Community Members: 

We have a lot to be proud of in Snohomish County with regards to our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have been able to allocate over $143M dollars of federal CARES dollars to respond to the impacts of the pandemic including standing up the county’s Isolation and Quarantine Site, providing rental assistance for people who are at risk of losing their place to live, administering small business grants to many of our businesses across the county, and most recently we were the first county in Washington State to open a max vaccination site. As of this past Saturday, 92,235 residents, or 14.5% of Snohomish County, have received at least one dose of the vaccine.  

As we move closer to the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, there are a lot of questions and confusion surrounding the vaccines, how to obtain a vaccine, and what happens next. I have been hearing from frustrated constituents that they haven’t been able to get vaccine appointments. Please know that the county is working hard to make sure that we have the infrastructure in place to administer vaccines on a large scale, we are waiting on the federal administration to distribute these vaccines in order to meet the demand and we are working to streamline the appointment process. To help answer questions and provide current information, we are hosting a Town Hall Meeting. 

Please join me and Council Chair Stephanie Wright on March 2 from 4:30-5:30p for a Town Hall Meeting regarding vaccines and vaccine distribution in Snohomish County. Co-hosts for the event include the Tulalip Tribes, Representative Mike Sells, Representative Strom Peterson, Representative Emily Wicks, Everett Councilmember Scott Bader, and Mukilteo Councilmember Elisabeth Crawford. The event is free and open to the public. County Executive Dave Somers will be providing opening remarks, and here are the panelists for the event who will field questions about the vaccines, phases, and logistics: 

• Dr. Chris Spitters, Health Officer for Snohomish Health District 

• Shawn Fredrick, Snohomish Health District Administrative Officer 
• Jason Biermann, Director of Snohomish County Emergency Management 
• Rochelle Lubbers, Chief Administrative Officer Tulalip Tribes 

Here is a link to the event invite: http://bit.ly/SnoCoTownHall, which will also be streamed on Facebook Live. If you have any questions for the panelists, please email them to my aide, Paula Rhyne, at paula.rhyne@snoco.org. An invite that you can share with others can also be found on our Facebook page.  

I hope that this Vaccine Town Hall will be informative and help answer questions that the community may have. Please don’t hesitate to email me at megan.dunn@snoco.org if you have any questions about the event.   

The Snohomish County Public Works department recently shared their Snohomish County 2020 Public Works Annual Report: A Year of Resiliency. County employees worked on numerous road, solid waste and surface water-related projects during 2020 including: 

• Completion of eight storm damage repair projects 

• Replacement of 11 culverts 
• Preservation and repair the county’s more than 1,600 miles of roads 
• Publication of the Snohomish County Americans with Disabilities Act Transition Plan  
• Processing of more than 560,000 tons of garbage at Solid Waste facilities and more 

The report shows how public resources were utilized in 2020 and how the county leveraged local, state and federal grants to stretch local tax dollars. The digital document, best viewed in Chrome, links out to many of the county’s webpages for more information about specific projects and services. Great job to our Public Works team!