Hearing examiner sets schedule for Oak Harbor mobile‑home‑park fence appeal

Hearing Examiner Harry set a schedule July 28 for the notice-and-order appeal concerning a fence at Oak Harbor Mobile Home Park and said the case will be heard virtually on Sept. 10, 2025, at 2 p.m.

The order matters because it fixes deadlines and the format for the contested hearing: prehearing motions are due Aug. 8, responses are due Aug. 15 and any replies are due Aug. 20. The examiner said he will issue a written prehearing order within about a week.

During the brief prehearing conference, Mr. McLaughlin, the attorney newly assigned to the appellant’s side, described the dispute as limited in scope. "We're talking about 1 fence, on on the border," he said, adding he wanted time to prepare coherent motions rather than rush filings the week before a hearing.

The examiner responded by proposing a schedule that gave the appellant two weeks to file motions and the city a week to respond. "With you, Miss Evans, give him a couple weeks to file his motion. We'll give the city a week to respond, a couple days to reply, have the hearing, you know, a week or two after that," the examiner said.

Participants confirmed the hearing will be remote and discussed the timing for witness and exhibit lists. The examiner told parties he would circulate a prehearing order laying out the order of proceedings and logistics. He said parties should exchange witness and exhibit lists and email exhibits to the opposing side roughly a week before the hearing.

Other scheduling constraints were noted: one participant said Sept. 15 would not work because of a jury trial, prompting the parties to pick an earlier date. The examiner closed the conference by restating the deadlines and the hearing date: motions due Aug. 8, responses due Aug. 15, replies due Aug. 20, and a virtual hearing on Sept. 10 at 2 p.m.

No substantive rulings on the fence or other merits were made during the conference; the session was limited to scheduling and procedure. The examiner invited parties to raise procedural questions by email and said he would try to issue the prehearing order within a week.

Background: The conference record begins July 28, 2025. The appeal is described in the conference as a notice-and-order appeal related to Oak Harbor Mobile Home Park; the transcript identifies the disputed item as a fence at the property boundary. The parties agreed the hearing would proceed with the usual burden-of-proof and order of presentation noted by the examiner.