Bainbridge Arts & Crafts has a new executive director — Lindsay
Masters.
Masters, who has been the organization’s publicist for more than
2 years, is taking over for Susan Jackson as she retires from the
gallery after 13 years.
Bainbridge Arts & Crafts is a nonprofit art gallery, founded in
1948. The gallery, located at 151 Winslow Way, displays
contemporary Northwest art and has represented more than 250
artists, according to a news release from Masters.
Masters has been the organization’s publicist since she joined
in January 2013.
Previously, she was the communications manager at Bainbridge
Island Arts & Humanities Council, now known as Arts Humanities
Bainbridge.
While the island’s City Council and school board have a handful
of seats on this year’s election ballot, there is only one race
where multiple candidate have filed.
City Council
Susan Bergen and Kol Medina have filed for the North Ward to
replace Anne Blair, who is not running for reelection.
Pegeen Mulhern has filed for the at-large seat to replace Steve
Bonkowski, who also announced he is not running for reelection.
Michael Scott, appointed to the Central Ward earlier this year, and
Sarah Blossom, who represents the South Ward, are running for their
current seats.
School Board
Mev Hoberg and Tim Kinkead have filed for reelection and do not
have any opponents as of Wednesday morning.
Patty Fielding will not be running for reelection to the school
board, and Lynn Smith has filed for Fiedling’s position.
Candidates have until the end of the business day Friday to
file.
Bainbridge Island City Council members Anne Blair and Steve
Bonkowski have announced they will not be running for
reelection this fall. Each have served one four-year term.
Council members Sarah Blossom and Michael Scott said
they anticipate filing for reelection. The deadline to file
is May 15.
Scott was appointed to the council this year after
Councilman David Ward resigned as part of a
public records lawsuit against the city.
A Kitsap County Superior Court
judge ruledlast
year that Bainbridge city officials didn’t perform an “adequate”
search for public records documents on Bonkowski’s and Ward’s
personal computers.
Bonkowski said his decision not to run had nothing to
do with the lawsuit, and he was not seeking
reelection because he had done everything he set out to do on
the council.
Blair said she would not be running so she could
spend more time with her family.
The three other seats — held by Wayne Roth, Roger
Townsend and Val Tollefson — are not up for reelection until
2017.
Claire Hicks plays fetch in the
water with her dog French at Pritchard Park on Bainbridge Island.
(LARRY STEAGALL / KITSAP SUN)
Pritchard Park will be open to off-leash dogs under
voice command all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as
Saturdays before noon. The ordinance was approved by a
City Council vote Tuesday night.
The off-leash ordinance will go into effect as soon
as the city can post signs. The city also plans to add mutt mitt
locations and additional trash cans to the park.
Pritchard Park is owned by the city, but is planned
to transfer to the Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Parks District
later this year. The parks district does not allow off-leash dogs
except in designated off-leash areas, including the Strawberry Hill
Dog Park.
The off-leash amendment will end two weeks before the
park is transferred to the park district.
City Council members
voted 5-2 to buy 100 percent green energy for the city.
Council members Sarah Blossom and Steve Bonkowski voted against
it.
Bonkowski said he would vote against it because of the low
percent of residents who participate, which he correlated to
green energy support.
About 13 percent of islanders participate in Puget Sound
Energy’s Green Power Program. The program relies more on
wind, bio-gas and solar-energy sources instead of coal.
The city had been buying about about 13 percent of
its electricity from green energy to match the resident
participation, costing about $3,000 a year. The city spends a total
of $330,000 a year on electricity, and going to all green power
would cost the city an additional $15,000 a year.
The Bainbridge Island High School Sailing Team won
first place at the annual Islands Cup regatta in Anacortes on April
11-12.
This fleet-racing regatta rotates among various
locations in and around the San Juan Islands each year and attracts
teams from all over the Northwest.
Sailors completed four races, two in each division,
before racing was called off on the first day when wind gusts of
more than 25 knots continued to build, with as many as six boats
capsized on the course at a time. Weather conditions on Sunday were
nearly perfect.
The Bainbridge High School Plaid team, with Stasi
Burzycki and Sophia Kasper/Kat Smith in Division A and Jackson
McCoy and Hannah Harrison in Division B, took 1st place out of 32
teams to win the 2015 Islands Cup. Fourth place went to the
combined team of Will Brown and Josh Rentz in Division A and Caelan
Juckniess, Nicole Sanford and Harry Saliba in Division B.
Lucas Burzycki, Elizabeth Rolfes, Christophe Webber,
Harry Saliba, Olivia Mitchell and Sophie Crandell placed ninth, and
Nick Dresel, Karl Anderson, Zach Mellin, Quinn Ring and Cole
Garthwaite placed 21st.
Rowers competes in British
Columbia
Bainbridge High School rowing teams earned several
first- and second-place finishes last weekend at the international
Brentwood Regatta on Vancouver Island.
The Varsity Boys Eight came in first of the U.S.
teams in the high school race, with a boat consisting of Alex
Larsen, Scott Musselwhite, Will de Rubertis, Konnor Vander Leest,
John Danielsson, Dan Queen, Lars Erickson, Cole Sander and coxswain
Keith Carlson.
In girls races, the varsity eight took second overall
in the high school race, the
lightweight four finished second and then launched
for a second race with the rest of their squad as the lightweight
eight boat. In a close final, Bainbridge finally nosed ahead
of Brentwood for second place behind Holy Names, which won in a
late sprint.
The boys novice eight boat, Colin Veilleux, Gavin
Veilleux, Conor Sweeney, Jackson Patrick, Peter Van Ness, Aaron
Lewis-Sandy, Hudson Dore, John Merritt, cox Sam Carson, took first
place, the first time a junior novice team from the Bainbridge
Island Rowing Club has won an Open-A level race, according to coach
Tim Goss. The novice boys four also won its race.
Governor Jay Inslee preparing
to sign the Ostling Act into law April 24. Bainbridge Island
Officer Trevor Ziemba, far left, and Kitsap County Sheriff Gary
Simpson, center, attended the signing. Ziemba testified in favor of
the bill. (Photo by Legislative Support Services)
The Douglas M. Ostling Act, a measure that will require all
Washington law enforcement to receive crisis intervention training,
became law when Gov. Jay Inslee signed the bill April 24.
Ostling, a mentally ill Bainbridge Island man, was shot and
killed by Bainbridge Island police in 2010, and two years later a
federal jury determined the city had not provided proper training
for the officers, awarding the Ostling family $1.4 million.
The new law requires incoming police officers to receive eight
hours of initial crisis intervention training starting in 2017, and
two hours of additional training each year for all officers by
2021.
Since the shooting, Bainbridge Island’s newest police chief has
been working to improve training and repair community ties.
Matt Hamner, hired in 2013, sent Officer Trevor Ziemba to
Olympia to testify in favor of the Ostling bill. Ziemba is the
department’s crisis intervention officer.
“We wanted to show our support of this bill,” Hamner
said. “We want to do better, and we want to do the best we can for
the community.”
