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.

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Ericksen Avenue and Hildebrand Lane should be connected within the next two years, the city engineer says.
And while the city council’s public works committee will consider the recommendation Monday, at least one member wants to delay any final decision until the already volatile issue of Ericksen’s design is finally resolved.

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Environmental concerns are driving out other values in city decision-making, contractor Bill Nelson says.
In what he calls an effort to “restore balance,” Nelson is running for the central ward, position 4, city council seat being vacated by Merrill Robison.
“For the sake of protecting Bainbridge Island’s environment, we’ve forsaken other parts of the quality of life, such as human interaction,” Nelson said.
The 42-year-old island native says that excessive regulation is driving up costs and depriving the island of diversity.
He is critical of council decisions such as the proposed landscape ordinance that have the effect of lowering housing densities, saying that lower densities require more land per home, which, in turn, raises prices.
Conversely, he believes that to make housing more affordable, zoning needs to be changed to make higher densities possible in areas such as Lynwood Center.
“We can promote affordable housing through zoning,” he said. “We don’t need higher density everywhere, but we need it in some areas for affordability – you can’t have it both ways.”
Nelson believes the city could contract out much of the regulatory work it does, particularly on development matters, saving both money and staff time.
“The developers have to pay for bureaucracies, and they pass those costs on to the end-users,” he said.
“And it takes time away from work that the city engineer, for instance, needs to spend on public projects.”

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What started it all was a conversation over a cup of coffee, between the milkman and a doctor’s wife in 1959.
“I was the head of the United Good Neighbors drive, and she was the head of the Red Cross drive,” said Ernest Biggs, who in those days maintained a dairy route around the island.
“I had a quota that year of $10,000, and she said they’d raised $200, so we decided we had to do something.”
The problem, they decided, was that too much effort was being duplicated.
“The women on the island seemed to be the ones chosen to go door-to-door, but they were doing it half a dozen times a year, and were kind of worn out” Biggs said.

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Saying she wants to continue and extend Dwight Sutton’s work as a conciliator and mediator, Chris Llewellyn this week announced her candidacy for mayor.
Presently chair of the Bainbridge Island park board, Llewellyn becomes the first declared candidate to succeed Sutton, who is not seeking re-election.
“I am interested in connecting the island’s rich historical past with a visionary future,” Llewellyn said. “It’s an opportunity to give back to the community that has given me a wonderful life.”
Llewellyn believes that Bainbridge is facing a unique mix of challenges and opportunities.
The challenges involve the pressures from growth.
“We can’t pull up bridges or stop the ferries, like some people here would like,” she said. “But we can control the number of people that move here through land-use policies.”

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Four years ago, Jim Llewellyn drew up a 10-point platform of things he wanted to accomplish on the city council.
Saying that all of those items still need work, Llewellyn is seeking re-election to his central district seat.
“The community values survey taken in 1992 and the one taken last year show a lot of the same concerns, many of which I share. Those concerns are not easily taken care of,” said Llewellyn.
His 1997 platform included things like better communication, fiscal responsibility, affordable housing and regulatory reform – “big picture” items that can always be done better.
Llewellyn does think progress has been made, in certain areas.

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The Bainbridge Island City Council says it wants diversity and affordable housing, but its actions undermine those goals, Tom Hofferber says.
He hopes to reverse that trend by winning the north ward city council seat being vacated by Liz Murray.
He will face planning commissioner member Deborah Vancil, who was first to declare candidacy for the seat.
“The council is taking more and more land out of development,” Hofferber said. “I can’t understand doing that and being for affordable housing, because that will drive up the cost of land.”
Hofferber, an architect with a downtown Seattle firm, was particularly puzzled by council action to delete wetlands from total acreage for purposes of calculating density.

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Saying he wants to plan intelligently for development before it gets out of hand, retired pilot Bill Knobloch has declared himself a candidate for Bainbridge Island City Council from the central ward.
“We’re at the early stages of growth,” Knobloch said. “It’s important that we manage the assets we have correctly, because as an island, we do not have the option of adding land.”
Knobloch’s previous political experience has been as a neighborhood activist.
The Azalea Avenue resident has been one of the leaders in opposing to Wing Point Golf and Country Club’s proposed practice range. An application for the facility was denied by a hearing examiner last year, but a new application for a modified project has been filed.
Knobloch said he would file for the office Friday, for the seat presently held by Merrill Robison, who has said he will not seek re-election.

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