City Council members
voted 5-2 to buy 100 percent green energy for the city.
Council members Sarah Blossom and Steve Bonkowski voted against
it.
Bonkowski said he would vote against it because of the low
percent of residents who participate, which he correlated to
green energy support.
About 13 percent of islanders participate in Puget Sound
Energy’s Green Power Program. The program relies more on
wind, bio-gas and solar-energy sources instead of coal.
The city had been buying about about 13 percent of
its electricity from green energy to match the resident
participation, costing about $3,000 a year. The city spends a total
of $330,000 a year on electricity, and going to all green power
would cost the city an additional $15,000 a year.
The Bainbridge Island High School Sailing Team won
first place at the annual Islands Cup regatta in Anacortes on April
11-12.
This fleet-racing regatta rotates among various
locations in and around the San Juan Islands each year and attracts
teams from all over the Northwest.
Sailors completed four races, two in each division,
before racing was called off on the first day when wind gusts of
more than 25 knots continued to build, with as many as six boats
capsized on the course at a time. Weather conditions on Sunday were
nearly perfect.
The Bainbridge High School Plaid team, with Stasi
Burzycki and Sophia Kasper/Kat Smith in Division A and Jackson
McCoy and Hannah Harrison in Division B, took 1st place out of 32
teams to win the 2015 Islands Cup. Fourth place went to the
combined team of Will Brown and Josh Rentz in Division A and Caelan
Juckniess, Nicole Sanford and Harry Saliba in Division B.
Lucas Burzycki, Elizabeth Rolfes, Christophe Webber,
Harry Saliba, Olivia Mitchell and Sophie Crandell placed ninth, and
Nick Dresel, Karl Anderson, Zach Mellin, Quinn Ring and Cole
Garthwaite placed 21st.
Rowers competes in British
Columbia
Bainbridge High School rowing teams earned several
first- and second-place finishes last weekend at the international
Brentwood Regatta on Vancouver Island.
The Varsity Boys Eight came in first of the U.S.
teams in the high school race, with a boat consisting of Alex
Larsen, Scott Musselwhite, Will de Rubertis, Konnor Vander Leest,
John Danielsson, Dan Queen, Lars Erickson, Cole Sander and coxswain
Keith Carlson.
In girls races, the varsity eight took second overall
in the high school race, the
lightweight four finished second and then launched
for a second race with the rest of their squad as the lightweight
eight boat. In a close final, Bainbridge finally nosed ahead
of Brentwood for second place behind Holy Names, which won in a
late sprint.
The boys novice eight boat, Colin Veilleux, Gavin
Veilleux, Conor Sweeney, Jackson Patrick, Peter Van Ness, Aaron
Lewis-Sandy, Hudson Dore, John Merritt, cox Sam Carson, took first
place, the first time a junior novice team from the Bainbridge
Island Rowing Club has won an Open-A level race, according to coach
Tim Goss. The novice boys four also won its race.
Governor Jay Inslee preparing
to sign the Ostling Act into law April 24. Bainbridge Island
Officer Trevor Ziemba, far left, and Kitsap County Sheriff Gary
Simpson, center, attended the signing. Ziemba testified in favor of
the bill. (Photo by Legislative Support Services)
The Douglas M. Ostling Act, a measure that will require all
Washington law enforcement to receive crisis intervention training,
became law when Gov. Jay Inslee signed the bill April 24.
Ostling, a mentally ill Bainbridge Island man, was shot and
killed by Bainbridge Island police in 2010, and two years later a
federal jury determined the city had not provided proper training
for the officers, awarding the Ostling family $1.4 million.
The new law requires incoming police officers to receive eight
hours of initial crisis intervention training starting in 2017, and
two hours of additional training each year for all officers by
2021.
Since the shooting, Bainbridge Island’s newest police chief has
been working to improve training and repair community ties.
Matt Hamner, hired in 2013, sent Officer Trevor Ziemba to
Olympia to testify in favor of the Ostling bill. Ziemba is the
department’s crisis intervention officer.
“We wanted to show our support of this bill,” Hamner
said. “We want to do better, and we want to do the best we can for
the community.”
City Council members
voted 5-2 to buy 100 percent green energy for the city.
Council members Sarah Blossom and Steve Bonkowski voted against
it.
