Well, you know, practice makes better.
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Welcome back, everybody, to the County Connection podcast.
I'm Paul Jewell, government relations director with Washington
State Association of Counties.
I've got a new guest with me now, Travis Dutton, policy coordinator
for the Washington State Association of Counties.
Thanks for joining us, Travis.
Absolutely. Happy to be here.
Yeah, we're glad to have you, Travis.
We're just kind of going over a few things in our first episode
to kind of let people know what to expect this year at the legislature.
There's a lot of really big changes going on.
Today's inauguration day here in Olympia.
There's a lot of activity up at the Capitol.
We're all going to the ball tonight.
I know you're going to be there.
I'm looking forward to spending some time with the rest of the staff
and you a little bit later this evening.
But before we get there, I was hoping we could talk about,
you know, some of the things that could be affecting the areas
that you're going to be working in.
There's a ton of new legislators.
There's a lot of new leadership.
Governor's Office, Attorney General Ecology, which is a big agency
that you deal with, many others in the cabinet.
There's many leadership changes within the legislature on committees.
And we have a lot of new members here at WSAC who've never been
through legislative session before.
The state is facing a 10 to 12 billion dollar deficit.
So, you know, so we're hearing.
I know there's some arguments going on as far as, you know,
how big that's going to be.
But what what are you looking at is going to be the top issues
for solid waste, environment, forest health, wildland fire
as you head as the session begins.
That's a lot of change that you just listed right there.
And to, you know, put it all very simply,
I think we have two two big tasks ahead of us in those areas.
One is sort of sustaining the momentum that we've been working on
in educating and advocating for solid waste.
And a lot of the county services,
we need to keep going with that momentum.
But at the same time, we also have to do a lot of educating
and getting new folks caught up both here at WSAC and over at the state.
A lot of the systems we work in are very complicated
and are not necessarily easily explained.
So there's some catching up to do while also kind of helping
keep things moving forward, especially in some of the areas
where I've been working and you've been working in solid waste
on getting funding, trying to appropriately fund counties
who are responsible for planning and implementing solid waste
across the state.
So those are two of the big areas.
And then I guess a third one that I would throw in there is just really
defense and making sure that we're watching the funding sources
and the resources that we have now and making sure that they're still there
at the end of this session.
So as we, you know, in your intro there, you were talking quite a bit
about kind of the impacts that you were expecting from solid waste,
but you're also doing some new areas for us this year.
You recently were promoted here at WSAC.
Congratulations, by the way.
And you're going to be taking a bigger role.
I had no idea.
Well, congratulations.
Let me be the first to let you know.
Thank you very much. It's an honor.
Yeah, the honor is all ours, Travis.
But seriously, though, we're super excited that you're going to be taking
a bigger role this year with the policy team and you're going to be taking on
some environmental issues.
And some of those include forest health and wildfire preparedness.
You know, right now, you know, talking about what's happening
in the world right now, of course, you know, the California wildfires
in Southern California are raging.
Do you think that's going to have any impact on some of the proposals
that we see coming out of the legislature?
I don't think it has yet impacted any of the legislation that's been filed,
but I do expect it to strengthen anything that has been filed
related to wildfire or climate change or any connection between the two.
It's been a topic in previous years around identifying some of the most
at risk places in the state to build or some of the developments or
homes that are in the most at risk areas and how we address that.
So I assume that what is going on right now in Los Angeles and what has been
taking place as far as wildfires go over the last couple of years
is definitely going to make what has been filed more important
or maybe it'll bring them more to the surface or make them more
a topic of conversation.
Yeah, folks might be looking at those with a little bit more urgency.
Yes. Yeah, considering what's been going on, not just historically,
but also obviously right now today, you know, down in California,
it's you know, there's this old saying that when the fire is out,
people kind of forget about it, right?
When the flood waters recede, people forget about the floods.
But when the fires continue to happen, whether they're here or somewhere else
and we're, you know, entering a legislative session and we're thinking about
possible policy changes related to fire, it certainly keeps it
at the top of people's mind in a in a much more meaningful way.
Well, you mentioned some gains
that we've been working on the last couple of years on some of the projects
that you that, you know, you oversee or some of the issue areas
that you oversee in solid waste is certainly one of them.
There's been a lot of gains in the environmental arena around funding.
We've done a lot of work around, you know, encumbered lands and forestry,
not necessarily things that you've been necessarily been involved in,
but certainly related to that.
But there's also been a ton of new money in wildfire suppression
and forest health treatments and, you know, firewising
and other things like that that the state has invested in right now.
As I mentioned, kind of at the beginning, the legislators are looking,
you know, at a pretty big deficit.
How do you think that's going to affect the progress
that's been made in some of those programs?
Are you worried about it?
Do you guys have a plan in place to try to address it?
Or are you hearing anything definitive or you like the rest of us
just kind of waiting to see what happens?
The only thing that I think I can share confidently
that I've been hearing is that there is again a continued protection
with the new leadership at a governor level and a new leadership at the DNR level
as far as managing public lands and timberlands,
is making sure that that funding that has been allocated
to public safety related to wildfire remains in the budget
and that that is a priority moving forward.
But my general sense is that everybody up and down the chain
is just sort of waiting to see what the impacts of the new leadership
are going to be, especially the gains made around protecting communities
from wildfire and recovering from wildfire.
There's a strong hope to keep those revenues dedicated to those outcomes
and not sent someplace else, especially given what's been going on.
Yeah, I mean the effects on the ground that we're seeing today
are the result of management decisions that perpetuated over decades, right?
And we're not going to turn that whole thing around with just a couple of years of funding,
which is really kind of what we've had to make real progress in,
I guess, turning the clock back maybe a little bit on forest health
and some of those other things or moving the needle, so to speak,
is another kind of terminology to make things better.
It's going to probably take decades of investment.
And if we could do that because of some budget concerns and budget cuts,
it could really hurt that work, which causes a lot of public safety concerns.
Well, thanks for joining us, Travis.
I don't want to take up a bunch of your time.
This is really just kind of an introduction to your policy areas
and what you're expecting this session.
Before you go, though, what are you looking forward to?
What are you looking forward to most?
Is this your third legislative session now with Wasack?
This will be my third legislative session with Wasack.
So what are you looking forward to the most this year?
I'm just looking forward to all the different ties I get to wear
to all of our different meetings.
But, seriously.
Yeah, you strike, I think everyone listening is going to visualize that
and they're going to say, you know, Travis strikes me as a guy
who would get excited about neck ties.
In fact, you made me change my tie because the one I was in was too loud
and the microphones kept picking it up.
In fact, yeah, you know, that's something we that's some of the back story.
That's some of the some of the inside baseball we don't we don't share
usually on a podcast like this.
But it's true when you walked in, I could hear your tie on the microphone
and we had to change that thing a little bit.
But it's all serious.
People who are listening can cannot see the Travis is trying not to laugh right now.
And if they're still listening, I don't know why.
But but in all seriousness, I think every year it feels more and more like
I have my feet underneath me and I have the contacts and the communication
and the resources.
So while it's still both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time,
the opportunity to work on new subject areas and support
some of our contract lobbyists and people I've never worked with before is really exciting
and feels like it's going to be a good opportunity to continue learning
how to build skills that are going to serve this organization.
So that's aside from ties what I'm most excited about related to this session.
So so neckties and new opportunities not working with Paul as much every day
and other people as I have no idea what guy you're talking about there.
Well, thanks again, Travis, for joining us.
It's great to have you in your new role here at Wasack.
We're really looking forward to working with you a lot more in depth in the legislature
this year and talking to you a lot more as well.
I assume you'll come back on a regular basis and fill folks in on how things are going.
Absolutely.
All right. Well, thanks. We'll see you soon.
Take care.
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