The mild estrangement between the governing bodies of the Bainbridge Island City Council and Metro Park & Recreation District took a turn for the better this week during a candid two-hour session held on neutral ground.

Sparks had flashed earlier this year when the council and park board disagreed about the details of an agreed-upon transfer of city-owned parks to the park district.

The two municipalities appeared poised to transfer the Fort Ward Parade Grounds to the district, but the action came to an abrupt halt when Mayor Bob Scales said at a council meeting that perhaps the city should not be transferring the property without a fee.

That rankled the district since it has been maintaining the property free of charge for some time now.

So a few months later, an outwardly friendly gathering begins on a Tuesday in the large BHS library meeting area – involving five park board members, six council members, their two executives and several staff members. Once the discussion began, however, cordiality slipped a bit – especially on the part of the park district representatives.

They seemed perplexed by the city’s apparent change in attitude toward the previous transfer agreement. Board Chair Lee Cross began the conversation by saying:

“For us the issue is, does the city want to remain in the park business? If so, which ones do you want to maintain and which do you want to transfer,” she said.

The city made it clear it wants to transfer 20 more parks (two have already changed hands), holding on at this point to Strawberry Park Plant, Pritchard Park and Waterfront Park – all three of which also have park district involvement but will take much more attention and time before they can be transferred.

But the city also made it clear that it wants some form of written agreement – probably a memo of understanding (MOU) – that lays out a long-term strategy that the two agencies can adhere to in the future.

“Everything in the past was done informally and we want our working agreement with parks to be written so that in the future the council and the board, which change every two years, will not have misunderstandings going forward,” Scales said.

There was no problem there, but the park board members made it clear that they wanted to make the transfers the top priority because of budget considerations.

“The gorilla we can’t get out of the room is the transfer of properties,” said parks Executive Director Terry Lande. “We can come back with an expeditious way of transferring the ones that are ready. If you don’t want to do the three, then pull them so we can get the rest done quickly. We don’t need to talk this to death.”

Scales and other council members, however, reiterated the need to have a formal agreement involving the transfers and many other issues involving both agencies that come up occasionally.

“It’s obvious we have good reason to stop working together in a piecemeal fashion,” he said. “Before we can go forward, we need an over-arching agreement that deals with all of the issues.”

Some members of both groups thought that having staff and elected officials working on both an agreement and the park transfers would be diffiuclt with the budget season beginning.

But ultimately both Lande and Interim City Manager Brenda Bauer thought it was possible to take a parallel approach with the goal of finishing most of the work before the end of 2011.

“I’ve done plenty of these joint agreements and they’re important to lay out roles and responsibilities,” Bauer said. “They provide guidance to staff on how to make decisions and we need that when we run into problems working with another agency.”

While the park district considers managing most if not all of the island’s parks its primary mission, the city is trying to get out of property management as much as possible because of its current financial crisis.

Beside its parks, the city’s downsizing may include ridding itself of several other responsibilties, such as the water and sewer utilities, road ends, farming properties, open spaces and nonmotorized properties (trails and pathways).

Council members also said agreements with the park district involving shared uses of equipment and services also may be possible as long as they pass the legal test.

“Everything is discretionary at this point,” Scales said. “So the more the park district is willing to take on the more the city is willing to give you. We have some very large issues that are signficant liabilities for us. But first we need clear agreements put together by our staffs.”

Not much can be done during the next three months because both agencies are now involved in budget issues. But soon.

“It will be useful for our staffs to work together and then each executive can go to the council and the board r, and then after the budget we can bring it all back together,” Bauer said.

There also was agreement to meet at least semi-annually to keep things going.

Then the meeting ended exactly on time with a lot of smiles breaking out.