News-Times Whidbey
Club gears up for auction
A10
SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 2015 | Vol. 125, No. 25 | WWW.WHIDBEYNEWSTIMES.COM | 75¢
Discipline issues stir up turmoil at police depart. Captain accused of dishonesty
By JESSIE STENSLAND Staff reporter
The Oak Harbor Police Department is supposed to be a beacon of law and order but instead has become a venue for discord and backstabbing as a long-simmer-
ing dispute over perceived unequal treatment between “factions” in the department has come to a head, according to attorney Chris Skinner. In the latest controversy, Capt. Teri Gardner, the second-highest-ranking officer at the Oak Harbor Police Department, has been tagged by the county prosecutor for alleged dishonesty about a romantic relationship she had with a fellow officer. At the same time, Officer
Patrick Horn, Skinner’s client, is facing termination for sending a couple of texts about Gardner and her relationship; Oak Harbor Police Chief Ed Green accused Horn of being disrespectful, creating discord in the office and being untruthful, which Skinner said was nonsense. Skinner sent a letter to the city’s human resources department director, pointing out the alleged disparity and threatening a possible
lawsuit for wrongful employment practices and retaliation if Horn is fired. “We strongly recommend that you … consider the stark and inexplicable contrast between Chief Green’s finding and the decision in Officer Horn’s case,” he wrote, “relative to how he was treated in Captain Gardner’s case.” CAPT. TERI Gardner is accused of “responding deceptively to questions put
to her during an internal investigation” into whether she had been involved in a romantic relationship with a colleague who later became her subordinate, according to the “potential impeachment disclosure” memorandum by Prosecutor Greg Banks. Prosecutors are obligated to present defense attorneys with a potential impeachment disclosure in any criminal cases in which the officer is involved; the officers are
sometimes called “Brady officers” or “Brady cops” in reference to U.S. Supreme Court case Brady vs. Maryland. The idea is that defense attorneys may be able to use the disclosures to “impeach” or attack an officer’s honesty at trial, but Banks said that rarely occurs. Gardner’s conduct, however, only garnered a warning letter from her boss, Green, SEE POLICE, A5
Recovery Beauty and the geese a ‘miracle’ for city trailblazer By JESSIE STENSLAND Staff reporter
George Churchill is as feisty as ever. The prominent and wellknown Oak Harbor businessman made a miraculous recovery after six months in the hospital following a serious car crash last March. As always, he has bold opinions about everything from local politics to hospital food and doesn’t pull his punches. He’s back to work at his property management and real estate business, Churchill Associates, and is in the process of moving it to a prime spot downtown. “I’m up and around and raising hell,” he said, only slightly tongue-in-cheek. Churchill, who’s married to Superior Court Judge Vickie Churchill, admits that it’s amazing he’s still alive, let alone leading his office in a major change. “He really is a miracle,” Vickie Churchill said. “I think that all the time.” Last March, Churchill was in a serious one-car accident on Crosby Road in Oak Harbor that left him with 18 broken ribs, a broken neck, a collapsed lung, multiple skull fractures, a broken scapula, SEE CHURCHILL, A12
Photo courtesy Gray Giordan
Oak Harbor’s Bill Ferry is so caught up in capturing the tulip fields in the Skagit Valley Sunday that he doesn’t realize another beautiful display of nature.
Oak Harbor shooters joke about missing mark By RON NEWBERRY Staff reporter
The allure of tulip fields in bloom in the Skagit Valley can be so captivating at times that little else can seem to distract one’s attention. Not even 5,000 snow geese. Two Oak Harbor photographers discovered this and still laugh about it after a trip they took near Mount Vernon just after dawn Sunday to
capture the tulips whose blooms started earlier than usual this spring. So caught up in the tulips, Bill Ferry didn’t noticed another one of nature’s spectacular shows unfolding right next to him when a flock estimated between 5,000 and 7,000 snow geese lifted from a nearby field and flew right by and over him as he photographed the tulip fields. His companion, Gray Giordan, turned and caught the moment with
his camera, creating a lasting image the two friends and neighbors forever will be able to chuckle about. “I could hear them. You can’t miss them,” Ferry said. “There’s this great sight so why am I looking at the flowers?” The tulips are an annual attraction this time of year in Skagit Valley with a festival held in their honor during the month of April. Thousands of snow geese and
trumpeter swans also frequent the river deltas around North Puget Sound during the winter with the Skagit a popular landing spot. “The noise was something out of a horror movie,” said Ferry, a retired trucker and professional photographer who recently joined the Garry Oak Gallery in Oak Harbor. “It was just all over and all around me. You couldn’t ignore the birds even though the flowers called you.”