Island County’s commissioners are far apart on whether to accept an offer that could end litigation over a stone wall blocking public beach access at the east end of Coupeville’s Wonn Road.
Careage of Whidbey, a skilled-nursing facility in Coupeville, has been closed to new patients since December 17 because it had too many violations of nursing-home regulations, owner Ron Hayes said. It could re-open as early as Feb. 12, when state inspectors are scheduled to re-survey the institution, Hayes said.
An eight-year-old squabble over a wall built to block a popular beach access in Greenbank may come to an end with a settlement.
The Island County Commissioners are poised to discuss a controversial settlement offer from the Montgomerys at their regular work session. The meeting begins at 9 a.m., and the settlement will be discussed around 10:45 in the Commissioners Hearing Room in Coupeville.
Wines that taste the same year after year? That’s not what the foursome who own Rain Shadow Cellars are all about, they said during a recent visit.
Three of the seven environmental-protection issues in which a quasi-judicial board found Island County lacking can be resolved with minimal effort, while four others require more research, the county’s principal planner said in a memo earlier this month.
Coupeville’s chamber of commerce scored the lion’s share of the county’s basic 2 percent hotel-motel tax revenues for 2016, garnering $26,450 for use at its visitor center, according to a document approved Tuesday by the Board of Island County Commissioners.
A short stretch of Driftwood Way, the same road that was cut in half two years ago by one of the largest landslides in Whidbey’s recorded history, broke apart and slid about eight feet downhill on Monday night, isolating four houses at the northern end of the road.
The Island County commissioners are considering hiring an Edmonds engineering firm to help stave off new or increased flood-insurance premiums for waterfront landowners.
Oak Harbor can become home to a second state-licensed marijuana retailer, and the rest of Island County can host an additional two stores, under measures proposed this week by staffers at the state’s Liquor and Cannabis Board. The measure, which a spokesperson predicted will be approved Jan. 6 by that agency’s three board members, is meant to ensure medical patients have enough access to products they need.
Oak Harbor’s Haggen store is among the 33 “core” locations that the Bellingham-based grocery chain won court approval last week to try selling as part of its bankruptcy.
Though the auction could spell the end of Haggen as a grocery company, it does not necessarily dictate the Oak Harbor store’s closure and the possible loss of 85-plus jobs, or even the end of the Haggen name on grocery stores, one expert said.
Driven partly by an improved real estate market, Island County’s 2016 preliminary budget will increase by 8 percent in 2016, to $83.2 million, according to figures slated for a public hearing Dec. 7.
“Have you tried the Pink Lady Kush concentrate? It’s an 80/20 indica dominant.”
Rockie Eggebrecht is a hard-working farmer, but not the kind who wears overalls, labors in the soil and grows broccoli. He wears street clothes, works indoors and plants exclusively in pea gravel.
