Shelton and surroundings
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10/31/2014
I moved to Shelton, from Seattle 12 years ago and liked the small-town feel w its surrounding natural beauty of the S Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula, yet close proximity to major cities. The tragedy of Shelton for its residents, so it seems, is that it is heavily dominated by a'Good-ol'Boys' network of petty local powerbrokers, dominated by the timber [Simpson] and shellfish [Taylor] harvesting industry and their cheerleaders in the realestate community and local/county gov. eager to sell out public interests for the [false] promises of quick 'big money' coming to town, as we've seen in the case of a narrowly [and amazingly] defeated biomass/mass-polluting incinerator plant [Adage], they tried to bring in 'under the radar screen'. Since Wallmart established its '$uper center', many businesses have closed and one can almost hear a giant sucking sound of many million$ being syphoned off, leaving the area to Wally's H.Q in Bentonville, AR... in exchange for a handful part-time/minimum wage jobs and a year-end 'charity' donation to the community. I forgot to mention the other two major local'industries' capable of keeping their parking lots full 24/7, aside from WMT, i.e. the State prison and Little Creek Casino!
That would be a disservice to anyone contemplating a move to Shelton, where realestate prices still lag far behind nearby Olympia, as do prevailing levels of education and appreciation for what's left of our natural surroundings!
Whether the result of generations growing up in an environment dominated by industries that depend on stripping and extracting the bounty of nature for their own easy profits, or the lack of local opportunity to engage in more constructive activities and behaviors, than'doing meth'or driving to-and-fro agressively in 4x4 trucks on steroids, sociologists would be better qualified to answer...
In spite of all of the above, I've grown to love the area and share w Sandy, who moved here from Olympia, the hope/illusion or dream, that this can be a much better place once some of the 'spirit' from there finds a home in hearts and minds of people, here too!
Stefan | Grapeview, WA