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• ** • - . - * • • - 6 ......... •
Thursday, February 10, 2011
1--1
Year 125 m Week 6 -- 7 Sections --- 54 Pages --
O
Pioneer bond falls, Shelton
schools likely pass levies
By KEVAN MOORE
After intial counts • on
Tuesday night, all three lo-
cal school district levies are
passing, while a pair of fire
districts had mixed results.
A $24 million bond mea-
sure in the Pioneer School
District, meanwhile, fell far
short of the 60-percent su-
permajority it needed for
passage.
Only 47.42 percent of
voters chose to approve the
measure.
The 20-year bond would
have cost district taxpayers
$1.09 per $1,000 of assessed
valuation and paid for the
addition of classrooms to the
primary school to add space
for fourth- and fifth-graders
along with a new middle
school for grades six through
eight.
"The results for the bond
were certainly disappointing,
but also somewhat under-
standable," said Superinten-
dent Dan Winter. These are
difficult economic times and
we were asking residents to
increase their taxes, so it's un-
derstandable. But well talk
with the board in the next cou-
ple of weeks to see whether or
not we want to run it again."
Pioneer's last successful
bond, which will be complete-
ly paid off in December, was
passed in 1992 to build the
primary school.
Winter said that a future
bond proposal would likely
be pretty similar to the one
rejected this week by voters.
"More than likely it would
be the same package," he
said. "We can't really cut it
back anymore because we've
already taken a bare bones
approach to it. I don't see
a whole lot that can be re-
duced."
Winter, meanwhile, was
. very pleased with the levy
results and expressed his
gratitude to voters for sup-
porting the vital funding.
See vote on page A-7
Case Inlet group ques tiOns
tideland ownership
Homeowners drop
appeal, against
Seattle Shellfish
geoduck project, file
letter to DNR
By ARLA SHEPHARD
As Seattle Shellfish con-
tinues to pursue a project
that would add six 14-by-40-
foot rafts and a 360-foot log
boom to its geoduck nursery
at Spencer Cove, homeown-
ers along Case Inlet have
asked the state to take a
look at who actually owns
those aquatic lands anyway.
A lawyer representing
the Case Inlet Shoreline
Association -- which has
more than 100 dues-paying
members in Mason and
Pierce County, from Ally to
Vaughn -- sent a letter last
month to the state Depart-
ment of Natural Resources
(DNR) claiming the sub-
tidal lands under consider-
ation for Seattle Shellfish's
project are in fact owned by
the state.
According to state law,
Births B-3
Community Calendar B-6
Entertainment/Dining B-3
,Journal of Record A-6
Obituaries B-7
Opinions, Letters A-4
Sports C-1
Weather A-6
011111JlJlJl!!llllJlJO!l!lllll
• the right to possess aquatic
lands for cultivating shell-
fish revert to the state un-
less the landowner can
prove that "the subtidal por-
tions of the land had been
planted with that species of
shellfish prior to December
31, 2001."
Seattle Shellfish entered
into a real estate contract
with Toebbe's Clam Farm to
purchase the parcel in ques-
tion in February 2002.
While Seattle Shellfish
claims that geoduck seed
existed on those aquatic
lands in 2001, members of
the Case Inlet Shoreline As-
sociation disagree.
"We believe the evidence
is overwhelming that this
sub-tidal tract was not
planted with geoducks prior
to 2002," wrote David Brick-
lin, a lawyer with the shpre-
line association, in a letter
to DNR dated January 19.
Bricklin outlined sev-
eral pieces of evidence that
indicate that geoduck had
not been planted prior to
2002, including registration
forms filed by Toebbe Clam
to the state departments of
Health and Fish & Wildlife
(WDFW) that make no men-
tion of geoduck harvest.
In applying for a nation-
wide permit earlier this year
to cultivate geoduck, Seattle
Shellfish also did not men-
t ion any sub-tidal geoduck
planting before March 2007,
Bricklin wrote.
The lawyer also noted
that if geoduck had been
planted in 2001, harvest
would have occurred be-
tween 2005 and 2009, how-
ever, harvest records filed
with WDFW show no har-
vest from the area in that
time period.
The letter is the shoreline
association's latest attempt
See Case on page A-7
Port tied to
hazardous
waste in La.
By NATALIE JOHNSON
Jou/nal Dhoto oy Kevan Moore
A beautiful crescent moon makes its rise over the steeple of
the First Baptist Church in downtown Shelton on Tuesday,
Port of Shelton executive
director John Dobson received
a strange letter in December,
all the way from Louisiana, he
said.
The letter, from the Marine
Shale Processors (MSP) Site
Group in Louisiana, was sent
through the authority of The
United States Environmental
Protection Agency (USEPA)
and the Louisiana Department
of Environmental Quality
(LVEQ), and demanded that
the port pay a $4,000 fine to
help with the cleanup of haz-
ardous waste that was not
properly destroyed by MSP in
the 1990's.
The letter was so unexpect-
ed, Dobson said, that he almost
threw it away.
"When I first got the letter
from their attorney, I thought
it was a piece of junk mail,"
Dobson said.
He took another look, how-
ever, and with the help of port
employees, found that the
claims wer legitimate, and
part of an effort by the state
of Louisiana to clean up after
MSP, which had been fined
$6.2 million by the federal gov-
ernment and $7 million by the
State of Louisiana, according
to a letter to Dobson from port
attorney Skip Hauser.
MSP records, Dobson said,
showed that shipments of haz-
ardous materials originated at
the port of Shelton.
While the settlements
were large, they were still not
enough to clean up the hazard-
ous material, and MSP and the
See Port on page A-5
y 1S
Mason County Public Health
briefs city on overall health
By NATALIE JOHNSON
After listening to a pre-
sentation outlining how
Mason County is one of the
least healthy counties in
the state, city commission-
er Mike Byrne asked what
the city could do.
"What do the number
one, two, three and Other
high ranking counties do to
attain that kind of health
status? What are they do-
ing that we're not doing?"
he asked.
As it turns out, it's not
that simple, Mason County
health Director Vicki Kirk-
patrick said.
have poor health than resi-
dents of most other coun-
ties in Washington.
"The counties that rank
low tend to be the more
rural, economically chal-
lenged counties," she said.
Mason County is ranked
considerably higher, 29 out
Mason County is ranked' of 39 in "health factors,"
as one of the least health
counties in Washington,
according to a national
health ranking, Kirkpat-
rick said. Mason Coun-
ty's "health outcomes"
are ranked 37, out of 39
counties in Washington.
"Health outcomes" means
that Mason County resi-
dents are more likely to
she said.
This means that indi-
vidual behaviors in the
county have improved and
access to health care and
social and economic condi-
tions have also improved.
"If we continue to see
improvement in those
health factors, we will see
improvement in the mor-
bidity and mortality, and
health outcomes," Kirkpat-
rick said.
Kirkpatrick outlined
the many ways that Mason
County residents are not
as** healthy as they could
be.
"Twenty-five percent of
adults in Mason County
are still smoking ciga-
rettes. That's higher than
the statewide average,"
she ,, said. ?A thir of our
youth and over two-thirds
of adults are overweight or
obese."
Kirkpatrick also said
that rates of alcohol related
See Health on page A-7
No superintendent finalists up to grade
By KEVAN MOORE
Shelton School District employ-
ees have thrown a bit of a wrench
into the process for hiring outgo-
ing Superintendent Joan Zook's re-
placement.
After a nationwide search, the
school board recenlty narrowed
down its list of finalists to four in-
dividuals that made extended visits
here. Board members also traveled
to the applicants' home turf for vis-
its to become more familiar with
them and the people that that work
with them and know them best.
But in a letter presented to the
school board at this week's meeting,
members of the Shelton Education
Association, Shelton Educational
Support Personnel, Shelton Edu-
cational Office Personell and Shel-
ton Certificated Administrators
called on the school board to put the
brakes on a final hiring decision.
Zook will retire in June and the
board had hoped to make an offer
to her successor by the end of this
month.
The letter from the associations
expressed thanks for being involved
in the hiring process and acknowl-
eged that "the board takes the pro-
cess very seriously" and wants to
"hire a person that can work effec-
tively with all groups of employees
in the district."
"While we understand that the
ultimate responsibility for selection
of the superintendent lies with the
board, we would like this opportu-
nity to express to you that as the
associations representing the em-
ployees of Shelton School District,
we do not feel that any candidate
separated himself/herself from the
group."
The associations also made clear
that they would work hard to assure
the success of whichever candidate
is eventually chosen by the board.
"However at this point," the letter
See Super on page A-7
t