News From Your Friends

What’s on our Radar – Week of November 17th, 2025

November 15, 2025 in General

📣 The Clark County Agricultural Lands Study was completed and FOCC needs your help! Check out our Call to Action here.

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the 2026 Comprehensive Plan Update was released. FOCC is finishing up comments on this draft, so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can view the full announcement by Clark County here. The comment period is now open and county planners are holding office hours for questions on Thursdays, Oct. 16th-Nov. 20th.

  • Last week:
    • There was a work session on the Clark County Agricultural Lands Study. Items of note:
      • See FOCC’s Call to Action for the major findings of the study and learn how YOU can help us advocate for the preservation of ag land going forward.
      • Councilor Little, who pushed for the study in order to consider city proposals to de-designate ag land this Comp Plan update, was not present.
      • Councilor Yung indicated his wish to give more weight to certain discretionary criteria for designating agricultural land that was strongly objected to by the Agricultural Advisory Commission, whose position was summarized by the consultant as, “to use encroaching development as a justification to de-designate land, you would essentially always be chipping away at agricultural land, which goes against the purpose of the agricultural land designations—the conservation purpose of that.” You can watch the full presentation and discussion here: WS 11 13 25 Agricultural Resource Lands Study
      • Options for discussing the findings with the cities will come soon.
    • There were two other work sessions: 
      • 2026 Annual Budget
      • Vancouver UGA employment land expansion: The TLDR is that Vancouver does not want this UGA employment land expansion, but Community Planning does. Vancouver believes that the county’s work-from-home projection is very conservative and noted that the area contains sensitive land, as well as the opposition from residents around Washington State University to changing to Business Park zoning.
      • More detailed notes on both of these work sessions can be found at the League of Women Voters’ Observer Corps blog here: https://lwvclarkcounty.org/content.aspx?page_id=2507&club_id=160612&item_id=5126
      • You can watch the 2026 Annual Budget work session here: WS 11 13 25 2026 Annual Budget and the Vancouver UGA work session here: WS 11 13 25 2025 Comp Plan Update
    • Council Time items of note:
      • The Council’s fourth letter to the WA Department of Natural Resources (DNR) regarding legacy forest timber sales was pulled from the agenda for further revising.
      • The Unity Resolution was also pulled for revising.
      • There was a work session request approved for the Railroad Advisory Board to preview for the Council their upcoming community presentation to promote the Chelatchie Prairie Railroad.
    • The public comment period for Camp Bonneville cleanup is underway! More information here:
      2509069_CampBonnevilleFactSheetFinal (1)
  • This week:
    • Tuesday, November 18th at 6pm is a Clark County Council meeting. Items of note:
      • Open public comment opportunity: testify for up to 3 minutes on any topic!
      • 4th Timber Sales Letter: In response to concerns brought by FOCC regarding the framing of the Council’s position on ongoing timber sales containing structurally complex legacy forest by the Department of Natural Resources at the last Board of Natural Resources (BNR) meeting, the Council decided to work on a 4th letter to the BNR clarifying their position against the further destruction of legacy forest and to propose solutions. This will be the last chance for the Council to get the letter to the BNR prior to their December meeting where they’ll be considering the Dendrophobia and Copper Head timber sales! The draft letter is here: https://clark.wa.gov/sites/default/files/media/document/2025-11/dnr-timbr-sale-letter-draft.pdf
      • Columbia River Economic Development Council (CREDC) contract.
    • Thursday, November 20th at 1pm is a special meeting to discuss the Planning Commission appointment interview process, with interviews taking place at the end of the meeting.
  • Other Clark County advisory board/commission meetings:
    • Clark County Agricultural Advisory Commission Special Meeting Wednesday, November 19th, 2025, at 6 p.m:

      This meeting is the monthly meeting of the commission at a special date and time, to discuss the recently-released agricultural lands study, and to accommodate the Thanksgiving Holiday the following week.This meeting will be held in a hybrid format with both in-person and virtual participation options for commissioners, staff, and the public. You can join in person, at the 6th floor Hearing Room of the Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin Street, Vancouver, WA 98666, or virtually via WebEx. The meeting materials can be found posted on the meetings page here: https://clark.wa.gov/community-planning/agricultural-advisory-commission-meetings
  • Other happenings:

See you next week!
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