Lessons from Starnsville — AKA Detroit

I’m not surprised the City of Detroit recently declared bankruptcy. The last time I was there about a year and a half ago for an automotive-related event, I was shocked at the 8-lane downtown streets — with no traffic on them. Downtown Detroit, all around the Renaissance Center and Cobo Hall was a virtual ghost town at noon on a Wednesday.

Detroit has always been the "Model City" for big-government. Since 1962, every single Detroit mayor has been a Democrat. It has the dubious distinction of being the place where if a big-government bad idea failed anywhere in America, it usually failed first in Detroit.

Detroit has an income tax that’s the third-highest of any big city in America. Is it any wonder two thirds of the population has moved out?

While Detroit’s automakers got billions from Obama in federal bailouts, in the case of GM, it was at the expense of stockholders and creditors. The main beneficiary of the bailout was the United Auto Workers union (UAW) and its pension fund — not the company itself. As part of the bailout, we taxpayers bought 17 percent of GM and handed it over to the UAW. Meanwhile, many stockholders who depended on dividends for retirement income saw their entire life savings wiped out. Many of the creditors were small Detroit-area businesses that went bankrupt because of GM’s government takeover. Where was the government bailout for those folks?

According to the Detroit News the City has 47 unions, and in 2011 employed just about twice as many people per capita as cities with comparable populations — including a “horseshoer” — even though it has no horses. Makes you wonder if Obama will bail out the city as well, since the UAW was the chief beneficiary of his original largesse.

Egotistical politicians believe they know what’s best for all of us, but refuse to understand their power doesn’t include changing the laws of economics — coupled with the fact too many of them are clueless about what those laws actually are. Constant government meddling, high minimum wages, easy to obtain welfare (Detroit has a huge radical Muslim population that has turned exploiting welfare into a science), coupled with bureaucratic, featherbedding union rules, are simply not the formula for success. But just like here in Washington, as long as unions support their re-election, those politicians turn a blind eye to the ongoing damage being done.

Meanwhile, a county judge wants to stop the bankruptcy on the grounds that Michigan state law forbids Detroit to cut government services. However, that judge has offered no plan for how Detroit is actually going to continue paying for those unsustainable public-sector pensions and support its bloated workforce. 

Democratic politicians have micromanaged the city into bankruptcy, and yet continue failing to address the root causes. As usual, those very “we know what’s best for you” politicians believe more of the same is the answer. They're proposing new taxpayer-funded stadiums, transportation mega-projects and other expensive "solutions." And if you criticize them, Democratic politicians like former Mayor Coleman Young will publicly call you a racist and a bigot. Young has been quoted as saying, “To attack Detroit is to attack black.” That tends to shut critics up, as they don’t want be condemned by the leftist lamestream media for simply speaking the truth.

I read where a member of Great Britain’s Parliament once compared Detroit to the fictional city of Starnesville in Ayn Rand’s prophetic 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged — an auto manufacturing city that became a ghost town after drifting into socialism. In Atlas Shrugged, Starnesville’s demise is the first clue the entire society is heading for collapse.

There is a huge lesson in Detroit for Washington State — if anyone is actually paying attention. Detroit is Starnesville. Meanwhile, Seattle’s buffoon Mayor Mike McGinn is trying to dictate private sector wage rates to gain a union re-election endorsement. He's threatened to use land-use rules to hold up construction of a Whole Foods grocery store — for no other reason than they’re non-union — unless they agree to pay union scale. That’s nothing more than a case of blatant Detroit-style Democratic Party abuse of political power in action.

Insulated from serious criticism by the lamestream media, as well as economic reality, buffoons like McGinn — and many of the Democrats in our state Legislature — fail to understand that the laws of economics still apply. If Democratic, Detroit-style thinking goes unchecked — and companies like Boeing continue to expand outside of Washington because of its onerous business climate that legislative Democrats seem determined to make worse — eventually Seattle will become Starnesville West. And as goes Seattle, so goes our state.

Inslee Talking Out of Both Sides of His Mouth

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Governor Jay Inslee’s recent veto of ESHB 1652 demonstrated both his allegiance to the special interests that helped finance his election (Read: Teacher’s Union), and exposed his own hypocrisy as well. The bill would have deferred the payment of Impact Fees on construction until closing, instead of at the time of permitting as the law currently dictates.

The bill enjoyed wide bipartisan support, passing the House with 73 votes, the senate with 34, and back to the house with 83 votes in concurrence. It was a good bill that would have been an immense help to small and moderate-sized homebuilders and their suppliers, by easing the cash outlay required to begin construction. Local Impact Fees — which cover schools, roads, parks, etc. — vary, averaging around $2,500 per house, but are much higher in other parts of the state. 

   

School districts have 10 years from the time it's collected to spend Impact Fee money, so the period between permitting and payment — essentially the time required to build a home, which averages somewhere between 60 and 90 days — is negligible to them in the overall scheme of things, but critically important to small builders. 
  

Inslee stated all through his election campaign he would do whatever was necessary to help small business and spur the construction industry because it’s such a huge contributor to our state’s economy. Yet when he had the chance, he caved in to the greedy teachers union. Pathetic…

No, I Will NOT Be A Candidate For The Port Commission

For the past couple of months, I keep being asked if I intend to run for the Port of Bremerton Commission seat currently held by Larry Stokes. 

The answer is an unequivocal NO. 

That rumor has been circulating for awhile now, and by now I've been asked more times than I can remember if it's true of not. It is not.

How it got started, I'm not really sure, but I've been told by numerous people that Stokes — who if he is elected will be 80 at the end of this next term — has made the statement he will run again just so I can't win that seat. I think that's more than a bit presumptuous on his part, but Larry Stokes is what he is...

I think the genesis of the rumor could be in the fact I've written several Business Journal columns on what I consider to be less than stellar management, and irresponsible stewardship of the public's money by the Port, and it appears paranoia has kicked in on the part of a number of people there. 

I will continue to comment editorially on the Port, but have absolutely NO interest in being a Port Commissioner. I've had my time in the sun where politics is concerned. I've said before that I have no intention of running for public office again — and I don't. I hope that puts this to rest, and that Stokes will step aside, some qualified people will step forward, be elected, and straighten out the huge, money-losing mess the Port of Bremerton has become.

Late Night Ferries Will NOT Save Downtown Port Orchard

Since leaving office as Port Orchard’s mayor at the end of 2011, I’ve made it a point to not publicly comment on the city’s politics — or what passes for management these days at City Hall. However, the recent push to establish late-night foot ferry service between downtown Port Orchard and Bremerton is a misguided non-solution to a much larger problem than backers want to admit.

The main driver is South Kitsap businessman Don Ryan, president of the Port Orchard Bay Street Association. He’s a used car dealer, who also owns a hair salon and a downtown bar. In addition, he’s promoting the proposed indoor farmer’s market, which he’s convinced people will jumpstart Bay Street, the town’s main drag — which now has more empty storefronts than occupied ones.

In our view, Ryan’s grasping at straws. He blames Kitsap Transit’s cut in evening service for downtown’s decline. That’s a red herring. Kitsap Transit didn't cut the service — Horluck Transportation did, which later sold the ferry service to Kitsap Transit. Why did they cut the service way back when Bay Street was booming? Because not enough people rode it for it to pencil. That alone proves people won’t take an evening ferry from Bremerton to come eat and drink in downtown Port Orchard — or vice versa. Aside from Ryan’s bar and Moondogs, or dinner at Amy’s on The Bay, there isn’t much to do downtown anymore — day or night — and not a lot else open after 7 p.m. except bail bond offices and tattoo parlors. What few storefronts that are still occupied on Bay Street aren’t the kind of establishments that do business at night, so downtown is basically closed.

Port Orchard would be better served spending that money restoring the funding to the Kitsap Peninsula Visitor and Convention Bureau — which produced a tremendous bang for the buck by actually drawing people downtown — both day and night — until the furtive politics surrounding the city’s Lodging Tax Advisory Committee — which is run by Councilman Fred Chang for what seems primarily to be for the benefit of his political backers — slashed its funding in favor of squandering money on self-serving ideas like Ryan’s.

Transportation and the Law of Unintended Consequences

Recently, a group of more than 40 mayors — including Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and Marilyn Strickland of Tacoma, sent a letter to Governor Jay Inslee and to legislative leaders urging them to pass an 8-cent gas tax increase, claiming more than $3 billion is needed to maintain roadways and bridges over the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, House Transportation Committee Chair Judy Clibborn (D-Mercer Island) will seek a 10-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase, although at 37.5 cents per gallon, ours is already among the highest in the nation. The proposed hike will reportedly be a part of a much larger transportation revenue package.

I’ve had some past dealings with Clibborn, and have found her to be a pragmatic, moderate, business-friendly Democrat for the most part, so I was somewhat surprised to see her bring this forward.

Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom (D-Medina), said last month he would support a gas-tax hike, however, any increase will face stiff resistance in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans — and two Democrats — Tom, and Tim Sheldon (D-Potlatch).

What’s so ironic about these recent proposals is that they are the direct result of the Law of Unintended Consequences at work.

Congress mandated our cars will get better gas mileage via what’s known as the CAFE Standards. Being good stewards of the earth, literally hundreds of thousands of people bought high gas mileage hybrid cars. Wanting to do the right thing for our environment, they voluntarily paid an extra multi-thousand dollar premium for them — which generated a substantial about of additional, one-time sales tax revenue. That money went into the general fund — not the gas tax fund.

The unintended consequence is the combination of hybrids, and higher gas mileage cars complying with the CAFÉ Standards, reduce the amount of fuel being bought on an ongoing basis, which reduces the amount of gas tax dollars collected, hence the shortage of revenue to maintain and build roads, fund the ferries, etc.

Still more unintended consequences of the move by the ruling class elite to get us out of our cars and on to mass transit, is that fewer cars will be bought. New and used car sales are the single largest generator of sales tax revenue for our cities and counties. Reducing the amount of car sales will negatively impact not only the state’s general fund, which will increase the deficits we’ve gotten used to facing, but also reduce gas tax revenues even more. Meanwhile, cities, counties, and the state itself, will still require money to maintain their existing roads. Where will those dollars come from?

And then there are the increased tax subsidies that will be required to operate mass transit, since fare box revenue doesn’t even come close to meeting operating costs, maintenance, etc. The ferries are a perfect example.

Higher gas taxes — as well as increasing other taxes — will also take money directly out of the economy that would otherwise be spent on things that generate the sales tax revenue that our cities and counties run on — another unintended consequence.

But if all else fails, the Puget Sound Regional Council has a plan. Its Transportation 2040 Plan (www.psrc.org/transportation/t2040) recommends imposing a Vehicle Miles Driven Tax (VMT) - taxing you for EVERY mile you drive. This is in addition to tolling I-5, I-90, I-405, and I-82, as well as adding HOT Lanes (Read: Toll) to many state highways, including Highways 3 and 16 - just as they’ve already done on Highway 167. They’re not proposing to build new lanes, just make you pay to drive in the ones you’ve already bought and paid for.

Isn’t anyone actually thinking through the unintended consequences of things like the CAFE Standards and mass transit before their knee-jerk cave-in to the politically correct elite and their vision of transportation Utopia?

The fly in the ointment for a gas or VMD tax to be passed into law, is it will require either a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate, or a vote of the people.

Thank you Tim Eyman.

Is the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight running the Port of Bremerton?

Is it just me, or does the Port of Bremerton remind anyone else of the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight? For years, I’ve said that there isn’t a way for the local Republicans to shoot themselves in the foot they hadn’t thought of, but that I have great confidence in their ability to invent new ones. I’m beginning to think the Port of Bremerton falls into that exact same category.

Beginning with the stealth tax that built the money-losing Bremerton Marina, to its latest insult to the people paying the bills — an arrogant refusal to honor a Public Records Request — it’s no wonder the public has zero confidence in the Port’s current management.

When the Port hired former Bremerton Mayor Cary Bozeman as its CEO, it looked like the beginning of a new era, where forward thinking would finally prevail. Bozeman’s resignation as Mayor and hiring as CEO seemed to me at the time to be a stroke of genius on someone’s part.

Bozeman was facing re-election, which I believe he would have won handily in spite of naysayers about the infamous tunnel, but would have faced four years with an economy that had tanked and brought downtown redevelopment — his personal passion — to a halt. In spite of his critics, I believe Bozeman is a true leader — a big picture guy with extraordinary vision. While no one will accuse him of being detail oriented, he knows how to get things done, and surrounds himself with people who understand visionary thinking and know how to handle details that turn vision into reality.

With the voters angry at the Port over the tax to build the marina, and because of the economy, no projected money on the horizon for the City to move downtown redevelopment forward, the move to the Port appeared to be a win/win.

However, until Bozeman arrived, no one really understood just how furtively mismanaged the Port had been. It was sitting on a huge empty building it was ill-advised to build in the first place, costing taxpayers more than $20,000 a month, and eventually leased at significantly less than local market rates just to stem some of the bleeding. It was losing money on both marinas, the airport, and had empty buildings at the Olympic View Industrial Park.

For two years, Bozeman was forbidden by his bosses — the Port Commissioners — to spend any money on new initiatives. In one discussion we had, he said what the Port really needs is an experienced entrepreneur running it, and Commissioners willing to invest money to make money. Bozeman retired at the end of his contract, and in my view, the Port lost a tremendous opportunity to fix its problems because the Commissioners are obsessed with not spending any money.

When the Commissioners tapped second in command, Tim Thomson, to take over as CEO, I believed it was another misstep. I’ve known Tim for about 20 years. He’s a really nice guy, a good administrator, but the wrong guy for the job. He’s retired military, with no real entrepreneurial experience. He’s used to taking orders — and not challenging them. So standing up to strong, irascible personalities like Commissioner Larry Stokes — a financial conservative, as is Commissioner, Axel Strakeljahn — just isn’t in his DNA. He’s a guy caught between a rock and hard place.

The Port’s recent proposal to turn the money-losing Bremerton Marina over to private enterprise seemed to me to be one of their rare good ideas. However, the Port’s insistence the private operator keep the Port’s current level of unionized staffing, coupled with the expectation the Port would make a profit on the private operation, made this a non-starter.

If there was a profit to be made, why didn’t the Port just make the changes necessary to do so? Also, it seems to me, just getting out from under losing $1,000+ a day would improve the Port’s bottom line even if it didn’t make a nickel off the private operation.

In an attempt to learn more about exactly how the Port expected to pull this miracle off, I submitted a public-documents request for copies of the two responses to the Port’s RFP — submitted by Marsh Andersen LLC and its principal owner, Robert Wise of Bainbridge Island, and Marinas International Inc. of Dallas. Rachel Pritchett of the Kitsap Sun also submitted the same request, the same day.

Business Journal Editor Tim Kelly, had previously been led to believe that both Wise and Marinas International would be interested in not just managing, but actually purchasing the marina that cost taxpayers $34 million to build, if it were to be made available, and if the numbers involved to strike a deal worked for them.

Any information about a sale would be exempted by law from the Public Records request, and the Port would not have to release those parts of the documents. However, a sale was not what the RFP called for, so the proposals should have been released.

However, the Port's management didn’t see it that way. So Rachel agreed to contact Tim Ford, the state’s assistant attorney general for government accountability, and share his opinion with me. I also copied Ford on my own communications with the Port. Ford said the proposals are public, and suggested asking for supporting legal citation, if the port refused our requests.

Rachel and I both received an email from the port stating that, “public release of (request for proposal) responses prior to port commission action could result in private gain or public loss by disclosing critical private proprietary terms, conditions and values that may be used in future negotiations with the port.” There was no supporting legal citation, and reading the proposals, it became abundantly clear that just isn’t the truth. While not an outright denial, it strongly indicates a determined unwillingness to share public information.

To his credit, Port Commissioner Roger Zabinski strongly supported immediately releasing the documents and lobbied for the Port to do so, but was overruled.

In the end, the Port rejected both proposals. So while the Port complied with the letter of the Public Disclosure law, it certainly didn't hesitate to violate the spirit of it — an action arrogantly reminiscent of the stealth tax.

Weaver Resigns As Port Orchard Planning Director

After almost 5 years as City Development Director for Port Orchard, James Weaver has submitted his resignation. He will take a job as the Building Official for the City of Bainbridge Island. He made the City Council aware of his decision at the December 11, Council meeting, and then submitted his resignation letter to Mayor Tim Matthes, who claimed to be "surprised" by Weaver's action. His last day will be January 2.

James Weaver's departure is a tremendous loss for the City of Port Orchard, and a huge gain for Bainbridge Island. He was universally recognized as the best Planning Director in the County by not only his peers, but by other elected officials as well.

I'm proud to have hired him and worked with him. He cleaned up a HUGE mess in the Planning Department that I had inherited upon becoming Mayor. Those included 546 unprocessed permits, some dating back nearly 3 years, that he and his staff cleared within 60 days, as well as a Comprehensive Plan 4 years out of compliance with the GMA, just for starters.

James and his staff, brought the City into compliance with state law in less than a year — an almost unheard of time frame for such an accomplishment — and did 97% of the work in-house, saving the citizens of Port Orchard hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultant fees.

Ironically City Councilman Fred Chang, who is angling to be appointed to Derek Kilmer's vacant State Senate seat, was chair of the City's Growth Management Committee at the time, and was responsible for the plan not being in compliance.

I have remained quiet about what has happened in Port Orchard since leaving the Mayor's office, but a savvy news reporter with an ear to the ground and no personal agenda would recognize this as just the first in a line of coming departures, and pursued this story from that angle. 

Just remember, you heard it here first...

There's a reason people are leaving, and it will eventually become public. In the meantime, I'll just sit back and smile...

KING 5 News Torpedoes "Up Front with Robert Mak"

The final regularly scheduled edition of KING 5’s Emmy Award-winning political program Up Front with Robert Mak aired on December 2. The highly popular political news and commentary program has been running on the NBC affiliate for the past 11 years.

Robert Mak

KING-TV Executive News Director Mark Ginther cited “...a slowdown in advertising revenue,” as the reason the long-running Sunday morning program was axed.

Ray Heacox, President and General Manger of KING-TV, was quoted as saying, “We will continue the award-winning coverage we have given to political and public interest programming in our more than eight and a half hours of local news and, from time to time, we will run Up Front as specials when events demand. KING-TV, along with our regional news channel NWCN, airs more hours of news and more coverage of politics than any other news outlet in the Northwest. We intend to continue our partnership with the Seattle Times in bringing some of the most important political debate to television.”

Yeah, right...

“Robert Mak is an award winning journalist and is the lead for our full team coverage of all the political issues impacting our community. Up Front producer Mike Cate will continue to produce politics and other priority coverage for KING-TV,” Ginther said. Well that’s a lie, since Mak has voluntarily left the station’s employment.

Ginther also said seven newsroom positions were eliminated recently through layoffs and the elimination of several already vacant positions.

Could it really be that advertising revenue is down because viewers and advertisers alike are just disgusted with the quality of the non-objective, blatantly biased, so-called "journalism" that passes for “political news” these days? Or is KING-TV just another victim of the Obama economy that they keep reporting to us is getting better?

Inquiring minds want to know...

Is honest, unbiased, political journalism roadkill?

Now that Election 2012 is finally history, after what seemed like an endless — two-plus years — two things remained consistent — the Lamestream Media served as the official press office of the Obama campaign — so no matter what he did, or didn’t do that he should have (can you say Benghazi?), they had his back — and its systematic and successful branding of every Republican contender as an obnoxious loser representing only the wealthy.

I’ve said for years there isn’t a way for Republicans to shoot themselves in the foot they haven’t thought of, but that I have great confidence in their ability to invent new ones. Election 2012 was no exception. There are more reasons the Republicans lost than I have room to describe here, but as usual, the wounds were self-inflicted. Conservatives scared half the women in America into voting Democratic with their agenda of eliminating abortion, while the Lamestream Media used that to convince women the Republican Party had actually declared war on them — and to some extent, it has.

Abortion has been the law of the land for almost a half century, and is widely supported. If the Republicans ever want to win another national election, they need to get over it and move on. It’s time for the conservative old white men running the party to step aside and turn the reins over to new, younger, and more diverse and pragmatic thinkers — people like Florida Senator Marco Rubio, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and Arizona Governor Jan Brewer for example. That doesn’t mean abandoning the fiscally responsible principles of the party, but it does mean moving much closer to the center than it’s been for decades, because Republican Candidates at every level from local dogcatcher to Congress are painted by the Lamestream Media with that reactionary Conservative brush — even when there is no shred of credibility in it. One only needs to look at our local and state election results to confirm that.

However, from the very start of the race in early 2011, every single Republican candidate who represented a serious threat to Obama was trashed in the media — most so badly they couldn’t salvage their campaigns afterwards.

And let’s be honest, there were some — like Michelle Bachman — who had no business even being in the race. She threw herself under the bus by providing sideshow entertainment for the predatory media with her outrageously uninformed pontifications.

For example, Sarah Palin was attacked very early on as “vacuous, crass, and vindictive” — just in case she did decide to run.

Meanwhile, Politico and other media outlets gunned down Herman Cain — who, as a successful African-American, Republican businessman — represented a potential game-changing threat to Obama. So he was tried and convicted of sexual harassment in the Lamestream Media without his accusers ever being named, without the opportunity to face them, and without a trial.

The Washington Post reported Rick Perry’s family had leased a hunting property where the N-word was painted on a rock, neglecting of course to mention it was Perry’s family that painted over it. Chris Matthews didn’t hesitate to smear Newt Gingrich — who I personally believe represents everything wrong with politics in America today — by saying “He looks like a car bomber.”

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney was the only candidate who seemed to avoid his own personalized media hit squad until he became the nominee. Once that happened, all hell broke loose, as the entire Lamestream Media now had him in its crosshairs.

Why is the Lamestream Media so protective of Obama, despite the fact we actually know little of his history, and that he rarely reciprocates with them? The answer is that the White House has turned access — the lifeblood of news reporting — into a sledgehammer. For any serious reporter asking real questions, or writing about the ongoing serial dishonesty of this administration, access to sources is systematically denied, and/or terminated. For reporters on deadline — especially network TV reporters — that’s the kiss of death.

Before Election Day, Obama hadn’t called a White House press conference since June. He should have been in Washington attending intelligence briefings leading up to the September 11 attack on our consulate in Benghazi, Libya. As General Petreaus has testified, Obama was made aware of the threats, and the requests for increased security, but he felt focusing on one softball interview after another — Leno, Letterman, The View and Access Hollywood, as well as fundraisers in Las Vegas and Hollywood — were much more important. So it’s ironic at best that the only man hammered by the Lamestream Media on the Benghazi scandal was Mitt Romney.

But now that Obama has been re-elected, we can look forward to making the best of another four years of his same “progressive” agenda — only carried out more aggressively since re-election is no longer a threat. That means continually increasing energy prices as the administration works to shut down the coal, oil, and gas industries to support economically unviable green energy; the same slow economy, weighed down by debt, higher energy costs and ever-increasing regulations; further reductions in the military and our ability to protect our nation; more gridlock in Washington as America is more polarized than at any time since the Civil War; and more of the same Lamestream Media relentlessly reporting that all these are good things under Obama.

But before you accept what’s reported in the Lamestream Media as fact, let me suggest reading, or re-reading, one of the most prophetic books of our time - 1984, by George Orwell, a dystopian tale in which language and truth are corrupted. It contains two quotes the Lamestream Media — if it had any cojones — would embrace... “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” And my personal favorite - “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

Reopening Kitsap’s Government For Business Five Days a Week

Now that Rob Gelder and Charlotte Garrido have been re-elected as County Commissioners by comfortable margins, it’s time to turn our attention to what issues the commissioners need to address moving forward.

The number one issue as we see it is reopening the County administration building for business five days a week. As citizens, we pay for full time government — not for 80 percent of it. This is an issue that was brought up repeatedly in both County Commissioner primary, and general election debate forums. All the candidates at the time stated they could see the need for it. The big question was how to pay for it. It appears Gelder and Garrido have since flip-flopped on that issue.

Numerous good suggestions on how to accomplish it were brought forward during those forums, including using flextime; looking at the busiest hours, and adjusting staffing levels so they were minimal during known slow periods and adding people when the workload was known to be heavier; having some people who are currently off on Friday work, while, allowing them to be off Monday instead; as well as just diverting the money to pay the cost of being open from other, less critical budget items.

Back in September, the Homebuilders Association (HBA) Board of Directors voted to put together a petition asking the Commissioners to return the Department of Community Development (DCD), the County Assessor, and the County Auditor’s offices back to five days a week of full public access.

During the HBA’s candidate interview process (in which, as a member of the HBA’s Government Affairs Committee, I participated), and after several meetings with the Commissioners, it became abundantly clear they would refuse to budget for full service to the community, or adjust staffing levels to accommodate it. They appeared to be of the opinion that full service to the citizens is just not necessary — or desired — by business owners and community leaders. It has also been reported that both County Assessor Jim Avery and County Auditor Walt Washington have each been given the budget to be open full-time, but have said that they don’t support a return to five days a week of public service either.

Avery has told the Kitsap Association of Realtors Executive Officer Mike Eliason, as well as the HBA Executive Vice President Teresa Osinski, that no one has complained to him about his office being closed on Fridays. However, I specifically remember having that discussion with Avery myself.

Commissioner Gelder has also commented more than once that the title companies don’t want the County open on Fridays because they don’t have the staff to handle transactions five days a week. That’s simply not true. I don’t know who Gelder talked to, but the HBA went to great lengths to survey local title companies, and found just the opposite to be the case.

So why is this important? The Realtors and Builders main concern is transaction closing time frames. A transaction that is signed around on Wednesday won’t be recorded until the following Monday at the earliest, but usually Tuesday. It takes at least another day, and sometimes two, for the recorded paperwork to be conveyed back to the title companies, meaning the transaction can’t disperse until at least Thursday or Friday of the following week. That means buyers can’t move in, and no one gets paid for an additional week because of the Friday closure.

But they aren’t the only ones being inconvenienced. When I was campaigning for Commissioner, I would spend about two hours on Friday in front of the administration building handling out campaign literature to the people who had come — sometimes from as far away as Bainbridge Island, Kingston, and Hansville — to do their particular business with the County. They may have wanted to register to vote, register a vehicle, pay their taxes, get a permit for something, or a myriad of other things.

How busy was it? Well, in spite of the closure, the hot dog vendor in front of the building was open, and the number of people doing business with him must have made it worth his time. I know in the two hours I was there, I would hand out at least 50 flyers to people who were either angry, or disappointed they had come all that way to Port Orchard, only to find they would be forced to return home, and make another trip. For some, this presented a problem, because of work schedules. At $4 a gallon for gas, and an hour’s time from North Kitsap, this isn’t just an inconvenience, it’s an unnecessary personal expense for taxpayers.

But what I find most disturbing is the elitist attitude of Gelder and Garrido who don’t seem to believe being open five days a week is necessary at all. In a forum I attended, one of them stated that County employees liked the three-day weekends, and didn’t want that to change back. I’m sorry, but that’s a blatant case of the tail wagging the dog. County employees work for us — the taxpayers — not the other way around. It’s what we want that matters.

It’s time the commissioners got that message. If you agree, call them at (360) 337-7146. You’ll probably have to leave a message, but you’ll know by their actions if what you have to say matters to them.