Four interns presented the county's pilot eight-week summer internship program at the Aug. 5 Yakima County Board of Commissioners meeting, describing rotations across departments, facility tours and communications work including an ARPA project summary.

Henry Roberts, an intern assigned to District Court probation, described learning to use LawBase and other software and interacting with people on community supervision. Sarai Andrade, the human resources intern, said she completed a nine-page work-aid and helped expand the county's LinkedIn presence. Gavin, the assessor's office data-quality intern, described field work with agricultural, commercial and residential appraisers and GIS mapping tasks. Belle Velasquez, the ARPA outreach and communications intern in the commissioners' office, said she interviewed eight organizational leaders about ARPA-funded projects and produced a 12-page report and website content using CivicPlus.

Velasquez told the commissioners she was reporting on county ARPA funding and said the county "received about $48,800,000 from the federal government to help improve our community." She said she drafted interview questions, conducted the interviews and used transcripts to author short project summaries for the county ARPA webpage.

The interns also described facility tours that included the Terrace Heights Landfill, the coroner's office, the Yakima County jail and the sheriff's office canine units. Commissioners thanked the interns and county staff for organizing the pilot cohort and encouraged wider participation in future cohorts.

Ending: Commissioners congratulated the interns and asked staff to share the slide deck on request. The commissioners said they will continue to support internship opportunities that give students hands-on exposure to local government work.