News-Times Whidbey
Exploring science on wheels
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SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 2015 | Vol. 125, No. 7 | WWW.WHIDBEYNEWSTIMES.COM | 75¢
Hospital delays CEO selection until February By MICHELLE BEAHM Staff reporter
The Whidbey General Hospital board of commissioners delayed the selection of the top candidate for the CEO position Friday. The board discussed the qualifications of its three finalists behind closed doors during a special morning meeting but then postponed the decision until next month. Anne Tarrant, the board president, will continue working with an executive search firm to review the information
about the candidates. The three candidates are Geri Forbes, current CEO of Doctor’s Memorial Hospital in Florida; Michael Ellis, CEO at Big Bend Regional Hospital in Alpine, Texas; and Eric Jensen, CEO of Valley General Hospital in Monroe, Wash. So far, the only chances for input from the community during the five-month process of finding a new CEO were inviteonly luncheons; the names of the candidates weren’t released before the events. The hospital board invited representatives SEE CEO, A5
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Deep Sea owner heads to jail, sued for $1.2 million By JESSIE STENSLAND Staff reporter
Photos by Michelle Beahm/Whidbey News-Times
Preschoolers Hunter Ross, left, and Dean Wheeler use clay to help learn how to form different letters of the alphabet.
Getting back to the basics By MICHELLE BEAHM Staff reporter
With the rise of technology in schools, skills like neat cursive handwriting can fall by the wayside. That was something that was starting to disappear in the Oak Harbor School District, with no formal handwriting curriculum being followed much anymore, according to Oak Harbor Elementary Principal Dorothy Day. But starting at the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, the Oak Harbor School District is using a handwriting program called Handwriting without Tears, which helps students from preschool through fifth grade learn how to properly form the letters of the alphabet, as well as how to write in cursive. “The kindergartners are getting taught just how to print,” Day said. “The older kids, the third-, fourth- and fifth-graders are learning cursive.” SEE BASICS, A5
Amelia Dorow, a preschooler at Hand-in-Hand Early Learning Center, practices how to form the letter “A” with clay.
The owner of the Deep Sea crab boat that caught fire, sank and spilled oil in Penn Cove is going to jail and is being sued for $1.2 million. Rory Westmoreland, a Renton scrap-metal dealer, was sentenced to 75 days in jail and ordered to pay a $1,000 fine in Island County District Court Monday. The state Attorney General’s Office, representing the Department of Natural Resources, filed a lawsuit against Westmoreland in Island County Superior Court last week. The suit aims to recoup costs incurred WESTMORELAND in disposing of the vessel. In addition, the Department of Ecology last year fined Westmoreland $301,000 for the oil spill that resulted from the Deep Sea sinking. Yet Penn Cove Shellfish has yet to see a penny of compensation for the disaster, which forced the closure of shellfish harvest for a month in 2012 and had other, longer-range consequences for the business. Co-owner Ian Jefferds said he filed a claim with the National Pollution Fund Center, run by the Coast Guard, a couple years ago but hasn’t heard anything back. The Department of Ecology also filed a complaint but has already been paid by the fund. “It had a huge impact on our business,” Jefferds said. “We didn’t get a seed set in as a result,” he said, referring to the mussels that grow on rafts in Penn Cove. Christopher Anderson, a deputy prosecutor with Island County, also emphasized the impact the spill had on the economy in his sentencing memorandum. “The defendant’s actions jeopardized the business of not only Penn Cove Shellfish, which actually lost significant business, but also numerous inns, hotels, restaurants and other businesses around Penn Cove that rely on the natural beauty of Penn Cove to attract patrons,” Anderson wrote. Westmoreland, the owner of Northwest Steel & Recycling, purchased the 141-foot, steel-hulled crab boat from the Port of Seattle for $2,500 in November of 2011. The port advertised the boat on Craigslist as scrap metal. As part of the terms of the sale, Westmoreland assured the SEE SUED, A16