There has been a schedule change for the CAC meetings
The SMP Citizen's Advisory Committee schedule has slid a month, to August 26. As a result, the entire CAC schedule has now slid a month. The delay is due to complications in preparing an inventory of the local shorelines.
Margaret Glowacki, a DPD Land Use Planner, said in an email to the committee 7/2:
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In order to use your time in the most efficient manner and to meet your request that we focus the Committee's meetings on reviewing and providing recommendations on specific proposed changes to the SMP, our Shoreline Master Program Update Team is recommending that we skip our July meeting and instead add a meeting to the end of our schedule, in February or March 2009. The reason for this proposed schedule change is to accommodate a delay in the completion of our Shoreline Characterization work, which needs to be in place before other elements of the SMP update can be developed. As mentioned at our first Committee meeting, King County developed a characterization model that they used to analyze the current ecological conditions of their shorelines. King County worked closely with the Department of Ecology in developing this model. DPD, at the recommendation of the Department of Ecology, contracted with King County to use the same model to determine the ecological conditions of Seattle's shorelines. We determined that this would be the most efficient method of getting the needed information. Unfortunately this process has taken several months longer than planned due to changes in the model that were needed to accommodate data availability and to accommodate the different conditions found in Seattle compared to King County. We have been making steady progress and we are confident that we will have the characterization work completed within the next month. We are also confident that the results of the model will be accurate and will provide us with the shoreline baseline conditions needed for us to move forward with our work. The results from this characterization work are the essential building blocks for developing the regulations for Seattle's shoreline and for meeting the other requirements of Ecology's guidelines including the restoration plan. |