The Jefferson County Department of Community Development will close its operations to the public next week for staff development, team building and training.

The closure is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 13 through Friday, Sept. 17.

Department of Community Development Brent Butler said the shutdown is “the beginning of a multi-year effort to educate, mentor, reenergize and retool the department, making it more customer-oriented.”

Butler is also considering extending current permit deadlines to ease the backlog created by the pandemic.

Permits may be extended for two years, and self-certification for some building inspections is being considered, as well.

County officials noted the department had more permits in 2020 than any other year on record and that impacted the amount of time applicants had to wait. 

The high volume and backlog led to uncertainty over the length of the permitting process.

Butler said he wants to determine potential wait times and manage people’s expectations in advance.

“Should we extend permits that would have expired during the pandemic for two years?” Butler posited. “For a time, people who were doing projects might have been frightened to work with others because of COVID exposure issues.”

During next week's closure, the Department of Community Development's planning unit will focus on subject-matter expertise in areas that include wetlands, housing, floodplain, master planned resorts, and mining. 

Butler said he plans to pair DCD team members experienced in those areas with others for training and mentoring.

“We need to mentor our team,” he said. “We’re trying to set up redundancies so that every person has a second so response to customers is with a trained specialist.”

The DCD's building/fire marshal unit will center on training during next week's shutdown, given the upcoming retirement of the senior building official who has 25 years of experience.

Butler said a self-certification process is being considered for permits dealing with life-safety issues. It will allow inspectors to certify some permits by photo or video rather than having staff travel to on-site inspections. 

Butler said other municipalities have successfully used such a process.

“We should always have someone available,” he explained. “If there's no building official for a citizen emergency, self-certification is an important alternative. We’re trying to find ways to reduce the workload in this department."

Community members who have questions about the week-long closure, or wish to comment on the proposal to extend permits for two years to coincide with the pandemic, can email dcd@co.jefferson.wa.us.

“We're looking forward to comments from the public,” Butler said.