The City of Tumwater Public Works Committee voted Oct. 23 to place a replacement interlocal agreement (ILA) for the Thurston Climate Mitigation Collaborative on the Nov. 3 City Council consideration calendar with a recommendation to approve and authorize the mayor to sign.

The ILA update is intended to streamline administration for the four-jurisdiction collaborative — Tumwater, Lacey, Olympia and Thurston County — by consolidating regional initiatives into a biennial work plan, permitting the executive committee to approve minor administrative updates, and adjusting greenhouse‑gas inventory and progress‑reporting schedules. “This is a replacement because we’re adapting to some changes, that and that will hopefully help us cut down on some of the administrative work so we can spend more time implementing,” City staff member Alyssa Jones Woods said during the committee presentation.

Why it matters: the Thurston Climate Mitigation Plan was developed between 2018 and 2020 and accepted by participating jurisdictions in 2020. Since then, jurisdiction staff positions for implementation were added, state policy has changed (including references in the presentation to the Clean Energy Transformation Act, Clean Buildings Performance Standards, the Climate Commitment Act and HB 1181), and the collaborative has run multi‑jurisdiction programs such as Energize Thurston. The updated ILA is presented as “adaptive management” to reflect those changes and to reduce duplication of administrative work, Woods said.

Key changes explained

- Work plan and budget cadence: The ILA creates a biennium budget and work plan timed to align with Tumwater’s budgeting cycle, allowing regional initiatives to be included in an annual or sub‑annual cadence without separate ILAs for each initiative.

- Administrative updates: Minor administrative updates to the Thurston Climate Mitigation Plan (for example, inserting new greenhouse‑gas inventory data, fixing typos or removing duplicative entries) may be approved by the executive committee rather than returning to each jurisdiction for formal amendment. Full plan updates may be delayed or canceled by the executive committee if it determines a full update is unnecessary.

- Greenhouse‑gas inventory cadence and use of external inventories: The replacement ILA updates the frequency and method for inventories. The executive committee voted to use a faster, targeted inventory approach when appropriate and to accept greenhouse‑gas inventories performed on the jurisdictions’ behalf — for example countywide inventories produced by the Washington State Department of Commerce every five years — to avoid duplicate baselines and reporting timelines.

- Budget flexibility and opt‑out: The ILA includes a provision (replicated from the REAP ILA) allowing jurisdictions that cannot allocate funds for a regional initiative to opt out of that initiative’s costs and benefits while still covering base funding for the collaborative. Woods said this change would allow initiatives to proceed when one or two jurisdictions lack funds or choose not to participate.

Committee discussion and next steps

Committee members asked for clarity about how the ILA would change routine administrative practices and whether councils retain opportunities to pull the item from consent for further discussion. “We’re essentially just building in some more administrative flexibility so that the group can function more efficiently rather than having to take months of more bureaucratic red tape to make little changes,” Council Member Althauser said. Council Member Eileen Swartout, who chairs the collaborative’s executive committee, said she supports placing the item on the council calendar but expects colleagues may pull it for more discussion at the council level.

The committee voted to place the ILA on the Nov. 3 City Council consideration calendar with a recommendation to approve and authorize the mayor to sign. If approved by council, the revised ILA would take effect according to its terms and the parties’ implementation schedule.

Provenance

topicintro: “And now moving on to the interlocal agreement with Thurston Thurston County and the cities of Olympia and Lacey for the Thurston Climate Mitigation Collaborative. And take it away, Alyssa Jones Woods.”

topicfinish: Motion and vote to place the ILA on the Nov. 3 council calendar with recommendation to approve and authorize the mayor to sign.