Approved 2/6/23

Minutes of January 2, 2023 Meeting

Guemes Island Planning and Advisory Committee

Meeting called to Order by Chair Michael Brown

Members Present: Michael Brown, Allen Bush, Kathy Malley, Steve Orsini, Jep Burdock, Gabe Murphy

Citizens Present: Tom Bugge

Agenda was approved with additions:

• A discussion regarding the Jan 3 Ferry/SCPW Public meeting

• A discussion regarding public comments from Tom Bugge

December meeting minutes were approved as posted on Linetime.

Treasurer’s Report:

• GIPAC Account Balance: $11,769.35. Payment of $900 was made to Kyle Loring for services rendered.

• Roz Glazer Account Balance: $9,162.10. No transactions since 4/3/2020

Public Comment:

Tom Bugge gave the GIPAC board an overview of his issues with Skagit County Planning and Development with regard to his permitting of a rainwater catchment system on North Beach to take the place of his use of a well water system. 

The GIPAC board agreed that this specific situation is one that would have a huge positive impact for the island if it could be solved or negotiated with SCP&D.

Updates/New Business:

A conversation was had in preparation for a meeting with Commissioner Janicki and Jason d’Avignon regarding well drilling on Guemes. Michael mentioned he was waiting to make an appointment with the Commissioner until after holidays. The board discussed the desire to have Kyle present either over zoom or in person. Michael offered to work on this in the next week. The board agreed that it would be good to keep the conversation going and to not lose traction.

There is a need to confirm interpretation of existing laws on well drilling on Guemes.

A conversation was had regarding planning for 2023. It was noted that a preliminary report from the USGS may be ready as soon as February 2023, however the final report was not expected until September 2023 according to what was mentioned at the GIPAC annual meeting.

There was a conversation about the beaver pond issue happening in the Big Lake area and how that situation is analogous to the Guemes beaver pond situation. There are several similarities with regard to the consequences of inaction as well as historical context. GIPAC will continue to monitor that situation as information is available.

Digitizing Project:

Steve received the letter from the IRS which Allen requested on behalf of the committee. Hopefully this works for setting up the Google for non-profits account. Gabe now has the letter and will reinitiate the process with Google and report back to the committee when he has more information.

Donations and Future Funding:

Michael offered to come up with a statement to be posted on our Linetime page to convey that GIPAC would like to receive donations to fund the causes that we support for the community. There was discussion of setting up a donations page on Linetime, and it was mentioned that Joseph might be able to help uswith that. Somewhat related was a conversation about having a physical address or a PO box to use for the committee to receive donations and/or other documents. A decision was not made at that time.

Other Business:

A short conversation was had regarding scheduling a meeting with SC Public Health and SCP&D to talk about rainwater catchment.

A short conversation was had about the SCPW Guemes Island Ferry public meeting. There was a concern brought up regarding the previous consultant study making reference to GIPAC and the Guemes Island Sub-Area Plan. It was unclear why or how these were related.

Meeting was adjourned just after 8:00 pm.

Posted by Gabe Murphy