The Bremerton City Council has voted this month to replace Diamond Parking and has approved a five-year contract with Imperial Parking, known as Impark.
Most people would expect that school safety, and school zone safety, would be an automatic priority on everybody’s list. Most would assume that everything that can be done is being done to ensure school zones are as safe as they can be for the children of our community that rely on them nearly every single day in and around the school year.
This past week I had the pleasure of attending a community workshop called Activate Bremerton. These events are put together…
Baseball season, the great American game, is well underway. Games with players of every age and size are playing on most of the available local fields decked out in a rainbow of team colors.
When it comes to legislating and funding public education, the state of Washington is failing our children in the worst possible ways imaginable.
Our elected leadership in Olympia knows exactly what their “paramount duty” to K-12 education is. They collectively choose not to acknowledge, address or invest the time and effort needed to legislate away current unfunded mandates and legal restrictions. Mandates and restrictions that strangle and hold nearly every district in this state in a repetitive circle of o
As I put pen to paper this week, or actually fingers to keyboard, I was surprised to discover that many of the springtime events or activities I would typically write about were not occurring. The answer as to why that was happening is rather easy to figure out. It has to be the weather.
Several times a year, Jason and I get the yearning for some live local music. A desire for a Saturday night out on the town, just the two of us, kicking back and enjoying the interactive opportunity of a cold beer, a warm crowd and a hot band.
This past week we chose Brother Don’s on Kitsap Way. Brother Don’s is like a comfortable shoe you can just slip on and relax. Not too big of a place. Nothing trendy or pretentious. The crowd of regulars and groups of less frequent patrons like us are middle aged and mostly well behaved. Just don’t park next door and everything will be just fine and your car should remain where you left it.
I will admit it, I am a certified local civic junkie. I do, in fact, spend a portion of my free time either attending local government public meetings in person or watching them on BKAT. I had not realized how addictive civic participation could become.
A proposed add on car tab fee, for Bremerton residents, is back on the table and up for discussion. There is a right way to go about this and a wrong way.
The Bremerton City Council needs to make sure that the money collected from this fee, minus the state handling charges, does in fact go directly into much needed repairs for some of the worst streets in Bremerton. There are many streets that are currently an open visual disgrace to our community. A blacktop billboard, if you will, showcasing our collective neglectful stewardship over the years. Bremerton has some of the worst streets for a city of its size that I have ever seen.
I’m on vacation. In fact by the time this column runs, I will have already been on vacation for over a week and will shortly be heading back to Bremerton.
Nick and I are currently in Florida and southern Georgia visiting with Jason’s parents for spring break. Yes, Grandma and Grandpa time. They live in a tiny little town named Woodbine. It is so small it doesn’t even have a stoplight. I know that sounds just like the opening to a joke. Woodbine defines the image of the small southern town. For many of you who are or have served in the Navy, the name Woodbine might be familiar. That is because it is within easy commuting distance to St. Marys and Naval
Very recently the proposal to reduce and redraw Bremerton City Council districts down to seven was reintroduced. It was brought forward by City Councilman Greg Wheeler. I very much support this idea and feel that the timing is right and necessary to finally make this change happen.
This past week I had way too close of a call on 11th Street.
I was on my way to pick up Nick at the Naval Avenue Boys and Girls Club, but as I approached Olympic Avenue, a vehicle traveling ahead of me in the next lane slowed to make a left hand turn. I slowed, watching for cars to dart out from behind him, so they would not have to stop, which happens often.
Spring is coming to Bremerton. Really, it is. I realize that the crazy weather we have all experienced since the first of the year is slightly daunting and makes anything spring-related still seem so far away. But we are now in our first week of March and it is time to start making plans. The time is now to start thinking about what we can all do this spring, in our own neighborhoods, to make Bremerton a little cleaner and a little nicer.
Cuts in public funding and public services to nearly every agency in the state of Washington are inevitable. The current levels of spending are not reasonable or sustainable. Education has and will continue to experience major funding shortfalls while at the same time student performance levels are mandated to improve.
Feb. 18, 2001 is a day I will always remember for a number of reasons. As an avid member of NASCAR Nation, I was glued to the TV watching the Daytona 500 play out in the usual nail-biting, gut-wrenching and wreck-filled fashion. Having just entered the 38th week of my first and only pregnancy, I simply wanted to spend most of the day with the appendages that used to resemble my feet, prop
Everything Bremerton celebrated its first anniversary Feb. 5, the first time the column was published in these pages. For an entire year I have had the very unique pleasure and privilege of writing about myself, my family, my community and at times about many of you.
Conducting the public’s business in the public arena is an integral part of representative government and the system of transparency that goes along with it. In today’s world, much of the public is either missing or not participating in its own process. Subsequently, a community that does not involve itself to some degree is reduc
In November the Bremerton School District officially notified American Legion Post 68 that they would be terminating the nearly 45-year lease between the two organizations. As a citizen, parent and experienced member of the district Finance Committee, I fully support this rather difficult decision.
This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend an educational advocacy seminar put on by the League of Education Voters. It was a collective gathering of about 100 people currently operating in a variety of ways to improve education in their own districts and also at the state level. These were people with innovative, ou
Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Do you keep them? Are the resolutions themselves really new, or is it just the turning of the date of Jan. 1 that sets off a
