Record South Whidbey
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Dedicated to peace See...A10
SATURDAY, MAY 31, 2014 | Vol. 90, No. 44 | WWW.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.COM | 75¢
Maxwelton salmon vigil continues
Justin Burnett / The Record
Whidbey Watershed Stewards volunteer Gregg Ridder and Robin Clark, the organization’s program manager, examine a cutthroat fry caught in a fish trap.
By JUSTIN BURNETT South Whidbey Record A stickleback and a whole lot of Western tent caterpillars don’t count, so the total for the day was one — a single cutthroat trout fry measuring barely one-inch long. But no coho smolt.
For Whidbey Watershed Stewards, a group that has for the past 10 years spent every May counting salmon smolt and fry twice a day in Maxwelton Creek, that’s not too bad. This year is a bit better than normal, but the average tally at the end of the four-week run rarely exceeds double digits. It wasn’t always so, however.
“Our smolt count is about 100 and it should be tens of thousands,” said Gregg Ridder, a Clinton resident who has monitored the organization’s trap on French since 2005. Whidbey Watershed Stewards is a South Whidbey-based SEE SMOLT, A14
First Street neighbors differ over development By BEN WATANABE South Whidbey Record
Ben Watanabe / The Record
This unmanaged bluff in Langley, the site of a proposed six-story, commercial/residential building, would be built into for the foundation.
Grumbling over a proposed sixstory, 19,000-square-foot development has Langley buzzing. When Richard Francisco, the owner of the First Street property that includes Village Pizzeria, presented the plan to the city council and Langley Planning Advisory Board earlier this month, some 50 people packed council chambers.
Lots of questions were raised about the process, the need and the cost of building a parking garage for the 14 residences, two restaurants, and several more office spaces and retail fronts. Such a major change riled up plenty of people in town. Losing the view of Saratoga Passage and the Cascades was a major concern for Lorie McNeill. At a later Langley City Council meeting
May 19, she told the council they had to consider how a higher building would affect both residents and businesses. “For me, that third story has a negative impact on my second story,” she said. “Is three stories appropriate, not just for me, but for the town?” she later asked. SEE FIRST STREET, A9