According to Tribal Relations Committee Chair Larry Davis, the TRC is on hiatus at the moment. He has been very busy, including working on some things for NACD.

The Harmful Algae Blooms Work Group (HABs) Work Group continues to meet regularly. Group members are focusing energy now on crafting a report to the Association.

The Livestock Task Force has found it challenging to find a time to meet that works for all members. In July they met with WSCC Executive Director Chris Pettit and Policy Director Ron Shultz to hear the Commission’s update to the livestock riparian water rights issue.

It is not too soon to begin work on recruiting candidates for WACD officer positions.

Tom and Ryan continue to work well with SCC staff. Laura Meyer’s departure was a substantial blow but we are very pleased that Paige DeChambeau is able to carry on with critical information and outreach work. Paige’s prior experience with legislative matters is a blessing.

Tom signed a contract amendment on June 30 for the July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023 time period, raising WACD’s agreement from $65,000 to $75,000 for FY23. We submitted the final report on WACD’s 21-22 contract with the SCC on July 14 (it was due on July 15).

Contact with NRCS staff has been lighter than usual in July as it is summer and everyone is busy.

Tom met with the President and the Executive Director of WFFA to discuss the possibility of an MOU. WFFA would like every conservation district in the state to make available a brochure about WFFA. We probably have some research to do to more narrowly focus where information about working with non-industrial private forestland owners would be most helpful.

Congresswoman Kim Schrier held a listening session on the Farm Bill on July 22nd in Carnation, WA. WACD testified, as did the State Conservation Commission, State Department of Agriculture, State Department of Natural Resources, and others.

We are in receipt of detailed proposals from the Wenatchee Convention Center for a fall 2022 event and a fall 2023 event.

Potential speakers so far:

• Addie Candib, American Farmland Trust — AFT is working on the issue of converting farmland to solar farms. Tom asked if Addie would be interested and she said yes.
• Elaine Oneil, Washington Farm Forestry Association — WFFA would like more contact with conservation districts to leverage the trust-based relationships CDs have with private forestland owners and because of wildfire concerns. Tom asked if Elaine would be interested and she said yes.

We should focus our thinking on some specific issues that are important and timely for our community. The first two that come to mind are (1) loss of farmland and (2) wildfire. It might help build/strengthen partnership if we could pair external guest speakers with knowledgeable folks from our community (conservation district, Commission, NRCS, FSA, Extension).

We invite your suggestions, too. Contact information is at the bottom of this page.

The old Lincoln has been around for many years. Last year, following some repairs to wiring that had been damaged by rodents, the sunroof refused to close. After consulting with several shops, it was determined that the motor to close the sunroof was not working. The local dealer wanted about $2,000 to replace the entire module, but that was the approximate value of the vehicle. Instead, Tom opted to have a body shop source a replacement motor and install it. Several months went by and still no replacement motor has been found. The vehicle has even less value with a sun-roof fused partially open and needing to be covered with plastic wrap and duct tape.

This spring, the Board of Directors authorized the Executive Director to dispose of the vehicle. Following this, Jim confirmed to Tom that the PMC would like to have the Lincoln. After the purchase of the new vehicle, the Lincoln was transported to Bow.

Tom paid a $500 deposit to West Hills Honda in Bremerton for a 2022 Honda CR-V Hybrid Touring. Tom renewed his Costco account so that he could use the Costco Auto Program to reduce negotiation time and lock-in the price. The delivery date is unknown; it could be three weeks or it could be three months. The dealer thinks it will likely be toward the end of August.

(UPDATE July 22: The Honda CR-V that was nearest to delivery was blue with a grey interior. Since then, Tom learned that a white CR-V with an ivory interior may become available around August 6th. Tom asked the dealer to move our deposit to the white vehicle and they did so. While white will show dirt a little sooner than some other colors, it also provides a clean base for WACD’s logo and name on the sides.)

The Board approved the purchase of a new vehicle, not to exceed $40,000 plus tax, title, license, and extended warranty. Staff interpret the strict language of the motion to mean that the purchase price cannot exceed $40,000, not including additional costs for tax, title, license, and any extended warranty we might wish to purchase. The quoted price of the Honda CR-V is less than $40,000.

We first looked at a Kia Sorento because, as Director Chris Porter noted, it comes with a better warranty (where better means warranty coverage is extended to more miles over more years). However, we did not find any Kia dealer participating in the Costco program. The fallback was the Honda CR-V. We only found one Honda dealer participating in the program in the Puget Sound Region. Fortunately, the Bremerton dealership is not so distant as to create inconvenience.

Tom signed, and had notarized, a lease renewal for the Olympia office. The new lease maintains the current lease rate for our two office spaces of $1,075/month until July 31, 2023. At that time, the lease cost increases to $1,125/month.

Ryan is taking some time during July as he settles into his new home and unwinds from the rigors of traveling back-and-forth to the Midwest twice.

Tom planned to take a couple of weeks off in July for a long boat trip to Canada but this trip will not happen. The boat continues to have unresolved problems and with low availability of tradespeople to fix those issues, the boat is neither safe nor comfortable for a several-hundred-mile trip over many days. Instead, Tom hopes to take a week off in September to spend some time in the San Juan Islands on the boat.

Tom has been noticing intermittent problems with the network in his office. This is significant because it affects telephony. Finally, on July 14, Tom spent half the day trying to diagnose the problem. WiFi connections through the network to the internet worked but connections via hard-wired Ethernet cable did not. The situation only got worse as configuration settings were changed and old cables swapped out for new cables. At the end of the day, Tom resorted to loading a March 2022 backup of the router configuration settings to the router and that seems to have fixed the problem.

Find published updates on the WACD PMC at: https://wadistricts.us/topics/wacd/pmc/