To: Property owners/clients on Chehalis Tribe SEPA/Shorelines Permit

From: Ralph E. Olson, Attorney

Re: Legal Representation

Action: To decide on new attorney or stay with Olson assisted by Tom Bjergen

Dear Friends:

As you know I became involved in the above objection to the applications of the Tribe on July 17, the last day of the comment period on the July 3 Thurston and Grays Harbor Counties Development Departments' Revised Determination of Non-Significance. I had received a fax at about 4:00 PM on July 16 from Cindy Fagerness enclosing a copy of the RDNS as I was leaving the office.

Our office went into an emergency posture so as to file a comment of the property owners on July 17 to preserve your rights for hearing and appeal. Under the terms of the July 3 RDNS if no action was taken by the Counties we were obliged to file notice of our appeals of both counties determinations by July 24 which we did.

When I met with many of the property owners at the home of Richard and Dorothy Hendricks at 4:00PM on July 30 I told the group that I did not have much background in the areas of SEPA and Shoreline Management appeals but that Olympia attorney, Tom Bjergen had told me that if we got the issue of the directions of the flooding patterns reconciled between my clients and Kathleen Burkenbine and her husband that he would take the role of lead counsel on your appeal. I felt comfortable with that as he has a lot of experience in these areas and emphasizes that in his law practice. ( I had told him by telephone on July 19 that I wanted to make an appointment to go over more thoroughly the facts of our case and that I wanted to hire him to do the rest of the appeal work. I also told him that when I met him in his office on July 22. That was agreeable with him on the condition that he did not have a conflict with the Burkenbines which was primarily due to the contradiction of which river flooded the other. We said the Chehalis flooded north of Hwy. 12 into the Black and Burkenbines said that the Black came south to flood into the Chehalis. )

I telephoned Mr. Bjergen yesterday in late morning and he said that the Burkenbine sale to the Tribe was closing yesterday and, for the first time, that he did not have time to take on your case for the hearing on August 12. Mr. Bjergen did say that he would be available to me for consultation in the preparation of the case and would be able to be at the August 12 hearing with us.

The issue that I am presenting to you is whether you want to continue with me as representing you in the August 12 hearing with Mr. Bjergen assisting me or do you want to hire an entirely new attorney more knowledgeable in the field to take on full representation. This issue should be decided by you this weekend so that I could make plans to find another attorney early next week if you take that position. It would not hurt my feelings in the least if you decided to hire another attorney. I am assuming that I could find a land use attorney to take the case and I would not charge for my time to find one or to bring him or her up to speed on the case.

I feel that I could present a reasonable argument and objection to the proposal if I had the assistance of Mr Bjergen but, as I say I claim no expertise in this field.

I did need to bring you current on the issue of engaging an expert in hydrology to help prepare for the August 12 hearing and be able to testify at that hearing. Yesterday I made a number of telephone calls beginning with Rob Schants of PeEll who has worked on issues involving the Chehalis River. He could not take the case so I tracked down the firm that has been working for a number of years with Lewis county on the Chehalis River Basin flood plan. To my chagrin I discovered that this firm is the firm hired by the Tribe to present it's engineering work on the SEPA and Shoreline Applications. I then got a lead on a resource person for hydrology in the position of the man who is in charge of those issues for King County and called him. He gave me some ideas and names.

After that I called Tom Holt of the SCA Consulting Group out of Lacey. Holt told me that he has been a hydraulics engineer for some 30 years and that in the last 5 years he has been involved with testifying in hearings such as we have on August 12 and most of the time has testified on behalf of the people objecting to the application for the development permit. He charges $ 100 per hour for preparation and $ 150 per hour in trial or hearing. I feel that this is reasonable. Mr. Holt was the engineer that Tom Bjergen was going to hire if the Burkenbine case went to the appeal hearing.

Regardless if I continue with the case or not you need to raise $ 4,000 by Tuesday of next week to make sure that I have enough money to cover the fees and expenses of Mr. Holt.

I know that this is a quick decision for you to make but since we got into the recorded adversarial role on July 17 the case has moved very quickly. The rapidity of preparation for comment, notice of appeal and hearing deadlines are driven a lot by the SEPA rules. Also, the Tribe attorney has requested a decision by the hearing officer, if possible, by August 15 as the Tribe has the risk of possibly losing their grant for the project if it does not receive affirmative decision by that time. I would say that if the hearing office decides against us we still have a right to appeal to the county commissioners or the Thurston and Grays Harbor Superior Courts.

Thank you for your consideration. I know that the issue is important to you for the protection of your property access and values. I look forward to receiving your decision and would recommend that you meet as a group this weekend so that you folks would have the benefit of hearing comments from other members of the group.

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Send comments or questions to the: Chehalis River Council