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Long-form interviews and conversations from Mason County, Washington. Host Jeff Slakey sits down with local leaders, legislators, small business owners, and community voices for unhurried conversations about what's shaping the Hood Canal region — government, education, healthcare, the outdoors, and the people making a difference.
New episodes drop throughout the week. For daily local headlines, subscribe to KMAS Morning News with Jeff Slakey.
Well folks, I'm here doing a little focus on Shelton. It's been a long time since I've checked in with Jordan Krumples here with the City. She is part of the Parks Department.
How are you? Good, how are you? Good to see you. I was driving up by Capitol Hill the other day, and I passed that nice little park there. Franklin, is that the name of it? On the corner of, I think it's Art Franklin.
Art Johnson. Art Johnson, that's what it is. And I saw a sign and it said the PROST thing.
And I know you guys have been talking about it at City Council and things like that. And now's the time for folks to kind of engage in the process and talk about what the parks mean to them and what they'd like to see. Is that about right? That is about right.
It's a six-year plan. So yeah, right now we have a community survey open that is online. They can access it with the QR code on the posters.
Inserts went out in mailers, or they can go to the website. We have a Parks and Rec open space and trails plan page on the Parks and Rec page that they can do a survey. Pretty much covers everything from parks, what they want to see for the future, current status on how they feel about the status of what they are now, even rec programming and that aspect too.
So yeah, we just want to hear from the public and see what they want for the future. There's a lot of great parks in Shelton, a lot of different sized parks as well. I'm thinking, you know, Wallace Nealon with that great structure.
And then over the summertime with the live music and things, you go to Calinan and they got the great ball fields there. Even the little parklets, if you will, like Art Johnson or the one just over here, Sixth Street Park. Huff and Puff is another great one.
There's just a lot that people are able to access in the And I know too, over the years, we've talked about having even more walkability to parks. So you're not more than like a mile or less from an actual open space. Is that part of the plan? That is part of the plan.
We do talk about how the radius of people from where they live to the closest open space or trail amenity. So we do look at that. One of the things I think I remember, because this isn't, because we talked about this, probably six or seven years ago, the last time it came up.
And one of the things I believe, if I remember right, we talked about whether or not installing some really secure cornhole boards or things that folks were playing at the time and continue to play. So there's even just more of an opera. Loop Field's another great example of a large space that people can go and access.
What are some of the other early initial results that you're hearing or what are some of your counterparts in other park offices across the area? What are they doing these days? So I mean, a lot of the big, like the two, I think that we'll see mainly is a splash pad. It was a popular thing the first time back in 19 when we did this. So I have a feeling that's also going to be a popular one now.
And now that pickleball is the up and coming thing, I have a feeling that we're going to have a lot of input on outdoor pickleball courts. I think those are going to be two very popular answers. Are there currently any pickleball or tennis spaces available in the city? We do have the pickleball court here at Lincoln.
It's basketball slash pickleball. People can check out a net here if they wanted to during business hours and use it. But otherwise, the only tennis courts are the high school and they're not public access.
You know, you think about that and there are some great flat spaces. Yes. Callan and again, Loop Field might have some great opportunities for that.
What is the timeline on this survey? So it's going through the month of March and then kind of going from there. We'll do a study session with council in April and then we plan to do an in-person open house here at the Civic Center in May. We haven't decided on a date yet, but that will be the next big thing to come and do an in-person thing, meet our parks advisory committee, ask questions and put more input towards what you want to see.
I'll put the links, of course, to that survey in the notes here so people can click right on it. Coming up soon, it starts on March 11th and it's three consecutive Wednesdays. It's a classic, which has just grown in such the amount of people that are participating in this.
Empty Bowls is coming back again. Yeah, we're excited. March 11th is your first one.
That's where you kind of create your bowl. The 18th is then when you glaze your bowl. And then the final night is the fun night where you pick up your bowl and then have some soup and bread from some of the local businesses around.
I saw the poster out front and again, some great staples that have been around for a long time and then some new folks. Yeah, it's exciting to know that we have some new people. We always try to offer it up to them to see if they're interested, get their name out there.
I think the new ones this year are from YOLA, which I've heard great things about, so we're excited to see what they have. We have another person helping with the firing process, Nicole Frazier from Graffiti is helping Glen Helen with our firing, so that's great. I can only imagine you get a million of these things now.
Our numbers are growing. We used to have just like four rows of tables and now we're pulling out round tables. Last year, I think we added more tables because we had so many people coming in.
It's just great. I mean, we're excited to see what we get for this year. I was even looking at inventory like we need to buy more clay.
We almost ran out last year. Really? We did. Oh my god.
So yeah, it's growing and yeah, it's fun. We have, Kaiser's been doing baseball the last couple of years and his coach always is scheduling practices on Wednesdays, so that's his, I've been trying to tell him about empty bowls and so we'll see what happens this year, but we have got bowls that we still have in our house from, well, shoot, it has to be eight, nine years ago. Okay.
Maybe even ten or ten or so, like when he was just a young baby and we put his his feet prints in some of them and so we still have those and some of these other bowls and it's just, you're right, it's, it was for a couple years, it was a real kind of secret and now the amount of families and I think too because, you know, the city is so accessible and open to letting people do these experiences and folks are trying to figure out something to do. Yeah. And so once a week, you know, here in March, coming up, starting again on the 11th, the families come out and it's turned into a huge tradition and people come and they start talking with other families and they're like, hey, I remember you from last year.
That's an, it's an awesome, awesome event. And the Donations Saints Pantry. Yes, that's correct.
And that's only on night three. Yeah, yeah. So you come in, otherwise it's free to, free to make your bowls and you can, there's instructions and there's little molds and things that you can press into it.
It's just a heck of a lot of fun. So if you have not done this, you got to get down. Highly recommend it.
I mean, we have groups that come in, they're like, we have a group of like six, where can we sit? Yeah. So bring anyone and everyone. That's cool.
Well, we haven't gotten our schedule yet, so we might be able to come out this Wednesday, the 11th, 18th, and then it would be the, whatever the final day is. The 25th. 25th is the final Wednesday for that one, the actual soup night.
And I pick a favorite of the different fair from the different great local restaurants. And again, I'll put the links to that so you can see who they will be in the, in the show notes. Very cool.
So pro survey on now, make sure you fill that out for letting the city know what you want to see in the future for parks and recreation here. All the other classes going good still. Yeah.
I mean, we've got yoga starting tonight, our spring yoga sessions going on. We've got our doubles pickleball league starting in April. That's over at the community center.
It is at the transit. That's another busy one. People go.
It is a, we max out on teams every season. We've done it so far and we do it twice a year. Do you remember when we did a video, like right when it opened, we had our masks, it was during COVID and we were over there trying to figure out how to play.
And the folks were like, Oh God, here comes Jeffrey. What's he out of the way. You don't know what you're doing.
That was a great video. We might, I might have to go find that one early on in the process of the pickleball here in the city. Yeah.
Very cool. So Taekwondo and then people get these as well in their electric bills or their water bills. Yep.
We do them in the mailing inserts. Yep. And we have it on our website.
Okay. Yep. People can always contact me too.
Okay. I'll put your email on the list too. So folks can reach out here, but definitely get those surveys in because the more input they have, the better opportunity to serve the citizens of Shelton.
And then also the folks that come in for the different events, Forest Festival and all the other things that happen. Well, it's good to see you. You too.
Thanks for having me. Very cool. Focus on Shelton and look to get back in here a little bit more and see what else is going on around the city.
So thank you. Thank you.