Governor is preparing reply to Grant County commissioners, staff says

OLYMPIA — Officials in Gov. Jay Inslee’s office said Tuesday that a reply is being written to a letter sent by Grant County commissioners to Inslee but did not give a time frame for its delivery. Commissioners sent their letter to Inslee on May 4.

Officials from the governor’s office disputed the characterization of Inslee as being insufficiently responsive to the concerns of county and city officials during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Commissioner Tom Taylor said Monday that commissioners were trying to get information from the governor’s office on removing restrictions on movement and business imposed by Inslee on March 23. But communication with the governor’s office was “very little and sporadic. We’re a little discouraged by that,” Taylor said.

Inslee announced May 1 that most of the restrictions and closures would remain in place until May 31. Inslee has announced that businesses would be allowed to reopen, and restrictions on movement would be lifted, over a period of about two months, beginning in mid-May.

Some counties could apply for waivers to speed up the process. Taylor said May 11 that Grant County doesn’t qualify for the waivers, since its population is more than 75,000 people.

Mike Faulk, the governor’s press secretary, said some of the complaints from the commissioners were unfounded.

“Our office outreach staff have weekly calls with regional leaders across five regions of Washington, including central Washington,” Faulk wrote. “The governor has been on at least one of those central Washington calls. The Grant County board chair has been invited to participate in those calls, but for the last few weeks no one from the Grant County commission has participated, according to our outreach team.”

Cindy Carter is the commission chair, and she said technical difficulties had kept her from participating in the last meeting. Taylor said he had listened to one of the meetings after it was completed, and that in his opinion it was an update on current state decisions, not a conversation.

Local officials had no way to get questions answered and commissioners had no way to give input, Taylor said.

“That is not, to me, communicating with county leaders,” he said.

Commissioner Richard Stevens said he had asked about joining the weekly calls, and state officials told him that only one commissioner at a time was allowed to participate.

Carter said the governor’s liaison has been responsive in some cases, citing the example of restarting private construction projects closed down when the lockdown was imposed. But in other cases county officials have received what she considered insufficient notice of changes in the lockdown policies. “Boat launches. That was a fun one,” she said.

The governor’s office also has an agreement with governors from California, Oregon, Nevada and Colorado to coordinate some lifting of restrictions. In their letter, commissioners said they thought Inslee should be working more with local officials than with governors of other states.

Faulk said the portrayal of the “Western States Pact” was inaccurate. “This is not, and never has been, some binding agreement for the states to act in lockstep. They are not acting in coordination as much as their counterparts in the governor’s office have weekly communications.”

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].