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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015 | Vol. 91, No. 27 | www.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.com | 75¢
Food truck bids leave Langley hungry for vendors By BEN WATANABE South Whidbey Record The right recipe for enticing food trucks into town has eluded Langley. Just over a month after approving the city’s first-ever request for proposals to see what food truck vendors would offer to set up in one of two public spaces, the city’s community planning director recommended a change of course at Monday’s city council meeting. So far, Langley has yet to see any applications for a mobile food vendor license. “To my great disappointment, we didn’t get a single response,” Director of Community Planning Michael Davolio said to the council Monday. Langley crafted the rules and permit process in hopes of creating an environment to foster new business. The idea, Mayor Fred McCarthy said in a phone interview Monday, was to provide other places for visitors to eat during the busy tourist season between Memorial Day and Labor Day, late May to early September. As input was shared in the ordinance creation, however, the city council heeded the direction of businesses (via the Langley Main Street Association) and set seasonal limits and an exclusion during Choochokam Arts Festival in July. Chris Vulk, a chef who plans to open a food truck, said he had not applied because he doesn’t have a truck yet. “[Like] most other people I feel like the ordinance was written to favor the other brick-and-mortar businesses, since they probably feel like a food truck will be pretty big SEE FOOD TRUCK, A20
BLOOD MOON RISES Langley photographer nails shot of century’s shortest total lunar eclipse
By JANIS REID South Whidbey Record
Johnny Palka photo
Despite being the shortest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century, Langley resident Johnny Palka got this awesome image of the event from the Highlands at around 4:15 a.m. Saturday, April 4. According to news reports, the eclipse was visible across the Pacific and parts of North and South America. A total eclipse is where the earth passes between the moon and the sun, but the moon doesn’t go completely dark. The red color is from the sun’s rays through the Earth’s atmosphere. A blood moon is rarer, happening only about two times a year and only when the moon is full and the three celestial bodies line up perfectly so the planet’s shadow covers the moon completely.
Ledgewood homeowners sue By JESSIE STENSLAND South Whidbey Record Residents of a Central Whidbey neighborhood struck by a massive landslide two years ago have filed lawsuits against Island County. The residents are claiming that the county was negligent and contributed to the event. They also say the county failed to properly maintain a public road. Seattle attorney Karen Willie filed two lawsuits against the county in connection with the March 27, 2013 landslide at Ledgewood, south of Coupeville. The two lawsuits were filed in both the Snohomish County and Island County superior courts last month; Willie said she wants the case to be heard in Snohomish County while Island County’s attorney said he will
likely argue to have it in Island County, though he hasn’t made a final determination. The lawsuits ask for unspecified damages and court orders forcing the county to own and maintain two roads that provide access to homes close to the landslide area. Willie, who said she’s known affectionately as “the water witch,” specializes in both bringing lawsuits and defending against lawsuits involving damage caused by landslides. She said her firm is representing six families struck by the Oso landslide, including three that lost loved ones. The lawsuits alleges fault against county officials for not dealing with drainage issues properly in the wellknown landslide area, but also asserts that county workers did nothing after seeing dirt and trees fall from the bluff
Winery debate ferments into complaint
— allegedly “the start of the slide” — the day before the massive slide occurred. “The Island County workers fled without notifying the residents,” the lawsuit states, “and took no steps thereafter to alert the residents of Bon Air and Ledgewood of the potential hazards.” Mark Johnsen, a Seattle attorney representing Island county, said the county denies liability for causing the landslide. “We don’t believe the landslide was caused by anything the county did,” he said. “We don’t see any indication it was caused by surface water from county roads. It was primarily a groundwater event,” he added. SEE LEDGEWOOD, A20
A new community group is trying to combat proposed regulations that would allow large events at wineries, functions they say disrupt their quality of life. And they are not happy with the commissioner who championed it. Neighbors Interested in Commonsense Economics, or NICE, have charged Commissioner Helen Price Johnson with trying to push through ordinance changes last month without proper public input because of a personal connection with the winery Comforts of Whidbey. Price Johnson said Friday that while she’s known the Comforts for years, she did not press for the changes for them alone. “I can’t figure it out… they’re old friends?” said Maro Walsh, a spokesperson for NICE which comprises 20 or so residents around Comforts of Whidbey. “She keeps saying, ‘My community wants this.’ Only one winery wants this. Why is she pushing it so much when it’s the only winery that wants it?” Allowing rural event centers to have large-scale events and weddings has drawn the ire of neighboring residents over the years because of the noise and traffic. As a quick fix, commissioners approved a temporary rural event center permit to allow time to address the issue within the larger comprehensive plan update due in 2016. At a work session last month, Price Johnson SEE WINERY RULES, A19