JULY

Amid bickering, the City Council – did we just type that? – includes a parking garage among the priority projects for downtown planning. The structure, which could cost as much as $15 million, has the backing of Winslow merchants and property owners.

Just who will design the garage is another matter entirely. Engineers flee the city’s Department of Public Works, citing higher pay in the private sector and the island’s endless political process. “You start working on (a project), but it gets tossed around like a hot potato and then dropped. Decisions seemed political,” one former employee says. “All the politics – that was a frustrating part.”

Renovation of the Bainbridge High School campus is under way, and first noticeable change is visible from the street – a 40- foot sequoia tree, found to be sitting on top of utilities, is felled. A consultant’s report says the tree “compromised the integrity at certain areas of the existing perimeter footing drains, sanitary sewer lines and storm drain lines.” Translation: it was in the way.

The park district gets a new logo; it includes several trees.

All those toys, tools, trinket and toilets really add up: the Rotary Auction and Rummage Sale enjoys another record haul, grossing upwards of $380,000. Close to 1,000 volunteers make the event a success.

Out come the new home valuations, and up goes the value of island properties – by 15 to 19 percent, the county assessor says. That follows a 20 percent increase in valuations in 2005, driven by the robust real estate market.

The Housing Resources Board purchases Island Terrace Apartments on High School Road. The purchase saves the 48-unit subsidized project from redevelopment and the residents from certain eviction.

The Broom, nee Scotch Broom, marks 25 years of dispensing environmental wisdom by the Association of Bainbridge Communities. Vern’s Winslow Drug marks 50 years dispensing prescriptions.

Citing the fear of slides on an adjacent hillside, neighbors demand that the city close Halls Hill Road. Average high temperature that week: 83 degrees. Rainfall: 0.0 inches. The City Council agrees with the danger and orders the road closed.

A new activist group calling itself Island Keepers rallies around Halls Hill, Blakely Harbor docks and other hot-button issues. Meanwhile, Ferncliff Avenue neighbors are angered by tree-clearing in their area to make way for a new subdivision.

Bainbridge Island’s first-ever Relay for Life event is an inspiration. Seventeen teams of walkers and runners circle the Bainbridge High School track for nearly 24 hours, raising $40,000 for the American Cancer Society.

Congressman Jay Inslee rallies support for a bill to add the Japanese American Internment Memorial site to the roster of national monuments. Across the island, white supremacist graffiti is left at a Jewish family’s residence at Battle Point.

AUGUST

Two weeks after ordering Halls Hill Road closed to traffic, the City Council orders the road open again. The turnabout comes after a consulting engineer disputes the danger of slides on the adjacent hillside.

Plans to clear a row of 80 trees next to a Day Road farm sets off a dispute between the farmer and his neighbors. Vista Drive neighbors say the trees are dangerous – and admit they wouldn’t mind better views to the west. Farmer Akio Suyematsu, who sold the property to the city but still lives on and works land, calls city officials “doublecrossers” for even considering clearing the stand of Douglas firs he planted decades earlier. Suyematsu vows to fight City Hall.

The Kitsap County Consol­idated Housing Authority an­nounces the purchase of Finch Place Apartments in downtown. The move preserves a 29-unit complex that serves seniors of modest means, who call themselves “a community within a community” in Winslow.

Popular project engineer Lorenz Eber, the father of the Madison Avenue roundabout, announces his departure from the city as his wife takes a job in Washington D.C. Eber’s legacy is secure; seeing the popularity of the island’s traffic circle, Poulsbo officials announce that they might build one of their own.

A wayward vehicle jumps the curb in front of Winslow Mall, charges across the promenade and crashes through the front window of the Flowering Around florist shop. No injuries.

A spate of day-time break­ins are reported at homes in Meadowmeer, Wing Point and other neighborhoods. Money, jewelry and computer equipment are stolen; in one break-in, the thief pauses to eat leftover pizza and drink liquor.

Vandals cut down three trees and spray paint sexually aggressive graffiti on a building at Battle Point Park. The incident follows by several days the smashing of windows at the park’s historic transmitter building. No one is caught.

The city orders Holly Farm Lane near Island Center to stop hosting weddings and running a bed and breakfast without proper permits. The shutdown follows complaints from a neighbor – the source of most city code enforcement actions, officials say.

Bainbridge Island native Greg Spooner and three friends win a trans-Atlantic boat race under power of oar. The intrepid crew rows from the mainland United States to Falmouth, England, in just 68 days, the first Americans ever to complete the journey.

Bainbridge firefighters court former chief Kirk Stickels to come back and lead the department after five years in retirement. Fire commissioners lean toward a full candidate search, noting that the job description has changed significantly since Stickels last held the post.

Grow Avenue residents are unhappy with the city over traffic planning on their street. Oh wait, that was last month. Er, next month.

SEPTEMBER

Bainbridge Kiwanis name Wini Jones the island’s 2006 Citizen of the Year. Jones is nominated for her work with local access television and economic development.

Washington State Ferries announces plans to improve and expand wireless internet access aboard the boats. The rub: the service will no longer be free.

The headline “Spartans beat Mercer Island” moves from the sports pages to the front page, as this victory is in the classroom, not on the field. Final WASL results show Bainbridge High School edging the rival Islanders in academic proficiency.

Eleven-year-old Maddy Figuer­oa holds a garage sale to raise funds for tsunami relief in Sri Lanka.

An email exchange over war, politics, theism and the Pledge of Allegiance sets off fireworks for the City Council, as veterans chide council members for not reciting the pledge before every meeting. The council agrees to give the pledge a fixed place on the agenda.

Rep. Beverly Woods is featured speaker at the Bainbridge Republican Women’s luncheon. On the menu: Grilled Woods. The incumbent is chastised for her support of a gas tax increase, but Woods holds her ground and insists that state transportation improvements must be funded. And as the election looms, she cautions skeptics: “If we lose this seat to a Democrat, we may never get it back.”

The chilly turn for GOP moderates extends to the primary election, as Central Kitsap Republicans boot county commissioner Patty Lent after a single term. Handed the party banner is conservative Jack Hamilton, to face Democrat Josh Brown for the now open commission seat in November.

Master craftsmen construct a wooden pavilion at the Internment Memorial site.

Expansion of the Seattle Yacht Club’s dock on Port Madison is approved by a city hearing examiner over the objections of neighbors. But the size of the dock is scaled back.

Eagle Harbor liveaboards file suit over city efforts to remove vessels deemed derelict or abandoned. “It’s a perpetual city hammer poised over our heads, ready to squash,” one liveaboard says.