Seeking Silverdale and Central Kitsap

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This will be my last post to the Seeking Silverdale and Central Kitsap blog.

Yesterday, I was appointed the Community Relations Director for Kitsap Regional Library. It’s now a four-day a week job rather than a half-time job as KRL’s strategic planning manager. And in this role, I’ll be in charge of the library’s public relations and community relations efforts.

So even if I felt I had the time to continue blogging, it’s no longer appropriate for me to do so.

I realize as I look back on the past few months of posts, I have written more often about the library than was probably appropriate. That’s because when I started writing this blog, I was unemployed and could devote much more time to coming up with a variety of items to mention in my blog posts. I was employed by KRL at the beginning of April, and as my work on the library’s strategic plan progressed, I found that I had less and less time to explore the topics that you as readers deserve from a community news blog. More of my posts were about the library than ever before.

I feel that every one of my posts was newsworthy. But the predominance of items about the library was inappropriate to this blog. And now that it will be my job to be guiding public and community relations for the library, the potential for me to abuse the opportunity to blog for the Kitsap Sun becomes all too real.

This final blog posting ends a 21-year relationship with the Kitsap Sun. I was hired on Halloween, 1988, by then editor Gene Gisley, to join the Sun’s staff as the city editor. Under Gisley and his successor editors, Mike Phillips, Brian Stallcop and Scott Ware, I was fortunate to serve as a newsroom manager in a variety of roles (city editor, features editor, business editor, opinion page editor and finally managing editor) for 20 years. When we were informed more than a year ago of the third newsroom staff reduction in two years, I decided to leave full-time employment with the Sun and become an early retiree.

I have great respect for the new generation of newsroom leaders at the Sun. Editor David Nelson, Local News Editor Kim Rubenstein and Web Editor Angela Dice have done a phenomenal job bringing you coverage of Kitsap County handicapped by having far fewer resources than that job requires.

When Scott Ware and I were editor and managing editor of the Sun, we didn’t feel we had to staff to do the job we wanted to do — with 45 people in the newsroom. David and Kim are now trying to do that job with 20 fewer staff members than Scott and I had, and at the same time, they are doing more with the kitsapsun.com web site. So I truly appreciate the creativity and innovation David and Kim are bringing to their jobs.

And while I’ve enjoyed continuing my relationship with the paper in my “retirement” and into my transition to a new job, I know it’s time now to move on.

I hope the Kitsap Sun will be able to find someone who can take this blog far beyond where I’ve been able to steer it. Silverdale needs the benefits of a good reporter who can be the mirror who reflects news, information and trends back to residents and can help build the sense of community Central Kitsap deserves.

Take care, and I definitely hope to see you at the library.

— Jeff

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For those of you who didn’t see the story that was published on kitsapsun.com yesterday, the Kitsap Regional Library Board of Trustees has authorized the library staff to begin preparations for a possible levy vote in November 2010.

As explained in the library’s press release, but not in the Sun story, the board will wait until July to decide whether to put a measure on the fall ballot. Board members are especially cognizant of how the economy has affected Kitsap residents, and probably won’t move ahead with the proposed levy if there has been no economic improvement by then.

The library has cut its budget in the past two years and has created a sustainable spending plan for the future. Because of the foresight in budget planning, the library has not been forced to conduct staff layoffs or close branches, slash programs or furlough employees like other units of local government have in the past year.

As a result, the library won’t be coming to voters saying that if you don’t vote yes, KRL will be slashing programs or services. There’s no “threat” of takeaways from the library if a levy is defeated. It’s a pure choice for voters. It’s a referendum on the value of having a vibrant library system for our community.

Are you willing to say yes to a 1 percent increase in your property tax bill to get more library services, more books, more media, better technology, more user convenience, and — of great significance to CK — new library facilities in Silverdale and Kingston and library facility improvements at every other branch?

I’m sure some people will say no. Especially in these tough economic times, people will say no to tax increases. Some will say no because they are financially strapped. And some will say no because they choose to spend their money in a different way.

But some people will say yes because they recognize that library usage is at an all-time high in Kitsap County, just as it is across the country. They will say yes because they recognize that for the cost of one new hardcover book at publishers price they can get free access to all the books that have been published; to CDs and DVDs; to thousands of journals and magazines, popular and obscure, through the library’s subscription databases; and to free wireless internet at all the library’s branches.They can get better services through the library’s web site, and enhance the nine branches that offer library service across the county.

If you ever wonder about the value of the library, there’s a handy calculator on the library web site. All you have to do is fill in some information about how many books, CDs, movies, or other items you borrow from the library each year, and mark whether you use library programs or services. The calculator will compute the value of those things that you get at the library for free.

For Central Kitsap, the ballot question will have special significance. The Silverdale branch library serves the largest population of any branch in the system, yet it’s one of the smallest branches. There is inadequate parking for library patrons there. The children’s area, the bank of adult computers, the magazines, the books and the reference desk are all shoved together in one crammed space. Kitsap’s “right-sized” libraries, have about 1 square foot of space for every 2 to 2.25 people in the area it serves. By this measure, the Silverdale branch is the most undersized library in the KRL system, with 1 square foot for every 10 people in the area it serves.

So what value would you place on a new, much larger Silverdale library located next to the new YMCA on the Silverdale Community Campus?

— Jeff

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In my previous post, I explained that the new strategic plan for Kitsap Regional Library will include goals that can be accomplished with the resources the library has now, and also some goals that can only be accomplished if the library has more resources.

Since 95 percent of the library’s revenue comes from property taxes, having more resources means voters approving a tax levy increase.

The library asked Kitsap County residents to approve levy increase in May, 2007. At that point, the library had used up its cash reserves over a period of years as spending grew faster than revenues. The levy proposal was defeated, with about 45 percent of county voters approving the measure, and 55 percent voting no.

After that levy defeat, the library didn’t react the way most governments do. It did something different. (more…)

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Yesterday, I promised you that I would lay out some of the ideas that are in the early draft of Kitsap Regional Library’s new strategic plan. These ideas have been discussed internally with KRL leaders, but they have not yet been approved by the library system’s Board of Trustees.

The board is made up of five members who represent the the constituent areas of Kitsap County: South, Central, North, Bainbridge Island and Bremerton. They will have the final say on what goes into the strategic plan.

So you’re getting a sneak peek, and things could change between now and when the Vision 2015 plan is ultimately approved.

The strategic initiatives the plan addresses include an increased emphasis on services for children and teens; initiatives to make the library an enrichment center for Kitsap adults; proposals to make library services more convenient; suggestions for improving library facilities; and ideas to make the library more effective with the tax dollars it receives.

Here are some of the specific ideas.

(more…)

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As my regular readers know, I’m not a full-time blogger about Central Kitsap. I used to work for the Kitsap Sun, but now I work as the strategic planning manager of Kitsap Regional Library.

In that capacity, I invited all of you several months ago to get involved in the library’s strategic planning process. You could attend a public meeting about the library, which was the choice of more than 100 people at branch libraries across Kitsap County in September. Or you could go online to take a public survey about the library’s programs and services.

If you were one of the more than 1,800 people who took the survey, I’d like to thank you. And also, I’d like to let you know that we shut the survey down today to compile the final results.

If you’re interested in knowing what people think about Kitsap Regional Library, at least the people who participated in the survey, KRL has now posted a summary I wrote today that gives many of the results.

Unfortunately, I can’t summarize the most important results we received. The comments people added in responding to some of the questions, and the answers people gave to several open-ended questions at the end of the survey, gave incredible insight into how people view the library, what it does well and where it comes up short. But there are literally thousands of individual responses, far too many to summarize. I do want you to know, however, that we’ve read every response, and the ideas that were contained in those responses have been considered as I’ve framed the strategic plan. We at KRL will eventually put all the results up online, so everyone can examine them, along with notes from all the public meetings we had. They will be part of the supporting documentation for the strategic plan.

An initial draft of the plan is due to the KRL Board of Trustees later this month, and after revisions, we expect the final version of the plan to be approved in March.

I’m going to do a second blog post about some of the ideas in the plan tomorrow. Some are pretty simple, and some are pretty involved, and will cost money. Those that have a significant additional cost will not be possible to achieve unless the library wins future voter approval of a levy increase. I’ll talk more about that in a third blog post on Thursday night.

In the meantime, take a look at the survey results. I think you’ll find them interesting.

— Jeff