“Bainbridge Island: Where our glass is always half-empty.”

Sometimes we wonder if that’s the local mantra, given some of the carping one hears in the island’s figurative town square. Growth, change, neighborhood in-fighting, economic pressures, political tussles…it oft-times makes for an unhappy community stew. But then something comes along – more precisely, some person – that reminds us why we stay here: Bainbridge is rich with good people.

Take “Who’s Who 2006,” the supplement in this edition of the Review, in which we chronicle 10 islanders for their work in the community. While balloting is ongoing for this year’s “Best of Bainbridge” – our readers’ choice awards for local venues, shops, professionals and personalities – Who’s Who honorees have generally been decided by the newroom staff. This year, we did what we usually do: dig out the “morgue books” of the past year’s newspapers and see who made the headlines or worked behind them.

The results give a pretty good cross-section of the island itself – environmental activists, local business promoters, arts impresarios, volunteers who give their free time to local human services and cultural projects. Some, like activist Dennis Vogt – battling the city to protect neighborhood streetscapes from “one size fits all” road improvements – have come onto the scene fairly recently.

Others, like Lee Robinson, qualify as “lifetime achievers”; in her case, that’s 15 years with the Bainbridge-Ometepe Sister Islands Association and all the good that organization has done. And each year we highlight a student like Mark Salanga, who represents the best and most promising among the island’s younger generation.

Make you feel good? Us too. Which is why we chuckled a bit when someone mentioned that the Review has been derisively branded the island’s “feel-good newspaper” on one of the local blogs. (Better than we fared in the local political climate of a few years ago. Back then, the Review’s news staff was comprised of five left-leaning Democrats and even had an office subscription to The Nation magazine, yet was still routinely pilloried as the island’s “conservative” newspaper. Ouch.) We could adopt a sky-is-falling attitude, but that wouldn’t really reflect the life of privilege and weal that islanders by and large enjoy.

A community newspaper is just that: a newspaper that represents the community with all its many voices and views, not just those fashionable at the moment. Which is why, over the 15 years we’ve put out our Who’s Who supplement, we’ve included not just environmentalists, teachers and firefighters – the usual “feel good” types who most everyone likes – but developers, architects, real estate brokers and business entrepreneurs. They’re all working to put their own stamp on Bainbridge Island, perhaps in ways that some of us don’t care for. But they also reflect the pluralism essential to building a community rather than a bastion. They make the news, so we write about them; it will be interesting to see who emerges in the coming year.

In the meantime, thanks to the work of the 10 people on the 2006 list, we’re convinced the island’s glass is half-full. Why stay here otherwise?