Pierce County resident wants to start ‘Peninsula County.’ What would it take?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- A Pierce County resident is founding a committee to explore the formation of a new county.
- The proposed Peninsula County would include the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula areas.
- State rules for forming a county include population minimums and a voter petition.
In the wake of a mass stabbing on the Key Peninsula, some residents are asking what it would take to form a new county serving mainly the residents of the Key Peninsula and greater Gig Harbor areas, a move that advocates suggest could address longtime staffing shortages of law enforcement in those areas.
Local resident Damon Townsend broached the idea of a “Peninsula County” in a post on his personal Facebook page Feb. 25.
“These are tragedies for the families and communities directly affected,” Townsend wrote, referring to the stabbings Feb. 24 and a double homicide, also by stabbing, at a Herron Island home in December. “But for many residents of the Peninsula, they have also brought renewed attention to a question that has lingered for decades: whether the current structure of Pierce County government is capable of providing an appropriate level of public safety services to this region.”
He’s spearheading what he calls the Peninsula County Exploratory Committee and said in an interview March 2 that he planned to register the group as a nonprofit with the Washington Secretary of State and file with the Public Disclosure Commission if the group moves forward with any political advocacy. So far, he’s the sole member of the committee, but he’s seen “lots of interest,” he said. His Facebook posts Feb. 25 and Feb. 28 each generated between 600 and 700 reactions and received over 290 comments as of March 4.
The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office has faced a shortage of staff and funding for years. Recently, both residents and the deputies’ union have begun raising the alarm about levels of service to rural areas such as the Key Peninsula, deputy response times to 911 calls and pay gaps between the sheriff’s office and other agencies like the Tacoma Police Department.
On Feb. 24, deputies took about 50 minutes to reach the Key Peninsula neighborhood in Wauna where the mass stabbing occurred, though the sheriff’s office reported that the initial call at 8:41 a.m. was for a violation of a no-contact order and a deputy arrived and fatally shot the suspect three minutes after the stabbings were reported at 9:30 a.m.
The 32-year-old suspect, Aleksandr Shablykin, is suspected of fatally stabbing four people, including his 52-year-old mother Zoya Shablykina and three other women, who the medical examiner identified as Joanne Kathleen Brandani, 59; Stephanie Killilea, 67; and Louise Sandra Talley, 81.
For over a year, Pierce County has been bargaining with the deputies’ guild over a new contract, which will solidify salaries for the county’s law enforcement employees once signed. The county council approved $1.5 million in bonuses for deputies in December after many residents urged the council to postpone adopting the biennial budget until they increased funding for the sheriff’s office.
Townsend told The News Tribune that he’s lived in the Gig Harbor area since 2004, and has been researching the idea of forming a new county since 2023. He said he believes forming a new county could help tax revenue generated on the west side of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge stay in the community, and increase the number of deputies serving the area. The recent homicides on the Key Peninsula “just really kind of set me off,” he said.
Townsend is a former Pierce County elections specialist and supervisor who resigned in August 2019. He has run unsuccessfully for election multiple times in recent years, including for Pierce County Auditor in 2022 and the Washington Secretary of State in 2024. Townsend now works for a local Internet service provider but is speaking for himself personally, not his company, he said.
The Peninsula County Exploratory Committee is still in its very early stages, Townsend said. Their first task will be to study the idea of forming a county and its viability. Once they’ve determined that, the committee can prepare outreach presentations for the community and gather signatures for a petition, which they’d need to bring to the state Legislature. Those who want to get involved can sign up on the committee’s website or join their Facebook group, said Townsend.
In an email Monday, Pierce County spokesperson Maranatha Hay directed The News Tribune to the Washington State Constitution, Article XI for the legal framework of forming new counties in the state. The state constitution says that new counties must have at least 2,000 residents, and existing counties where territory is removed must have at least 4,000 residents remaining. The census districts including the Gig Harbor and Key Peninsula areas have a combined population of over 72,000 people, according to U.S. Census data from 2024.
The state constitution also says that no territory can be removed from an existing county unless a majority of the voters who live in that territory petition in support of it, and “then only under such conditions as may be prescribed by a general law applicable to the whole state.”
That means that at least half of the registered voters who live in the areas proposed as Peninsula County would need to sign a petition supporting the new county. Townsend said about 88,000 registered voters live in the proposed Peninsula County, so they’d have to get at least 44,000 signatures. Then, the committee would present the state Legislature with that petition, and the Legislature would need to pass a bill to form the new county, Townsend explained. He based that process off of how Pend Oreille County was formed in 1911, after the Legislature passed a bill which the governor signed into law.
“And if we were to present the Legislature with a petition of half of the voters in the proposed area, I would hope that our elected representatives from the 26th District would be sponsors of the legislation,” he said.
Pierce County spokesperson Hay also provided a statement from the county.
“Pierce County is aware of the Peninsula County Exploratory Committee and the community conversation taking place on the Peninsula,” she wrote. “The recent tragic events on the Key Peninsula are heartbreaking, and our thoughts remain with the families and communities affected. Washington State law provides a clear constitutional process for county formation, and that process is governed by the Legislature, not the county. Pierce County remains committed to serving all its residents, including those on the Peninsula, and will continue to do so.”
Townsend said that he envisions Peninsula County mostly following the boundaries of the Peninsula School District, which includes the Key Peninsula, the Gig Harbor peninsula, Herron Island and Fox Island. It could also include Anderson Island, but that’s a “topic of debate,” he said.
A map generated by AI, which Townsend included in a second Facebook post Feb. 28, included Anderson and McNeil Islands in the proposed county borders but had some inaccuracies. Townsend told The News Tribune that he plans to produce a GIS-enabled map in the future and that the map on the post needs to be corrected. All of the images on the committee’s website are AI-generated except for scans or uploads of actual documents, according to Townsend.
Part of his research, which he said he started in 2023, has focused on studying past efforts to form new counties in Washington state.
In 1992, a committee proposed creating a new Cedar County out of territory in east King County, as recounted in an essay on HistoryLink.org by Kit Oldham. Cedar County would have included roughly 1,585 square miles and covered the cities of Duvall, Carnation, North Bend, Black Diamond and Enumclaw. The case went to the state Supreme Court, where the justices ruled that the committee had failed to gather enough signatures in support of the new county. The court also ruled that the state Legislature isn’t compelled to form new counties even if advocates gather enough signatures.
The last county successfully formed in Washington state is Pend Oreille County, which was founded in 1911 out of part of Stevens County in northeast Washington state, according to HistoryLink.org.
Townsend said he’s looking to these historical examples to guide future research.
“You got to emulate success and don’t copy failure,” Townsend told The News Tribune. “ ... what worked before, if it worked before, why wouldn’t it work again, and what didn’t work and why?”
This story was originally published March 8, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
