NASELLE — The Washington State Legislature kicks off its 2025 session next month, the first time legislators are meeting since a task force it commissioned released a report recommending how the state should deal with the vacant Naselle Youth Camp property.
Convened in July 2023, the task force recommended in its final report published over the summer that ownership of the facility be transferred from the state to the Chinook Indian Nation for the creation of a tribal headquarters.
Now, just weeks before the upcoming legislative session gets underway, a 19th District lawmaker is gunning to make that recommendation a reality. State Sen. Jeff Wilson (R-Longview) told the Observer last week that he plans to reintroduce a bill he first proposed in 2023 that would transfer ownership of the property to the Chinook.
Winding road
The Naselle Youth Camp (NYC) was an unfenced, medium-security facility that provided education and treatment for males who had landed in trouble with the law. The camp served over 30 youths and employed 93 full- and part-time employees as of March 2022, when the legislature approved a supplemental operating budget that included a provision calling for its closure, over objections from the local community and 19th District lawmakers.
The facility had faced repeated threats of closure since March 2003, as juvenile justice philosophies shifted toward keeping young offenders closer to their families and communities. Washington’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF), which oversees the state’s juvenile rehabilitation services and pushed for the camp’s closure, also cited data at the time showing that the need for juvenile rehabilitation centers had dropped by more than 70% since the turn of the century.
Late last month, just more than two years after the NYC’s closure and several months after the task force published its report, Gov. Jay Inslee announced the state would be opening a new juvenile detention center on the campus of the Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen. The facility will house 48 young men who choose to move out of the Green Hill School in Chehalis, where officials say overcrowding has led to unsafe conditions.
In making the announcement, the governor’s office said the state’s juvenile justice population has increased 60% since 2023 — mostly due to a rise in crime among young people that Inslee called “unpredicted and unpredictable.” DCYF also pointed to recent legislation that extended the juvenile age to 25 for some offenses and allowed young people convicted of crimes to remain at juvenile detention centers until their 25th birthday.
Wilson is supportive of the decision to open the new juvenile detention center in Aberdeen, which is also located in the 19th District, but said this pivot from the state shows that the NYC provided a needed service.
A vocal supporter of convening a local task force in the wake of the NYC’s closure, Wilson successfully pushed for the legislature to set aside funds for it in the state’s 2023-25 operating budget. Previously, DCYF and a couple of other state agencies had been conducting feasibility studies as the state mulled what to do with the now-vacant facility.
“These were decisions made not necessarily by the senate or the house,” Wilson said in regards to those studies. “My interception of that was to say this was the opportunity to return it back to, what does the local community first and foremost think instead of what the Olympia community thinks.”
Aside from Wilson, those who served on the task force included county Commissioner Lisa Olsen, state Rep. Jim Walsh (R-Aberdeen), Chinook Indian Nation Chair Tony Johnson, Naselle School District Superintendent Lisa Nelson, Pacific County Undersheriff Mike Ray, Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe Chair Charlene Nelson, Naselle resident Doris Busse, and representatives from several state agencies.
A new village
Meeting at least every other month, the task force’s stated vision was to repurpose the youth camp in a way that spurs job creation, has a positive social impact, addresses local priorities and ensures economic, social and environmental sustainability.
“None of us said let’s beat up historical disagreement with closing this to begin with,” Wilson said about the task force’s focus. “That seemed to be spilt milk, it was long since water under that bridge.”
Nearly 30 potential uses were brainstormed for the site — some more practical than others. Each of the alternate uses were rated according to feasibility by a set criteria, with detailed business cases being developed for a handful of the most promising uses.
These shortlisted uses were then prioritized prior to the final recommendation being made. Aside from a Chinook tribal headquarters, ideas for the facility that were included on the shortlist include converting it into housing, a learning center that combines both a skills center and outdoor school, inpatient behavioral health services, and a training center for the sheriff’s office.
In the end, a vast majority of the task force landed on transferring the property to the Chinook Indian Nation as the most desirable outcome in aligning with their aforementioned goals. The land that the 22-acre NYC facility rests on is located on the ancestral homeland of the Lower Chinook Tribe — one of the five constituent tribes of the Chinook Indian Nation. The tribe’s headquarters are presently located in Bay Center.
“The facility would be a ‘New Chinook Village’ that would serve as a cultural center and economic engine with services for tribal and non-tribal members, including housing, health services, cultural facility, skills center, meeting space, and remote work hub,” the task force concluded.
“The Chinook Indian Nation has the human capacity and financial track record to run the property and attract funding and partnerships to create sustained activity, economic growth, and support cultural activities and teachings.”
Facility’s current state
The facility’s main campus occupies about 17 acres and consists of four residential lodges and several administrative buildings, as well as a school, gym, cafeteria, fish hatchery and auto shop. The housing area, where camp staff resided, consists of about five acres and includes 27 units, including six quadplexes, one duplex and a three-bedroom house.
A report from the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, published in 2022 when the agency was tasked with evaluating whether NYC could be developed into an outdoor school, found that many of the facility’s buildings were in poor condition and “would need major renovations to make the spaces welcoming.” Some, that report stated, should be torn down.
The task force’s report states that DCYF is currently operating the camp in a “warm closure” state, with structures being cleaned and monitored for issues like flooding and rodents while also performing basic landscaping duties and operating the wastewater treatment facility at a reduced capacity.
“The site is on public power, and power supply has historically had some inconsistencies. As such, a significant increase in power needs may require an investment in public utilities to expand the electrical grid,” the report states, noting that oil is used to heat the buildings.
Strengths of the site identified by the task force include the extensive facilities, its “beautiful” remote location and the support from the local community. But some of those strengths were also cited as a weakness; the buildings and facilities require upkeep and skilled personnel, with some requiring extensive renovations and others needing to be demolished. Cell phone coverage is not always reliable, and public transportation options are minimal.
Next steps
Wilson said he plans to prefile his bill to transfer ownership of the property to the Chinook ahead of the upcoming legislative session, possibly as soon as late last week. In a twist of fate, he also serves as the top-ranking Republican on the senate’s State Government, Tribal Affairs and Elections Committee, the committee that the bill will be referred to and originate from.
If the bill is ultimately passed and signed into law, the facility would meet immediate office space needs for the tribe’s existing government and committee, with administrative staff including the executive officer, tribal council, enrollment clerk, maintenance specialist and grants manager being able to work out of the site. A new executive director may also be hired following the acquisition of the NYC.
The site would also be able to be used right away for storage, meeting and office space, classroom space, and spaces to store cultural materials and archival records. Food that is stored and preserved at the site would be available to all community members, regardless of tribal status.
The tribe has received more than $1.7 million in unrestricted grants in recent years, “and anticipates being able to attract even more funding with the acquisition of the NYC.”
Ideas are abound for how the tribe could upgrade and utilize the site, ranging from developing a full-spectrum health clinic, to utilizing facilities for apprenticeship training programs, to establishing retail businesses like a smokehouse, coffee shop or convenience store.
Other possibilities cited include opening a Chinook-run outdoor school, hiring a housing manager with a focus on rehabilitating the NYC’s housing facilities for use, operating an Oxford-style house for individuals transitioning from treatment or incarceration, or building a glass bottling facility to support local sustainability and create jobs.
“This gives the region a maximum economic development [benefit] with minimal waste,” Wilson said in summing up his and the task force’s support for transferring ownership to the Chinook.
“We were dealing with the blow to a local community, and … I’m proud we did this without Olympia telling us what to do, and it’s ironic the outcome has pointed this way but it serves the purpose of a much bigger future down there — and the sooner the better.”
