Editor,

Reporter Dan Richman’s article about the effects the Navy base expansion will have on Oak Harbor environs only told one side of the story.

Oak Harbor Mayor Bob Severns and Development Services Director Steve Powers’ presentation was followed by that of Dr. Lance Gibbon, Oak Harbor School District superintendent.

Gibbon had a less encouraging story to tell property taxpayers about the enormous impact the base expansion is expected to have on the school system.

By some estimates, enrollments will nearly double.

This will require an enormous increase in facilities, maintenance, staff, teachers, monitors to prevent local kids from being bullied and pay hikes, to say nothing of increased need for law enforcement, fire protection, streets, more traffic signals and the stresses on utilities like water, heating, sewer and power.

Guess who pays for all that?

Then too there is the Navy’s historic recklessness with the environment, like the “superfund” disposal area where all sorts of toxic chemicals get dumped to threaten the safety of the island’s aquifers.

Where do you think all that fuel goes that some report see being dumped out over the ocean when planes approach to land?

All this goes on while we spend tax dollars trying to salvage the once abundant salmon.

Want to know how it used to be? Get Peggy Darst Townsdin’s or the late Dorothy Neil’s books on Whidbey’s history. They are marvelous volumes.

So while chamber of commerce businessmen, rental property managers and power brokers salivate over the coming windfall; others more interested in the natural beauty Whidbey once had, including some of our elder residents who had prime property taken by eminent domain, get a bad case of dry mouth and a lump in their throat remembering what used to be.

Al Williams

Oak Harbor