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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
February 10, 2011     Shelton Mason County Journal
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February 10, 2011
 
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!~i;~i~:¸ • ** • - . - * • • - 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