Here’s a look at what Kitsap’s elected officials will be doing in the coming week.
Kitsap County Board of County Commissioners (meetings in Port Orchard at county admin building, 619 Division)
Monday, March 29:
10 a.m.: Board information sharing, followed by a review of agendas and calendars. (Adjournment around noon).
Afternoon meeting:
2 p.m.: Legislative update from Tom McBride
2:35 p.m.: Economic stimulus update by Eric Baker. (Adjournment shortly after 3 p.m.)
Wednesday, March 31:
8:30 a.m.: Repeal and replace Chapter 2.21 of Kitsap County Code (dealing with the Kitsap County jail and its custodial care and operations).
9:10 a.m. to 10:10 a.m.: Information sharing.
Commissioners will go into an executive session to discuss real estate from 11:30 a.m. to noon, then adjourn following.
Personal opinion section: As you can see from the above list of agendas for the county commissioners, it is difficult to ascertain what they will be doing this week.
While there are a handful of specifics, the broad “information sharing” description leaves one to wonder what will be covered. Whenever I see this on the board’s agendas (it happens on an almost weekly basis) I whine for about 5 to 10 minutes to my colleagues Steve Gardner and Chris Henry.
My main gripe? How do we know who should attend the meeting if we don’t know what they’re talking about? Do I really want to spend all of my Monday in county meetings that deal with South Kitsap issues when my beat is Central and North Kitsap?
We could opt not to attend because based on the above agenda it doesn’t look like there will be much substance to the Monday morning meeting. But then what happens if something earth shattering happens and we miss it? We would have done a disservice to our readers by not staying on top of county issues.
I know the public would appreciate a better description, and so would Henry, Gardner and I. That is the end of my rant, thank you.
On to the next political agenda.
Bremerton:
Wednesday, March 31:
5 p.m.: The Bremerton City Council will be discussing possible changes to the city charter, including one that would reduce the size of the council itself. (Meeting in council conference room, sixth floor, Norm Dicks building, 345 Sixth St.)
Poulsbo/Bainbridge Island City Councils
Wednesday, March 31:
7 p.m. The two councils will hold a joint meeting to discuss the possibility of sharing municipal court services, including the possibility of Bainbridge renting a portion of Poulsbo’s new city hall. They’ll also discuss Highway 305 and other ways they might share to save money.
Other folks likely to be in attendance: NK Commissioner Steve Bauer, Kitsap Transit’s Dick Hayes, Leonard Forsman and Russell Steele with the Suquamish Tribe and Mary McClure with the Kitsap Regional Coordinating Council.
That’s all I’ve got for the week.
Gee, if the agenda is so general, do the Commissioners know?
“Board Information sharing” could be code words for a general discussion of “what’s going on?” and coffee time. Or, they could have real topics to discuss, and they don’t want to let the public or press know ahead of time. Hard to tell. We need to monitor these folks somehow.
Guess you’d have to ask each one what info they are anxious to share that would be of interest to the public rather than just having chit chat amongst themselves.
Emilie
Port Orchard, WA