OLYMPIA — The abandoned graving yard project in Port Angeles has absorbed much of the three 24th District legislators’ time during the session’s first two weeks.
But the trio also began work on other issues, sponsoring four bills, some of the literally hundreds introduced in both chambers during the legislative session’s second week.
Rep. Jim Buck, R-Joyce, along with House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, and Sen. Jim Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, represent the 24th District, which includes Clallam and Jefferson counties and part of Grays Harbor County.
Rep. Buck
Buck said besides working on the graving yard issue, he also has introduced two bills.
The first (HB1346) rewrites the state hydraulics code so it is understandable, he said.
HB1346 was referred to the natural resources, ecology and parks committee for its first reading.
It is the same bill he was working on two years ago, said Buck, who is a civil engineer. The bill has attracted bipartisan support, he said.
“I just have this feeling a law should be written so people know what is expected of them,” he said.
“It is not a policy-changing bill. It is taking a Christmas tree and organizing so it better serves agencies and the public.
The second bill (HB1406) also has attracted bipartisan support, Buck said.
HB1406 would require specialty wood products to be treated the same way as cedar salvage. The bill was assigned a number on Friday and hasn’t been referred to a committee yet.
Specialty wood is clear-grained wood used for paneling and musical instruments, Buck said.
The state Department of Natural Resources and timber companies have problems with people stealing trees for small blocks of these specialty woods, he said.
When salvaging cedar, you must have a permit with you when cutting and selling it, Buck said. That permit allows the salvaged cedar to be tracked back to where it was harvested to ensure it is legal, he said.
HB1406 would treat specialty woods the same way, Buck said.
Rep. Kessler
Kessler said she also has been working on issues besides the graving yard.
“It has become a huge issue,” she said of the $58.8 million shuttered construction project on the Port Angeles waterfront.
“But we are doing other things down here, too.”
One is a bill that would create a pilot project for three community colleges to offer four-year bachelor’s degrees.
Kessler was redrafting the bill on Friday to include three community colleges in the pilot project instead of just two, so it doesn’t have a number yet.
The bill intends to help community college students who are “placebound” and have “unreasonable access” to institutions offering four year degrees, Kessler said.
“I’m going to push for Peninsula College as one of the pilot projects because it epitomizes the difficulty of our kids to get to a four-year institution,” Kessler said.
“It kind of makes existing community colleges into four-year institutions using ‘brick and mortar’ already in place.
“Why build more ‘brick and mortar’ when we can offer the same thing instead at community colleges?” she asked.
Kessler also co-sponsored HB1064 which, along with companion bill SB5124, calls for performance audits of state agencies and identification of programs that can be eliminated, consolidated, reduced or enhanced.
HB1064 was referred to the state government operations and accountability committee for a first reading on Jan 12. A public hearing was held on it Jan. 18 with a substitute bill recommended for passage.
“We are fast-tracking this bill. It aims to make government work better and more efficiently,” Kessler said.
“The auditor would go through the State Auditor’s Office, but he would have an independent auditing team. It would give transparency to what we do.”
Similar bills have passed the House before but either were been held up in the Senate or vetoed by the governor.
“Now Senate is with us, and so is the governor,” she said.
Kessler also is participating with many other lawmakers in the monthlong “Walk the Talk” contest among the Legislature’s four party caucuses.
She said the “friendly rivalry” is designed to promote public health programs and healthier living.
“Everybody is wandering around with pedometers, one-upping each other about how far they have walked. It’s pretty fun,” she said.
Sen. Hargrove
Besides the graving yard, Hargrove said he continues to focus on treatment and prevention programs for juveniles, drug abusers and mental health patients that long have been a priority for him.
He is working on an omnibus mental health, drug treatment and law enforcement bill that would be the most comprehensive reform of the system in the nation, he said.
The bill will include redrafting state law to create a combined involuntary commitment process for drug offenders and mental health patients.
It also will provide more funding for services, including regional drug courts and treatment facilities to reduce jail populations and prevent people from “cycling” in and out of jail due to drug and mental health problems, Hargrove said.
Currently, drug offenders and mental health patients cycle in and out of state facilities, then end up in prison, Hargrove said.
That creates the need for more jail beds and courts, and then there are victims involved; it’s not terribly effective or efficient, he said.
Hargrove said similar programs in the juvenile justice system have saved as much as $200 million at the state level, “so we can’t afford not to do this” despite the state’s projected $1.8 billion budget deficit.
“It will create a much better use of our resources. We need to invest some money upfront,” he said.
Hargrove reiterated that previous treatment and prevention programs reduced the state’s juvenile justice population so far below its projected level that the state didn’t have to build another juvenile jail.
That saved the state $200 million in one biennium alone — $100 million from not building the jail and $100 million from not running it, he said.
That doesn’t include the law enforcement savings at the local level, and there are also fewer juvenile crime victims, Hargrove said.
“These are real and large savings,” he said.
“It’s not just a human issue, it’s a dollars issue.”