| GUEMES
ISLAND FERRY COMMITTEE |
| Welcome and Good Afternoon, Well, there’s no business like ferry business! Thanks to Ann Jackets, President of the GICCA and the Board of GICCA for all the meetings that we had here during the last year on behalf of the GIFC and the Task Force. Thanks to Carol Pellett and the Library Board for allowing the Ferry Committee to hold its working meetings in the Library this past year. Thanks to Joseph Miller and LineTime.org for the posting of all the information that was produced for and by the Task Force over the past 9 months as well as recently with the posting of the final recommendations of the Task Force which only came out on Friday, December 12. This is definitely a valuable community service that is being provided. And thanks to you Guemes Islanders for supporting the Ferry Committee over the years. This afternoon we are here to present the final recommendations that evolved from over the last nine months works in the Task Force. When we had our public meeting on November 15, I was both the Chairman of the Task Force and the GIFC. Today, I am no longer the Chair of the Task Force since the work of that group is done. From the public meeting on Nov. 15, the Task Force reviewed approximately 42 pages of written comment as well as the comments received here at the meeting. Additionally we allowed comments from those Islanders who attended at our Task Force meetings which reviewed the public comments to make possible changes. We did make several changes based on the comments received. So today, we are going to go over the changes. We will not be going over the entire package page by page, but just touching on the highlights. If you want to review the entire package of recommendations, please visit LineTime.org. It just came out on Friday, December 12. Again, the work of the Task Force is over, so any comments that anyone feels need to be considered again, the process is still open. The County Commissioners are holding a public meeting on December 22 at 1PM. The Commissioners are also accepting written comments. Because the work of the Task Force will be presented as an integrated body of work to the County Commissioners. Since we expect them to accept it as a complete package, we will make our presentation in its entirety and afterward we will answer any questions you may have. At that time, we want to give everyone an opportunity who wishes to speak. We anticipate there could be a lot of questions, so there will be a five minute limit per person. After everyone has had an opportunity to speak once, anyone who wishes to speak again will be given that opportunity. We scheduled this meeting because we feel that it is important that you have the opportunity to understand how this package came together over time. Through the years, the Ferry Committee has always sought and received the support of the community on our work. We would appreciate your support again on this important piece of work that has taken so much time to put together. I have confidence that the people of Guemes are reasonable and fair and will keep an open mind at this presentation and I appeal to those who are circulating the petitions requesting the County Commissioners to table the work of the Task Force to hold your judgment and the petitions until you have had a chance to see the final recommendations we present today. Remember this is a total integrated package. We don’t expect the County Commissioners to exercise any line item vetos , or changes, and even though you may have a problem with an aspect of the recommendations please see if it doesn’t meet the overall objective of a complete package that not only satisfies the needs of Guemes Islanders but also the other people involved in the management of the ferry operation from the Crew and Public Works as well as the rest of Skagit County taxpayers. Before we actually begin to look at the final Recommendations, I would like to go back to January of this year when you elected the Ferry Committee you see before you. Our longstanding members Max Benjamin and Al Bush decided not seek re-election, but helped in the preparation of our new Ferry Committee Charter and by- laws as well as a proposed resolution for the County Commissioners to sign that would recognize the Ferry Committee as the official representatives of the Ridership before the County in ferry related matters. These documents were unanimously accepted by the approximately 150 persons at the meeting. We went with our new Charter and Resolution to the County Commissioners to seek their approval and were told that although they accepted the Ferry Committee as representative, they were going to wait until the completion of Phase II with Berk and Associates, the consulting firm that had been hired to prepare the initial Management Analysis Survey. This is now what we know as the Task Force. At first when we heard about the large expanded group, we had some apprehension about just how it would work and just who would comprise the Task Force. Would we have just one seat? Was the County going to try to ram something through with a hand picked group? In our first meeting with Berk and Associates at the Public Works Department it became clear that the County had no preconceived plan but was leaving it up to Berk and Associates to organize. Berk wanted our input on how we could tackle such a large project as fares and schedules. We offered our suggestions on building a broad based group, we submitted a list of candidates, Public Works submitted its list and out of these suggestions came the final Task Force. GIFC 5 positions, GIPOA-1, GIPAC-1, Fire District 17-1, Crew-2, Off Island-1, SKAT-1, RTPO-1, Public Works-1. 14 members in all. Now lets go back to the Ferry Committee and I would like to introduce each member and when I’m done, I will have each member give their view of the 9 month process that we just completed. I’ll start with our members that were re-elected from the previous Ferry Committee. I can’t say find enough about the work your Ferry Committee did on your behalf over the last 9 months. Sixty three meetings since we were elected in January of this year. As a result of this hard work, I am pleased to announce today that our long sought objective, over the years, of official recognition of the Ferry Committee as representatives of the ridership is now awaiting the presentation of a resolution for the County Commissioners to sign doing just that. We believe this should be submitted and signed before the end of the year. Additionally , we have another resolution to show today that also establishes a seat for the Ferry Committee at the Performance Round Table with Public Works to review the implementation phase of the new fare and schedules proposed and to address other issues of cost containment, performance review and monitoring. This Performance round table will present a status of its work to the County Commissioners on a quarterly basis. Now we will review the Final Recommendations of the Task Force beginning with the changes made as a result of the comments that were received at the public meeting on November 15, or in written form. -Glen Veal |
