Record South Whidbey
INSIDE
Artists find inspiration in former glory ... A10
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2016 | Vol. 92, No. 17 | WWW.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.COM | 75¢
Overnight parking left out
South Whidbey port pushes county to turn over fairgrounds By DAN RICHMAN Whidbey News Group
over time, some of the originally proposed elements changed or were cut. A parking garage was one of those cut because of a lack of funding, said Washington State Ferries Division Terminal Design Engineering Manager Nicole McIntosh. “Unfortunately, funding is not available to provide parking at this time,” she said, responding to a couple of questions about a lack of additional parking in the ferry terminal area.
The Port of South Whidbey, which since April 1, 2015 has managed the historic Island County Fairgrounds under a oneyear, no-cost lease from the county, on Wednesday threatened to refuse to sign a new lease on April 1 if the county doesn’t promptly give, or sell, it the property. By the end of Wednesday’s meeting of the Island County Council of Governments, Curt Gordon, the port’s immediate past president, had agreed the port will appear before the Board of Island County Commissioners next month to discuss the possible change in ownership and its timing. “We’re just not ready to run it for another year,” Gordon initially said at the meeting. “We’ve done our year. We’re ready to move ahead with a plan. If others are confident they can take over, I’m thrilled.” Gordon said a conversation between port President Ed Halloran and county Commissioner Helen Price Johnson led him to believe the board wasn’t willing to transfer the 12.8-acre property to the port as quickly as the port wanted. The port wants to apply for a time-sensitive $100,000 Rural County Economic Development grant to develop the fairgrounds according to a detailed plan. It also wants to put a levy on an August ballot seeking to raise money for purchasing the property. Gordon added that he was “under the understanding” that Board Chairman Rick Hannold agreed with Price Johnson on the timeline. Commissioner Jill Johnson responded by giving Gordon a short civics lesson. “If one commissioner tells you something is a fact, one is not a majority,” she said. “It’s important to understand the whole board has to weigh in.” By the meeting’s end, Gordon said he’d “make sure” the port makes an informed decision about a new lease based on input from the full board of county commissioners. Johnson conceded that Island County is not the fairgrounds’
SEE PARKING, A20
SEE FAIRGROUNDS, A12
Ben Watanabe / The Record
Zach Simonson-Bond of Clinton asks Washington State Department of Transportation officials about parking considerations in Mukilteo for Whidbey Island commuters and visitors near the proposed new terminal. The answer at the Tuesday meeting in Clinton was that there’s no money for it.
Crowd slams new Mukilteo ferry terminal’s lack of parking, second slip By BEN WATANABE South Whidbey Record Ferry users let state officials have an earful about poor parking considerations and a lack of preparations for emergencies Tuesday night. The Washington State Department of Transportation came en masse to present the 60-percent design of the proposed multimodal terminal. Estimated to cost $129 million and be completed by 2019, the project is touted for improving connections between
different forms of transportation, safety and environmental impact. The terminal is closer to the rail station for Sound Transit’s Sounder line to Seattle, improves the bus area, and is located where it will move the bulk of ferry operations away from Mukilteo’s Old Town commercial area. Whether that last item is a benefit or a detraction largely depends on one’s take on the ferries’ impact on some of the restaurants and other shops near the current terminal. As the project’s design progressed
Alternative high school program moving in with SWHS By EVAN THOMPSON South Whidbey Record
South Whidbey Academy high school students will mix and mingle in the halls of South Whidbey High School this coming September. Forty-six students in the alternative school’s ninth-
grade through 12th-grade program will “co-locate” to the unoccupied north wing of South Whidbey High School at the start of the 2016-17 academic year. South Whidbey Academy is home to three distinct alternative education programs: kindergarten through fifth grade, sixth through eighth grade, and
the high school classes. Only the academy’s high school students are affected, so far. In an email Friday morning, South Whidbey School District Superintendent Jo Moccia said discussions about the sixth-grade through eighth-grade program making a similar move to Langley Middle School have
occurred, but no decision has been made. Moccia said in a telephone interview Thursday the change of location was decided administratively, by her. She touted a number of reasons for the move, which include increased selection of classes, reduced travel time between campuses, improved
transportation efficiency and better access to extracurricular activities. Letters were sent to affected academy students’ parents Feb. 12 detailing the history and background of the academy as well as the rationale behind the decision. “The positives are why SEE ALTERNATIVE ED., A3
“I don’t really approve of it ... It didn’t really make any sense to me.” Jesse Seely South Whidbey Academy student