Bainbridge trails advocate John Grinter writes that Bainbridge needs to slow down and reassess plans to take on two state parks slated for closure. Grinter is the vice chair of the city’s Non-Motorized Transportation Advisory Committee and was a lead community organizer for the 2004 petition drive to create the Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Park District. Below is Grinter’s letter.

I am a strong supporter of Bainbridge parks and I believe our local park board is moving too quickly to bail out the state park system with the transfer of both Fay Bainbridge and Fort Ward state parks.

I don’t believe careful consideration has been given to the long-term impact on other well-planned community goals. The local (park) board is talking about making a permanent financial commitment of millions when they should be talking about helping the state in a short term, interim manner while we weather this economic crisis. Perhaps most troubling of all is the speed at which it is happening and the nearly complete lack of public process regarding the transfer.

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Municipal government expert Carl Neu will discuss the differences between mayor- and manager-led cities at the Bainbridge High School Commons on March 31.

Bainbridge voters will decide on May 19 whether to swap the city’s elected mayor position for a city manager hired by the City Council.

Neu has worked with over 600 local and state government entities since 1976. As a consultant, he has focused on strategic leadership-building, policy development, long-range planning and elected official teamwork skills.

Neu’s visit is sponsored by the Bainbridge Resources Group. His discussion at BHS begins at 7 p.m.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill today that would name the Rolling Bay post office after World War II Medal of Honor awardee John ‘Bud’ Hawk.

Decorated with five of the U.S. Army’s top medals in the battlefields of Europe, the Bainbridge Island native was also celebrated for his years in the classrooms of Kitsap County.

“He was a hero for answering his nation’s call in the late 1940s,” said Rep. Jay Inslee, the bill’s prime sponsor. “And he was a hero for several decades to the students he educated.”

Inslee gathered all members of the Washington House delegation to co-sponsor the bill. See a video of Inslee introducing the bill below.

Hawk, now a Bremerton resident, spent his youth in the north Bainbridge neighborhood served by the small Valley Road post office that may soon bear his name.

“He was a son of Rolling Bay,” Inslee said. “He grew up playing with his sister around the post office we’re about to name in his honor.”

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U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee is celebrating a Navy project aimed at harnessing tidal power off Marrowstone Island in Puget Sound.

“I have worked hard in Congress to secure funding for this project and I’m excited to see the results,” the Bainbridge Democrat said. “As we face the crisis of climate change head-on as a nation, it’s critically important that everyone — including the federal government — work to diversify our electricity sources to include clean, renewable power supplies like hydrokinetic energy.”

The demonstration project is part of a congressional mandate that requires military agencies to generate at least 25 percent of their power from renewable sources.

To learn more, read Ed Friedrich’s story here.