Belfair sewer meeting Jan. 10

Matt Baide | Dec 23, 20210

Mason County has announced a public hearing at 6 p.m. Jan. 10 to present information on the proposed Belfair sewer extension.

According to a news release, the workshop will be held through Zoom and questions and comments from the public are welcome. The URL will be available on the Mason County website at masoncountywa.gov.

Staff will present information describing the proposed project, project funding options and the history of the Belfair sewer/water reclamation facility.

During the Dec. 21 commissioners meeting, the item was approved, but was removed for a separate vote from the action agenda.

Members of the public testified about the public hearing. Greg Sypnicki spoke and said at the Dec. 13 commissioner’s briefing, the public was promised a public workshop and during the Dec. 20 commissioner’s briefing, it was changed to a public hearing.

“By making this change, the meeting that would have been user friendly to the public as a workshop or town hall, will be made more difficult for members of the public to get their questions or concerns answered,” Sypnicki said during the meeting. “The problem isn’t that the commissioners will have the flexibility to bring it to a vote, the problem will be the lack of flexibility to members of the public. The whole purpose for this meeting was to make the process of extending the Belfair Sewer ‘open and and transparent’ to quote commissioner Trask at the Dec. 13 briefing and the way to have openness and transparency is to have the meeting structured in such a way that members of the public can ask questions of staff and commissioners after they have talked or given their presentation on aspects of the sewer extension. If the meeting is structured in such a way that members of the public only have a certain window of opportunity to speak or ask questions, the meeting won’t be very meaningful to people who have concerns about the sewer extension.”

Ken VanBuskirk provided testimony and asked what the proposed extension is because he was unclear of it.

“I’m pretty certain it’s the new phase two up onto the plateau,” VanBuskirk said. “However, there’s still, in some discussions I’ve had as recently as last week, the proposed extension that went down the old Belfair Highway is still on the table and I thought that had died in 2015. I think the best way to do this is with a public hearing.”

Vanbuskirk said he thinks the sewer needs to stay out of the valley and needs to go up on the hill.

David Overton provided testimony and said he thinks the idea of transitioning the meeting into a public hearing makes sense.

“The county commission as well as all the staff have a great mandate and understanding that they work for the taxpaying citizens and voters of Mason County,” Overton said. “If they can’t be impartial as to the facts in front of us, then I think we have much bigger issues. I also think if the county commissioners don’t have full faith in their staff to be impartial in telling the truth to the county citizens and business owners, I think there is a much bigger issue at hand.”

After the public testimony, the commissioners approved the public hearing, but added their comments in response to the public testimony. Commissioner Kevin Shutty said he appreciated the comments today and he said a public hearing will allow the commissioners to have a dialogue with the public about the project.

“Today, we’re in the middle of a public hearing right now and nobody stopped Greg from asking two questions and that’s because we want to make sure that we’re hearing from people,” Shutty said during the meeting. “I would envision that our public hearing process is consistent across all hearings, regardless of the issue. I think that that should give people confidence that the process is being treated respectfully in the same, that there aren’t special treatment for one issue over the other.”

Commissioner Sharon Trask said she is for the public hearing because it will be open, transparent and on the record.

“So the reason I ran for office, other than my husband said that I would, was so that I could help Mason County and positively affect the people of Mason County, have everything open, very transparent and to me, that’s what this hearing will be,” Trask said during the meeting. “It will be out there so everyone knows what’s going on. There’s no hidden secrets, no hidden agendas, it’s just out there for everyone.”

Commissioner Randy Neatherlin voted against the public hearing action item, but was outvoted, 2-1. Neatherlin said he voted no because a public hearing is not a good way of having dialogue back and forth.

“It is a situation where the public talks to you and then the commission talks afterwards and they don’t have the opportunity unless something is changed to have interactions with the commission regarding the conversations they have,” Neatherlin said during the meeting. “The commissioners speak at the end, not at the beginning and the public has no way of knowing the conversations that they’re going to be having or the history that comes up because of that and the different information and sharing that.

Questions and comments are encouraged to be emailed to [email protected] before the workshop. Comments and questions can be mailed to the commissioner’s office at 411 North 5th Street, Shelton, WA, 98584. Comments and questions can also be called in to 360-427-9670, ext. 230.