Six islanders have applied to fill a vacancy on the Bainbridge Island Park and Recreation District board of directors, district director Dave Lewis said Monday.
Applicants include Joy Nicholson, a management consultant; Tom Weed, an investment broker involved with youth soccer programs; Kirk Robinson, an EPA employee and Little League volunteer; Tom Kilbane, a retiree with previous park commission experience in the Midwest; Betsy Daniels, who served on Poulsbo’s city parks commission; and Wayne Mickaelian, a retired high school principal from California.
The park board will review and discuss the applicants in a closed-door session, with an appointment planned by Feb. 13. To hold the seat, the appointee will have to run for re-election in November.
The vacancy came with the resignation of commissioner Daryle Schei, who left the board earlier this month citing new personal priorities and the desire to spend more time traveling.
– Douglas Crist
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***Council closes doors tonight
Five members of the Bainbridge Island City Council have called a special executive session for 5:30 p.m. this evening, to discuss unspecified personnel issues and potential litigation.
“It is a personnel matter about which we have asked the city administrator (Lynn Nordby) to inform us,” said council chair Christine Nasser Rolfes.
No action is expected as a result of the meeting, she said.
City clerk Sue Kasper said she received a request for the meeting Monday afternoon.
Those expected to attend are councilmembers Michael Pollock, Bill Knobloch, Debbie Vancil and Deborah Vann, as well as Nasser Rolfes.
Mayor Darlene Kordonowy is out of the country on vacation, and was not notified of the meeting before she left, executive assistant Lita Meyers said.
The closed-door session will be held in the executive department conference room.
– John Waldo
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***County gives $50k for park
The Kitsap County Board of Commissioners has agreed to give $50,000 to help fund the Parade Ground Park in Fort Ward.
The action came after a recommendation by the county’s Open Space Commission to provide funds for the park.
Commissioner Chris Endresen, who represents Bainbridge Island, called the preservation of the park “a win-win partnership that has involved just about everyone in the community,” from the neighborhood and the city to the city park district and the Kitsap County Consolidated Housing Authority.
The Parade Ground was divided into tiny lots by developers in 1960, shortly after the base was decommissioned and sold to developers.
In the 1990s, the Fort Ward neighborhood began an effort to save the open space from development. Two neighbors donated land, then the city helped out by buying several lots for the park.
At the request of the neighborhood, KCCHA bought the rest of the undeveloped lots, and then worked with the city to move building sites to the edges of the Parade Ground. The homes are designed to fit in with the historic buildings in the neighborhood.
The county’s action will help offset the cost to KCCHA of making the plat changes and buying extra open space.
The Parade Ground served as the center of the military base from the 1900s – when it was a U.S. Army Coast Artillery fort – through World War II and beyond, when it was U.S. Naval Radio Station Bainbridge.
In World War II, men and women stationed there worked in top-secret “Station S,” listening in on Japanese radio transmissions code-named “Magic.”
Veterans were honored in August at a dedication ceremony.
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***Auto dip to fund field trip
Woodward Middle School leadership class students are holding a benefit car wash from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Feb. 1 and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 9 at the Village Chevron station. Proceeds will underwrite a field trip for leadership class students to Parallel Learning, Inc., an island-based leadership institute.
WMS leadership class, now in its second year, trains students in leadership skills. Approximately 25 students are accepted into the class each semester.
For more information, email sorness@bainbridge.wednet.edu.
