When a near total solar eclipse fails to break the list of top 10 stories, it’s probably safe to say that 2017 has been a busy news year on the Twin Harbors.
Drug busts, four open first degree murder cases, a huge business coming to town and a local singer/songwriter appearing on a popular prime time network music competition did all make the cut. The top story, however, won by a landslide in the Daily World’s annual top 10 list, as chosen by the staff.
1. Illegal marijuana grow busts
A massive multi-agency, multi-county orchestrated operation netted thousands of pounds of marijuana worth in excess of $80 million and more than $400,000 in cash and gold from illegal grows Nov. 28. More than 50 Chinese nationals were arrested; about a dozen with the closest ties to the grow operation were charged with illegal production of marijuana and use of a house to produce drugs and held on $1 million bail. The raids continued into mid-December at locations in Aberdeen and Hoquiam.
2. Daniel Franey
Daniel Seth Franey, 33 of Montesano, who claimed to have ties to the terror group ISIS, was arrested in early 2016 on numerous charges, and eventually pleaded guilty in January 2017 to unlawful possession of a firearm. He was sentenced to six years in federal prison. Franey commented to an undercover federal agent that he was planning an attack on Joint Base Lewis-McChord and had threatened to kill any government agent he came across.
3. Homelessness
Recently, drone footage of the homeless encampment along the Chehalis River near State Street was posted on Facebook. It showed tarps, tents and makeshift shelters running for more than a mile. The camps were littered with garbage, reigniting the discussion over what can be done.
Solutions have been elusive and mostly focused on increasing the stock of affordable housing, but so far there has been little to show for it. Recently, a grant was received to upgrade numerous low-income properties that already exist in the region. Groups like Revival Grays Harbor offer warming centers when they can in the winter, and another group, Family Promise, is attempting to get 13 churches in the area together to offer housing, meals and access to showers, laundry and job seeking tools for homeless families with the goal to get them into permanent housing within a few months.
4. Four first-degree murder cases
In 2017, Grays Harbor County Prosecutor Katie Svoboda and her office found themselves dealing with four first degree murder cases all at once. Jacob Eveland, an Elma man who brutally murdered an acquaintance at his home in 2016, was found guilty by a jury and was sentenced to 50 years. Chandler Meade of Hoquiam pleaded guilty to gunning down his common-law wife Lael Hyvonen in front of their two young children in June and was sentenced to the maximum, a little more than 31 years, in November.
Shana Soliz has yet to stand trial for allegedly stabbing her roommate to death at their Hoquiam home in late 2016. She has been found competent to stand trial. Kirsten Alice O’Hara is also awaiting trial in the stabbing and bludgeoning death of her neighbor, 95-year-old Robert Harmon, July 11.
5. Ericka Corban on The Voice
Many of us, along with 12 million others worldwide, were glued to our televisions in early March when Aberdeen singer/songwriter Ericka Corban appeared on the popular music competition show “The Voice” on NBC. She belted out the song the show’s producers selected for 90 seconds, but none of the celebrity judges spun around during the blind audition to select her.
Since then she keeps up a very busy performance schedule locally, is working on a new album – expected out this summer – and has published a children’s book, “Tippy the Owl.” All this while raising four young homeschooled kids and never losing sight of her faith.
6. Locals experience Las Vegas mass shooting
They’d been doing it for years, 10 good friends with Grays Harbor roots traveling to Las Vegas every year to take in the Route 91 Harvest Festival. Heather Gibbons, her husband Brant and a niece, Ashley Pettis, were among them, the latter two watching headliner Jason Aldean perform when Stephen Paddock opened fire, killing 50 people and wounding hundreds. The group from Grays Harbor all made it home uninjured. Retired Aberdeen therapist Tobi Buckman, trained in disaster therapy, talked to 40 survivors to help them deal with the aftermath.
7. Overstock.com comes to the Satsop Business Park
Online retailer Overstock.com signed a lease with the Satsop Business Park to open a call center late last year. By May of this year, 150 people were employed in the Evergreen Customer Care Call Center. And just three months after that, the Port of Grays Harbor announced Overstock.com had expanded its lease to take over the entire 43,000 square foot Flex Tech Building and soon after doubled their workforce.
8. Port potash proposal
BHP, a huge international mineral, oil and gas company, proposed placing a potash storage and shipping operation at the Port of Grays Harbor earlier this year. Potash is a naturally occurring element much like salt that is used in agricultural fertilizers. The company is looking for a place to store and ship the potash that will be mined in Saskatchewan, Canada, and has narrowed its choices to the Port’s Terminal 3 and another site in Vancouver, B.C. When BHP balked at the $400,000-plus shorelines permit application fee, the Hoquiam City Council agreed to adjust the old permit application fee formula to one more accommodating to large-scale projects like BHP’s; their permit fee dropped to $100,000 after the adjustment.
9. Ocosta robotics team makes it to world championship
The Ocosta robotics team, Fishy Business, Inc., placed second among 73 teams at a regional event in Tacoma in March, earning their way into the FIRST World Championship in Houston, Tex., in late April. Unfortunately, their robot was damaged during transport and did not perform well and the team placed ninth in their division overall.
10. Volkswagen recall comes to Port
When Volkswagen was busted for doctoring vehicles to give false emissions levels it was forced to do a massive recall. Pasha Automotive, which imports and exports vehicles from Terminal 4 at the Port of Grays Harbor, quickly ran out of room in their large lot and leased an additional 26 acres in the Satsop Business Park to store the recalled vehicles.
