“Do we hear sleighbells?We hope your stockings are hung by the chimney with all due care, and that you’ve been very, very good over the past year. We’re confident that most of you have been. So come Christmas morn, will you find a candy cane or just a lump of coal? Looking back over the year’s headlines, here are our humble suggestions to Santa Claus as he makes his rounds on Bainbridge Island.”
“It was a nice day to be in the water, provided nature gave you fins or a shell.But for divers Betsy Peabody and Joth Davis, in pursuit of the rare Olympia oyster, conditions Thursday were rather less welcoming.”
“It was a Catch-22 that would have confounded even the late Joseph Heller’s Yossarian:“We can’t prosecute you, Mr. Leonard, because you’re too paranoid to stand trial; but we can’t keep you in a mental institution because…well, we’re not saying, but here’s the door – out you go.”But this suggests that the strange case of Eagle Harbor liveaboard Ralph F. Leonard plays as farce. It does not.”
“Bainbridge Police had spent the past several weeks pondering several possible ways to recapture Ralph F. Leonard, newly accused of a police officer’s attempted murder last year.The last thing anyone expected was that Leonard, whose violent past and paranoia toward police was well documented over the past year, would come to them.”
“Where’s the fire?Next time it’s at your house, be glad someone cares. And on an island where runaway home prices are a constant threat to the viability of our largely volunteer fire brigade, we’re always glad to see the department take strides for the good.Last week, with the formal hiring of longtime volunteers Jim Dow, Sequoia Jones and David Bailey, as paid firefighters, it happened.”
“The cities of Bainbridge Island and Bremerton are teaming up for a legal challenge to Initiative 695.The suit, expected to be filed in Thurston County Superior Court today, was announced by officials from both cities Monday.“This suit reflects the underlying feelings and philosophy of Bainbridge Island citizens,” said Dwight Sutton, Bainbridge mayor. “It was a poorly crafted initiative, and it will mean economic disaster for all of us.””
“It’s not as hot as last year. Not quite. But Bainbridge Island’s real estate market still has local agents pleased with 1999 sales.“There’s a fair number of smiling faces,” said longtime island broker Ed Kushner of Windermere Real Estate. “It’s been a good year.” Eleven-month figures compiled by Kushner show 412 island home sales so far this year. At this time last year, 430 sales had closed, en route to a single-year Bainbridge record of 483.”
Two days at the mediation table have left the Bainbridge Island School District still holding the bag for an estimated $5.4 million in repairs to Woodward Middle School – half the building’s original construction cost.Formal mediation sessions Sept. 29 and Nov. 8 failed to determine who is responsible for poor construction that led to extensive water damage at the school – or who will pay how much to fix it – according to school board president Bruce Weiland.
“Not so fast, Bremertonians.“Bainbridge Island doesn’t stack up to Bremerton,” crowed the lead sentence of a front-page story in a Bremerton newspaper’s Thursday edition.The news story, about a “Sprawl Report Card” released this week by 1,000 Friends of Washington, a Seattle-based land-use watchdog organization, trumpeted the fact that Bremerton ranked fourth and Bainbridge Island 29th in a study of 33 Puget Sound municipalities’ approaches to growth-management strategies.”
“There is a caveat, but you have to hunt around a bit to find it.Tucked away at the bottom of page 11, about halfway through the document and next to a chart that ranks Bainbridge Island dead last in population per acre among Puget Sound cities, it reads:“Bainbridge Island is somewhat of an anomaly, because of its large land mass and mix of urban and rural environments.”
“For one day, Hollywood and home were one and the same.It was in sparkling evidence during Sunday’s special benefit premiere screenings of “Snow Falling On Cedars,” the eagerly awaited film adaptation of David Guterson’s critically aclaimed and best-selling novel, at Bainbridge Cinemas.”
“If someone gave an award for Bainbridge Island’s most assiduous citizen – Most Likely to Read Something Boring in the Public Interest – we’d probably nominate Vince Mattson.By our observation over these many years, Vince is in a class by himself. He seems to be the only private citizen on the island who actually reads the city budget cover to cover – every single year.”
