PORT TOWNSEND — This is not only the beginning of our recovery from COVID-19, but also the start of a new era of working together: So declares the introduction to the 96-page COVID-19 Recovery & Resiliency Plan, adopted by Jefferson County’s Intergovernmental Collaborative Group this month.
Encompassing 30 recommended actions in four categories, the plan — at jeffcotogether.net — is an effort to address the pre-pandemic problems magnified by the arrival of the novel coronavirus.
These times call for “fiercely courageous approaches from us and from our community,” notes the introduction, co-signed by Jefferson County District 1 Commissioner Kate Dean, Port of Port Townsend Commissioner Pete Hanke, Public Utilities District 1 Commissioner Jeff Randall and Port Townsend City Council member Ariel Speser.
This plan’s purpose, they write, is to communicate a vision of resilience. Then comes the description of the work going into 2021. A sampling from the plan’s list:
• Provide more wi-fi hotspots, computers and internet service to underserved students and households.
• Open a new facility to provide affordable childcare for working families.
• Provide affordable, entry-level rental housing.
• Develop a Jefferson County mental health resiliency project to provide trauma-informed care and suicide prevention.
• Leverage a coalition to reduce youth isolation and provide mentorship.
• Open the American Legion shelter full time and provide weekend meals.
• Complete planning for countywide broadband service.
• Provide professional business expertise to local farmers.
• Provide on-site food storage facilities for enhanced winter food production and emergency preparedness.
• Provide a COVID navigator to connect people to post-emergency services.
• Complete a countywide arts and culture plan, to develop a year-round creative economy through jobs and entrepreneurship.
• Provide relief funds to arts, culture and events groups that have suffered deep losses during the pandemic.
The Intergovernmental Collaborative Group’s recovery plan, Dean and her colleagues write, confronts an environment that hasn’t served residents equally for a long time now.
Citing the Jefferson County Community Health Assessment of 2019, the plan notes about 15 percent of local children live below the poverty line. Home prices, already higher than the state average, have climbed 3 percent per year since 2001. Mental health and substance use are major problems, with “an uncommonly high prevalence of youth suicide, intergenerational trauma and racial inequities.”
“The pandemic shined a light,” Dean said, on a county economy that needs work. There has been too little investment in infrastructure, she added, and the shortage of housing for workers to rent, much less buy, persists.
To address these problems, “governments are often competing against one another for funding,” she added.
The collaborative group aims to take a different tack: find consensus on priorities and how to fund them.
With the plan adopted, the group set its next meeting for Feb. 18 via Jefferson County’s website, co.jefferson.wa.us — and County Administrator Philip Morley warned against overloading the agenda. Leave free time, he said, for the “issue du jour.”
“There will be some things that pop up,” said Port Townsend Mayor Michelle Sandoval, adding that at this point, “we have no idea what they are.”
Port Commissioner Pam Petranek suggested starting the new year by bringing in a guest speaker, perhaps from Strong Towns, an American organization promoting community prosperity (strongtowns.org).
Dean, for her part, said she’d welcome outside expertise and a bit more structure brought to the collaborative group.
“We are due for a refresh in our economic development strategy,” she added.
COVID has “changed our reality.”
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Jefferson County senior reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladailynews.com.
