Dogs, dollars, discussion are primary points of contention in Bainbridge parks board race

Voters are being asked to choose between legacy and innovation in the race for Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Parks & Recreation Board Commissioner Position 5, a six-year term. Longtime incumbent Kirk Robinson, who has held the role since 2003, and newcomer Michael Pollock came together to answer 15 questions before a crowd of about 45 people last week during a forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Kitsap at city hall, touching on topics ranging from the realities of off-leash dog spaces and term limits for commissioners to bottom-up decision making processes and the actual overall financial health of the district.

Several primary points of contention eventually emerged to distinguish the candidates.

Pollock at one point expressed concern when asked about the financial health of the parks department, saying the organization had operated with “a bit of a deficit” for “about four of fives years now.”

“I’ve been looking through the budget, trying to understand,” Pollock said.

“It’s a bit challenging, it’s not a particularly open budget. It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but it’s not super lucid. I think we need to take a look at that and figure out why there are financial problems,” he said.

Robinson was quick to immediately refute the claim, however.

“First of all, there are no financial problems,” Robinson said. “When the district was formed, the board consciously set our budget lower than what our revenue was coming in at in order to build a rainy day fund. It just so happens that five or six years into that process the recession hit and it had a big impact on our revenues.

“What we were able to do was spend down the reserves — that rainy day fund — in order to maintain the programs and the properties we had in a condition that people could still enjoy without much impact on their ability to use those facilities,” he explained.

The predictably divisive topic of off-leash dog areas, perhaps inevitably, arose at one point, spawning some disagreement among the candidates.

When asked if he supports “shared use” of trails so that owners of “well behaved dogs can have the opportunity to walk dogs off-leash at designated times,” Pollock opined on the need for completely democratic access to public areas.

“As a general philosophy, I really support the idea of having as many multi-use trails as possible,” Pollock said. “We all kick in a chunk of change to run our parks, and so if there’s a use that people want for a trail, I think it behooves us to do our best to accommodate that.

“In terms of the particular question, I think that absolutely we should be providing that,” he added. “I know that there’s a great demand for dogs and dog walkers that need to exercise them properly. So, I support that.”

Robinson said he would support no new allowances that might detract from the existing user experience.

“I do not support shared use of trails for a number of reasons,” Robinson said. “A lot of people that use the trails don’t like what’s left behind by the dogs. Not only the poop and the poop bags that are left on the side of the trail, but also the damage they do. If we made, say, the Grand Forest an off-leash area for dogs for four hours a day, three days a week, it would probably look like the Strawberry Hill Dog Park after a while, with all the underbrush gone and damage to the vegetation and the wildlife in the trail area.

“It takes away the use that already exists for a lot of people who may have to suddenly reschedule, in a busy schedule, the times that they’re able to walk,” Robinson added.

Regarding the means of gathering, and the attention paid to, public input during particularly contentious discussions, the question was asked how each candidate would “balance the loud vs. soft voices in decision-making,” specifically regarding the ultimate use of the Sakai property.

Robinson espoused his belief in data-driven decision-making to outweigh overly vocal support of any one option.

“I think it will be incumbent upon the board to really do in-depth analysis,” he said. “It’s not just the louder voices, it’s all the voices. We listen to all of them.

“You do your research, we find out what the demand is,” Robinson explained. “We can have people talking about, ‘We need more basketball courts,’ or something else, but if you step back and you use the data we have available, for our classes and our league programs, and understand what that need is, you can get a true picture of what is really needed — versus what is really wanted.”

Pollock expressed his faith in the ability of technology to better connect the board with those less directly engaged.

“You really do have to reach out and get the voices of the people who are quiet,” Pollock said. “Not everybody’s willing to get up and speak here, for example, or even to attend a meeting. Some people don’t have the time to attend a meeting.

“This is the great age of communication, and I think there are a number of ways we can reach out to people that might be too busy or shy and really work to use some of these more modern tools to find out really what people are thinking and what they want.”

Asked what the “most pressing concern” for the district was, the candidates split again.

Pollock said a need to improve communication and realigning “budget priorities with the public priorities” was the “main reason I’m running.”

Robinson said the district’s biggest immediate concern was also the “unsexiest thing out there,” and insisted facility infrastructure was the district’s biggest current challenge, as many of its buildings and facilities are quite old and in need of crucial, regular upkeep.

The district’s recent split with the senior center was not directly referenced in any crowd-generated question, though it did arise as part of the final question, when the candidates were asked if they were expecting to discuss a subject they had not yet.

The manner in which the district works with nonprofit partners, Pollock said, was an area he was eager to address.

“Certainly you heard a lot of frustration, I think particularly from the senior center, that the relationships with the parks has not been as good as it could, that there’s opportunity for improvement there,” Pollock said. “I just really want to say to the people of the senior center that you absolutely can count on my support, if I’m elected, to really help to improve and repair relationships there.”

Robinson clarified the nature of the breakup, saying there was no acrimony among the senior center and parks district.

“The point is, earlier this year the senior center and the park district parted ways on mutual basis as a result of an attempt at renegotiating the agreement we’ve always had between the two entities,” Robinson said. “We’re in a unique position in that we have a nonprofit organization that represents the seniors, as well as the park district. Most communities you’ll go to, it’s a park district … that may run the senior center. It’s not an affiliated organization.

“We got into an situation where the senior center had new leadership and they wanted to take a more active role, and they were trying to create situations that we could not fiducially support,” Robinson said. “In wanting to do specific things that took our control of the finances away from the district, the net result is we’ve gone different ways.

“That doesn’t mean things are going to change as far as us offering recreation programs for the 50-plus crowd; we’re still going to do that. It just means the senior center is operating the building itself and doing all the hiring,” he said.

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