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We're just audio and audio here at WSAC.
Welcome to County Connection,
the official podcast of the Washington State Association
of Counties, where we dive into the legislative issues
shaping the future of our communities.
From budgets to public safety, infrastructure to elections,
we'll break down what's happening in Olympia
and how it impacts counties from across the Evergreen State.
Stay informed, stay engaged, and join us
as we amplify the voice of Washington's 39 counties.
Well, welcome everybody to the inaugural episode
of the County Connection podcast.
I'm Paul Jewell, government relations director
with the Washington State Association of Counties,
and I'm here with Mitch Schnetzer,
who's our communications director.
How you doing, Mitch?
Good, thanks for having me.
Yeah, thanks for being here in our inaugural episode
on Inauguration Day here in Olympia.
It's thematic.
It is thematic.
Yeah, there's definitely a theme going there.
I like that.
Mitch, why don't you tell us what the purpose is
of these podcasts as we get started?
Yeah, so in previous years,
we've done a newsletter every week,
and then a couple years back,
we switched to doing live meetings,
and then every other week doing a legislative bulletin.
Well, we're always trying to do new things
and push things forward
and make things more accessible for our members.
So with that, we decided let's try out a podcast.
So yeah, with a podcast, we can have things more timely
and get things out quicker,
and people can have it automatically downloaded
to their phone, and they can listen
while they're driving somewhere,
instead of having to wait and get back
and read an email or anything like that,
while they're walking or doing anything up on the hill,
they can just pop their headphones in
and listen to podcasts. So super convenient, right?
Super convenient.
So just like they get information through podcasts now,
they're gonna be able to get the same thing from us.
They can listen to it whenever they want to, et cetera.
Pretty easy.
You're not gonna have to worry about,
is your phone charged or is your computer on
or are you in the right place?
You can really do it anytime, any place.
Anytime, any place.
And what's nice is a lot of these episodes,
they're gonna be, we talked themes before,
but next episode coming out will be on public health.
So if you have an interest
or want to learn more about public health,
you can listen in on that,
or if you're wanting to learn more
about different issues going on,
you'll be able to listen to those specific episodes too.
Now we recommend you listen to them all
because everyone should know everything, obviously.
Well, and kind of government just by its nature
is super interesting.
You're gonna, trust me folks,
you're gonna wanna listen to them all.
But what you're saying is,
we're gonna actually have them as different categories.
So if I just wanna listen to,
or maybe I just have 10 minutes or 20 minutes
and I don't have time to listen to them all,
even though I'm gonna go back and listen to them all later,
right now, yeah, of course.
The most important one,
or I really want information on public health,
like you said, I could just click on the public health one
and just get that information?
Yeah, so I mean, they'll all be in the same feed,
so you'll get them all,
but you can ignore the ones that you don't want,
delete them, or you can save them for later.
And when you have time for those other topics,
you can go back and listen to them.
Cool, so other topics like say transportation
or land use or behavioral health, public safety,
my favorite, taxes and finance, right?
So we're trying to make it super easy.
We're modernizing our system.
So we're not gonna do the written ones anymore.
So these are gonna replace the written ones.
How often are these gonna come out?
Do you have an idea on how many times
we're gonna be pushing out new podcasts during the session?
So I know our goal is to do every other week.
And that's what you can expect is every other week.
Now, what's great about this is we can do things
in a more timely manner.
So if something is breaking news or we need to get
some information out between episodes,
we can push those out.
So expect at least every other week,
but you can more than likely,
you'll probably get episodes dropped
between those every other weeks too.
Okay, so at least every two weeks,
we should have some fresh new content,
might be an opportunity to have something in between.
How would I know?
How can I get access to these?
Do I have to go, are they gonna be posted on a website
and I have to go get them?
Do I have to check that constantly?
Or is there some other way that I can get access
to these podcasts?
That's the great thing about podcasts.
You don't have to know, they just happen.
So once you are subscribed,
you can then just let it download to whatever device
you're subscribed through.
So if you're listening to this first episode,
so you must have found it through one of our newsletters
or social media, or you randomly stumbled across it,
but once you're subscribed, it'll automatically download.
So first things first, you follow this first link
and whatever you use for your preferred podcast app.
So personally, I use like a app called Downcast,
but whatever you're using through Apple or Android
or whatever you're on with your tablet,
whatever your app is, you can use, take and paste this feed
in there, you can search it,
and you can subscribe right then and there.
You'll be able to use any of the major platforms,
Spotify, Amazon, Music, all of those things.
You'll be able to find us there.
So you're gonna be able to find Wasack podcasts
on Spotify, on Apple podcasts, the whole ball of wax.
Any of those places just, what do you search for, Wasack?
You'll be able to search for Wasack,
Washington State Association of Counties.
You can search for the County Connections podcast,
all those kinds of things.
Best way to ensure, if you can't find it,
you can just go to our website, wassack.org,
and we will have, every time there's a new episode,
we will push that out through a short news article too.
So you can find it that way.
Now, imagine if you're on the hub
and you're using the Wasack hub,
you're gonna be able to find them there too, is that right?
Yep. Okay.
So when you say subscribe,
the old school person in me,
when someone says subscribe,
that sounds to me like they're trying
to get money out of me.
Well, we do need your social security number
and your date of birth and hometown.
What about my DNA?
Do you need DNA?
We get that through other means.
Oh, we've already got that?
Yeah. Good to know.
But seriously, when we're talking about subscribing here,
what we're talking about is signing up
to get automatic downloads.
It actually, it doesn't cost anything, right?
There's no cost, yeah.
This is all free to really anyone.
So it's just like any other podcast
that you can reach out and grab.
What it does is it just puts those new episodes
pretty much in your library, right?
In your queue.
So when you go to whatever platform it is
that you normally like to listen to podcasts from,
it's already there and waiting for you.
Exactly.
That's perfect.
Well, that's super convenient.
Super convenient.
Great, great.
Well, I'm excited about this, Mitch.
I'm really excited to get started on these.
I'm super happy that you joined us
or joined me for our inaugural episode
so we can kind of explain to people
what to expect as we move forward.
And I think we're gonna have a lot of fun doing this.
So thanks for coming on today and we'll see you next time.
Thank you.
All right, Mitch, take care.
Take care.
Thanks for tuning in to County Connection.
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Until next time, stay connected and stay informed.