Patriot Bremerton
7pm
FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2014 | Vol. 17, No. 20 | WWW.BREMERTONPATRIOT.COM | 50¢
School chief gets contract extension
Voluntary smoking ban approved by parks board
BY SERAINE PAGE SPAGE@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
Bremerton School District Superintendent Dr. Aaron Leavell’s contract has been renewed for three years. The contract will run through June 30, 2017. With that comes a small bump in pay at $2,567 added to his contract for the remaining years. Ad d i t i o n a l l y, he will receive $2,500 extra per year due to his attainment of a doctoral degree. Leavell’s annu- Aaron Leavell al salary starting July 1, 2014, will be $144,067 per year. Personnel Director Denise Zaske presented the contract to the board for approval on June 19 during the board’s regular meeting. Zaske told members that there was a “comparison” made to school districts of similar size to see where the difference in pay was between Leavell’s and others’ salaries. The school districts looked at for salary comparison included Central Kitsap, Peninsula, North Mason, North SEE LEAVELL, A9
BY KEVAN MOORE
KMOORE@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
Genna Martin/ The Everett Daily Herald
A crew pulls the USS Nimitz into place at the Port of Everett returning home from a 9-month deployment.
Nimitz is headed to town
EVERETT — The USS Nimitz will move to Bremerton in 2015 for 16 months to undergo scheduled large-scale maintenance. The relocation to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard will occur early next year, Naval Station Everett spokeswoman Kristin Ching said.
The work that will be done will include modernization and regular maintenance that a carrier of its age would normally require, she said. As for the 3,000-plus crew and their families, some might be leaving the area, at least temporarily, while the carrier is docked. A statement from the
Navy said that it is trying to avoid unnecessary permanent changeof-station moves for the Nimitz crew and families. The Nimitz is the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 11, which includes the Everettbased guided missile destroyer USS Shoup. The Nimitz returned
to Everett in December after a nine-month deployment that covered 80,000 nautical miles in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. It has been home-ported in Everett since 2012. The carrier is currently at sea, although not on deployment, Ching said. Its date of return was not disclosed.
Newest police chaplain is no rookie BY KEVAN MOORE KMOORE@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
David Stewart is the newest chaplain at the Bremerton Police Department, but he’s hardly a rookie. He spent about eight years as a chaplain with the Seattle Police Department. Stewart was born and raised in Bremerton, but moved to the other side of the water in high school. He has been back in town for about two and a half years and is a social minister at Mt. Zion Baptist Church. In October, with help from the church and others, he started New Day Ministry directly across from the Norm Dicks Government Center on Sixth Street. They serve meals to those in need every Thursday at 6 p.m. and also provide clothing, household items and other assistance. In addition, Stewart works with
Parenting Youth Achievement mentoring kids from Bremerton High School. That work is done at the church’s parsonage about a block and a half from the school on 13th Street. During his eight years as a police department chaplain in Seattle, Stewart found himself, time and again, face-to-face with people in the worst moments of their lives. “When a person has a crisis, when an individual dies or is in the hospital fighting for their life, somebody needs somebody to console them,” Stewart said. “Someone needs somebody there to pray with them. The police can only do so much. But, after the police leave, they’re there by themselves. So, the chaplain comes in with some consoling and comforting. They take over when the police leave.” As a department chaplain, though, there is still a connection with law enforcement, even if the officers are
Kevan Moore/staff photo
David Stewart is the newest chaplain at the Bremerton Police Department. on their way to another call. “The police, they’re gone, but yet there’s a part of the police department that is still there caring for you,” Stewart said. “We’re still there being affiliated with the police department. You’d be surprised how much that really, really does. Because
when an individual, a mom, a dad, brother, sister, son or daughter, gets killed, all of the sudden that’s a lot of grief that hits you all at once. If you have somebody there, especially if you don’t go to church or something SEE CHAPLAIN, A9
The Bremerton Parks and Recreation Commission voted Tuesday night to institute a voluntary smoking ban in all city parks. The commission will re-visit the smoking ban again next month to hammer out the details of what exactly that ban entails. The tentative plan is to put up no-smoking signs in parks, but the commissioners have not yet agreed if the ultimate goal is to keep smoke away from play structures, restrooms and shelters or to prohibit smoking entirely. Citing the d i f f i c u l t i e s associated with enforcement, along with the time and costs involved in re - w r it i n g city ordinances, the parks commission opted not to seek a change in city law to make smoking illegal in parks. Parks Director Wyn Birkenthal said the voluntary ban could be just as effective as a new ordinace by means of signage and “peer pressure” from nonsmoking parks users discouraging smokers from lighting up. Birkenthal also said that under the voluntary smoking ban approach, a person smoking in a city park could be “ejected” or kicked out of the park if he or she refused to extinguish a cigarette. Birkenthal said he would verify that possibility with the city attorney prior to next month’s parks commission meeting. Prior to adopting the voluntary smoking ban, parks SEE SMOKING, A9