We believe the installation of a park at the Unocal site should be aggressively pursued, but there are underlying issues that must be addressed before a park is constructed at the corner of Winslow Way and State Route 305.
While the power outages during the recent snowstorm were relegated to just a few small areas, there were several instances of islanders being stranded for much of the three-day event. Those isolated instances may seem minor, but they illustrate a dire need for additional “warming stations” other than the one now established at the Senior Community Center.
“We may be born with an urge to help.” That was the headline of a news article (published in 2009) summarizing some biologists’ and psychologists’ views partly derived from testing and observing behavior in very young children.
A three-day weekend was extended by a couple of days for most islanders this week after the midweek’s heavy snowfall lingered with below-freezing temperatures overnight and through Thursday. While the governor declared a state of emergency in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties because of an ice storm and power outages, there was very little wind on Bainbridge and only a few isolated outages.
This past week I had an epiphany. I awoke early one morning and wandered downstairs to watch television until it was light enough to go steal my neighbor’s newspaper. I found myself flipping back and forth between two programs that eerily captured the spirit of the seemingly limited choices available to mankind these days.
Gov. Chris Gregoire’s plan to fund a $3.6 billion transportation package by placing a $1.50 fee on each barrel of oil produced in the state is a stopgap action at a time when Washington’s transportation infrastructure has critical needs and not enough money to fund it. As a fee, the proposal skirts the two-thirds legislative vote required to pass new taxes – in this instance, a gas tax. She’s betting that there will be enough votes in the legislature for a simple-majority approval.
This past Dec. 10, West Sound Wildlife surpassed a dubious milestone when we admitted our 1,000th patient of the year. Never before has West Sound Wildlife taken in 1,000 patients or more in a year.
In an effort to increase revenue, the City Council decided last year to nearly double the fee for parking ticket violations to $50 throughout the city. The policy-makers also increased the time limit in some parts of Winslow from two to three hours, and later in the year added a second parking enforcement officer.
If nothing else, life is serendipitous, at least when a person is open to the unforeseen. For example, check out our sports feature on page A10. It details the unusual turn of events for a 15-year-old island girl who one day in mid-December was just an ordinary sophomore in high school and the next day she was asked to train as a slalom skier for the Youth Winter Olympics being held in Austria in less than a month.
