A Bothell woman left her pooch in a locked car while she sought boozy refreshment from the record-breaking heat. Police were ready to bust open the windows when a well-timed call from the woman’s boyfriend’s mom got her off her bar stool.
Also this week, a woman assaulted her wheelchair-bound roommate, a cyclist was airlifted to Harborview and a man was caught stealing at the Island Gateway site.
Blotter’s below.
The Bainbridge school board selected a member of the school district’s budget advisory committee to replace Dave Pollock, who resigned from the board earlier this month.
Tim Kinkead, a business consultant with children in two Bainbridge schools, was chosen on Tuesday out of the five applicants who applied for Pollock’s spot.
Kinkead has served the last two years on the district’s budget advisory committee. He has children enrolled at Blakely Elementary School and Sakai Intermediate School.
Once he is sworn in on Sept. 9, Kinkead will serve out the last year of Pollock’s four-year term.
Pollock resigned due to work demands and because he no longer has school-age children.
As a business consultant for more than 20 years, Kinkead has overseen information technology and supply chain operations for large corporations. He has also worked for educational research and reform foundations.
District spokeswoman Pam Keyes said Kinkead’s background in technology, business administration and finance, and his knowledge of the district’s financial challenges, will be of great benefit to the district.
Islanders Jay Inslee and Christine Rolfes took early leads as the first batch of primary election results were released last night.
Inslee, who is seeking his seventh term in Congress, had 56.8 percent of the vote, according to early returns. Of his three challengers, Republican James Watkins had the strongest support, with 26.1 percent.
Inslee’s support in Kitsap was actually slightly lower than in the rest of his district, which includes Redmond, Kirkland, Edmonds and Shoreline. The Kitsap portion of his district (Bainbridge, North Kitsap, Silverdale) gave Inslee 53.6 percent of the vote. Kitsapers also cast slightly more ballots in favor of Inslee challenger Matthew Burke than the rest of the district, and gave just a little less support to Watkins.
Rolfes, a former Bainbridge city councilwoman who now represents the 23rd Legislative District in the state House, drew 56.6 percent of the early return votes. Republican challenger and fellow islander James Olsen had 32.8 percent. A second Republican candidate, Aaron Winters, drew 10.3 percent.
For more coverage of the primary, head over to the Sun’s main page, HERE.
In this week’s blotter, a woman’s car blows up after it crashes into a power pole, a man brutalizes a dog and a fruit tree has every last one of its limbs broken off.
Head below for the details.
In Sunday’s paper, I
explored the changing character of Bloedel Reserve, the 150-acre
garden and nature preserve on the island’s north end. Read the
story
HERE.
Recent money troubles have spurred the reserve to loosen some of its policies in the hopes of boosting revenue.
The reserve has done away with its reservation requirement and is offering more community events. Plans are also in the works to open more of the reserve to the public.
Then changes seem to be working. Attendance is up by 9 percent, and membership has taken a nearly 11 percent leap.
What do you think about the changes at Bloedel? Could the changes degrade the “therapeutic landscape” Prentice Bloedel hoped to create with his reserve? Or should the qualities that make the reserve such a beautiful, peaceful place be shared with a greater number of people?
Cast your vote in the poll over in the right column.
The Bainbridge city finance director is leaving his post after it was revealed last week that the city’s savings account is nearly empty.
Elray Konkel, who has worked as the city’s finance director for six years, said he and the city manager determined on Monday that it would be best for the city that he leave. His last day will be Friday.
Konkel drew the City Council’s ire last week when it was disclosed that the $1 million in cuts the council made earlier this year was not put into a savings reserve as the council had ordered. Instead, most of the money was spent on the city’s day-to-day operations.
Konkel promptly accepted responsibility for the mistake, which he attributed to miscommunication between himself and the council.
“I’m still trying to ascertain what (the council) believed was to be the affect of the million dollar change,” he said. “But what difference does it make? If (the savings reserve) is what the council believed was happening, that’s what should have happened.”
Not much happened this week: a party bust, a hit-and-run at the ferry terminal, a burglary and the mysterious case of puppets creeping into a woman’s car while she was at work.
The Bainbridge school district hired a new assistant superintendent and instructional support services director this week.
Peter Bang-Knudsen, who was named the new assistant superintendent, grew up on Bainbridge and graduated from Bainbridge High School.
Read the district’s press release below.
Bainbridge Island School District welcomes two new administrators to continue the support of students and staff sustained by departing personnel.
Peter Bang-Knudsen Jr. was hired as the Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Services, replacing Bruce Colley. Betsy Minor Reid will be the Executive Director, Instructional Support Services, taking over responsibilities from Dr. Clayton Mork.
The Kitsap Sun has endorsed
Rep.
Christine Rolfes, a Bainbridge Island resident, for re-election
to the state House seat she’s held for almost four years.
Here’s what the Sun had to say about Rolfes and her Republican challengers, James Olsen of Bainbridge and Aaron Winters of Poulsbo:
“Rolfes clearly offers a more reasonable and thoughtful approach to the state’s problems than her challengers, and has been an advocate in maintaining a freeze on ferry fares during her term. Even one vote we take issue with — her endorsement in suspending I-960 last session — still remained in tune with the sentiment of her constituents, who overwhelmingly had opposed the initiative. Her challengers fall back on rhetoric too often, and neither demonstrate the ability to work in the collaborative way that the coming session will likely demand.”
To read more about the Sun’s endorsements for the state Legislature, and to see the Sun’s video interview with Rolfes, Olsen and Winters, head over HERE.
This week, a man punches walls and then crashes into a tree, a middle-age woman chokes her mom, a camper bites her buddy, a man threatens to “gut” his wife’s dad and a hit-and-run suspect explains to police how “goofy things” often follow “a traumatic thing.”
The blotter is below.
The Bainbridge Island Police Department is hosting the island’s “National Night Out” festivities this evening from 6 to 9 p.m. at the green outside City Hall.
The event is one of many similar events held around the country to foster positive interaction with local police.
Here’s what’s on the schedule:
· Free hot dogs, ice cream and cookies.
· Music by the Hometown Band
· Meet local police, fire, K9, marine and bomb squad officers.
· Activities with West Sound Wildlife Shelter, IslandWood, Kids Discovery Museum and other organizations.
· Drawings for movie tickets, pies, bath supplies, clothes and gift cards for hardware supplies and groceries.
Attendees are asked to bring a can of food for Helpline House.
As expected, the Bainbridge school board gave the green light to two ballot measures aimed at bolstering the district’s technology and operations funds.
The board on Thursday unanimously approved resolutions for a $5.275 million technology levy and a $825,000 operations levy lid lift.
Read more about the November ballot measures HERE.
Also on Thursday, longtime school board member Dave Pollock announced he’d be resigning as of Aug. 26.
Pollock, who was first elected in 2003, said work demands and the fact that he no longer has school-age children factored in to his decision.
The district is asking for applicants to replace Pollock until the next election.
For more information, see my story HERE.
And in the final bit of school news, the district unveiled a design for the new Wilkes Elementary School, which should break ground during the spring of next year.
Design illustrations and models by Mahlum Architects showed a one-story building with a lot of windows and four courtyards.
One of the overall aims of the building is “transparency and links to the outdoors,” said the project’s lead designer.
That’s a model of the school above. See another image and read more info about the design HERE.
