If the number of candidates is any indication, the most sought-after elective position on Bainbridge is the fire commission seat that Alan Corner is vacating after two six-year terms. The race drew a total of four hopefuls.
Sharla Graham is always looking for the next great pucker.
“I might be speaking with someone, and I’ll be thinking ‘great mouth,’” said Graham, whose Zephyr Flute Choir plays Pegasus Coffee House Oct. 20.
“It’s the lips that are most important. Anyone can learn how to play the flute, but there are mouth shapes that are just better.”
To handle operations at the larger, more complext Bainbridge Island Aquatic Center, the park district has hired Eric Khambatta as pool operator.
Khambatta, who grew up in Suquamish, is no stranger to Bainbridge aquatics, having worked at the Ray Williamson Pool while in high school and college.
Since then, Khambatta has served as pool manager in Kirkville, Mo., and Anacortes before returning to this area with well over a decade of experience in pool operations.
For the new owners of two well-established Bainbridge stores, the lure was the island, not simply the enterprise.
“Small towns give me the opportunity to get involved,” said Bob Schoonmaker, new owner of the Chandlery with partner Kimberly Corrigan.
The two avid sailors live aboard a 40-foot boat in the Harbor Marina, and were long-time customers when John and Jane Jay owned the store.
“I was looking for an opportunity to re-orient my life from the city back to Bainbridge Island because I love it here so much,” said Schoonmaker, who works with a Seattle outdoor-clothing firm.
“This is a marriage of my passions, which are boating and managing a business,” he said.
An unexpected package in the mail. A handful of powder or dust, spilled on the floor in a public area.
With America at war against nebulously organized terrorist factions abroad, and reports of possible contagion spread through our national post, we find in even the little surprises and petty annoyances of life the taint of fear and suspicion.
Even on our tiny island, a seemingly unlikely target for the warped aims of international terror, we are touched by a world gone suddenly somewhat mad.
Just how much pool will $5.5 million buy?
The public can find out this Saturday, at an open house at the new Don Nakata Pool and larger Bainbridge Island Aquatic Center.
The event will give users a preview of the layout before the pool is filled with water next month.
“We’re getting a heck of a lot,” said John DeMeyer, park district aquatics supervisor. “By capitalizing on the existing pool…we’ll have a major two-pool complex, plus a water slide, two complete locker rooms and a family changing area. That’s a 30,000 square foot facility.
“And everybody will have access. There’s something for everyone.”
Questions of conflict of interest follow both of the candidates to succeed Alan Corner as Bainbridge fire commissioner.
But both believe the conflict situations are relatively insignificant, and would not prevent them from serving.
Breaking from standard practice, the Bainbridge School Board let Superintendent Steve Rowley begin the school year without a three-year contract in hand.
School officials confirm that over the summer, the school board declined to add a third year to Rowley’s contract, set to expire at the end of the 2002-03 school year. At the same time, the board made provisions for his possible departure by naming another district official as Rowley’s immediate successor.
Kitsap freeholders believe that a county council elected by district only deserves a chance, given what they see as overwhelming public support.
But they also think voters should have the final say.
So the charter that the freeholders will put to voters next February calls for the five council members to be elected by geographic district in both the primary and general election. Then in 2003, the whole contentious issue of election method will be put to a vote.
Cast and crew of BPA’s “Tartuffe,” opening at the Playhouse Oct. 19, are troupers in the grand old tradition of the theater.
The 24 hardworking amateurs and professionals stepped in to save the day, when “Tartuffe” replaced Larry Shue’s “The Foreigner” as BPA’s season opener in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
“Talking to Joanne (Ellis), talking to the board, we decided a dark theater was just not an option,” director Joanne Keegan said, “Corny as it may sound, we decided that ‘The show must go on.’”
When terrorist attacks blew the world apart, two Port Madison women responded by bringing their own community together.
“The world has to narrow to a neighborhood before it can broaden into brotherhood,” said Sara Faulkner, who with Nancy Blakey started the effort among north-end residents.
“The recent events made us decide it was time to rebuild our community.”
After the Sept. 11 terroist attacks on America, Faulkner and Blakey sent out flyers to 92 homes in the Port Madison area, inviting residents to a potluck supper on the beach. The response surpassed their wildest expectations – more than 200 people turned up.
Washington voters are asked to do only a moderate amount of legislating this year.
Other than Tim Eyman’s annual mischief-making, two initiatives and two referenda on the Nov. 6 ballot take aim at generally good ends, although we have reservations about one of them.
Island abodes have appeared in “Better Homes and Gardens” and “Architectural Digest,” but the claim to fame for Robin and Mike Ballou may be unique.
It’s their garage.
“Friends have asked why our garage was featured in a book and not our house,” Robin Ballou said, “but ‘Garage’ is the book’s title, not ‘House.’”
Mike Ballou, a professional builder, saw an ad in “Fine Woodworking” magazine from an author seeking garages with unusual uses.
Ballou, who built both their Diamond Place home and garage/woodshop – even handmaking the Victorian trim most builders order from catalogues – mailed off a polaroid of the space.