YEAR IN REVIEW 2023 - JULY

JULY 2023

A brush fire about 4 miles northeast of Shelton forced the evacuation of 200 structures July 4.

The fire, driven by wind, began at about 2 p.m., just west of the Rainbow Lake community near the intersection of East McEwan Prairie Road and East Mason Lake Road.

According to a news release from Central Mason Fire & EMS, the fire is burning on industrial timberland and private land that is flat and accessible terrain.

"The crews did an outstanding job of protecting life and structures," Central Mason Fire Chief Jeff Snyder wrote in an email to the Journal Wednesday. "With the help of numerous in-county and out-of-county fire resources, along with the assistance of Green Diamond, Department of Natural Resources, Mason County Sheriff's Office, Washington State Patrol, Department of Emergency Management and MACECOM, we were able to get a control line around the fire late in the evening of the Fourth of July."

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About six years after it was proposed, the Shelton Veterans Village finally opened its doors July 18 to about 150 people celebrating the new residence for 30 homeless Mason County veterans.

The nonprofit Quixote Communities operates the village on 13th Street across from Christmas Village. It features seven four-plexes, one duplex and a community building that includes a laundry room, two bathrooms, three offices and a boardroom. The group also has homeless villages in Orting and Olympia.

In an email to the Journal, Quixote Communities Executive Director Colleen Carmichael said is waiting to receive a certificate of occupancy from the City of Shelton before residents can move into the units.

"We do not have a wait list as all of our veteran residents need to go through coordinated entry," she wrote. "We are actively working with agencies in the area to get potential clients into the coordinated entry system."

At the grand opening ceremony, Carmichael told the audience the village "has been a labor of love for our association." For veterans, "your service you gave to this country deserves this," she said.

Lonnie Spikes Jr., the vice president of Quixote Communities, called the village "a small dip in a whole ocean of homelessness ... but as long as you move forward, that's the point."

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Albert Wilder resigned from the Mason County Fire District 12 at the July 18 regular meeting at the fire station in Matlock.

"At the conclusion of this day, I am resigning as a commissioner," Wilder said right before the end of the meeting. "I will continue to serve the community as a volunteer firefighter and EMT, but as far as the commissioner, I am resigning at the end of this day."

This followed the resignations of John Pais and Brian Jutson last month. The commissioners reviewed two separate nepotism policies during the meeting. Wilder is the father of commissioner Kelli Walsworth, Walsworth is married to fire chief Bryan Walsworth.

The nepotism policy was not voted on and adopted during the meeting, but the policies reviewed are posted on the Fire District 12 website.

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In mid-July, 12 cats in a box were dumped in front of Kitten Rescue of Mason County's gate on state Route 3 in Shelton.

That brought the cat and kitten population at the nonprofit to 92 felines. Add to that the 110 cats at local foster homes, and the agency has 202 cats without permanent homes.

The after-hours abandonment of unwanted cats, a drop in adoptions and a shaky economy have combined to create "horrendous" and "deplorable" problems for the nonprofit, said Dee Sigmond, the group's executive director.

"It's a major, major crisis ... every cage is booked," Sigmond said. She added, "There's nowhere to take them."

The nonprofit, launched in 1999, receives no government funding and relies exclusively on donations. Mason County provides no services for unwanted cats. A surveillance camera at Kitten Rescue captures motorists pulling up outside the gate and leaving behind animals.

"They're going to drop cats on my property, so now it's my problem," Sigmond said.