After years of sitting vacant, the contaminated former gas station property at Winslow Way and Highway 305 may finally be cleaned up and put to use.
Property owner Union Oil Company of California (Unocal), which operated a Union 76 station on the site, is studying the site, and looking at ways to remedy the contamination to the satisfaction of the state Department of Ecology.
That, in turn, would allow the property to be sold for development.
The power of palaver drives Conversation Cafe.
The moderated open discussions of selected topics, conceived by Seattle author Vicki Robins, were brought to Pegasus last summer by islander Kat Gjovik.
“I learned about it by word of mouth,” Gjovik said. “Then I went to an orientation session at Antioch College for Conversation Cafe facilitators and found that I was absolutely compelled to start one here.”
Bainbridge City Council chair Michael Pollock thinks Mayor Darlene Kordonowy should have a lawyer advise her on the parameters of her job.
His complaint: Kordonowy interjects herself into policy discussions, and policy is the exclusive province of the council.
“She really likes to be involved in policy discussions – she’s a policy person, not an administrative person,” Pollock said. “The council meetings are for the council to conduct business, and the mayor’s interjections are disruptive.”
The mayor sees matters the other way around.
For the actors in the latest Bainbridge Performing Arts production, the chance to perform comes with strings attached.
In BPA’s adaptation of “Pinocchio,” many of the young cast play marionettes, tethered to a stage-within-a-stage that was designed and constructed by the high school-age stage crew.
The term “junk sculpture” might suggest worthless work, but the art Bainbridge High School senior Benj Cameron makes from island trash is both beautiful and expressive.
“I believe we look at the world through a very narrow lens, one that sees items as having one use and one use only,” Cameron says. “My method of sculpting comes from my conviction that ‘garbage’ is often more useful and more valuable than products one can buy.”
Meghan Manheim always carries a special cache of yellow cards.
On one side are the words “This card is a cry for help!” and on the other, “This ribbon is a lifeline.”
The card is part of the Yellow Ribbon suicide prevention program that freshman Manheim and her parents have brought to Bainbridge High School.
Abort, retry or fail?
Purchase of laptop computers for use by city council members crashed this week, over draft policies on the machines’ use.
The issue went before the council at its Wednesday meeting, but was sent back to the finance committee after members said they had not seen the draft policies.
If you live in Bainbridge Island’s central ward, you are represented by three city council members.
If you live in the north or south ward, you are represented by only two.
Believing that the arrangement may be illegal, the city council is considering redrawing Bainbridge Island’s political map more fundamentally than simply shifting the boundaries of the three wards.
The Bainbridge Island Fire Department and its clerical employees have agreed to a labor contract, the first since department employees voted to unionize in 2000.
The contract provides for immediate raises of roughly 13 percent. One position will see annual raises of 4.5 percent each of the next two years, while future increases for the other position are tied to the cost of living.
The first attempt at traffic calming on Madison Avenue met with something less than unanimous support.
City engineers hope a new project to improve safety on the street – where crossing pedestrians and speeding vehicles often find themselves in conflict – will be better received.
When Jim Vaughan’s right leg first went numb in 1974, he thought it was just a virus.
It took six more years for a doctor to suggest a diagnosis, and seven more for Vaughan, who helps lead the multiple sclerosis support group on the island, to be convinced he had MS.
Some see them as the keyboards to happiness, but disagreement continues over the proposed purchase of three laptop computers for city council use.
As with others spheres of youth culture, the skateboard business can be driven as much by fashion as functionality.
So concedes Cameron Weiss, the young entrepreneur behind the ABCM Board Shop on Madison Avenue.
“Something’ll be the coolest thing one week,” Weiss said, “and the next week, no one wants it because everyone’s got it.”