Appreciate coverage

To the editor:

I write in appreciation of the coverage the Bainbridge Review has given recently to biking and walking infrastructure issues in our area. Your story on the March 16 City Council meeting featuring speaker Gil Penalosa summarized well the possibilities he laid out for Bainbridge to become a national leader in biking and walking.

Your April 1 report on construction at SR 305 and Johnson Road helped people understand the importance of that project. The project slows traffic, probably annoying many drivers. Your report detailed the value of the tunnel being built under the highway that will connect seven miles of trail, providing “anxiety-free” passage for bikers and walkers, including a connection to the North Kitsap High School.

Your March 31 story on the construction plans for a section of Eagle Harbor Drive was also informative. There, plans have been approved for a separated pathway on the south side of the Drive. But on the north side, bikers and walkers will still be exposed to danger from cars. Your story included several small changes that the City Council recommended to reduce that danger.

Thank you for this solid coverage of developments related to enhancing biking and walking in our area.

Fran Korten

Bainbridge Island

Stop bikers

To the editor:

Stop! What is being proposed? We live on a magnificent island in the Pacific Northwest! Are we here to destroy the small amount of forest we have left or preserve it for future generations? Some want the quick satisfaction they have been accustomed to but, at what price?

Before you change a pristine forest, you need to take a step back and think about why you’re doing this and what are the consequences. Yes, you desire more bike trails but what about the ecosystem?

I know there are very few places left that enjoy the wildlife we have coming to visit us, counting on us to preserve their home. We don’t want to displace them any further. If you move forward with the mountain biking proposal, the animals will suffer. More deer will be killed trying to get away from us along with rabbits, squirrels, opossums, moles, birds and many others. A forest cannot protect itself; we have to be good stewards of our remaining Island forests.

Reconsider what the action proposed will do and what the consequences will be.

Pam Walker

Bainbridge Island

Hazard pay?

To the editor:

Hazardous pay for grocery workers? By order of COBI City Council? What nutjobs.

The concern of civic government is the community at large, not as a stand-in labor union against the owners of private enterprise. It is not the council’s job to favor some at the expense of others. No power is given the state to tell the private sector the type or amount of pay it should render.

That’s the “minimum wage” fallacy. It would, instead, be far better for them to attend to fixing the all-too-frequent sewage leaks into Eagle Harbor at the Hawley Cove sewage plant than mucking about here.

Besides being bereft of reason what is this “hazardous pay” really about? Tyranny. William Pitt (the Younger) said it best in 1783: “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” Simply put the City Council wants to build on the COVID fear and tyrannically reinforce in the public mind that we need “to be afraid of our own shadow.”

Quite frankly the entire City Council should be summarily recalled over this.

Pete Brady

Bainbridge Island

More thanks

To the editor:

Thank you for your coverage of the Bainbridge MRC and Bainbridge Prepares (April 14, Tyler Shuey).

Andrea Chymiy MD is the founding coordinator of the Bainbridge MRC and has functioned as a coequal director. In addition to managing her practice, Pacifica Medicine and Wellness in Poulsbo, she has spent hundreds of hours coordinating volunteers, fielding questions, attending leadership meetings and performing vaccinations and tests at sites in Kitsap and Jefferson counties. Our community owes her a huge debt of gratitude.

Retired CDC professional Steve Bice and retired pharmacist Phil Ferguson were integral to launching the MRC in 2019 and 2020 and continue help in planning for future disasters.

Anne Lesage MPH, the emergency manager for COBI, has worked so well with Jared Moravec, BIFD deputy fire chief, and Loren Bast, executive director of Bainbridge Prepares. Retired MD Bob Fortner planted the original seed for the MRC in 1999, and it was nurtured by many cups of Nancy Fortner’s Espresso.

Rajlaxmi Bais DNP, ARNP vaccine handler and Pascal Schuback IT helped make the mass vaccination site a reality. Our 227 MRC volunteers both retired and those still working full-time have been phenomenally generous with their time, as have all our volunteers- the BIEMR’s, the CERT team, Rotary Bainbridge, BISD, VMFH, Reed Price and BI Senior Center, Robin Gaphni and Rita Elsberry at Island Volunteer Caregivers, Drs. Britt Gonsoulin and Amy Sing, who head up or mobile unit. We will soon surpass 10,000 volunteer hours just for 2021 to date. If you are interested in learning how you can support these efforts visit Bainbridgeprepares.org.

Also, David Doxtater of The Workshop designed the layout of our mass vaccination site.

It is a privilege to serve and assist our friends, neighbors and strangers in this way. With gratitude to all who make it possible (especially those I have neglected to mention, and my colleagues at VMFH)

David Cowan

Bainbridge Island