News-Times Whidbey
ISLAND SPORTS Oak Harbor cleans up all-league honors
SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 2013 | Vol. 114, No. 44 | www.whidbeynewstimes.com | 75¢
OH Council prayer may still invoke Jesus Christ By JESSIE STENSLAND Staff reporter
Jessie Stensland / Whidbey News-Times
Pastor Michael Hurley of the Life Church gives an invocation at the start of a recent Oak Harbor City Council meeting.
Oak Harbor City Council will likely review a revised policy on invocations before public meetings. Interim City Attorney Grant Weed said he is planning to present the proposed policy during a council meeting in June. Weed rewrote a proposed policy on invocations the start of council meetings to take into account the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in the case Rubin v. City of Lancaster. The new policy removes prohibitions against what may be said during the invocation. See OAK HARBOR, A20
Commissioner floating new county prayer policy
By JUSTIN BURNETT Staff reporter
Business meetings of the Island County Board of Commissioners may soon begin with a dash of the divine. At the request of Chairwoman Kelly Emerson, the board is scheduled to discuss next week whether or not the formal Monday meetings should begin with a prayer. “It’s been something I’ve been thinking about for some time,” said Emerson, during an interview Friday with the Whidbey News-
Times. The board generally meets in open session twice a week and Monday meetings are the more formal of two. It’s when the commissioners vote on code changes, hold public hearings and discuss other big issues. Those meetings can be highly charged, and Emerson, a self-described born-again Christian, said an opening prayer may bring a little “civility” to the discussion. The commissioner hasn’t put forward a proposal detailing what prayers would be
offered or by whom. Instead, she asked only for a general discussion during the board’s Wednesday, June 5 work session. So far, the proposal is seeing some support. “I’m looking forward to the discussion,” Commissioner Jill Johnson said. “I’m not opposed to prayer.” Commissioner Helen Price Johnson could not be reached for comment by press time. Island County was established in 1852 and it’s unclear whether business meetings of the commissioners have ever began with a prayer.
At the very least, it hasn’t been done in nearly 40 years. “To the best of my recollection, we’ve never done that in Island County, and I go back to 1976 with the prosecutor’s office,” Superior Court Judge Alan Hancock said. According to former county commissioner Mac McDowell, who served from 1993 to 2008, the county only started reciting the Pledge of Allegiance shortly after he was See County, A20
Fine-tuned tax increase proposal heads to board of commissioners By JESSIE STENSLAND Staff reporter
A resolution recommending a ballot proposition for law-andjustice funding is finally on its way to Island County Board of Commissioners. Island County Law and Justice Council again voted unanimously Thursday to send a resolution to the commissioners. The council asks the commissioners to approve a ballot measure seeking a $2.6-million property tax increase. The council approved a resolution in April, but the members had to hammer out details before sending it along. The resolution, for example, now includes a recommendation to “sunset”
the tax increase after five years. Island Prosecutor Greg Banks, co-chairman of the council, said the members discussed the sunset provision at length, but decided it was best to bring the tax increase back to the voters. “Hopefully in five years, people will say that was money well spent,” he said during an interview with the Whidbey NewsTimes Thursday. The council proposed a property-tax increase of approximately $0.21 per $1,000 of assessed valuation to raise $2.6 million a year. It would cost the owner of a $250,000 home See Law & Justice, A20
Jessie Stensland / Whidbey News-Times
Corrections Deputy Mark Moffitt escorts an inmate at the Island County Jail. The understaffed jail could get three more deputies if a ballot measure passes.