Members appointed to drainage district
Published 1:30 am Tuesday, April 21, 2026
PORT TOWNSEND — An interim board for the Chimacum Drainage District has been appointed after the body was reactivated last summer.
Chimacum residents Chuck Boggs, Kris Sims and Crystal Taggart were appointed by the Board of Jefferson County Commissioners on Monday following a formal interview process.
“It’s a really wonderful set of folks to take on this adventure of reactivating this drainage district,” County Commissioner Heidi Eisenhour said.
The three were chosen from a pool of seven applicants.
The interviewing process involved Eisenhour, Jefferson County Conservation District Assistant Manager Sierra Young and Port of Port Townsend Lease and Contracts Administrator Heron Scott, Eisenhour said.
“We don’t really know the road map,” Eisenhour said.
Known tasks include developing the full board election process for the spring of 2028, developing an assessment approach for land owners within the district, and working with the conservation district on interim mitigation activities.
Board Clerk Caroline Galloway is working on getting the board members their Open Public Meetings Act training, Eisenhour said.
Eisenhour learned of Chimacum’s then-inactive drainage district through a letter early in her tenure as commissioner.
Initially unsure what the letter was referring to, Eisenhour looked into the district.
The district, originally formed in 1919, had been informally inactive since 1974, Eisenhour said.
Her research indicated the potential community value that the district could hold. So she turned to the community to see if any members were interested in the district.
“We did about a year and a half worth of outreach to the community, had meetings, did surveys, and overall, heard a majority of folks saying, ‘Yeah, we have drainage issues in the Chimacum Valley area and the Chimacum Drainage District could be a useful tool for us,’” Eisenhour said.
The BOCC reactivated the drainage district last summer.
The district could assess taxes to properties within its boundaries for the purposes of managing Chimacum Creek.
The creek needs to be managed for flooding, which often happens to properties adjacent to it.
Taggart, who gave public comment during the activation hearing last year, said half of her 18-acre property is flooded annually through the winter. A large portion of her land was underwater during all of 2024, she said.
“There was a big section about the size of a football field that stayed underwater the entire year,” she said at the hearing.
The district also would oversee reed canary grass removal efforts and address beaver activity that interrupts the flow of the water.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
