Bainbridge Conversation

The unveiling of a “friendlier” Winslow Way hasn’t sparked a resurgence for downtown businesses. At least not yet.

Sales tax figures released for the first six months of 2012 showed receipts from downtown Winslow were down 1.9 percent compared to the same period last year ($211,718 compared to $215,863). That figure might seem insignificant until you recall what Winslow Way looked like in the first half of 2011:

Sales were lower from January to June this year than in 2011, when shoppers braved a jungle of barricades and traffic cones to visit shops. Downtown continued to lose businesses as well, down to 172 from a total of 201 in 2011.

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Tree expert Olaf Ribeiro’s Arbor Day tours of Winslow’s historic trees was fully booked, even with two added walks. If you missed the tour, you can still read the story (below) I wrote last week. For Larry Steagal’s photo gallery of Ribeiro in action, check out this link.

A change comes over Olaf Ribeiro when he touches the gnarled and scabbed bark of an old apple tree gripping a small patch of lawn on Winslow Way.

Suddenly he no longer sees the clinic and the busy sidewalk crowding the tree’s roots. The supermarket across the street and its vast parking lot disappear. In his mind’s eye, acres worth of Winslow streets, shops and restaurants give way to rows of apple trees much like the one at his side.

“All of downtown was an orchard,” he said, squinting at a view in the distant past. “Twenty acres. All that you can see here was apple trees. Why this one has survived is beyond me.”

Having an accommodating inheritor – the Winslow Virginia Mason clinic – is one key to the tree’s longevity. The other is Ribeiro, who has combined the passion of an activist with the know-how of a scientist to save some of Winslow’s oldest and most revered trees.

A plant pathologist for over 30 years, the Kenyan-born Ribeiro uses Bainbridge as his home base between globe-spanning, tree-saving adventures that have been profiled in the Wall Street Journal and NBC’s Today show. He’s advised arborists treating the Doomsday Tree, under which England’s Magna Carta was signed, and provides ongoing care for Britain’s Tortworth Chestnut, a tree said to have sprouted over 1,200 years ago.

“How long a tree lives depends on how you treat it,” he said.

Ribeiro gives his most dedicated attention – often free-of-charge – to the island trees he holds most dear.

The three towering trees outside the Bainbridge Historical Museum have been under the Ribeiro’s care for decades. He agitated at City Hall enough to save the former pet store property from redevelopment and worked to free the trees’ compacted roots from the store’s parking lot. Now the trees – an elm, a sycamore and an 88-foot-tall red oak – live on as reminders of a unique past.

“These trees were brought across the ocean from Britain,” Ribeiro said. “They’re the last of their size remaining in downtown.”
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Looks like the last remnants of the Hoskinson homestead are coming down. Read my story here about the city’s recent decision to allow the removal of large trees planted by Winslow’s earliest settlers.

Doug Tolliver, a “A Shovel 4 Hire,” escorts a Winslow shopper over an icy crosswalk on Monday. Find more photos here

Shoppers squinted and blinked as they entered Lindsleys clothing store on Monday afternoon.

Somewhere among the darkened clothing racks Tom Lindsley was voicing a welcome to them. Most customers needed a few seconds to let their eyes adjust from the glare of Winslow’s snowy streets to the dim of the unlit store.

“Right now all we have is daylight,” said Lindsley, who co-owns the 17-year-old store store with his wife. “And a few flashlights people will hopefully use.”

Lindsleys was one of many downtown shops already struggling under a sluggish economy. The winter snow storm and resulting power outage made a bad situation worse.

And while the Christmas season was anticipated as a happy ending to a tough year, many stores found the snow kept many holiday spenders at home.

“The combination of the weather and the economy really makes things messy,” Lindsley said. “It hurts a lot. Our (sales) are way down. And we’ll have to close early because it’s getting harder to see in here.”

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The city of Bainbridge earned a $3.5 million state grant that will pay for almost 30 percent of a major road and utilities project planned for Winslow’s main street.

Awarded this week by the state Transportation Improvement Board, the money will fund the surface portions of the larger $12.3 million project, including new bicycle lanes, wider sidewalks and road repairs on Winslow Way.

The grant amount exceeded expectations, said Deputy Planning Director Chris Wierzbicki.

“We were trying to be conservative so we thought maybe we’d get one million dollars,” he said. “But now we have three and a half million, so that’s really good.”

The grant’s unexpected bulk means the city can shave off about $1.5 million in bond funding budgeted for the project. The city will see additional cost savings by not having to pay an annual $150,000 in bond-related debt payments over 20 years, Wierzbicki said.

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The former Unocal gas station property on Winslow Way was one of four Kitsap County properties added to the state’s Hazardous Sites List this week.

Sitting at Winslow Way’s intersection with the highway, the 1-acre property has for several years been hemmed by a fence decorated with murals and banners.

The property hosted a gas station from 1957 until 1989. It is currently joint-owned by the city of Bainbridge Island and Kitsap Transit. Three underground storage tanks — with one or more leaking — were removed in 1991.

The site could impact the stream in Winslow Ravine, which borders the property to the west.

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While the details of a land swap between the U.S. Postal Service and Town & Country Market caused a bit of grumbling, the deal’s bigger picture drew applause at a public meeting Tuesday.

“If it’s a choice of who will remain in the downtown core, I choose Town & Country, hands down,” said island resident Channie Peters, one of about 40 people to attend the postal service-sponsored meeting. “It really is the center of our community. It would be a huge loss.”

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