I thoroughly agree with Ryck Thompson’s assessment of downtown Poulsbo (“Something is wrong in downtown Poulsbo,” page A4, Jan. 9 Herald).

We fell in love with Poulsbo and moved here in 2011 to escape the big-city rat race. And we strongly believe in supporting local businesses, even if we can get what we want online at a lower price.  But we don’t understand why so many stores have been closing. Especially between Saison’s and Chantilly, there are no stores like that left, forcing us to shop outside of Poulsbo.

We understand the 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. problem, as many store owners can’t afford salespeople and must be there all day. But some stores seem to never be open even before 5 p.m. on any given day.  Tourists coming from afar complain about it too, especially in the summer. Thankfully, some of the wonderful galleries stay open longer. And, yes, it seems in the last four years Poulsbo has lost a little bit of luster in its presentation around the holidays.

We hear that the City Council’s decision-making doesn’t always benefit local businesses, especially when it comes to allocating funds for the design of a much-needed website that consolidates all those wonderful events put up by so many entities in Poulsbo throughout the year. Sadly, it’s not just the city, but every entity wants to do its own thing and doesn’t see the value of cooperation and one centralized source of information which would benefit everyone’s bottom line, especially since Poulsbo calls itself a “destination” and depends on tourist business.

We are surprised that political, uncompromising bickering among city government and other entities (merchants, historical societies, etc.) appears to be more prevalent here than in a city of 250,000 residents, where we come from.

We do admit that the city has managed to keep Poulsbo quaint and authentic with Scandinavian influence, unlike others like Solvang, California, where nowadays almost everything for sale is made in other countries — and not in Denmark. We hope that Poulsbo never goes down that road.

Gitta Brown
Poulsbo