What a week in Bremerton. News, news, news; Apparently someone left the back door to the city open. No confirmation yet on whether the Armed Forces Day Parade has moved to Port Orchard.
One thing that is staying: the Bremerton farmer’s market. Tomorrow afternoon at 4 is the season opener, down at Evergreen-Rotary Park. If a seamless, sunny start to the outdoor shopping season is the top story in the city for Thursday, it’ll be a nice break from the recent flow out of the news hose. At least for a day, then we’re back to craving six-column headlines.
In the rush since Friday, there has been something I’ve been meaning to pass along. We were prepped for the Westsound Bank seizure last week, as our fleet of Sun tipsters kept hinting that something was going down. Of course, given the bank’s recent dealings with potential litigants and SEC investigators, rumors of something awry on the way could have meant anything.
I kept telling people here about a 60 Minutes video I had seen earlier this year. When community banks began to fail a few months ago, the FDIC let those reporters ride along on a seizure. It would always happen on a Friday, and very clandestinely — or exactly as our sources were hinting toward with Westsound. I have no idea if this is the same way things happened at Pacific and Sixth Friday afternoon, but there are some similarities between the video and what Kitsap Bank President Jim Carmichael told us Monday afternoon.
So here’s the link (or, a link to the link, I suppose). The video is long, but an interesting look at how you sweep a bank out of town.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/at-that-moment-operation-happy-looked-pretty-grim/
Now, how about the rain following some of these civic leaders out of town?
— David Nelson
