You could manage a ditch in Thurston County for up to $15,456 a year. Here’s how

This week is candidate filing week. But it’s not for county commissioner, or the port, or any of the councils in Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater, or any school district for that matter.

Instead, it’s for commissioner seats at some of the lowest-profile government positions in the county, and filing week for these positions, as announced by the Thurston County Auditor’s Office, begins Dec. 15 and ends Dec. 19.

Here are the commissioner openings:

• Chambers Lake Drainage District, Positions No. 1 and 2.
• Hopkins Drainage District, Position No. 3.
• Scott Lake Drainage District, Position No. 1
• Black Lake Special District, Position No. 2

Prospective candidates must own property within the district and be registered voters. Commissioner terms typically are six years and there’s no filing fee, according to the Auditor’s Office.

Intrigued? Well, The Olympian was and reached out to the Chambers Lake Drainage District and later connected with Commissioner Eric Allen, who lives and owns property within a district that manages the Chambers Ditch, a small waterway that looks like a stream and runs for about three miles. The district boundary begins at Chambers Lake and ends at Yelm Highway.

The ditch and the water flowing through it empties into the Deschutes River, said Allen.

From Chambers Lake, the “ditch goes generally south for half a mile,” he said. “And then it starts going west, and it crosses under Wiggins Road, and then it goes through the Wilderness Neighborhood, and then that’s where it turns south again until Yelm Highway.”

Although filing week is here, the open seats struggle to find candidates, so they typically get appointed rather than elected. Allen was appointed two years ago. The incumbents who currently occupy Positions 1 and 2 are expected to file again, said Cara Bork, a former commissioner herself who now has an administrative role with the district.

When The Olympian called, she answered the phone and immediately asked if there was something in the ditch that needed to be removed, like a couch?

Illegal dumping happens and that speaks to the No. 1 goal of the district: keeping the ditch clean and the water flowing.

“The district is set up to maintain the drainage ditch, and that’s keeping it clean, keeping debris out of it, keeping invasive weeds out of it, and then making sure the water flows, and if the culverts are clear and the ditch is clear, that the water gets to where it needs to go,” Commissioner Allen said.

How does the district function?

The commissioners meet for about an hour three or four times a year, said Allen. For 2026, the Chambers Lake Drainage District property owner assessments total around $47,000, so they can’t afford to rent meeting space. Instead, they typically meet at a Starbucks on Yelm Highway, he said.

They are subject to the Open Meetings Act, so they publish a meeting agenda and have a public comment period, although so few people show up to the meetings it’s more of a conversation than a meeting, Allen said. The largest meeting he could recall was seven people and that included the three commissioners.

“We usually have coffees or hot chocolates and just go over if anyone has a problem with the ditch or if they’ve noticed anything unusual,” he said.

Although if there is a problem, they will get a call about it long before a meeting, Allen said.

The district’s biggest annual expense is the cleaning of the ditch when it runs dry in August, and the district has recently hired local boy scouts, Troop 222, to do that work, he said.

Former commissioner Bork recalled that prison inmates once did that work, but they kept getting called away to fight summer forest fires.

State law allows commissioners to be paid up to $161 per day, or no more than $15,456 per year, although that’s only if the district can afford it. If not, commissioner pay is one of the first things to get cut to meet other expenses, Allen said.

“We’re going to do this job whether we get paid for it or not because the ditch needs to be maintained,” he said.

The other districts

State Auditor’s Office information sheds light on the other districts:

• Hopkins Drainage District provides operation and maintenance to a drainage ditch serving approximately 500 acres in the Tumwater area of the county.
• Scott Lake Drainage District provides operation and maintenance of a stormwater drainage system for the Scott Lake community south of Tumwater.
• Black Lake Special District maintains the water quality of Black Lake west of Tumwater.

“I mean it’s not terribly interesting and it’s about as small as small government gets,” said Allen about the job of drainage district commissioner. “We’re just trying to keep the water flowing and be good neighbors to everybody.”

How to file

• By email at elections@co.thurston.wa.us.
• In-person at the Auditor’s Elections Office at 2915 29th Ave. SW, Tumwater, WA 98512.
• By mail to Thurston County Auditor’s Elections Office, 2000 Lakeridge Dr. SW, Olympia, WA 98502.
• All candidate filings must be received by 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 19.

Source: Thurston County Auditor’s Office.