Sam Fletcher reports from the Oak Harbor city council workshop of Wed., Mar. 27, 2024 for the Whidbey News-Times.
A recent power outage at the Oak Harbor Marina is officially an urgent concern, which means the city can move forward quicker with fixes.
At an Oak Harbor Council work session Wednesday, the members unanimously passed a declaration of emergency for the city-owned facility.
The power outage affects 120 vessels, including liveaboards, rendering useless boat batteries, refrigerators, bilge pumps, security cameras, Wi-Fi, dock safety lighting, channel markers and more. Obviously, this creates serious safety, security and navigational hazards, Smith said.
They Said It
A former council member had been the canary in the coal mine years ago for this problem, said Councilmember Shane Hoffmire.
“I know it’s an emergency at this point because the power’s out, but it’s something that we probably had a pretty good idea that we were going to have issues like this,” he said.
“It’s not like we’re going to say we’re not going to do this,” Councilmember Bryan Stucky said, “so I’m going to make the motion.”
