It’s been quite a year. As 2022 comes to an end we look back on some of the stories that made headlines during the past 12 months in Snohomish County.
Patrons wait their turn for a chair on the lift at Stevens Pass Thursday afternoon on December 30, 2021. (Kevin Clark / The Herald)
January
It’s been a rough start to the ski season at Stevens Pass, with a delayed opening due to weather, a worker shortage, parking nightmares, endless lift lines, much of the mountain closed and season pass holders and employees fuming.
“I didn’t expect it to be this bad. Like, I really don’t know how to describe it,” said a lift worker. “There’s nothing going right.”
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For the first time in the city’s nearly 129-year history, women take over the majority on the Everett City Council.
Councilmembers Mary Fosse, Paula Rhyne, Liz Vogeli, Brenda Stonecipher and Judy Tuohy serve with two men.
“I’m very glad to see us shatter the glass ceiling,” said Stonecipher, the longest-serving member.
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COVID refuses to release its grip.
With the omicron surge appearing to crest here, only one ICU bed is open in the entire county.
Coronavirus hospitalizations are about double what they were at the county’s previous peak, with 222 beds occupied by patients infected with the virus.
“So occupancy is virtually 100%,” county Health Officer Dr. Chris Spitters said.
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The Mukilteo School District cuts ‘To Kill a Mockingbird” from a mandatory reading list for ninth graders. They’ll seek to replace it with a book more reflective of coming of age in the 2020s, not the 1930s, they say.
It is the first time in about 25 years a request was made to the board to remove a book from the curriculum. Three high school English teachers asked for the removal, citing the novel “celebrates white saviorhood,” “marginalizes characters of color” and “uses the ‘n’ word almost 50 times.”
Afghan evacuees disembark the plane and board a bus after landing at Skopje International Airport, North Macedonia, on Wednesday, Sept. 15, 2021. North Macedonia has hosted another group of 44 Afghan evacuees on Wednesday where they will be sheltered temporarily till their transfer to final destinations. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)
February
A water salute, a traditional tribute in the aviation world, greets Alaska Airlines flight 1497 as it lands at Paine Field from Phoenix. The arrival marks the first regularly scheduled Boeing 737 to serve passengers at Paine.
Until now, the airline has employed smaller Embraer jets. It’s a sign of greater demand for travel to Phoenix and Las Vegas.
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More than than 300 evacuees from Afghanistan were welcomed to Snohomish County between October and the end of January and another 150 were expected by mid-February.
Courtney Simons, right, helps her daughter Whitaker, 5, get her skates on before heading out to the rink at Everett Skate Deck on Thursday, March 3, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
March
A historic building on the Everett waterfront will get a new lease and a new life.
The Port of Everett Commission authorizes a 10-year deal to redevelop the 100-year-old Weyerhaeuser Building for possible use as a bar, coffee shop, boating club meeting space and performance venue.
All of the windows will be replaced, the interior renovated and utilities and restrooms upgraded in a $1 million makeover.
“It will be a destination and also really a museum,” port CEO Lisa Lefeber said.
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Everett Skate Deck, a place of youth and romance, announces it will close. Ryan Acklus’ family has owned the business since 1961, when it was at 2201 California St., just east of Broadway. In 1976 his grandparents, Bobbie and Eric Englund, relocated it to 9700 19th Ave. SE, where it’s been ever since.
“I was practically born here.” Acklus said
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A downtown Everett cornerstone goes on the market when collectible toymaker Funko puts its headquarters up for sale. The company seeks $53 million for property including the five-story Port Gardner Building at 2802 Wetmore Ave. Built in 1929, it once housed the Bon Marche department store and is listed on the Everett Register of Historic Places.
Funko’s 10-year lease signed in 2016 isn’t affected by the sale, according to a company spokesperson.
***
The state’s mask mandate lifts at the stroke of midnight March 12, churning mixed emotions in Snohomish County.
For some, the step signals a new, optimistic chapter of the pandemic — one that looks and feels more normal.
For others, it feels like a flashback to last summer, when Washington lifted restrictions only to clamp back down amid a massive surge in infections fueled by a new variant.
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Everett Police Office Dan Rocha is shot and killed in a Starbucks parking lot in north Everett after confronting a man he’d seen moving a gun between two vehicles. A suspect is arrested within minutes.
Rocha, 41, had served the city since 2017. He leaves behind a wife and two sons.
Ed Rubatino, former owner of Rubatino Refuse Removal. (Rubatino family photo, mid-1970s)
April
After 114 years, the Rubatino family sells its trash collection business. The company started collecting the city of Everett’s trash with two carts and four draft horses.
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Former Anchor Pub owner and alleged serial rapist Christian Sayre, 35, is arrested for the fourth time in six months. Sayre, 35, faces 22 felony sex charges. Dozens of people reported they’d been sexually assaulted by Sayre in the past 20 years.
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Everett greenlights red light cameras to help nab drivers who run red lights and speed in school zones. The City Council agrees to hire a firm to install and operate cameras at six intersections and Horizon Elementary School.
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After several pedestrians are killed by drivers in south Everett, city staff plan to lower the speed limits along Everett Mall Way and Evergreen Way. It has been 13 years since the city last reduced a speed limit.
Father Tuan Nguyen walks down the aisle at the end of morning mass at Immaculate Conception Church on Wednesday, May 4, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
May
After 131 years as its own parish, Our Lady of Perpetual Help is set to merge with Immaculate Conception into a new single parish in north Everett, called Our Lady of Hope. In July, the Catholic church at 2619 Cedar St. will become a chapel for Saturday mass. Parishioners will meet at the current Immaculate Conception church at 2501 Hoyt Ave. for the other daily masses and events
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More than 100 Everett High students fill the school lawn to protest rape culture in school. The walkout comes five months after a protest that followed mounting reports of sexual assault on campus.
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Snohomish County’s homeless population is at a 10-year high, according to this year’s point-in-time count, when officials and volunteers trek across the county interviewing those living on the streets, in shelters or in transitional housing. The data is the county’s first broad assessment of homelessness since the start of the pandemic, because COVID-19 hampered the count in 2021.
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Alderwood mall evicts a Turkish cafe kiosk in a move the owners blame on Starbucks, which operates a kiosk nearby. Starbucks denied any involvement.
KRKO Studio A, Clark Building (Now US Bank), 1947, Earle Gerdon (Gerdon Family / KRKO Archives)
June
Local radio station KRKO celebrates 100 years on the air. In 1920 or so, Otto Leese and his brother, Robert, were the owners of an auto repair shop at 2814 Rucker Ave. when they connected a vehicle battery, vacuum tubes, microphone and copper antenna together and called it a radio station. At that moment, KRKO, as it’s known today — 1380 on your AM dial — hit the airwaves with 5 watts. On Aug. 25, 1922, KRKO went legit and received a broadcast license from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
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Property values soar in Snohomish County, up 32% on average. Snohomish County Assessor Linda Hjelle said she has never seen increases this high in her 33 years with the assessor’s office.
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Armed with a Sharpie, Comedian Conan O’Brien draws a caricature of himself on the top of a trash can by Langley City Hall in an impromptu ceremony. “What an honor,” the red-pompadoured wag wrote. He signed it, “Your new friend.”
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An eight-week old piglet that ran hog-wild for a week in Arlington after escaping a petting zoo is finally captured. Locals dubbed the little oinker Freedom Pig.
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A man rams a stolen front loader into a Lynnwood bank at least three times, tearing out a wall in an apparently failed heist. No money is stolen and the man leaves the bank on foot.
Teenagers tube the waters of the Pilchuck River Wednesday afternoon in Snohomish, Washington on July 20, 2022. (Kevin Clark / The Herald)
July
The emergency department at Providence Regional Medical Center is overwhelmed. The Everett hospital opens a command center and funnels staff and resources from other departments to handle an inundation of patients. Providence nurse Kelli Johnson said it’s been the worst week she’s ever seen in the emergency department, with patient-to-nurse ratios tripling in some instances.“We’re watching the collapse of health care,” she tells The Daily Herald.
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Everett’s inaugural 3-on-3 basketball tournament transforms three square blocks of downtown pavement into dozens of makeshift courts. Two hundred teams compete in the two-day event.
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After a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19, the Darrington Bluegrass Festival returns. The music tradition is celebrating 45 years.
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The corner of Hoyt Avenue and 32nd Street in Everett continues to be the scene of regular protests weeks after a historic 6-3 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, when the U.S. Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion in place for nearly 50 years. The intersection is home to two organizations with vastly different approaches to pregnancy resources: the Planned Parenthood clinic and the anti-abortion nonprofit Two Hearts Pregnancy Aid.
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At least two majestic gray whales become regulars at Ivar’s in Mukilteo, drawing oohs and aahs from onlookers as they swim through the nearby waves.
“They’re super gorgeous,” Ivar’s server Michael Merfeld said.
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Cooling centers open across Snohomish County as officials expect temperatures to reach into the upper 90s.
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Swedish Providence leaders ditch plans to temporarily move OB-GYN services from Swedish Edmonds to Providence Everett after the proposal is denounced by nurses, doctors and a public health board.
The Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum at Paine Field in Everett. (Janice Podsada / The Herald) 20220419
August
Closed for more than two years, the Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum at Paine Field — the late Paul Allen’s ode to vintage warbirds — will reopen with a new affluent owner. Walmart heir Steuart Walton has bought the museum’s aircraft, artifacts and assets.
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Darren Redick, chief executive of Providence Swedish North Puget Sound, steps down citing personal reasons.
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Irah Sok, 36, is mysteriously shot to death in her south Everett house in the middle of the night while her husband and young child are nearby. Shortly after the shooting, three intruders dressed in black reportedly leave the home. Police report they have no motive and no suspects.
Vehicles evacuate westward through Sultan as road closures and evacuations mount in response to the Bolt Creek fire on Saturday, Sep. 10, 2022, on U.S. 2 near Sultan, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
September
A seaplane crashes in Mutiny Bay west of Whidbey Island, killing all 10 aboard. The plane, a de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Otter, was traveling from Friday Harbor on San Juan Island to Renton Municipal Airport at the southern tip of Lake Washington.
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The Tulalip Tribes open a sportsbook at the Tulalip Resort Casino. The Stillaguamish Tribe opened the first sports book in Snohomish County in December at its Angel of the Winds Casino.
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A fast-growing wildfire prompts mandatory evacuations, closes miles-long stretches of U.S. 2 and produces a thick layer of reddish smoke and ash that blankets Snohomish County for days. The Bolt Creek fire eventually consumes more than 14,000 acres near its namesake creek north of Skykomish and west of Beckler River.
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An Arlington company’s all-electric commuter airplane takes its first test flight, circling the Grant County International Airport in Moses Lake for about eight minutes. Eviation Aircraft’s nine-seat prototype passenger plane, nicknamed Alice, produces no carbon emissions.
“What we have just done is made aviation history,” said Gregory Davis, Eviation’s CEO.
***
The city of Everett and Snohomish County agree to study the feasibility of a new outdoor multipurpose stadium in Everett that would serve as a new home for AquaSox minor league baseball team. Their decision was spurred by Major League Baseball’s new standards for minor league clubs like the AquaSox, who have called Everett home since 1984 when they were the Everett Giants. The current stadium opened in 1947.
Senior Associate Professor James Willcox reads through worksheet answers in an ESL class at Everett Community College on Monday, Oct. 24, 2022, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
October
A state commission identifies Paine Field as the best bet for becoming a “second hub” for Puget Sound flights, as an alternative to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission recommended “priority and funding” to grow the Everett terminal “through gradual increases in capacity according to its airport master plan,” a 20-year development blueprint that’s in the works.
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Snohomish County is a haven for Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion. Almost 2,000 have resettled here, since the war began. Many are receiving free lessons at Everett Community College to improve their English.
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Two Lynnwood roommates, Tucker Weston and Jesse Watson, are arrested on federal charges of breaching the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Weston, 34, faces allegations of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers, as well as interfering with officers during civil disorder, both felonies. He’s also charged with multiple misdemeanors. Watson, 33, faces charges of entering a restricted building or grounds and violent entry or disorderly conduct, both misdemeanors.
A woman diverts from her walk on Colby Avenue to take a closer look at a pickup truck that was partly crushed by a fallen tree during an overnight wind storm Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022, in north Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
November
Democratic state House candidate Clyde Shavers posts an apology to his website after his father publicly accuses him of embellishing his military service and other aspects of his background.
“I would like to apologize to any supporter who felt misled by any statement I have made regarding my service record – this was never my intention,” says Shavers, who goes on to narrowly win his election in the 10th Legislative District, which includes Island County, north Snohomish County and part of Skagit County.
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A powerful winter windstorm knocks out power for almost 200,000 PUD customers in Snohomish County, leaving some homes in the dark and cold for days.
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A small plane crashes during a test flight near Snohomish, killing all four on board.
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Downtown Arlington business owners seek to deter disruptive behavior by local students by allowing only three into their stores at a time. They point to an early release policy that began in fall 2021, in which middle- and high-school students are released at 1:15 p.m. on Fridays instead of the usual 2:30 p.m.
“It’s just we can’t have them be obnoxious and running through the store,” Sassafras Vintage & Gifts owner Judy Lowry Botts said.
Carly McGinn shovels the sidewalk in front of her home as snow falls on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
December
An era ends when the last Boeing 747 emerges from the Everett assembly plant at Paine Field. Hundreds of workers gather to bid the wide-body plane — tail number N863GT — goodbye.
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An armed suspect is arrested after a lockdown that lasted over three hours at the Snohomish County Courthouse. The 32-year-old Woodinville man, carrying a half-dozen guns and upwards of 300 rounds of ammunition, demanded to see judges and the sheriff to change his child custody arrangements.
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A chilly blast of heavy snow arrives with temperatures predicted to stay below freezing for days. Darrington Mayor Dan Rankin wakes up to 12 to 14 inches of fresh snow in a town where snow has already been on the ground for weeks.“We’re used to it,” he told The Daily Herald.
***
After 41 years and some 2,100 issues, The Daily Herald publishes its final Sunday edition. Starting Jan. 3, The Herald will begin using the U.S. Postal Service for same-day delivery. With the change, the Saturday paper will become an expanded weekend edition.
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