We recently polled readers and ourselves here in the newsroom
about Kitsap County’s top news stories of the year.
You can read the results
here, and weigh in on the reader poll at the bottom of the
page.
Seeing as how the poll offerings are slanted toward Bremerton (a
fish statue is a top story?), and that most Bainbridge
Islanders have never heard of Bremerton, I have created Bainbridge
Island’s very own top stories of 2010 poll.
Head over to the right side of the screen to weigh in.
UPDATE – Here’s reporter Chris Henry’s
story on the Sunday closure.
I just got word that the Bainbridge library will no longer be
open on Sundays.
Kitsap Regional Libraries will also close the three other main
branches (Sylvan Way, Poulsbo and Port Orchard) on Sundays.
The Bainbridge branch is open from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sundays.
The decision to cut Sunday hours was made by the KRL board on
Tuesday evening. The board said the cuts were necessary to balance
the library system’s budget. KRL’s most recent levy was rejected by
voters.
This week, a scissors-wielding man had his front false teeth
knocked out during a Christmas party beat down. During a search of
his pockets, police found used syringes and a spoon coated in
heroin. The man denied using heroin anytime recently, saying he
only keeps the syringes and spoon just in case he should happen
upon the drug. And then he said what I will nominate as the
Bainbridge police blotter quote of 2010: “It’s like carrying a
condom, you never know when you’ll need one.”
Also this week, a landlord was accused of breaking and entering,
stealing hundreds of dollars in cash…and leaving behind a Christmas
present and greeting card.
It’s about time I let you all know I have a new job.
It started Nov. 28, but as you can tell from my continued
coverage of Bainbridge and my presence here on this blog, the new
job is a lot like the old job.
I still cover Bainbridge (although I do it mostly from
Bremerton), and I still work for the Kitsap Sun.
The difference is I’m now a full-time staffer, which means I get
business cards and a computer and a nice little cubicle in this
cheerful place reporters here lovingly call the Sungeon. Get it?
Sun + Dungeon = Sungeon. It’s a fun place.
And I’m also spending a bit of my time (say around 25 percent)
covering parts of North Kitsap: Kingston, Port Gamble, Hansville
and that hotbed of action and intrigue, Eglon.
Around this time last year, I wrote a
story about the Matthees, a longtime Bainbridge couple that
moved to a small Eastern Washington town to take over its tiny
newspaper.
Buying a newspaper in
this day and age might seem about as sane as hiring a battery
of scribes during the advent of movable type.
But Imbert and Karen Matthee were undaunted. In short order,
they redesigned the paper and gave it its first-ever online
presence with social networking tools like Facebook,
and later a Web page, waitsburgtimes.com.
Their success continues to grow. The Washington
Newspaper Publishers Association reported this month that the
Waitsburg Times’ circulation has increased 30 percent since the
Matthees took over.
They’ve also opened an office in the neighboring city of Dayton
and hired their first news staffer – a managing editor – to help
expand their coverage area and take on some of the varied duties
shouldered by the Matthees.
The main office, in Waitsburg, may soon become something of a
community information and copy center, with a public-use computer
workstation, high-volume copier and image scanning services.
For a more in-depth update on what the Matthees are up to, check
out
this recent profile of Imbert Matthee by Walla Walla
Lifestyles.
Today’s paper has my profile Charlie Wiggins, a longtime
Bainbridge attorney who was recently elected to the state Supreme
Court. You can read it
here.
During my interview with Wiggins, he told me he had suspected
during his campaign that a win may make him the first Supreme Court
justice from Kitsap.
It sounded a bit far-fetched to me. In more than 120 years of
state history, no Kitsaper had ever served on the state’s highest
court?
Wiggins said he wasn’t 100 percent sure, so he ran off and
grabbed his copy of Charles Sheldon’s “A History of Judging: A
Political History of the Washington Supreme Court.” Inside were
handy lists noting each justice’s basic information, including
their residence when elected or appointed.
Sure enough, not one justice hailed from Kitsap. Not even the
dozen or so justices that served after the book was published were
Kitsap residents.
Wiggins was relieved. His place in Kitsap history was apparently
secured.
French
But with a little digging around at the fantastic Northwest
History Reference Collection at the downtown Bremerton
library, I did find some information on one other justice with
a strong Kitsap connection: Walter M. French.
The Michigan-born French was elected to the Kitsap County
Superior Court in 1912, after about a decade of practicing law in
Seattle and Alaska.
French appears to have been restless for higher office while
serving in Kitsap, and lobbied several times for an appointment to
the state Supreme Court. He never got the appointment, apparently
because his party-leanings (Democrat) never matched the governor’s
(Republican).
In 1918, he ditched the appointment route and ran against an
incumbent, but failed.
The years of disappointment apparently convinced French to
abandon Kitsap and become a roving fill-in superior court judge.
For eight years he traveled all over the state, building up his
name recognition and political clout.
The years of unofficial campaigning helped him – as a Tacoma
resident – finally win a Supreme Court seat in 1927.
Wiggins laughed when I told him about French.
“I never had to leave Kitsap to get elected,” he said.
Real Foods is closing
its cafe on Thursday. Its adjacent specialty grocery store will
shut down early next year.
The closures will add another empty store front to the Harbor Square development
on Winslow Way. The Harbor Square space formerly occupied by
Cafe Trios, which shut down during the summer of 2009, remains
empty.
Real Foods’ owners are planning to open a new restaurant and
retail business in the Island Gateway development taking shape a
block to the west, at the Winslow Way-Highway 305 intersection.
Bainbridge’s public access station may be gone, but live video
coverage of the city’s meetings will continue.
Less than a week after Bainbridge
Island Television broadcast its last city meeting, the city had
a web-streaming system up and running.
The first webcast from the city’s website was last night.
City information technology manager Steve Miller, who was
manning a computer and joystick in the spot where BITV’s equipment
used to be, said the new system works well. From his compact
command center, Miller was able to manage two remote-control
cameras mounted on tripods. The glitches and delays prevalent in
BITV’s web streaming were not a problem for the city’s system
because City Hall has a higher-capacity Internet connection.
The meeting video was archived on the city’s website shortly
after the webcast. You can view it
here. Click on “video.” Mac users may have to download
Flip4Mac to view the video.
Not much happened this week. There were a few drunk drivers and
some thefts from unlocked cars – which, according to one victim,
simply “doesn’t happen here.”
Yesterday I got word that Bainbridge-based Carden Country School is
in negotiations to buy the Moran School theater building.
Carden’s purchase would save the building from demolition and
possibly return it to its former grandeur.
For more about the proposed purchase, read my
story.
I wasn’t able to reach a Carden representative before deadline,
but I did get a call this morning from Jeb Thornburg, an
island architect and Carden parent who is leading the school’s
effort to revive the Moran building.
He said the Carden, an independent Christian institution that’s
operated on the island since 1990, wants to grow beyond its current
limit of 40 students. Read a bit more about that in the school’s
strategic plan.
I asked him how a small private school can undertake a
multi-million renovation of a building that has been neglected for
some 50 years.
“We feel confident in our ability to do that,” he said. “This is
real. We’re not just dreaming.”
While he was hesitant to discuss the details of the school’s
financing plan, Thornburg said the added tuition revenue from some
60 more students would help.
State tax credits for renovations of historical buildings will
also be a key component of the financing plan, he said.
Thornburg admits buying an existing building or even
constructing a new one would likely cost less and cause fewer
headaches than renovating the old Moran building.
But for Thornburg and Carden’s leaders, saving a piece of
Bainbridge history is part of the project’s appeal.
“Because we live here, we think it’s important to preserve the
heritage on our island,” he said.
