A Question of Residency in Small Onalaska Water District

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Things continue to get complicated for the Birchfield Community near Onalaska. 

Two Birchfield residents last week filed a complaint with the Lewis County Auditor’s Office in an effort to disqualify one of the planned community’s water district commissioners.

The complaint was posted on the auditor’s website at 10 a.m. Monday. In it, Jimmy and Deborah Hilliard claim Lewis County Water and Sewer District 5 commissioner Kristine Carter now lives outside of the district and is thus ineligible to maintain her office. They also allege it is part of a larger scheme to keep Virgil and Carol Fox in control of the community’s water. 

In the complaint filed to Lewis County Auditor Gary Zandell, the Hilliards said, “It is our belief that Commissioner Kristine Carter is falsely claiming that she resides in the water district to meet the residency requirements for her to hold office.” 

It goes on to claim that the other two commissioners, Virgil and Carol Fox, “have orchestrated this deception with Carter to maintain control over District No. 5 in order to evade accountability for the wrongful and/or illegal actions they and/or Carter may have taken as commissioners and/or staff management.” 

Jimmy Hilliard claims Carter began working as the district clerk around 2011. In the complaint, he said he acknowledges that Carter lived with the Foxes in the spring of 2013 while she was going through a divorce. But, he says, that shortly after she was elected water district commissioner she covertly moved out of the district and into Centralia. 

Since that time, he claims, “Both Carter and the Foxes have acted out the charade that she continues to reside with the Foxes in order for Carter to remain a commissioner.”

Hilliard, his wife and a neighbor, Rick Toups, ran for the three commissioner seats in 2013, but weren’t elected. 



Hilliard claims in the months following the election Carter was only seen in the water district during bimonthly meetings, but her vehicle was seen by several people at a Centralia residence “at varying hours of the day and night.”

“It’s important for us to get her out of office as soon as possible,” he said in an interview with the Chronicle. “I’m trying to get anybody other than her and the Foxes as commissioners.”

He believes that Kristine Carter has disqualified herself from continuing as a commissioner because she’s violated Revised Washington Codes that define a person’s residence, and one that defines eligibility to hold office in the district or municipality they live in. 

Virgil Fox said he hadn’t seen the complaint and didn’t want to comment on the allegations other than Hilliard’s past allegations all have “been terribly inflammatory and negative.”

Carter didn’t respond to requests comment before press time. 

Lewis County Auditor Gary Zandell said he’ll speak with the chairman of the board of Lewis County commissioners to set a date, time and a venue where for hearing where the Hilliards and Carter will appear. If she cannot prove her residency, then she’ll no longer be allowed to be part of the water district commissioners’ board. 

“(A date) hasn’t been solidified as of yet,” he said. “This is hot off our press. We didn’t see any of this until Friday afternoon.”