Seeking Silverdale and Central Kitsap

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Well, I can’t blame Regina Hill for the circumstances that forced her to withdraw from the Central Kitsap School Board race for Position 1, but I have to once again express disappointment that a school board member in Central Kitsap will, yet again, be chosen without a contest.

After being on a waiting list for base housing for two years, Hill received a surprise placement recently and as a result moved out of the geographic area that defines the residence requirement for the Position 1 board seat. As a result, Bruce J. Richards will be unopposed for the seat in the November election.

You can check out previous blog postings on the recent history with the CK board elections. This would have been the first election in more than a decade that all board seats that were up would have been contested. For several elections, there were no contests at all, and outgoing school board member Carl Johnson, who wanted to retire from the board two years ago, was forced to keep his position in 2007 because no one filed to run for the board seat.

Richards is an incumbent board member, and I have no doubt that he is a well qualified and honorable candidate. As I’ve said before, the fact that an incumbent is doing a decent job doesn’t eliminate the value of having a contest for an elective office. It was really a breath of fresh air to see the three candidates in the race for position 5 have to talk to the voters and answer questions on the Kitsap Sun’s election’s web site. I ended up voting for the incumbent in that race. But too often when there’s no opposition, the incumbents don’t ask the voters for their support and don’t have to state their positions on the issues facing the school district, the city council, or whatever office they are seeking.

So I have to express my sorrow that Hill will not be able to provide the voters of Central Kitsap with that most valuable of commodities in a democracy — a contested election.

— Jeff

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Congratulations to incumbent Central Kitsap School Board member Eric Greene and to challenger Richard Romero as the top two candidates in the Central Kitsap School Board District 5 race.

Both candidates move on to the general election in November, while Jim Zimny was eliminated in the primary last night.

Greene received 2,525 votes in the initial tally performed by the county auditor’s ofice, Romero 1,565. Zimny trailed with 941.

There were a relatively large number of write-in votes, 204, in the contest. Wonder whether a single individual got a large number of those. Just for comparison, with about the same number of total votes cast, there were only 64 write-ins in the race for Bremerton Port Commissioner.

— Jeff

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There’s not even a fully formed health care reform proposal before Congress. A House version of a plan has passed committee, and the Senate committees are still working on their versions. Yet the fear mongering is at fever pitch.

Repeat after me: “The health insurance industry is your friend.”

Are you ready to buy that idea? Do you think the people who are making a profit off your health are your friends? Do you think they pay for your medical procedures out of the goodness of their hearts? Do you realize that the for-profit health insurance system takes 20 percent off the top of your health care dollar and gives you nothing for that cost in return?

I found it interesting to see this morning that while 9 out of every 10 stocks traded on American exchanges yesterday saw their values drop, the shares of health insurance companies were up between 3 and 10 percent. And why? Because there was news yesterday that the Obama administration may be backing off the public option in the health care reform bill. The public option is intended to be a competitor with private insurance to give people the choice of plans in the marketplace. Clearly, the market indicates that insurance companies feel the public option is a threat to their profits.

So why should the rest of us think of a public option as a threat? Do we really think that the health insurance companies interests are our own? Do we really think the system that has resulted in Americans paying far more for health care and getting poorer results than 35 other countries is something we should be fighting to protect?

I’m watching this health care reform debate now with dread, not with hope, because I see the same thing happening now as happened in 1993. The drug companies, which helped tube reform in 1993 with their “Harold and Louise” fear mongering ads, are now running ads with the same actors playing the same couple, only this time supporting reform.

Louise says to Harold, “It’s about time someone is doing something about health care reform.” Will big phama have to bring those actors back from the dead 16 years from now to wonder why we didn’t reform a system much in need of change back in 2009?

— Jeff

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The word today is that Joanne Haselwood, widow of Bremerton auto dealer Chuck Haselwood, has pledged $2.5 million to the Silverdale YMCA project.

The Y is to be the first anchor tenant of the Silverdale Community Campus, which lies between Silverdale Way and Randall Way, north of the Walgreens Drug Store and south of the Regal Cinemas movie theater.

The Haselwood gift comes on top of a $1 million pledge announced by developer Ron Ross and his wife, Nadean, and means the Y project has now raised more than $5.3 million in private donations. The YMCA of Pierce and Kitsap Counties, which is building the Y, says the facility will cost between $15 million and $18 million total.

The organization says the Haselwood donation is the single largest in its 125-year history.

Those two contributions, taken together, represent an amazing level of support for the Y and for the community campus project.

— Jeff

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Back in town after a week in Florida (of course, our cool weather arrived while I was gone) and I find that the staff of the Sun conducted the interview with the three candidates for the District 5 Central Kitsap School Board position.

Video of the editorial board discussion was posted yesterday on the Kitsap Caucus blog, thanks to Sun Web Editor Angela Dice.

If you were wondering about the candidates, observing their discussion may be your best chance to assess their readiness to serve you on the school board.

And to regular readers who have been requesting this, please post comments here on whether you think the video of the editorial board discussion served your needs in terms of deciding what candidate to support.

— Jeff

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Just wanted you to know I won’t be posting for about a week. In the meantime, hoping that we get some indication when the Sun will post the video of the editorial board interview with the three candidates for the District 5 Central Kitsap school board seat.

— Jeff