Present: LS Schoenharl, Tom Shaughnessy, Jeff Tate, Don Meehan, Tom Roehl, Michael Crotty, Tom Campbell, Mike Gallion, Matt Klope, Gary Wood, Dick Toft, Duane Fagergren, Chris Douthitt

Call to Order: June 28, 2000, 3:30 PM

Introductions: Duane Fagergren from NWSC/PSWQAT and Chris Douthitt from the Whidbey News Times.

Comments from The Public: None

Approval of Minutes: Minutes from the prior meeting were not available. It was agreed that the minutes will be presented and approved at meeting of August 4, 2000.

Adopt Agenda: No changes made.

Announcements: It was agreed to start the search for a new Island County MRC Secretary as the prior employee has not fulfilled the requirements for employment. Don Meehan will start the interview process beginning with the top of the list from the first round of interviews.

Reports:
NWSC Meeting of 6/28/00 - G. Wood
Each county MRC will have a fact sheet made available to them.
A four-color brochure will be available in the near future for each MRC. An actual publication date was not known at this time.

Tom Cowan was officially offered the position as Director of the NWSC. His acceptance is yet unknown.

UC Davis Pre-Proposal Grant Status
G. Wood discussed the pre-proposal to locate and map forage fish spawning areas and near shore habitat beaches to evaluate for MPA status in Island County. The grant request is $17,000 year 1 and $14,000 year 2 to sample, locate, and map forage fish spawning grounds. It was suggested that the San Juan County MRC's "Protocol for Forage Fish Sampling" be utilized for this project.

Janet Kearsley (Salmon Recovery) will be consulted on the possibility of doing the project jointly.

The motion was made (Schoenharl) and seconded (Campbell) to send UC Davis the Pre-Proposal above. The vote was unanimous.

Note: D. Meehan to give a copy of the Dept. of Natural Resources GIS Standards to T. Roehl to review. GIS standards used must be coordinated for the current eel-grass mapping program.

New Projects Request: G. Wood asked for any "new" projects to submit to the SRF Board. After discussion, it was agreed that a joint "Island County" interested parties workshop and planning meeting should be coordinated by the MRC for the near future (early September). D. Meehan agreed to work on coordinating the interested parties SRF Board presentation workshop. An email will be sent to all MRC members to advise the date, time, location, etc.

Juneau Salmon Conference - M. Gallion
Currently 15-16 professionals/scientists are expected to attend the conference.

Eelgrass Project Status Report - T. Roehl
The first draft of the RFP is ready except for a few minor revisions. Next week T. Roehl will work with Public Works and finalize the details of the RFP. The first phone call as a result of the eelgrass survey mailing was received - "How are you going to use this data?" A few of the surveys were sent to lake property shore owners. An article about the survey was featured on the front page of the South Whidbey Record.

New Business

D. Meehan passed out the April 2000: 1999 Annual Inventory: of Commercial & Recreational Shellfish Areas of Puget Sound.

A contract start date is needed for the 2000 budget dollars ($10,000) to be available to the MRC. D. Meehan is still waiting finalization of this budget process.

M. Gallion will be in Alaska from July 12 - 27, 2000.

5:00 PM Adjourned