Port Orchard Independent, November 25, 2011

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Community Hospital staff picks young patient for special award

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The end

Kitsap Week

Sports

Final year for Festival of Trees

tree-dition

Inside Today

Coach looks back on SK’s season

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INDEPENDENT PORT ORCHARD

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2011 ■ Vol. 120, No. 27 ■ www.portorchardindependent.com ■ 50¢

Owners of animals criticize rescue

RAINY SEASON

Looming cuts worry educators CHRIS CHANCELLOR Staff writer

Superintendents from several school districts are pushing to reduce the academic year calendar in lieu of further cuts as state officials grapple with a $2 billion budget shortfall. Do not count Dave LaRose among them. South Kitsap School District’s fourth-year superintendent said Monday that he does not support cutting the number of school days to help balance the state budget. LaRose said he views potential cuts through the prism of what affects children the least. He said in an era when so much emphasis is placed on student achievement, fewer days in SEE CUTS, A18

LIGHT IT UP! It’s that time of year! Time to dust off your lights and decorations … The City Council is coming to your neighborhood to check out your holiday spirit! The tour will begin Dec. 20 at 5 p.m. at City Hall and council members will wind their way through town to find the business, residential neighborhood, and homeowner who have shown the most holiday spirit! The public is invited to ride along; please RSVP with the City Clerk’s office, 360-876-4407, by Dec. 16.

Family says action by Humane Society was unjustified By TIM KELLY Editor

Tim Kelly/Staff photo

Conner Swanson, who’s 1-1/2 years old, holds an umbrella as he waits with his mother, Jennifer Swanson, on Monday outside the armory in Port Orchard, where South Kitsap Helpline was distributing turkeys and all the fixings for Thanksgiving meals.

HOLIDAY SEASON

What explains even split in mayor’s race? By TIM KELLY Editor

Brett Cihon/Staff photo

A city worker attaches one of the downtown holiday banners to a pole on Bay Street on Monday.

Plenty of people have expressed surprise that the mayoral election in Port Orchard is a cliffhanger. “I was amazed,” said Bob Geiger, a preeminent figure in local politics who served 45 years on the City Council and operated a downtown pharmacy even longer. On a recent afternoon at Rick’s Barber Shop, Geiger and shop owner Rick Wyatt, who served 12 years on the council along with two stints on the city’s planning commission, discussed why they think the mayor’s race is so close. Both said they had expected Mayor

Lary Coppola, who got nearly 70 percent of the vote when he was elected in 2007, to win re-election to a second term. But his challenger in this year’s race, Tim Matthes, holds a two-vote lead with most of the ballots counted, and a recount seems all but certain. Wyatt attributes that primarily to what Coppola did during his first term, based on what he’s heard in many conversations at the barber shop he’s run for more than 40 years. “What I’m hearing from a lot of folks, is he won the election and within months he immediately wanted a raise,” Wyatt said, referring to the controversial decision by the City Council SEE ELECTION, A17

South Kitsap’s Source for News & Information Since 1890

As gray light seeps into the sky on a rainy morning, Simon Bailey shows a visitor around the cluttered 5-acre spread where he and his wife, Rosalind, live on the Kitsap County line south of Olalla. The untidy place is nobody’s romanticized ideal of a family farm; in fact, it’s an undeniable mess. Still, the heavyset Bailey seems unconcerned about appearances as he walks by junked vehicles and piles of used lumber, pointing out an old camper shell he converted into a shelter for his goats. The goats are gone now, along with the chickens, rabbits, ducks, sheep, dogs, cats, alpacas, mini-horses, a llama and a pig. The Humane Society hauled them all off two weeks ago, because animal welfare officers determined the Baileys were not providing adequate care for their critters. SEE ANIMALS, A3

Index Opinion Robert Meadows Thinking Allowed Scene & Heard Sports Obituaries Business

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