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USK- The Clean Energy Committee is expanding its areas of focus as it seeks to help Pend Oreille County entities get in on federal grant money. The Clean Air Committee is a subcommittee of the Port’s Economic Development Advisory Committee, which met June 27 at the Camas Center for Community Wellness.
During the meeting Laura Verity gave an update on the Clean Energy Coalition, or as Verity dubbed it, the “Committee Formerly Known As.” Verity said she wanted the group’s work to look at more opportunities than just energy.
“We’re going to come up with a better name,” she said. “We would like to propose expanding the committee focus beyond just energy.”
Verity said the committee intended to focus on community, infrastructure, technology and energy. She said part of the reason for those areas is that individual committee members already work in those fields and get information.
She said the Clean Energy Committee would continue to find funding opportunities. She said the committee never intended to apply for grants itself.
“The EDAC, and therefore the Committee Formally Known as the Clean Energy Committee, will not be applying for grants,” Verity said. “It is not what this committee does.”
She said the committee would continue to meet and pass on information to others that may seek grants, contributing wording and expertise.
She said the group had been meeting monthly but recently switched to every other month. She said she has been leading the committee but that each quarter the group decides whether someone else should lead it.
The group was formed in March 2023. Verity said the group shared 67 grant opportunities with 87 organizations. Sometimes grant opportunities could apply to more than one entity, such as a town and the county or to all three school districts. She said that the group doesn’t always know the follow up on all the grants.
“But what we know is that 12 applications for different grants were submitted,” she said. She said the committee supported four of the applications, some with some wording, some with more direct help.
Verity said there is still federal money to be chased. She said Washington was set to receive $8.6 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, for instance. The federal Inflation Reduction Act has $393.7 billion.
She said both Acts prioritize jobs, rural America, and energy. The committee has been focusing on the energy component but there are other opportunities.
EDAC chair Abby Gribi gave an update on another subcommittee, the land use committee. She said the committee had been talking about individual properties suitable for development, but that the committee now wanted to move towards recommending code updates, zonings and allowable uses.
“Going through and looking on more the governmental level, rather than parcel by parcel,” Gribi said.
For instance, she said using conditional use permits were a problem for business looking to relocate here.
Verity said that the EDAC had people on the committee had experience with land use. They could identify problems with the current system.
Smiley said that given how long the last comprehensive plan took to pass, that the county commissioners have started looking at updates continuously, not just every 10 years.
Verity said the committee could be a feedback mechanism for the county Community Development Director Greg Snow to help with the updates from a business or economic development perspective.
He said he has heard from people who have done projects in the county.
“The feedback I get is, it is not intuitive and it’s not easy,” he said. “And these are people who have done projects in many other places. So I think there is still room for improvement and we can look at that process and try to improve it.”
The EDAC’s land use committee would like to meet every other month or quarterly, Gribi said. They and could meet more often as needed, Gribi said.
In other business, Washington is building five new electrical ferries for the west side of the state and needs name for them.
County commissioner Brian Smiley told the Economic Development Advisory Committee that a man had approached him and Pend Oreille County Economic Development Advisory Committee Director Jessica Garza to suggest a name be submitted by Pend Oreille County.
The names must have a Native American and place connections, Smiley said. The man made the point that since the electricity that powered the ferries comes from Boundary Dam in north Pend Oreille County. The dam is owned and operated by Seattle City Light and supplies electricity to much of Seattle.
“Every one of those ferries has inside of them a little museum that gives information and historical context of the place they’re named after,” Smiley said.
“They’re rolling them out for the next several years,” Garza said. She said the process hadn’t been totally rolled out but that she wanted to make the committee aware that it was a possibility.
Maddie Campbell, who represents the Kalispel Tribe on the EDAC, said that the tribe has an interest in tribal names.
“Place naming is very significant and this is a new time where the tribe is starting to put language back on trails again,” she said. “I think this is something the tribe would want to be involved in.”
She said she would take it back to tribal leaders and get their feedback.
“We do have a place naming committee,” Maddi said. “This would be a good opportunity for us.”
The ferries each have a room that houses a museum that explains the history and culture context of the place for which the ferry is named.
