PORT TOWNSEND — The Jefferson County commissioners and the Port Townsend City Council have unanimously approved an updated interlocal agreement supporting affordable housing and housing homeless programs inside and outside Port Townsend.
The entities approved the pact in separate meetings on Monday.
County Commissioners David Sullivan, Kathleen Kler and Kate Dean and the City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Housing members Michelle Sandoval, Amy Howard and David Faber met eight times to negotiate a new interlocal agreement (ILA) that provides guidelines and oversight for the expenditure of the funds from recording documents.
Fees for affordable housing are set at $13 per recorded document. For homeless housing, a total of $70 from two different surcharges will be collected.
County Administrator Philip Morley said he expected new revenues under the ILA, based on the current volume of recorded documents which can fluctuate, to be an estimated $49,000 for affordable housing programs and $300,000 for homeless housing, which includes transitional housing and emergency housing.
Washington state authorized the additional fees and earmarked them to be used for affordable housing and emergency shelter programs. State code allows cities and counties to work together to jointly administer the collected revenues.
The city and county previously had two ILAs that governed the use of these funds. Those ILAs were outdated and needed to be revised to increase transparency and public participation, officials said.
With the adoption of the new agreement, those pacts were terminated.
The new ILA will be in effect for two years, with automatic two-year renewals unless terminated on Jan. 1, 2021 or subsequent years with notice on or before June 30 of the year preceding termination.
The agreement calls for a joint oversight board to be created, initially with one elected representative from the city of Port Townsend and one from Jefferson County.
Three members recommended by a local homeless housing task force will be added to the board.
The board’s duties will include recommending the expenditure of the revenue generated by the recording fees. A facilitator will be hired to convene meetings and assist the board in developing a five-year homeless housing plan, among other duties.
The ILA also authorizes the county to enter into an interim homeless shelter service agreement to operate an emergency shelter in Port Townsend.
The county is expected to sign that agreement with Olympic Community Action Programs (OlyCAP) this week. It would be in effect from Nov. 1 through April 30, 2020.
The joint meetings were not always collegial, and tension was felt on both sides of the table, said City Manager David Timmons.
“We did a lot of incredible work with the county to get to this interlocal,” Timmons said at the city’s Monday night meeting.
“One of the most difficult things I have with this agreement is the inability for us to achieve, what I feel, is adequate transparency in terms of how the dollars are allocated and how they are accounted for.
“We did put in the agreement the intent of the oversight committee to have a budget review and recommendation approval. In the meantime, we negotiated a six-month review of the current arrangement.”
Timmons said the county participants were adamant that the agreement to fund the OlyCAP service contract had to be committed through 2020 or else they were going to walk from the table.
“It left us with ‘do we try to push for transparency or do we put the shelter operations in jeopardy and put those most vulnerable at risk,’” Timmons said.
He said there were threats of suing the city over the context of termination rights and privileges.
“It was a disheartening process,” Timmons said.
“The county was willing to discuss the individual numbers in private but refused to hold a discussion in a public forum,” he said.
“It was requested that they have one-on-one meetings with City Council members to go over the budgets. I said no, that’s a serial meeting” — a meeting with less than a quorum of members — ”and we want full transparency. When invited to the meeting, they declined.”
Timmons called the agreement and the process “a bittersweet pill.”
“I don’t understand the logic behind not being discussed in public,” he continued. “It just baffles me, because it’s all a matter of public record anyway. “I trust the oversight committee will be able to get those answers we were trying to seek.”
Morley said he had not reviewed the City Council meeting video and declined to comment about the process and the relationship with the city.
Commissioner Kate Dean said she and the other commissioners met eight times with the city to hammer out the revised agreement on how the funds will be spent.
She apparently felt frustrated as times as well. She was the only commissioner to comment about the process at the meeting.
“I’m really hoping this process, although it has been arduous, not easy, will hit a reset button with the city and that, with time and good faith efforts, we can continue to come to an agreement and collaborate instead of retreating to our corners where the best work is never done,” Dean said.
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Jefferson County Editor/Reporter Jeannie McMacken can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jmcmacken@peninsuladailynews.com.
