Thurston’s Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) received Thurston 2045’s quarterly update last Monday, February 26.
The county has a Comprehensive Plan (CP) update project called “Thurston 2045”. This update outlines the 20-year growth in the County and brings the CP up to date with legislative changes.
Washington’s Growth Management Act (RCW 36.70A) requires counties and cities to periodically review their CP with updates that occur on a ten-year cycle.
Education Outreach Specialist Miriam Villacian explained the different outreach activities relevant to Thurston 2045.
“Some of the things we've completed—we translated our flyers into Spanish, Vietnamese, and Korean and posted them all across the county. We boosted social media posts in multiple languages. We sent our flyer by e-mail to county high schools to get to the parents and staff there we sent regular e-mail updates to an opt-in e-mail list. We've posted in the Friday Five. Then there’s Thurston Insider, we had a direct e-mail to all county staff. We have monthly roundtables with the Chehalis, Squaxin, and Nisqually tribes. And then we've been doing just direct person-to-person outreach through diverse events all across the county,” said Villacian.
Villacian added that they aimed to hear diverse voices, especially from those who are only sometimes heard.
Over 500 people around the county answered the survey in 2023, which Villacian said was a “pretty decent dispersal’’, and shows an increase from the 2022 outreach.
“What we've heard from the surveys and the conversations that we had is that people love Thurston County because it's beautiful, it's rural with lots of open space and great parks,” shared Villacian. “They are concerned about the unhoused population, crime, rising cost of living, especially when it comes to housing, and protecting our environment.”
Villacian shares the county’s next steps for Thurston 2045:
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