Daily Archives: January 21, 2010

City considering reneging on compensation agreement with city workers

The city employees union was quick to respond to a City Council proposal to drop a furlough agreement provision that gives workers 10 paid days off in each of the next two years.

“It’s ridiculous,” a union rep said today.

The paid days are compensation for an equal number of unpaid days employees agreed to in 2009 and 2010.

Cutting the 20 paid days off in 2011 and 2012 could save the money $540,000, but the union says it goes against an agreement signed just last month.

Read the full story here.

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Police blotter: Woman gets her unlocked bike stolen twice…at the same place

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Not much happened this week. Even the bicycle thefts I refer to in the headline happened in December and October.

Blotter is below.

Jan. 13
Theft: A Bainbridge female reported that two of her unlocked bicycles were stolen from the high school. One bicycle was taken in October, and the other in December. She was at the high school for a community event on both occasions.

Jan. 12
Crash: A Bainbridge man backed his Volvo station wagon into a parked Toyota SUV with enough force that the SUV collided with a parked Toyota car. The collisions happened in the Town & Country Market parking lot just before 1 p.m. All three vehicles suffered rear-end damage.

Jan. 10
Vandalized: Eleven city street signs were sprayed with silver paint in the Manitou Beach area during the night. Two signs had to be replaced.

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All the news that’s fit to print…in Waitsburg

TimesTypeBannerHead over here for my big long story about the Matthee family’s decision to leave Bainbridge Island and take over a weekly newspaper in a tiny town in the state’s far southeast corner.

I called them up because I figured they must be crazy. Turns out they are not.

Imbert and Karen say they’re doing the work they love in the type of small, close-knit community they long wanted to be a part of.

And their newspaper, the Waitsburg Times, is doing just fine (unlike a whole lot of other newspapers). Subscriptions are up and the 131-year-old paper is making its first forays into the cyber-age. They don’t have a website yet, but you can follow the Times on Facebook, facebook.com/waitsburgtimes, or on Imbert’s Twitter page, twitter.com/ImbertMatthee.

To get a look of Waitsburg and the Matthees at work, check out the photo gallery shot by Walla Walla-based Gregory Lehman.

And if you’re still curious about the Waitsburg Times, check out this article Time magazine did in 1983 about the newspaper’s former editor, who also happened to be the town mayor.

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