Tag Archives: Poulsbo

Bainbridge court staying put?

It looks like the Bainbridge court is staying put.

Poulsbo appears to be nixing the shared court deal after Bainbridge balked at going above an annual $42,500 lease rate. Click here for more details.

Meanwhile, a group of islanders have come up with a detailed counter proposal aimed fixing up the court’s current Rolling Bay building. Read more about that here.

“The judiciary is an important and necessary part of every government, and I believe it should be in the community it serves,” Jim Kennedy, one of the group’s members, told me yesterday.

An update on negotiations and a proposal by the pro-Bainbridge court group are on the agenda for tonight’s City Council meeting, starting at 7:50 p.m.

We’ll have an update at kitsapsun.com later tonight.

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New Poll: Should the Bainbridge court move to Poulsbo?

What do you think about the proposal to move the Bainbridge municipal court to a shared court facility in the new Poulsbo City Hall?

See the previous POST for the pros and cons, and then cast your vote over to the right.

As for our last poll about the Moran School theater building, head down below for the results…

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Snow: Don’t move the Bainbridge court to Poulsbo

Former Bainbridge city councilman Chris Snow sent in a guest column warning that islanders must consider more than money when deciding whether to move the municipal off-island.

We must avoid the temptation to decide whether or not to relocate our Municipal Court based entirely on dollar savings. Even if the savings indicated in Table 1 of the exhaustive eleven-page study the City Council will consider this Wednesday are accurate and complete, and that is open to question, we must also consider the non-monetary costs (and benefits, if any).

The difference in incremental annual costs between keeping our municipal court at home and sending it off island would be only $1,142 dollars in 2011! By the fifth year it may grow to about $19,000, which happens to be less than the difference in security officer costs (about $25,000). The cost to lease the Bainbridge Island property will still be $3,636 less than the Poulsbo option.
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Bainbridge Municipal Court…in Poulsbo?

Bainbridge and Poulsbo city leaders are leaning toward a plan that would move the Bainbridge municipal court into the new Poulsbo City Hall.

“I am totally convinced we have to move our court,” Bainbridge Councilman Bill Knobloch said on Wednesday during a joint meeting between the city’s two councils. “The facility right now is inadequate.”

Poulsbo likes the idea because it will generate revenue in a building with a lot of surplus space.

Check out Brynn Grimley’s coverage of the meeting HERE.

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Other cities shocked by BI’s flood of public records requests

Had a fun time on Friday calling up other cities and telling them how many public records requests the City of Bainbridge Island receives.

Best (printable) reaction was from the Poulsbo deputy city clerk: “Oh my god, that’s a huge amount!”

I got an even better exclamation from Mercer Island’s city attorney, but (after some pleading on her part), I agreed not to put in print. She felt it unbecoming of a person in her station. Her followup comment echoed Poulsbo reaction.

Fact is, Bainbridge residents are flooding City Hall with five times as many public records requests as comparable cities. And many are so complex that it takes staff days of digging to find and compile the requested info.

Read all about it here.

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Bainbridge isn’t the only city to suffer a budget shocker

The year started with a gut-turning plummet for the city budget, as you may have read here.

But Bainbridge’s surprise $1.2 budget shortfall seems like a ground-floor hop when compared to Bremerton’s $4.4 million freefall.

Poulsbo, which has a smaller budget than Bainbridge, took a $1 million dive, nearly equaling Bainbridge’s.

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