RECORD SOUTH WHIDBEY
INSIDE: On the run, Sports, A10
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2011 | Vol. 87, No. 83 | WWW.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.COM | 75¢
Langley council candidates stress their top priorities BY BRIAN KELLY South Whidbey Record
LANGLEY — From ambitious goals to admittedly more modest ones, the two candidates for Position 3 on the Langley City Council have pondered the possibilities — and the priorities — they’ll set if elected to the seat come November. Robin Adams and Jim Sundberg are both seeking to win the seat now held by Councilwoman Fran Abel, an appointee who chose not to run to retain her place on the council. Adams and Sundberg both emerged from a three-way race in August’s primary that also featured city hall watchdog Kathleen Waters, with Sundberg winning the most votes in the election. Sundberg, a retiree who most recently worked at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has been a Langley
Brian Kelly / The Record
Robin Adams, candidate for Langley council Position 3. resident since 2002. He currently serves as the chairman of the city’s Planning Advisory Board. Sundberg said he’s learned to work well with Langley’s other officials and city staff, which will help him serve as an effective councilman if elected. “You can have very creative ideas, but you need to build
trust between you and the people who help you implement or enact your ideas,” Sundberg explained. “I think I have quite strong experience in terms of working with most of the city department heads and with the mayor’s office,” he said. “I have an established record of being able to work with the various city depart-
Brian Kelly / The Record
Jim Sundberg, candidate for Langley council Position 3. ments and that record also brings along, I think, an understanding of how these departments operate,” he said. “I have ... a pretty intimate knowledge of how the budget works and how the budget process works for the city.” He’s built trust at city hall, he said, and has found that there’s an essential give-and-
take process that is fundamental to good governance. It was a lesson he learned during the city’s review of the controversial Langley Passage housing project. “Believe it or not, I think the Langley Passages, in the end, turned out to be a process of give and take. The project that was finally approved by the city council included
additional conditions to make the project environmentally more acceptable and presumably more acceptable to the neighborhood.” The new subdivision came out better in the end, he said, because of the back-andforth. Sundberg, 69, said his leadership style was one that revolves around getting more information; conducting additional research, or asking to get a different perspective and the other side of the story. “I like to research an issue before I settle on a position,” he said. “I like to gather the facts.” “Of course, you have to know when you’ve done enough research.” Langley has struggled through some lean years, budget-wise, but Sundberg SEE COUNCIL, A6
Man accused in attack was evaluated, released on day of stabbing
Hot time tonight
BY BRIAN KELLY South Whidbey Record
Ben Watanabe / The Record
The bonfire blazed after several years of exclusion from homecoming week ceremonies, and more than 70 students were there Wednesday night to welcome it back. Sophomores Mackenzie Hezel and Maia Sparkman bask in the glow of the burning pallets stacked 10-feet as students sing the Falcon fight song.
A Freeland man who allegedly stabbed his parents had been evaluated earlier in the day at Whidbey General Hospital and released just hours before he attacked his mother and father in their Bush Point Terrace home Sunday. Sean Paul DeMerchant has been charged with two counts of firstdegree assault with a deadly weapon and remains in Island County jail in Coupeville on a $500,000 bond. Authorities claim DeMerchant stabbed his mother and father, Norma and Paul DeMerchant, in the back on the night of Oct. 9, and also cut his mother’s neck. Deputies responding to a 911 call from Sean DeMerchant Norma DeMerchant arrested the assailant in the bedroom of his parent’s home on Dolphin Drive, where both victims SEE ATTACK, A7