Editor,
On Tuesday, Oct. 29, the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners 3-1 voted to approve the Deschutes Estuary Interlocal Agreement (ILA). The only one voting against it was Commissioner Edwards. They had postponed the initial vote that was scheduled for Oct. 15 to obtain legal opinions on using stormwater funds to pay for the $7.5 million ILA. There has been ongoing discussion between citizens, staff and commissioners about the legality of using storm water funds to pay for this ILA. RCW 36.89.080, stormwater control facilities — Rates and Charges seems straight forward on the subject — saying, “The service charges and rates collected shall … be used only for the purpose of paying all or any part of the cost and expenses of maintaining and operating stormwater control facilities. All or any part of the cost and expenses of planning, designing, establishing, acquiring, developing, constructing and improving any of such facilities…” Stormwater control facilities do not include dredging. This is setting aside the fact that fees, by state law, are required to be used to benefit only those paying the fee, which in this case would be unincorporated Thurston County residents. The area to be dredged is solely within the city of Olympia, and, based on the ILA, the area dredged and paid for by this ILA would primarily benefit private individuals and businesses. Since when can unincorporated Thurston County stormwater fees be used for this purpose?
The legal opinions from both the county Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (PAO) and the state Auditor’s Office had not yet been provided, and the PAO had requested a couple more weeks to provide the requested written opinion. At the agenda setting meeting earlier that day, the county manager, public works director and water resource manager all provided information that using stormwater funds would put the fund in the “red” in a few years. There was discussion about needing to raise the stormwater fees to cover future stormwater costs. All the ILA partners — City of Olympia, Tumwater, Port of Olympia and LOTT — will be raising their fees on
something to cover the cost of this ILA. All of them are facing budget deficits this year, and their budgets only get worse in the next four to five years, at least. If you have been listening to the local news or reading recent articles in the online and print media, you would know that.
