Whidbey Examiner, December 25, 2014

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Thursday, December 25, 2014

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School levy heads to April ballot

VOL. 20, NO. 20

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

By Megan Hansen Co-Editor

The Coupeville School Board is slated to pass a resolution this week to put a $5-million capital facilities levy on the ballot in the spring. Due to early holiday press deadlines, The Examiner went to press prior to the meeting. The proposed levy will collect $5 million in property tax revenue over three years, starting in 2016. The levy increase will cost a homeowner with a $200,000 home about $180 more a year in property taxes, according to the school district. A special election will be held Tuesday, April 28. The original discussion by the school board targeted a February special election, but Superintendent Jim Shank said they didn’t feel like their would be enough time to effectively pass the levy. The school district’s plan is to break projects up into three phases and pay for the construction as taxes are collected, Shank said. The first phase will include remodeling the elementary school restroom, repairing a wall, SEE LEVY, PAGE 7

Hearts & Hammers needs projects By Ron Newberry Staff reporter

Lenita Graves doesn’t know what she would do without Central Whidbey Hearts & Hammers. Since they formed in 2009 and started organizing an annual work day to help homeowners in need of a hand, Graves has called on them at least three times. The volunteer group has helped Graves with electrical work, shower-head installation and even cleaning moss from the roof of her Admiral’s Cove home. “I can’t do that,” said Graves. “I’m afraid of heights. SEE HAMMERS, PAGE 7

Ron Newberry photo

Pat Lamont says the chickens abandoned near State Highway 20 outside Coupeville are adjusting well to life on her farm outside Oak Harbor. She took part in the chicken rescue last week after they spent three weeks near the highway.

Friends round up stray chickens By Ron Newberry Staff reporter

Shari Bibich was driving along State Highway 20 on her way to Oak Harbor last week when she noticed a brood of chickens on the side of the road and hoped they wouldn’t cross the street. When she returned to Coupeville, it was obvious they tried and one didn’t make it. “It broke my heart,” Bibich said. Bibich, shelter manager at Whidbey Animals’ Improvement Foundation in Coupeville, told the story to two Oak Harbor volunteers who were at the shelter and they put a plan into action to save the remaining birds from a similar fate. Pat Lamont and Pam Fick first rounded up their husbands, then rounded up the abandoned chickens. The rescue took place over two consecutive days and included Curt Fick scaling a tree in complete darkness, then snatching the chickens with a fishing net 15 feet off the ground. Pat Lamont and Pam Fick had succeeded just before dark the previous afternoon

in netting one chicken on the ground only to watch the rest scatter near the highway. “After that, they became very skittish,” Pat Lamont said. A longtime chicken raiser, she then hatched a better plan. “Since I had chickens, I knew at night that chickens roost and when they go to sleep you can pick them up and they don’t move,” Lamont said. The group spotted the madrona tree in which the chickens were roosting on the west side of Highway 20. Armed with a net and flashlight, Curt Fick volunteered to climb the tree while his wife and Pat and T.J. Lamont watched from below.

Fick’s first swipe at a chicken was unsuccessful. Sort of. “It fell like a sack of potatoes to the ground,” Pat Lamont said. “We thought we killed it, but we hadn’t.” It remained sound asleep, she said, until it was placed in a dog kennel in the back of a truck. The capture of the remaining three went more smoothly, increasing the Lamonts’ brood to 14 chickens in their pen. Bibich was glad to see a happy ending for the four chickens, who were the talk of the town in Coupeville in recent weeks because SEE CHICKENS. PAGE 7


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