Lake Stevens fines man $70K/month after chopping firewood for charity

This story has been updated with a response from the city below.

A Lake Stevens man gives firewood to people in need. But now his efforts have resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, imposed by the city, for storing the wood on his property.

During the winter months, Shane McDaniel gives away wood from trees that have already been cut to people in need of free heat, from veterans to single mothers to people battling cancer. His community service has gained national attention, appearing on the Today Show and in the Washington Post.

Lake Stevens recently cut down a group of evergreen trees to make way for a new building. Knowing of his charity work, the city called him to ask if he wanted the felled trees. He answered that he would be glad to take the logs.

“They dropped off dump truck load after dump truck load [of full-sized logs] in my driveway until I couldn’t chop any more,” he described to KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson.

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Others who had heard of McDaniel’s generosity brought their own donations of firewood. Along with volunteers at work parties throughout the year, McDaniel chopped it up, creating large piles on his property.

What happened next threw him for a loop.

“[The city] dropped the wood off, showed up about 12 weeks later, and said, ‘You have two weeks to have all this wood off the property,'” McDaniel said.

He said that the city of Lake Stevens gave him multiple citations, for violating the fire code, having too-high of woodpiles, and keeping the piles too close to his neighbor’s property, for example. The city referred to the firewood as “rubbish” and “debris” in the notices.

He guessed that he has about 160 cords of firewood on his property, with about 20 of those coming from the city. McDaniel has already alerted the city that the firewood will soon be going to those in need, and that this kind of storage will not happen again in the future.

“I realize that we can’t have a giant firewood pile in the middle of town,” he said. “The volunteer movement simply produced more, the goodwill that came in was simply more than anticipated, and the pile grew very large.”

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Still the fines continue to grow faster than the woodpiles. Fines of $500 per violation per day have added up to $70,000 per month. By Christmas — when McDaniel estimates he can get all of the wood delivered — this will be more than $250,000.

“I don’t think that dropping off those logs and showing up 12 weeks later and fining me $70,000 a month is very American,” he said.

About more than firewood

There could be a larger issue at play than just the firewood, as McDaniel speculates.

For one, McDaniel said that Lake Stevens has long been interested in buying his property to add to a city park.

“I know they want the property, and it’s awfully suspicious,” he said, noting that last year, he spent $6,000 on legal fees to get out of a $60,000 fine for having sand on his beach.

Additionally, he has used his reader-board at the business he owns, Norm’s Market — Keg and Bottleshop, to make political statements about the city of Lake Stevens.

Whatever the reason, however, he is adamant that he will stand firm.

“Will they just wipe the fine away when the wood is gone, or will they continue to hack at me?” he said, adding, “I’m not going to go down there and beg … What I’m not going to do is let a couple bullying city administrators with an ax to grind push me around. ”

The city of Lake Stevens did not respond to the Dori Monson Show’s request for comment on this story. The mayor, however, did issue a response on the city’s website.

I want to update you about a current fire wood situation. A local resident has accumulated a significant pile of firewood to donate to those in need. I applaud and respect him for this charitable cause. However, the wood pile has grown to such a size that it is a potential fire hazard, generating complaints from other residents. The accumulation of firewood blocks access to the property and poses a significant danger to this property and adjacent properties. The city and Fire District jointly began an action to address the safety concerns.

We first contacted the owner in July about the issue and we have asked several times that he distribute the firewood, but our requests were ignored.

He has since taken the city to task on social media and made some inaccurate statements. To clarify, none of this wood belongs to the city. All the Douglas Fir wood, cut down from recent city projects, is stored with the city for cutting into lumber for the Pavilion. The city has indicated “fines” are pending and his rights to contest the violation, but no fines have been imposed to date. We are hoping that he will work to correct the issues voluntarily.

I’m sure we could line up volunteers to move the wood to needed residences. If you need wood for heating this winter, please consider helping us put this issue to rest and ask him for some!

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