A total of 16 full-time and part-time Island County employees will be laid off June 1. An additional seven positions will be eliminated through attrition and 19 employees will have reduced work hours.
The Island County commissioners officially and unanimously adopted a resolution amending the 2009 budget Monday morning. Just over $1 million in cuts were made, plus $1 million in reserve will be used to fill the $2 million budget hole.
A vote to permanently change Oak Harbor’s Manufactured Home Park Code is delayed until June 2.
Steve Powers, director of development services, requested additional time to allow city staff to look into the concerns raised at the April 21 City Council meeting and to gather more information for the planning commission.
People interested in hearing regional updates on transportation projects in Island and Skagit counties can attend the upcoming meeting of the Island and Skagit County Regional Transportation Planning Organization Policy Board.
The board will meet from 10 a.m. to noon, Wednesday, May 27, in Oak Hall, room 306, of the Oak Harbor campus of Skagit Valley College, 1900 SE Pioneer Way.
When May tides are considered their best, local Northwest tribes paddle to Penn Cove for a Saturday packed with canoe races, tribal dancing, storytelling and singing.
This year, organizers expanded the Penn Cove Water Festival from a one-day to a three-day event, from May 15 to 17.
When middle school and high school jazz bands on Whidbey Island meet, it’s usually to face off in a contest.
However, each year, the Whidbey Island Jazz Society hosts a concert that erases the competitive atmosphere and lets jazz students share the limelight.
Fourth and fifth-graders at Broad View Elementary School are getting an early lesson in road safety, with a new $20,700 grant for P.E. classes.
The Bicycle Alliance of Washington grant provided 33 bikes for the Oak Harbor school district.
When a lot of us so called “baby-boomers” were growing up, we had our sports heroes that we all tried to emulate and would have given almost anything on earth to be like.
I have been thinking about the story about legal distilleries in Washington for almost a month and it is still…
Sno-Isle Regional Library System, which operates four libraries on Whidbey Island, has a tough job ahead of it trying to…
One of the largest kelp beds in Washington state nearly surrounds two tiny islands off the west coast of Whidbey Island.
The underwater forest of seaweed is an ideal nursery for baby fish, according to Cyrilla Cook of People for Puget Sound. The surrounding waters support a diverse ecosystem of sea creatures, including orcas, harbor seals, salmon, halibut, lingcod, tufted puffins and black oystercatchers.
It’s such an important habitat for the species that People for Puget Sound, a nonprofit conservation group, is trying to get 30,000 acres of state-owned bedlands and tidelands turned into a state aquatic reserve.
Rather than roller skating, shooting pool or studying in the computer lab, a group of teens participated in something more holy at the Roller Barn in Oak Harbor.
More than 100 teenagers worshipped Wednesday night as part of the National Day of Prayer Youth Rally.
The Island County prosecutor was forced to dismiss felony charges against four people because of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.
The ruling will likely affect many misdemeanor cases, as well as the caseloads for police and prosecutors in the future.
“The reality is that a lot of guns and drugs won’t be found,” Prosecutor Greg Banks said.
Joel Douglas, owner of the Coachman Inn, hopes that some day the code will be expanded to include color electronic images, but if planning commissioner Keith Fakkema had his way, there’d be no commercial signs at all in Oak Harbor.