Minutes of Meeting of

The Guemes Island Ferry Committee

January 26, 2003

7:00 PM

Attendees: M. Fosbre, D. Elder, G. Veal, C. Cady, S. Orsini

1. The committee approved the minutes of the meeting of January 23, 2003 which will now be posted on the official web site of the Guemes Island Ferry Committee (GIFC) which can be found on the web at: guemesislandferrycommittee.org. The GIFC thanked Dixon Elder for his dedicated, resourceful and creative effort on establishing this, the official web site for the committee.

2. Review of the meeting held with Skagit County Commissioner, Don Monks, in Anacortes on January 24, 2003. The purpose of this meeting was to give feed back directly to a Commissioner on the Phase II Scope of Work with Burke & Associates.

· There is confusion about the status of the Burke & Associates work. On January 13, 2003 an extension of the current contract with Burke was signed to pay for the completion of Phase I, the Draft Analysis. The Scope of Work currently being circulated is for another body of work, to be called Phase II, which will further study such issues as fares and schedules and work on implementation of results from Phase I.

· GIFC did turn over to Commissioner Monks its comments on the Phase II Scope of Work. Those comments are also posted on this web site.

· GIFC was informed by Commissioner Monks that significant progress has been made to complete the 6^th Street Parking Facility on the Anacortes side. Details will be released when the County has completed all negotiations.

· GIFC reaffirmed with Commissioner Monks that the purpose of the scheduled meeting with the Board of Skagit County Commissioners on January 27, 2003 was to formally introduce the newly elected ferry committee. In addition the GIFC would review its newly codified Charter with the Commissioners along with the draft Resolution.

3. GIFC will respond to Linetime.org’s most recent request for quicker posting of information and respond to Linetime’s list of questions with another explanation of what is realistic for the committee to achieve. The committee is working on a Communication Plan, which will detail the scope and timing of its communication to all concerned parties. The communication plan will be posted on the GIFC website.

4. The Ferry Committee received the very first draft edition of the Communication Plan authored by Dixon Elder. The Ferry Committee reserves the right to review its draft plan to achieve an edition suitable for publication prior to release to any other organization. The Ferry Committee will then take input on the Communication Plan from all interested parties.

5. The Committee will approach the Guemes Library chairperson to ask if it may use the Guemes Library for its working session meetings. If the Library is not available, then GIFC will ask the Fire Commissioners for permission to hold its working meetings in the Fire Hall. The location of the meetings is being changed so that anyone wishing to be on the agenda of a GIFC working meeting may be guaranteed open access in a “public” facility.

6. With the establishment of the official guemesislandferrycommittee.org web site, email can be sent to the committee at the following address: mail@gurmesislandferrycommittee.org.

7. The committee was invited on Monday, January 20, 2003 to meet with the Public Works Department and Burke & Associates on January 27, 2003. The committee posted the following agenda items for this near-term meeting:

· Lines of communication

· Framework to work together

· Time-line and timely notification for these meetings

· Comments to the latest phase II Scope of Work proposed by Burke & Associates

· Comments on the Draft Analysis. (These, to the extent prepared, are posted on the Committees web site.)

8. The committee proposed the following topics for the meeting with the Board of County Commissioners also on January 27, 2003:

· Commissioners response to the proposed Charter and draft Resolution adopted at the January 4, 2003 public meeting of the Ferry Committee

· The need to request an official position from the Board of County Commissioners to the draft Resolution recognizing the newly elected Committee

· The submission of the GIFC’s response to the proposed Scope of Work by Berk and Associates.

9. In light of the promise of positive news on the Anacortes parking lot, M. Fosbre agreed to the task of informing Terry Ebersol that the committee would not be calling on his services.

10. The meeting was adjourned at 10:00 PM.