RECORD SOUTH WHIDBEY
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2011 | Vol. 87, No. 92 | WWW.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.COM | 75¢
INSIDE: Musical sisters, Island Life, A10
THREE KILLED IN CLINTON CRASH Whidbey devastated by horrific tragedy
Officials reverse course on sewer LID BY BRIAN KELLY South Whidbey Record
Ben Watanabe / The Record
Flowers and mementos cover the ground at the scene of the accident that claimed three young lives early Saturday. A memorial service for one of the victims, Rob Knight, is planned for Friday evening in Freeland. BY BEN WATANABE South Whidbey Record
LANGLEY — From lifelong friends to casual acquaintances, weeping relatives to stunned mourners, they sat in darkness, illuminated only by the light of flickering candles. Hundreds gathered at the grandstands next to the football field at South Whidbey High School on Saturday night to mourn the three young men killed in a car crash overnight. All three, 22-yearold Rob Knight, 20-year-old Mick Poynter and
19-year-old Mack Porter, were SWHS graduates. “Memories leave nothing to look forward to,” said Cory Soto, a friend to all three. “I wish there could be more than just that.” The three victims died in a car crash around midnight Friday. According to the Washington State Patrol, the driver of the vehicle had been drinking and speeding. She survived, and is currently in Island County jail on charges of vehicular homicide. Soto was one of a handful of mourners who
spoke to the crowd at Saturday’s vigil. “It’s a decision that people make all the time, whether or not to drink or drive, to stay or to go, to have somebody DD (designated drive) even if the other person is just slightly drunk,” Soto said. “It’s a decision that can leave you with just a memory. And that’s nothing to look forward to.” News of the terrible crash spread quickly on the South End, and the vigil marked the first SEE TRAGEDY, A6
Neighbor recounts terrible night of fatal accident BY BRIAN KELLY South Whidbey Record
CLINTON — It was just after midnight Friday, and Robert Volz heard a loud noise and looked out his living room window to see headlights in his driveway. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked. He soon found out. Hell was across the street. Volz looked out his door and
saw flames on the other side of Wilkinson Road. He turned to his girlfriend and told her to call 911. He ran down his driveway, and someone in the waiting car asked him to call 911. Volz told them they already had as he kept going toward the flames. When he got to the road, he saw two girls sitting in the street, right near the sign for Meander Lane. They were holding each other,
screaming and crying. Volz looked over and saw the bus stop shelter wasn’t on fire — he had first thought kids had torched it when he saw flames — but it was a small car, too mangled to see what type. The girls told him what happened, too fast to catch it all, but they said they had pulled a girl out but there were still three others inside.
The flames were more than 20 feet high. “It just burned and burned.” “It … was horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. I’ve never seen anything like that. And never want to again,” Volz said. A Langley police car pulled up a minute or two later and the officer ran up with the small extinguisher SEE NIGHT, A6
FREELAND — Lou Malzone won’t get to make good on a big campaign promise. Three other guys beat him to it. At their first meeting since last week’s election, commissioners for the Freeland Water and Sewer District unanimously voted to rescind a resolution that created a local improvement district, or LID, that would pay for a new $40 million sewer system in Freeland. Controversy over the LID has raged for months, and the cost of the ambitious sewer project inspired Malzone to run for a commissioner’s seat. Malzone, and fellow candidate Marilynn Abrahamson, defeated incumbent commissioners Nolen “Rocky” Knickerbocker and Jim Short in a landslide Nov. 8. Once Malzone and Abrahamson are sworn in, they will take control of the three-member board. Abrahamson has also been a vociferous critic of the $40 million sewer plan, and she ran a combined campaign with Malzone that centered on wisdom of the sewer project, which they said would subsidize sewers for downtown business interests by shifting much of the massive costs to residential property owners. During the campaign, Malzone vowed to repeal the resolution that gave the district the authority to pass costs of the sewer project along to property owners in the Freeland area. At Monday’s meeting of the district board, however, commissioners voted 3-0 to repeal the LID resolution. The turnabout came after SEE LID, A20