San Juan County council seeks state law to let island routes prioritize critical ferry users, pushes FAC reforms

San Juan County Council on April 27 agreed to pursue a state law that would allow prioritization — not a wholesale reservation-system overhaul — for critical ferry users on routes serving counties composed entirely of islands.

Chair Paulson opened the discussion by outlining three priorities for the council—s ferry work: creating a prioritization framework for critical users, standardizing Ferry Advisory Committee (FAC) composition across counties, and getting a clear baseline of statutory authorities for passenger-only ferries. He said the council—s goal is to be "the more informed ones in the room" when talking with legislators about ferry policy.

"One of the messages that I've gotten from folks at Ferries is we can't give any one class of customers any more priority than another," Paulson said. "But when I read the WAC, that's not true. The WAC actually identifies business customers separate from regular users, separate from emergency users." He and the council concluded that a statute could more clearly direct Washington State Ferries (WSF) to incorporate prioritization for critical users on routes serving island counties.

Legislative adviser Josh Weese told the council statute is a stronger vehicle than trying to redline agency rules. "Statute will supersede an agency regulation," he said. "There is a process in the administrative procedures act to petition an agency to change their rules, but that is difficult. Given where we are with the relationship, we need to look at a bill." He recommended the council test the concept with their delegation and ask legislative staff to draft enabling language if legislators support it.

Council members emphasized the change should be framed narrowly and practically. The councilives discussed a reprioritization that would give access to critical services such as grocery haulers, fuel suppliers, medical suppliers, early-infant support services and scheduled community medical services (the chair cited the dental van as an example). The council decided to produce a vetted list of candidate priority user categories and to present that list to legislators at an upcoming May 11 meeting with Senator Lovelitt and legislative staff.

Separately, members pressed for reforms to FACs. The council reviewed draft FAC-exec-committee language that would standardize FAC composition (moving to five members with designated local representation) and make FACs more formal partners with Washington State Ferries. Several councilors described the current relationship as "challenging in the extreme," saying FACs have been ignored and are not consistently treated as meaningful local partners. Council members said a county ferry caucus could be the vehicle to socialize FAC reforms among ferry-served counties and to coordinate a collective legislative ask.

Council next steps included drafting the priority-user list for the May 11 meeting, coordinating with the FAC executive committee and county ferry caucus, and asking Josh Weese to follow up with legislative staff and FAC exec leaders about drafting possible bill language. The council agreed to continue the conversation at its May 26 meeting, where broader legislative planning will be addressed.

The council did not take a formal vote on legislation at this meeting; members tasked staff and councilors with producing the priority list and outreach plan for the next legislative conversations.