President's Update

Chapter President | Yorik Stevens-Wajda, AICP 

I hope everyone had a pleasant fall and was able to enjoy the brilliant colors, holiday decorations, and maybe even a wildlife migration in your corner of our beautiful state.

The pandemic keeps defying our attempts to really reopen community life, which is particularly hard on planners given our profession's focus on building community, facilitating interactions, and creating great public spaces.

Planners have been hard at work helping the people and businesses of the state get by though, including through relief grants that many of us have helped the process, through innovations that we've helped implement, like strategies and online public meetings, and just by getting our regular work done through the disruptions of the last years.

I do see reason for optimism though: many of our cherished businesses, community institutions, and great places have survived and are ready to again make memories; APA is planning in-person conferences this year in San Diego (April 30-May 3) and in Vancouver, WA in October; and whether we've wanted to or not we've learned new tools and techniques through all of this that will serve us well into the future.

Looking ahead, I am pleased to introduce your chapter Executive Board for 2022:

Officers

President: Yorik Stevens-Wajda, AICP
Vice President: Judith Perez, AICP
Past President: Nancy Eklund, AICP
Secretary: Dinah Reed
Treasurer: Al Torrico

Section Presidents

Inland Empire: Shauna Harshman
Northwest: Nora Pederson
Peninsula: Kell Rowan
Puget Sound: Karl Almgren
Southwest: Sam Rubin
South Sound: Ryan Andrews
Columbia: Accepting candidates

The Executive Board meets monthly to address chapter business and develop agendas for the chapter's Board of Directors, which is comprised of the chapter's officers, section presidents, and chairs of each of the eleven standing committees.

The full board wrapped up its last meeting of 2021 on December 17. Action items included adopting a budget for 2022 and approving an updated contract with SBI for its suite of association management services. The chapter's budget covers those association support services (which will include conference management next year), the chapter lobbyist contract, strategic initiatives like printing copies of Washington By and By for distribution to schools around the state, and all other chapter expenses and services. Not counting the conference budget, which is somewhat independent, the board authorized total expenditures of about $130,000 in 2022. If you have questions about the budget process or would like to get involved in the chapter's work, contact me at [email protected].

Stay tuned for an invitation via email to the chapter's annual membership meeting. We're developing an agenda and expect to hold the meeting in the first quarter of 2022.

In the meantime, have a warm and bright winter season, and check out this fantastic data-oriented compendium of urban and regional planning resources page, listed as one of Planetizen's top planning websites of 2021. Many thanks to our own David Wasserman, AICP, and the national APA Technology Division for it pulling together!

Yorik Stevens-Wajda, AICP
APA WA President
[email protected]