“Al Packard dreamed about resurrecting the past at his businesses on Madison Avenue. But the businesses have failed, and the question now is whether the property itself has a future.It would be expensive to remodel the building for anything other than automobile-service use, said Pavilion co-owner Jeff Brein, representing a group of local investors currently looking at the property.Packard built an auto-service business. But it wasn’t just any old garage. This one was a brown-stucco replica of a 1930s-era Sinclair station.And he built a restaurant, the Blue Water Diner. But it wasn’t just any old restaurant. Packard found an antique diner in Pennsylvania, trucked it to Bainbridge Island and restored it. “
“Heidi McKay was on the phone with her mother-in-law, and her son Timothy was sitting in front of the heater.Suddenly, a neighbor was pounding on her door asking, Do you know that your son is out in the middle of the road? Neighbors saved the developmentally disabled youth Dec. 13, after he left the house without warning and was about to wander onto the highway.I panicked, McKay said, recalling the moment neighbor Christina Garrigues appeared at the door, and ran several blocks, yelling, and when I got around the corner I saw he was okay. “
“Growing community, growing budget.Citing increasing demands for services, the Bainbridge Island City Council Wednesday adopted a $14.875 million operating budget for 2001, up from $12.9 million this year. “
“The building isn’t done, but the tenants were happy to settle in anyway – if only for an hour. Representatives of five social service agencies met inside the Marge Williams Center for the first time Thursday afternoon, making plans for a March 1 move-in date.We’re going to end up with a first-class building here – much more than we ever imagined a year ago, said local real estate agent Ed Kushner, who has spearheaded the project from its inception.The building was still very much a construction zone – tools and materials were scattered about, wires dangled here and there, blankets of insulation bulged from the unfinished walls. Outside, construction crews pounded away on a new peaked roof and a more robust balcony and facade. “
“‘Tis the season of giving. But not even our spirit of holiday generosity makes us feel good about spending $115,000 of taxpayer money to defend the city’s fast-food ordinance against Papa Murphy’s pizza store.The problem is not that the city capitulated before a superior court judge could decide the case.Nor is the problem the interpretations of the planning director and the hearing examiner to the effect Papa Murphy’s is formula take-out food, and therefore not permitted in the Village shopping center.The problem is the ordinance itself. While the settlement didn’t decide its validity, the law looks legally indefensible. “
“Tim Thompson is a guy who likes to hang from airplanes. Even without hearing his stories, one can tell from viewing the spectacular photographs in Thompson’s new collaborative book, Puget Sound: Sea Between the Mountains, that the man doesn’t mind taking a few risks in the name of art.If sticking his head out of a plane to photograph is the only way to capture a scene, then that’s what he does, no problem.Thompson has also hung from helicopters and from hot air balloons. When we’re doing air-to-air shoots, Thompson says, which is when you’re flying in tandem with another plane to photograph it, things can be a little tricky – you could run into each other, which is not ideal.One would imagine not. But there are other kinds of risks artists take, and Thompson has sustained his share of these, as well. “
“Twelve months and $115,000 later, the city has decided that Papa Murphy’s U-bake pizza is not a formula take-out food business after all.The city settled a lawsuit brought by Sequim businessman Mike Cooper, who challenged the city’s refusal to let his business locate in the Village shopping center, next to Radio Shack.In exchange for a city permit, Cooper agreed to drop his claim for damages. But the city will pay $80,000 in attorneys’ fees to Cooper, and will spend close to $35,000 paying its own attorney. “
“As one controversial island housing development neared the finish line, another cleared its initial hurdle.Last Friday, a Kitsap County judge rejected challenges to the 27-home Woodland Village development on Ferncliff Avenue. Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Leonard Kruse ruled last week that the city acted properly when it approved the project.In so doing, he may have ended a multi-year battle over the project’s density.We’re disappointed in the ruling, said Ferncliff Drive resident Lois Andrus, who appealed the city’s go-ahead along with the East Central Bainbridge Island Community Association.We’ll have to review the decision with our attorney to see where we go from here, she said, indicating that no decision had been made about whether to press a further appeal. “
“Kindergarteners and first graders could get swim lessons during morning and afternoon hours and vacations, under a reinstated school district program.Those grades were identified in a draft proposal made to the school board last week, with a formal presentation possibly coming next month. The program could be reinstated for the 2001-02 school year. “
“We can walk away from our jobs at any time.Impressment and indentured servitude having gone out with the 19th century, we’re pretty much free to jump ship at any time, assuming we can find someone new to take us on.To that extent, we have no problem with Police Chief Bill Cooper’s recent pursuit of the Top Cop job in Federal Way. Citing frustration with his regular commute to the island from Olympia – his house has failed to sell, after a year and a half on the market – Cooper dusted off his resume and went through an intensive application and interview process close to home. And, as reported elsewhere in this issue, he didn’t get the job. But with the source of Cooper’s frustration unchanged – his apparent inability to resettle in the vicinity of Bainbridge – Mayor Dwight Sutton and other city officials need to ask themselves: Should this arrangement continue at all? “
“The seasonal greeting these days is as likely to be Happy Holidays as Merry Christmas.Islanders’ increased awareness of non-Christian neighbors may be one reason for the inclusive salutation. It makes a major difference, says one member of the Jewish community who asked not to be identified. No one wants to be the Grinch who stole Christmas; it’s just nice to feel acknowledged. “
“Man, those cool cats groove, Daddy-o.Brush up on the Beatnik lingo, grab some bongos and a beret, then head for Pegasus Coffee House for Beat poetry and jazz with Bob McAllister and the Bischoff brothers, Dec. 16. McAllister, backed by Korum Bischoff on drums and Jared Bischoff on guitar, will read his own poetry and works by such Beat greats as Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure and Allen Ginsberg.I’m paying homage, poet McAllister says. So much of art is calculated, but if you want that first creative splurge, that flowing urge, that ‘instant poetry’ stuff, that improvisation, trust your first impulses like the Beat poets did. “
“Two projects in the formative stages could dramatically transform the face of downtown Winslow.Indianola resident Earl Miller has filed a pre-application for a complex of buildings at the northeast corner of Winslow Way and Madison Avenue, where Lundgren station and the red-brick building housing Schmidt’s Appliances, Paisley Place and Bainbridge Floor Covering now stand.Meanwhile, Bror Elmquist, a commercial construction manager and agent for the Magnano family of Seattle, is in the pre-application phase of a project on the northeast corner of Ericksen Avenue and Winslow, site of a now-demolished restaurant building that most recently was Doogal’s.Both are mixed-use projects that incorporate residential and commercial space. Bainbridge Island architect Charles Wenzlau is designing both projects. “
