voice of bainbridge

Who is responsible for the disastrous "pruning" of the trees in the parking at the ferry terminal?

Reading the February 20 issue of the Bainbridge Review we don't learn what firm was responsible for this job. A manager for Diamond Parking does not provide any specific information nor apologize for anything wrong. The City acquiesces by saying nothing inherently wrong (illegal) was done and we get the usual argument about private property. Diamond Parking is a big corporation, they claim to be the biggest private parking company in the world (and I bet they are). It is not clear that they were in charge of this "pruning" as they could only be in charge of operating the parking while the property is owned by somebody else. This somebody else could be an entity called Winslow Marine LLC but the property tax map does not provide any clue about who they are, but for the address of an accounting firm in Bellevue. I think the people deemed "responsible" should publicly say so and offer a compensation to our community or explain to us why all is well. What type of compensation? They could plant more/new trees in this parking lot and/or provide money for trees to be planted. They should come up with internal guidelines to avoid such bad practices in the future.

The community forestry commission wants to hear from you

The Community Forestry Commission (pdf) is holding an open house session on Tuesday September 12 from 7 to 9 PM. I am not sure there is much to gain but if a few good people wish to attend. Maybe you can also email your suggestions? So many of our previous suggestions have been totally ignored it's hard to persist but what else is there to do? All my best wishes to the people who want to attend. If someone wants to take a digital mp3 recorder contact me and I'll lend you one.

Olaf Ribeiro emails the Council Members about tree cutting on the island

Dear Council members,
I wish to record my great disappointment at the tree cutting rampage that has occurred in the past couple of weeks on the island. Without a tree ordinance and lack of enforcement, tree cutting companies have discovered that they have free reign to take down magnificent healthy trees with no consideration for the subsequent cost to the environment.

The blog solution for local media and civic life

The bad news is I have been frustrated with our local media (The Bainbridge Review, the Kitsap Sun, the Bainbridge Islander, BIB) for quite a while. I think the City website is abysmal and our elected officials totally fail in  responding to our needs to be informed about what's happening to our community under their watch.

On behalf of the trees Oct 8 2003

Memory lane: it was two years ago. On Thursday evening, October 8 2003 Philippe Boucher addressed the Planning Commission.
Here are his notes.
They do not correspond to what he actually said word by word but that's what he meant.

A sad and pathetic reading

I have read the draft of the Bainbridge Island Community Forest Management Plan that is now "available" for our review. I write "available" because this text is  not easily readable in the format  sent via email  and while a  posting in a blog format would make comments very easy there is nothing of the sort with this document that is not posted on the small page devoted to the "community forestry commission" within the abysmal website of the city of Bainbridge.
PS: in fact the draft is posted on the page -my mistake- but I still consider the site abysmal :)
One more precision: I think Marja Preston (the planner attending to the Commission) has done as fine a job as she could considering the lack of political strength and courage of the Commission members and the opposition of the Head of the planning department to any serious protection of our trees. None of the members of the Council nor the Mayor nor any other member of a commission that should have intervened (like the Planning Commission), nor any local enviroment group has done anything significant to speak up for our trees and ask for their preservation and for precisions about the creation of new parks downtown. When I offered to speak up within a project submitted to the Arts Council it was turned down. It is also my fault that I was unable to rally anybody around a cause I think is so important. A friend of the trees preaching in vain in the desert. Also in vain are the numerous letters to the editor published at regular intervals by the Review to make it look like some serious consideration is given to this issue. Of course it is exactly the opposite. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose  :(

Interview with John van den Meerendonk, Community Forestry Commission

October 18: Interview with John van den Meerendonk , member of the Community Forestry Commission after the monthly meeting of the CFC (16 min).
Since the meeting usually lasts 2 hours and many people would not listen to the whole recording, one member of the group will participate in an interview with Voice of Bainbridge and present the main topics of the meeting.
This was the first interview of this kind.
Topics included noxious weeds, aerial photography of the island, preparation of the November 8 public meeting.
More info: Community Forestry Commission

Nancy MacKerrow about planting street trees

September 8: Interview with Nancy MacKerrow, who has started a campaign to plant street trees in Spokane in memory of her daughter Suzie, killed in a traffic accident (11 min).
Contact: [email protected]