PORT TOWNSEND — The Chimacum Creek drainage district has declared inactive by the Board of Jefferson County Commissioners for the second time in two years.
“This year again,” County Administrator Mark McCauley said at a special meeting Thursday, “we received a memorandum from Jefferson County auditor that this district appeared to be inactive when, in fact, it’s been declared inactive. That memorandum triggers the requirement for this hearing.”
The county commissioners initially declared the district inactive last year through resolution 35-22 on Sept. 1, but they opted not to dissolve it.
This year’s meeting, prompted by County Auditor Brenda Huntingford’s memorandum, referenced RCW 36.96, which addresses the dissolution of inactive special purpose districts.
McCauley led the commissioners through the three criteria outlined in the state law for being considered inactive. First, it has not fulfilled any of its functions in the last five years. Second, no election has been held in the last seven years. Finally, the district has been determined as un-auditable by the state auditor.
The drainage district met all of the criteria, McCauley said.
The district was formed in 1919 with the special purpose of managing a drainage and flood control system. It has not collected funds since 1960 and has been informally inactive since 1974, when its board resigned.
Steps for considering how the district might be reactivated have been taken in the past year, commissioner Heidi Eisenhour said. The Washington State University extension, Jefferson County Conservation District, Eisenhour and other entities have been working with Peak Sustainability to develop an outreach plan to hear what the community wants out of the district, she said.
Melissa Pleimann, Jefferson County deputy prosecuting attorney, is putting together a list of legal questions that would be relevant to reactiving the district, Eisenhour said.
“We now have a plan for that outreach,” Eisenhour said. “We haven’t implemented that plan yet, because we wanted answers to some of these questions that Melissa is working on, before we drafted the survey that we plan on sending out to residents.”
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
