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Administration:

- Public records request due by 8/8. Thank you!

- Sept 24 all staff – location tbd – good opportunity to do a vehicle swap to keep up on utilization. Get maintenance done before. Questions or concerns, please reach out to Alicia.

- Welcome Amy!

- Area Award nomination form, please make sure to submit nominations you have for CDs, CD employees, partners for special recognition.

- Calendar invite for commission meeting agenda items 8/9.

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Finance:

- Close out for fiscal year end, about a week and a half left to get vouchers out. Grant side, 15 single grants left to close. Hopefully all closed by the end of last week. Goal would be to start setting up FY25 grants the third week of Aug. and get out to CDs.

- Sarah G. working hard to get decision packages into the system. No formal edit team this year. If you want a specific opinion from someone, please reach out directly to review.

- Will be updating the decision package process in the next year. Please share your feedback and ideas. Would be backing up the timeline more.

- Starting on task order billings and paying invoices already for this fiscal year.

- Nicole out next week (8/12). Alec will be available for questions.

- Need to post contracts that will be coming up this next year. Estimate of cost and work. Compliance with DES policy.

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Communications:

- Intranet: Comms will send out logins to testers this week. Hopefully launch next week!

- One-pagers needed for Sept.: Send info to Toyo. One-pagers live: https://www.scc.wa.gov/program-fact-sheets

- Send social content to Toyo please.

- Annual report: Sent out to CDs to get stories. These are short stories. Deadline moving as hoping to just collect stories along the way.

- Riparian communications campaign. Will be hosting 6 focus groups across WA state in person. Will seek feedback from different agencies, CDs, partners as well.

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Policy:

- Riparian roundtable continuing with conversation across agency family. Now shifting to implementation phase between now and Nov. probably discussing regulatory backstop.

- Interesting primary results. Getting more clarity on next elected officials.

- Whitener group, exploring possibility to help SCC figure out approach to work towards hiring a tribal liaison and engagement.

- Hired Hilary Aten to be the new OFP coordinator! Coming in Sept.

- Food Policy Forum: Full Forum meeting last week.

- We’ve already had a fiscal note!

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Science Hub:

- Continue momentum on projects that are going. Commissioned a report on riparian incentive programs. Should be useful for internal programs and discussions with partners.

- Residue and tillage mapping in collaboration with WSU researchers. 7-9 CDs involved. Working on next steps.

- Watershed planning and prioritization. Expand conversation and see how fits with other SCC programs.

- CRM training was great. Appetite for more CRM resources. Process for having difficult conversations among stakeholders who don’t agree, but have honest and critical discussions. How to manage collective resources as a group.

- Working on data and how to use, operationalize, and share. Will be working to provide NRCS implementation data statewide.

- Thanks for communications help to develop more concise resources.

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Riparian Grant Program:

- Welcome Amy! History of conservation district work at Okanogan CD and background in water quality and more!

- Diving in and getting updates. Reaching out to a few and will reach out to more staff.

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Office of Farmland Preservation:

- Working on updating the farmland indicators report that Josh started.

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Voluntary Stewardship Program:

- Aug 13 meeting in Walla Walla with the Statewide Advisory Committee and the Technical Panel.

- 10-year reports are in from Chelan and Thurston! Kicks off a review process ending in Dec.

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CREP:

- CPDS going to pure login through Safe System. WATech lives on the 28th. SAW accounts will be needed. Reach out to Brian Cochrane if you need assistance with your account.

- Field monitoring.

- Working on agreement with ECY for CL2 grant, working to get Snohomish brought in.

Sustainable Farms and Fields:

- 72 applications, over $4 requested. Over 3 times the available funding. Committee will get out to CDs toward end of month.

- Climate Smart Livestock research and demonstration funding. 4 contracts executed. Few more underway. That solicitation is still open, but don’t know if we’ll get more working on

- Organic and climate-smart evaluation, webinar coming out in Oct.

- Program development for solicitation for CDs, looking at how better to represent aquiculture in that space.

- Any updates on timing of hiring a program manager? Interviewing consultants to help us get started in project management and program management structure.

- Lead time gatherings more broadly and bring in more people. Opportunities for coordination. Organizational capacity is always a challenge. 33 of us now.

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RPPP:

- Contract grow review happening.

- 13 CD applications will be under review.

- Week after next week, summoned for jury duty!

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Community Wildfire and Forest Health:

- Smoky Bear is turning 80 this Friday (August 9)! https://smokeybear.com/en/smokeys-history/story-of-smokey

- Finishing up on application review.

- Working with WAFCG to develop an MOU with parent organization.

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Disaster Assistance Program:

- Last minute revisions to decision package.

- Pre-wildfire and post-wildfire work with CDs.

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Operations:

- Need to start getting things ready for the next round of elections. Update forms based on feedback from Districts prior to Sept. training for CDs.

- CRP issues with FSA for some eastern WA CDs.

- NRCS local work group process for next year.

- Okanogan working on tour for next month’s commission meeting.

- If anyone confused about Cultural Resources info, please reach out to Jean. Will have a training in the fall.

- Check RM status in email, good coverage, so can reach out to those on duty.

- Josh will be out for a couple of weeks and will be back on Monday 26.

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Irrigation Efficiencies:

- Spent almost all of efficiencies funding. Still processing applications. Still some TA funding to meet emerging needs.

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