I want to thank Mary Bauer and Ryan Matteson for their cohesion efforts thus far to roll with the changes I’ve requested! There has been nothing I’ve asked for that they haven’t accomplished, and I am incredibly grateful for the team! Both have proven to be a valuable resource, and I look forward to the greatness we will surely experience this year!

WACA Emerging Leaders Fund – or ELF - as we affectionately call it! Thanks to the generous donations at the ‘24 Summer Meeting, we have deposited $18k into the ELF fund. It took us some time to get things squared away with the IRS and the State. Still, we are excited to announce that we now have an official 501 (c)(3) arm for member donations to land, which also means that your donations are now tax deductible and clearer with accounting, and more streamlined when compiling our taxes.

The goal for ELF is to have a charter and scholarship/donation application established in the coming months (by May) so that we can roll out the application and perhaps announce awardees at the Summer Meeting. It would be amazing if we could get some members to join a small planning committee to finalize these documents and help guide the direction of your new Non-Profit arm of WACA.  If you are interested in charity work and want to play an instrumental role in getting this kicked off the right way, please reach out to me via email or phone – [email protected] | Work Cell: 206.713.3814.

State Building Codes Council – SBCC, as they are affectionately called. This update is going to be as succinct as possible.

In short, the Legislature passed a budget proviso last session that allocated funds to SBCC for a study on Embodied Carbon in building materials. SBCC contracted with the Climate Leadership Forum, aka CLF, to conduct the study.  CLF basically replicated a study from three years ago on three buildings and put forth a report to SBCC to approve and submit to the Legislature this session without input from the industry. The report can be found HERE.

From that report, the New Building Institute – NBI – who participated in the study, conveniently copied and pasted the code recommendations for Embodied Carbon from the report and ran a proposal through the SBCC Technical Advisory Group -TAG- process with the intent of getting these codes adopted into the State Building Code. 

We caught wind of these two items a week before the public hearings and scrambled to get a comprehensive response to both the CLF report and the NBI code proposal. Ultimately, our rushed comments to the CLF report were added to the report as an addendum for the legislature to consider. The NBI code process through the TAG has been more involved, and we are awaiting the meeting on January 10 to find out which committee will be working on improving the current version of the NBI proposal. You may read the code proposal HERE.

There are some aspects that are good, such as full lifecycle analysis, but others that could be damaging. Ultimately, we do not believe that these codes belong to the state building code as they are outside the ‘health and safety’ purpose of the building code.

We have communicated to our legislators and are pushing for a process that allows the industry to be present and contribute to the conversation.

I will keep you all posted on how this situation progresses with a more comprehensive update at the Winter Workshop.

This last voting session saw the passage of an initiative out of Everett that essentially gives the Snohomish River legal standing. Initiative 24-03 has the potential to detrimentally impact our industry’s ability to provide vital materials needed to support road and highway infrastructure and general construction in the Snohomish River basin and beyond, as we are told that several other cities and towns are now within eyesight of something similar. The language in the initiative is so broad and vague that it could set dangerous precedence across the state as it does not require any real evidence for someone to file a lawsuit against a person, a business, or a municipality on behalf of the waterway and could halt public and private projects as matters are unnecessarily taken to court. This initiative also places the burden of proof upon the defendant, who, in our case, is already permitted, monitored, and compliant through various regulatory agencies.

The Master Builders have picked up a lawsuit and will be leading the charge. We have joined as co-petitioners in the case to add weight to the lawsuit. I will have more updates on this as it progresses. 

Natural Gas Initiative – I 2066 passed across the state but is now embroiled in a lawsuit as the City of Seattle and King County have questioned the constitutionality of the initiative, which has prevented the SBCC from upholding it at this time. BIAW is leading the charge on this case. The State AG’s office is in a position of having to defend the initiative because it was they who approved/proposed the title, and it passed with overwhelming support from the people of Washington. The Building Industry Association of Washington - BIAW - has asked for financial assistance on this, and because it is not a ballot item, any donations are non-disclosable.  We gave generously through the PAC prior to the election and have taken a position to wait and watch how it progresses with clear communication that we are in support of Natural Gas and the need for it. I will keep you all posted on how this issue progresses. 

This concludes my update on issues!

I will have a status update for association financials and other items at the Winter Workshop, and I look forward to seeing you all there!