Kitsap Caucus

Daniel “D.J.” Sweet saw a chance to teach his 7th graders and go for something he’d dreamed of, too. Over the weekend, however, he was struck by not-so-small dose of reality and he shelved his plans for another day.

But he says he will be back.

Sweet, a teacher and dean of students at Ridgetop Junior High School, was one of three candidates for state senator in the 23rd Legislative District, filing on Friday after seeing the field limited to one candidate.

“It just didn’t seem right,” said Sweet, who as a teacher of American and Washington history knows a little bit about government and politics. So he gathered inspiration from the movie, “The Rookie,” the one about a baseball coach who decides to give playing Major League Baseball, his dream, one last try himself, only to eventually succeed. “I felt like this would be kind of my last lesson of the year to my 7th-grade class,” Sweet said.

His filing declared no party preference, but in doing so he said he was claiming the same preference as this country’s first president in his “disinterested warnings of a parting friend.”

“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.” — George Washington

Sweet says it this way: “We have a great government system that’s been ruined by politics.”

So his decision to run with neither party was as principled as one who picks one party over another.

The reality he discovered came from the paperwork the state handed him, showing him that establishing an effective campaign that follows campaign rules and files financial reports on time takes months, if not years, in advance to do well. Plus he is planning to take the bar exam in July. Life is a little too busy to add a political campaign to it. So on Monday he withdrew his name.

Sweet says he will be back, that his short-lived candidacy was no failure. “This was a great, valuable experience for the next time,” he said.

Every Monday his class of “Junior High and Beyond” 7th Grade students talk about the weekend. Boy did Sweet have a story. The kids were enthused, thinking ahead to the day they will get to vote.

Look at that: Young people excited to vote.

Now that candidate filing is complete, assuming they waited, operatives for political campaigns are on duty looking for campaign violations committed by opponents. Each election cycle we get word of them and check them out. In the past we’ve had complaints about a firefighter using his gear in campaign ads, questions about requests for information that should be publicly available, a complaint about incumbent legislators wearing their official legislative name tags and too many complaints about sign vandalism to count.

This next one, a problem that has been fixed, is one we found.

On Charlotte Garrido’s website for her re-election campaign to county commissioner, her contact page had a phone number and email address that took, until sometime Monday afternoon, someone back to county offices. We made a call to Garrido this morning and will post her comment on the matter as soon as we get it.

UPDATE: Ray Garrido, Charlotte’s husband, left a comment below on how this happened. It deserves placement in the main body, so I’ll also paste it here:

“I’m the person who put the phone number and email address on Charlotte’s contact page. I thought it would give people a way of contacting her about county issues, which is what the text of the page says. It was my mistake. I should have read the rules closer and I changed it as soon as I found out it was inappropriate.” — Ray Garrido

I also just spoke with Charlotte, and she wanted to be clear that this was not intentional, that she wants to be “absolutely, totally legal.” When she was contacted by the PDC, she called her husband and the number was changed. She was also disappointed we didn’t call her before calling the PDC. I did call the PDC first, because I wanted to make sure it was an actual infraction. It seemed like a clear-cut case, but no sense stirring things up if it wasn’t. Once I knew it was, I called the phone number on the website and waited a few hours before posting.

We also called the Public Disclosure Commission. “Yeah, this is bad,” said Lori Anderson, PDC spokeswoman. “We’ll contact her and tell her to take it off of there.”

The phone number went to Laura Melrose, Garrido’s assistant in the county offices. We spoke with Melrose and she seemed surprised to learn her number was linked on the campaign site. This suggests that not many, if any, people have taken up the offer to contact her from the campaign site. The email went directly to Garrido’s county email address and puts nothing in the subject line.

Both items were fixed sometime Monday.

By “bad,” Anderson means it was a violation of state campaign laws. RCW 42.17A.555 states:

“No elective official nor any employee of his or her office nor any person appointed to or employed by any public office or agency may use or authorize the use of any of the facilities of a public office or agency, directly or indirectly, for the purpose of assisting a campaign for election of any person to any office or for the promotion of or opposition to any ballot proposition. Facilities of a public office or agency include, but are not limited to, use of stationery, postage, machines, and equipment, use of employees of the office or agency during working hours, vehicles, office space, publications of the office or agency, and clientele lists of persons served by the office or agency.”

Most times these violations can be written off as small mistakes and I don’t suspect Garrido will be penalized for this incident.

But the rules are there for a reason. On this one the perception is taxpayers are paying for a campaign. If Melrose had spent any time at all answering a phone call that was campaign related, that’s taxpayer money paying for Melrose’s time. That’s not supposed to happen. Because someone noticed, it won’t anymore, if it ever did.

And just in case you want proof the site referred people to county contacts, click on the pictures. One is what was on the site. The other was the email address I saw when I clicked on the link.

Flooding would be a good thing to know about in Skagit County. That’s probably why it’s the focus of a story in the Skagit Valley Herald in its story about Chal Martin’s departure to take the public works job in Bremerton. Martin applied for the position and came in second to Katie Allen, who has since decided to leave so she can run the city she lives in.

Martin gets bona fide props for other things, too, though it still is in relation to flooding. From the story:

Colleagues and friends say his expertise and ability to collaborate among government agencies and organizations and his dedication to resolving (emphasis mine) the area’s flood issues have left Skagit County in a better position overall.

Side note: I like that the Skagit site is called “goskagit.”

Kitsap Republicans will have a full slate of delegates and alternates when they go to the state party convention on May 31 in Tacoma.

County party members met for a second time on Saturday and completed the voting process that stopped prematurely on April 21, when a nominating process ran into conflict with a commitment to be out of the Klahowya Secondary School building.

State party officials informed county party leaders they could reconvene and get approval from the state convention rules committee to seat the five-dozen-plus delegates in total. If, for whatever reason, the committee were to decline, the county would be represented by 14 people. The head of that committee, however, gave assurances earlier that the full delegation would be seated.

Speaking of sitting, that the full delegate slate will be seated doesn’t sit well with a “Daily Paul” poster with the moniker staobrof who wrote, “Because of the unorthodox reconvening and the rules violations, the state convention will have to rule on whether Kitsap County’s delegates can even be seated at the convention. From the strongarm tactics I saw at the convention, I don’t think they should allow them to be seated.”

Hamilton, in his statement following the convention, makes no mention of what appears to be a brief, but boisterous, moment of dissension that was videotaped. Hamilton thanked those who attended both events. “Your sacrifice of time, energy, and money are greatly appreciated. In addition, your willingness to actively participate in our political process (with all it’s warts and glory) set you aside from most voters. As those of us who have spent far too much time chasing dreams of political success know, you are no longer a ‘normal’ person,” Hamilton wrote.

The video, which apparently is against county party guidelines, shows the videographer being told to stop taping. He eventually yells that he’s being assaulted. There’s more attempting to get him to stop taping while Kirby Wilbur, state party chairman, attempts to talk to the rest of the delegates. Wilbur tells someone to “Sit down and shut up,” but I can’t tell from the video who he was addressing.

As the delegates begin dispersing to their three different caucuses the videographers get a variety of comments sent their way. One woman says, “Hey video this,” then tells them to take their anarchy somewhere I couldn’t decipher. Another convention delegate tells the filmer “Hey, you’re cool man. Good job.”

A final critic offers a condemnation that makes little sense to me, only because I’m assuming the videographer is a Ron Paul supporter. “What part of the Communist Party do you belong to?” the man yelled. That insult gets lobbed all the time at Democrats, but not at libertarians.

Many commenters to the video operate under the illusion that the party has to allow filming. It doesn’t. A political party is not subject to state open meeting laws, because those only apply to governments, and political parties are not governments.

The state attorney general has a page on this, which gives broad explanations of when a meeting must be public. Note that “political subdivision,” which is mentioned on the page, refers to a smaller government, such as a city or county, that is subject to state law. In fact, not all government bodies are subject to open meeting laws. The Legislature wrote in exceptions for itself and for the courts. Even the government entities that are subject to the law are allowed exceptions, such as when they meet to consider a legal action or real estate transaction.

Whether it’s a good idea to prohibit filming at a political event is another question. Any time someone attempts to stop it the resulting footage provides better public relations fodder than anything the videographer might have otherwise caught.

Few surprises from the first batch of candidate filings, unless you consider Tim Sheldon running for re-election in Mason County as commissioner a surprise.

You might.

In 2010 I wrote a story that included Sheldon’s sentiment that he wouldn’t run again for commissioner.

His eyesight had diminished to 20-800, he said Monday. He has since had surgery to fix glaucoma and his eyesight is back to 20-30, which he said is reason to consider returning. I don’t remember him bringing that up when he was driving me back and forth between Shelton and Olympia.

Sheldon also sees unfinished business ahead. I’ll probably write more for the first-day election filing story that will post later, including the fact that there are two challenger, Roslynne Reed and Randy Churchill.

Also filing are Byron Holcomb of Bainbridge Island for the temporary 1st Congressional District Seat. He was alone as of 1 p.m. Democrat Derek Kilmer is running Congress in the Sixth District, as is Republican Jesse Young. Sherry Appleton, a Democrat, has filed to run for re-election in her 23rd Legislative District House seat, while James Olsen has filed to run in the other 23rd District House seat.

The incumbent county commissioners Rob Gelder and Charlotte Garrido have filed to run for re-election. More candidates will have filed later this afternoon.

Three candidates are in for the U.S. Senate seat held by Maria Cantwell, including the incumbent.

When there is limited press availability for certain events we resort to pool reports. It’s one occasion where competing news organizations cooperate with each other. One reporter gets assigned to cover the event and share notes with other press outlets. I loved the one we got from Thursday’s visit by President Obama. Read it and afterward I’ll share some other stuff about pool reports. Today’s report comes from Jim Brunner of the Seattle Times.

At Seattle’s Paramount Theatre, Pres. was introduced by Suzanne Black, a biology teacher at Inglemoor High School in Kenmore.

Ms. Black related how she was diagnosed in Mar. 2005 with stage 4 ovarian cancer. “Instead of writing tests or grading them I found myself facing one of the toughest of my life,” she said. After a long stint of chemotherapy she got a letter from insurer saying she’d already used about three fourths of her $1m lifetime cap of insurance benefits.

Three weeks later Obama signed the health care law, ending those caps. “So today I realized my dream of being able to say to someone who truly represents us — or as my students would say — someone who has my back President Obama – thank you.”

The President entered to a standing ovation and lengthy applause from the crowd of 2000. He called Black’s story the kind of thing you “don’t read in newspapers.” He recognized most of the Democratic electeds on hand, including “soon to be Governor Jay Inslee.”

Like in his earlier speech, the president did not lead with gay marriage – he spoke mostly of the economy and the contrast between him and Republican Mitt Romney.

Pres. introduced Romney as “a patriotic American” who has raised a “wonderful family.” POTUS said Romney should “be proud of the success he’s had as CEO of a large financial firm” — drawing snickers from the crowd. But, POTUS said, Romney assumes that when CEOs get rich “the rest of us automatically do too.”

POTUS mocked Republicans as offering nothing new “There is nothing you’ve heard from them where you said ‘man, I didn’t think of that – that’s fresh, that’s new.”

Sticking to a theme of “moving forward,” POTUS contrasted his plans to spend money on infrastructure and education with the Republicans, who he said would rather just give tax cuts to the rich.

Finally, more than 22 minutes into the speech, POTUS got to the reddest (locally raised, grass fed) meat for the liberal crowd, declaring he would not “go backwards” on health care reform and abortion rights.

And he directly endorsed Washington’s gay marriage law, taking sides in the likely Nov vote on Ref 74. Pres. told the crowd: “We are moving forward to a country where every American is treated with dignity and respect, and here in Washington you’ll have the chance to make your voice heard on the issue of making sure that everybody, regardless of sexual orientation, is treated fairly.”

Much applause ensued.

After the half-hour speech, POTUS and motorcade zipped back south on I-5 to Boeing Field, and Air Force One lifted off just after 4 p.m. for California and the fundraiser at George Clooney’s house. I am told he is an actor who is sexy.

If you’re like me, it’s the ending that got me the most. I also liked the parenthetical comment within “red meat.”

Being with the Kitsap Sun, one of the smaller press outlets in the Puget Sound region, I’ve pretty much accepted that I probably won’t be invited to be the pool reporter at something like what we had today, a sitting U.S. President campaigning or visiting the area. If he comes to Bremerton it might be different, but as much as I’d love to do it, I’m not getting the nod for anything in Seattle. We do sometimes fight for that role when there is a particular local angle, but this occasion was not one of those.

I did get an invite to go see Air Force One land and take off. I would have loved to have done that. But it would have been the equivalent of journalism tourism. I saw the plane anyway. I saw a Tweet that the plan was taxiing at Boeing so I went outside and noticed there was no air traffic. Then a single jumbo airliner rose in the sky. I could tell it was white. I couldn’t quite make out the light blue, but I think I saw it. It made a turn and looked like it was going to Clooney’s house.

And not long after that I started seeing lots of airplanes. So I’m pretty sure I saw the president fly by and I didn’t have to endure the hassle of a Secret Service security check.

As a follow up to last weekend’s piece on money in politics, Talking Points Memo has a story showing that $12.5 million in super PAC money has already been spent on 2012 congressional races.

“While super PACs have already had a major impact in the Republican presidential primary, observers expect state-level super PAC spending in Senate and House races to have an even bigger impact than it has in the presidential race. A total of 24 separate races have already received an influx of more than $100,000 in super PAC funds, money with much more potential to swing local races than it does national.”

“Every potentially vulnerable member of Congress is worried about a late-breaking, enormously-expensive attack campaign used against them.” — Norm Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute, during an interview for the radio program “This American Life.”

On Oct. 6 of last year, before Democratic U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks of Belfair announced he was retiring , if you were in Washington, D.C. and on the right mailing list you could have attended a breakfast honoring Dicks.

The event was hosted in the building occupied by the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons by that organization’s political action committee, The Orthopaedic PAC, and you could have had a seat for somewhere between $500 and $5,000.

The PAC, according to the invitation it sent, works to “enhance access and improve the quality of orthopaedic care for patients across the U.S. We support improved patient car and are staunch advocates for increased funding for medical research, better Medicare reimbursement rates and medical liability reform.”

You can see this and other invitations at the politicalpartytime.org site hosted by the Sunlight Foundation. As the organization’s name implies, the Sunlight Foundation seeks to shed light on the relationship between politics and money.

In the first quarter of this year the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons spent $507,846 lobbying members of Congress over a number of health care issues, including preventing direct access to physical therapists to avoid what it calls “unnecessary and overuse of therapy services.”

This is all spelled out in a form the organization was required to present to Congress and made available by another political money watchdog, the Center for Responsive Politics on its site opensecrets.org.

What I can’t tell you are the specific arguments the orthopaedic surgeons made or whether those arguments are right or wrong. I also don’t know if they visited Dicks specifically. The organization had already given him $5,000 toward what would have been his 2012 campaign. The organization gives to a lot of candidates from both parties, according to its filings with the Federal Elections Commission.

There is no particular scandal here, unless you consider the standard operating procedure a scandal.

While some may consider Dicks’ retirement a lost opportunity to examine money in politics, in another sense it makes it all the more important.

That’s why I took note when Bill Driscoll, the Republican candidate who announced his candidacy this week, called out Democrat Derek Kilmer’s “special interest” money, after I had spent a fair portion of an earlier story showing that the money Kilmer raised in the first six weeks of his candidacy came largely from individual donations, many from his friends.

That doesn’t mean there was no special interest money. There was a single $1,000 donation from Keycorp Advocates Fund, the PAC that represents Keycorp. That organization distributes much less than the surgeons, with more of the donations going to Republicans than Democrats.

According to Keycorp’s lobbyist filing, it spent $152,250 in the first quarter of this year lobbying members of Congress on implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, on regional banking issues and the Volcker Rule, an attempt to reduce some of Wall Street’s risky trading.

We are early in the campaign season and the real fun is unlikely to play out until late September and early October. If the race is close at all around then, we could see a quick influx of outside money from Super PACs, the offspring of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which undid some of the limits in campaign finance law and received a lot of attention in the Republican presidential primaries of late.

Those same PACs could and do go after congressional races, too, which explains the Norm Ornstein quote at the top of this entry. Imagine a close congressional race and big money flooding into an area to buy up television ads late in the election process. In the “This American Life” piece referenced above, there’s an example of just that.

Much of my own appreciation for the importance of following the money came from a rare opportunity I was fortunate enough to take part in a couple of weeks ago.

The Robert R. McCormick Foundation sponsored a seminar in Washington, D.C. on investigating Super PACs. I was able to attend, thanks to a grant from the foundation.

The Sunlight Foundation hosted the event and offered presentations on how to make discoveries that are not readily available, how to examine the documents that are and how to ferret out what political organizations get in return for their campaign generosity.

Getting that information is not always inherently easy, because key people don’t want it to be. There are enough bread crumbs out there, however, both in official and unofficial forms, that someone paying attention can use to be a well-informed voter.

A fifth Republican announced today he’ll run for Congress in the 6th District.

Bill Driscoll, a former Marine who has also been in the forest products business, issued a statement saying he put $500,000 of his own money to put him even with Democrat Derek Kilmer’s “$350,000 in special interest money.” (For more about Derek Kilmer’s money, read our story from Monday.)

Driscoll’s statement says career politicians have failed, that he would focus on jobs, a strong defense, making sure veterans get the benefits they’ve been promised and balancing the federal budget.

Filing week begins May 14. The entire Driscoll statement follows:

Read the rest of this entry »

Kirby Wilbur, state Republican party chairman, said he will meet with county Republican leaders Friday evening to discuss reopening the county convention to fill out the county’s delegate slate.

If county leaders want to try it, the state will support them, Wilbur said. He doesn’t want the decision to come from him, however. “I’m leery about the precedent of the state chairman interfering,” he said.

Kitsap County Republicans met Saturday for its convention and failed to elect the full slate of 64 delegates and alternates for the state party’s convention, which starts on May 31 in Tacoma. The convention ended at 4 p.m. with only 14 confirmed delegates.

Wilbur said earlier in the week he wasn’t inclined to let the county reconvene, because he worried about setting a precedent into the future and about the impact in Clark County and Chelan County. Republicans there also failed to complete election of delegates. Both, however had well more than half. In Chelan and Clark the conventions ended because there was no longer a quorum of delegates.

That’s far different, Wilbur said, from what he described as the “arbitrary” deadline exercised in Kitsap by Jack Hamilton, party chairman. Hamilton said he had a firm agreement with officials at Klahowya Secondary School to end the political event at 4 p.m.

Wilbur said county Republicans would only meet to elect regular delegates, not alternates. Nor would there be any platform discussions. He also said he would want agreement from backers of presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum to agree to no challenges to the delegate slate once the convention was closed. Additionally, if the county party lost a quorum before all the delegates were elected, the convention would close. The delegates elected by then would be the final tally.

If county Republicans do decide to meet again, the assurances they have that the 50 new delegates would indeed be seated at the state convention would come from members of the state convention credential committee. Two members of the committee were traveling with Wilbur Friday afternoon to Kitsap County as part of the contingent here to discuss the county party’s options.

This week Washingtonvotes.org issued its “Missed Votes” report. In the past we’ve had legislators miss votes for health reasons. A few years back one legislator — state Rep. William Eickmeyer, D-Belfair — had back pain so bad he’d lie on his back in his office and wait to hear from House Speaker Frank Chopp if he needed a vote.

Most votes are not close, as illustrated here. When this report comes out each year we all look at the sheer numbers, but it’s also good to look at the margins on each vote. That’s why on the chart below you’ll see the closest vote each legislator missed.

Those with double-digit misses on the list of the 10 Kitsap legislators during the most recent session were because of multiple votes on single days the legislators missed. Many of Sherry Appleton’s misses were at a time when her mother died or she was attending her mother’s memorial services. Jan Angel only missed votes during a special session in May 2011. Kathy Haigh’s misses were in April 2011.

Not one missed vote would have changed the ultimate outcome. In some parts that’s because legislative leaders know better than to allow a vote when the outcome is in doubt.

Here is the graphic of Kitsap Legislators during the 2011-12 legislative session.

The odds are long that Kitsap Republicans will be able to meet again to fill out its delegate roster for the state convention, said state party chairman Kirby Wilbur late on Wednesday. County Republicans met Saturday, but the convention ended with the party only choosing 14 of the 64 delegates allotted for the state convention.

Wilbur said the Republican National Committee offered some guidance as to how the county convention could be reopened just to finish picking delegates, but he said national officials were cautious. Wilbur, himself, is concerned about consequences beyond Kitsap County.

“I really, really do want to do something for Kitsap,” Wilbur said. But, “I’m inclined to do nothing because of the Pandora’s box I would open with the other two counties.”

Republicans in Clark County and Chelan County also ended their conventions without completing a full slate. Both, however, were able to pick more than half.

What made Wilbur consider making an exception was Kitsap’s count being so low, but he said he is afraid of establishing a precedent that could have an impact in the other two counties this year and in convention processes in the future.

Another issue is whether county Republicans could muster up enough attendance again to have a quorum. Estimates of Saturday’s attendance run between 700 and 800 people. Even if it was as low as 600, it would mean at least 301 people would have to be in the second meeting during the voting. Wilbur doesn’t relish the thought of 285 people showing up and having nothing to do.

Wilbur said a final decision could be made Thursday.

Reporter Amy Phan writes:

The big news that came out of Monday night’s North Kitsap School District closure committee meeting was that school board members would revisit the idea of closing a school next year, even though they decided two weeks earlier to hold off on the idea until next year.
The bulk of Tuesday’s story was devoted to this announcement, and left a lot of the discussion among group members out.
But I wanted to summarize some of the interesting things the closure committee discussed that night as well.

They examined how much closing Breidablik Elementary would save if the district moved the school’s population of about 330 to four other schools: Poulsbo, Wolfle, Pearson and Vinland. District administrators said they picked the four schools because even with the added students from Breidablik, the four schools still had capacity for more students. The communities around Suquamish and Gordon elementary schools are expected to grow, administrators said, and adding more students to those schools next year would reach the buildings’ maximum capacity.
Two informal votes taken by the committee have indicated that Breidablik as the top choice to shutdown.
If Breidablik were to close, administrators ran a closure scenario that distributes Breidablik’s students to 52 to Wolfle, 140 to Vinland, 78 to Poulsbo and 63 to Pearson.
Under the distribution model, North Kitsap administrators said the district would save around $21,000 in transportation costs, from $140,811 to $119,800.
The transportation savings would be in addition to buildings savings, which administrators estimated to be between $700,000 to $800,000.
Dorothy Siskin, director of special services for the district, which includes special education programming, told closure group members Breidblik’s special education students would be split between the four schools as well. Seven would go to Wolfle, 23 to Vinland, 12 to Poulsbo and 10 to Pearson.
The district would likely need to require two 0.5 certified positions to handle the additional special needs population schools.
During Monday’s meeting, Superintendent Rick Jones said there would be two closure meetings left for this school year. It is expected that closure members will continue their work next fall.

Stay up-to-date with what the group is doing here: http://www.nkschools.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=2482&ViewID=047E6BE3-6D87-4130-8424-D8E4E9ED6C2A&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=1332&PageID=1.

Brynn writes:

Kitsap County Sheriff Steve Boyer sent out a release today saying he won’t run for the Congressional seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Belfair.

Last month Boyer said he hadn’t ruled out the possibility of running for the 6th Congressional seat.

“It’s always in the back of my mind that you’re looking for the next way to serve,” Boyer said March 7.

Since then he’s decided not to join the race. Instead Boyer has endorsed state Sen. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor, who announced his intentions to run earlier this year.

Here’s the official release from Boyer:

Like so many throughout Kitsap County, I was surprised by Congressman Norm Dicks’ announcement that he would not be seeking reelection. Once the initial impact of the announcement passed, I took some time to consider whether the honor to participate as a United States Congressman and to help set a positive course for the future of America might be the best decision for my family, Kitsap County, and the citizens of the 6th Congressional District.

There were many factors to weigh while considering a decision of this magnitude and I would like to give my thanks for the confidence and encouragement extended by so many diverse groups and individuals for such a candidacy. The final analysis demanded determining where one can provide the most value for our citizens. This would be a capstone to my 40 years of public service in which success is measured by accomplishment and the respective trust which must exist with our citizens. I also have a high level of personal and professional satisfaction in ensuring public safety as the Kitsap County Sheriff.

Therefore, after due consideration, I am endorsing Derek Kilmer in the Sixth District Congressional race.  He has the right skill set built upon a foundation of strong character.  I trust that Derek will always defend American values and do what is important for our Nation.

Yours in safety,

Stephen A. Boyer

Stephen Greer, an attorney who formerly worked in the Kitsap County Prosecutor’s office, announced Wednesday he will run for state representative for the seat currently held by Republican Jan Angel. Greer, who lives in Gig Harbor, is a Democrat.

Greer joins Karin Ashabraner, a Gig Harbor Democrat, on the list of those challenging Angel.

Greer’s press release follows.

Read the rest of this entry »

Brynn writes:

Last night at the Kitsap County Commissioners regular meeting board chairman Robert Gelder apologized for how things went down at the board’s April 9 meeting.

I wasn’t at the meeting, but a review of the tape shows that a number of supporters of the Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club attended the meeting to speak out during the board’s allotted public comment period. People were upset with the county for not inviting the KRRC to a meeting at the end of March that dealt with a proposed update to a shooting range ordinance. The ordinance would impact the county’s existing ranges by requiring them to apply for an operational permit and dictating their hours of operation, among other regulations.

Apparently as people continued to line up to speak, Gelder announced no more public comment would be taken on the rifle range. He then adjourned the meeting. The scene was tense and it appears one woman was in the process of testifying when the meeting ended.

On Monday Gelder apologized for how he handled the situation.

“I want to extend to Mrs. Cooper, who was making comments at the time, an apology for potentially cutting you off and handling that poorly,” Gelder said.

The board wants to provide a forum for the public to talk to commissioners and that didn’t happen April 9, Gelder said. While the public comment period is not a time for commissioners to interact with the audience, it is still a time when the public can be heard.

Gelder wants the communication to remain respectful — from both directions, he said.

“I am sorry that I did not show you that respect at that time,” Gelder said to Mrs. Cooper. (I don’t know whether she was in the audience of roughly 80 people at Monday’s meeting).

Contrary to some opinions, commissioners are committed to seeing KRRC reopen and come into compliance under the county’s land-use code, the board said Monday. Gelder tried to convey that message following Monday’s public comment, where people blamed the commissioners for the lawsuit against the club saying it appeared the county had a vendetta against the facility and wouldn’t be happy until it was closed for good.

“Overall it’s really about moving forward and that’s what I would like to emphasize,” Gelder said. “I look forward to us being able to move forward in a constructive manner so KRRC can open and be available to the public.”

Commissioner Josh Brown also commented about his reaction at the April 9 meeting, saying he was upset with a comment suggesting the commissioners only sold the club its land in 2009 so it could shut it down. He called the allegation ludicrous.

“I know a lot of you are frustrated. I appreciate that, I am frustrated too,” Brown said. “I really believe in my heart that we need to have shooting ranges that are safe and open for people to use in our community.”

Brown said the shooting range ordinance update the county is working on will allow the county’s existing gun ranges to continue operation in the future, while taking into account the concerns of the surrounding neighborhoods that have built up around the ranges.

“I really believe we’re going to have a good document that the community can be proud of that’s going to balance these competing interests,” he said.

Brynn writes:

And here we are, almost at the end of April already. Here’s the meetings for the week:

Kitsap County Commissioners (meet at 619 Division Street, Port Orchard)

Monday, April 23: Meeting canceled.

2 p.m.: This meeting is closed to the public for labor negotiations until the 4:30 p.m. adjournment.

5:30 p.m.: The board’s regular meeting will begin with some appointments, then Department of Community Development Director Larry Keeton will address the board regarding the county’s current update of its shooting range ordinance — Keeton is expected to explain why the Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club was not invited to the latest round of meetings on the update; general business items include approving a resolution to close Chico Way during the Silverdale roundabout construction and awarding a $1.26 million contract to Stan Palmer Construction for the construction of the roundabout and setting the salaries for the north and south Kitsap commissioner positions, estimated to save the county $66,000 over four years; public hearing items include a resolution to amend the 2012 budget, a resolution updating DCD’s fee schedule and an ordinance amending another ordinance to modify the implementation date of the county’s Title 16.

Wednesday, April 25, 8:30 a.m.: The meeting starts with a talk about RBX replacement funding with Information Services Director Bud Harris, followed by an executive session on potential litigation, the meeting reopens with an earthquake drill from 9:45 to 10:05 a.m. followed by a 30 minute food chain program update then an hour-long budget update. The meeting ends with an executive session on real estate and a noon adjournment.

City of Bremerton (meets at 345 Sixth Street, Bremerton)

Wednesday, April 25, 5 p.m.: Click here for the pdf of the agenda for the council’s study session.

City of Port Orchard (meets at 219 Prospect Street)

Tuesday, April 24, 7 p.m.: Click here to see a copy of the council’s agenda.

City of Poulsbo (City Hall, 200 Moe Street)

No meeting.

Bremerton Housing Authority (4040 Wheaton Way)

Monday, April 23, 5:30 p.m.: The housing commissioners will meet for a regular meeting at the authority’s office.

The pictures you see here are of recently, as in the last week, filled potholes at the base of speed humps on Marion Avenue in Bremerton. For a long time the potholes here have been a nasty encounter in front of the Frances Haddon Morgan Center.

The timing of the fix might be instructive. On Wednesday the Bremerton City Council, acting in its role as the Benefit Transportation District board, met to discuss how to spend the money the city will soon begin getting on Bremerton resident vehicle license tabs. In July residents, Bremerton city residents only, will begin paying $20 a year extra when they go to license their cars or trucks. That money will go to the city’s street fund. The district board will decide each year how to spend it.

Wednesday’s meeting was an effort to set priorities before money begins trickling in. Maintenance was the overwhelming choice, which might seem obvious to you, but there were other options that could get some play in the future as well. And by maintenance the focus is on the city’s Pavement Management Index, a scoring system that grades the conditions of a road. Other factors the council considered were how well traveled a road is; cost to repair; proximity to schools, parks and hospitals; whether there is a bus or bike route; the complaint frequency; geographic equity and coordination with other projects.

The pavement index was the overwhelming pick, with a preference for roads considered “fair” or better. Roads rated worse than fair will need more than a little maintenance, so much that any TBD money would quickly be exhausted. The second-strongest priority was a scoring system put together by the city’s Public Works department, allowing that city staff will often have the best idea what needs work in town.

As part of the conversation Carol Arends, city councilwoman, opened a discussion about potholes. “Every district has potholes,” she said, launching into a description of the ones pictured here. They’re a danger, she said. Other council members knew of this particular set of holes.

Jim Orton, streets manager, said his department knew of the problem here and that the site was on the city’s list for fixing.

The city has spent $10,000 on potholes this year and plans to spend about $100,000 by the end of the year. “They’re hard to keep up with,” Orton said. “But we’re trying to fix as much as we can.”

On Sunday I happened to be driving down Marion and noticed the holes Arends complained about had been filled in.

Brynn writes:

And the meetings this week include….

Kitsap County Commissioners (meet at 619 Division Street, Port Orchard)

Monday, April 16, 10 a.m.: Once again the meeting starts with an hour-long legislative Update with Tom McBride. The board will then hold an hour-long “commissioners’ staff meeting” and adjourn at noon.

2 p.m.: This meeting kicks off with an hour-long presentation on the Silverdale regional growth center, which will be made before the Puget Sound Regional Council — this is a chance for commissioners to see it first; next is a review of DCD fee policies for an hour; followed by 10 minutes of talking about park grant requests. Adjournment at 4:10 p.m.

Wednesday, April 18, 8:30 a.m.: The meeting starts a review of the April 23 meeting agenda followed by a 90 minute discussion on Title 21.02, 21.04 and 21.08 with county planners. At 11:30 a.m. commissioners will recess into executive session for 30 minutes for real estate talks and then adjourn.

City of Bremerton (meets at 345 Sixth Street, Bremerton)

Wednesday, April 18, 5:30 p.m.: There’s only one general business item and no public hearing items. The general business item is: Award Contract for cross-town pipeline upper reach repair project to Stan Palmer Construction.

City of Port Orchard (meets at 219 Prospect Street)

Tuesday, April 17, 7 p.m.: Work study session items include: Update: Gordon Thomas Honeywell Governmental Affairs ; Update: Mayor’s report from department directors and achieving council’s goals; Discussion: Hotel/Motel lodging tax “carry-over”; Discussion: format and public comments of council meetings; Discussion: change order/purchase order/contracts authority clarification; Update: Shoreline Master Plan process.

City of Poulsbo (City Hall, 200 Moe Street)

Wednesday, April 18, 7 p.m.: Business items include a quarterly update from John Powers of the Kitsap Economic Development Alliance; additional hours for court security officer; and a public hearing on the city’s comprehensive plan amendments.

Central Kitsap Community Council

Wednesday, April 18, 7-9 p.m.: The CKCC is holding its meeting this month at the Harrison Medical Center Silverdale campus to talk about the hospital’s planned expansion and potential impacts to Ridgetop Boulevard.

Competition is fierce for a grant from the state’s Recreation and Conservation Office that Port of Bremerton officials hope to score for replacement of the aging Harper Pier. Port officials formally approved the grant application yesterday. Today, Susan Zemek, RCO spokeswoman, came through with some information I had requested on the impact of state budget cuts on recreation grant funding.

“Overall, funding for recreation grants has dropped significantly in the past few years,” said Zemek, whose agency manages nine different state and federal grant programs for recreation.

The term “recreation” covers a gamut of activities, including parks, trails, ball fields, skate parks, swimming pools and wildlife habitat. Most of the RCO’s grant programs have seen fairly stable funding over the past few years (about $25 million this biennium).

“However, the largest funding source, the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program (WWRP) has seen funding plummet from $100 million in the 2007-09 biennium to $42 million this biennium,” Zemek said. “That is the lowest amount the program has been funded since its start in 1990.”

The Washington Wildlife and Recreation Program is the largest grant program for local parks and trails in the state.

The grant the port will apply for come froms the RCO’s Aquatic Lands Enhancement Account.

“Funding for ALEA has remained relatively stable at $5 million a biennium,” Zemek said.

The state Department of Natural Resources raises money for ALEA as it manages the state’s 2.6 million acres of aquatic lands. Revenue comes from leases of waterfront sites for marinas, public ports, log storage, restaurants, aquaculture, and selling harvest rights for geoducks and other shellfish. Since the Port of Bremerton leases the Harper Pier from the DNR, it appears the money would come full circle, if the port obtains the grant.

Most feedback the port has gotten from the community amounted to a loud outcry to save the Harper Pier, a popular spot for fishing, crabbing and scuba diving. But one man who attended Tuesday’s port meeting, Clarke Coulter of Port Orchard, said the port should deep six the pier. The port’s primary mission is economic development, not recreation, Coulter said.

The port is looking for support from the DNR and Kitsap County, and port officials have suggested the public needs to kick in as well. The idea was floated for scuba divers to build an underwater reef that would be a tourist destination. Port officials also wondered aloud if Harper residents would be open to creating a junior taxing district, like the Kingston Metropolitan Parks District, to help fund improvements on the dock.

As always, open to your thoughts.