Pick a place
To the editor:
Twenty years from now I expect that Bainbridge Island’s Police Department will still be holed up in its tiny inadequate station near the ferry while the property bought by the city from Franciscan Health sits decaying in place and different factions fight over how to move forward.
Every resident on Bainbridge should take out his or her cell phone and google St. Paul’s School, Garden City, Long Island, NY to see a case study that illustrates how factions can completely inhibit progress. In fact, it should be studied at every school in the U.S. that teaches city management.
It’s time that the City Council makes a decision, sticks to a course of action and provides our hamstrung police department with a modern station.
Rosalind Renouard
Bainbridge Island
Change thwarted
To the editor:
I was informed, by several City Council members, that the 2019 city issuing and sale of, municipal bonds, for the purpose of buying the Harrison Hospital building now obligates us taxpayer citizens to utilize the building for our future Police Station, or suffer federal penalties.
Apparently, the bonds were specifically earmarked for the express purpose of renovating the building, and any other use would violate federal laws governing municipal bond sales, and also affect the city’s AAA rating for future bond sales. That eliminates any consideration for the proposed plan to utilize an existing fire department parcel as a location for our future police station.
That should cause all BI citizens to reflect on the recent and past decisions that our various City Councils have made, that run counter to our citizen’s expressed desires. One being the fairly recent 2014 questionable decision to ignore the will of 87 percent of BI people who voiced approval for building a Joint Fire Department/Police Station at the corner of Madison Avenue and Highway 305. The thwarting of which was accomplished by simply removing the bond issue from the forthcoming election, thereby eliminating any opportunity for citizens to vote. A dubious, and possibly illegal, act.
Fred McGinnis
Bainbridge Island
Holiday choices
To the editor:
Last week was the Jewish holiday of Purim (Jewish Halloween). I put on a small presentation for some Bainbridge Island school kids, including a Hamantaschen tasting and was a bit surprised very few had heard of or knew anything about Queen Esther’s heroic effort to defeat the evil Vizar(d) Haman.
The kids were, however, quite hyped about and familiar with St. Patrick’s Day. South Park beat me to the punch here but why the heck are we still teaching kids about a holiday that celebrates drunkenness, groping and the kidnapping/robbing of Fae Folk?
St. Patrick wasn’t Irish and his converting of Ireland is just another example of foreign Christianity wiping out a native culture. There are plenty of actual Irish heroes like Cuchulain or the IRA freedom fighters (who we must look at in a different light given the current American foreign war of the week.) if we want to keep the holiday Irish.
Is it not time to change this outdated holiday out for something that better reflects our modern values?
Joe Benoliel
Bainbridge Island
