The Connecting Washington Task Force, established by Governor Gregiore to recommend transportation funding solutions, has begun meeting and has a deadline to finish by Thanksgiving. The 30 appointees have broad representation but no specific ferry representation (for a list of members, meeting dates and more, go here.

“The work of this Task Force is critically important,” said county council member and Ferry Advisory Committee member Howie Rosenfeld. “The resulting 10-year comprehensive revenue package will determine the direction of transportation in the state. The package will either go to the voters in 2012, go to a special session this year, or to the 2012 session.”

One of the task force’s tasks is to solve the ferry funding problem.

“Without specific ferry representation and in the face of all the other transportation issues, there is concern that ferries won’t get the attention and results we need,” Rosenfeld said. “Ferry riders and ferry served communities need to take this opportunity to keep the ferry issue a priority for this committee.”

The committee is accepting comments here. It is hoped that ferry riders and interest groups will submit a flood of comments. Each Task Force meeting will have a public comment period for those that can attend. Each member of the committee can also be contacted personally.

The San Juan County Ferry Advisory Committee will be monitoring the committee’s progress and posting updates on at: http://sanjuanco.com/fac