June 29, 1978 Shelton Mason County Journal | ![]() |
©
Shelton Mason County Journal. All rights reserved. Upgrade to access Premium Tools
PAGE 35 (35 of 38 available) PREVIOUS NEXT Jumbo Image Save To Scrapbook Set Notifiers PDF JPG
June 29, 1978 |
|
Website © 2025. All content copyrighted. Copyright Information Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Request Content Removal | About / FAQ | Get Acrobat Reader ![]() |
By MARK LEE
Death and taxes may
rtainly be inevitable, just as
everyone moans, but that's little
Consolation when the
compounded growth of the latter
slowly pushes you out of your
home.
And if there is indeed a
taxpayers' revolt spreading
throughout this land, then
Pauline Dotson can be counted
amongst the front guard; not of
bitterness, but from necessity.
Ever since she was one and a
half, for almost 70 years now,
Pauline has lived at her family
home fronting choice oyster beds
in North Bay at Victor.
But now she must once again
sell off another piece of her land
to eat, and to cover her
skyrocketing property taxes.
This time she'll have to part
With the house her father built
seven decades ago; she can no
longer afford to keep it repaired.
"Oh, I know times must
Change, but I'd like to have
SOmething left," Pauline says as
Ihe scuffs at the worn-through
tile in her kitchen beside the
Wood stove she uses for cooking
and heating her hot water.
"But what really bothers me
is seeing the house like this,
having it start to run down after
all these years."
Pauline's father, Carl C.
Smith, built the modest
four-bedroom house back in
1909. It served as home for
Pauline, her three brothers and
Seven sisters while they were
growing up. Then, when her
father died in 1941, followed by
her mother in 1949, the house
and surrounding land passed to
Pauline, the youngest child who
s close in on waterfront native
Victor native Pauline Dotson stands amidst the roses in front of her
waterfront home. In 1959, her property was valued at $2,210. Today it
exceeds $70,240.
had stayed close to home.
As for the land, her father
had purchased the 28 acres in
Victor when he first immigrated
to the United States from
Denmark in the 1880's.
Several acres of his holdings
stretched down to North Bay,
including 600 feet of waterfront.
Today, that may sound like an
impressive amount of beach; but
at the turn of the century, when
there was but a handful of
families in the area, the claim
seemed modest, especially for a
man who made his living raising
oysters.
Following her father's death,
the oyster land was sold to an
oyster company and Pauline's
personal holdings were limited to
the waterfront property and the
house she grew up in.
Although Pauline worked at
various jobs down through the
years, by 1959 she was already
having troubles setting aside
enough money to pay her
property taxes. So she decided
to sell off a small parcel of
waterfront adjacent to her home,
place the money in the bank and
use the account to cover her
future taxes. Little did she
realize how quickly that tax
fund would be depleted.
In 1959 her property was
valued at $2,210 with a tax of
$103. By 1965 her evaluation
Huckle'berr y Herald
SF, RVING:
BELFAIR-ALLYN.GRAPEVIEW.TAHUYA.MASON LAKE-SOUTH SHORE-NORTH SHORE
Section of the Shelton-Mason County Journal
Thursday, June 29, 1978
During break principal gears up
for expanded special ed program
School may be out, but for the ages of three and 21 within "All that's stil up in the air,
North Mason administrators that the school district by 1980. South Kitsap Bremerton though. In the meantime we plan
just means it's time to begin
Vork on their educational
Programs for next year.
In spite of the school
district's current financial
difficulties, its instructional
Program for students with
learning disabilities will be
expanding _ with a little help
from Uncle Fed.
b Last year the North Mason
istrict received $3,600 in
federal grants to help operate its
learning disability program,
hich was considerably more
than the year before.
This year the district has
applied for even more of the
funds _ an estimated $7,600-
through a collective grant
SPonsored by the Educational
Service District 114.
Rodger DeBritz, elementary
Principal who also administers
the school district's learning
disability program, says it's
.%irtually a thing" that the
sure
trict will receive the funds for
ext year.
_ DeBritz says that the federal
funds will be used primarily to
COver one.half of the annual
lary for a psychologist so the
tlistriet will have a full-time
PSYchologist on its staff next
Year. Funds for the remainder of
the salary would come from
te money set aside for special
Ucatton programs.
• The federal money for which
NOrth Mason has applied ts part
fa national funding program
Unmress has voted to im lement
-- P
the Education for All
dicapped Children Act (PL
4-142) it passed in 1975.
Enacted in response to
major court decisions, the
places the legal burden on
school districts to assure
the special educational
of both the mentally and
handicapped students
nlet.
According to the law, a "free
d appropriate public
nmst be available to
• handicappe d clfildren between
Over the past several years
Congress has steadily increased
the federal funding available
under the bill to close the gap
between the measure's intent and
a school district's ability to meet
it.
North Mason's grant increase
directly reflects the total funding
improvement.
DeBritz explains that by
paying for a psychologist the
federal funds will help "prime
the pump" for further
development of the school
district's learning disability
program.
"In a way it's sort of a
vicious cycle. Most of the other
state and federal money available
for special education is
distributed on a student.count
basis. As the number of students
in the program increases so does
the state and federal aid.
"But to place a student in
these programs, the child must
first undergo an involved
,screening and placement
procedure that's time consuming
and involves a lot of paperwork
- not to mention being costly to
the district.
"In other words, you don't
get more money until your
student count increases, and that
can't increase until you screen
more students which, in turn,
costs more money.
"So we figure it's best in the
long run to spend the money at
the start of the cycle and help
pay for a full-time psychologist
to screen more district students
that need the special programs."
According to DeBritz, the
school district has fallen behind
in screening students for possible
learning disabilities because of
successive changes in personnel
and lack of a full-time
psychologist's position.
Last year the North Mason
District averaged 37 students
participating in its special
education program which runs
from kindergarten through eighth
grade. Older children are usually
contracted out to neighboring
or
School Districts, which offer
suitable programs and facilities.
Next year, with the hdp of a
full-time psychologist, DeBritz
estimates that the participation
figure could increase by another
20 students.
North Mason's current special
education program consists
basically of having students with
severe learning difficulties
instructed on individual or
small-group basis in a resource
center. Students usually spend
about two hours each school day
away from their regular
classroom, working in the
resource center. The resource
center is staffed by two
part-time teachers whose salaries
come from state and federal
funding.
According to DeBritz, the
district had three full-time
special education teachers several
years ago, but lost funding when
state requirements for paperwork
on students increased rapidly and
the district began "slipping
behind" in its screening and
placement.
As the district's special
education program begins to
expand, DeBritz says the first
goal will be to provide a
"self-contained classroom" for
the more severely handicapped.
DeBritz says that the size of
such a self-contained class would
be limited to about 15 students
and would allow time for special
instruction to increase to four
hours, or half the school day.
With luck, DeBritz says, the
district may begin its
self-contained classroom, at least
on a part-time basis, during the
coming school year.
At its last meeting the North
Mason School Board committed
itself to funding the contained
classroom program next year,
provided money is still left after
a handful of higher-priority items
are budgeted out of funds from
the recent successful levy.
to concentrate on screening more
students with suspected learning
handicaps."
Last April the district's
teachers in grades one through
six administered a battery of
learning tests to their students
and DeBritz has been busy
compiling a learning profile on
each student.
"For our special education
programs, we're going to take a
close look at the students falling
in the lower 25 percentile.
Usually we wait until a teacher
or parent requests a screening
evaluation, but next year we
hope to screen any student
found in the lower percentile.
"It may be a while before
the district has the complete
special education program it
would like but, in the meantime,
we can begin making sure we
know which students and how
many require the extra
instruction. Then, I'm confident
the program will steadily expand
with both state and federal help
to meet the students' needs."
had climbed to $5,215 with a
tax of $287.
Six years later, in 1971, the
evaluation jumped to $20,450
with a tax of $634. Over this
same period the value of her
house had only increased from
$1,085 to $2,710, but her land
had gone from $4,130 to
$17,740, in spite of the fact that
she had sold off another major
parcel of her land on the other
side of her home.
"Things were starting to get
rough, but I hadn't seen
anything yet."
Six years later again, in
1977, the land evaluation topped
$70,240 with a tax of $976.
She now has two sections of
land left, the one containing the
house and a smaller parcel down
the beach.
"I have no choice. I can't
keep up the house any more and
pay my taxes, so I might as well
sell it. I guess I'll buy a little
trailer and move down to the
other property. Still, I hate
losing the house; you should
have seen it in its heyday."
Pauline says she doesn't
usually like to complain, but it
bothers her that people drive by
her home and, just because she
lives on "waterfront," they
assume life's easy for her.
"A friend asked me how I
lived and I told him, 'It's easy -
I don't. I subsist.'
"I don't have a car, so I
don't go anywhere that I can't
walk to. And the only things I
buy are things I really need, like
food ."
Another peeve of hers is the
close proximity of her neighbors.
"When my father bought this
land, there was hardly anyone
else around. This was way out in
the middle of nowhere back then
and few people wanted to live
around here. That's how it was
while I was growing up and I got
. used to it.
"Now, everybody wants to
live here - and it seems like
they do. I feel all crowded in,
like people are living on top of
me. I like my privacy but now
it's gone. You have to get
dressed up just to walk outside."
And when a holiday weekend
comes, Pauline says the beaches
around her home "go crazy."
"You can hardly fred a place
to walk on the beach and
everybody's yelling and
screaming until all hours of the
night ."
Once again, Pauline reminds
herself out loud that "things
must change," but she's clearly
having a difficult time accepting
the thrust of those changes.
"When you stop and think
about it, this area's becoming
nothing but a playground. Which
isn't all that bad, I guess, but it's
becoming a playground for
doctors and lawyers - just for
the rich."
As for solutions to the
problems, Pauline says any
reduction in property taxes
would certainly help her own
current personal financial
problems, but it would do little
to solve the more basic,
long-range ones.
"We really need to make
some basic changes in our tax
system. Exemptions need to be
set up that would consider such
things as persons' ages, income
and how long they've lived on
their property.
"Otherwise, what's already
started is just going t'o get worse.
All the local waterfront's going
to get more and more crowded
and soon only the rich will be
able to even consider living
around here."
Pauline says some form of
compromise needs to be struck.
"I realize the land 1 live on is
now very valuable and a lot of
people would also like to live on
On the same shore her father used for raising oysters at the turn of the
century, Pauline takes her newfound friend, Sandy, for a walk. In back of
her is the house her father built that's served as home for 70 years. She'd
like to keep both house and beach, but skyrocketing taxes are making it
tough.
it. But I grew up on this land
and I've lived here for almost 70
years now. Seems to me that
should count for something."
Pauline says that just because
someone else has more money
than she, it shouldn't mean she
x has to go.
"After all, I'm not
demanding to keep all my land.
I'd just like to keep a small
section so I can go on living
where I've enjoyed living my
whole life."
For the time being, Pauline "I just take these things one
can still manage that dream. She at a time. No good to worry
still has two parcels of land left about that now."
- one she can sell, and move Like everybody else, Pauline
onto the other, says she talks the most about her
"It'll be sad losing the house, personal difficulties, but when
but at least I'll still be living on
the water."
Yet Pauline fully realizes that
it's only a "matter of time"
before the continually increasing
taxes for even that last piece of
land will drive her from the
waterfront.
she stops to consider the future
of the land she was raised on, it
makes ller sad.
"I'm an old woman.
Someday I'll be gone. But what
really bothers me is seeing
everything that's nice around
here slowly disappearing."
Pauline's prize possession, the woodstove that's cooked her food and kept
her warm for seven decades, would have to be left behind.
North Bay's sweeping shoreline. Home for Iongtime residents or
playground for the rich?