The Bremerton Farmers
Market just keeps getting bigger. On Thursday, it will
debut for the 2016 season at Evergreen-Rotary Park, where it’s
nestled among towering conifers. The festivities, including a
ribbon-cutting, kick off at 4 p.m.
Elsewhere on the Beat Blast this week, you’ll find out:
That overhaul has been planned out and now just needs approval
from the state’s Department of Health, according to Bremerton Parks
Director Jeff Elevado.
How long will that approval process, plus installation, take?
Elevado isn’t certain yet.
“We hope to have them open sometime this season,” he told me
Monday. “But we can’t promise that at this point.”
So stay tuned. Hopefully, they’ll get it up and running soon. In
the meantime, the city cautions people to steer clear of the other
city fountains. On a day that’s going to get into the 80s, that may
be a tall order.
On a recent hot day, no one
could resist the Memorial Fountains while the Harborside ones were
closed.
You may have noticed Bremerton Mayor Patty
Lent hasn’t been in her office this lately. In fact, she
isn’t even on this continent. Early last week, she led a local
delegation to Kure, Japan, Bremerton’s sister city.
It’s a tradition that dates back 47 years, following
a call from President Dwight D. Eisenhower to establish
“people-to-people” partnerships including sister cities. The Lions
Clubs of both Kure and Bremerton formally established ties in 1969.
Since then, 153 exchange students have gone to Kure from Bremerton
for the summer; 153 from Kure have also come here.
Every five years, a delegation from Kure comes to
Bremerton and in the same time period, a delegation from Bremerton
goes to Japan. Kure’s delegation was last here in 2014; Bremerton
was to go last year but Kure officials asked them to wait so that
their new city hall building could be completed.
Kure is much bigger than Bremerton — about 228,000
people live there compared with our own 39,000 — but they’re both
communities with a rich shipyard history.
“It’s vibrant, it’s exciting, and it’s really a
cultural exchange both cities benefit from,” Lent said by phone
from Kure this past week.
No city tax money was spent on the trip
— everyone paid out of their own pocket, according to Elaine
Valencia, the mayor’s executive assistant.
Along with the mayor, City Council President Eric
Younger, City Councilwoman Pat Sullivan and Bremerton Water
Resources Manager Kathleen Cahall are among those in the
delegation. Both Younger and Sullivan hosted exchange students in
recent years. A number of Bremerton Lions Club members are also in
attendance.
Lent, who also spent time at the U.S. Naval base in
Yokosuka on the trip, will return home toward the end of this week,
along with the others.
