County working with lobbyist for federal funding, adds Yelm representative to solid waste committee

At a meeting yesterday, January 23, the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) decided to extend its contract with Strategies 360 to help the county process federal funding, extending its partnership to one year.

The board also appointed Trevor Palmer as the City of Yelm Representative on the Thurston County Solid Waste Advisory Committee (SWAC).

Strategies 360 partnership

The county’s contract with Seattle-based Strategies 360 will be in effect from January 2024 to December 2024 and will authorize the Assistant County Manager to sign a $60,000 contract plus transportation and travel expenses.

The company acts as the county’s legislative lobbyist, assisting the county with the identification of opportunities for federal funding and how to obtain it.

“From my perspective, this really is to benefit overall government, Thurston County,” said District 2 Commissioner Gary Edwards.

However, District 4 Commissioner Wayne Fournier asked whether Strategies 360’s bankruptcy proceedings would affect its partnership with the county.

Last November 2023, Strategies 360 filed for Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, which is known as a "reorganization" bankruptcy.

“They are going through that internal process but that does not affect our contract with them. We have the same representatives as we had prior to their internal restructuring. And our contract has an out clause — should something not be working well we can terminate contract,” said Interim County Manager Robin Campbell.

Edwards emphasized that the county needs to “watch the travel side of the agreement pretty closely” because it is “open-ended and can be abused.”

During last week’s agenda-setting meeting, Campbell mentioned that Thurston is partnering with an agency in hopes of increasing its chances of obtaining federal money because the county only had one grant award last year. 

“This is very broad, so we're going to this year go for assistance for the fairgrounds, and I think environmental support is on there, election security,” said Campbell.

The county is limited to submitting only two applications to each congressional member.

“Two applications, so I mean we don't want to waste our chance, and Strategies 360 is going to help us package it, sell it,” Campbell added.

Yelm Representative on SWAC

Trevor Palmer is the new City of Yelm Representative on Thurston County’s SWAC.

The committee is comprised of elected officials, residents, and industry representatives from each city.

The mayor of Yelm nominated Palmer to be the city’s representative on the committee.

Palmer will fill in the remainder of previous representative Joseph Richardson's three-year term, which expires in August 2026.

The commissioners also had a regular meeting after the agenda-setting.