Welcome to Tree City USA

Bainbridge Island earned “Tree City USA” designation last week in recognition of the city’s efforts to preserve trees within urban environments.

Ben Thompson of the state Department of Natural Resources presented the award to the City Council and highlighted the city’s new Heritage Tree program, which designates trees of historical or biological significance.

“The Heritage Tree program testifies to the city’s enthusiasm for natural resources as we experience rapid population growth,” he said.

Bainbridge joins more than 60 other cities in Washington state that have earned Tree City USA designation. The Tree City USA program is sponsored by the National Arbor Day Foundation in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters. The program is aimed at providing technical assistance, public attention and national recognition for urban and community forestry programs.

– Tristan Baurick

Glitches delay ‘smart cards’

Washington State Ferries hoped to have its new electronic fare collection system in place by now, but technical delays have pushed it out several months.

“We will not roll this out until it works perfectly,” said WSF spokeswoman Susan Harris. “We want our customers to be satisfied with how it works.”

WSF has been testing the new system on the Port Townsend-Keystone run, during which time problems have emerged.

Most significantly, the handheld units used at the passenger gate would not work in the Northwest climate.

“The vendor reprogrammed the units and they are working well now,” Harris said. “There are a lot of differences between Port Townsend and Disneyland, where the units were used before. For one thing, we have 2,000 different fare types.”

Additionally, the programmers had some difficulty working around the WSF computer firewall to establish a connection with the fare web site.

Harris said once the system is perfected at Port Townsend-Keystone, a system-wide rollout will begin at Anacortes and move south.

She said the process would take around 120 days.

EFC, which will be promoted under the “Wave2Go” label, will replace both single-sale fares and discount ticket books. The bar-code driven system will speed up fare collection for both walk-on and automotive passengers, with the ability to purchase tickets on the Internet and print out the bar code for use on the ferry.

In order to use internet purchase, users must create an online account. They can make one purchase at a time or set up a credit card to automatically replenish their account when all fares have been used.

Shelter names ‘wild’ director

The West Sound Wildlife Shelter has hired Michael “Mike” Pratt as its new director of wildlife services.

Pratt will be responsible for all wildlife-related activities at the shelter, including managing an extensive group of paid and volunteer staff members.

He brings extensive wildlife rehabilitation experience to the shelter. Prior to taking this job, he was the director of wildlife services at the Vermont Natural History Institute and Raptor Center, where he oversaw a large staff and treated 3,000 wild animals each year.

Prior to that, he worked at the internationally known World Bird Sanctuary in St. Louis, Missouri.

“Mike’s background with wildlife is impressive. We’re lucky to have him,” said Kol Medina, executive director of the wildlife shelter. “His knowledge and experience managing larger organizations will help us meet our goals of expanding our services and having a broader vision.”

The mission of the nonprofit shelter, which is the only large-scale wildlife rehabilitation center serving Kitsap County, is to help injured, orphaned and sick wild animals. This is accomplished by providing direct medical care and human/animal conflict resolution advice.