An error in the Camano Island tax levy rate has led to extra work for an understaffed county department, wasted tax dollars, upset taxpayers and acrimony between county departments.
For Whidbey Island property owners, the error means the county will be slow in processing tax payments.
The Whidbey News-Times and South Whidbey Record will move into new, shared office space in Coupeville on Wednesday, March 31.
The News-Times’ office on Barrington Drive in Oak Harbor will shut down at the regular 5 p.m. closing time on Tuesday. The South Whidbey Record office in Bayview will close at 3 p.m.
Two former county commissioners are among the members of a citizen financial review committee charged with scrutinizing Island County’s five-year budget projection.
The seven members of the committee will begin meeting in April. It will probably take about four meetings, which haven’t been schedule yet, for the group to look over the county’s budget numbers, assumptions and projections.
The Whidbey Camano Land Trust is attempting what is probably the biggest fundraiser in Whidbey history in order to save the largest single-owner piece of forest land remaining on the island.
Updating Island County’s parks plan will be the planning commission’s highest priority task this year under the preliminary 2010 annual review docket.
Every year the county commissioners set a docket which lists the long-range planning projects that the planning department and the volunteer planning commission will take on.
The Washington state Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction last week of an Oak Harbor man who raped his ex-girlfriend in 2007, but he can still appeal to the state Supreme Court.
A 24-year-old Marine sergeant stationed at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station is accused of violating a court order more than 100 times, according to documents filed in Island County Superior Court.
A 27-year-old Coupeville man was recently sent to prison for having sex with an underaged girl, pointing a handgun at her head and threatening to kill her.
Ten years ago, only 59 percent of residents of Island County filled out their census forms, which means agencies and governmental entities missed out on many thousands of dollars passed down from the state and federal government.
Island County’s animal control officer is looking for information about a female pit bull that was apparently abandoned near Oak Harbor earlier this month.
Carol Barnes, the county’s longtime animal control contractor, said the petite, friendly dog showed up in the area of Golf Course Road on March 3. She said it was a classic case of abandonment. The anxious pooch would run from car to car, peering inside each.
Washington’s Most Wanted, the Q13 FOX TV program, is airing a story on the unsolved murder of Deborah Palmer this Friday and Saturday.
At the same time, the Oak Harbor police are ramping up an effort to raise funds for the Deborah Palmer Reward Fund, which would go to an individual who provides information leading to the arrest and prosecution of anyone involved in the murder.
Island County Coroner Robert Bishop cradled the child’s lifeless, covered body in his lap as the tiny helicopter escaped from the remote beach where the mystery of the missing girl had taken the worst kind of turn.
In March of 1997, Bishop was well aware of a massive search effort on North Whidbey after 7-year-old Deborah Palmer disappeared while walking to Oak Harbor Elementary School. He knew he would probably become involved in the case at some point, but that didn’t make the call welcome when it came. The missing persons case officially became a homicide on March 31, 1997.
It’s been 13 years, but Madeline Palmer still has to force herself to look away when she walks by little girls’ clothes hanging on store racks. She still imagines that she catches glimpses of her daughter here and there. Even now, she talks about her dead daughter in the present tense.
