I found the time to go and attend the last hour of Saturday’s Strawberry Plant Park meeting. It turned out it was an invitation-only meeting. I was able to sneak in and listen to what the various five groups had to propose. I also read a letter sent by city planner Libby Hudson to the editor of the Review since – according to her – the editorial “included some misconceptions and misinterpretations” of the event.
Our family recently purchased an electric vehicle. We’re in that little red, mini-mini-van looking thing tooling around the roads of Bainbridge Island. We call it “Wattson.”
Four days ago I bought an Obama-Biden yard sign from the local Democrat headquarters for $5 and planted it on our front yard, not far from the road. Within hours the sign had been taken away by a person unknown.
Laurie Rice suggested in her letter to the editor (“Go green(backs)! Ride that bus,” Sept. 17) that parents of school age children pack the school buses on Bus Count Week. Packing the school busses during Bus Count Week would cause the state to overpay the school district for the services actually provided. Excuse me, isn’t that cheating? What kind of a lesson are you teaching your children? Are you saying it is OK to cheat the state out of money because you believe school busses are good or the schools need more money?
The first Bainbridge Youth Market and Garden Exchange was held Sept. 13, and was a big success largely due to the generosity of Linda Brandt. Linda owns the building on Madrone Lane where Mora Ice Cream is located, and is letting us use the lot above it for our Youth Market every Saturday. She also purchased for us two large canopies.
Two months ago I read an article about a Willamette Valley farmer who, with state and public utility incentives, erected a 10-kilowatt windmill on his farm at a cost to him of $12,000.
A letter in Saturday’s paper came to the conclusion that bulkheads do not threaten the health of Puget Sound. Substantial information is available on the effects of bulkheads.
The economic downturn that is presently engulfing us was brought on subtly by two basic events.
The Review’s editorial in the Aug. 23 edition (“”Council needs to make some big decisions”) is a real jaw dropper. The editorial derides as “bellowing,” and “prone to emotional outbursts” the three council members who have vocally challenged the Kordonowy administration’s spending practices. Having thus nuked the dissident threesome, the piece then magnanimously invites them to try “a little civility,” an admonition to which I’m sure all three will accede once they pick themselves up off the floor.
Further about your Aug. 20 editorial (“Neighborly way is best”), being “neighborly” is as island neighborly does. And this has got to get more close and personal.
Mr. Stevens’ letter placing blame on the mayor for the city’s financial woes misses the mark entirely. We learned in the last few years that we are suffering from an entirely dysfunctional City Council that cannot find a way to compromise on significant issues. Even when they do sometimes agree on a policy or program they come back later and pull the rug out from under some poor city employee that had the audacity to enforce their stated wishes.
It’s official: the city finance director is projecting that the city will go $4 million in the hole this year, a loss of almost one in every six dollars of the taxes, fees, grants and loans taken in. Unless the city issues councilmanic debt (what an apt name!), the city will burn through almost all of its cash by the end of 2008, leaving us in a liquidity crisis.
Janet Kragen’s letter (“Foxes would take care of varmints,” Aug. 9) denounced deer as varmints. I would like to offer another view and some suggestions. I admit I’m not much interested in gardening, but to me having those beautiful wild animals strolling past my window is worth any number of posies all standing in a row.
