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Meet Oak Harbor’s newest mascot
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1, 2015 | Vol. 125, No. 26 | WWW.WHIDBEYNEWSTIMES.COM | 75¢
Newspaper printed on rolling paper By MEGAN HANSEN Staff reporter
Old newspapers aren’t just for packing and lining bird cages anymore. The Whidbey News-Times announced this week a new partnership, bringing new use to the 125-year-old print product. Starting April 1, the Whidbey News-Times will be printed on new material provided by Zig Zag, the popular maker of smokable rolling papers, allowing readers to read up and then toke up. “We’re always looking for new innovative ideas for our products,” said Executive Editor and Publisher Keven Graves. “There will be no additional charge for the new, high value,” he added. With the legalization of recreational marijuana in Washington state, partnering
with a Washington newspaper seemed like the perfect opportunity for creating a dual-use product, a Zig Zag spokesperson said. Modifying the two paper products into one wasn’t as simple as one might think. Prior to its launch, the new paper product was tested for durability and burning qualities. The companies also had to test and redevelop the ink used to ensure safe inhalation when burned. “We were already halfway there since we already used a natural soy-based ink,” Graves said. “A little tweaking and Zig Zag was able to produce just what we needed.” The changes won’t affect Oak Harbor’s non-smoking citizens and the paper is still recyclable.
NASCAR race track coming to Whidbey ‘Beast Mode’ to transition to race-car driver By JIM WALLER Sports editor
Paul Allen’s billions may lead to millions for Whidbey Island. Allen, owner of the Seattle Seahawks, has decided to build a NASCAR track on Whidbey Island. Trey Dinpahndt, associate director of operations for NASCAR, confirmed the report. “We have been trying to get a track in the Northwest for decades,” Dinpahndt said. “It is the one part of the country without one, and it will enable us to expand our brand and exploitation.” Mike Rashauft, spokesman for Allen’s Vulcan Inc., also confirmed the report. “Mr. Allen is a huge
NASCAR fan,” Rashauft said. “He has a retreat on Whidbey Island and enjoys the friendships he has developed there. The track is a way to thank the citizens of Whidbey Island for their hospitality and to share his passion for NASCAR.” Allen has committed $2.5 billion to build the track, which will be a state-of-theart, multi-use facility. So the track won’t sit idle for lost stretches of time between races, it will be designed to host non-racing events such as circuses, rodeos and other sporting events, including football, soccer and baseball games. In fact, Rashauft said, Allen has received permission from the NFL for the Seahawks to play one game a season at the track, which will seat over 100,000 fans. The Sounders and Major League Soccer are also conSEE NASCAR, A19
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Members of the Dutch Mafia sweep up ill-begotten money on the mean streets of downtown Oak Harbor.
Dutch Mafia indicted
Organization secretly ran North Whidbey for decades By JESSIE STENSLAND Staff reporter
In one of the biggest organized crime busts since Prohibition, Oak Harbor’s shadowy Dutch Mafia was taken down in a hail of old Kleenex and stale coffee Monday night. A task force made up of Oak Harbor police, Island County Sheriff’s deputies and disgruntled Irishmen brought down the hammer after years of undercover investigation in the city’s seedy tulip district. “It will not be swept into a wooden shoe this time,” Sheriff Mark
Vanderbrown said. The officers infiltrated the Hollandbased syndicate’s coffee klatch beneath the City Beach Park windmill and discovered a room filled with grown men and women decked out in old-timey Dutch costumes, sharing oliebollen and funny stories about old friends. Several of the octogenarians made a break for it, but didn’t get far before their Klompen cracked open. Vanderbrown said the investigation was hampered by the fact that even expert linguists couldn’t decipher the suspects’ thick accents or figure out
how to correctly pronounce “Freund” and “Fakkema.” The members of the Dutch Mafia are accused of secretly running the government, all the businesses and some of the parades on North Whidbey through “a suspicious level” of hard work and thriftiness, according to a rival member of the Irish Wildlife Society. Twenty members of the Dutch Mafia were booked into Oak Harbor jail on misdemeanor racketeering charges. Judge Vickie Van Churchill set bail at three tulip bulbs and “one of those adorable mini-Klompens” each.
Commissioner switches parties, at long last By JANIS REID Staff reporter
Well-known “rino” Commissioner Jill Johnson has finally switched parties and become a Democrat. While some were surprised by the move, others said the change was long in coming. “Duh,” said Jason McFadyen, president of the Oak Harbor Chamber of
Commerce and an infamous Democrat. The term “rino” — or Republican In Name Only — describes “politicians who claim to be Republican but are in fact liberal or puppets of the liberal media,” according to Conservapedia.com. Johnson has been labeled as such by some area Republicans, apparently not without foundation.
However, Johnson’s aisle-crossing politics are not unusual in Western Washington where fiscal conservatives can also support gay marriage, anti-immigration activists support environmental protections and gun-toting nationalists have secret crushes on Rachel Maddow. SEE JILL, A19
Commissioner Jill Johnson looks surprised.