PORT ANGELES — Clallam County commissioners will set up an advisory committee to study arrearage on the county’s state-managed timberlands.
Arrearage is the timber that was supposed to have been sold but wasn’t sold on county trust lands in a given decade.
The county Charter Review Commission voted 10-4 last month to recommend the establishment of a trust lands advisory committee to study the complex issue, including the possibility of reconveying management of county trust lands from the state Department of Natural Resources back to the county.
The three county commissioners agreed Monday to discuss the formation of the committee next Monday.
“I don’t think there’s any real dispute about the need to create such a committee,” said board Chairman Jim McEntire, who also serves on the state Board of Natural Resources.
“I certainly think it’s a timely subject and it should be done with some dispatch, I believe, since the Board of Natural Resources over the next 12 months is going to be — or hopefully less — going to be discussing some really important policy issues and deciding them. And those policies are going to have an effect for the next decade.”
The three big issues that the Board of Natural Resources will take up in the coming year are arrearage, whether to amend a habitat conservation plan to include the marbled murrelet and a timber harvest calculation for the next decade, McEntire said.
Suggestions for panel
He asked Charter Review Commissioners Connie Beauvais, Norma Turner and Glenn Wiggins for written suggestions on the composition of the committee, its goals, terms of office and structure.
After the group is formed, McEntire said he will recuse himself from further participation on the arrearage issue to preserve his ability to vote on the Board of Natural Resources as the timber counties representative without the appearance of a potential conflict of interest.
Beauvais suggested the committee include biologists, foresters, representatives of the junior taxing districts and “maybe even a lawyer.”
Turner, who chairs the Charter Review Commission and voted against the recommendation to form the committee, pitched a “broad-based input.”
“Most of the input we got was from the timber industry and timber-interested individuals,” Turner told commissioners.
“They have a lot of expertise, but I do know that the school districts have looked a lot at this issue.”
Revenue from the sale of timber on county trust lands is funneled to the county and junior taxing districts such as schools, fire districts and public hospitals.
Mill closures
Wiggins said arrearage has contributed to the recent closure of several mills.
“It’s a serious matter, and it hasn’t been handled very well in this county by the state,” Wiggins said.
Grays Harbor is the only county in the state that manages its own trust lands.
The Clallam County trust lands committee will examine the “history, issues, benefits, challenges and advantages” of reconveyance to Clallam County, according to the letter from the Charter Review Commission.
“It’s a very large consideration,” Wiggins said.
“It’s going to take some study.”
County Administrator Jim Jones said it would likely take a vote of the state Legislature to reconvey management of Clallam County’s trust lands back to the county.
“That’s more reason why this committee in my mind should be formed, to research all of this stuff, because a lot of people think you can just do it like that, and I don’t believe that’s the case,” Jones said.
McEntire serves on an arrearage subcommittee that will present its first recommendations to the full DNR board Aug. 18 in Olympia.
Salary review
Meanwhile, Commissioners Bill Peach and McEntire agreed Monday to grant another Charter Review Commission recommendation: the establishment of a salary review commission.
“The citizens essentially hire us as elected officials, and so it’s logical to me that the citizens should set our salary,” McEntire said.
Peach said he had “no issue” with a citizens commission but cautioned against rapid changes to elected officials’ pay.
“I’d prefer to be able to look at the recommendation as just that, a recommendation, as opposed to a mandate,” he said.
Commissioner Mike Chapman said the voters should determine whether the county needs a salary review commission.
He noted that the board was roundly criticized when the idea of cutting elected officials’ pay was discussed last year.
“I’m personally done dealing with it,” Chapman told his colleagues.
“You guys want to set one up? Go for it. But I still think we could refer this to the voters. Without the voters behind this issue, there’s just lots of room for politics.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
