(The following is adapted from remarks made last week at “Reading Leading,” an event held by the Bainbridge Schools Foundation to celebrate island authors and benefit school district reading programs. I omitted the part where I pointed out that a copy of “Skeletons from Our Closet” would make an excellent Father’s Day or graduation present. And to the very gracious staff at Wing Point where the event was held, I apologize again and want to reiterate that I have no idea how all that silverware got into my briefcase.)
Ron Konzak is the Bard of Bainbridge, a poet and “island treasure.” Esoteric, eclectic, electric, creative, humanistic, universalistic, humorous — Ron is these and more.
Habitat for Humanity, perhaps one of our society’s more effectual programs created to help people help themselves, has had very little success on Bainbridge Island. In recent years it has turned donated land into two houses built in the Fort Ward area and another at Hidden Cove, but the island’s skyrocketing land values have made it difficult for the Kitsap County nonprofit to afford the type of ambitious projects it prefers.
I took a short trip by plane this weekend and discovered airports have started something new since my last flight — security lines where travelers self-identify by experience and degrees of personal chaos.
Step by step we are working to restore the health of Puget Sound, the rivers and our Pacific Coast. We’re working through the Puget Sound Partnership clean-up effort and also implementing the Tribal/State Ocean Ecosystem Initiative – an ecosystem-based approach to management of our Pacific coastal waters – to make this part of the world a healthier place for all of us to call home.
I listen to the City Council with rapt wonder. How they discuss money, taxes, expenditures and budgets!
Poulsbo City Council member Becky Erickson dispatched an email Thursday with a copy of a proposed joint resolution she wants the governments of her city, Bainbridge and the Suquamish Tribe to approve and send to the state Department of Transportation. Cutting through all the “whereases,” the gist of it is to sequence the lights on SR-305 to the road end at Highway 3 “to maximize traffic flow (north and south)… during commute hours… in such a way as to reduce the excessive queuing times and move the traffic flow through the corridor in a timed pattern to avoid traffic flow interruption.”
It is the responsibility of cities to maintain their roads, sidewalks and utilities. It is also a top tax priority of our community that the city provides safe, efficient utilities. Some have suggested recently that we should just fix the sewer main on Winslow Way and then in later years we can rip up the street again and repair the other utilities, road and sidewalks. The fact is that all three utilities on Winslow Way – water, sewer and stormwater – are cracked, failing or deficient. Significant sections of the sidewalk are also in disrepair. The current proposed Winslow Way project would correct all of these failing and deficient infrastructures.
For an island tucked away in the Pacific Northwest, Bainbridge often finds a way to become involved with national and international issues, primarily because of the type of people it attracts. Take Russell Regan for example. Regan and his family adopted a Guatemalan child in the 1990s and he eventually started an adoption agency based on the island. Today, some 30 children from that impoverished Central American country live on Bainbridge with their adopted parents.
I did a Google search on the word “heaven” and came up with 196 million hits, which seems like a lot of information about a place that (a) none of us has actually been to; and (b) may not even exist.
The season of pomp and circumstance is upon us again. We duly celebrate the achievements of the students of Bainbridge Island School District, we recognize the dedicated efforts of the district’s faculty and staff, and we express our gratitude for community members’ myriad hours of volunteer service in and generous financial support of schools. In my view, we owe special thanks, particularly this year, to the members of the district’s Board of Directors.
As expected, everyone was polite and smiley when David Moseley, the new leader of Washington State Ferries, addressed the Bainbridge Island City Council on Wednesday. Word has it that Moseley is more attuned to public needs than the usual suspects running the system. Nevertheless, simmering just below the surface was the residue of a deep-rooted quarrel between the city and WSF regarding the ferry system’s Eagle Harbor maintenance yard.
Members who could not attend the Bainbridge Island Senior Community Center’s annual meeting on May 12 missed a great speaker.
