Record South Whidbey
WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 2012 | Vol. 88, No. 35 | www.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.com | 75¢
INSIDE: Helping hearts, Island Life, A10
Council to speak up about complaint
YOU LIGHT UP MY LIFE
By JUSTIN BURNETT Staff reporter
Ben Watanabe/ The Record
South Whidbey High School physics teacher Greg Ballog shows Kellen Field and Patrick Parnell how the hand-crank generator powers a small light bulb. The equipment, including 15 energy monitors was purchased with a grant from Puget Sound Energy and the South Whidbey Schools Foundation.
Foundation and PSE grant illuminates class BY BEN WATANABE Staff reporter
LANGLEY — Greg Ballog’s physics class got a little brighter recently. A Puget Sound Energy and South Whidbey Schools Foundation grant of $1,325 enabled Ballog and fellow South Whidbey High School physics teacher Jay Freundlich to purchase a hand-crank generator and 15 kilowatt meters. More than the equipment, however, are the expanded lessons South Whidbey’s physics teachers will have for years to come. A handful of students, all boys in their junior or senior year, cranked the generator as hard as they could to power a small light bulb attached to the power cables. “The idea is to give students
an appreciation of what electrical energy means,” Ballog said. In the case of the hand generator, electrical energy means arm exhaustion and sweat. As for the energy monitors, the plan is to have students take them home to measure energy consumption by plugging it into an outlet, then plugging an appliance or device into that to measure how much energy is used, and at what cost. One student already has plans to conduct an energy audit for his senior project next year. Evan Welch, a junior in Ballog’s physics class, said he plans to use the energy meters at a South Whidbey business (he was hoping the South Whidbey Commons), where he can identify inefficient appliances and reduce operational costs. The
first phase began at his home, though. “I’ve started to put monitors all over my house, much to my parents’ chagrin,” Welch said. Though the goal is to find ways of saving money, he admitted the hand-generator would be a tough sell. “I’m not sure how well I could convince someone to crank for their energy,” Welch said. That kind of take-home education was exactly what the schools foundation and Puget Sound Energy had in mind for the grant. Chris Gibson, vice president of the foundation, learned from the energy company that funds were available for educational purposes, specifically related to energy lessons. Puget Sound Energy put in $750, and the South Whidbey
Schools Foundation added $575 to purchase the equipment. “We were aware that some of the teachers, Jay, Greg and Jeff Greene, have energy portions in their curriculum,” Gibson said. “We put two and two together, added some of our own money and it all worked out.” Ballog and Freundlich also made a portable energy meter like the one outside a home to measure how much energy is used in the classrooms. Ballog said the gear will likely be incorporated into the physics lesson plans next school year, though students in his 18-person class were thrilled to test the new experiment when it arrived in late April. “There’s a lot of testing we have to do,” Ballog said.
The Langley City Council is expected to break its silence this week concerning the alleged scandal involving Mayor Larry Kwarsick. According to Councilman and Mayor Pro-tem Hal Seligson, a statement will be made about mid-week concerning the whistle blower complaint that was lodged at the freshman mayor in April. Seligson declined to go into details, but said the announcement will focus on the council’s review of the matter and determinations made during a series of executive sessions that took place at City Hall last week. Hal Seligson While city officials have been tight-lipped about the nature of the complaint, the issue revolves around Kwarsick and decisions made concerning a family member’s home while he was the city’s director of Community Planning in 2011. Following the first executive session, Kwarsick paid the South Whidbey Record a visit and said he would not comment on the specifics of the allegations. Many “nasty things” have been said about him during his 40 years in government service and he has made it a policy not to participate in public debates, he said. The council is following the appropriate process to handle a whistle blower complaint, said Kwarsick, and he plans to cooperate fully. “There is a process and I won’t banter back and forth in the paper,” Kwarsick said. However, while the mayor declined to go into detail, he did say the allegations have been “ratcheted up” beyond anything See complaint, A6