The Bozeman Blog

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Today will be my final blog . The reason is simple: I have found that what started out as a way to communicate about the activities of the Port of Bremerton has spread over into me making comments about issues outside of Port business. I should not be doing that until I retire and then my comments will be my own and not representative of the Port of Bremerton. I will admit to having enjoyed blogging and someday I hope to share my thoughts on important issues in our community with others.
On another subject, my favorite time of year is just around the corner, Thanksgiving and the Christmas Holiday. I hope everyone has the opportunity to be with friends and family and celebrate this special time of year.

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Wow, it doesn’t seem like a day goes by that we don’t read about another political confrontation going on within the City Government of Bainbridge Island. Today, it was an issue between one of the members of the City Council and the outgoing City Manager. The manager is the latest of a long list of city staff who have left the City in the past twelve months. I am someone who has worked in City government for 20 years so I have watched with much interest what seems to be the unraveling of the management of this City of 25,000 people. It seems to be a classic case of a breakdown in trust between the elected members of the City Council and the management team headed up previously by the Mayor and now, after a vote to change the form of government, a full time City Manager.
It’s not the form of government that makes the difference , it’s the quality of  leadership at both the city council level and the management level. Second, it’s trust. The staff and the elected officials must get the same information and must trust they are getting good information. Then a true partnership between the council and the staff can occur and that leads to good decisions being made that will benefit the citizens of Bainbridge Island.
It would seem that after the elections next week would be a perfect time for the new council and the management team to go off and spend a couple of days together and do some team building. The goal is the same for elected officials and management: to provide the citizens of Bainbridge Island with a quality local government that is efficient and effective in providing critical services and being wise about the use of taxpayers money. I know and respect many of the city’s officials and I am confident they will come together. They have no choice.

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One of the top defense contractors in the country, General Dynamics Electric Boat, has just signed a lease to locate in our industrial park. Electric Boat has been working on Navy submarines for almost 100 years and will be doing work at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Their headquarters is located in Groton, Conn.
Being able to recruit a world class tenant such as Electric Boat requires a team effort and in this case our team was led by our Director of Real Estate Development Tim Thomson. Tim worked hard on this project for over six months and was supported by our management team. Our industrial park now has two of the most famous companies in the military boat business, Safe Boats and Electric Boat. We are hoping that other defense contractors will now want to locate in the Port of Bremerton Industrial Park. I am optimistic that in the next five years we will see a 30% increase in the number of good paying jobs locating in our industrial park that will be doing defense contract work.

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I grew up Seattle in the 50s and for my four years in highschool I got up every morning at 4:30 to bring the P.I. paper to the front porch of over 100 homes. People started and ended their days in Seattle reading the P.I. in the morning and the Seattle Times in the evening. Now their is only the Times and for us the Kitsap Sun. The future of these two fine papers appears to be in question. My daughter and my grandchildren get their news by going to the internet with their morning coffee and reading anything from the New York Times to the Kitsap Sun. Somedays when I stop by McDonalds for my morning coffee and egg-macmuffin I see lots of people my age still reading their morning paper, but when I stop by Starbucks I see lots of young people with their lap tops in their lap catching up on world and local news. I can only guess the dimise of the printed news paper will only continue and might very well come to a complete end in the next 20 years. I believe that having no printed newspaper will be a sad day for the following reasons. First there will be no more kids throwing papers on our front porch, second the quality of the reporting will not be the same as most will be done over the computer or the phone rather than a personal interview where people can get a real feel for the real story. Third, more and more local news will be taken over by national and international stories which become more available to local papers.
There are values and customs that I hold onto and will miss as the change in how we get our information washes over us.

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If you are downtown Bremerton on Washington Avenue just above the Bremerton Marina you will see workers from the City of Bremerton and the Port of Bremerton working together to build a public stairway from Washington Ave. to the Boardwalk and the Marina on the Bremerton Waterfront. This is a project called the “Stramp” and it is funded by a grant secured by Congressman Norm Dicks to help provide public space and access to the waterfront from Washington Ave. The project manager is Gary Sexton who has been the project manager on most of the new development on the Bremerton waterfront for the past seven years. Many of the projects such as the Harborside Fountain Park have gotten national attention. The stramp will be of no less quality and will be a great addition to the Bremerton Waterfront.
The Stramp will be a three tiered stairway with three plazas for seating and viewing the water. There will be landscaping, outdoor furniture, and lighting as part of the stairway to the water. The grant was for $400,000 and is on budget and on schedule to be completed in mid-November.
The Stramp sets on property purchased this month by the Port of Bremerton from the Kitsap Housing Authority to provide adaquate parking for the Port’s marina and the future development of a major project that will bring new jobs to downtown Bremerton. This project sets on the waterfront side of Washington Ave. between the Hampton Hotel and the Harborside Condos. We will celebrate the opening of the Stramp with a ribbon cutting event late in November.

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In my life time two major government programs were created to support senior citizens both of which I now receive because I am over 65. They are of course social security and medicare. You can argue on the merits of each but no one can argue that they have not been helpful and life saving to millions of senior citizens over the years.
Now we are in a national debate on the issue of health care in America which is to expensive, not available to over 50 million people, and daily people who live on lower incomes have to make a choice between eating, paying the power bill, or being able to purchase their drugs that they need to keep living. This just does not seem right. We are the richest country in the world , yet most other countries have done a much better job of making health care more affordable and more available to those most needy.
Most everyone will admit our health care system is broke yet the politics of change are almost impossible with hugh special interest groups fighting for their share of the economic pie and not worrying about how to make it better for all Americans. Doctors, Hospitals, Drug Companies, Lawers, Senior Citizens, all want to protect their own financial interest first, fighting any change that would effect their bottom line. I believe we are at a key moment in history on this issue and it will be our one and best chance of bringing reform to our health care system.
All my life I have been lucky to work for organizations that provide me with health insurance, but I realize that many have not been that fortunate. We must find a way to make sure that anyone in America that is sick and in need of care can get medical help without having to lose their home or go without food. I urge the congress to show leadership at this most critical time in our history.

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Some call it one of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the State. Two major highways intersect in a very small area surrounded by small businesses where people pull off and into the highway . It simply is a very dangerous situation, especially at night. So we need the Department of Transportion to move forward with a new plan to handle the amount of traffic we have today, which is only going to get worse.
Second, now that the City of Bremerton is bringing sewer hookups to the Gorst community its time to develop a new vision for the area. One that might include a redevelopment project at the main intersection. Because of its central location with high traffic volumes it might be a perfect location for a new retail and office complex . I would like to call on the cities of Bremerton and Port Orchard to join the County and the Port of Bremerton to begin developing a new plan for Gorst. It could become something very special but without a new vision and a new plan it will only get worse in terms of traffic congestion and land use.

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The Bremerton National Airport is one of the oldest airfields in the state having been opened in the 1930s. Airmail service was flown out of Bremerton National in the 30s and the airfield was taken over by the U.S. Navy in the 40s to provide support and protection for the shipyard. After the war the FAA turned the airfield over to the Port of Bremerton who then named it Bremerton National.
Today the 6000 foot runway is home to 200 private owners who store and fly their planes out of Bremerton National. About seven years ago a small airline tried to offer passinger service out of Bremerton direct to SeaTac airport. The effort lasted about a year and was shut down because of not enough paying customers.
The question today is what should Bremerton National plan on becoming in the next 20 years. Should it stay the same or should it plan to grow, attracting jet air service and becoming the home for private jet aircraft. Would it be possible to get jet service out of Bremerton National to other cities in the northwest such as Portland and Spokane. I believe that is possible and could happen in the next ten years. We believe we are about to receive a good size grant to do a long range plan for our airport which will set the direction for the airport for the next 20 years. We just completed repaving our entire runway with a 5 million dollar grant which will provide us with a high quality runway for the next 20 years. Stayed tuned as we make plans for the future of Bremerton National.

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It is a fine line between attracting more jobs and thus more people while at the same time maintaining the quality of life that all of us who live in Kitsap County experience everyday. I would maintain that without a good paying job, there is no quality of life unless you are retired with a good pension and adaquate health insurance.

 I have never believed in the idea of the status quo, or let’s just keep it the way it is because we like it this way. Communities are either in a position of social and economic decay, or they are getting better through good jobs, improving schools and transportation, and people stepping forward to provide leadership for various activities in their communities. The key word is change, postive change that creates opportunties for people in Kitsap County to enjoy the good life.

So yes, I am a pro-growth advocate as long as the growth is done in a quality way, with good design, sensitivity to the environment, and protects our quality of life. Bottom line is most people need a good job and good jobs come from economic growth. I believe in the next ten years Kitsap County will experience moderate growth in jobs and population.

Because of our location and the transportation challenges we have, our growth will always be slow-to-moderate and that’s a good thing. But growth there must be, otherwise we will become a county in economic and social decay and that is not good for anyone.

We must work to become less dependent on the military for our economy, and work to attract companies that pay family wage jobs, which will help to keep our best and brightest children in our community, who then will become the future leaders of Kitsap County.

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Last night, our leadership team at the Port of Bremerton traveled to Seabeck for a community meeting.

The length of the trip itself was a good reminder of why citizens there feel distant from the Port and frustrated over what they get in return for their taxes. They are distant from our airport, industrial and business parks, and marinas. They’d like a marina of their own, or at least something in their community to show for the taxes they pay.

The Port has tried in the past to make a couple of projects work in Seabeck. We tried to work with the state in rebuilding the Misery Point boat ramp and parking area. But the state’s design was controversial, it was rejected by the county and then the state, which owns the ramp, decided not to proceed with the project. Another time, we tried to partner with the county to build a restroom and sewer lift station at the site of the old Seabeck marina. That effort collapsed because we couldn’t obtain an easement for shoreline access and because of a legal question about the county’s use of public funds for the project.

So with these failed efforts, we knew to expect frustration, and we were right.

But here’s an important point in this time of sometimes unruly public discourse: The folks of Seabeck expressed their frustrations, but they spoke their piece in a conversation that was civil and constructive. We listened to what they had to say and learned from it. They listened to our answers and respected us for making the effort. They still want more to show in Seabeck for their tax dollars, even as they acknowledged how difficult it is to achieve tax equity in a sprawling district like ours. We think they are right and we’re going to keep trying.

Thanks, Seabeck, for proving that it still possible for citizens and government to talk to each other in a positive way.

(You can watch for a broadcast of the meeting on BKAT and we’ll post it to our website once BKAT provides us a copy.)

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