The fair was pretty darn good this year. The events were fun, the exhibits impressive and the rides a blast. I ate a genuine buffalo burger — or so the vendor claimed — bumped into friends and talked politics, rocked out to live music and got my fingers sticky eating my first bag of cotton candy since I was teenager.
I haven’t attended annually for decades like many on South Whidbey, so I suppose I’m no expert, but from a new guy’s perspective it was everything one would expect from a county fair.
By FRED MCCARTHY
Mayor of Langley
This past week the City of Langley lost a passionate advocate for community development, the arts community lost one of its foremost cheerleaders and one of its most generous benefactors, and his lovely wife lost her life companion.
Many of us feel like we lost a mentor and friend with the passing of Paul Schell.
Each and every one of us bears some responsibility for the financial calamity that has befallen Island Transit.
There are critics of IT who’ve remarked to me that they saw this disaster coming for years, like a train wreck happening in slow motion.
Soon, the wheels on the bus won’t be going round and round all around the town — or the island for that matter.
In fact, those wheels appear to be falling off.
To the mayor, city council of Langley and the Port of South Whidbey Commissioners:
Please address a solution to the separate and serious landslides on Wharf Street in 2013. It is disturbing to know that the money that was originally allocated for the widening and consequent shoring up of the bluff toward Cascade Avenue by the Island County Council of Governments is not targeted for use to serve the wider Langley community.
Last week was a bad one for the community surrounding Holmes Harbor Golf Course.
The writing has been on the wall for months, and on Thursday conflict over the clubhouse and pro shop came to a head with sewer district commissioners deciding to sue property owners and landlords Kevin Hanchett and Mike Hooper over a parking dispute.
The ole personal column, perhaps the most challenging part of being a community newspaper editor. My predecessor once told me, “Anyone can write about something, the trick is learning to write about nothing, week after week.”
We have been having an extraordinary run of beautiful weather. Don’t you think we live in one of the most beautiful and unique cities in the world?
We have received so many positive comments about the Second Street Project from citizens, the construction company, business owners, and the engineers to name a few. It’s a special feeling to walk to work each day and see the dream realized in the form of such a transformed space. Seeing families gathering in the plaza in the middle of the city or sitting on the benches or chairs is very affirming.