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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
January 26, 2012     Shelton Mason County Journal
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January 26, 2012
 
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Thursday, January 26, 2012 Week 4 -- The Voice of Mason County since 1886-- Published for Mason County and Matt and Carol Lettich of Shelton -- $1 Despite power outages, no 'inordinate" amount of damage done By NATALIE JOHNSON natalie@masoncoun~y,com Mason County was subjected to a brutal showing of winter weather last week, amounting to numerous power outages, service calls to fire and police departments and downed trees. Snow fell sporadically from Satur- day, Jan. 14. through the following Monday, with little-to-no accumula- tion. Many areas of the county woke up to an inch or two of snow the morn- ing of Tuesday, Jan. 15. However, Wednesday morning much of the county was covered in up to one and a half feet of snow leading to many complications, said Marty Best. Mason County director of emer- gency management. "Right now what we're doing is tak- ing a lot of phone calls." Best said. Despite a number of power outages, Best said Mason County has not seen an inordinate amount of damage from the storm. "We have a lot of trees down and a lot of power outages," he said. "Noth- ing major like we've seen in the past." Best said this may have been the worst ice storm Mason County has seen for 15 years. See Snow on page A-5 A downed tree blocks State Route 3 just north of Deer Creek on Wednesday, Jan. 18. Courtesy PhOtO ,I ,Va~ .. Courtesy pno~o Staff and students from first through third grade gathered in front of Pioneer School recently to thank the community for building their school. Voters overwhelmingly approved $5.3 million construction bond in February 1992 that was completely paid off in December. Commissioners approve Public nse Administrator Photo courtesy of Cooper Studios Forrest Cooper won the Citizen of the Year Award at the Shelton Mason County Chamber of Commerce Annual Award Gala. Chamber celebrates 9o years at gala By NATALIE JOHNSON natalie@masoncounty.com The Shelton Mason County Chamber of Com- merce celebrated 90 years of existence on Friday during its most successful Annual Awards Gala yet. Despite last week's snow and ice storms, 176 people turned out for the event held at 6 p.m. on Friday, Jan, 20, at Little Creek Ca- sino. This bested last year's record of 104 people, cham- ber Executive Director Hei- di McCutcheon said. "I think it went really well," she said. "We were a 81111!!!1J!11!!1!!1!11112 little bit worried about the weather." More than a foot of snow fell throughout much of Ma- son County last Wednesday and freezing rain, falling trees and power outages persisted through the week- end. However, five people who planned on attending the gala stayed home, McCutch- eon said. "It worked out in our fa- vor," she said. "Everyone had cabin fever and wanted to get out ... and the casino had power." The record event speaks well about the future of the chamber, McCutcheon said. "It's both a fun event and we're moving the chamber forward" she said. The chamber handed out three awards during the annual gala. Those awards were for business of the year, citizen of the year and volunteer of the year. Nominees for business of the year included the Alder- brook Golf and Yacht Club, Awnarol] Painting, Bakala State Farm Insurance, Coo- per Studios. Newman Chi- ropractic Center, Shelton Chiropractic Center, Shel- ton Life and Windermere Real Estate. Shelton Life, a weekly publication of the Kitsap Sun, won the business of the year award. Nominees for citizen of the year included Cheryl Stewart of Our Commu- nity Credit Union, Dave O'Connell, former gener- al manager of the Mason Transit Authority, Forrest Cooper of Cooper Studios, See Chamber on page A-5 By NATALIE JOHNSON nata/ie@mas°nc°unt y'c°m The Mason County Board of Com- missioners voted Tuesday to create a Public Defense Administrator pota- tion. The 2012 Mason County budget in- cluded a new Indigent Defense office. The Public Defense Administrator would head this office. According to a briefing provided to the county commlsmon, "The Mason County Public Defense Administrator serves as a focal point for the overall administration and management of the delivery of public defender servic- es for the county." Right now, the Mason County Supe- rior Court contracts with two defense attorneys for public defense, with funds coming from the county's indi- gent defense fund, the general fund, and a fund from the Washington State Department of Public Defense, but the system is not perfect, said Superior Court Judge Toni Sheldon. "No one really supervises it right now ... It's very uncomfortable for a judge to have to supervise the defense attorney and we never really had to do that unless we saw there was a prob- lem," she said. "I can't as a judge say to a defense attorney, 'Did you go out and investigate this case?' " In January 2010, the State Su- preme Court issued a decision in the case of Washington v. A.N.J. Per that decision, courts have to do more to en- sure that court-appointed council does an adequate job. Because she has to remain impar- tial as a judge, Sheldon said it is dif- ficult to do that without a separate administrator. The administration position is de- signed to manage the indigent defense office's finances, resources and compli- ance with state law. and will advise the county on public defense policy, litigation and the negotiation of con- tracts with public defenders. The new administrator would be paid on the same scale as the county prosecutor. The administrator would also take on the duties of a public defender as needed in cases in both District and Superior Court. One of the administrator's main duties, according to the briefing, will be to ensure compliance with Revised Code of Washington (RCW) 10.101. RCW 10.101 states that counties and cities must have standards to govern their public defense services. These standards, the RCW states, must include things like caseload lim- its for public defenders, compensation and duties of council, among many other requirements. In essence, the public defense ad- ministrator will make sure the Indi- gent Defense Office runs smoothly. According to the briefing, the ad- ministrator, "Designs the internal op- eration and administrative controls necessary for the orderly disposition of cases in the public defender system." The administrator will also review and screen all of the cases, assign them and monitor their progress. The administrator will also be re- sponsible for investigating complaints regarding public defense, or the "qual- ity of service." Also, the administrator will be re- quired to serve on the Mason County Criminal Justice Working Team. The county is looking for an appli- cant with a minimum of eight years of practice as an attorney, with at least three years of experience in criminal law, experience in jury tri- als and a minimum of three yea~rtk supervisory or senior management experience.