Having waitressed on both sides of the street, Diane Hornick has long admired the mature Japanese maple at Ericksen Avenue and Winslow Way – and the passing of seasons as heralded in its leaves.
“I see that tree change colors every year, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” said Hornick, a veteran of the erstwhile Doogal’s eatery now working at Streamliner Diner. “I’d adopt it for my house, let me tell you – in a heartbeat.”
After two hours of sometimes heated discussion, the Bainbridge City Council Wednesday took another small step towards permitting sewers to go into four south-end neighborhoods.
The council approved a $120,000 consulting contract for preliminary engineering work. But the issue that prompted a vocal debate – exactly who should pay – was reserved for another day, and will be revisited after the study is done.
“It will be easier to talk about the cost issues when we have a better idea of what the costs actually are,” council chair Michael Pollock said.
For the last decade or more, since all-island cityhood and the passage of the state’s Growth Management Act, Bainbridge Island has lived in a legal limbo.
Legally, we are a city. But in our hearts, there’s still a good bit of country, wanting as we do our farms, fields and trees.
Bees dart among flowers at Port Blakely Cemetery, while a hawk circles high above in the July sun.
Toppled gravestones, though, mar the scene, bearing witness still to last summer’s vandalism.
It was last July that a painted swastika was discovered near the cemetery entrance, with two gravestones overturned in the Jewish section. In mid-August, vandals damaged 70 grave sites.
It will be sort of like a garage sale at King Tut’s — 1,363 items, including gold, diamonds, exotic cars, custom furniture and artwork by the likes of Rembrandt and Chihuly.
This is not your ordinary auction – not even your Rotary Auction.
Rather, it’s the court-ordered disposal of personal property accumulated by the defunct Bainbridge-based Health Maintenance Corporation, Znetix and several company principals.
The Bainbridge Island Park Board will take public comment Thursday on its upcoming maintenance and operations levy.
The levy is slated to appear on the Sept. 17 primary ballot; at issue this week is the levy amount, which has changed since a first attempt failed at the polls in February.
As proposed, the two-year, $4.92 million levy would support park district operations for 2003-2004.
The levy amount has been upped from the previous levy amount of $4.8 million.
While state troopers won’t search vehicles waiting to board ferries, they will randomly ride the boats and patrol terminals as an enhanced security measure.
“Their presence is a deterrent,” Washington State Ferries spokesperson Susan Harris said Tuesday. “They choose a day, time and vessel to ride. Today, they are at Colman Dock.”
The fields have lain fallow for years. But the short trek to an inviting tree perched at meadow’s edge still yields a small crop of island-grown goodness: cherries.
“Just like pie cherries are supposed to taste,” says Edith Ostrom, sampling the fruit from the homestead on which she grew up so many decades ago.
“They’re not sweet.”
And that was just fine for Ostrom, her daughter Brita and other family members who visited the North Madison Avenue farm Friday. It was the sort of warm summer afternoon for which cherry-pickin’ was perfect.
Family members believe there’s still great potential in the fertile soil – and in the 19-acre property itself, most of which they hope to sell to the city through the new Open Space Commission.
Gayle Bard’s garden is as unique as her paintings.
Bard applies the sensibility that makes her a stand-out West Coast artist to her garden, using long grasses like gracillimus sinensis “morning light” to make three-dimensional line drawings.
“I just like the structure of grass,” Bard said. “My gardens are more about textures and shades of green than pretty flower petals.”
Having listened to city staff and citizens, the city council tonight will adopt a list of goals and objectives for the year 2003 that it hopes are specific enough to guide next year’s budget.
That may be an exercise in subtraction, not addition.
“The present list contains much more than can be done next year,” Mayor Darlene Kordonowy said. “The council will have to identify the priorities. If they don’t, then the staff and the administration will have to make the choices.”
Even in a down economy, the Rotary Auction thrives.
The June 29 event raised a record $229,800 – up from a previously unprecedented $210,000 in 2001.
“I’m very pleased,” said Brent Olson, immediate past president of Bainbridge Rotary. “I’m surprised. With the rain and the new venue and everything, I hadn’t expected such a great gain.
“We’re just delighted with it.”
Friendship and music go hand-in-hand for Side by Side. The 15 vocalists in the island-based singing group, named Stephen Sondheim’s musical tribute to friendship, have been making music together since 1995.
“I think the beauty of the group is that it’s so stable,” alto Denise Harris said. “In those eight years, we’ve only lost three members – two because of health and one because they got too busy.”
Ken Crawford may be superintendent more by chance than by choice.
Crawford, whom the Bainbridge School Board promoted when Steve Rowley left the post last month, has followed a career track in special education that doesn’t usually lead to the district’s top office.