At a packed meeting of the Board of Island County Commissioners Tuesday, 18 Whidbey Island residents spoke out — some harshly, and many to loud applause — against the Navy’s touch-and-go exercises at Coupeville’s Outlying Field.

“You are ignoring your oath of office to protect the health of your constituents,” said Ken Pickard of Coupeville, president of anti-noise group Citizens of Ebey’s Reserve, or COER.

Pickard addressed comments to individual commissioners, calling Helen Price Johnson “weak” and “afraid to take a leadership role” and accusing Jill Johnson of “selling out to Navy dollars.”

Commission Chairman Rick Hannold admonished the speakers, telling them to address the board as a whole, but some continued to address the commissioners individually.

Paula Spina, a COER director, said the group gathered in response to a mass emailing occasioned by the Navy’s recent exercises at OLF. The speakers made their remarks during a designated open public-comment period before the meeting began, not in response to anything on the agenda.

Harry Toulgoat, of Coupe-ville, called the Coupeville-area flights “hell from the heavens above.”

Cate Andrews of Coupe-ville told the commissioners that, “I hold you all personally accountable for students who can’t study and teachers who can’t teach.”

Marianne Brabanski, an audiologist, said the commissioners are “negligent in not protecting the health of your constituents.”

The commissioners did not respond to the remarks.

After the meeting, Navy spokesperson Mike Welding said that “the Navy goes out of its way to be a good neighbor. We do understand that some people are opposed to operations here, and we work with community leaders to find reasonable ways to lessen impact from those operations.”