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Inside
Page A3
INDEPENDENT
Page A10
PORT ORCHARD
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2011 ■ Vol. 120, No. 27 ■ www.portorchardindependent.com ■ 50¢
RECOUNT LIKELY IN MAYOR’S RACE 2011 ELECTION RESULTS Port Orchard mayor Lary Coppola 1,117 Tim Matthes 1,125 City Council At-large Jerry Childs 1,295 Ben Pinneo 778 City Council Pos. 5 Cindy Lucarelli 1,159 Amy Miller 960
With vote-counting not finished, Matthes holds slim lead over Coppola By TIM KELLY Editor
After a long day of sweating it out for the candidates Wednesday, updated election results showed challenger Tim Matthes maintaining an 1,125-1,117 lead over incumbent Lary Coppola in the Port Orchard’s mayor race.
The contest between Coppola, seeking re-election to a second four-year term, and Matthes, whom the mayor recruited to serve on the city planning commission, may be close enough to require an automatic recount. “For the amount of votes that are left to be counted, that’s not an insurmountable number,” Coppola
Lary Coppola
Tim Matthes
said Wednesday evening about his opponent’s eight-vote margin. “And at this point, unless something drastic
Kitsap County Commissioner Dist. 1 Robert Gelder (D) 26,658 Chris Tibbs (R) 25,071 South Kitsap School District Board, Dist. 5 Adele Lacombe 6,058 Gregory Wall 7,524
BRETT CIHON Staff writer
South Kitsap Fire & Rescue Commissioner Dist. 3 Darla Hartley 6,635 Mike Eslava 7,914
Statewide Ballot Measures Initiative 1125 (Road and bridge tolls) Yes 552,441 No 573,376 Initiative 1183 (Liquor privatization) Yes 685,979 No 463,237
SEE MAYOR’S RACE, A11
Intruder can’t outrun pursuing wrestler
VETERANS DAY
Port of Bremerton Commissioner Dist. 3 Shawn Cucciardi 9,143 Axel Strakeljahn 9,967
Port of Manchester Commissioner Dist. 10 Dan Fallstrom 750 David Kimble 643
changes, we’re probably headed for a recount.” Asked if he was surprised by the results, Coppola said, “I’m somewhat disappointed. I think some of the areas where we doorbelled really heavy didn’t come out and vote. “Or else there votes haven’t been counted yet, one or the other.” The campaign had taken a nasty turn in its late stages, when a political committee that Matthes said he
International relations Two vets from opposite sides of the Cold War share special bond By BRETT CIHON Staff writer
Three decades after serving in West Germany during the height of the Cold War, Air Force veteran Donnie Francis is still making mili-
tary friends. He just never thought they’d come from the other side of the Iron Curtain. “I could never have imagined I would be friends with someone from the other side of the line,” the former helicopter pilot said. “Never.” Of course, Francis may never have imagined he would one day marry an attractive redhead from Siberia, and through her friends meet a retired Russian colonel, Yuri Skripnichenko. But as he marks Veterans Day
Port Orchard native and Air Force veteran Donnie Francis, above left, and his friend, retired Russian colonel Yuri Skripnichenko, donned Francis’s old flight jackets when Skripnichenko visited his friend’s Gig Harbor home this month. Courtesy photo
today, 20 years after his helicopter was shot down in the Gulf War, his life SEE VETERANS DAY, A3
South Kitsap’s Source for News & Information Since 1890
A 23-year-old Olalla man chased an intruder for about a mile before capturing him at gunpoint, then bound the suspect’s hands with a belt and marched him back to the house to await sheriff’s deputies. Josiah Kipperberg found a man snooping through his family’s home Monday afternoon. According to a SEE WRESTLER, A8
Index Opinion Robert Meadows Scene & Heard Sports Thinking Allowed Obituaries Business
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