Officials plan start of flood control zone districts

They say the devil is in the details, and for Wahkiakum County's efforts to address erosion issues at Cape Horn and Puget Island, that's proving to be very true.

County officials are working with the US Army Corps of Engineers to set up a 10-year-long beach nourishment program, and they've hired consulting engineers to prepare the permits to get the project going.

However, when it comes to paying for the work, they're just getting started, and they learned Tuesday that the process will be fairly complicated.

The county has been paying expenses out of the Flood Control Fund, which has been built up over the years. However, as Commissioner Dan Cothren commented Tuesday, the fund has no revenue source and the costs of the two projects are depleting the fund.

Commissioners have set up four flood control zone districts (FCZD) and they plan to levy an assessment on the property in them to cover expenses. They plan to spread the assessment over five years to ease the burden on property owners. Officials met Tuesday with Prosecuting Attorney Dan Bigelow to go over the procedure.

According to Bigelow, there are two major issues. First, officials from several offices will have to prepare letters and announcements of public hearings to set the assessments, and second, they'll have to set up the new FCZD funds so that the yet-to-be-established funds can legitimately cover fund expenses.

The auditor's office will need to set up the new funds accounting number, said Treasurer Tammy Peterson.

The Public Works Department will have to create a five-year budget for the zones.

Assessor Bill Coons will have to calculate the assessment for each property owner and prepare a unique letter of notification for each owner notifying each of their specific assessment. The 109 letters need to arrive at property owners about the same time as the first of two printed public hearing meeting notices.

Bigelow commented that the letter needs to have very specific language. To avoid confusing property owners, the officials agreed to write a second letter explaining the processing in greater detail.

The actual funds for the budget have complications of their own.

Because they're new, they can't simply pay bills when they finally have funds, for the expenditures were originally attributed to the Flood Control Fund.

Officials eventually settled on the concept that they would establish four separate funds for each of the four areas covered in the erosion control area. Then they would bill the Flood Control Fund for expenses.

"I can write the papers, but the only question would be if the state auditor's office would accept it," Bigelow said.

The officials said they would begin working on the different tasks with a goal of having the public hearings at the end of August and getting the FCZD funds going soon after.

The four FCZD's are Cape Horn, East Sunny Sands, North Welcome Slough and Ostervold Road.