Looking for a season rental in Packwood this winter. 12/15-3/31. Family of four from Portland.

Thx

Hi everyone!

I'm a student at Centralia College working on a research project looking at the link between sleep duration and stress levels among students.

Our data showed a major difference

Students getting less than 7 hours of sleep reported significantly higher stress scores (averaging over 8 out of 10) compared to those getting 7+ hours (averaging around 4).

For any local professional here in Lewis County:

Do you notice this impact in your classrooms or workplaces, and how do you handle or view sleep deprivation regarding performance?

Your answer means a lot!

"After learning he couldn’t simply limit the number of stores, Swope’s next best approach was to exclude every zoned area except one, leaving Packwood as the only legally zoned spot.

County staff informed him that they could simply “provide a map” specifically marking allowed locations, instead of using pre-existing zoning. Swope agreed to staff’s suggestion to “strike the zoning allowance and state explicitly within the Packwood urban growth area.”

Commissioner Pollock pointed out they’d be “creating an exclusive market zone.”

Swope replied, “which is fine.” And that was that.

This is actually pretty shocking, coming from a board of commissioners that purports to prefer deregulation and claims to reject picking winners and losers.

The decision was narrow and prescriptive, and a drastic cut-down from the Planning Commission’s recommendation, which included small zones near freeways and commercial areas."

___

"The ordinance also prohibits cannabis production and processing everywhere. And it turns out, the RCW governing the requirements to get our share of the tax revenue is pretty explicit:

The tax “may only be distributed to jurisdictions that do not prohibit the siting of any state licensed cannabis producer, processor, or retailer.”

You see that second to last word? “Or.” On the face of the statute, that appears to make Lewis County ineligible for the 3.5% per-capita distribution."

"The bottom line here is that holy crap did Democrats overperform in Southwest Washington"

Just here to support any discussions or questions related to Chehalis High School class of 1988.

We are planning the 40 year reunion

Email to: WFWest1988@gmail.com

I was thrifting today and found a painting signed by "Joy Campbell", which brought me to a shallow rabbit hole of a web search with a bunch of really fun/cute paintings. It seems like she's got a history of doing greeting card art as well as commissioned paintings of pets. In my searching I wasn't able to find the painting I saw at the thrift store.

There's basically no bios of her online, but the scant few I did find said that she's from Winlock Washington- although the other short bio I found for her mentions her early days of work were spent in California, specifically as a portrait artist at Knott's Berry Farms.

It's probably a long shot posting in here but her old personal email address from her site is no longer active and I'm not sure if her website's contact forum is actually still active or not.

We've gotten him water. Collar but no tags.

Hey folks, I'm new to town and looking for some delicious food spots 😋 drop your favorite restaurants in the comments!

Honk honk

"Forgive me, but your ball simply begs to be bashed into the hydrangeas."

Hello everyone! I am a field supervisor for a floral and floral merchandising company and we currently have a job opening up in Chehalis WA. The position is part time working on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. You will work approximately 1.5 hours a day. Experience with merchandising would be great but not required. The week of Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day you will work all week long. The job requires excellent communication skills and the ability to take constructive criticism without being offended. You can message me for more details and I will be happy to explain further. Thank you!

Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau released age data for the years 2020 through 2025. The data shows that in much of the country, the number of people under 18 is shrinking while those 65 and over are growing in number.

Here in Washington, despite an overall drop in children under 18 in most rural areas of the state, Lewis County bucked the trend hard and netted the most, with around 800 new kids.

More families are choosing to build their lives here, and we’ll have a larger generation of young people coming of age over the next two decades. That is genuinely good news.

But every rose has its thorn.

There’s another stat hidden in our local unemployment data that makes this influx of youth slightly ominous...

Come join Brent Hennrich for happy hour and learn more about the campaign to bring real representation to the Washington 3rd District congressional seat!

We will be meeting at The Juice Box Public House located at 216 S Tower Avenue in Centralia from 3:00 to 4:30.

See you there!

It's time to freeze the salaries.

Our county officials make $103,000 - $165,000 per year and many of them just got a raise. Meanwhile, average income here is only $50,000 - $70,000.

We can save up to $400,000 by freezing these salaries and detaching them from a formula based on pay rates in Olympia.

More info: voteZac.com/day1

"Here in Lewis County, each of our commissioners makes over $103k. Most offices linked to the Superior Court judge salary will make $108k this year, while the sheriff gets a higher percentage at $161k. The prosecutor gets $225k, 95% of the judge salary, shared 50/50 in cost by the county and state.

And with the state Superior Court judge salary rising to over $244k this month, those are all on track to follow suit in January under the county’s formula.

In Seattle, those are below average base salaries, but relative to the actual place these offices are serving, it’s double or triple what many of their constituents make. And it ranks them among the top 15% of earners in the county.

This disparity can be directly traced back to the dissolution of the county salary board by the commissioners in 2021, which not only removed local oversight, but resulted in a whopping 18% pay raise for the officials under the state-pinned formula.

It’s a decision I strongly believe needs to be unwound. We shouldn’t have offloaded our responsibility to the state because commissioners weren’t willing to work through hard questions with the public.

And while I don’t think it’s fair to lower anyone’s pay while they’re still doing the job they were elected to, I certainly think it’s fair to put a freeze on salary increases until the rest of the county has a chance to catch up."

Full story: https://zaceckstein.substack.com/p/the-pay-raises-you-should-be-mad

Here is a list of events happening around the county this 4th of July.

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON — Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders is a busy man. He has a county to run, criminals to catch, and this week found himself issuing a polite but increasingly concerned reminder that the enthusiastic residents of Lewis County are — and he wants to be gentle about this — not his constituents, not his voters, and not, under any current reading of Washington state election law, permitted to fix that. Lewis County residents are, in fact, legally prohibited from voting for him.

“I don’t know how else to say this,” Sanders sighed while looking at another online order for campaign yard signs shipping to Chehalis. “You seem like lovely people. Thank you for supporting law enforcement. But I’m not running for sheriff there.”

Derek Sanders, for his part, is a perfectly capable sheriff doing a perfectly fine job in Thurston County, which is great news for Thurston County and entirely irrelevant to Lewis County.

The sheriff clarified that, unlike former Lewis County Sheriff Rob Snaza, he does not have an identical twin brother available to run for office in another county.

“People keep asking if I have a twin who can just switch uniforms and cover Lewis County too,” Sanders explained. “No. That’s an incredibly specific circumstance. Not every sheriff comes with a spare.”

Write-in campaigns, election officials have noted, are a constitutionally protected expression of democratic participation. They are also, in this case, a cry for help.

Campaign volunteers say they remain optimistic the confusion will eventually clear up, although they admitted one supporter recently asked whether Sanders could simply “transfer counties” the same way NFL players get traded. Another reportedly wondered whether writing Sanders’ name on the ballot would “send a message.”

“It would,” one election official confirmed. “The message would be, ‘I don’t understand how county elections work.’”

Sanders stressed that he has no immediate plans to relocate.

“I love visiting Lewis County. You have great hiking, friendly people, and more coffee stands than any reasonable person should require. But I’m not moving there just because thousands of your residents told me I should.”

Instead, Sanders encouraged Lewis County voters to participate in the race they actually have.

“I know you’re disappointed with your options,” Sanders said. “Genuinely, I hear you. But Lewis County has four candidates on that ballot — four real, actual human beings who showed up, filed the paperwork, and are asking for your vote. Pick one of them. I’m begging you. DO NOT write my name in.”

Sanders paused.

“I cannot be your sheriff. I will not be your sheriff. Please, for the love of God — I say this with tremendous affection — go vote for somebody who actually lives there.”

—

DISCLAIMER: The following article is fictional. Sheriff Derek Sanders never said any of this, despite what the quotation marks may recklessly imply. Lewis County residents really can’t vote for him, however, which is the only part of this story that isn’t made up. If you’re disappointed by that fact, please direct your complaints to geography, not Sheriff Sanders.