Photo by Guy Bergstrom courtesy of the House of Representatives.
OLYMPIA—All three lawmakers from the 24th District—Sen. Mike Chapman, Rep. Steve Tharinger, and Rep. Adam Bernbaum—spoke at the legislative kickoff at the Rotary Log Pavilion in Aberdeen on Friday, Jan. 10.
“I’ll continue to work across the aisle,” said Chapman (D-Port Angeles), recently named chair of the Senate Agriculture & Natural Resources Committee, the same committee he led in the House for four years. “Ag and natural resources are the heart of rural Washington.”
The three lawmakers laid out their priorities this session and answered questions from the audience.
“This is the session of budgets,” said Tharinger (D-Port Townsend), chair of the House Capital Budget Committee. “Finding ways to do things more efficiently.”
Tharinger said he’ll continue working on doing things faster and cheaper. District court judges told him DUI samples might take six months or more at the State Patrol lab, he said, while local hospitals told him they could do it faster. The same idea applied to speeding up construction permits.
“I’d like to expand the bill on resource project permitting,” Tharinger said, “to all permitting, to save money and get to these projects quicker.”
The capital budget oversees state-funded construction projects, and he said they will expand owner-built homes. There’s a legal issue with following the Habitat for Humanity model, he said, and the new idea avoids that problem with what’s called a “land-trust model.”
Bernbaum (D-Port Angeles) echoed the message of efficiency.
“The new governor is interested in efficiency, and we need to do it while protecting services,” Bernbaum said. “The hard part isn’t finding ways to slim down the budget. It’s finding ways to slim down without hurting you. When I talk to people in the community, they talk about costs—childcare, housing.”
The 2025 session of the Legislature is scheduled for 105 days, per the state constitution, running from Monday, Jan. 13 to Sunday, April 27.