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Thursday, May 12, 2011
Year 125 -- Week 19 -- 8 Sections -- 54 Pages --- Published in Shelton, Washington -- $1
By NATALIE JOHNSON
After years and years of wait-
ing, local racing enthusiasts will
soon have a drag strip and road
course to call their own.
The Ridge Motorsports Group %Ve had to begin the land use
was granted a use permit to begin process which is the most difficult
construction of its raceway on its process in all," he said.
property on Eells Hill Rd, bringing Powelrs group has been work-
racing back to Mason County, said ing since 2008 to get to the point
Rod Powell, of the Ridge Group. they're at now. In the past several
weeks, crews have been "stumping The entire facility should be
and grubbing," or pulling stamps ready for the 2012 racing season,
and vegetative material out of the he said.
ground to get ready for grading. Powell partnered with Joe
Now that they have the use per- Manke several years ago to form
mit, crews plan to start grading the group. Much of the 173 acres
any day now, Powell said. of land that will make up the park
"We hope that we can have rac- was once Manke timberland. The
ing surfaces, racing surfaces only, group is in the process of acquiring
down by the middle of August,"
Powell said. See Drag on page A-7
Missing
man
found
dead
By KEVAN MOORE
The body of a Shelton
man who has been missing
since April 12 was found
Saturday, May 7, in Lake
Limerick.
Shelton resident Edward
Andrew Lawrence, 40, was
last seen alive by family
members at about 9 p.m. ~in
' April 12. -
Lawrence's body was
spotted in the lake on Satur-
day at about
8 a.m. by a
local resident
and was re-
'covered by
the Mason
County Sher-
iffs Office
Lawrence dive team.
Mason
County Coroner Wes Stock-
well said that an autopsy
was performed Tuesday
morning and Lawrence's
body had no signs of trauma.
"The results are still
pending," Stockwell said.
"We are not able to come up
with a definitive cause or
manner of death yet. The pa-
thologist is going to do some
more examing of tissues and
run toxicology tests.~
Mason County Sheriff's
Office deputies began a
search of Lake Limerick on
April 17 when a canoe was
found overturned under a
dock and other property as-
sociated with Lawrence was
located in the lake. That
search and a subsequent
search of the lake failed to
See Body on page A-7
Births B-8
Community Calendar B-3
Entertainment/Dining B-3
Journal of Record A-6
Obituaries B-7
Opinions, Letters A-4
Sports C-1
Weather A-6
oI I!!II#!!!!INII
Cole Schlender, 7, attended the 32nd annual All
Saturday at the Shelton High School Minidome.
through 62 attended the event•
Journal photo by Rick Kennedy
Butokukan Tournament on
Competitors from age five
By KEVAN MOORE
e .
An impromptu meet'rag of Mason County
commissioners this past Wednesday, May 4,
may have violated the state's Open Public
Meetings Act.
The e-mail notice for the meeting to discuss
"potential department restructuring"
only went out 14 minutes beforehand
and took several elected officials, in-
cluding Commissioner Tim Sheldon,
who was in Portland at the time, by
surprise.
Commissioners Lynda Ring-Er-
ickson and Jerry Lingle approved a
measure during the board's regular Roslaniec
meeting the day before that desig-
nates Wednesdays as an additional briefing
day. Prior to that, briefings were only slated for
Mondays and regular business meetings were
slated for Tuesdays.
Ring-Erickson said late last week that she
saw a memo from Facilities Manager Mike Rut-
ter, at about 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday announc-
ing that he was bumping up his retirement
to June. Lingle said that he saw the memo at
around the same time and agreed that a 3 p.m.
meeting was in order.
"Given the short and surprising time line,
Department Directors and electeds were in-
vited to give us their initial ideas on what type
of process we might develop," Ring-Erickson
wrote in an e-mail this past Friday.
Ring-Ericksen also noted that the meeting
was on the record and the recordings and notes
are available for review.
"we got some good ideas," she added. "No
decisions were made or even discussed. There
were about ten people who attended."
Ring-Erickson's e-mail came, in part, as a re-
sponse to criticisms from Brenda Hirschi, who
made an unsuccesful bid for the commis-
sion earlier this fall while running against
Lingle.
"Speaking as a Mason County citizen/
taxpayer/voter, I question whether this
meeting violated the Open Public Meet-
ings Act. An e-mail notice sent primarily
to county officials fourteen minutes prior
to holding the meeting did not allow the
public to be informed of the conduct of the
people's business. If not a violation, this inci-
dent certainly didn't support the spirit of the
law. Fourteen minutes -- come on!"
Attorney Chris Roslaniec, an open govern-
ment expert with the Allied Law Group in Se-
attle and a co-author of"An Overview of Wash-
ington's Public Records Act," agreed.
"Fourteen minutes is obviously not adequate
notice for a public meeting," Roslaniec said.
=Regardless of calling this a briefing, or what-
ever else they want to call it, it's still subject
to the Open Public Meetings Act. They can call
an emergency meeting on short notice, but this
doesn't qualify, or they can call a special meet-
ing 24 hours in advance. They can do whatever
they want, but they almost always need 24
hours. It's kind of an odd thing for them not to
New web
site tracks
crime in
Shelton.
By KEVAN MOORE
Shelton residents can now get up to
date crime reports with the click of a
button.
The She!ton Police Department
announced that a free online crime
mapping service became available
..... last week that allows residents
to track police activity in various
neighborhoods throughout the city.
The data, which is accessible by
clicking through the city's web site at
ci.shelton.wa.us or at crimereports.
corn includes the type of crime,
approximate address, date, time and
a police case number. State registered
sex offenders are also mapped in the
program.
Users of the new servic# can also sign
up for automatic e-mail notifications
for any time specific types of crime
occur in a neighborhood. A free
iPhone app is also available and users
can access information from some
700 participating law enforcement
agencies from across the nation.
o
do that, Just announcing we're having a brief-
ing day is not adequate.~
Roslaniec also said that there is no reason
the commissioners couldn't have held a meet-
ing on Thursday, May 6, as a special meeting
with 24-hours notice.
"Mr. Rutter is leaving in June, it's not like he
was leaving that afternoon,~ Roslanlec noted. "I
can't imagine what Mr. Rutter was doing that
day that would send the county into some sort
ofanarchy by waiting to see what they could do
to replace this gny.~
Another one of the people who couldn't make
the meeting was Mason County Prosecutor
Mike Dorcy.
"Fourteen minutes notice for a meeting or a
briefing, I think, turned out to be insufficient
for a lot of folks to find out what was going on
or make it on time, including myself," he said.
But, Dorcy said that the meeting, which fol-
lowed the beard's decision the day before to
designate Wednesdays as a standing briefing
day, may not have violated the Open Public
Meetings ACt (OPMA) because the county is a
"public agency" and not a "state agency."
"If a meeting is open to the public, it comes
down to notice," Dorcy said. "If it's a special
meeting, no it's not in compliance and violated
the act. If it's a regular meeting, it might not
have been a violation.~
Dorcy also said that state agencies and
cities have different rules and regulations than
See Open on page A-7