Thurston County commissioners aiming to boost community engagement with proclamations

Officials swap ideas for topics, groups to highlight during meetings

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As the Thurston County Board of Commissioners plans its goals for the new year, it is aiming to increase community engagement by continuing its proclamations and making the process more robust.

The board uses proclamations during its official meetings to highlight the work of county staff and community members as well as to spread awareness for important topics regionally and nationally.

For example, the board presented a proclamation on its commitment to building a courthouse and community trust at its Tuesday, Jan. 21, meeting. The county Board of Health also presented two proclamations for National Human Trafficking Prevention Month and Birth Defects Awareness Month on Jan. 14.

Commissioners Wayne Fournier, Rachel Grant and Emily Clouse, as well as County Manager Leonard Hernandez, shared a passionate conversation during a Jan. 14 agenda-setting meeting about ways to further the growth of its proclamation process. County staff provided the commissioners with a draft list of proclamations to present throughout the year and offered the board a chance to give feedback and ideas.

Fournier expressed interest in bringing awareness to missing persons in Thurston County and inviting their families to meetings. He said a proclamation would give an opportunity for law enforcement officials to bring in annual updates on various cases as Sheriff Derek Sanders helped launch a dedicated cold case and missing persons unit in June of 2024. As of Jan. 17, 2025, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System had a record of 31 active missing persons cases in Thurston County.

“There’s a lot of global missing persons organizations and efforts, and I wouldn’t want this to get co-opted by that. What I’m hoping we can do is a specific list of people that are Thurston County citizens that are missing or they’re cold cases,” he said. “There’s a lot of them that have happened here. There’s a large community of people that really pay attention to it and care about it, and I see this as a way that we could make sure everybody knows that it’s still something that we have on our agenda and we care about.”

Grant suggested a number of ideas for proclamations, including mental health awareness, arts and culture, and recreation.



“I want to bring awareness to success stories, to programs that are happening, to ways for people to be involved in some of the really incredible work that’s going on across the county,” Grant said. “The other thing I don’t see here would be arts and culture because, in Thurston County, we have a lot of arts and culture. There’s an importance here in being able to invite local arts, the art school or whoever, but that would also bring an opportunity for art to be displayed here.”

Fournier highlighted the countywide art contest that it started last year where winners were honored at board meetings and their work is displayed through the Atrium building.

Grant added that proclamations can be a way for citizens to connect to programs in the community of which they may not have been aware.

“This is really something that I’m passionate about. We have an opportunity to bring people to us and let them showcase the incredible work that’s happening across our county,” she said. “There are lots of basketball leagues and volleyball leagues and young children at the YMCA working on their programs, and there are a lot of people who don’t know that they’re there. This is an opportunity for us to really highlight ways for people to get connected in our community.”

Hernandez told the commissioners that their ideas encapsulate the direction the county intends to take with the proclamation process.

“I believe it’s an opportunity for the board to be a convener of what’s taking place in our communities. I believe the public needs to see that sometimes we move quickly through the proclamations, and we don’t always get to highlight the real deep work that county government does.”