Bainbridge Island won’t be ringing in the Chinese New Year with the pomp seen in years past.

Not enough volunteers stepped up to organize the 2010 celebration, according to members of the Bainbridge Island Chinese Connection, a nonprofit cultural group that established the event in 2006.

Previous celebrations drew as many as 3,000 people to Winslow for parades, traditional music, firecrackers, Chinese lion dancers, film showings, food booths and cultural displays.

“It’s a lot of work,” BICC co-founder Bill Evans said. “It’s tough to get volunteers for this. We had no problem finding people to help out for a few hours (during the event), but for people to help out with planning this – that’s another story.”

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In this week’s blotter, a man gets his finger crushed, a drunk drives (surprise!), and a man calls his stolen cell phone and gets a frank response from the thief.

Blotter’s below.

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Opening arguments began today in the case against a Bainbridge Island man accused of touching a developmentally disabled girl inappropriately.

Stephen C. Buitenveld, 62, was charged with indecent liberties in June after a witness and security camera footage indicated he inappropriately touched the 17-year-old girl while she was under his care at the Bainbridge Island Aquatic Center.

Kitsap Sun legal affairs reporter Josh Farley live blogged from the morning proceedings.

In opening statements, Kitsap County Deputy Prosecutor Coreen Schnepf said Buitenveld was “fulfilling his own greedy sexual needs” by touching the girl in an aquatic center hot tub.

Buitenveld’s attorney, Peter Camiel, said Buitenveld does a tough job as a paraeducator.

“Little did he know that day, June 11, would turn into a nightmare where he was falsely accused of inappropriately touching a student,” Camiel said.

The trial will resume Thursday morning. Check in on Farley’s blog, Kitsap Crime and Justice.

With a lot of rumors circulating about the demise of the Blossom Hill project, I called up its developer, Bill Nelson, last week to see what’s what.

Nelson called the rumors “ludicrous” and “silly.”

Despite some serious financial problems and a months of inactivity at the Lynwood Center site, he isn’t ready to declare the project dead.

“We’re taking it day by day,” he said.

Of course, the other big question – besides whether or not the project will be finished – is how all that new commercial space along Lynwood Center Road will be filled.

Read more here.