The Lewis County 911 Executive Board is getting off the ground as it looks to establish operating guidelines and other essentials in its first two meetings.
Lewis County 911 Executive Board Chair and Centralia Police Chief Andy Caldwell called the board's second meeting to order in the Board of Commissioners Hearing room on the second floor of the Lewis County Courthouse in Chehalis on Wednesday, Aug. 20. During the meeting, the board addressed three main objectives essential to establishing the new government entity: budget, bylaws and hiring an executive director.
All seven voting members of the executive board were present at the meeting, including Caldwell as well as Vice Chair and Winlock Fire Chief Richard Underdahl, Lewis County Commissioner Scott Brummer, Lewis County Sheriff Rob Snaza, Centralia City Manager Michael Thomas, Chehalis City Manager Stacy Denham and Lewis County Fire Protection District 6 Commissioner Jim Martin. The board members nominated the board's chair and vice chair in its first meeting on Wednesday, July 16.
The meeting started with a discussion about the Lewis County 911 budget ahead of the Lewis County budget process. Since the 911 center relies on Lewis County as its fiscal agent, it will be expected to participate in the county's ongoing budget process. Most county departments submitted budgets earlier in the week.
The executive board discussed upcoming expenses, including infrastructure upgrades to nearby communication towers, as well as the purchase of a new truck to use for infrastructure maintenance and the cost of a necessary software update.
In addition to expenses, the board voted to establish a new financial policy that will require the new entity maintain three months of operational expenses equivalent to roughly $1 million in its operational account while the rest will roll over to a capital account. The required minimum for the operations budget may rise in future years to maintain a minimum of three months operating expenses. The capital account will allow the funds held there to collect interest and will be reviewed every year on March 31.
Next, the board discussed bylaws, which will lay out the operational structure of the new 911 entity. Bylaws are necessary to establish chain of command, operational responsibility, board procedure and more. Currently, the board relies solely on the language of the interlocal agreement that established the new local agency for guidelines on procedure and operations. Lewis County Commissioner Brummer emphasized the importance of getting the bylaws right and properly integrating them with the interlocal agreement, especially for a new and important part of the local government.
“Hopefully our new director will have insight and be familiar with and provide a lot of input for that, because the devil’s always in the details, right?” Brummer said. “We’re going to rely heavily on these, especially starting out as a brand new executive board and with such a major change in the way that 911 is managed, and so it's going to be important to carefully construct these bylaws.”
In its first two meetings, the board has received copies of bylaws for similar 911 communications systems in other counties, including Cowlitz, Mason and Grant. Caldwell asked board members to point out parts of those bylaws they would like to emulate to provide direction to staff creating the bylaws.
“I think hopefully we hire somebody with experience that can see the pitfalls that maybe some of us are missing that can identify the problems,” Caldwell said. “It would be nice to see somebody in that role be able to advise us.”
Board members have also stressed that they will wait to make any bylaws permanent until the hiring of a new executive director. The board unanimously agreed that they would like input from the new executive director, who will be more familiar with the daily operations of Lewis County’s newest emergency responder resource.
Finally, that brought the executive board members to a short discussion on the continued recruitment effort for a new executive director. While the board members agreed that one candidate would not move forward in consideration at its first meeting in July, they announced that they will conduct three more first round interviews on Aug. 29 where candidates will speak with a panel assembled from the executive board members.
The initial meetings of the Lewis County 911 Executive Board are the latest development in a years-long saga of Lewis County attempting to revitalize its 911 communications systems. The new 911 communications board finds its origins in a 911 sales and use tax passed by Lewis County voters in November 2024 after failing the year before.
The new levy is a .2% sales tax that provides the bulk of the funding for the countywide 911 call center. According to the original 2025 budget proposed by a Lewis County Board of Commissioners resolution, the tax is expected to bring in more than $3 million in 2025.
Just a month after the funding passed, the Lewis County Board of Commissioners approved a resolution approving the interlocal agreement that officially established Lewis County 911 as a cooperative government entity including the Lewis County Sheriff's Office, eight cities in Lewis County and 17 fire districts across the county. According to the language of the interlocal agreement, the participants who have signed are committed for three years with chances to extend or opt out after that time.
