The Bremerton Beat

Silvia Klatman, executive director at the Bremerton Area Chamber of Commerce for nearly a decade, announced Tuesday she is resigning to take a new job.

Klatman will work in public affairs with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Keyport beginning in January.

Klatman said the new job offers a good opportunity for personal and professional growth. “They’re looking at expanding their communications with employees,” she said. “It sounded very interesting and intriguing.”

Steve Green, president of the chamber, said Klatman will be difficult to replace. “She’s done a wonderful job for the community,” he said.

Green said the chamber’s board will wait until Jan. 4 to begin accepting resumes for a new executive director. Between now and then board members will be coming to an agreement about what they are looking for in Klatman’s replacement.

In addition to running the day-to-day affairs for the chamber, Klatman was often the face of the organization, leading chamber lunches and moderating early-morning political debates during campaign season. She began as executive director in August of 2000 but had worked for the chamber before as well as for the Kitsap Economic Development Council.

Klatman said Bremerton’s volunteers and business leaders will continue to keep the city growing. “The big thing that Bremerton has going for it, and frankly has always has had going for it, are the people,” she said.

The USS Missouri is seen in Drydock 4, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009 at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (AP Photo/The Honolulu Advertiser, Gregory Yamamoto)

For all of you here in Kitsap who still feel a connection to the historic USS Missouri, which was mothballed on Bremerton’s waterfront for decades, here’s a little update.

The ship was towed from its tourist spot near the USS Arizona Memorial Visitor Center yesterday and into a Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard drydock.

Earlier this year, the USS Missouri Memorial Association began work preserving the gray lady, on whose decks Japan signed the declaration of surrender that ended World War II. For the next three months, the ship will be cleaned up, rewired and otherwise spiffed up (if you can call $18 million worth of work “spiffed”) for the nearly half million tourists who now visit the ship ever year. They will sandblast and fortify the hull, and upgrade electrical and sewer systems. The work is being paid for with a $10 million Department of Defense grant and funds from the nonprofit USS Missouri Memorial
Association.

She’ll be back open for tours — they cost $20 per person — in December.

I visited the ship last month. They were doing early painting touch up work, but it still was open for tours.

I didn’t visit it when it was in Bremerton; I probably wasn’t old enough to appreciate it at the time. But I remember the fight when its departure from Bremerton was announced. It was downright vicious, involving a federal lawsuit and strong words from our local Congressman.

For those of you who don’t know the battleship’s history and tearful goodbye with Bremerton, here’s a synopsis:

The ship was mothballed in front of Puget Sound Naval Shipyard from 1954 to 1984. Perhaps because of the popularity of the tours and the exposure it received during the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle, other cities began clamoring for visits from the Mo.

The ship was towed to Long Beach, Calif., and recommissioned in 1984. It toured the world and was deployed during the Gulf War. Its return to Bremerton was promised by then-Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett III in 1989, and it came back for its second mothballing in 1992.

In 1995, the year of the 50th anniversary of Japan’s surrender 1995, several cities — including Bremerton, Pearl Harbor, and Long Beach, Calif. — petitioned to become its permanent home. Hawaii, of course, won.

Last year, 10 years after it was towed away, some Kitsap residents still felt saddened by the battleship’s departure.

No matter the argument about where the ship belongs, it serves its purpose at the Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor. As one of our commenters put it, the Missouri provides a “period” to the memorial’s statement on the attacks on Pearl Harbor.

So while I was there, taking it all in, I thought I’d bring a little back for my fellow Bremertonians. It may not be the ship, but these images from the tour are going to have to suffice. Also included at the end of the slideshow are photos of the Arizona memorial so you can read the sentence backward. (If you also have visited the Mo in Bremerton or there, e-mail me photos or post a link to them in a comment.)

Deborah Jackson, who wants Bremerton residents to write in her name for mayor in November, plans to hold a meeting Thursday in which she will discuss:

A. A warrant for her arrest in Oklahoma;
B. Another misdemeanor;
C. What is going on with the Bremerton School District;
D. Anything else we might ask about her run for mayor.

That’s the information I received by telephone. She plans to send an e-mail out with the details. I don’t know if this is technically a public event or invite-only. I’ll update you when I know. The event is at 2 p.m. Thursday at 853 Sixth St. in Bremerton, the Kitsap Business Center.

UPDATE: I received the e-mail and it had less information than what I had above, except for the name.

You are invited to a mayoral facts; Disclosure Forum!

Date: Thursday, 10/8/2009
Time: 2:00pm
Place: Kitsap Business Center 853 6th Street Bremerton Washington 98337

I’m posting the press release from the Secretary of State’s office without making any “ha-ha” remarks to my good friends who live and work across the Sinclair Inlet from Bremerton. Isn’t that big of me?

This is the second Kitsap resident to be honored in this way be the state. The first was former Bremerton Sun writer Adele Ferguson.

I’m hoping to interview Ms. Walker on Monday.

`Legacy’ honors civil rights pioneer Lillian Walker

OLYMPIA – A 95-year-old Bremerton civil rights pioneer is the latest Washingtonian to have her life story told by The Legacy Project, the oral history program established in 2008 by the Office of the Secretary of State.

Lillian Walker helped found the Bremerton branch of the NAACP in 1943 and went on to serve as state NAACP secretary. She was conducting sit-ins and filing civil rights lawsuits when Martin Luther King was in Junior High.
A biography and an oral biography based on sit-down interviews, plus photos and other materials, have just been posted at http://www.secstate.wa.gov/legacyproject/oralhistories/lillianwalker/default.aspx

A rollout ceremony is planned for 2 p.m. on August 11 in Secretary of State Reed’s office at the Capitol, featuring remarks by Congressman Norm Dicks, Reed, chief oral historian John Hughes, and Dianne Robinson, Bremerton councilwoman and co-founder of the Kitsap County Black Historical Society. The ceremony will be televised by TVW and available on streaming video at www.TVW.org

The Legacy Project e-publishes oral histories and biographies of Washingtonians who have been instrumental in shaping our history. The materials are published online and are free for easy click-on reading or downloading. They are excellent resources for school and college projects.

In the past nine months, The Legacy Project has offered up profiles of Charles Z. Smith, the first ethnic minority on the State Supreme Court; pioneering female journalist Adele Ferguson; rocker-turned-civic activist Krist Novoselic; former Chief Justice Robert F. Utter; and trailblazing federal judge Carolyn Dimmick, who was the first woman on the State Supreme Court.

Soon to be published are the oral histories of former first lady Nancy Bell Evans and astronaut Bonnie Dunbar. An oral history with former Governor Booth Gardner is in preparation, and a biography of the late Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn also is in the works.

“It is a real privilege for Washingtonians to learn more about the inspiring Lillian Walker story, which is emblematic of the work of so many in this state for racial equality and equal rights for all,” Reed said. “It also reminds us that the clock is ticking if we don’t want to lose the chance to preserve these stories. The Legacy Project, which is part of the planned state Heritage Center on the Capitol Campus, is hard at work, on a shoestring budget, to preserve this part of our history and our heritage.”

Mrs. Walker and her late husband, James, arrived in the Navy Yard city of Bremerton in 1941 together with thousands of other African-American wartime workers who thought they had left racism behind in the South and industrialized cities of Midwest and East. But many Kitsap County businesses, including cafes, taverns, drug stores and barber shops, displayed signs saying, “We Cater to White Trade Only.”

In a landmark case, the Walkers took a soda fountain owner to court and won. They also discovered there were “a lot of righteous white folks” in Bremerton. Sixty-five years later, the centennial year of the NAACP finds Mrs. Walker still in the trenches, “reminding people about The Golden Rule.”

She is a charter member of the YWCA of Kitsap County, former chairman of the Kitsap County Regional Library Board, a 68-year member of Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church, and a founder and former president of Church Women United in Bremerton.

Lillian Walker exudes dignity, pluck and perseverance. One of 11 children born to a mixed race couple on a farm in rural Illinois, she dreamed of becoming a doctor, but she was the wrong color and the wrong gender at the wrong time in the wrong place. Still, there’s no bitterness over the fact that she and her late husband took on an assortment of part-time janitorial jobs for 40 years to make ends meet and give their kids a better life. Their son graduated from Stanford University, went on to earn a Ph.D. and is an epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control.

Someone once asked her, “Why are you always smiling?” “Frowning and cursing,” she replied, “that’s not going to make you any friends.”

Bremerton’s five mayoral candidates met at the Cloverleaf this morning to explain their plans and views.

It’s from these that I’ll go back and write the story, which you’ll see later.

I don’t know if providing notes will be helpful or not, or whether I’ll do it again. I happened to have it work out this time and wasn’t interrupted during the debate, so for this one here you go. If there are any swear words in here, they’re accidental. No one said any.
(more…)

The first candidate filings are posted at the county elections site and Bob Winters, former city councilman, is running for a seat on the dais again.

He last ran in the Manette council district, but now lives near Kitsap Lake. Assuming Nick Wofford runs for re-election, Winters will be at least one of his opponents. Adam Brockus is running to retain his Manette seat.

Mike Shepherd, city councilman, was first to file for Bremerton mayor.

More as it develops.

Downtown business owner and former city council candidate Carlos Jara announced he will run for Bremerton mayor. Jara becomes the sixth candidate for the job being vacated by Cary Bozeman, who will be taking the CEO job at the port.

Jara ran in 2007 for the seat won by Roy Runyon. He and his wife, Christina, moved to Bremerton in 2004. He opened Puget Sound Box & Shipping near the ferry terminal and later turned it into Harborside Market. Christina Jara owns and operates the Isella Day Spa, also in downtown.

The couple lives in West Bremerton.

Former county commissioner Patty Lent confirmed Tuesday she plans to run for mayor of Bremerton.

Lent was commissioner from 2003-06, losing in the one-time “pick-a-party” primary in the Republican race against Jack Hamilton.

Lent’s confirmation puts the number of mayor candidates up to five, following Daryl Daugs’ announcement hours earlier. City council members Mike Shepherd, Will Maupin and Cecil McConnell Brad Gehring announced earlier.

Daryl Daugs, chairman of the 35th District Democrats, announced on his blog Tuesday that he intends to run for Bremerton mayor. It means he gives up the Democratic post.

Daugs ran for state representative in the 35th District, losing the race eventually won by fellow Democrat Fred Finn.

His campaign Web site from that run indicates that most recently he was a lead organizer for the Washington Federation of State Employees in Olympia focusing on system reform of Child Protective Services. He and his wife have been foster parents for 54 children.

One reason he decided to run:

“Not one of the people that has stepped up to run makes me very happy.”

Beyond that, he writes:

“For me … this is not political … it is personal. I grew up here. I cruised Pacific Ave in my 66 Mustang. I watched movies in the Roxy and the Admiral. My kids have all gone from grade school through high school here. I love and care for my community and the many friends and family that live here with me.”

Daugs joins Mike Shepherd, Will Maupin and Brad Gehring in the race. He’s the only one running, so far, who isn’t a member of the current city council.

Brad Gehring, Bremerton city councilman revealed today that he will seek the mayor’s position in the November election.

Gehring joins fellow council members Mike Shepherd and Will Maupin as candidates who have announced their intentions to run.

Other names surfacing as possible candidates include former county commissioner Patty Lent, who on Monday said she had not ruled it out.

Gehring said he likes both Shepherd and Maupin, but “I just don’t feel Bremerton needs to go in the direction they would take it.”

What has been done so far to revamp Bremerton has been “fabulous,” Gehring said, praising outgoing Mayor Cary Bozeman for laying the groundwork for re-establishing Bremerton’s economic strength.

Gehring said there needs to be more emphasis on private investment into the city and more effort to benefit small and medium-sized businesses.

First elected to the seat in 2003, Gehring was re-elected in 2005. He also ran for state representative in 2008, coming in third in the primary to Kathy Haigh and Marco Brown.