After experiencing Middle Eastern culture while serving overseas, James Ryan and Charles Morgan are bringing a bit of it with Oak Harbor.
The Navy men plan to open the Haze Hookah Lounge on Pioneer Way this month.
They’ve created space with comfortable couches and local artwork where they hope people will hang out while puffing on hookahs loaded with molasses and flavorings.
“It’s really a social activity,” Morgan said.
The massive landslide in the community of Ledgewood south of Coupeville displaced 5.3 million square feet of earth and one house in a matter of moments in the early morning hours of March 27, according to the Washington state Department of Natural Resources.
That’s about 40,000 dump truck loads.
Geologists from the department visited the scene of the landslide this week to take initial stock of the cause and risks.
Joe Dragovich, a geologist with DNR, said experts won’t be able to do in-depth work at the site until the area stabilizes, which could be a matter of weeks or months. Geologists on the scene said they heard a tree crack and fall while they were looking around.
Oak Harbor resident Karen Ekberg would like to be able to look out her back windows without seeing a yard filled with junk.
It may take awhile, code enforcement officer David Anderson said, but she’ll get her wish.
Oak Harbor Mayor Scott Dudley put a special emphasis on code enforcement last year. The aftermath of the Great Recession left a lot of foreclosed and abandoned homes in the city; without anyone to care for them, the grass grows tall and garbage accumulates.
Oak Harbor resident Shane Hoffmire admits to calling a veterinarian in the middle of the night to perform emergency surgery on a chicken that gobbled down a metal bolt.
While other families dote on dogs or cats, Hoffmire says his family prefers their backyard chickens and he obviously will go to great lengths to care for them.
“These little critters are worth their weight in gold as they can provide your family with healthy organic food and can teach our youth respect and compassion along with so many other of life’s lessons,” Hoffmire told City Council members in an impassioned speech about the fowl.
A quasi-judicial hearing to revoke the Element’s nightclub license was closed but may be reopened someday.
The Oak Harbor City Council quietly voted last week to close and terminate the public hearing, which was opened earlier this year and then continued.
Police Chief Ed Green said city staff members have a lot of work left to do on the issue before they are ready for a public hearing. The police department has collected a tremendous amount of information about the Element over the years, he said, but it wasn’t organized or categorized.
The election season has already started in Oak Harbor.
Oak Harbor native Lucas Yonkman announced he is running for the seat on the City Council currently held by Bob Severns.
Yonkman, a 2002 graduate of Oak Harbor High School, rose to prominence in the city as a calm, well-spoken advocate for gun rights. His admission that he was armed during a meeting led to a well-publicized showdown between the council and Second Amendment supporters.
The rejection of the Oak Harbor mayor’s appointment for city attorney has left the city without a permanent city attorney and few, if any, prospects for filling the position in the future.
In the meantime, the mayor and council members are blaming each other for getting into this situation, which may lead to higher legal bills in the long run and a lack of stability in the attorney’s office.
Mayor Scott Dudley said the council’s 5-2 vote to reject the applicant was another in a series of politically motivated decisions aimed at obstructing his authority.
A 31-year-old Oak Harbor man accused of repeatedly violating a domestic-violence, no-contact order could end up in a state penitentiary, court documents indicate.
Prosecutors charged William W. Blue in Island County Superior Court with two counts of felony violation of a court order. Under state law, a violation of a court order becomes a felony if the offender has two previous convictions.
A 50-year-old Oak Harbor man is facing a felony charge for allegedly standing outside his apartment building while drunk and loudly threatening to burn the building down, according to court records.
Prosecutors charged Roger Del Sebers in Island County Superior Court March 29 with threats to bomb or injure property. If convicted, he could face from three to nine months in jail under the standard sentencing range.
A judge set Sebers’ bail at $5,000 on March 18. He was unable to sign documents in court because his hands were shaking so badly, court records show.
A 32-year-old Oak Harbor man with an appetite for the unusual is facing a felony charge after being caught “rummaging around” in a woman’s storage shed, court documents state.
Prosecutors charged Michael B. Howard in Island County Superior Court March 12 with burglary. He could face up to a year in jail if convicted.
Two Oak Harbor councilmen did nothing more than exercise their First Amendment rights during a Jan. 15 meeting that spawned a controversy over Second Amendment rights, the Island County prosecutor concluded.
Prosecutor Greg Banks said Thursday he won’t pursue charges against councilmen Rick Almberg and Joel Servatius after reviewing a police investigation into their conduct.
In a lengthy press release, Banks said he wanted to counter misconceptions about the U.S. Constitution and the law as espoused by Oak Harbor Mayor Scott Dudley and gun-rights advocates.
Oak Harbor police are looking for a hit-and-run driver who left a car behind after driving into a building.
Police Chief Ed Green said a security guard at the Skagit Valley College campus in Oak Harbor found the red 1978 Datson 280Z partially through the wall of the bookstore early Saturday morning.
Green said the car was abandoned and investigators have no leads. There was no indication that anyone was injured.
A 34-year-old Federal Way woman’s blood-alcohol level was more than three times the legal limit when she caused an accident on South Whidbey last December that seriously injured three people, court documents state.
Prosecutors charged Danyal L. York in Island County Superior Court March 5 with three counts of vehicular assault and one count of reckless endangerment.
