The Bremerton Beat

The latest rendering of the statues proposed for Fourth Street and Pacific Avenue offers more color and shows that the fisherman looks more like one you would see around here. It still has the fish winning, but I’m seeing if there is a newer version to reflect the council’s 4-3 anti-whimsy vote Wednesday.

We had some ideas of our own for alternative statues at Fourth Street and Pacific Avenue. How about the images of the Kirk sisters or Nathan Adrian entering the water on one corner and coming out the other? It certainly passes the whimsy test.

A fish and a fisherman is what we will likely get, barring some momentum from I-don’t-know-where that would overturn the council’s decision to install the two statues we’ve come to know. I’ve received an e-mail from someone suggesting there was opposition on this on artistic grounds. I’ll elaborate when I get it confirmed.

One of the first comments was about unelecting the people who voted for this. Here’s the status of when they run again.

Will Maupin — Up for re-election in 2011.
Carol Arends — Just re-elected.
Adam Brockus — Just re-elected. Ran unopposed.
Nick Wofford — Just re-elected. Had an opponent who realized later he hadn’t lived in the district long enough.
Brad Gehring — Just lost a re-election bid in a close race.

Both Cecil McConnell and Roy Runyon, who voted “no,” and Dianne Robinson, who wasn’t in attendance, are up for re-election in 2011. Mike Shepherd, who also wasn’t there, ends his council service on Jan. 31.

We’re looking into what would happen to the money if it were sent back to the state and other issues in a follow-up story.

Finally, here’s my image of the swimmer. I drew it on the back of an envelope. Feel free to submit your own.

I’m not saying there should be art on the corners, but if there’s going to be something different you might want to consider this idea by me. I’d say it’s in alignment with the idea of connecting Bremerton with the water. Then again, I don’t live in incorporated Bremerton, and reporters are not supposed to offer ideas anyway. It’s not part of that conspiracy theory pact we all signed.

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.

That U.S. Postal Service building at Sixth and Pacific has a buyer, a postal service spokesman said Tuesday. The deal, however, is still in the works. Under the current terms the post office would maintain a smaller presence in the building.

The spokesman did not know who the potential buyer is or what else is planned.

Citing a need to make sure the department’s expenditures match income, Phil Williams, public works director, confirmed Tuesday that three Bremerton employees will be laid off. One was informed Friday, another on Tuesday and the third was to be notified on Wednesday.

Williams said two of the employees are in the street division. A third employee is one who had planned to retire, but reconsidered. That employee will be given the lay-off notice, but under union rules will be able to replace someone else with less seniority. That will continue until a position is eliminated.

The street fund crew has been able to do work for other departments, such as paving work at the National Guard Readiness Center and construction at the new downtown memorial park, but “even with that we were barely kind of breaking even,” Williams said. “It was pretty obvious we needed to cut even more.”

The street fund borrowed $100,000 from the city’s Equipment Reserve Fund to shore up cash flow until revenues pick up during the summer.

Former Kitsap County commissioner Patty Lent’s name has been among those bandied about as a possible mayoral candidate for Bremerton, but I had no luck contacting her until last night.

Lent attended the county commissioners’ meeting in which the commissioners restructured something Lent did while a commissioner. In 2005 she, Chris Endresen and Jan Angel approved a move that put the county as second guarantor on the loans for the Harborside Condominium project. Since the complex opened the Kitsap County Consolidated Housing Authority has had little luck selling the units, laying the blame on a construction delay that led to the real estate and broader economic meltdown.

Lent took responsibility for the county’s decision in 2005. From Tuesday’s story:

Former county commissioner Patty Lent took responsibility for the current situation. She was a commissioner in 2005 when the board agreed to back the housing authority’s loan for the condos.

“It was an economic time that we thought we were well protected,” she said. Lent said the federal government was investing heavily in economic development at the time and the housing authority leaned into that role. She then praised the current commission for taking the step it took Monday.

“I was part of the problem in the past and you are really moving in a forward direction,” she said.

After the meeting I asked if she was running for mayor. “I haven’t decided, but I’m not saying ‘no,’” she said.

Monday night cleared one thing she said she had to do before deciding. “Tonight was a hurdle I needed to face.”

She described her choice in 2005 as a “poor decision,” but as she did in the meeting she said it was a time when the federal government was spending heavily on local economic development. “There was lots of money for revitalization,” she said.

City council members Mike Shepherd and Will Maupin have announced they are running and Shepherd has been campaigning for a while.

Jim Thomsen, a copy editor here, e-mailed this news story to me over the weekend. It seems one city is willing to pay nothing for an old post office and the postal service is willing to take it.

One council member said it was a great deal . . . for the postal service. A resident said it was a “sweetheart deal,” but meant it in a good way, not the way we normally associate sweetheart deals.

Adam Brockus, Bremerton city councilman, sent out an e-mail to friends and family announcing that he had landed a job. He was laid off in November. Here’s the e-mail he sent:

Last week, the US Navy offered me a position as a Civil Engineer in their Naval Facilities (NAVFAC) Office at Naval Base Kitsap.  I can now announce that I have accepted their offer.  After 3 months of unemployment, it turns out the place I went to first was the place that gave me the job.  Plus it pays better than my old job.

I will be needing to wait 4-6 weeks for the paperwork to go through before I can start, but after that I’ll be working in Bangor about 30 minutes north.  Jill, Rachel, and I will continue to live in our house in Bremerton.  And I will continue to serve as a City Councilman.

To know the concept of “pay it forward,” I hear, all you have to do is drink expensive coffee and spend no time out of your car to get it. It happened again today, at Starbucks on 303 in East Eastern East Bremerton. (Technically, that’s Central Kitsap, but I answered the phone.)

Well, that’s not true if you wrote this letter, which said this:

“While it’s nice to buy a stranger a cup of coffee, Paying it Forward involves doing significant good deeds. If all that coffee money was spent instead on someone who needed it, that would be Paying it Forward.”

Here’s how it works. Someone decides to buy the next person’s order. That next person, it turns out, is you. You get to the window, ready to pay for your somethingiatto and the attendant tells you that the woman in the Pacer who just left paid for your order. “Cool!” you think. Here’s where it ends, though. The attendant then asks, “Would you like to pay for the next person’s order?”

Shannon Bray of Bremerton was the 180th person in the “Pay it Forward” line today at Starbucks. She thought it was pretty darned neat. In fact, “neat” was her word. “Especially with the economy, it’s really neat.”

Brynn Grimley, formerly of “The CK Beat,” said around the holidays she was about 180th in one of these, and thinks another time the woman in front of her broke the chain.

She takes some issue with the letter writer above, because she really does need the coffee in the morning.

I called the Starbucks folks and they said the thing ended at 183, which they said might be a local record. No one really keeps track, though. I say the record is 211. Go ahead. Disprove me.

Brynn and I talked about the nuance between this pay it forward routine and what the letter writer proposed, that you do something similar to what was done in the movie with the kid who who was Forrest Gump‘s son and sees dead people. In that movie, Pay it Forward, the kid does a good deed and tells people to pay it back by doing something good for three other people and telling them to do the same, paying it forward instead of paying it back.

OK, so maybe buying a coffee in a cup and in a cake isn’t the same as fixing someone’s bike or giving them your ticket to the inauguration, but Brynn said it was pretty nice when it happened to her. That’s probably the point, don’t you think.

If you focus on the money, then there are clear winners and losers. Bray ordered a coffee and a treat, but the person behind her only bought a cup, so she came out ahead financially.

If you don’t focus on the money, though, you get surprised by someone’s generosity. Then you get the opportunity to continue the good will. Maybe you feel guilted into it, but you don’t have to feel that way. Today about 183 people had that choice. I bet more than half of them talked about it with others. I bet a few of those others will decide to do something nice. It could happen.

Over at the Caucus blog we’ve got a little ditty about SKIA annexation. You might not be surprised to hear that I’m seeing slightly different characterizations from Port Orchard and Bremerton. The official word from the board, for now, is the annexation of the northern property was accepted as submitted. A written decision will be issued later this month.

Bremerton gets smug with Port Orchard after enjoying a delicious meal from Popeyes.

And remember how someone from Port Orchard got all superior and stuff because they had Popeyes first?

They were all, “We had it first.”

And we were all, “Whatever.”

Remember how there seemed to be a pent-up demand when Popeyes opened here, because there were long lines and stuff?

Yeah, that was awesome.

And you can still get in line in Bremerton.

Not so in Port Orchard. The Popeyes there is closed. I’ve contacted headquarters to find out why, which is really Rachel Pritchett’s job, but I couldn’t resist an opportunity to get all childish.

On my home one of these days, I’m going to stop by and get me some Popeyes, because I still can. The spicy chicken in still in the house in Bremerton.

Yo, Port Orchard. Now that I’m contributing here again, you’re back on notice.