YEAR IN REVIEW 2023 - JANUARY

JANUARY 2023

The Shelton City Council on Jan. 3 made a preliminary move to buy land on Olympic Highway North for a new sewer lift station.

The council voted unanimously to purchase parcels by two landowners at Olympic Highway North and A Street for $405,000. The council can make the move official at its Jan. 17 meeting.

The North Division Sewer Life Station would redirect most of the wastewater flow in the northwest sections of the city and pump to the membrane treatment plant near Sanderson Field.

According to the report from the city’s public works department, the property purchase demonstrates the city’s commitment to the proposed comprehensive plan capital improvement projects “and can be helpful for the City to secure future grant funds to construct the $9.2-million lift station and force main project.”

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Before he served four terms as Mason County Sheriff and retired in January, Casey Salisbury was a hometown boy who played guitar in a rock band, caught passes and returned kicks for the Shelton High School Highclimbers, cruised Evergreen Square in his cherry red 1968 Mustang, and was inspired by Shelton coaches, cops and teachers.

Being the top law enforcement officer in a community where you grew up is a “yin and yang” experience, says Salisbury, who retired this month after 16 years as sheriff. He recognizes most people when he walks into a room.

“They know everything you did well, and every mistake you ever made,” Salisbury said in an interview with the Journal.

“There’s a tremendous advantage to growing up here, and an equal disadvantage, because everyone knows your business, and everyone knows your business.”

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The City of Shelton is planning to move its congested public works laydown yard from behind Loop Field and Evergreen Elementary School to a wooded 5-acre site that houses Well #1 at Shelton Springs Road and North 13th Street.

The laydown yard would just be the start for the transformation of the triangle-shaped piece of land just north of Mason General Hospital.

“All public works would be combined in one center,” Public Works Director Jay Harris on Jan. 17 told the Shelton City Council. The project would be conducted in three phases over the next nine years.

For 75 years, the city’s public works yard has been located on 2.6 acres at 1000 West Pine St. The yard is home to fleet repair, water and street operations, parks supplies, facilities maintenance, diesel and gas fueling station, employee and fleet parking, and materials storage.

“The problem is it’s a couple acres shy of room we need in which to correctly operate,” Harris said. “We have a bunch of people, they’re housed at the wastewater treatment plant, so the goal is to build a larger facility, not immediately, but over an extended period of time, we’ll work our way into it.”

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Lauren Gilmore, a research analyst for the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, is the new member of the Shelton School Board.

At a special meeting Jan. 31 at CHOICE High School, the school board voted 3-1 to choose Gilmore from five applicants to replace Marty Best on the five-member board.

Best was the vice chairman of the board when he died on Nov. 20. He was 67. Best joined the board in 2021 and represented District 2.

Best was appointed to the five-member board in September 2021 to replace Lynn Eaton, who resigned that June after moving out of the director district. Best won a new term in the Nov. 2 general election. Gilmore will complete that term.

The other applicants for the position were Andrew Wilford, Shannon Williams, Jonathon Isham and Ross Gallagher.