Monthly Archives: December 2010

BITV goes off the air

Bainbridge Island Television ended its 25 years of public access broadcasting this week.

It’s dying days were tumultuous, with street and City Hall protests, e-mail and social media campaigns and several BITV news specials decrying the city’s decision to cut funding to the station.

Now a fight looms over the robotic cameras and other equipment BITV purchased with public funds. BITV says the equipment belongs to them. The city disagrees.

And there appears to be some conflict on BITV’s sparsely-populated board. One member is now serving as both president and vice president, while another member says all control is now in the hands of the executive director. There are hints that some former board members may try to revive the station in the coming months.

You can read more in my most recent story about BITV.

This blog’s most recent poll (see right column) posed the question of how much financial support the city should give BITV. As of today, the results show a majority (64 percent) wanting no city funding to go to the station. About 20 percent want the city to meet BITV’s full funding request of almost $300,000, and 16 percent say BITV should get half that amount.

You can read BITV’s closure announcement below.

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Sun endorses Eagle Harbor dock plan

The Kitsap Sun’s editorial board urged the city of Bainbridge to accept Washington State Ferries’ $2 million offer and use the money to build a new Waterfront Park dock.

“Taking a lump sum now — particularly in light of how city capital spending has dwindled the past few years — to complete a project that will be popular among residents and visitors is the most prudent approach, and the best option for Eagle Harbor’s future,” the board wrote in a Sunday editorial.

The City Council is set to choose between the dock proposal and a boat haul-out facility proposal at Wednesday evening’s meeting.

For more on the issue, head over HERE.

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Profiling an island icon


I had the honor of visiting local legend Dave Ullin aboard his tugboat last week.

Ullin is revered by many on the island for his self-sufficiency, integrity and generosity.

Many more only know him as a strikingly uncommon sight: a big man with big hands wearing thick wool pants, suspenders and a bag full of archaic tools tromping through Winslow. You don’t see people like Ullin much anymore. He looks like a man who stepped out of the old Hall Brothers Shipyard, circa 1892, and into modern Winslow.

Going below deck on Ullin’s tug is like taking that step in reverse. The boat is a living museum of old logging, fishing, farming, blacksmithing and shipbuilding equipment. All fitting snugly in designated spots. And it’s full of innovative touches, like Ullin’s custom-built hinged bunk, his kale sauerkraut-making operation, his clothes-mending station and a compact little workshop, complete with a 100-year-old drill press and tools Ullin forged himself.

I could go on and on about Dave Ullin. And I did, in THIS profile.

Ullin’s future is uncertain. The state gave him and the other dozen or so liveaboards eviction notices last month. There is some late-breaking hope, city leaders say, for a compromise. I detail that development HERE.

Check in on Wednesday to see where that proposal goes. The City Council is set to vote on a new plan that may allow as many as 14 liveaboards to remain anchored in the harbor.

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Marshall: Love, hate and hot showers

Here’s Islander columnist Becky Fox Marshall’s column about our recent spate of power outages.

For anyone unfamiliar with what is meant by a “love/hate” relationship, might I suggest you experience being the only house in your neighborhood that mysteriously has power the day before Thanksgiving?

I am smack dab in the middle of about 16 homes on the west side of Bainbridge Island that, like the rest of the island, lost power on the Monday before Thanksgiving. It was all rather exciting to experience that howling, frigid wind and see Puget Sound behaving like an ocean with high, pounding surf.

After a few rounds of Bananagrams by lantern light with NOAA Weather Radio in the background repeating its endless loop of millibars and wind speeds, we hunkered down in our own homes for a long, cold night of scary sounds and down comforters.
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