King CD’s Advisory Committee (AC) was able to cover a number of topics at last Tuesday’s meeting – here’s a look at the agenda:
1. Welcome & Introductions (Bill Knutsen)
2. Call to Order
3. Election (Jason Chambers/John Bodin)
4. Committee Charter (Jason Chambers)
5. Committee size, make up (Sara Hemphill)
6. Meeting Calendar/Admin Support/Exec Dir Search (Bill Knutsen)
7. Adjourn
After introductions, which included a few guests interested in joining the AC, John Bodin recapped the March election, talked about some future possibilities with new election technology and answered some questions from the members of the committee with the help of Tom Salzer from the Washington State Conservation Commission.
Bodin’s expertise will be helpful to the developing an election subcommittee of AC members (and potentially other interested parties) who will review the current election setup and make recommendations on how it can be improved. If you’re interested in being a part of that group email jason.chambers@kingcd.org.
The next item on the agenda was review and adoption of a draft charter for the advisory committee. Since the Committee’s inception, the meetings have been fairly informal, but with increased business to attend to the AC designated a subcommittee to put together a charter that lays out some operating procedures. After about an hour of discussion that centered mostly around membership issues, the group passed the draft charter which will next go to the King CD’s Board of Supervisors for review and adoption.
The Supervisors will likely consider the charter at their May 10th meeting.
The charter issue overlapped with the next topic: AC size and make up. That discussion encompassed several sub issues including: whether would be dedicated seats for discrete interests, how many seats particular stakeholders would have, and how large the committee would be. The consensus was to leave these questions for the King CD Board to decide. Discussion ensued on what topics would be the first focus of the new committee including: the CD election process, urban/rural partners and local food, small cities, sustainable funding, jurisdictional grant policy review, raising the King CD profile.
With only 6 meetings a year, the AC has limited opportunities to provide input to the District. By adding subcommittees to consider the King CD election, programs and other areas of interest, the AC will have more opportunities to comment and the District will get more valuable feedback from its stakeholders.
The committee wrapped up the evening by getting briefed on the current Executive Director search going on at the District, and providing some input on potential meeting dates/times for 2010.
For more information on the advisory committee, email us (jason.chambers@kingcd.org) and we’ll be happy to discuss in more detail.