Meeting Minutes Nov. 7

Island County Marine Resources Commission
4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Heller Road Fire Hall, Oak Harbor

MRC Members present: Chair Tom Campbell, Don Meehan, Jeff Tae, Hi Bronson, Dick Toft, Sayed El-Sayed, Mike Gallion, Mat Klope, Roger Sherman, Phyllis Kind, Vice-hair Tom Roehl. Technical Advisory member Julie Buktenica. Executive Director Gary Wood. Admin. Assist. Kate Poss.
Visitors: Sharon Hart, Island County Economic Development Council. Frank Roberts, Lagoon Point resident

Meeting called to order at 4:02 pm. A quorum was present

Introductions at 4:05 p.m.
· Sharon Hart, Island County's new director of the Economic Development Council was introduced. She is expected to become our newest member, pending approval from the Board of Commissioners, representing the Port of Coupeville.

Approval of Oct. 17 minutes and today's agenda
· Meehan moved and Roehl seconded the approval of today's agenda. The motion was carried by all.
· Toft moved and Bronson seconded the approval of 10/17 minutes. The motion was carried by all.

Change next meeting date
· The MRC agreed to host its next meeting Nov. 28 instead of Nov. 21. We will meet at Trinity Lutheran in Freeland
· Mike Sato, of People for Puget Sound, will present a video on "Where have the fish gone," noting the disappearance of other species in addition to salmon from the Inland Sea.
· Julie Buktenica will talk about ongoing work in Crescent Harbor.

Workplan @ 4:25 pm
· Meehan passed around the 2002 Workplan including Benchmarks MRC members work on
· Mike Gallion will work on the bottom fish benchmark with Dick Toft
· Phyllis Kind will work on MPAs with Roger Sherman
· The conversation diverted to a long talk about bulkheads with suggestions to get grants, make a video and educate the public about alternatives to bulkheads.
o Island County is preparing a 12-page brochure for shoreline owners. The county is mandated to adopt regulations (to protect salmon, for instance) before the science is there to establish criteria.
o Our members agree there bulkheads are unique to the conditions of the shoreline and that science is what we're looking for to determine which works where.
o The question was should bulkheads become their own benchmark. Julie Buktenica suggested that each benchmark deals with bulkheads-marine protected areas, net gain habitat, shellfish, bottomfish recovery, increase in indicator species, outreach/education.
o The talk went round to looking at the bulkheads varying qualities and assigning them to specific benchmarks. Meehan asked that MRC members bring their ideas and comments to the Nov. 28 meeting.

Salmon Recovery Funding Board Grants with Gary Wood-2001-2002 @ 5p
· Wood reports that the Water Resources Action Group or WRAC, that works with a Technical Advisory Group or TAG, gave its scores on our requests to continue our nearshore studies before TAG saw the presentation. TAG reviews the proposal and WRAC sends the proposal with ranked projects to SRFB. Deer Lagoon is asking for $1.6 million to acquire land as a buffer around the lagoon. It is another project in Island County, along with the MRC's. (This section of the minutes was transcribed to reflect what was actually said. The transcription is at the end of these minutes)
· Action-Roehl moved to have Tom Campbell and Gary Wood write a letter summarizing the lack of opportunity to present the MRC nearshore grant request to TAG and have Don Meehan send the letter to TAG and WRAC commissioners for reconsideration. Meehan seconded the motion. The motion was carried.

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) with Roger Sherman @ 5:32 pm
· Sherman attended Dept. of Fish and Wildlife meetings on MPAs, considered a high priority within the department.
· DFW will hold regular meetings starting in December-on Island County Deception Pass and Ft. Casey are areas of concern.
· Sherman will work with Phyllis Kind on future meetings and email updates to the MRC

Anchor Environmental with Don Meehan @ 5:40 pm
· Meehan announced that Anchor Environmental, contracted with the NWSC, will provide us digital layers of maps for Island County's nearshore habitat. The info. will be available at Meehan's office in CD form, predicted by Anchor in December.
· Anchor has a forage fish map

NWSC Conference 10/27 @ Semiahmoo Resort, Blaine, WA
· Meehan said thanks to Jackie Wood, Gary's wife, for making our display board at the conference
· Meehan suggested that the next conference be two days long to give more time for interaction and exploring the area.
· Klope applauded Dr. Hay of B.C., Canada for his talk and presentation on forage fish spawning habitat and how their populations shift. We are hoping to get a copy of his unique presentation which plotted the evolution of forage fish populations from the early 1900s.
· Sherman suggested that our members who did not attend the conference see Wood's Power Point presentation
· Wood added that NWSC put in $50,000 for derelict gear removal. PIE grants added $7,000. We will have videos, literature and posters for this program. "MRC will be discovered overnight!"
· Meehan commented that our derelict gear lies 100 feet or more below the water's surface.

Membership suggestions for future training programs
· We would like James West to come by and speak about sole and flounder
· Linda Moore, who now owns the Langley Marina, wants to talk to our MRC and get its input. We should take a look at all the South end Marinas

New and unfinished business
· Wood reports that Dan Penttila of DFW has identified 8 miles of surf smelt habitat. Now real science exists to document what we really have. Email Gary for more info. at gwood@whidbey.net
· Buktenica said volunteers are invited to study spawning at Glendale Creek
· Members who attended Semiahmoo are asked to turn their hotel receipts and mileage in for reimbursement..
· Regarding the question of open meetings and the MRC-Meehan asked our prosecuting attorney who said we ought to be operating under the Open Meeting Act; the Board of Commissioners agrees. Frank Roberts said he would volunteer to monitor MRCs following the open meeting act requirements.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:15 p.m.

The Island County MRC will meet next from 4 pm to 6 pm Nov. 28 at Trinity Lutheran Church. At that meeting Mike Sato of People for Puget Sound, will show an award-winning video "A Puget Sound Fish Story." Julie Buktenica will talk about work at Crescent Harbor , located in Oak Harbor.

((Transcribed Portion of the minutes - dealing with Agenda Item: Salmon Recovery Funding Board Grants with Gary Wood-2001-2002 @ 5p)))

Transcript of 11-7-01 MRC meeting
Reference to Gary Wood's SRFB Grant application presentation at 5 pm
--Kate Poss

· (commenting about our contract with Jim Norris to do the Phase II eelgrass survey) GW-it turns out the amount of money we have in the SRFB Grant Phase II for eelgrass didn't precisely match his he took three different tiers you may remember and the amount of the money we have right in between all of Group I and half of Group II. He's willing to sit down and talk about what is next. If there is any reason or arguments you want certain areas prioritized for the next round of mapping they can be adjusted that way or if the County departments have reasons or preferences for some areas over other areas, this is the time. We'll be designing with specificity what goes in, and in what order he maps them.
· DM-We've got Mike, Julie and Jeff are hot on directing this. GW-I'll work with you to set up a meeting with Jim.
· GW-I may not be the most objective on this process. The SRFB process calls for a lead entity in each Water Resource Inventory Area to locally review and evaluate and rank the projects as they're submitted and then it's back to the lead entity that submits the project to the SRFB.
· GW-Our project that was signed on the 15th by Bill Thorn went for review by the TAG-Technical Advisory Group. The Technical Advisory Group then submitted a report which is a numerical evaluation to the Water Resources Advisory Committee. They're sort of the fresh water equivalent of our Marine Resources Committee and what I'm concerned about is the only two SRFB projects submitted this year are the Deer Lagoon project-that involves-and they've totally redesigned it -- Instead of an acquisition and a million dollar project where they would immediately go out and acquire the property; it's now a feasibility study about acquiring the property and restoring it to a salt water lagoon. It's got the sponsorship of the Whidbey-Camano Land Trust and the property owners along the private road there in Deer Lagoon.
· GW-They took our project which as you know - because I sent it to all of you --has five different components now, all of which are in there because the SRFB said to put them -- keep them together. There was some miscommunication and the first comments from the TAG that I met with on Tuesday last; Wednesday last; last week; the 1st of November. Yes Thursday. The first thing …the first comment was: "Why did we put a stand alone project which is the restoration project of the feasibility study to restore Maylor's Marsh, in with this" and they commented in advance that they had seriously downgraded this. So what they did to our report . . .which I don't know the basis of …. Was "we can do whatever we want."
· GW-They took our proposal and divided it into five parts and put parts 1,2 and 3 as a scorable interest. They put the shoreline stewardship program as Item No. 4 and scored that separately and then scored the Maylor's Marsh restoration separately… yielding three different scores. Then they added them up and divided them by a third. All right?
· Julie Buktenica-What do you mean they divided them up by a third? (lots of voices)
· Don-they divided them by three to get the average.
· Tom Roehl-…committee-lots of voices together.
· Mike Gallion-Gary, before you get too far off on that specific point that's been changed. I got an email just before I headed up here and they changed it around a little bit and there were five separate numbered pieces…
· Gary Wood-who's they?
· Mike Gallion-the TAG. (GW at the same time-TAG.) The scoring system. There was a change. It was intended to be changed and apparently it didn't get in when they first wrote it down. But what they did is 1, 2 and 3 were very similar so those were scored a point value, but that number was multiplied by three so No. 1 got a score, No. 2 got a score, No. 3 got a score. So in other words they took the total of the first three and tripled it, then added 4 and 5. Then they divided it by five so they got an average figure. So they weighted it more evenly than the way that you were talking about…
· GW-Oh? That was one of the things I wrote them em a letter about.
· MG-So they fixed that. They had done it as you described. They didn't plan to do it…er, it happened that way, but had they only scored it the way you originally described, No. 1, 2 and 3 would have been scored…GW-Oh, they were…MG--…according to Rich Johnson.
· Three voices at once, one saying "No, no no no."
· Don-Did it change the score, Mike?
· MG-It moved it up to 76, I believe.
· Don-The whole packet?
· MG-Yea 71 to 76…GW-It would have put three 54s in the mix.. MG-Yea. Exactly.
· GW--There was no doubt at 56. The long and short of it is that the existing parts of our project that this proposes complete, which are eelgrass, forage fish and my contract was moved into this (at the request of SRFB to go through local review). That is 1,2 and 3. Deer Lagon got 56 …we got a 54.
· MG-1, 2 and 3 scored very very well…
· GW-That was very good. Then 4, which was the shoreline steward's program based on, to be modeled after the Backyard Wildlife model got a 41 and Maylor's Marsh got a 28 and what's odd is the 41 and 28 scores consist of both zeroes and fives.
· Lots of voices talking together.
· A ranking of zero to five…meaning there were different…if you get a report card and you go to the teacher and say, "So it's a zero or a 5, huh?" I don't know what these….my concern is in this process is that there was so little communicated to them. For example, Sego Jackson's first comment to me was "Why did we go and insist on having ours signed by the commissioners before we submitted it to them?" Well the reason is we were asked to by Janet Kearsley. We were required to. Which is different than last…and apparently they didn't know it. We didn't know it. Deer Lagoon didn't know it.
· Tom Campbell-wait. Excuse me.
· MG-are we on another topic now?
· Julie B-I'm sorry. What didn't anyone know? About the signing?
· Don M-talking among several-why? Why the MRC had to have it signed by the County Board of Commissioners before it was rated.
· Julie B- Last year… It's when it was submitted….GW-Right.
· Don M-Last year if you recall we had a meeting with the TAG folks…GW-for their input-Don M-and they gave us a bunch of ideas and what not and we modified our proposal.
· Tom Roehl-Why would someone have a stake (lots of voices) because the commissioners SIGNED the application?
· GW-It's what they require…followed by lots of voices at once. The point was their right hand and their left hand were dysfunctional and the other thing is this is being turned in by the lead entity at the END of November and they had it and had it ranked voted on and we met Nov. 1. Now the other thing that was odd for me was … as with the Deer Lagoon people, this was our night that we would present our project to the WRAC …so we did. And then they were going…. presentation by the sponsors, then discussion…. then ranking. After the discussion was done they pulled out the ranking, which was printed [laugher] and it was done beforehand…
· Dick Toft-so that accounts for the 0 and 5 vote spread. Either they knew something about it before…
· GW-It was like talking to a jury after they've already voted.
· Julie B-So the WRAC had it signed prior to the meeting.
· GW-Everyone had it. It was in writing. They handed this out. It was printed.
· Tom Campbell-Gary. Would you back up and for me and for the other new members, explain to me how the committee appointed by the county commissioners goes through somebody called the WRAC and the WRIA who are counties…Now we're going to a state agency? For funding a project that these people are reviewing?
· GW-right. Would you like this in English?
· Kate-I would, too, Gary, because I haven't got a clue…
· GW- OK the Salmon Recovery Funding Board is the state's largest sponsor of projects that affect salmon…and it was created when salmon became a listed endangered species. Most of the money is federal but the state administers it. They have a competition and the competition comes up from the ground level in Washington. So they've divided the state of Washington into Water Resource Inventory Areas. Everybody calls them WIRAs. Their WRIAS but no one can say WRIAS so they say WIRA. Island County is unique because WRIA 6 is Island County, politically too. So we have a wonderful overlap…Snohomish County has parts of 3 and Skagit has parts of 3…So our watershed area has a lead entity that is to locally rank & review, support, and nuture projects. The TAG is the Technical Advisory Group. The WRAC is the Water Resources Advisory Committee and they were designated…every WRIA can designate who it wants to be is lead entity. Some places it's a private group. Some places it's a coalition comprised of committees and councils and in our county it's the Dept. of Public Works. There is a person ..employee assigned inside the Dept. of Public Works to do that. Julie knows.
· Julie B-The lead entity is the County. And the lead entity they serve strictly an administrative role responsible for ranking. They are not responsible for sponsoring projects. They strictly serve an administrative purpose. Then there is this other group that is also specified in the law that has to include citizen review. And you know Gary goes down his list with some of the people that are supposed to be on. In Island County the Water Resource Advisory Committee serves that purpose. So it's the WRAC that is supposed to review the…the WRAC is strictly an advisory group. But according to the law I don't think that's the final answer. [many voices at once. What Julie is saying is indecipherable].
· Phyllis Kind-What's the next step? Once it gets a number. Would both of these go to the SRFB with a number associated with it. …
· Don M. The SRFB gets prioritized projects. Deer Lagoon got higher points here so I assume it would go out as the highest priority project.
· Phyllis-does the SRFB have the authority to change those priorities?
· Don-It did the very first go around where Island County didn't get a penny. In the second go around they honored the WRIAs and there's talk about them honoring it again.
· Julie B-Technically they cannot change the priorities. That has to go through a public process. …… lead entities would submit a list of 7 or 8 projects and they're all ranked, that SRFB would choose to _ _ _ _ 1, 3 and 4…fund out of order. ….there's not a standardized way of ranking projects.
· Mike Gallion-my understanding is that very shortly there will be information sent to our MRC that will explain in some detail how the numbers were…there were 14 different categories. And the reason for the zeroes and fives is the zeroes meant in somecases it flat didn't apply….and if we hit a 5 it meant it was the main thrust of that category….so a lot of things didn't come out 2s and 3s it came out zeroes and 5s. We will be receiving information that goes into quite a lot of detail as to how this was all done, with recommendations for suggestions and input and so forth. It's on the way, I think it's in draft form.
· Tom Campbell-I'm a little concerned by what Gary said about the process so I guess my question is, is there any chance the MRC will ever get a higher rating than the "county?"
· Don M-Well no. No. The MRC is the "county," technically. The Deer Lagoon project is NOT a county project. It's an independent project. It's the Whidbey Camano Land Trust and the property owners. They're the ones that are movin' and shakin' that project.
· Tom Roehl-These are our two projects for this WRIA, right? In order to get to the SRFB at some point the County has to be a sponsor…
· Julie B-[muffled] No. Not a sponsor. The county as the lead entity sponsors a caucus by which any organization can apply to SRFB for grant funds. The very first round you can apply to the SRFB but now any sponsoring group has to go through a process…
· Don M.-…the Maxwelton Salmon Adventure had $109,000 or something like that. Now they got funded. The money went right to them. They didn't even go through the county. But the screening and scoring process is to rank the project within the WRIA and for the administrative process …it could be any entity doing it.
· GW-the concern I have is this is a second year project and I had no contact …I'm on the Salmon working group and so is Mike and had no contact with any TAG team -I couldn't tell you the names on the TAG team-we had a presentation in Camano were we presented six different; we had all these people we had the scientists; we did a presentation that was very well received by the SRFB. The SRFB had HUGE questions about Deer Lagoon… for example, " is there any assurance it will be open to seawater?" The answer is "No," under their current Homeowners' Agreement. What they were trying to get was an impervious boundary by those million dollar homes. As an ancillary they're willing to have somebody else buy the property and conserve it! That's all well and good, but SRFB, Mike Shelton said, "Is this appropriate for salmon money?" Good question if they're not going to have saltwater. So they changed it to a feasibility study to see if they could have saltwater. In other words SRFB was very receptive to the ongoing projects that the MRC is doing and not one of the TAG people attended that or familiarized themselves with the fact that we put in here the fact that my contract is at the request of SRFB. The fact that the restoration proposal…the feasibility proposal was put in here because they did want it separate because. . . SRFB's thinking is as follows: we have one of the few assessment projects and one of the very few nearshore projects and the reason they did something which they don't like to do, which is assessments and nearshore work, is to see if it would generate projects. What SRFB wants is on the ground shovel-to-dirt projects -- So they want shovel-to-dirt proposals that we might put in the same project, and if a feasibility study is funded, and if it becomes a project… then they want it to be a separate project.
· GW-But the first question to me from Sego Jackson at the WRAC meeting was: "You really hurt your score by putting that project in with this." And I said: "What? Were you advised that that's what the SRFB said?" That's why it was put together this way. My next question was: "This is being turned in on Nov. 30th. They gave us a decision and now we have a presentation. I mean why not have a presentation from us and the other guys FIRST? Now this sits for 30 days. What was the big rush?"
· Kate-Gary are you saying that the funding that Deer Lagoon gets impacts the funding we would get?
· GW-If they fund one project this year…their funding is now ahead of ours. The SRFB could be absolutely justified now in interpreting their scores-that's what the lead entities are for-they can fund only one project; they can fund that in itself.
· Kate-Is there a chance they won't fund your second year request? Is that your concern?
· GW-My concern is they'll read this as reflecting an absence of support for the local project.
· Julie B-I'd like to clarify a couple of things. About how they're responding. One thing that requiring that all projects …part of that the hope is that each lead entity or WRIA will have a strategy for salmon recovery. And so all the projects go through this process the hope is that there will be some oversight in the project development and yes, coordination. And the other thing is that the lead entity does not have to be the county. It can be any local agency--I believe the Skagit watershed council is the lead entity-so it is a little confusing in Island County in that Island County has taken the lead entity responsibility--it seems like the county's responsibility. I just wanted to clarify that.
· Tom Roehl-Can I ask a question about that Deer Lagoon project? Is that feasibility study going to address my issue, the one you know I always bring up about gambling one rare ecosystems to try get another one?
· Julie B-…..I do know that one reason why they want to do this study is because they don't want to take on the financial responsibility of acquiring this property and not have this restoration option.
· Mike Gallion-I asked that exact question of Rich Johnson, who is a habitat biologist, about the Deer Lagoon project. He explained that it was part of the study and that the lagoon used to be saltwater/saltmarsh habitat. Part of the study would look at the several different ways of the saltmarsh…freshwater…the answer to your question is yes, they are looking at that and yes, they are aware of that.
· Tom Roehl-guess I should get a copy of the proposal if I want a full answer 'cuz we have a lot of rare, threatened species of salmon that depend upon freshwater marshes, so they have to be man made. So what? So they've evolved into special ecosystems behind those dikes.
· Mike Gallion-This ecosystem has been here for 80, 90 years. Although it's been artificially created ….is it worse or better than what they're wanting to replace it with? It's going to be rough…
· Tom Roehl-It's also a gamble whether you're going to attract any if you do make it a saltwater marsh.
· Phyllis-I still have a question on process here. I want to figure this out. There's a WRIA for each county?
· Don Meehan-No. I don't know how many WRIAs there are in the state. The county is unique. The boundaries of the county are actually the boundaries of the WRIA. Most the other counties are part of other WRIAs.
· Phyllis-So you've got a whole batch of WRIAs throughout the state Each then prioritizes within its WRIAs something that then goes to the SRFB and now the SRFB decides which of those to fund. What does the SRFB do so that you don't have WRIA 1 inflating their scores artificially so that their projects will get funded as opposed to some other WRIA?
· GW-scoring doesn't bind the SRFB. Ranking does. They have their blue ribbon project; their white ribbon project.
· GW-You have to understand there's several things I'm concerned about : One, we made a presentation to the SRFB technical panel. That's who we're dealing with. That's very important. We have an ongoing, very important project that is being monitored by them and they're very interested. What was presented to them for Deer Lagoon was a $1.6 million acquisition. What was asked of them was: "Is there any assurance in this proposal that it would be restored to saltwater?" Answer: "No." To which they all looked at each other and said: "What are you doing wanting salmon money?" The folks gathered and huddled and went back and between the time we presented to the SRFB and what was presented to TAG, they changed to a feasibility study so it would at least look like something that SRFB would potentially fund. It's a far cry from being…For example, the homeowners said at no point would they agree to saltwater behind their houses. What they liked is open space. The fact that it would be freshwater open space. Cool. Has anybody told them what a marsh smells like? I don't know. Have you ever been down there? There's a big sign that says "Private Road," and if you go past that " there's a big barrier that says "Stop. Go Back." Behind that are the four famous Microsoft Houses that are in competition with one another. I'll never forget telling my wife: "That's the most beautiful house I ever saw," and she told me: "That's the garage." Their process is we did this whole thing with the SRFB and do a whole thing in front of the WRAC. Never for the TAG. And they always voted beforehand. So if the MRC at some point would like to add their response to this, I think we definitely should because that is not the way that SRFB views our project and in the same week I'm told that the eelgrass study is going to be presented to a UN conference. The Island County one on seagrass! So….
· Tom Campbell-…OK….we're going to leave it in the exec. director's hands.
· Don M-No. No. Gary is asking for us, in other words as a MRC should we.. to make a motion to vote and send a letter to WRAC saying we disagree with the process, that we find fault with the process and here is why.
· GW-they're our biggest source of funding.
· Julie B-I wanted to explain that the technical panel is a state appointed panel of scientists that does a review of all the projects and all the grants that are submitted and they make the recommendations to the state board. And I'd like to say another way to look at the Deer Lagoon project is that they presented their project to the technical panel. They received comments. They responded to comments. So I understand that you have issues with the whole process that there's this other perspective in that they did the right thing. You know, they received these comments, so they tried to tailor to those comments…..
· GW-We never saw it presented to the TAG. We don't know, Julie. I saw the presentation And it was made like mine, after the vote.
· Julie-we shouldn't be arguing the Deer Lagoon project.
· GW-I'm not arguing that-[lots of multiple voices here]
· Julie-The process..how WRAC looks at projects-that definitely needs to be looked at.
· Mike starts talking about a write-up and new scores pending from WRAC and GW says: "How did that information come to you?" Mike G: Pardon? GW: I was just wondering since I was at the meeting and presented everything and have been working on this for six months, how you come to know about the "regarding" and stuff I wasn't told about. What is the real deal here?
· MG-I've got a secret. [laughter] No. I got an email from Rich Johnson.
· GW-he's not on he WRAC or the TAG anymore. He used to be. [multiple voices] Mike G: He's still on the TAG.
· Tom Roehl-I'm torn between two things…one is that whether we should disagree or we should complain about the process. It doesn't do anything to help the project. Or should we say we disagree with the ranking or scoring and why. If the averages….. If the Deer Lagoon project was given comment by the TAG and given the opportunity to change their project so that it scored better, why weren't we? [Comment-Exactly]. Why weren't we told: "Gee you've got zeroes on this one part of your project, why don't we take it out and you can score better?" Why weren't we given that opportunity?
· Julie-says something I can't hear-Gary and Tom Campbell and Don are talking at the same time.
· Don says-Except, Julie, what we find out that the committee members in scoring were given the early version of the proposal; not the clean signed version that the county board of commissioners had. GW:Are you getting it? Julie-yeah, I'm getting it.
· Tom Campbell-it seems to me, from what Gary has told us; is at some level did we know that going in that we were going to give a presentation but it wasn't going to mean anything because they already had decided, or was it really a shock?
· Tom Roehl-Sounds like a trainer who tells a boxer to lead with his left against a left-handed boxer.
· GW-mumbled….. This was a printed formula that was given to me; The discussion showed that these people were ill-informed about what it was in the form that it was in. These people are evaluating something for the SRFB process and evaluating it without knowing the SRFB rules. Now I find out Mike is getting new information about a new grade. I mean it's really hokey. It's not appropriate. You know there's hundreds of thousands of dollars riding on this and Mike's got his avenues to what?…somebody on their side thinks to change it without any …it's being appealed or reviewed or revised or …it's news to me.
· Hi Bronson-It seems to me that if nothing changes we better hope that we get funded because if they're out won't get anything. Is that correct?
· GW-that could happen.
· Dick Toft-If we're going to do anything, we ought to do it soon.
· Don Meehan-I agree. We need to rock and roll on this.
· Tom Roehl-I move that we authorize that Gary and Tom prepare a letter under their signatures to essentially summarize all the stuff we've talked about and our concerns about the process and the lack of opportunity given to us to modify our proposal. Is there a second?
· GW-I'll circulate it to the group before we …Tom Campbell says he'll do something; Don Meehan seconds at the same time, then says, I think Tom was trying to get where the letter….
· Tom Roehl-I don't know…. I trust that you would know who to send the letter to.
· GW-I would send it to TAG, WRAC and the commissioners. Is that appropriate?
· Tom Roehl-I motion we send it to all appropriate parties
· Tom Campbell-OK. So we got a motion and we got a second. All understand the motion. Does everyone understand what they are voting on? Gary and to have complete authority-he laughs and
· Sharon Hart-I really want to know if Mike has information whether Deer Lagoon did the right thing, they did the smart thing about changing? Tom's point whether you're going to comment on the process and ????????? I want it to be clear that all the information that might be available to Gary is in hand…
· Tom Campbell-I guess in my position that we would not complain about the other project or even discuss the other project. This would be strictly a process.
· GW-All right. Report card time. The kid brings home a report card and he also brings home the kid across the street. They have one set of scores. We have one project. We have three sets of scores. Now, apparently, we're going to have 5 sets of scores. All right? For starters, where is that in their rules? I assure you they're not authorized and they don't have a…fundamental process. EVERYONE TALKS AT ONCE.
· Tom Campbell-we have a motion and a second. All in favor say Aye. You hear "AYE" Opposed? No one. OK Gary, get to work.

As transcribed by K.Poss and compared to tape by GW.