Whatcom County’s Forest Resilience Task Force met online and failed to reach a quorum, but members used the session to press consultants and county staff to tighten the plan’s collaboration framework and to set tentative follow-up meetings.

The task force’s chair, Chris, who said August will be his last month with Whatcom County before moving to a role with King County, opened the meeting and confirmed the group lacked the nine members required for a quorum. "We did not hit a quorum," Chris said, adding that the group would "hit the high points and aim for a short meeting and reconvene next month."

Members spent most of the session on the plan’s draft collaboration framework and related graphics, which multiple participants said either overstate the county’s role or omit key partners. "This section ... is only focused really on Whatcom County," said a task force member who identified concerns with the plan’s narrow framing. Another member objected to a bubble graphic that they said suggested state and federal agencies were inside the task force’s authority rather than external partners.

Brandy, a task force member who asked for the discussion, said she had asked consultants (referred to in the meeting as "Triangle") to add 5 to 10 minutes to an agenda item to focus on the collaboration framework. "I had reached out to Triangle about bringing adding 5 or 10 minutes onto the agenda to talk about the collaboration framework section of the plan," Brandy said.

Steve, a member of the plan review committee, summarized the review committee’s work on comments from the FACT (the Forest Advisory Committee/FACT). He said the review committee was trying to reconcile FACT’s strong negative reaction to the draft background section while keeping some introductory material, and that committee members planned further edits to make background language shorter and less likely to read as biased.

Tom and other members pressed for the plan to identify and describe the range of outside partners and resources — land trusts, state and federal agencies, tribal partners and local conservation groups — instead of presenting those actors as if they were governed solely by county structures. "We need to point to the county to be a leader to make all these things happen, but the county is not gonna get all this work done," one member said.

Participants discussed the comment-management process. Multiple members described three parallel "pipelines" for input: FACT comments, individual task force member comments and county staff comments. Those inputs, they said, will be compiled by Triangle and its lead editor (referred to in the meeting as "Dave"), and a consolidated draft expected to be circulated to the full task force ahead of the next meeting.

County staff and review-committee members said they expect the consolidated draft to be available for discussion at a September 3 meeting, with final plan approval tentatively scheduled for September 15. "September 3 is when everything's supposed to be as near final as possible pending one final task force discussion," one participant said. The group tentatively scheduled the September 3 meeting for 6 p.m. to allow attendance by two members who had evening availability; the September 15 meeting was left at the regular 11 a.m. time.

Because the group lacked a quorum, no formal votes were taken. The chair and members agreed the review committee will continue work on the plan’s final section and on redesigning or replacing the contested graphic. Members also asked consultants and county staff to verify and correct organizational descriptions in the draft, including details about land-trust content and county staffing.

The meeting closed with appreciation for the chair’s service; Chris said he would remain available through the month and as a private citizen afterward. Members were reminded to submit photos to a shared Google Drive and to expect follow-up emails about potential conflicts with a county open house scheduled the same evening as the tentative Sept. 3 meeting.