While throngs of folks are watching the Holland Happenings parade next Saturday, three of the top cops on Whidbey Island will be elbows-deep in pills.
For the second year in a row, Island County Sheriff Mark Brown, Lt. John Dyer with the Oak Harbor Police Department and Coupeville Marshal David Penrod will be collecting unwanted medications under a drug take-back program sponsored by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The lawsuit that Island County Commissioner Kelly Emerson and her husband filed against the county, two county employees and former Commissioner John Dean may come to an end next month.
At the same time, the Emersons’ lawyer leveled a new allegation that the county is polluting the Emersons’ property.
A 48-year-old Oak Harbor man is being held in jail on $400,000 bail after he and another man committed a home-invasion robbery armed with a hammer and a screwdriver last week, court documents allege.
Island County Deputy Prosecutor Eric Ohme charged the suspect, Richard Weatherford, in Island County Superior April 14 with first-degree robbery, first-degree burglary and second-degree assault. The robbery and burglary were charged with two aggravated circumstances — rapid recidivism and multiple current offenses — which increase the potential sentence.
An Oak Harbor woman is campaigning to change a law that allows certain sex offender to forego a lengthy prison terms in exchange for treatment in the community.
Amber Truex said she was upset that the man who raped and molested her 11-year-old stepdaughter numerous times was sentenced to just a year in jail under the Special Sex Offender Sentencing, or SSOA.
While most Island County officials hope to begin climbing out of a budget hole this year, Island County Commissioner Kelly Emerson has other plans.
During the commissioners’ first budget-related meeting this year, Emerson proposed cutting taxes. Specifically, she said her goals for this year’s budget process are to suspend the usual 1 percent annual property tax increase, sunset some sales taxes, stop “chasing” grant opportunities, reduce the Conservation Futures tax and possibly sell some county property.
A 28-year-old Oak Harbor man accidentally shot himself in the foot early Monday morning with a loaded .40-caliber Glock that he had stuck in his pocket, according to Oak Harbor police.
While adoption was never really in doubt, a belated amendment to the Island County Comprehensive Plan generated plenty of opinions and even some squabbling during a meeting Monday.
The critics of the amendment weren’t concerned about what was in it, but what wasn’t. The county commissioners had stripped all but one 18-acre parcel from a proposal to expand the city of Oak Harbor’s urban growth area by 180 acres.
A vandal armed with a BB gun has struck Oak Harbor again and again.
Someone with a BB gun shot out windows in seven cars just after midnight on Saturday morning, according to Oak Harbor Police Chief Rick Wallace. He said some of the vehicles had multiple windows hit.
Then six more cars and the screen door of a house were struck in the early morning hours on Monday.
An Oak Harbor man who volunteers at an elementary school was arrested last week after he went to meet a 13-year-old girl for sex, only to find the planned rendezvous was an undercover sting, according to the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office.
Results from the 2010 Census show that Island County is graying faster than the state or the nation as a whole.
While the county’s total population continues to grow — though not at the rate predicted by the state — the number of people under 18 years old decreased significantly over the last decade.
A new site on Navy property was added to the list of potential sites for the city of Oak Harbor’s $70-million wastewater treatment facility.
The Oak Harbor City Council adopted a resolution during its regular Tuesday meeting that directs the staff and consultant to evaluate five potential sites for the future facility.
Oak Harbor police are looking for a BB gun bandit who caused thousands of dollars of damage to parked cars this month.
Police Chief Rick Wallace said someone traveled all over the city and shot car windows with a BB gun on the night of Saturday, April 2. Windows in 16 vehicles, including two at Oak Harbor Motors, were smashed or cracked. In addition, someone slashed tires on two cars in the wee hours of the morn.
An Oak Harbor sewer controversy from four years ago has bubbled to the surface once again.
Most of the residents of the small waterfront neighborhood of Driftwood Beach Addition signed a petition requesting a local improvement district, commonly known as an LID, to build a gravity sewer system to connect their homes to the city’s system.
