“Mysteries of parking, email revealed”

"We're feeling a little low on the admonishment scale today - what, like we're supposed to have the answer to everyone's problems? - so we've decided to don our ombudsman cap, reach into the mail bag and try to answer a couple of reader queries."

“We’re feeling a little low on the admonishment scale today – what, like we’re supposed to have the answer to everyone’s problems? – so we’ve decided to don our ombudsman cap, reach into the mail bag and try to answer a couple of reader queries.Cinema parking: Several weeks back, a letter writer alluded to a purported parking agreement between Bainbridge Cinemas and neighboring businesses, to ease the theater’s occasional full-lot woes. That prompted a second writer – who in the quest for entertainment apparently had run afoul of the local meter maid – to comment: The Review could perform a valuable service to frustrated theater-goers by publishing a map which denotes, specifically, just where this ‘legally obligated’ parking is located.Not being big fans of contemporary American cinema (the world, we believe, looks much better in black and white), we seldom find ourselves in the cinema queue, so we had to go to building co-owner Jeff Brein for the answer. Brein reports that the Pavilion does have reciprocal parking agreements with six island businesses. After 5 p.m. each day, theater-goers can leave their cars in these lots without fear of being towed: Madison Avenue Garage; the Sherrard and McGonagle law office; the Wyatt House salon; the American Marine Bank and the Alliance Buildings on Winslow Way; and the Bainbridge Vet Clinic across the street.There apparently is a flier to this effect that is distributed when the Pavilion lot gets full. We suggested to Brein that he get a sign permit from the city to post the information outside, a suggestion not enthusiastically met after the cinema marquee dispute.City email accounts: Another reader recently complained of difficulty reaching Mayor Dwight Sutton and the various city council members via email, and said that the city’s web page did not include the relevant addresses.If you could dispatch a reporter to city hall to collect the email addresses for the mayor and city council, she wrote, and then print them in every issue, or at least once a week on your editorial page, you would be providing a great service for the public!We’re not really inclined to run the information on a weekly basis, as it’s comfortably ensconced in our annual Bainbridge Island Almanac 2000 that came out in February. (Copies of that fine tome are still available in the Review office.) But we will relay a few here for the benefit of the refrigerator magnet:Mayor Dwight Sutton and Administrator Lynn Nordby can be contacted via mayor@ci.bainbridge-isl.wa.usCity council members maintain personal email accounts for their own purposes, which are not available to the public. But blanket comments to the council can be sent to council@ci.bainbridge-isl.wa.usOther addresses of which readers might like to make note:Finance department: finance@ci.bainbridge-isl.wa.us Planning department: dcd@ci.bainbridge-isl.wa.us Police department: publicsafety@ci.bainbridge-isl.wa.usPublic works: pwadmin@ci.bainbridge-isl.wa.us (administration) and pwo&m@ci.bainbridge-isl.wa.us (operations).Municipal court: court@ci.bainbridge-isl.wa.usWhy so few primary addresses? To maintain order, administrative maven Lita Myers tells us. The courts are increasingly treating email messages to public agencies as public documents, so keeping incoming correspondence limited to a few avenues makes it easier to properly document and route comments. It’s not like it’s lost, Myers says. We check our email every day.Note: The city’s main web page does seem to include an email link, but we couldn’t get it to work Friday. Someone might want to look into that. “