The Chehalis Basin Flood Authority has asked the Grays Harbor County commissioners to put off plans for using eminent domain to condemn two parcels along the Wishkah River in order to move forward with a potential multimillion dollar flood protection wall along Wishkah Road.
The move comes as one of the landowners says it’s the county that has stalled on negotiations, and he’s still willing to talk about coming up with a fair price. The landowner also questioned the motives of one of the main backers of the flood wall because they’ve been in a neighbor dispute for years.
On Monday, the county commissioners spent close to 50 minutes in executive session talking about how the county could implement its eminent domain to condemn the property, a move that would require the county to take the landowners to court. The public was not allowed at the closed-door session. During the afternoon meeting, County Commission Chairman Frank Gordon read a statement, “The commissioners are continuing to work with the property owners on acquiring the property.”
Jim Kramer, a facilitator for the Chehalis Basin Flood Authority, which is providing the state funds to purchase the right of way for the flood project, asked the county to hold off on any eminent domain plans until a future meeting.
Members of the Flood Authority talked about the situation during their Sept. 18 meeting.
“Over the past several years, the Flood Authority has advocated for projects that reduce flood damage and build community support for the long-term actions needed to address the basin-wide flood problem,” Kramer wrote. “The Flood Authority is concerned that controversy over using (eminent) domain to acquire properties for the Wishkah project may divide the community and affect the broad support needed for long-term solutions. The Flood Authority requests that you postpone a decision on condemnation until you can meet with Flood Authority and discuss the strategy to address community concerns.”
Gordon, who has advocated the use of eminent domain to advance sale negotiations, says he has no plans to make a motion to start the process until one of the commissioners is able to meet with the Flood Authority, which consist of jurisdictions across Lewis, Thurston and Grays Harbor counties. The Flood Authority next meets on Oct. 16 and Nov. 13.
County Commissioner Wes Cormier says he’s philosophically opposed to taking someone’s property. That makes County Commissioner Herb Welch the deciding vote. Welch has said he’s leaning against implementing the eminent domain process, but is open to the idea and willing to learn more about the steps necessary to get there.
Landowner Frank Kirsch, who lives nearby and has been pushing for flooding solutions for years, has asked for the county commissioners to condemn the properties if the property owners are unwilling to sell. He has said if the county won’t use eminent domain, the county should turn the properties over to a state agency, which might be willing to do it.
Consultant Ryan Bartelheimer told the county commissioners on Sept. 15 that he’s already checked with the state Department of Fish & Wildlife and the state Department of Natural Resources and neither agency is interested in pursuing a condemnation option.
That could leave it up to the county to either pursue eminent domain or kill the project. Cormier says he’s in favor of just killing the project.
But Gordon views the project as necessary to keeping Wishkah Road open for emergency access and for the landowners.
Bartelheimer told the county commissioners he looked to see if the flood wall would be possible without buying the property, but found it could be up to $690,000 more to install the floodgates and do on-site flood mitigation and flood- proofing costs without the property. Design of the flood wall was already coming in at $5.5 million, according to early estimates and the consultants says the county could be on the hook for extra costs.
One parcel needed for the property consists of 12.98 acres and has a one-story home, built in 1980. The Assessor’s Office appraised the property in 2013, saying both the building and property is valued at $29,960. The independent appraiser found a previous sale in the area in 2013 for $43,000 and valued the property at $50,000.
The county offered $60,000 for the property — $10,000 more than the appraisal. The landowner came back and countered at $100,000. That’s three times more than the value from the Assessor and twice as much as the independent appraiser’s value.
Another parcel was valued by the Assessor in 2013 at $10,920. But owner John Schultz tells The Vidette that the value is far below the $65,000 he paid for it in 2002. He thought the value was so low because he has some timber in a designated forestland program geared to give him a property tax break. The property has a one-story mobile home built in 1968, plus the timber.
The independent appraiser valued the land at $72,500, which is what the county offered the landowner. Schultz, in turn, said he’d be willing to take $250,000. But, he says that number just came off the top of his head.
“They wanted a number,” he said. “I gave it to them. As soon as I gave them that number, the negotiations ended for whatever reason.”
Schultz says he doesn’t want to move. He likes his home.
“I’ve lived here for 11 years,” he said. “I’m 57 years old and it will be impossible for me to find another place at the river for what I paid for this property. The property isn’t for sale, but if they really want it, they need to pay for it.”
Schultz says he wants to get an independent opinion of what his timber is valued at. The county’s appraiser valued it at more than $7,000. He thinks that value is off. The county also says it’s questionable if some of the timber can be logged since it’s in a wetland area.
“What do you think it would be worth for me to pack up my entire life and the amount of time I’d be out of work for two months?” said Schultz, who is a mechanic. “There’s also all the improvements I’ve been doing. Bottomline is it’d be impossible to find this place again. … I threw a number out there as a starting point in my mind.”
Schultz said he’d been advised by Flood Authority Chairwoman Vickie Raines during a recent conversation to come up with a line item inventory of costs he would have to bear, such as missing work and moving expenses and tally all of that up for the county.
NEIGHBOR DISPUTE
Schultz also alleged that Kirsch, who is pushing for the Flood Authority project, has another motive.
“The Kirsches and I just don’t get along,” he said, providing a stack of documents showing more than 100 calls that Kirsch and his wife had made to 911, mainly about noise violations.
The records show that out of those dozens of calls, Schultz was cited twice by the Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office. He was able to get one of the citations dismissed, but had to pay $450 on the other one.
“They are complaining all the time,” Schultz said. “I cleaned up junk cars and they called the EPA. They called the Corps of Engineers and say I was destroying wetlands. These people have done everything in their power to try to cause me to lose my property. After none of that worked, Frank Kirsch got on the Wishkah River project. They’re trying to tell me to get the hell off my property after 11 years.”
Records at the Sheriff’s Office confirm that Kirsch and his wife have called dispatch more than 100 times, with most of those noise ordinance violation complaints dating back to 2007. At one point, Kirsch attempted to get a “No Contact” order in Grays Harbor District Court, but the judge threw the case out for lack of evidence.
The records show that besides the noise violation issues, Schultz has been in trouble since 2007. Before that, when he was living in Hoquiam and East County, he was arrested several times for Assault 4, harassment, malicious mischief and was accused of threatening two deputy prosecutors with death threats, according to Sheriff’s Office files.
“I don’t know what the death threats were about,” Schultz said. “I don’t remember ever being arrested for that.”
Kirsch refused to answer questions or talk about the dispute with his neighbor, walking away from a reporter several times when asked about the situation on Monday.
Schultz provided some documents to Gordon about Kirsch last week.
Al Smith, a former county commission candidate who also lives up the Wishkah Valley and is friends with Kirsch, says he’s been a witness to times Schultz has yelled profanity across the road to the Kirsches.
Smith testified before the county commissioners on Monday that the project is about helping first responders.
“At no time in the four and a half years I’ve been involved with it, or Mr. Kirsch, who has been a strong advocate for it, has it ever entered into conversation on one specific property owner,” Smith said, referring to the Schultz-Kirsch dispute.
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