Looking back at '22, ahead to 2023

It has been an amazing year here in the City of Shelton. Looking back on this year and the accomplishments of the city, I want to highlight a few items that will have a direct impact on the quality of life for the community members and businesses that we do our best to support.

Everything we work on at the city, ideally, ties back into at least one of your City Council’s strategic goals. The City Council met in March of this year to review and update these goals through 2025, and you can find the full list on our website. In short, our three primary goals are to clearly define the future (through proactive planning and transparent financial plans), focus on community safety (making sure public safety services are funded and staffed appropriately), and engage the community (communicating about different city projects and investing in technology).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the city received $2.97 million in federal funding to help our community. We invested these dollars into our Western Gateway project, a major community upgrade. This project will improve pedestrian access and traffic flow along Railroad Avenue from 8th Street through Pacific Court, and add a new transit stop in partnership with the Mason Transit Authority.

With this project, we were also able to upgrade the water line and start planning for a future paved trail that will run from Kneeland Park out to U.S. Highway 101. Upgrading the water main along Railroad is a major achievement for us because some of that line (along with the valves associated with it) were first installed in the 1940s! Maintaining our infrastructure and keeping pace with growth, particularly for water services, is a core city government responsibility.

We have received a Safe Routes to School grant, as well as completing the first Local Road Safety Plan in Shelton’s history, which generated over $1.1 million in grants for traffic improvements in our community and will improve pedestrian safety, especially for our students.

In 2022, we also successfully implemented EnerGov, our new online permitting tool. EnerGov has increased our efficiency and reduced our timeline to issue a single-family home permit. Applicants are able to track their permit’s progress from anywhere.

Our Parks and Recreation department launched a new summer program this year, Movies in the Park, which began in July. Held in Kneeland Park on those warm summer Friday evenings, it was a fantastic opportunity to spend time in the community and enjoy time with family.

Municipal Court successfully obtained a grant to implement a therapeutic court program, intended to help individuals stay out of criminal courts by providing holistic, coordinated community support in a nine to 12 month program.

A major, ongoing issue we have begun to address in 2022 is our police officers’ ability to hold people in our community accountable. For several years, our officers have been unable in many circumstances to place people in our local jail facility, due to a variety of factors. Your City Council saw this problem and acted on a short-term solution by partnering with the Nisqually Corrections Center.

Unfortunately, the city will spend some of our desired general fund reserves to fund this program. Because we are using reserve funding, the city will only be able to maintain this partnership in 2023. We are committed to working with our partners at Mason County to find a sustainable, long-term solution to this jail capacity problem.

Finally, we convened a Homelessness Task Force to include a wide diversity of perspectives on the homelessness issue in our community and potential actions the city could take. The Task Force met six times throughout the summer and early fall and developed short-, medium- and long-term recommendations, including a mitigation site and a designated crisis responder to directly address homelessness in Shelton. You can find more information about the Homelessness Task Force on our website.

I am also happy to report that the city has received grant funding for a Designated Crisis Responder in 2023 through a partnership with the Association of Washington Cities.

That’s by no means all we were able to accomplish in 2022 with the fantastic group of committed team members working throughout the city, just the highlights, and I should take some of this space to mention a few projects we are looking forward to in 2023.

We are continuing to implement the automated meter infrastructure for your water meters. Once completed, you’ll be able to track water use in real time and our crews will be able to determine if you have a leak almost instantly. Also, we’ll be working to repave and maintain some critical road links on Olympic Highway North and Wallace Kneeland Boulevard. We must take care of what we have, or it will be more expensive to repair or replace it later. We will also be replacing the line from our Well 1 to the high school tank to ensure safe drinking water for our community during the coming years, and we’ll be constructing three of the traffic safety improvements that are a direct result of the Local Road Safety Plan mentioned earlier.

We’ve had a busy 2022 and we are looking forward to a busy 2023 providing the services you expect and deserve. As always, if you have any questions on any of these programs or projects, let us know! We’re always ready to listen and discuss what is happening with your city government.