Legislators speak at 2022 legislative sendoff

Matt Baide | Jan 13, 20220

State representatives Drew MacEwen and Dan Griffey and state senator Tim Sheldon were given a Mason County sendoff at the Shelton Yacht Club last Friday before the 2022 legislative session.

The event was put on by the Shelton-Mason County Chamber of Commerce, North Mason Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Council of Mason County. Sen. Sheldon, D-Potlatch, spoke first at the event and said there weren’t a lot of highlights to report from the 2021 legislative session. He said the biggest thing he believes will be changed this year is the bill passed in 2021 regarding long-term care.

“Actuarily, the bill doesn’t work. I think the majority party has finally discovered that and admitted it. They knew, a lot of people knew before it was passed but it was a partisan bill and I was the only Democrat that voted against it,” Sheldon said. “The issue is you can’t afford it and there was an initiative that didn’t make the ballot but we’re going to review it and I think the bill will certainly be on hold or on pause at least for two years.”

Sheldon said the law enforcement accountability bill will also be looked at and possibly changed. He said there were some good things, including the rural broadband bill and the wildfire bills.

In the upcoming session, Sheldon hopes to break ground on the Shelton Veterans Village. He said he got the appropriation for $6 million for two veterans’ villages. He also wants to break ground on the Belfair Bypass.

“We’re not going to accept phasing the project. Phasing means shortening,” Sheldon said. “That’s what they did with the improvements through Belfair, should have continued from Sweet Water Creek all the way to (state Route) 106 and that we should get finished as well.”

Sheldon also said he hopes to pass a bill to allow fire districts to use their own treasurer instead of going through the city or county for money.

Rep. Dan Griffey, R-Allyn, said last year was tough and talked about his speech on the floor about the police reform bill.

“I said there were going to be rivers of tears cried because of the bills we passed this day,” Griffey said. “We didn’t help sexual-assault survivors with that bill, we didn’t help people that were murdered, the families, we didn’t help law enforcement be proactive in policing, we didn’t do any of those things. It was a terrible bill. We fought the entire session to, it was several of us, we fought the entire session to say no, the unintended consequences of those bills are going to be terrible for everyone. Now the majority party has asked us, because I serve on the public safety committee, my ranking member and the rest of the public safety committee, how do we fix this bill? We can’t deal with the backlash anymore. I’ll tell you what, between that and the long-term health tax, we know that the majority party will listen to people because they have backed down on both of those policies and are actually asking for help so this is good news.”

Griffey said because the last session was virtual, it was easier to pass bills with the majority instead of bills that had due diligence. He said he wants last year to “be in the rearview mirror” and one of the first bills that will be passed after negotiations is to put the “genie back in the bottle” when it comes to law enforcement reforms.

He said House Republicans will be releasing three top priority bills. Griffey said Republicans have a transportation package to restore bridges and roads without raising taxes and they are going to write a budget as if they were the majority party. He also noted Republicans have an environmental policy that reduces carbon, but doesn’t raise taxes.

Griffey also stated House Republicans put the speaker “on notice” that they want to eliminate the governor’s emergency powers. He also wants to make sure people cannot show pornography to children and says it is a grooming technique.

“I couldn’t even get a hearing last year because the majority party said they were really worried about the rap music industry’s concern with that bill. Well, I say heck with that, BS,” Griffey said. “It is really time for us to say we are going to take care of our children. I don’t care what the rap music industry says. We need to stop sexual violence before it happens. Those that are sexually violated at a young age turn into sexual predators themselves and I’m tired of it. So, I will be very loud again on this, but it is time we all put our feet in the ground. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, the right is right now. We’re not going to protect the rap music industry in Washington state, we’re going to protect sexual assault survivors.”

Rep. MacEwen, R-Union, said it was not a good session last year, specifically mentioning the way session was conducted remotely.

“When we have public hearings, yeah, people sign in, they give their testimony. Granted, it’s only a minute, sometimes it’s three minutes depending on the complexity of a bill but what’s more important is when you’re sitting there and you look out at a group like this, and called into a hearing room, and you can read people’s faces,” MacEwen said. “You can tell what they’re thinking and then the committee adjorns and you go out in the hall and you get grabbed and all of these people who testified are telling you their thoughts and that was totally lost and I firmly believe the majority party took advantage of that. They raised your taxes a couple times. They made the streets worse. We’ve done nothing to solve the housing crisis. It was just this ramrod that went through and then when we adjorned this virtual sessions, they would go to their favorite box store and go shopping with 500 of their closest people but we couldn’t figure out how to put 90 people in the biggest building in Olympia? It was not good.”

MacEwen called out Gov. Jay Inslee, saying the budget that passed last year was over $56 billion and the supplemental budget he released for this session is $65 billion and asked the crowd if things have gotten better.

“We’ve got mass inflation headed our way, what is that going to do to our state budget? We cannot continue to spend every last dime as the governor’s proposed in every budget cycle,” MacEwen said.

Mason County Economic Development Council Board Chair Joe Schmit talked about four priorities for the EDC, including infrastructure, extending the 0.09% sales and use tax for public facilities and economic development activities in rural communities, continue to support the state department of commerce’s request for $7.5 million in the community economic revitalization board to build infrastructure to foster job growth in our rural and urban communities and support and protect state level leadership and funding for economic development including full support for business recruitment, retention and expansion programs.

Shelton City Manager Jeff Niten said he wants the Legislature to look at the 10-year cap for transportation benefit districts and see how it could work better for the city in the future. He said he hopes representatives and Sheldon can help with the deck at the Shelton Library, safety and security for parking improvements for Shelton Police and moving forward with the water reclamation plant on the north end of Shelton’s Urban Growth Area and to expand capacity in that area. He said Shelton will also be investing in a piece of property to make that a reality and to eventually no longer be discharging into Oakland Bay.