News-Times Whidbey
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2013 | Vol. 114, No. 1 | www.whidbeynewstimes.com | 75¢
LIVING: Renew where forest meets sea. A8
2012: A year in review Creativity, culture furnish a year of news
2012 file photos
LEFT: In August Archie Nichols of Nichols Brothers Boat Builders calls down from Admiralty Head Lighthouse to Don Carscadden, who was driving a crane that lifted a new lantern house onto the lighthouse. All three Whidbey high schools built the new lantern house. ABOVE: Jessie Huggins, stranding coordinator with Cascadia Research, works on top of a dead gray whale found in Saratoga Passage. A necropsy was conducted by researchers with several groups. allow the city to expand its urban growth area. Peter Hunt publishes “Setting the Hook: A Diver’s Return to the Andrea Doria.” Oak Harbor resident Beatrice Morgan donates beach for public use. Lance Davenport, a Duvall resident, is sworn in as the new Coupeville Town Marshal. State Sen. Mar y Margaret Haugen casts the crucial vote in favor of gay marriage.
January Coupeville’s Big Rock, a glacial erratic in the middle of town, is put up for sale along with the apartment complex that sits behind the massive rock shrouded in ivy.
city nearly $500,000 in severance payments and other expenses. Oak Harbor city leaders appeal the Western Washington Growth Management Hearing Board’s rejection of the city’s petition against Island County. The city is fighting the county commissioners’ refusal to
The Oak Harbor High School Choir Club and the Media Arts Club film undead dancers in various areas of Whidbey Island for the music video, “Thrill the Island,” a zombie-themed dance set to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Colton Harris-Moore, the Barefoot Bandit, is sen-
February Riley Grace Borden, a 12-year-old Coupeville girl, dances in Pacific Northwest Ballet’s “Don Quixote.” The Island County Historical Society begins a restoration of Chief Snakelum’s historic canoe. The Oak Harbor Marina receives what may be its last batch of 30,000 coho smolt. The state program that brought the baby salmon to the marina for recreational fishing falls to budget cuts.
192 people who reported being ill after attending the Washington State High School Cheerleading Championships. Coupeville dermatologist Donald “Russell” Johnson dies in a gruesome car accident at Deception Pass while being pursued by a state trooper. Johnson had pleaded guilty a few days prior to assaulting his girlfriend. Months before, he abruptly closed his clinics in Coupeville and Anacortes because of financial trouble and was being investigated by the state for alleged patient abandonment. A 13-year-old girl is mauled by three pitbulls in Oak Harbor. See REVIEW, A2
Five Oak Harbor cheerleaders and several parents were among the
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Oak Harbor Mayor Scott
Dudley comes into office and immediately makes changes. He fires City Administrator Paul Schmidt, City Attorney Margery Hite and Fire Chief Mark Soptich. He later adds Police Chief Rick Wallace and new City Attorney Bill Hawkins to the list of terminations. City Council members harshly criticize Dudley for the moves, which cost the
tenced to six and a half years in prison by a federal judge after prosecutors revealed that he insulted the Island County sheriff and prosecutor in emails and phone calls.