By DAN RICHMANdrichman@whidbeynewsgroup.com

An angry Island County Commissioner Jill Johnson yesterday urged her Board colleagues to act against a large Oak Harbor marijuana-growing and -process-ing facility that has been operating for up to two years without county permission.

“I would like the Board to support directing our planning director to issue a stop-work order, because they are operat-ing illegally,” Johnson said.

“This isn’t like someone put up an illegal deck or fence. I want to do my part to ensure people going into the marijuana industry understand we’re not taking shortcuts.”

By JESSIE STENSLANDjessie@whidbeynewsgroup.com

A spate of serious crimes has been expensive for Island County.

Elaine Marlow, the county’s budget direc-

tor, recently warned the commissioners about mounting defense costs for defendants in two murder cases.

At the same time, detectives in the sheriff’s office have a backlog of lower-priority cases as

they deal with a murder and other serious cases. The costs are especially high, Marlow said,

because the county has had to hire “conflict attorneys” to represent some indigent defen-

By DEBRA VAUGHNdvaughn@whidbeynewsgroup.com

Back-to-back spring storms pummeled Oak Harbor’s Windjammer Park, eroding beach front and flinging tons of driftwood into the park.

City workers used tractors to push most of the wood back to the beach, but the mess isn’t all cleaned up yet.

The public can chip in at a work party scheduled for noon, Sunday April 24 at the park. Meet near the basketball courts on the east side of the park.

Murder costs racking up

The man in charge

Truckload of trout

Photo by Debra Vaughn/Whidbey News-Times

Captain Geoff Moore took command of NAS Whidbey on Feb. 19.

Thousands of rainbow trout are released into Goss Lake in Langley Monday by David Whitmer of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife just in time for Saturday’s opener. See story on page A24.

Photo by Ron Newberry/Whidbey News-Times

SEE MURDER COSTS, A14

SEE CLEANUP, A13

GROWER, A14SEE MEET MOORE, A13

Moore settles in as base commander

Volunteers to clean up storm mess Saturday

By DEBRA VAUGHNdvaughn@whidbeynewsgroup.com

Capt. Geoff “Jefe” Moore is settling into his new role as the skipper of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.

He took command Feb. 19. The learning curve is a steep one, and he said he expects he’ll be learning until the day he hands the keys to the next guy.

This is his first major installation com-mand and his first time stationed in the Pacific Northwest. NAS Whidbey was one of Moore’s top choices for a command.

“We’ve never been to the Northwest,” he said. “We are one of those military families that likes to travel and see new places.”

Moore is married to Sue and the couple has two children, a seventh grader and fourth grader. Both children attend Oak

Johnson pushing stop-work order against pot facility

WhidbeyGreenGuidereduce • reuse • recycle • protect • preserve • restore

Pedaling to work page 4

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Inside this edition

Wednesday, April 20, 2016 • Whidbey News-Times WWW.WHIDBEYNEWSTIMES.COM Page A13

The work party is being organized by Erin Hedrick, manager of the Oak Harbor Starbucks next to Safeway.

“We were walking down there and I noticed all the driftwood everywhere,” she said.

Her company encourages its employees to participate in community service and she thought this would be the right project. She’s coordinating with the city parks department, which plans to provide equipment.

Starbucks will provide refreshments. Winter weather this year did a number on

Oak Harbor’s waterfront, and the wind and tides from two window rattler storms last month walloped the park. Small hunks of drift-wood remain strewn around the waterfront.

On the beach, mounds of driftwood lie tangled on the beach and choke the entrance to the lagoon.

The storms also damaged windbreakers that shelter picnic tables and some places

eroded up to 8 feet of beachfront. Yellow cau-tion tape is strewn around the windbreakers, some of which no longer have ground sup-porting foundations.

The city will likely remove the windbreak-ers and eventually the picnic tables, said parks director Hank Nydam.

“Originally the intent was to keep them,” he said. “But now I’m throwing in the towel.”

Since they were built with state money, they have to talk with state officials first. And the city will need to obtain a shoreline permit to backfill the ground that eroded during the storms.

Anyone from the community can help at the work party. The plan is to move the remaining rogue driftwood back to the beach, where the tide will take eventually take care of business. By state law it’s illegal to remove driftwood from the beach.

Parks workers will clear the entrance to the lagoon with machines — something they typi-cally do before summer.

“A lot of bodies and helping hands will make this happen faster,” Nydam said.

Photo by Debra Vaughn/Whidbey News-Times

Oak Harbor city parks director Hank Nydam surveys some of the damage caused by winter weather and two nasty spring storms last month. The windbreakers blocking the picnic tables were so damaged they’ll have to be removed.

CLEANUPCONTINUED FROM A1

Harbor public schools. Like base command-ers before him, the family lives in an historic home on the Seaplane Base.

“You get to wake up and see the Cascades, the Olympics,” he said.

His typical day starts early with print and TV news, followed by a run around Maylor Point. On weekends, he focuses on typi-cal dad stuff: Little League games, soccer, camping and hiking. He recently threw out the first pitch for Little League. He opted not to throw his knuckle ball — whether for his sake or the children’s is not clear.

Moore is at work around 7 a.m. His day is filled with meetings as he learns the ins-and-outs of running what is essentially a city.

His predecessor, Mike Nortier, left NAS Whidbey in shipshape. Moore inherits a naval base named No. 1 in the world last year.

“He gave me a fantastic base in great condition,” Moore said. “We have incredible people running the base. It’s a great col-laboration.”

He also inherits an unpleasant public rela-tions mess and lawsuit with opponents on the island and beyond fighting against touch-and-go jet practices at the Outlying Field Coupeville and the military’s plans to add more EA-18G Growlers. An environmental impact statement on the addition of up to 36 more Growlers that may be stationed at NAS Whidbey is taking lon-ger than expected. Officials now say it should be released in the fall.

Also, some residents on the Olympic Peninsula don’t like plans to introduce elec-tromagnetic transmitters to its electronic warfare training. The Navy conducted train-ing flights over the peninsula for years but wants to add mobile trucks with emitters,

which give more realistic training for pilots.Part of his daily routine is reviewing

every noise complaint filed concerning NAS Whidbey jets. Moore said he wants to contin-ue listening to concerns from the public. The base’s public relations staff is already making trips to the peninsula and Moore said will join them to connect with community leaders.

“The best thing I can do is communicate with leadership in all the areas.”

However, he takes a dimmer view of the grassroots group Citizens of Ebey’s Reserve, which asked to meet with him. No meeting is scheduled. Partly, that’s because there’s a lawsuit. Partly, he said, “Why would it be in my interest to talk to someone who wants to get rid of me?”

Moore views his greatest challenge as managing the transition from the P-3 Orion to P-8A Poseidon, particularly modifying hangars to fit the taller aircraft while still completing his daily responsibilities.

“It feels like we’re trying to renovate the house while living in the basement,” he said.

The threat of base closure is again rear-ing its head. A Pentagon report to Congress made public last week said that more than one-fifth of military bases would be consid-ered excess by 2019. The report was meant to convince Congress of the need for Base Realignment and Closure authorization.

The last BRAC was in 2005.NAS Whidbey was considered for closure

during the 1991 BRAC but was deemed a mission critical Navy asset.

While it’s Congress, not the Navy, that takes action, Moore said it seems unlikely NAS Whidbey will be considered given the critical role it serves as the home base for the Navy’s Growlers and the West Coast home for P-3 and the future P-8A aircraft.

“I would say it’s not even on the table,” he said.

MEET MOORECONTINUED FROM A1

dants. The county contracts with a firm for defense ser-vices but has to hire outside an attorney when the firm can’t represent a defendant because of conflicting inter-ests, such as if the firm previ-ously represented a victim or witness.

Currently, five indigent

defendants in two murder cases are being represented by conflict attorneys.

In March, a jury in Island County Superior Court con-victed Christopher Malaga, 24, of the first-degree murder of Oak Harbor resident Adam Garcia.

Malaga is scheduled to be

sentenced May 6.Malaga’s defense has cost

$93,000 so far, according to Marlow.

The fact that four suspects have been charged in the mur-der of 17-year-old John “Jay” Johnson means it will be espe-cially expensive. Marlow said the defense attorneys have already racked up $250,000 in bills and the case is likely a long ways from being over.

“We have to be fully pre-pared, budget-wise, to defend

all four at trial,” she said.Another case that could

get expensive, Marlow said, involves two South Whidbey residents and owners of an escrow company accused of stealing large sums of money from investors. The county may have to pay for a foren-sic accountant to work for the defense.

The county will have to dip into its reserve account to fund the expenses, Marlow said.

Sheriff Mark Brown said that his detectives have been dedicating much of their time to the Johnson murder inves-tigation and other serious cases, including a recent child rape trial that ended with a conviction.

“Murder and rape cases are obviously our highest priority,” he said. “They require mul-tiple detectives and require a lot of work.”

As a result, some of the lower-priority cases have been piling up. Brown points to a recent meeting he had with South Whidbey builders who are upset about a number of burglaries and felt greater resources should be dedicated to solving them. He promised to dedicate more detective time — including possibly overtime — to solving the cases.

Page A14 WWW.WHIDBEYNEWSTIMES.COM Wednesday, April 20, 2016 • Whidbey News-Times

MURDER COSTSCONTINUED FROM A1

The Board put off action until this morning, giving the other commissioners a chance to better acquaint themselves with the issue.

A Woodinville cou-ple, Christina and Scott Hensrude, own seven of the 11 buildings between 3143 and 3171 Goldie Road in Oak Harbor. For up to two years, they let tenants in five of those buildings grow and process recreational mari-juana, witnesses say.

The couple filed in 2014 for county permission to convert the seven buildings from commercial rentals to marijuana use, but they only received the requisite site plan review hearing Friday.

It’s clear the couple vio-lated county land-use law by operating without first having received a hearing examiner’s approval follow-ing such a hearing, several county officials said.

During Friday’s proceed-ings, Hearing Examiner Michael Bobbink said the couple’s jumping the gun wasn’t an issue he was will-ing to consider.

He called it “extraneous.”Hiller West, the county’s

director of current-use plan-ning and community devel-opment, at Friday’s hearing proposed no serious objec-tions to the application. He said the county had never received a complaint about unlawful use, maintaining that position despite sworn testimony by one neighbor that he had complained over and over to the county.

West said a reporter telling him of the violation and offering to show photo-graphs did not constitute a complaint. Nor did numer-ous News-Times stories starting in 2014 detailing how tenants were ejected to make room for marijuana processing, he said.

Bobbink could issue his decision within a week, West said yesterday.

Even if he does, Johnson said she wants to take action against the operation, and she wants it quickly.

She mentioned notifying the state and trying to get the Hensrudes’ and their tenants’ state-issued growing and pro-cessing licenses pulled.

Mikhail Carpenter, a spokesman for the state Liquor and Cannabis Board, said that’s unlikely.

GROWERCONTINUED FROM A1

Page A24 WWW.WHIDBEYNEWSTIMES.COM Wednesday, April 20, 2016 • Whidbey News-Times

By RON NEWBERRYrnewberry@whidbeynewsgroup.com

S ome trout flipped and flopped on the surface, bursting with new life in a giant, new world.

Most, however, seemed a little uncertain at what to do with themselves. They huddled in the shallows, dazed, until David Whitmer stepped in the water and gently prodded them along with a broom to get them out to greater depths.

“It’s a big event for them. They get a little disoriented,” said Whitmer, a fish hatchery specialist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“We try to help get them oriented to their new environment.”

Whitmer and Will Irwin drove two tanker trucks full of rainbow trout to Whidbey Island Monday to make fishing a little more allur-ing at two South Whidbey lakes in time for Saturday’s season opener.

Deer Lake in Clinton and Goss Lake in Langley are the only lakes on the island managed by the state that have defined fishing seasons.

The other two managed lakes on Whidbey, Cranberry Lake at Deception Pass State Park and Lone Lake in Langley, are open

year-round.Deer Lake received a planting

of 492 triploid trout about a pound and a half apiece Monday, while Goss Lake got 4,000 catchable-sized trout, which are about a half pound and between 8 and 12 inches in length.

The trout came from the state’s Arlington hatchery.

Since March, the state amped up trout stocking leading to the state’s lowland lakes opener, April 23.

“This time of year, we’re on the road nonstop,” said Whitmer. “There’s a big push two weeks prior to opening day.”

Upon arriving at a lake, the tank-er truck backs up into position and releases the fish through a large hose that sends the trout cascading into the water.

Deer Lake already had received a planting of 8,000 catchable-sized trout last week.

Cranberry Lake got 6,000 trout in early April and Lone Lake got just over 3,000 in late March.

Anglers must follow selective gear rules at Lone Lake and may only keep one trout per day that must be no smaller than 18 inches.

At the other three lakes on the island, the daily limit is five trout with no size restrictions.

A state freshwater fishing license

is required.Another popular lake not far from

Whidbey is Pass Lake, located along State Highway 20 on the north side of Deception Pass bridge.

Pass Lake is a catch-and-release,

fly-fishing only lake where motors aren’t allowed.

Although they’re around trout everyday, Whitmer and Irwin still enjoy getting out with a pole and chasing fish during their time away

from work.Irwin knows where he’d go on

Whidbey.“I’d definitely be going to Deer

and going after those triploids,” he said.

State stocks island lakes for trout opener

Photo by Ron Newberry/Whidbey News-Times

A rainbow trout splashes at the surface of Goss Lake shortly after joining about 4,000 of its friends that were released into the lake Monday by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The lake is open to fishing Saturday.