Bainbridge Conversation

On Tuesday night, city funding for arts and cultural organizations, community access television and a key human service organization was cut to zero.

A total of $763,000 was cut community service organizations by a sharply divided City Council.

The cuts mean no funding for public art, no more BITV-televised city meetings and possibly no more Health, Housing and Human Services Council.

No doubt there larger repercussions. It’s a sure thing that jobs in these and possibly other organizations will be lost, and that popular and important programs will be reduced or disappear completely.

Funding for the various organizations that provide assistance to disadvantaged residents, including Helpline House, the Boys & Girls Club, Bainbridge Youth Services and the Bainbridge Island Special Needs Foundation, was reduced from $320,000 to approximately $240,000.

Read more about the cuts HERE.

I’ve put in some calls to the affected organizations and hope to follow up with stories this week.

A few arts groups and their supporters have sent out messages today urging islanders to boost their contributions to One Call for All to help fill the funding gap.

One community service spending element that actually came out of Tuesday’s meeting with more money than expected was a “communication” fund to help downtown businesses affected by the planned Winslow Way reconstruction project. The fund rose from $35,000 to $40,000. How the fund will be spent will be decided by the Bainbridge Island Downtown Association (which had its entire $29,500 funding request denied on Tuesday). Mayor Bob Scales said BIDA may spend the Winslow Way fund on signs, temporary parking and various other strategies that encourage shoppers to patronize Winslow shops during the project.

“We’re imposing a vary worrisome event next year,” Councilman Barry Peters said of the Winslow Way project. “We need to communicate to our island to support our downtown in a year of great stress.”

The city of Port Orchard is moving ahead with plans to install electric vehicle charging stations in its downtown.

Meanwhile on Bainbridge, where over half of the county’s 22 registered electric vehicles are parked, similar plans have stalled.

Bainbridge City Engineer Chris Wierzbicki says designs for the downsized and delayed Winslow Way project include pre-wiring for charging stations, but that the city lacks funding to install them.

Read more about Port Orchard’s efforts to support EV technology HERE, in South Kitsap reporter Chris Henry’s story.

The City Council is looking for ways to cut costs on the Winslow Way road and utilities improvement project.

The city could save millions if it leaves power lines above ground and reduces the scope of work between Madison and Grow avenues.

Read more about where the project seems to be leaning HERE.

Developer Bill Carruthers reviews a map of the Island Gateway site. Photo: Tristan Baurick

The city is hosting a forum tonight about the Island Gateway development taking shape at the Highway 305-Winslow Way intersection.

Despite a fair amount of opposition to the 60,000-square-foot project, city leaders say the meeting is not aimed at deciding whether or not to halt Gateway’s progress, which now includes a partially-done Kids Discovery Museum and a large pit that will eventually be underground parking.

Rather, the meeting is aimed at informing Gateway’s critics how and why the city let it go forward.

City leaders admit they could have done a better job explaining its processes and getting information out more quickly.

Islanders opposed to the project have made several public information requests, created a website and filed a lawsuit.

Some critics aren’t happy with the goals of tonight’s forum, calling it a “farce” and a “slap in the face.”

For more about the issues surrounding Gateway, check out the story I wrote for Monday’s paper.

Tonight’s forum runs from 7 to 9 p.m. at City Hall.

The design illustration above depicts what the prominent northwest corner of the Winslow Way and Highway 305 intersection may look like in the near future.

A new art museum would anchor the front end (depicted at right) of the proposed Island Gateway project, with about 60,000 square feet of commercial space and a new home for the Kids Discovery Museum to the rear.

The project’s plans call for the removal of the five-acre site’s three existing structures. All new buildings would incorporate green design and the overall site plan features elements to reduce stormwater runoff into Winslow Ravine.

The city’s Design Review Board balked, saying the project’s design doesn’t fit the city’s preferred aesthetic for downtown. The board’s move doesn’t kill the project. The project’s developers, owner Bill Carruthers and architect Matthew Coates, will meet with the board next week to hash out some new ideas.

For my full story on the project, click here.

Below is a site plan showing the full project.

With over $1 million approved for the Winslow Way this week, supporters say the reconstruction project has moved beyond debate and into the realm of action.

But some critics say the debate has only begun.

My coverage of Wednesday’s six hour (!) City Council meeting is below…

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A group of island residents and Winslow business owners drafted a letter stressing that the controversial Winslow Way repair project is a necessary fix that’s good for people and Puget Sound.

We believe there are many neighbors who care passionately about Winslow Way and its future. No other issue has stirred up more ink on paper or created more anxiety.

And rightly so.

Winslow Way is our community living room, where our family and friends stroll and meet up at the bakeries, restaurants, ice creamery, bookstore, galleries, and retail spaces. Winslow Way is where we gather for the holidays – trick or treating, caroling, parading and dancing in the street.

Winslow Way is ultimately the island’s most-used, most-shared place. We should certainly be careful and cautious to not mess up a good thing.

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City Hall watcher Rod Stevens disagrees that a majority of islanders want the Winslow Way repair project to move forward:

A few people have written that we should get on with the Winslow Tomorrow effort since the City Council has duly voted four to three to start construction. This raises interesting questions about the nature of majority rule, and how much “majority” you need to do things in a small community.

The “majority” on the council certainly think they have a mandate to act. Councilman Chris Snow has said “We have the votes”, which is similar to saying “I’m the Decider.” Councilman Barry Peters writes about those opposing the project as being in the “minority”, and while he didn’t say this, this is equivalent to saying “you’re not one of us”. A year or more ago Councilman Kjell Stoknes told those opposing Winslow Tomorrow that “the train has left the station.”

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Despite the city’s shaky financial state, City Council members were assured this week that the $12 million Winslow Way reconstruction project will move along strong and steady.

The project draws its financial stability from grants and utility fees, which are not tied to the city’s sharply declining tax revenue bases, according to city staff.

Read my story here.

Island resident Greg Bedinger writes this week to praise aspects of the Winslow Way revamp that will improve storm and waste water lines:

I would like to weigh in on the current round of chatter concerning the infrastructure improvements slated for Winslow Way on Bainbridge Island. Others are challenging the arguments against proceeding based on costs, timing, disruption, and grants vs. no grants, ad infinitum! I wish to be on the record as a supporter of the project.

I find it simply amazing that there would be such hesitation to implement a project that will clearly improve the quality of water entering Eagle Harbor by way of upgraded storm and waste water lines. The Puget Sound Partnership recognizes that one of the greatest threats to our quality of life is the rapidly degrading quality (read polluted) of the water entering the Sound by way of overburdened and failing storm water systems. Add to this the deteriorating conditions of municipal sewage lines and it does not take a rocket scientist to recognize that we continue to sully our own backyard by delaying these important improvements.

All the residents of Puget Sound, shoreline and upland, rural and urban, share a responsibility for acting in the best interests of all, not just the few. The Winslow Way improvements are a much-needed response to an urgent call for action for each of us to contribute in a timely way to improving water quality in Puget Sound, thus ensuring a living and vibrant resource for all of us now and for the generations that follow.
-Greg Bedinger

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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It wasn’t easy, but they finally did it.

The City Council has wrangled for months over the 2009 budget, sometimes subjecting themselves to 12-hour budget meetings to hash out the details.

The budget was contentious up to the last minute, with Councilman Bill Knobloch again proposing a delay for the Winslow Way project. In the end, the budget squeaked by with a 4-3 vote.

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