Jacob Dimond / jake@yelmonline.com
In an effort to collaborate with local Thurston County jurisdictions and save city resources, the Yelm City Councilors unanimously approved an interlocal agreement with Thurston County and the cities of Lacey, Olympia and Tumwater to implement a Regional Environmental Educational Program (REEP).
Reza Roukerd, City of Yelm engineer, sought approval from Yelm City Council to join the interlocal agreement with the county and local jurisdictions during a meeting on Thursday, July 28.
He claimed the interlocal agreement is part of a requirement from the new MS4 permit, which states there needs to be “some sort of educational outreach.”
“All of this agreement allows us to collaborate with other cities in the same category and it helps us to save a lot of time and resources to do so,” Roukerd said.
Councilor Joseph Richardson asked Roukerd if this scenario is basically Yelm buying in order to avoid having “to do so much leg work.” He also asked how much the city would buy into this program.
According to Roukerd, REEP contributions are based on each jurisdiction’s population and Yelm would pay roughly $6,000 annually, or $500 per month.
“Part of the main reason that ecology encouraged us to come up with some sort of collaboration is because it will save a lot of time,” Roukerd said. “Most of the time, the material is kind of the same and it’s good that if we neighbor with jurisdictions and come up with a group, for example, most of the events we have Thurston County comes and joins, and vice versa. People in Yelm join other events in different jurisdictions and that’s one thing.”
He added that it’s easier to collaborate if there’s a uniform program that each program contributes into, rather than providing all the programming itself.
Richardson asked Roukerd what would happen if the city didn’t apply or pay into the agreement? Would Yelm be responsible itself, as a city, to create the educational outreach portion?
According to Roukerd, there is currently one City of Yelm staffer working on all of the construction inspections and stormwater inspections. With just one staffer doing all of the tasks, Roukerd believes it’s “impossible” for that one employee to accomplish. He believes Yelm would have to hire another employee to participate in construction inspections or stormwater inspections if the city were to opt out of the plan.
“If you look at other jurisdictions, you can see that they have education outreach specialists as part of their stormwater team, which we don’t have,” Roukerd said. “For us, as a small city in comparison to other jurisdictions, it’s very beneficial for the City of Yelm and I highly recommend to adopt this.”
Cody Colt, Yelm Public Works director, said Yelm City Council discussed this interlocal agreement at a study session in either March or April.
“With collaborating with this, we come up with a program and basically build a program to meet or satisfy the education outreach requirement of the program,” Roukerd added.
Yelm City Councilor Tracey Wood asked Roukerd what the interlocal agreement collaborations would consist of, and according to Roukerd, there’s a monthly meeting in which jurisdictions collaborate about what events they’ll attend and what they’ll be doing at each event.
“For example, we had a couple of events in Yelm where Thurston County comes and collaborates with us,” Roukerd said. “We present a couple of different items. We also have magazines and email subscriptions that we provide educational information to the public who are subscribed to our email services.”
Wood also asked Roukerd if Yelm has any other involvement than just paying its $6,000 annual subscription fee.
“We are collaborating. It’s not just we’re paying for a subscription and then we’re good to go,” Roukerd said. “The good thing about (Yelm) joining them is all of the other jurisdictions were involved in their permit education outreach. They’re a few years ahead of us. They have all kinds of experience and they meet or satisfy the requirement of their permits.”
Yelm City Council unanimously approved the interlocal agreement with Thurston County and the cities of Lacey, Tumwater and Olympia to join REEP.
