10:03 We got a little short thing Transcribed by https://otter.ai