County wide hazard mitigation plan and community dialogue plans in motion

The June study session agenda was packed tight - county wide hazard mitigation, discussion about organizing a forum for the community dialogue and debate over how and whether the council should fill former council member Elmer Larsen’s vacant seat occurred the morning of June 11.
    Leavenworth, along with 14 other jurisdictions and districts, have submitted a three phase profile with data regarding hazards within the city - each will be added to the overall county plan. This was in order for the county to compile resources, using the consultant PERT, to form a uniform hazard mitigation plan, according to city documents.
    “The long term objective is to have each of the districts and cities that participated adopt the county wide plan with their annex,” said Lilith Vespier. “It does have financial impact to the city and project impact.”
    Data was collected on earthquakes, severe storms, wildfire, flooding and even for an avalanche. The profile included regulatory capabilities, such as: building codes, zoning, cite plan review and flood damage protection. The profile also looked at financial capabilities, impact and also the city’s classification as a whole regarding the plans in place for disaster.
    “They’re going to ask the city of Leavenworth to adopt the county wide plan with the shared objectives and their annex,” said Vespier. “And then the fire district has their own annex as well.”
    The PERT draft is scheduled be released June 17. Public comment is from June 17-28, however the council is requesting an extension. The county has accelerated the timeline for public comment regarding the county wide Hazard Mitigation Plan due to the expiration date on the current hazard mitigation plan.
    “It is just that two week window so I did ask them to please provide additional time and hopefully they will because this is a big document with a lot of information and to read it effectively, it’ll take days,” said Vespier. “I think they just got backed up on their time line.”
    The county can go forward with the ratification of adopting the Hazard Mitigation Plan without the consensus from the council. The entirety of the county wide hazard mitigation plan is sent to federal and state level for approval which then is sent back to the city to review it.
    “I think it would be fair when you're speaking with them to convey the consensus of the council is that that date really does not work well for the overall public comment period," said Mayor Cheri Farivar.
    The council came to the consensus that Larsen’s seat will remain unfilled until November. This was decided for a handful of reasons, all of which were weighed heavily by council. Selecting one of the council candidates running unopposed could lead to perception of preference, run into the possibility of a write-in and cause uneven timeline for all of the council member training.
    "The easiest and probably the best solution is not to fill the position, knowing the county is not going to give us any grief about that and just go ahead with our six member council and ask to be very vigilant about attending meetings," said Mayor Farivar.
    Colin Brine, Be Clearly consultant, returned to start tapping into opening that dialogue between the community and city officials. The initial step to conjuring up a positive forum for community conversation is zeroing in on a key point that brings people together to think collectively. Brine defined this has the strategic moment and that the framing of what brings the community is essential to making sure it causes the community to mesh rather than divide.
    "In particular, what brings people together? As I was listening to the prior conversation (about wildfire), when you have something everybody cares about that's often a very helpful reason to bring people together. This conversation about fire and impact is something that everyone else is into," said Brine, offering the council an example to pair with the explanation.
    The council deeply considered different base questions to be the foundation to stirring up community movement (i.e. 'Who are we as a community?' 'What do we need to thrive?').
    "If I was communicating to the public before we talk about the process, I would really want to clarify a problem statement or wide statement why we're meeting with Colin," said council member Jason Lundgren. "I think we really need to identify the need."
    Brine offered a multi-step process to delivering an overarching statement. The process includes perception discovery by actively engaging with leaders in the community that fit the mold of the characteristics that city will set. It also includes a widespread community polling and surveying along with curating
    "(I want to) Really to get a broad consensus of who lives here, who wants to live here, why they chose to live here and all of those questions to be important," said Mayor Farivar.
    Suggestions regarding the community dialogue also expanded into how best to approach the forum as a whole. Council member, Sharon Waters, encouraged the council to weaken the jargon so that there isn't a vocabulary barrier with certain unfamiliar terms and phrases. Council member Margaret Neighbors encouraged getting everyone together on a positive note.  Mayor Farivar stressed that a lot of misperception that the city can control issues and that it needs to be clear that this forum isn't to solve, but rather address issues.
    "Solve is a big word and the real word you might want to use is address. But solution, that expectation that the city can solve the parking problem - we cannot. We can address it with lots and lots of solution oriented, hopefully successful ideas," said Mayor Farivar.