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Feud boils in seniors townRYDERWOOD, Wash. (AP) - A feud is brewing in the state’s only senior-citizen town between those who favor expansion, which could mean an influx of younger residents, and those who don’t want a change.Ryderwood was bom as an unincorporated community 25 years ago in the remains of a Cowlitz County logging town at the end of Washington 506, about 12 miles west of Interstate 5. It quickly achieved national attention as a community with no schools, no crime, no loud music and no children.Today the town’s little newspaper has stopped publishing, the gas station is broke and the Ryderwood Social Club won’t meet in Ryderwood anymore.One faction wants the town run as in the past by the Ryderwood Improvement and Service Association. Another wants a bigger voice for Forum Investment Co. of Longview,the town’s major landowner.Many of the town’s 354 residents fear a planned expansion by the company could ruin the community’s slow-paced retirement nature. Others feel the association has neglected its policy-making role and that Forum’s plans to build more homes is healthy.The Ryderwood Social Club moved its meetings to another town rather than pay rent to Forum, which owns the meeting building. The town’s only gas station, owned by Forum, closed for lack of business.Postmaster Paul Pace supports Forum and, until a month ago, edited the Ryderwood Reporter, a monthly mimeographed sheet of local news. Postal officials ordered him to quit moonlighting after hearing of complaints that Pace had injecting himself into local politics.The association has asked CountyProsecutor Henry Dunn to study the possibility of a zoning regulation to limit residency to older people. Association members must be 55 years old or older.Dunn says the only legal way to keep Ryderwood a retirement town appears to be to write it into deeds as homesites become available.Fred McHargue, a retired vocational-rehabilitation counselor from Oregon, says community meetings over the issue “all seem to become shouting matches ... But maybe that’s a sort of group therapy.”“Here we are a bunch of old people. We don’t know whether we’re going to live one year or one day,” says Everett Graham, association vice president. “Why we should sit here and hate each other is beyond me.”
Newspaper Details
Walla Walla Union Bulletin
Walla Walla, Washington, US
Mon, May 22, 1978
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
Timberland R.
WA, USA 02 Aug 2023
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Walla Walla Union Bulletin
Walla Walla Washington Statesman
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Walla Walla Evening Statesman
