Category Archives: Seabeck

Newberry Hill Heritage Park, Last Meeting

Brynn Grimley writes:

This is a quickie, but wanted to make sure people knew the planning for a 1,000-plus acre heritage park in Central Kitsap is coming to a close. Here’s an email Martha Droge, park projects coordinator for the county sent out to interested parties:

“This is a reminder that the next public meeting is tomorrow, Tuesday April 13 from 6 – 8 pm at Klahowya Secondary School. Unfortunately we will not have a presentation by DNR staff on the land reconveyance process (postponed due to limited DNR budget/staff). We’ll have that presentation later in 2010 — standby for an email on the date. We will have updates on the trail management plan, the April 21, 2010 Parks & Advisory Board review of the plan, and of course public comment and the master plan.

PLEASE NOTE: The Parks Department website has been re-done. All of the Master Plan’s presentations and all public comment received can now be found at: http://www.kitsapgov.com/parks/ and click on “Planning/Capital Projects” from either the button at the bottom or under “Parks” on the upper left hand menu. We hope that you find the website more interactive and user-friendly (there’s even a quiz with prizes!).

Throughout the process, we are pleased to receive public comment via email to NewberryHill@co.kitsap.wa.us or by US mail using the comment cards available at the public meetings.

Please share this information with others who may be interested in the master planning process. Thank you for your interest in Newberry Hill Heritage Park.

Martha”

As you’ll see, the plan is scheduled to come before the park advisory board on April 21 – which is next week. My how time flies when you’re planning for parks.

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Trenten Morris Remembered

brynn grimley

Brynn Grimley writes:

It was just about eight months ago that we reported the drowning of Trenten Morris, a Klahowya Secondary School eighth grader who split his time between his mother’s house in Poulsbo and his father’s house in Port Orchard.

He had been swimming at Wildcat Lake at the end of July with friends and family. After his death the community was outraged that aid crews didn’t jump into the water to try and save him like people expected. Reporter Josh Farley covered a community meeting that was held by Central Kitsap Fire and Rescue shortly after Trenten’s death. In that meeting CKFR Chief Ken Burdette explained why things happened the way they did. (You can read that story here).

That meeting prompted some people in the community to want to do more to prevent this type of tragedy from happening again. The idea to build a life-jacket loaner board for Wildcat Lake, and supply it with life-jackets suitable for infants up to adults, was born. (Read my story about this here).

On Saturday (April 3), roughly 100 people gathered at Wildcat Lake to celebrate the installation of the life-jacket loaner board and to remember Trenten. His family played a role in the board’s installation (his mom Amber donated money from a fund set up in Trenten’s name to the project). This blog post includes photos from the event, taken by CKFR spokeswoman Theresa MacLennan.

In an e-mail MacLennan wrote this:

“Trenten’s family, the Kitsap Medical Society, Safe Kids Kitsap, Kitsap County Parks and Recreation, Central Kitsap Fire and Rescue, and the Long Lake Bass Club all worked to establish the life-jacket loaner board as a way to ensure other families have access to life-jackets and understand that drowning is quick, silent and can happen to even strong swimmers. Throughout the swim season, twelve life-jackets of varying sizes will be hanging and available for use at Wildcat Lake. Life-jacket loaner boards are also available at Buck and Horseshoe Lakes. The groups hope to establish life-jacket loaner boards at least six other swim areas including Long Lake and Island Lake.”

While it’s sad that it took Trenten’s drowning to prompt the installation of this board at Wildcat Lake, it would be even worse if someone who needed the life-jacket didn’t use it and met the same fate this summer. The jackets are there for a reason, please use them, and please don’t steal them.

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Speaking of Bremerton

Steven Gardner

Steven Gardner writes:

That didn’t take long.

On Monday Bremerton gets its grubby mitts on your blog here and within days Money Magazine cedes all of Kitsap County to Bremerton.

That dude living on his boat and dumping his stuff into Eagle Harbor? He’s from Bremerton.
Those kids that spent New Year’s Day in Pasadena instead of jumping into the sound? Bremertonians.
Seabeck, Poulsbo, Silverdale? It’s all Bremerton.

I was going to one day threaten that you’d all be assimilated, but it looks like it already happened.

Money Magazine has a new list out, one of those things they create every so often to make people remember that magazines still exist. In a section devoted to Real Estate 2010, it predicts which areas will see the steepest increases and make the biggest falls in real estate value. Number five for robust real estate, or tied for it, is Bremerton, population 240,000.

This has, of course, been going on for years. One time Bremerton’s recognition got the former editor of the Central Kitsap Reporter so jacked up he wrote an editorial asking when Bremerton would stop riding on the rest of the county’s coattails. I answer, when will you shut up and accept that you’ll be riding ours forever? Quiet before we annex you.

Your assimilation into Bremerton isn’t free. There are some standards to be met.
First, Bainbridge Island has to stop its obsessive repulsion to chain stores. We want a Burger King and a Taco Bell on Winslow Way, or we’re coming over there with a bridge.
Silverdale needs one, probably two 7-Elevens. Circle K’s wine for the thrifty isn’t as diverse and the clientele isn’t as troubling.
Poulsbo, get rid of all those extra stop signs and replace them red-light cameras.
Port Orchard, the paint job is kind of a step up, so we’ll give you credit there. Some of your windows reflect direct sunlight into our eyes around sunset, though, so we would appreciate it if you’d do something about that, m’kay?

Now that we’ve all accepted that we’re all from Bremerton, I think we can also agree that we need to band together to sell some condos and direct some more retail into what we will all call “downtown” without having to ask “Downtown where?” I’ll see if we can get our paper renamed the Bremerton Sun again. I guess we can stick with the city names we’ve got, but we ought to develop nicknames. Silverdale can be “Slick.” Poulsbo is “Olaf.” Bainbridge will be “Money Bags.” Seabeck can be “Chip.” Port Orchard should be “Junior.”

If you’re not excited about this, I don’t know what’s wrong with you.

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