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Falcons fall to Red Wolves See...A8
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2015 | Vol. 91, No. 4 | www.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.com | 75¢
WGH gets closer to selecting new chief
Hospital included in state audit report
By MICHELLE BEAHM Whidbey News Group Whidbey General Hospital has narrowed to three its field of candidates for chief executive officer. CEO Tom Tomasino is stepping down from the position in October, giving him and the board plenty of time to train his replacement before his departure. With only three candidates in the running and hopes of making a job offer by the end of January, Commissioner Anne Tarrant, who also serves as board president, said they’re not releasing the names of the finalists at this time. The search executive hired to help line up candidates, Kate Kingsley of KL Kingsley Executive Search, hasn’t confirmed whether the top three candidates notified their current employers of their search for a new job, Tarrant said. “They are all gainfully employed and I don’t want to jeopardize their current positions,” Tarrant said. Keeping the identities a secret “is the best thing to do for everybody,” Kingsley said. The names and backgrounds of the remaining candidates will be released soon, however. The hospital board is hosting three luncheons over the next week, one for each candidate, to allow members of the community to get to know them before a final selection is made. The luncheons are by invitation only. Tarrant said invitations were sent to the three mayors on the island, a former CEO, a representative from the health department, representatives from the three chambers of commerce on the island, one of the county commissioners and the Whidbey News SEE CEO SEARCH, A20
By JESSIE STENSLAND South Whidbey Record
Ben Watanabe / The Record
James Wills files mail into post office boxes at the Clinton post office Monday. After a 34-year career at the Clinton post office, he will retire at the end of January and focus on his passion, painting.
Clinton post office clerk to retire after 34 years of service to south end By BEN WATANABE South Whidbey Record
James Wills has a lot of nicknames. People who come to the Clinton post office to weigh packages, check for lost mail and buy stamps know him as Jim, Jimmy and Jimbo. The nicknames extend from Wills, 65, as well. He calls the customers kid, lad, dude and dear, depending on who it is and how well he knows them, which typically is pretty well. “I know everybody,” he said Monday as he worked at the front desk weighing parcels and greeting customers. “I know everybody’s parents. I know everybody’s grandparents.” During work, a customer strolled in, saw a reporter and asked, “Is Jimmy going to be on the front page of the newspaper?” All of that friendly banter and a 34-year cache of memories will wrap up in a final shift Friday, Jan. 30. Wills is retiring from his United States Postal Service career at the end of the month. Many years ago, Wills was a teacher looking to get his certificate approved when he first moved to Washington. The difficulty of that process forced him to find other employment, which led to a long career working in the Clinton post office. When he started in November 1980, he remembered being across the highway from the current location on
Deer Lake Road, but only briefly before moving into the building near the Clinton park and ride. A painter on the side, or perhaps a post office clerk on the side and a professional painter, Wills said he stuck with the job because he never went home with work and his art never took off to Thomas Kinkade-level wealth and fame. “This job, when you’re done, you’re done,” he said. “And because my painting hasn’t made me millions yet,” he added, cracking a sly smile as he filed mail into post office boxes, many of which he knows almost reflexively. His memory of people and their lives — their families, their jobs, their homes, their problems — is vast. He asks one woman about her daughter, another about a neighbor, chats up one woman about the little girl with her. “As I recall, you couldn’t reach the counter,” he said, with the little girl’s eyes and forehead barely peering above the four-foot counter top. “Now you see over it.” Wills, whose job is to help people get letters and bills and boxes from South Whidbey to all over the world, is himself a well-traveled man. He has visited all but three states. “When I was a kid, I used to hitchhike a lot …,” he said. “I’ve been to every state except for Kentucky, SEE WILLS, A20
Whidbey General Hospital officials failed to file complete financial reports with the Washington State Auditor’s Office for three years in a row, a violation of state law. As part of a special report on local government transparency, the auditor’s office released a list last week of local government agencies that have been late in filing the required reports, have filed incomplete reports or failed to file at all in the years 2011, 2012 and 2013. “I hope this report highlights the importance of transparency and accountability for all local governments, not only in meeting their legal requirements,” Auditor Troy Kelley said in a statement, “but in meeting the expectations of the people they serve.” A total of 11 local government bodies in Island County were on the list, but they are all small bodies — water, sewer, cemetery and drainage districts — except for the hospital and the Island County Emergency Services Communications Center. Hospital officials did not file financial reports in 2013 or 2012; they filed an incomplete report in 2011. The hospital has $112 million in operating expenses for 2015 and a projected loss of $4.9 million, which will be covered by reserves. SEE REPORT, A12