Bainbridge Conversation

Bainbridge is now officially floating in the “Salish Sea.”

The Washington State Board on Geographic Names voted today to bestow the Salish Sea name upon the waterway stretching from Olympia to Quadra Island in British Columbia.

Read about it in Chris Dunagan’s story.

Don’t worry, “Puget Sound” is sticking around. It’s just being rolled into a bigger body of water that includes the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia.

Didn’t know we had a board of geographic names? Read more about them here.

The state was quick to quash a nascent plan Eagle Harbor’s liveaboards drafted as a last-ditch effort to save their anchored-out community.

After reading in today’s Kitsap Sun of a liveaboard group’s proposal to forgo the city’s open water marina and lease buoys directly from the state, the Department of Natural Resources’ Bridget Moran sent me this note:

“I thought it would be worthwhile to share with you, as we have with the City of Bainbridge Island, that the option that was put forth by the Boaters and Mariners of Bainbridge Island (BAMBI) is not a legal option. Only local government entities may establish an open water marina for residence.”

So it looks like the city plan is still the liveaboards’ only option. That, of course, doesn’t sit well with liveaboards who say the city plan to save their community will actually end their community.

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Plenty of longtime islanders (and a masked man on stilts*) turned out last night to urge the City Council to find a way to preserve Eagle Harbor’s liveaboard community.

“The liveaboards are part of our heritage,” said Kim Esterberg, who lives on land but has organized visits between his yacht club and the anchored-out liveaboards. “Their way of life will be lost.”

Read my full report here

*Never did get a chance to talk to the masked stilt man. He said not a word, and was gone in flash. He was last seen walking in Winslow with long yellow pants and an orange life preserver around his neck.

Rep. Christine Rolfes (D-Bainbridge Island) predicts Western Washington could become magnet for thirsty people from increasinly parched regions.

Plentiful water may fuel local economic development that could be channeled into clean industries, Rolfes said at a recent Kitsap utility managers conference.

“We are one of the places in our country and the world that can really have a sustainable water system,” Rolfes said. “Water in Washington state is our competitive advantage for the future.”

Read more in Chris Dunagan’s report, here.

The city approved an interim city manager contract for island resident Lee Walton, who has made a post-retirement career out of helping cities in tough spots.

Six years ago, he helped Bainbridge transition between two city administrators.

He’s parachuted into hairy situations for several cities in Washington, Oregon and California. He’s even built city governments from scratch in Kazakhstan, Estonia and other former communist nations shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Read my story about Walton below.

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The recession is causing plenty of job security jitters. So I suppose it makes sense that a Seabeck man would be a bit nervous about being lost on Bainbridge Island before his first day of a new job. Pulling a U-turn on the highway and striking a Lexus probably didn’t make is first day go any easier.

This week’s (very short) blotter is below.

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Suspecting that City Councilman Bill Knobloch is working with a group that is suing the city, the city manager filed a preliminary ethics complaint this week over Knobloch’s failure to disclose whether he has conflicts of interest.

“I honestly believe Bill Knobloch is somehow assisting or supporting the lawsuit with the city,” City Manager Mark Dombroski said, referring to a lawsuit brought by the Bainbridge Ratepayers Alliance over the city’s use of utility funds.

Dombroski, whose last day with the city is Friday, requested an advisory opinion this week from the city Ethics Board because Knobloch has failed to submit an annual conflict of interest statement required of all elected officials. While Knobloch filed his 2008 statement, he is six months overdue for turning in his 2009 statement. All other council members have complied with the requirement. If Knobloch is found to have violated the city’s ethics code, Dombroski can then file a formal complaint to the council.

While Knobloch shares some of the alliance’s concerns about utility spending, he strongly denies a connection to the alliance.

“That’s false,” Knobloch said. “(Dombroski) is in attack mode. He’s trying to marginalize me.”

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A petition, an appeal and lots of debate couldn’t stop soccer and lacrosse supporters from getting the two artificial turf fields they’ve labored after for over five years.

The fields were officially opened on Saturday, with game play commencing around 9 a.m. and ending in the evening.

“These are so much better than the muddy sand fields,” 12-year-old Cal Barash-David told me after playing in a soccer match on a field that was covered in hard-packed sand and standing water around the same time last year.

Read my story here.

By far, the most eye-catching entry at Saturday’s Bainbridge Edible Book Festival was the one produced by Real Foods Market & Cafe.

The base was quite pretty: glowing blue Jell-O water lapping at a cake shore covered with white frosting, miniature palm trees and tropical flowers. And on top: a roasted and ornately-decorated pig head that must have weighed a good 20 lbs.

Entitled “Piggy,” the edible book was based on William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies.” Piggy, if you will recall, was the name of one of the book’s doomed characters.

Most attendees had to get a good close look to see if the thing was real. When they found it was, they were either repulsed or tickled. It was probably the most photographed of entries, which included “Around the World in 80 Lays” (made of potato chips and cake, I think), A Clockwork Orange (a clocklike piece made of orange slices), Where the Mild Wings Are (made of chicken wings and a mild BBQ sauce) and the People’s Choice Award-winner: “Snow Peas Falling in Cider.”

Read more about the Bainbridge Public Library-sponsored event, and see more photos here.

It’s round two for the Bainbridge school district’s $42 million bond.

After failing by just a handful of votes in May, the district has done little more to the bond than brush it off and try to pitch it to the public more effectively.

Part of the district’s campaign for the November ballot was to give tours of Wilkes Elementary, which will draw most of the bond’s dollars for a full demolition and rebuild.

I took the tour on Thursday. The most striking thing for me was hearing a teacher recount the times she’s had to don rubber boots when a nearby bathroom floods the hallway and part of her classroom.

With a host of problems – from its roof to its underground infrastructure – it seems most everyone agrees Wilkes is in a sad state. There is, however, disagreement over when and how to fix it.

Read my story on Wilkes and the school bond here.

The idea seemed too strange, and maybe too good, to be true: take two prototype housing units built to usher in a new era of affordability and green living for Seattle’s young professionals, crane them down from the roof of a downtown building, load them on flatbeds, drive them to the Kitsap Peninsula and use them as affordable housing at a city-owned farm on Bainbridge Island.

Instead, the stackable, sustainably-designed homes — which made their cross-sound trek last Saturday — sit unoccupied near the island’s old dump.

Read more about the adventures of the prototype prefabs here.