BI council to discuss police, planning, plastic bags Tuesday

By Steven Powell Bainbridge Island Review • August 10, 2020 1:30 am

The Bainbridge Island City Council will be discussing its police department, planning commission and plastic bags at its meeting Tuesday night.

The council requested time to discuss recent community concerns related to sexual assault investigations, and to review procedures used by the Bainbridge Island Police Department. Police Chief Joe Clark and City Manager Morgan Smith will support the council’s discussion. The agenda’s time for this is set at 7:35 p.m., although the meetings often run long.

At 8:10 p.m. a subcommittee of the council and planning commission will give their recommendations for recruitment and selection of commission vacancies.

The five ideas are:

•Add one additional planning commissioner and councilmember to the interview panel. They want to bring more voices to the table because of the importance of selecting well qualified candidates. In the long term, possibly a broader panel would be needed.

•Have a separate announcement/advertisement for the planning commission. Currently, the public is invited to apply for all committees through a generic announcement. The planning commission item should provide detail related to its role and nature of its work.

•Extend an invitation to the Race Equity Task Force to provide a member to participate in the interviews of planning commission candidates.

•Schedule longer interviews. 10 or 15 minutes each is inadequate for this important commission.
•Expand the outreach. The subcommittee believes that outreach will be key to increasing diversity among applicants.
The discussion that would bring back the infraction for use of plastic bags will take place at 8:25 p.m.
The maximum penalty is $250.
During COVID-19, some local retailers disallowed the use of reusable bags. Some retailers also requested the ability to supplement paper bags with plastic bags, as retailers were experiencing supply shortages for paper bags.
The city manager suspended administrative enforcement of the city’s ban on single-use plastic bags. The council will look at reinstatement.
To watch the meeting go to: bainbridgewa.zoom