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FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 2015
Algona breaks off talks with county over transfer station
2014 PERSON OF THE YEAR
SILENT
SERVANT
Humble Claudon gives back to the community
BY ROBERT WHALE
BY ROBERT WHALE
rwhale@auburn-reporter.com
rwhale@auburn-reporter.com
The City of Algona may remain at the top of King County’s list of alternative sites for a new transfer station. But as far as Mayor Dave Hill is concerned, negotiations between his city and the county over building a new site on 18.9 acres at 35101 W. Valley Highway S., north of the present station, are nowhere. “We have severed all talks,” Hill Hill told the Auburn Reporter in late December. “The county has not been proceeding in good faith.” The Algona Transfer Station, like many of King County’s solid waste transfer stations, was built in the mid-1960s and is now outdated, over-capacity and lacks space to provide recycling services. A regional, multiyear planning effort that resulted in the Solid Waste Transfer and Waste Management Plan
H
e is one of the quiet ones, likes to serve from behind the scenes, do his thing without a blare of trumpet or whisper of vainglory. “Mr. Claudon doesn’t like publicity,” a front office person at Valley GMC Buick responded to a reporter’s recent request for an interview. That is true. Fortunately for Auburn, where Ron Claudon prefers to say as little as possible about himself, trails of good actions lead back to him from all over the city. Like the time he volunteers every week on behalf of Communities in Schools of Auburn to read to a third- or fourth-grade student who is struggling with his or her schoolwork, Or the board positions he has held over the years with the Auburn Valley YMCA and the Auburn Area Chamber of Commerce, and his 28 years of membership with the Kiwanis Club of Auburn. Or of services quietly rendered to advisory committees of the Auburn School District and Green River Community College, and annual donations to
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Ron Claudon, president of Valley GMC Buick in Auburn, has been honored for his work in the industry and for his contributions to the community. ROBERT WHALE, Auburn Reporter
Auburn Riverside High graduate chosen Navy Instructor of the Year FOR THE REPORTER
One of Auburn’s own was selected as the Naval Education and Training Command
Officer Instructor of the Year at a ceremony Dec. 12 at the National Museum of Naval Aviation on board a Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla.
A 2001 graduate of Auburn Riverside High School, Lt. Michael Ellison attended Pacific Lutheran University, receiving his bachelor of arts in econom-
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ics and political science in 2005. For the past two years, Ellison has been an instructor at the Center for Surface Combat Systems’ Fleet AntiSubmarine Warfare Training Center in San Diego.
Train strikes, kills Auburn man REPORTER STAFF
An Amtrak train struck and killed a man last Friday night at the West Main Street and C Street Northwest intersection, near Auburn Station, police reported. Amtrak’s Seattle-bound Coast Starlight train fatally struck the man around 7:45 p.m., police said. BNSF officials said the warning devices at [ more FATALITY page 2 ]
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