Editor’s note: Bainbridge Island City Councilmembers talk a lot about climate change, but do they practice what they preach? You can decide as you read stories about six of them over the next month.

Jon Quitslund will be the first to admit he is more balanced in his approach to development and the environment than his colleagues on City Council.

But that doesn’t mean he has a large carbon footprint.

On the contrary, he lives in a natural environment, surrounded by trees, ponds and shrubbery. When his family bought the place from George Little and David Lewis in 1980 they promised to be “stewards of the place.”

His house is only 30 feet by 30 feet, but two stories. He’s home most of the time, and has one car, a Prius hybrid. He doesn’t travel by air anymore; the farthest he travels is to see a son in Portland.

He’s very self-sustaining.

He has a heat pump and windows that help keep the house warm. Quitslund said he never thought he’d be on council. But after being on the Planning Commission for nine years former City Councilmember Christy Carr invited him to run when she decided not to. He was born in 1939 in Washington, D.C., and went to George Washington University and then graduate school at Princeton.

His father own land here. He went to first grade here, and spent many a summer here also. “I have a lot of childhood memories here,” he said.

He wrote a column for the old Bremerton Sun (now Kitsap Sun) for years about BI.

After retiring here he became involved in the critical areas ordinance. Now-state Sen. Christine Rolfes was on the council at the time. “There was tension between pro-development and environmentalists at the time,” Quitslund said. “Growth was more controversial in the past,” he said.

Quitslund said most on the council, and in the community, seem to understand now that BI must grow. But it can grow responsibly in certain areas and have different types of housing. He said affordable housing is a must because people are having to leave their homes, and “the school system is in trouble,” with a lack of students leading to a decrease in state funding. “The writing’s on the wall,” about the need to grow, he said, adding the newest people to BI seem to understand that best.