REVIEW BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
HERE HE COMES: Best-selling author visits Bainbridge this weekend. A12
FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2012 | Vol. 112, No. 29 | WWW.BAINBRIDGEREVIEW.COM | 75¢
Attorneys seek more than $660K in lawyer fees, costs from city
Berry happy returns
BY BRIAN KELLY Bainbridge Island Review
Richard D. Oxley / Bainbridge Island Review
Lewars’ and Tomine’s son, Weston, is in charge of cleaning the buckets that blueberry pickers use.
New farmers keep 100-year-old Bainbridge farm up and running BY RICHARD D. OXLEY Bainbridge Island Review
Farming is a Bainbridge Island heritage. So when one island woman saw the remote possibility that one farm could be paved over, she wasted no time and took action. Last spring, Stacy Lewars was driving home when she passed freshly planted “For Sale” signs in front of the U-pick blueberry and dahlia farm on Madison Avenue. As she continued to drive on, her mind began to conjure up images of developers tearing up the farm to build homes and other worst-case-scenarios. “I kind of freaked out when I saw the real estate flier up,” Lewars said. “It was sheer panic.” “In my mind I saw a developer buying all eight acres and putting up eight homes,” she added. It wasn’t long before she couldn’t drive any further. She turned back. “I hit the brakes and did a U-turn, Lewars said. “I got out of my car, and looked at the real estate listing.” The farm was special to Lewars and
Richard D. Oxley / Bainbridge Island Review
Stacey Lewars and Dylan Tomine stand with their son Weston and daughter Skyla at the Bainbridge Island Blueberry Company.
her family. They had frequented the U-pick farm for years. It was where they would often bring friends and family. “We would go every year,” Lewars said. “We loved it. We would always take our out-of-town friends.”
Now that the farm was ripe for the picking, she wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be swallowed up as a new subdivision. Lewars sat her husband down, Dylan Tomine. They went over every possible hurdle that they would have to clear to get into the blueberry business. “We stayed up until 2 in the morning with every possible question to talk with the Wilsons about,” she said. The Wilsons, the family that had owned the property for more than 100 years, were selling the land. It had been a holly farm for decades, but more recently had been converted into a blueberry and dahlia farm. “It was a huge decision for us, not being farmers,” Lewars said. “It’s not as though I grew up wanting to be a farmer.” It wasn’t long before papers were signed, and Lewars, a lighting designer, and Tomine, a writer, were in the business of blueberries. Lewars didn’t waste any time and took advantage of the Wilsons’ knowledge. SEE FARM, A15
Attorneys for the Ostling family have asked a federal judge to award their legal team more than $660,000 in legal fees and related costs following the $1 million judgement against the city of Bainbridge Island. The request for attorneys’ fees Related story inside was filed in U.S. The city of Bainbridge District Court last Island will limit the month by lawyers investigation on with Connelly union allegations Law Offices, the against Police Chief Tacoma-based law Jon Fehlman. Story on firm that representPage A10. ed the Ostling family in their lawsuit against the city. “As the court knows first-hand, this was a very difficult and hard-fought civil rights case involving unique issues,” attorneys with Connelly Law Offices said in their court filing, and added that the firm took on an “extraordinary risk” and had invested “countless hours and thousands of dollars” when it took on the Ostling case. William and Joyce Ostling filed suit against the city of Bainbridge Island, Police Chief Jon Fehlman and Bainbridge Police Officer Jeff Benkert after their son Douglas Ostling was shot and killed by Benkert after he responded to a 911 call at the Ostling home in October 2010 and Ostling confronted police at his doorway with a double-bladed ax.
Follows $1 million verdict The jury in the federal civil rights trial found the shooting was justified, but said police had not been properly trained to deal with the mentally ill, and awarded $1 million to the Ostlings and the victim’s estate. The city has since asked for a new trial, and said the jury would have decided the case differently if Fehlman had been there to defend himself and his department. Fehlman was hospitalized before the start of the trial and has been on medical leave ever since. In their request for attorneys’ fees, the family’s lawyers laid out the extensive work they had done on the case. SEE FEES, A24