Chehalis Basin Partnership
Meeting Summary
January 25, 2013 Page 6 of 6
CHEHALIS BASIN PARTNERSHIP
Chehalis Tribe Lucky Eagle Casino, Chehalis Rooms
Rochester, Washington
January 25, 2013
9:30 a.m.
Meeting Summary
MEMBERS, ALTERNATES & GUESTS PRESENT
Al Carter, Wild Olympics CampaignBob Amrine, Lewis Conservation District
Bob Burkle, WA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
Bonnie Canaday, Mayor, City of Centralia
Chanele Holbrook-Shaw, Citizen, Thurston County
Chris Hempleman, WA Dept. of Ecology
Chris Stearns, Thurston PUD
Chuck Caldwell, Commissioner, Port of Grays Harbor
Chuck Turley, WA Dept. of Natural Resources
Commissioner Frank Gordon, Grays Harbor County
Dave Geroux, Center for Natural Lands Management
Janel Bistrika, Chehalis Basin Partnership / Janet Strong, Chehalis River Basin Land Trust
Jim Hill, Citizen, Lewis County
Jon Owen, Wild Olympics Campaign
Julie Balmelli-Powe, Lewis County Farm Bureau
Kahle Jennings, City of Centralia
Lee Napier, Lewis County
Lyle Hojem, Citizen, Lewis County
Mark Swartout, Thurston County
Mark White, Chehalis TribePatrick Wiltzius, City of Chehalis
Terry Harris, City of Chehalis
SUMMARY OF ACTION ITEMS:
Election of Chair and Vice-Chair
/ Chair Bonnie Canaday and Vice Chair Mark White were re-elected to serve 1 year terms.Approval of November Meeting Summary
/ Meeting summary approved.Input regarding Watershed Coordinator Position
Input regarding legislative outreach plan
Approval of Quarterly Progress Report and Expenses
/ Quarterly progress report and expenses approved.GENERAL PARTNERSHIP BUSINESS
Discuss November16th meeting summary: Meeting summary approved. No changes were suggested.
Quorum requirement of 10 met: Yes: Chehalis Tribe, Citizen-Lewis County, Citizen-Thurston County, City of Centralia, City of Chehalis, Grays Harbor County, Lewis County, Lewis County Farm Bureau, Port of Grays Harbor, Thurston County, Thurston PUD, WA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife.
MEETING AGENDA
1) CBP Work Plan 2013 Discussion and Planning:
Janel Bistrika, Watershed Coordinator, started off the Work Plan 2013 Discussion and Planning by announcing to the group that she will be leaving around the middle-end of July. Her husband got accepted into Medical School over in Yakima and will be starting classes the first week of August. Her last CBP meeting will be the June meeting. She has very mixed emotions about this move, on one hand sad to be leaving a job that she loves and the wonderful people that she’s got to know and work with, and on the other hand she’s excited that to support her husband in his pursuit of a life-long dream.
Kahle Jennings, City of Centralia, continued the discussion by outlining some preliminary steps that need to happen before Janel leaves in August. For many years Grays Harbor County has acted as the Lead Agency for watershed grants and the Lead Entity for Salmon Recovery funding in the Chehalis Basin. Lee Napier served as the County staff coordinator with the Chehalis Basin Partnership for watershed planning/implementation issues, and as the Grays Harbor County staff person responsible for overseeing salmon habitat restoration in the Chehalis Basin. Janel was hired to serve as the Chehalis Basin Partnership’s Watershed Coordinator in 2008. She was housed at Grays Harbor College under an agreement with Grays Harbor County, but reported to Lee Napier and Grays Harbor County. Grays Harbor County would have to create a new position to take over hosting the Watershed Coordinator at the County. This is unlikely at this time.
The responsibilities of the Watershed Coordinator position will not change, but some new responsibilities related to habitat restoration/salmon recovery were added. The current funding for the position is 50% watershed implementation and 50% salmon recovery.
There are several things that need to be considered as we go through this transition:
•Will Grays Harbor County be willing to continue to serve as the CBP Lead Agency for watershed grants? If not, what are our options?
•Will Grays Harbor County be willing to continue to serve as the CBP Lead Entity for salmon habitat recovery efforts? If not, what are our options?
•Where will the Watershed Coordinator be provided office space?
•Who will the Watershed Coordinator report to?
•How will costs associated with the Watershed Coordinator and Lead Entity Coordinator be reimbursed through the Lead Agency/Lead Entity?
•What process will be used to advertise and fill the vacancy? (Who will take the lead? How will we recruit for the position? What is the time frame? Who will make the selection?)
Options being developed include:
1) Grays Harbor County continues to serve as Lead Entity/Lead Agency (LE/LA)
2) The Chehalis Tribe has offered to host the Watershed Coordinator.
3) The Tribe and Grays Harbor County will negotiate an agreement for reimbursement of costs.
4) The Watershed Coordinator will report to the CBP.
5) Recruitment needs to begin in February. The position will be advertised through established web-based communication sources. A selection panel made up of CBP members will be appointed. The selected candidate will be presented to the CBP for acceptance in April and start ASAP so they can benefit from Janel’s experience for two months.
Discussion from CBP:
The group showed support for Grays Harbor County to remain as LE/LA. Commissioner Frank Gordon suggested he gather information from the CBP and take back to his Board for consideration of Grays Harbor County remaining as LE/LA. Janel will work on getting information to Frank for the Grays Harbor Board of County Commissioners in making their decision.
The Chehalis Tribe has offered to “house” the position in a similar way that Grays Harbor College provides now. There is some concern that the College may not take the lead in housing the position after Janel leaves, thus the Tribe offered to step up and house it. They also discussed possibly hiring someone before Janel leaves in July so the two could work together and get the new person caught up to speed before July. The group agreed to keep working on possible options for the new position and where to house it, along with requesting an answer from the Grays Harbor Board of Commissioners on their role as Lead Agency/Lead Entity.
Another update Janel has for the group is in regards to the CBP 2013 Work Plan. Janel has been updating the website as best she can, but has not had as much time to continually update it like it needs to be. Janel talked with John Kliem and Debbie Holden (who created the original CBP website) and talked with them about their interest and/or availability in helping update it. Debbie (even though she no longer works for John) is willing to help update it. Here are some updates Janel recommends but she would like you all to review the website and let her know of any changes/updates as well. It will be a small cost for the CBP to do this, but in order to have a better functioning website more updating is needed. John didn’t have a firm cost for us yet, since Debbie is still determining how much time it will take to do the updates but John’s rough estimate was between $500-$1,000.
The group agreed updating the website and re-organizing it so it is more user-friendly is needed. Janel asked for members to review our current website and let her know of any suggestions/changes. The group would like to see a scope of work from John and Debbie including costs.
Some suggestions Janel came up with:
-The information on the website is great, just the organization could be re-worked to make it “cleaner” and more user-friendly
-Use similar or same font as the GH Lead Entity webpage
-Like the idea of having a message board on the home page along with recent meeting minutes
-Suggested seeing how the layout would look to have tabs going across horizontally rather than down vertically
-Simplify the organization of the tabs:
-maybe make 1 new tab called Education/Outreach and put the Stream Team tab and Watershed Festival tab under the new E/O tab. The tab could display a drop down list that shows both Stream team and Watershed Festival then someone could click on either one.
-Put contact info on the home page, along with keeping the contact tab
-Put a link to the CBP and Grays Harbor Stream Team Facebook page (which is in the process of being updated)
-Update some of the links for organizations under the Information Links tab: ie Drops of Water
-Make the “width” of the webpage wider. When you view it on a screen it looks pretty narrow
-In the tab list, move Watershed Plan tab after/below the About the Chehalis Basin tab
-On the About the Chehalis Basin tab, put a link to the map instead of displaying it since the picture quality is not very clear
2) CBP Legislative Outreach Discussion:
At the last CBP meeting the CBP discussed doing some legislative outreach this upcoming session to request a proviso from the legislature in the amount of $200,000 for the biennium. This would sustain the CBP for at least 5 years. In the past we have sent a few members to meet with legislators and hand out our brochure and discuss the work of the CBP. This year we propose to have a similar strategy, sending a few volunteer members from the CBP along with the legislative brochure, and staff.
The group suggested some key CBP members including our Chair, Bonnie, Vice-Chair Mark White, Former Commissioner Terry Willis and Current Commissioner Frank Gordon, and Commissioner Karen Valenzuela, along with staff, as being possible volunteers to meet with legislators. Janel will contact these people about setting up some possible dates to meet with legislators.
3) CBP Quarterly Progress Report and Budget Update:
Janel has a quarterly progress report and budget update for the group. She did not receive the invoice from the College until Tuesday so these next items I’m handing out did not go out with your meeting packets, but she did email them out with the email on Friday. The quarterly progress report is for the only grant the CBP has from Ecology, and it will expire on June 30th. It will be spent down completely. You can see a description of work performed under each task in the progress report, along with some budget sections towards the back. The invoice from the College shows the salaries, benefits and travel that were paid from October 1-December 31, 2012.
Janel also has a document that shows a bigger picture of the CBP’s operating budget from January 1 2012-Future. We received word that both Thurston County and the City of Centralia will be donating $15,000 each for 2013. The CBP donations over the past 2 years will fund a watershed coordinator position through at least December 2013, but with the position possibly being partially funded by the Salmon Recovery/Lead Entity grant through Grays Harbor County, this will allow the funding to go even further. The Port of Grays Harbor is also going to be paying for meeting space again this year. At the bottom of the page is another line item for the Chehalis Watershed Festival. The Chehalis Tribe donated $5,000 this year for the Festival. The annual festival expenses range between $1,500-$2,000 (but this does not include staff time). With what is remaining in the account and if expenses stay about the same as they did last year, the funding should get us at least 2-3 more Festivals.
4) Presentation: 2012 Chehalis Watershed Festival:
Janel gave a presentation on the 7th Annual Chehalis Watershed Festival. Here are some details:
Sponsored by: The Chehalis Basin Partnership with additional contributors: Chehalis Basin Education Consortium/ESD 113, Chehalis River Council, City of Aberdeen, City of Centralia, Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, East Grays Harbor Rotary Club, Grays Harbor College, Grays Harbor County, Grays Harbor Marine Resources Committee, Great Wolf Lodge at Grand Mound, Hoquiam Rotary Club, Port Blakely Tree Farms, and the Washington Coast Sustainable Salmon Partnership. All of the contributors donated staff time and/or funding to help plan, organize, and implement the Chehalis Watershed Festival.
Committee members who helped plan the Festival: Kim Ashmore, Janel Bistrika, Charlie Chambers, Garrett Dalan, Dana Dietz, Patti Driscoll, Kathy Jacobson, and Margaret Rader.
Number of participants: Festival: 900 estimated participants. This is about the same turnout as last year, although exhibitors noticed the flow of people seemed to be more consistent throughout the day.
School visits with Fin (2 schools in Centralia and 3 schools in Grays Harbor): 1,200+ students and teachers.
Exhibitors: 20 exhibitors each with a hands-on activity for kids and information for adults: Center for Natural Lands Managment, Chehalis Basin Education Consortium, Chehalis Basin Fisheries Task Force, Chehalis Basin Partnership, Chehalis River Basin Land Trust, Chehalis River Council, City of Aberdeen Stormwater Dept, City of Centralia Stormwater Dept and Centralia Stream Team, Chehalis Tribe Dept. of Natural Resources, Grays Harbor Vision 2020, Grays Harbor Audubon Society, Grays Harbor College Sustainable Forestry Program, Grays Harbor Conservation District, Grays Harbor County Emergency Management, Grays Harbor County Marine Resources Committee, Grays Harbor County Noxious Weed Control Board, Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority, Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge, Gregorian Group, Heernett Environmental Foundation, North Beach Artists Guild, Ocean Shores Interpretive Center, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington Coast Sustainable Salmon Partnership, Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, Wild Olympics. For a description of the hands-on activity please see the brochure.