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Councils urge OWEB to revisit eligibility; board prioritizes capacity rulemaking
Summary
A series of watershed council directors and partners urged OWEB to revisit administrative eligibility that currently bars some councils from capacity funding. Staff recommended prioritizing rulemaking on council and district capacity grants and removed an organizational collaboration line from the spending plan due to staff bandwidth.
Multiple watershed council leaders told the board during public comment that current eligibility rules exclude councils that are small, newly formed, or organized in nonstandard ways from council capacity funding. Neil Shulman (North Clackamas Watersheds Council) and Jack Halsey (Oswego Lake Watershed Council) urged the board to reassess the administrative rules and address coverage gaps.
Courtney Schaff (monitoring and reporting program manager) confirmed the exclusion is explicit in OWEB’s 695 Division 40 eligibility rules and noted the council requests will be considered through the planned rulemaking and engagement. "This map... shows councils that do are not eligible and have not applied for individual watershed council capacity grants," she told members, adding that the 2014 board and rules advisory committee made the original decision.
Staff recommended prioritizing rulemaking for council/district capacity and shifting the proposed organizational collaboration line out of the spending plan because of limited staff capacity. The board approved the spending plan and directed staff to bring forward a rulemaking engagement process; staff also committed to circulate the specific eligibility language to board members for review.
