2023 IN REVIEW - BELFAIR HERALD

JANUARY

The state Department of Transportation in early January used a blog post to update North Mason on the state Route 3 freight corridor project, pushing back the expected construction year to 2026 instead of 2024 as it had been projected.

According to the blog post, the Move Ahead Washington funding package included two more roundabouts for the project, which are located at the intersection or state Route 3 and state Route 302 near North Mason High School. The connections of the roundabouts will allow new local roads to be built by Mason County, but adding the roundabouts means more time is needed for design and environmental compliance.

“We fully understand some will be disappointed by this news,” the blog post reads. “Please know that building a new state route is a methodical process with many requirements that need to be met. The addition of two roundabouts requires work that will extend the process. Although these new improvements represent a later than expected timeline, the good news is the Move Ahead Washington and Connecting Washington funding coming from the state Legislature ensures the lion’s share of this project, including some new improvements, is funded.”

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Four people have been arrested in the Jan. 4 slaying of a Kitsap County man whose body was found near Camp Lyle McLeon on the Tahuya Peninsula, about 5 miles west of Belfair.

The suspects have been charged in the shooting death of Kitsap County resident Alejandro Rodriguez, 27.

Brenda Maja Hudson-Culp, 27, Breanna Lynn Stewart, 24, Crystal Marie Dodson, 45, and Jacob Elijah Joe Ualika, 23, were all arrested in connection to the murder. All four were charged with one count of murder in the first-degree. Hudson-Culp, Stewart and Dodson all made initial appearances in court on Jan. 6 and Ualika made his first appearance Monday in Mason County Superior Court.

All four are being held on $500,000 bail and all four are scheduled for an arraignment hearing Jan. 17.

FEBRUARY

Dock damage, pier replacement, potential surplusing of property and some unexpected new developments on long-standing projects kept Port of Allyn commissioners busy during their Feb. 8 board meeting.

After the port’s Hood Canal Marina dock was damaged between Christmas and New Year’s, port insurer Enduris hired a consultant and marine surveyor, with whom Port Executive Director Lary Coppola met while inspecting the dock.

Of the port’s two bids to repair the dock, Coppola expected the port to select one that week, after conferring with Enduris about which could complete the work the soonest.

Coppola noted the port’s deductible is $1,000, and reported the port has closed the dock with a locked gate, having supplied keys to the three boat owners moored there.

“The damage is severe, (but) it isn’t as bad as we first anticipated,” Coppola said. “We are going to have to make some improvements once the repairs are complete, including making the pilings taller, so we wouldn’t have the same issue with a king tide floating the dock higher than the top of the pilings.”

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At North Mason School Board’s Feb. 16 meeting, Hawkins Middle School Principal Robert Kalahan and Vice Principal Kevin Pattison introduced the robotics club and teacher Sommer Landers, who presented the robotics project that will compete at the Washington Technology Student Association State Championship in Seattle from March 22-25.

The school’s robotics team includes seventh-grader Alan Strange and eighth-graders Jackson Keller, Zanual King, Gavin McKee, Elizabeth Ordway and Yadira Solis, who are competing in the VEX Robotics programs “IQ” and “Off the Grid.” Winning teams from the WTSA State Championship qualify for the National TSA Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, from June 28 to July 2.

The students presented a timeline of their activities, which included weekly after-school robotics club meetings beginning in September, robot fabrication efforts in November and January’s deadline to submit videos of their working electronic robots and design notebooks.

The students’ robot, named “Frederick,” was a bit performance-shy in front of the school board, but the students stepped up to answer the adults’ questions. They explained that it takes much trial and error to design and program a robot to perform simple tasks that humans take for granted, including navigating through three-dimensional space and manipulating objects around them.

MARCH

Almost one year ago, after months of public hearings and commissioner debate, the Belfair Sewer project was approved to go out to bid and move forward with construction.

Since then, the project has been going great, according to Public Works Director Loretta Swanson.

Harbor Custom Homes built the portion of the sewer line that runs next to the Belfair View apartments and the Olympic Ridge housing development up to the Navy rail. Swanson said that part is complete.

The contract was awarded to Pape and Sons Construction out of Gig Harbor last October for a year, and the project is currently on schedule, according to Swanson. The total amount of the contract for the construction was $4,231,500, and Pape and Sons the balance left to build is $2.3 million, according to Swanson.

“They’re on schedule. They’re within budget. We’ve got no hiccups or surprises to date,” Swanson said. “They’ve been great to work with. We meet weekly with the contractor, the engineering team, the landowner frequently has somebody present. Sometimes the landowner’s engineer is on the call as well because we’ve had some coordination to work through as far as how the sewer alignment relates to the emergency vehicle access so we’re making sure we aren’t having to redo things on either part.”

APRIL

Port of Grapeview Commissioner Art Whitson outlined for fellow commissioners his plans for the port’s boat ramp and dock repairs prior to submitting them for review by the port’s Strategic Planning Advisory Committee.

Whitson called the repairs “critical.” He said he sought the most inexpensive and efficient solutions to the wear-and-tear that the dock and ramp has experienced.

“It may sound a little silly, but I think it would work extremely well,” Whitson said, suggesting 10-inch “stilts” under the northern legs. “We could weld new legs, but that would require a welder and building parts, which would be very expensive.”

Whitson said welding new legs would also require crews to spend time on the beach with heavy equipment, so he volunteered instead to attach log rounds to the legs.

“The beauty of log rounds is that they’re strong, they float, and they’re easy to replace,” Whitson said. “Two guys in hip-waders could go into the water, as the tide is going out, slide the log rounds in, and bolt them down.”

Whitson stressed he would want the strategic planning committee to examine his concept before any motion is made. When fellow Commissioner Mike Blaisdell asked him to estimate what his proposal would call for, Whitson said about 10 log rounds, although he clarified not all of the rounds would need to be 10 inches.

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The Port of Allyn had a special meeting April 14 to talk about its credit and its progress on the Sargent Oyster House.

Port commissioners agreed to increase the port’s credit line with Kitsap Bank after port Executive Director Lary Coppola said the port already had a credit line for $220,000, which it has used to pay lawyers and part of last month’s vouchers.

“What I wanted to to do was draw more off of that credit line — because we can’t draw any more off of it after April 20 — and put it in reserve, so if we have some kind of an emergency, or something happens that’s just totally unanticipated, we don’t run out of money,” Coppola said.

Commissioner Ted Jackson made a motion to approve increasing the line of credit up to $100,000, which Commissioner John Sheridan seconded.

Port of Allyn Commission Chair Judy Scott, who made the approval unanimous, noted the port also has Industrial Development District money, but she stipulated “that’s very specific, what we can use those for.”

Coppola said he has no plans to use the extra credit for anything specific, and even agreed with Scott that “the sooner we pay things back, the better,” but he nonetheless prefers to have that credit available, even if it’s not needed.

MAY

The Port of Allyn commissioners signed a resolution May 1 requesting that Mason County commissioners write a letter protecting Sherwood Forest from 154 acres of clearcutting, which has been approved by the Department of Natural Resources.

The land lies between the neighborhoods of Trails End Lake and LakeLand Village in Allyn. It’s part of what the agency calls the Sure Wood Timber Sale.

According to a news release, members of a local nonprofit, Mason County Justice, said the group is filing a lawsuit, alongside the Legacy Forest Defense Coalition, against DNR for what they deemed “its failure to comply” with the State Environmental Policy Act.

The nonprofit group hopes to prevent what it fears would be the removal of 99% of the trees near the homes of LakeLand Village and Trails End Lake.

Allyn commissioners had already agreed to hear an extended public comment about the Sure Wood Timber Sale when Mason County Justice co-founder Julianne Gale addressed them during their May 1 meeting, citing what she asserted will be the sale’s adverse economic effect on the area.

Gale noted that Sherwood Forest is referred to as “common school trust land,” among the types of state public lands held by DNR.

JUNE

When the Class of 2023 graduated from North Mason High School on June 9, its numbers included 32 multilingual-learner students, so this year’s graduation ceremony included a new accommodation for MLL students’ families.

Amanda Marley-Clarke, communications specialist for North Mason School District, explained how this year’s high school graduation made the first use of district interpreters to provide simultaneous translation services, through 35 headsets, directly to the multilingual families in the audience.

“The use of these headsets, and simultaneous interpretation, helped make this year’s event much more inclusionary,” Marley-Clarke said.

Marley-Clarke recounted how the district’s family engagement team tested the system, including the range of the headsets and other devices involved, before they explained at the May 31 MLL parent committee meeting how the devices would assist the real-time interpretation provided at the graduation ceremony.

“I remember, one year, one of our graduates recited a well-received speech in Spanish, and all I could think was that I wished I knew what she was saying,” Marley-Clarke said. “From that standpoint, I can only imagine what the families of our multilingual students must experience.”

JULY

Port of Allyn officials have reached a consensus on dealing with sea lions.

During a special meeting of the port commissioners July 10, Port Executive Director Lary Coppola reviewed how the port had been invaded by sea lions on its dock.

Coppola met with representatives from port insurer Enduris, who sent a team out to inspect the damage.

“We are getting bids on the repair work now, and hopefully work will get underway shortly,” Coppola said July 10. “We’ve been told there may be a supply chain issue where the pedestals are concerned, but have not been given any timeline for delivery as of yet.”

To prevent further sea lion encroachment, Coppola contacted a metal fabricating contractor about constructing a fence on the dock, with gates for boaters, for which they submitted a bid of about $60,000.

“The truth is, we can’t afford what they’ve proposed,” Coppola said. “What they proposed is fabulous, and they do great work, but it’s just out of our budget. I told them that you all were going to discuss it, and I expected you would turn it down due to budget constraints.”

AUGUST

A common perception of summer school is deskbound students trapped in a classroom hunched over a book while their classmates are frolicking freely outside.

But that’s not the reality inside Hawkins Middle School in Belfair, where summer school students are writing, animating and voicing characters as they create computer-animated shorts.

Everyone is invited to view the results at the district’s first Summer School Film Festival Aug. 10 at Hawkins Middle School.

This is the district’s first summer school since 2016 due to a shortage of money, said Laura Pugh, the district’s summer school principal. They were made possible by Learning Alliance Program funds.

The summer classes provide high school students the opportunity to make up credits, and students about to enter the fourth through the eighth grades the chance to improve their literacy skills. The parents and guardians of 300 students were sent invitations to enroll in summer school; 60 are attending classes for five hours four days a week, from July 24 through Aug. 10.

“We hope they improve their literacy,” Pugh said. “But also that they’re engaged in a positive school culture.”

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North Mason’s wrestling gym was renamed to the Amick Wrestling Center at a ceremony Aug. 19 at North Mason High School in Belfair.

According to organizer Milo Smith, about 200 people attended the ceremony, including a dozen from the wrestling team’s origin. Three of the four state champions under former coach Ed Amick were there, and the fourth had to work but called in to show his support.

“I would like to thank the Bulldog boosters for their help with this and Superintendent Dana Rosenbach and the North Mason School Board for making this happen, as well as all the Bulldog alumni who made this happen,” Smith told the Journal in a text message.

Amick was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2013 in Stillwater, Oklahoma, for a lifetime of service to wrestling in Washington State. He coached North Mason wrestling for 42 years from 1964 to 2006, compiling a record of 409-179-4. North Mason was a state participant for 36 years in a row during that span, with more than 100 wrestlers competing in the state tournament and four state champions.

SEPTEMBER

Port of Allyn officials reviewed their options for replacing the port’s pier, repairing its dock and warding off sea lions at its Sept. 13 meeting.

Port Executive Director Lary Coppola reiterated that their three pier options are to replace the entire pier with a new structure, put sleeves on the pier’s existing pilings to remove the creosote from the water, or drive new pilings, which needs to be done to replace the missing pilings regardless.

“We won’t know enough to make any decisions until we get either engineers’ estimates or bids,” said Coppola. He said even if the port can’t tap federal money for this project, “we’ll still be required to solicit bids, no matter what we decide.”

Coppola continues to work with the port’s lobbyist to secure federal money to replace the entire structure, which he expects to cost $5 million to $7 million, and “our realistic chances of getting that much out of the state are pretty remote.”

OCTOBER

Between mid-August and mid-October, 3,912 adult chum salmon returned to spawn on the Union River in Belfair.

That’s the count at the adult fish trap operated by the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group in Belfair on state Route 300. That’s the fourth highest total counted in years when the fish were not supplemented on the river, said Josh O’Hara, the salmon and steelhead biologist for the group.

“It was definitely a good year,” he said.

The annual counts have been conducted since 2000. The higher counts in non-supplemental years were 6,479 in 2021, 5,810 in 2017 and 5,363 in 2022.

The decrease from last year is not startling, O’Hara said. The parent group of this year’s summer chum adults is from 2019, when 1,887 returned, then an estimated 69,475 outmigrated, he said. For the 2022 count, 3,628 of their parents returned in 2018, and 368,283 outmigrated in 2019.

In other words, O’Hara said, “Both the 2023 and 2022 returns were higher than their likely parent run by at least 1,700 chum.”

NOVEMBER

It’s been a long time coming.

Construction of the Belfair Bypass, officially known as the Highway 3 Freight Corridor, is set to start in 2026 and should be finished by 2028, state Sen. Drew MacEwen, R-Shelton, told a standing-room-only crowd at a town hall meeting in Belfair on Nov. 9.

The 6-mile corridor will provide an alternative for highway users to travel around, and not through, Belfair.

More than 300 people packed into The HUB’s auditorium to hear an update and ask questions about the construction project, according to HUB staff.

“This issue has been around longer than some of us have been alive,” MacEwen told the audience, prompting laughter.

The need for a better and safer way to travel between Shelton, Belfair and Bremerton was identified back in 1966 in the state Department of Transportation’s Reconnaissance Study.

DECEMBER

The North Mason School Board unanimously voted for Nicholas Thomas to replace retiring District 4 Director John Campbell at a special meeting Dec. 14.

During his interview for the position, Thomas said “being a dad” was one of his reasons for applying for the position. He said he really wants to get involved.

“I can only do so much as a Pee Wee football coach,” he said.

Thomas has lived in the area for 20 years and works in instructional design for the Navy as a civilian.

He told the board he could help improve communication with community members.

“There’s so many different opinions,” he said. “We can’t fix everything in this community, but if people can at least be heard and know they’re being heard and being acknowledged…we can at least have a public discussion about these things.”