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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
June 29, 1978     Shelton Mason County Journal
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June 29, 1978
 
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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?