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work to be done than there would be funding for. It was wonderful to have a group that talked broadly. The group could focus on areas that were able to secure and leverage funding. Mr. Hatton said it was the responsibility of managers and supervisors to determine how much work their staffs could take on with existing limited resources. He was impressed with the partnership, with all of the partners bringing different skill sets to the table and the group being able to take advantage of those skills. The flexibility of the group was critical to its success. Mr. Soll opined the meetings of the Executive Teams meetings had become opportunities to celebrate the accomplishments of the partnership and to share priorities, important achievements, near term goals and thinking, but meetings were not used to set policy and to approve plans. It had become more of an organization in which meetings occurred in smaller groups as needed and as work projects pulled the partners together. If the group saw the current situation as fine, it had more freedom to expand the Executive Team because it created no great burden of meeting or coming to consensus on priorities. The real work was being done locally. He asked what would change if the group was expanded to a Rivers to Ridges Partnership. It was more important that the partners present at today's meeting be clear to the other partners about their interests and commitment they intended to make. Although funding availability may be somewhat out of the control of the partners, the members did have control of their commitment and sense of what they would like to accomplish. Over time, things would change. The group did have control of its goals for the current period. Ms. Erickson said she would like to see a unique synergy to develop as there had been in the early days of the Executive Team. The infusion of other groups was important. The roles would be less policy, as had occurred in the wetlands. She would like to see a focus on the overall state of the effort on an annual basis, and then a determination of what strategic policies and alignments could build over time. A frank discussion about accomplishments as well as identification of areas that were not working well was needed. She identified farmland as an area that was not being addressed. There was not a farmland trust in the area, and existing organizations did not have the ability to address those issues. She asked if a small group of citizens could be asked to track that information. She wanted the big challenges and the state of the effort to become the focus that would hopefully lead to some policy pieces. She encouraged a stronger importance emerging at the executive level. Responding to Mr. Soll, she saw the effort occurring at the annual WET meeting that featured presentations. She suggested allowing a small colloquial in which presentations could be made to WET. She thought some of the teams suggested by Mr. Moll could line up and did not necessarily represent individual meetings. Action oriented agendas could be developed in which a range of topics could be discussed and individual participants did not feel the need to attend a entire meeting, but only for those issues that pertained to them. Mr. Soll said there was value in Ms. Erickson's suggestion. He noted the Sandy River Basin Partners was a core group that consisted of a watershed council, a couple of land trusts, and several agencies. Some of whom were implementers while others were regulators. They met around a core issue, a habitat conservation plan the City of Portland was developing for the Bull Run Watershed. The project drew interested groups together to solve the problem that they shared and had a vested interest in developing something. The plan was about to be approved by the City of Portland and would move into an implementation phase. After the group finished that task, there was a decision made that the partnership had much broader potential. The lead policy team met approximately every two months, as needed. The technical teams reported to the larger group. This provided a means to discuss issues and assign them to technical teams to problem solve and bring ideas back to the policy team. This seemed similar to the current situation with WET. Although it would mean more meetings, they could become productive work sessions and a celebratory meeting could still be held annually. MINUTES— Wetland Executive Team September 4, 2008 Page 4