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Port of Shelton Commissioner Dick Taylor died suddenly on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, the port announced that day, leaving a vacancy on the three-member commission that oversees Sanderson Field, the Shelton marina and the port’s industrial and business park properties.
The port’s announcement, posted on its website, said Taylor had served as the elected commissioner for Position 2 since first winning the seat in 2012 and was serving his fourth four-year term. He had risen to chairman of the commission. The port extended condolences to his wife, Marlene, and to his family and friends. As of Wednesday, the port’s own commissioners page had not yet been updated to reflect the vacancy, still listing Taylor’s term as running through the end of 2027.
The Shelton-Mason County Journal separately reported Taylor’s death and the port’s tribute the same day, corroborating the date and the circumstances described in the port’s statement.
What the port does, and why the seat matters
The Port of Shelton is a special-purpose district governed by three elected commissioners. It runs Sanderson Field, the general-aviation airport and roughly 1,200-acre industrial park on Shelton’s south side that the port markets for aviation, manufacturing and warehouse tenants, along with the public marina on Oakland Bay. Both properties have active capital work underway. State transportation records show a taxiway connector project linking Sanderson Field to the former county fairgrounds site now in its environmental and planning phase, and state audit records show the port recently awarded contracts to rebuild the marina’s public dock, pilings and finger floats and to repave the Sanderson Field apron. The port has also been the local financing partner behind a Belco Forest Products building expansion tied to state Community Economic Revitalization Board funds, a project tied to retaining and adding logging-and-mill-adjacent jobs in the county.
Those are the kinds of contracts, budget votes and land-use decisions a three-person commission decides by majority. A vacancy on a three-member board is not a paperwork problem — it changes how every close vote gets decided until the seat is filled, and it puts more of the day-to-day judgment calls on whichever two commissioners remain.
How Mason County fills the seat
State law spells out the process for filling a vacant port commission seat, and it is not an appointment made by the county government. Under the framework governing special purpose districts, the remaining commissioners must nominate at least one candidate at a public commission meeting, then post notice of the vacancy and the nominee for at least 15 days in public places, including the port’s website. During that 15-day window, registered voters who live within the port district can put forward additional nominations of their own. Only after that notice period closes can the commission vote to appoint someone from the nominees. If the commission cannot fill the seat within 90 days, responsibility shifts to the county’s legislative authority — the Mason County Board of Commissioners — for a further 90 days.
The Port of Shelton has been through this before: the port’s own materials note that in June 2026 a commissioner appointed to fill an earlier vacant seat was sworn in to serve out the remainder of that term, which suggests the district’s board is familiar with the statutory steps it will need to repeat now for Taylor’s Position 2 seat.
What residents should watch for
Anyone who lives inside the Port of Shelton’s taxing district is entitled to weigh in once the commission posts its nominee and opens the public nomination window — the statute exists specifically so a vacancy isn’t filled by the two remaining commissioners alone without a chance for public input. The port has not yet announced a nominee, a meeting date for the nomination, or a timeline, and neither the port nor the Journal’s report named potential successors. Residents watching the port’s marina and Sanderson Field construction schedules, or the Belco expansion the port helped finance, have a direct stake in who takes the seat and how quickly it’s filled, since the appointee will be voting on those contracts for the balance of Taylor’s term.
DailySnackNews will follow the port’s public notice and nomination period as the district moves through the statutory process required to seat Taylor’s replacement.
Sources: Port of Shelton, Shelton-Mason County Journal
