Meet the candidates: Longtime incumbent squares off against a fresh face for Bainbridge Island parks board position

Bainbridge voters are presented with two candidates in the race for the Commissioner Position 5 of the board for the Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Park & Recreation District, a six-year term.

First, the longtime incumbent, Kirk Robinson, who has held the job for since 2003. Second, the challenger, Michael Pollock.

As part of the Review’s 2017 General Election coverage, both men were asked a series of similar questions, and their answers are presented here for comparison.

Additional candidate information is available in the Kitsap Voter’s Guide, found in the Oct. 13 issue of Kitsap Weekly.

* This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Kirk Robinson

BIR: Is there something specific that you’re most proud of from your time thus far on the board?

KR: There are a lot of things, but I always go back and say the best vote I ever made was the vote to hire Terry Lande as the executive director. Like all the other commissioners, I have a good working relationship with Terry, as I do with all the other commissioners. I think that’s one of the things that stands out to me as part of the board. Even though there’s been some changes … the board has always been for the most part a very collegial board, with a lot of respect for each other, from each other. The idea is that we have open, frank discussions. We don’t take stuff personally. We may disagree, but we take a vote. And if you’re on the losing end of a 4-1 or a 3-2 vote, you join with the group and that’s the position of the district and the position of the board. You don’t grouse about it. You don’t try and get around it or anything like that.

What I would say as sort of the overall accomplishment is we’ve adapted to the metro parks structure with the board and the staff all on the same page. I think we’ve got one of the best park districts for a community of our size in the state, if not the country.

Through the Great Recession we’ve been able to maintain and come out of it looking pretty good, in terms of our programs. We kept up the maintenance of the facilities and stuff like that.

BIR: Do you have any disappointments, or is there a time, looking back, that you wish you’d done something differently?

KR: If I thought a while I could probably come up with a few. What I do think is we all take disappointments as a learning experience. You try and move on to the next [issue].

What you see more of is: How do you learn from things that go on? Yes, we’ve had struggles with the city and the school district. But that’s what I always refer to as a kind of dynamic tension. You’ve got organizations that have different goals and objectives, and you’ve got a community that says, ‘You guys need to work together.’ Well, we all have sort of different responsibilities — both legal and what the mission or vision of the agency are — and sometimes the timing and other things just don’t work out. So, you kind of say, ‘OK. That didn’t work out so well.’ But you try. You also try to understand why things didn’t work out so well.

BIR: Does Bainbridge have enough park land?

KR: The answer to that question is yes, in terms of if you just look at the number of parks and the acreage of the parks we have, and you factor in places like Bloedel [Reserve], IslandWood, a lot of dedicated common areas of developments. Hidden Cove Estates is a good example. The city has probably got about 10 percent of our land area that’s protected.

The flip side to that is, I think, there are some places in and around some of our parks where there’s kind of these loose parcels that if they become developed become a threat to that. Gazzam [Lake] is a good example. The park consists of God knows how many different parcels itself, and each of them comes with their own conservation easements or restrictions on use — or lack of restrictions on use. But there are two or three or four parcels that would be great to have for protection.

The city has also said that at some point in time they want to get completely out of the park business. I think there are only three remaining [under city care], which are Pritchard, John Nelson Park at Cannery Cove, and Waterfront Park. We’ve told the city, ‘That’s your decision. We will take them if you decide to do so, decide to transfer it.’ We’re not asking for any money to maintain it because we’re in the park district; we know parks. We think with our staff, I think we’ve proven — I think that in taking over the two state parks that are on the island, Fay Bainbridge and Fort Ward — we’ve shown we can fairly quickly clean up into looking much, much better.

BIR: Of the numerous things a recent survey found islanders most wanted to see built at Sakai Park, what do you think is most appropriate, given the location and existing facilities already elsewhere?

KR: This is where the board has been really good: We wanted a bottom-up process to see what rose to the top, what people coalesced around.

When we did the first meeting we had, I want to say somewhere between 70 and 80 suggested uses for the park. If you’ve been to enough meetings you probably heard me say once or twice that I take that list as things that would be worthwhile, or that the district should be looking at, but they don’t have to go at Sakai. If we can find a home for something that came up that doesn’t fit here, then we’ll do it elsewhere.

BIR: In light of the recent compromise which resulted in the construction of a scaled-back version of the Battle Point Park disc golf course, what do you feel is the best way for the commissioners to measure and quantify opposition and support for potentially controversial projects? How important is a very vocal minority in deciding the fate of such proposals?

KR: I was the one who worked out that.

Something that’s very positive about Bainbridge is that we strike very passionate chords on things, and I think part of it is you have to understand where those are. I learned early on, very early on, when we were dealing with the soccer fields, Battle Point is a place that those things get expressed.

What I tend to look at is, what is the rationale behind the argument? I love the passion, but there are times when people don’t have anything to back up what they’re saying.

It was mentioned that some lady had gotten serious injured [from disc golf] and this will be happening all over the place. That was kind of the point where I said, ‘OK,’ and I went out for about four hours with those guys who proposed it. I walked the entire course. What impressed me was the attention to safety that they had in designing the course, but on the flip side we talked about the north half of Battle Point — which, ever since I’ve lived on the island has been known as the passive half and the south half as been known as the active half — and I’ve lived on the island almost 30 years.

When I walked it, I talked about some of the concerns I had about some of the holes, but I also understood where they were coming from in terms of, ‘Here’s how we’re trying to design it to be fairly safe.’

What I do is I research independently, try and find out what are the rules. And so I think you’re right; it worked out well. You listen to the no’s. Some of the validity that they had was in that the north half has always been a passive use area and don’t say it’s underused or underutilized because what makes it a nice thing is that maybe there aren’t a whole lot of people running around there all the time. But, on the other hand, you’re listening to some passionate folks. They have a passion for a game. They’re willing to put money up and work with the park district. So you want to put things where people feel they have a stake in them. You want to work with them in a way that makes them feel valued, or that their sport or whatever it is they’re trying to propose is. You can work it out.

From a cost-effectiveness perspective, in this park district you want to have multiple use, not giving stuff over to a lot of people or a lot of groups.

I don’t think there’s the will in the community to start dedicating massive parts of our acreage to that. People value the fact that you can go into the Grand Forrest and I can pick a route and hardly cross the same place twice and get 8, 9 or 10 miles out of a walk.

BIR: How, ideally, would you like to see new park facilities funded?

KR: Generally speaking, in most everything we do, we ask the groups who are proposing something to [contribute]. The same was true of the pump track that went in at Battle Point. They funded a lot of that.

The idea is that you’ve got to show a passion for what you’re doing and that passion will translate to being willing to raise money to put it in, but also being willing to help take care of it, whatever it might be.

BIR: What do you think is the biggest difference, other than previous experience on the board, that separates you from your opponent?

KR: I have become, the way I look at it, somebody who is seeking solutions, trying to get to a point where you’re not necessarily compromising what you believe is right, but you’re trying to find something that will work. It may involve a compromise on this side or this side, but if somebody comes forward with the passion for an idea for the parks that fits in our mission statement and our vision of what we want the parks for, great. Let’s work. Let’s see what we can do. You have the idea, now where does it go?

One of the big issues — and my understanding is that my opponent is part of the BI Barks and Recreation, which is advocating for off-leash — there was an article in the Seattle Times about entitled dog owners this summer. Well, that’s what we deal with here.

I have two beliefs on this kind of thing. One is if you have an idea, let’s say it’s an off-leash dog park, let’s say it’s a new tennis court, I’m willing to consider a location if it’s not an area that’s regularly used by other park users already. I’m not willing to take something away from people who are already using it. The idea of shared use — three times a week from seven to noon we can run our dogs off-leash in the Grand Forest — that’s taking something away from people. It also violates all the terms of off-leash use even in off-leash dog parks. You have to have voice control and sight control of your dog at all times.

It’s not a great idea. The last place, if I’m on the board, that we’d have an open off-leash area, or what they call shared use times, is in a park that has a whole lot of different uses. The other reason I’m not in favor of shard use is, once you open it up to dogs it becomes a dog park in all way, shape and forms.

Michael Pollock

BIR: How, ideally, would you like to see new park facilities funded? Why?

MP: Any major new park facilities will require public-private partnerships. My sense is the community is growing tax weary from all the new proposals presented by our various taxing districts. The park district gets 9 percent of our property taxes, has an annual budget approaching $10 million, and wants to build a new recreational campus and park headquarters for $20 million to $30 million and a new pool for $5 million to $10 million. The school district gets 30 percent of our property taxes and wants to build a new school for $46 million. The city gets 11 percent of our property taxes and has a laundry list of development projects, including an expensive parking garage, town square redevelopment ($15 million), a non-motorized transportation package, a new police station ($28 million), affordable housing projects, and a pedestrian bridge over Highway 305. The fire department gets 14 percent of our property taxes and is building a new fire station for $15 million.

We need extensive cooperation between taxing districts and the public to reach agreement on future budget priorities and how much property taxation we can handle. A 10-year tax plan for the city would be ideal.

For projects that do not have broad public support, if we want them funded, we are going to have to reach out to the private sector, to those who will more directly benefit from the facility, and to the philanthropists in our community.

MP: There are many tools at our disposal to accurately gauge public opinion and to engage the public in conversation. I do feel the park district has become more insular over the years, has become increasingly less accountable to public opinion, and does not proactively or effectively seek out public opinion.

Repeatedly, I hear frustration with how park board meetings are run; that board members already have their minds made up and they aren’t really interested in what the public has to say; that they aren’t really held accountable for their actions; that they think they know what is best for the community.

I have heard the terms ‘paternalistic,’ ‘command and control’ and ‘father knows best’ used to describe at least one park board member. Replacing a 14-year incumbent with a fresh voice, with someone who is committed to community engagement and collaborative decision-making, will send a message to the rest of the park board that they need to listen, that they are accountable to the community.

As for vocal minorities, it is always important, and humbling, to recognize that each household represents about 0.01 percent of parks’ property tax support base. I believe it is very important to reach out to the vast majority of households who pay their $500 or so in annual taxes to the park district, but are not vocal.

Often they are too busy to attend a meeting, or they don’t see the point because the board doesn’t listen, or they just are conflict-averse and don’t want to participate in today’s politically divisive climate. Nonetheless, their opinions count.

Engagement in social media and regular opinion polling and email campaigns are cost-effective means by which parks can get a better sense of public priorities and support for projects.

BIR: What is the greatest challenge for the parks commissioners going forward in light of Bainbridge’s current and continuing growth, and increased overall development resulting in larger numbers of regular users of island facilities?

MP: Our greatest challenge is coming up with a cooperative intergovernmental taxing agreement that allows people with limited or fixed incomes to stay on the island. We talk about increasing affordable housing, but I think we could do more to keep community members who are already on the island from having to move off island because they can’t afford to live here.

Many are struggling because their wealth is tied up in their homes, and they have very limited cash flow. So all of the local taxing districts need to be mindful of the cumulative impact that they have on affordability. We can’t build our way to affordability without destroying the character of the island, and even allowing unchecked growth would not result in substantively lower housing prices.

The park district can help by focusing their efforts on low-cost projects that get high use, and on maintaining and repairing existing facilities. I do not think it is a good time for parks to request additional tax dollars to invest in costly new development ventures.

MP: Sakai is a special place due to location. In the survey, building trails rated high for likely usage, and are also low cost. What rated high for value was ‘reverence for nature’ and open space, both of which have low additional cost. The park district said they would promptly build trails at Sakai, but it’s been two-and-a-half years since voters approved the parks and open space bond to buy the Sakai property, yet there are few trails or even basic signage/parking available.

Of the proposals that they have come up with, none leaves the area as an open space park with trails and benches, even though such an approach would cost very little and has broad public support. The proposals do include new park headquarters and a new senior center, items lacking broad support.

The new senior center lacks support primarily because we already have a nonprofit organization running the outstanding Bainbridge Island Senior Center at the downtown Waterfront Park. Parks should be collaborating with rather than competing against the senior center.

Keeping Sakai as open space for now would also provide an opportunity for our community to get a feel for the land and to reach a broader consensus as to what, if any, buildings should be constructed. If there is strong community support for an indoor recreational campus and new park headquarters, there are alternative locations with already developed infrastructure where redevelopment could occur. One such suggested location is the nearby Commodore property. We should also pursue redevelopment in the context of the needs of the other taxing districts such as the school district, police department, etc.

BIR: Does Bainbridge have enough park land?

MP: We may never gain consensus on how much park land is ‘enough’ but we can move forward based what we do know. There continues to be broad support for acquisition of open space, as evidenced by the 2015 Sakai property open space acquisition, recent polls, and the continued success of the Bainbridge Island Land Trust and parks foundation. The park district has an annual budget approaching $10 million. I think it is a fair question to ask of the public how much of that budget they would like to see go into additional open space acquisitions versus other park expenditures including new building construction or increasing the number of park employees. The park district struggles to manage the infrastructure that it already has, and has run a deficit for a number of years now, so more focus on maintaining existing ballfields, tennis courts, trails, etc. makes sense to me. At the same time, the city of Bainbridge Island has several open space parcels [like] Head of the Bay, Pritchard and trail right-of-ways that connect to parks and trails, and it also makes sense to turn those over to the park district. Improving the contentious relationship between parks and our city would help on that front.