PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson County is preparing a request for proposal for the management of three community centers as its contract with Olympic Community Action Programs nears expiration.
The board of county commissioners discussed updates to the current contract for the Brinnon, Quilcene and Tri-Area community centers on Monday.
The request for proposals (RFP) will be issued in the fall, allowing for time to establish new contracts by the end of the year.
The current contract specifies that, in addition to daily operations of the centers, operators must assist the senior populations in meeting basic life-sustaining and social needs.
The centers are to be referral hubs for senior citizens for gaining access to local, state and federal programs, Central Services Director Shawn Frederick said.
The contract operator also is supposed to oversee scheduling the use of the centers by community groups and organizations, he added.
“We really want to talk about how much of these requirements we want to retain, modify or replace to make sure that when we put out an RFP looking for other potential vendors that we end up with the contract that we want,” Frederick said.
Although OlyCAP’s management of the centers goes back years, its current contract started in 2023 and goes until the end of the calendar year. Like the current contract, new contracts would last three years.
“One thing really notable to me about these areas of focus in the current contract is that youth are nowhere to be found,” Commissioner Heather Dudley Nollette said.
Dudley Nollette said she was approached by staff from youth organization OWL360 about the need for more youth services in the Port Townsend Community Center, also owned by the county.
While the board’s discussion was not focused on developing RFPs for the Port Townsend or Gardiner community centers, those contracts also are up at the end of the year, Commissioner Greg Brotherton said.
“Even if we’re not doing an RFP for all five, maintaining similar contract requirements in all of them is reasonable,” Brotherton said.
The Port Townsend Community Center is currently managed by the Port Townsend Senior Association.
“Adding youth to the senior center would be a question to have with them,” Brotherton said. “It would be an additional use. That opens negotiations too, right? Potentially they’re like, ‘No, that’s not the service that we want to provide,’ and then we can consider whether we should open for an RFP.”
Dudley Nollette emphasized the importance of maintaining services for seniors, noting the aging demographic of the county.
“What we’re hearing from our youth population is that even though they’re only 17 percent of the population in Jefferson County, they don’t even receive 17 percent of our focus from their perception, and that needs to change,” she said.
Dudley Nollette expressed interest in discussing whether the senior association might be willing to partner with a youth services provider and whether that would have financial implications.
A requirement in the current contract is that each center have an advisory board.
“That is a point that I wasn’t able to locate,” Frederick said. “I don’t have any documentation. I wasn’t able to find any evidence that there’s an advisory board for each of those specific centers.”
In 2022, when the need for advisory boards was pointed out, both the Quilcene and Brinnon centers began the process of forming advisory boards, Brotherton said.
“They kind of started and stopped, but never really gelled,” he said. “I think the Brinnon advisory group was more developed. It had regular meetings. I don’t think the Tri-Area Community Center ever developed an advisory group.”
Brotherton said functioning advisory boards are a necessary component of the centers remaining responsive to the community.
The centers are required to have the board’s approval for advisory board appointments, with the exception of Gardiner.
Frederick asked if the board would be interested in removing that requirement for all of the centers.
“My initial response is let’s get a system in place before we take off the training wheels,” Brotherton said. “With these new contracts, I would probably want them to be ultimately approved by the commissioners.”
Brotherton admitted that the standard is inconsistent.
“I guess I would say Gardner’s had a track record functionally managing the community center with that advisory board,” he said. “That’s what I’d love to get to, but I don’t necessarily have faith that that’s what an advisory board hops to.”
Brotherton said he would be interested in phasing out the appointment oversight.
Dudley Nollette said rather than requiring that the advisory boards are approved by the commissioners during their appointment process, she would like to see reporting and updates from the boards on an annual basis.
“I think it would be interesting to have a list at the end of the year, as part of the annual report, of who utilized the facility that year,” Commissioner Heidi Eisenhour said.
The community center in Brinnon is in need of capital improvements which are not likely to take place until after improvements to Port Townsend’s community center take place, Brotherton said.
That should be acknowledged in the contract, Brotherton said.
Brinnon remains a priority, but with the sequencing of projects and limited resources, realistically, it’s still a few years out, Brotherton said.
The revised RFP will come before the board for another conversation in the next few weeks, depending on priorities, before being issued, County Administrator Josh Peters said.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
