Downtown parking, traffic, Olhava, the Marine Science Center, a new city hall. The topics of the day for Poulsbo once again translate into a vision of the future for Little Norway but who has the ability to best lead the city and realize its potential?

With the September primary already in the process of pushing two prospective mayors toward the November ballot, members of the North Kitsap Herald Advisory Board sat down with candidates Donna Jean Bruce, Mike Regis and Kathryn Quade to determine who truly fit the city’s leadership needs.

The board was unanimous in determining the Herald’s endorsement for mayor: Kathryn Quade.

We love the fact that Quade possesses the intrinsic ability to not only think, but look outside the box. Her tradition of furthering her education on city government via workshops and networking showed us that she was not only serious about getting new perspectives but passionate about moving Poulsbo forward.

“I’ve made it a priority to get out and learn,” she explained, adding that mayor’s position is presently “managerial” and lacks much-needed leadership. “We’re in a mode of stasis. We need someone pushing and pulling for the city.”

We agree.

We also concurred that while Bruce has done a good job of maintaining the city, she has come up short in terms of laying the needed groundwork for the Poulsbo of the future.

When asked about the role of mayor, Bruce said, “It’s kind of like being the CEO of a company — you do what the council tells you to and make sure the employees are doing what they’re supposed to.”

True enough but we feel the Mayor of Poulsbo shouldn’t be content there and that the person holding this title should go out of his or her way to ensure Little Norway stands out as a cutting edge small town in Washington.

“The city is too reactionary,” Quade assessed.

While Bruce pointed out new efficiencies brought to the government via software upgrades and noted the smooth transition during the reorganization of the employee structure at city hall, we feel she has been stagnant as a leader.

Bruce, after much hesitation, said she felt the solution to downtown’s parking crunch was a well-placed garage across from the current city hall on Jensen Way.

Regis, who sees the mayoral role as being a “facilitator of the process,” raised an excellent point on the parking garage subject, pointing to the “frozen months.” Downtown parking in January-March should be studied before the city took any position on how to best fix the issue, he reasoned.

This fit well with his campaign promise of always getting the facts first before proceeding with a plan or policy. We liked that and the idea that while Regis recognizes the council as being the most powerful part of the city’s process, the mayor should be more involved in the council’s agenda.

He was also big on making sure that the city make a better effort to show the relationship of things: i.e. how does traffic really affect businesses and why.

We were a bit worried that he might get too involved with staff and have the propensity to lean toward being a micromanager. Bruce, we agreed, was just the opposite.

Speaking about the perception of her being a “part-time mayor,” Bruce countered that although she might not be at the office until 5 p.m. every weekday, “You’re mayor 24 hours a day.”

If that were the case for the mayor, she shouldn’t have even had to bring it up.

While all three agreed on the need for a new city hall and Bruce noted that the Electronic Data Systems (EDS) Building is out of the equation as it is not for sale, only Quade questioned Poulsbo’s apparent push to beat the Critical Areas Ordinance deadline of Dec. 31 and secure the permit “grandfathering” the city needs to build at the 10th Avenue site.

“Government should be held to a higher standard,” she remarked.

We couldn’t agree more and we think Quade will ensure that as far as the City of Poulsbo is concerned, it will be.