Like many of you, I’m a taxpayer and a utility ratepayer on Bainbridge Island, and, as your at-large City Council member, I’ve got good news about our city’s water utility.
You know you’ve been naughty when a newspaper editorial comes out with the advice that everyone who works for, oversees operations of, sets policy for, or who is either specifically or generally unhappy with – the city – should sit down, take a deep breathe, exhale, then do it again and again until your focus about what’s happening at City Hall is less blurred.
If you are fortunate enough to get your water from the Kitsap Public Utility District (KPUD) or from South Bainbridge Water, you may be surprised that those who get water from the City of Bainbridge Island (COBI) pay twice as much as you do.
My friend Clif was kind enough to invite a group of us to his place at Suncadia a couple of weekends ago for a little golf, a little poker, some fine dining, and a lot of what to the untrained eye might have looked like sitting around engaged in idle chatter, which, in reality, was a series of high-level intellectual exercises.
My grandmother, Toyo Makishi Rogers Kaponpon, was in her early 20s when she met John Rogers, an American sailor in her hometown of Okinawa, Japan in 1946.
Bainbridge Island isn’t immune to division concerning important issues, though the split here often involves local challenges as compared to the divisive politics now being played out on state, regional and national levels. But islanders are perhaps more connected than many communities, especially when it comes to preserving the island’s more forested areas.
Our daughter Lauren is in Ireland where she will be spending a year studying abroad in Galway. We were all very excited about having her go to Ireland, right up until the moment it came time to say goodbye and put her on a plane.
Through the centuries, we humans have used many names for these strange birds: monkey-faced owl, ghost owl, church owl, hobgoblin or hobby owl, delicate owl, and, yes, the death owl.
Proposition No. 110-2011, which will appear on the Nov. 8 general election ballot, is simple enough. In part, it reads: “If approved, this proposition would form the Port of Bainbridge Island, with boundaries co-extensive with those of the City of Bainbridge Island and governed by a five-member Port Commission with members elected at large. Should the Port of Bainbridge Island be formed?”
Recent events have served to remind the City Council of the need to communicate honestly and directly with one another in order to avoid misunderstandings and to preserve the trust we have worked to build over the last year and a half
