4-year university

Thanks to all

Last week, the people on the Kitsap and Olympic Peninsulas won a victory as we got a fully-funded study for 4-year baccalaureate degrees in our area.

The study will be used to determine what will best fit the employers in the West Sound to get them the college training that they need to keep Kitsap working through the 21st Century. For example, PSNS will be sending out recruiters to over 50 colleges and universities across the United States to convince young Mechanical Engineers to come and work at the shipyard.

If a University Center is created here in Kitsap, they can send their brightest mechanics to become the engineers they need. And our best and brightest graduating from Bremerton and Central Kitsap High Schools won’t need to travel to Seattle or Pullman or Corvallis to get their degrees.

This study is an important step to getting what we need as a community for the best jobs and best employees right here.

And as we all know opportunity and hope can be the greatest assets for a community like ours to bring down crime and poverty.

I would like to thank the nine legislators in our Kitsap Caucus who were vital in getting this study funded in what was probably the hardest session in a generation to get state funding.

I would especially like to thank Sen. Phil Rockefeller, Sen. Derek Kilmer, Rep. Larry Seaquist, Rep. Christine Rolfes, and the Kitsap Economic Development Agency (KEDA) staff. They fought for the study even when it was not passed in the House, and kept fighting us to the very end of the session to help make Kitsap a better place.

And I would like to give a special thanks to Gov. Christine Gregoire for listening to the concerns and needs of our community and publically siding with Kitsap when we needed it most.

Now let us conduct and finish the study in 2008 and get ready for presenting its results to the State Higher Education Board in 2009.

Adam C. Brockus, PE

Bremerton City Councilman, District 3

Politics

Letter to the Editor

Wow!!! We have similar, simultaneous shows ongoing in government, here in Kitsap and there in our State Capitol.

In our 2007 general election, 36 percent or less of us said it’s ok — two of our public officials here in Kitsap can increase taxes beyond the ordinary without a vote of the public or misuse public monies.

At the same time, 63 percent or more of us said those same elected public officials don’t get it. It’s not ok to increase taxes beyond the ordinary without a vote of the public. It’s not okay to misuse public monies. Et cetera.

I’m with the 63 percent or more. It’s as if most of us here finally have reached the mountain top, knowing what we are supposed to do and doing it.

Meanwhile, the shows go on.

I see Port of Bremerton (POB) Commissioner Bill Mahan has yet to get it. And, I see POB Commissioner President Cheryl Kincer is struggling.

I see a messenger from Olympia now enters on stage and reports, “Despite business appeals to her to veto that section of the broad climate change bill, Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the legislation without striking the limits on miles traveled.” And, “Those we elect to office should have more faith that people are capable of doing the right thing without being spanked by a costly new government bureaucracy set up to enforce and (sic) ill-conceived law.”

I see Christine Gregoire is our fourth sequential Washington state governor who doesn’t get it.

Gene Hart

Bremerton

County auditor

Washington Democrats’ pick

for job

In his bid to become Kitsap County Auditor, Walt Washington received 78 percent of the Democratic Precinct Committee Officers’ vote, representing a major landslide victory.

Democratic Precinct Committee Officers recognize Walt Washington is the only candidate who understands the current operations of the department and offers relevant audit and elections experience.

Karen Flynn, who has held the office for the past two decades and is in the best position to assess the future needs of the Auditor’s Office, supports Washington’s appointment as her successor.

Commissioners Jan Angel, Steve Bauer, and Josh Brown would be wise to appoint Washington, who is clearly the most qualified and broadly supported candidate among the three contenders.

Mike Eliason

Keyport