Lake Stevens mayor says woodpile fines just an attention-grabber

The mayor of Lake Stevens has responded to a resident who claims the city is fining him up to $250,000 for keeping firewood for charity on his property.

On Thursday, Shane McDaniel told the Dori Monson Show that 160 cords of wood currently sit on his property because in the winter he gives firewood to people in need, such as single moms, veterans, and cancer patients.

Much of the firewood came from donors who had heard of his acts of community service, but he said that around 20 cords came from the city after it cut down some Douglas firs.

Lake Stevens man fined $70K/month after chopping wood for charity

McDaniel said that because of the fire hazard of the woodpiles, some of which reached as high as his roof, the city sent him fines of $500 per violation per day, amounting to $70,000 per month. This would add up to a quarter of a million dollars by the time McDaniel estimates he can get all of the wood delivered to the needy.

Lake Stevens Mayor John Spencer, however, said that the letters sent to McDaniel were just sent as a way to get his attention, rather than a serious attempt to get money out of him. No fines have been collected as of yet.

“We’ve asked him at the end of every letter, ‘Come on in so we can work this out,'” Spencer said, stressing that as soon as McDaniel moves the pile, “the fines will disappear.”

He said that the city has been trying to get answers from him, but the pile has just kept growing.

“We have asked him since July to give us a plan — ‘How are you going to do this, when is it going to go out, do you have a list of people to take it?'” Spencer said, adding, “This is not something where we’re being heavy-handed to him.”

The notices of infraction state that McDaniel has the option to pay the fine, contest it, or have a mitigation hearing.

However, according to the mayor, the solution is really much simpler.

“He just needs to come into the office — he could call me, I’ve known him so long, he could call me and walk in and talk to me,” Spencer said. “He could say, ‘Hey John, I’m going to take care of this, here’s my plan, I’ve got it written down.’ And that fine, that situation, goes away.”

Spencer also stated that the city never gave any logs to McDaniel. He acknowledged that individual Lake Stevens Public Works employees might have taken logs to McDaniel while off the clock, since city workers know about and support the philanthropist’s work.

“We like what he’s doing, we think his charitable notion here is quite good,” he said.

McDaniel speculated on the show Thursday that the Lake Stevens government may be sending him the fines because the city has long wanted his property to add to a city park, and he has refused to sell it. Spencer called this “poppycock”

“We have not made any innuendo about that whatsoever, nothing,” he said.

He also refuted McDaniel’s guess that it might be due to politically provocative messages that McDaniel put on the reader-board outside his business directed at city government, noting that he and McDaniel have always managed to work out their differences harmoniously.

The mayor is adamant that the entire issue can be resolved if the city can find out who needs the wood and deliver it.

“We need a list of people who need the wood — send us an email, send us a text, walk in the front door of City Hall … we’ll help him there,” he said.

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from 12-3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.