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Cody Wright from Milford, Utah, got a mouth full of mud and a zero score after falling off Strawberry Delight in the Saddle Bronc Riding competition Wednesday night at the Kitsap County Stampede. The fair runs through Sunday.
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A Section Editorial Robert Meadows Scene & Heard Sports Legal Notices Mary Colborn Obituaries
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Independent Port Orchard
Both sides report feeling harassed in rift over home business.
Neighbor denies pellet gun shooting
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By JUSTINE FREDERIKSEN
Staff Writer
Embattled gun club celebrates national independence with ‘liberty volley’ Tentative future worries some members By Brett Cihon Reporter
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CHARLOTTE GARRIDO
BRUCE DANIELSON
pretation of the legal proceedings. The litigation started in 2010 when the gun club performed building and ground work that was not authorized by the county, he said. “It’s straightforward,” Hauge said. “When you remodel your house you have to get a building permit. The club decided it didn’t have to do that.” TIM MATTHES
JEANETTE DALTON
charged a $100 legal levy on top of the $60 per calendar year the club charges, Carter said, and numbers that were once as high as 1,200 in 2010 have since dropped to around 600, Carter said. “We’ve lost 25 percent of our membership each year,” Carter said. Hauge disagrees with Carter’s inter-
In late April, Washington State Court of Appeals Court Commissioner Eric Schmidt issued a conditional stay, ruling that harm to the club from closing the range outweighed noise and other problems in surrounding communities. The club reopened, under conditions of restricted hours, no automatic weapons and no cannons be fired, except for on the Fourth of July. Hauge said a stay is typically issued in appeal proceedings, but that the commissioner’s stay did not “provide protections to surrounding neighbors and to the county.” Hauge’s office has since filed a motion to modify the commissioner’s ruling and lift the stay. No new arguments will be heard, but the prosecution, the gun club and lawyers affiliated with CK Safe and Quiet have all submitted a brief in response to the latest motion. A decision could come down any day, according to Hauge Since the court-imposed stay, the gun club has reopened at full capacity. Members have been slow to return to the club. “Most people don’t know we’re open again,” Carter said. “We’re open and we
▼ Matthes, Garrido advance in SK commissioner race; Dalton, Danielson in judicial contest.
By CHARLIE BERMANT
Staff Writer
Expectations were turned on their head in two Kitsap County political contests during Tuesday night’s primary election, as the perceived front-runners came in third and were disqualified in their respective races. Republican Tim Matthes drew the most votes in the South Kitsap commissioner’s race, followed by Democrat Charlotte Garrido. Monty Mahan, who was the first to declare for the seat and earned the endorsement of local mayors, came in third (See related story, page A3).
SEE UPSETS, PAGE A2
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Brett Cihon/staff photo
Robert Carpenter fires a handgun during the annual “Liberty Volley””
and pension rates along with inflation as issues. In addition to the money saved on custodians, Patton said the district will dip into its reserve fund for $1.72 million. She said that’s not all bad because the district saved more than it anticipated in its last fiscal year, which ends Aug. 31. Patton said they also will save through not filling other vacant positions in the district, and through cutting expenses on supplies. The board unanimously adopted the budget. Patton warned in previous meetings that the “hard decisions” likely won’t end
SEE SCHOOL, PAGE A2
activities she reported as stemming from Keehn’s attempts to operate a business out of her home. Weaver said following an April 11 hearing with the city’s Hearing Examiner, certain conditions were placed on Keehn’s permit to mitigate Cronan’s concerns before she would be allowed to operate her business. “(Keehn) has addressed all but one of those conditions, with the last being the letter from the (Kitsap County) Health Department,” Weaver said, explaining that Keehn’s current sewer facilities are
SEE NEIGHBORS, PAGE A2
Custodians won’t be replaced, $1.72 million will be taken from reserve fund.
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By CHRIS CHANCELLOR
Staff Writer
The South Kitsap School District is a little closer to closing its $2.9 million deficit for the upcoming school year. Terri Patton, assistant superintendent for business and support services, said at Wednesday’s school board meeting that the district won’t replace five full-time custodians who left the district after the last school year. She said that will save the district $250,000. Patton said the deficit stems from unforeseen circumstances when the district presented its last levy to voters in 2004. She cited escalating teacher salaries
chasing it last spring. City Development Director James Weaver confirmed that Keehn received a conditional-use permit to operate a onechair hair salon out of her home, which he described as “pretty innocuous” and something that doesn’t typically reach “the level of intensive use,” as far as impacts on the neighborhood are concerned. However, since November of 2007, Cronan has filed multiple complaints with the city regarding traffic, noise and other
Randy Bragge stood smiling at the far end of the firing line at the Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club as men and women along the line prepared for a “liberty volley,” a minute-long shootout. Bragge set up his gun, a LAR Grizzly BIG boar .50 BMG rifle, and cautioned a few spectators not to stand too close. “Don’t stand near the shock waves,” Bragge said of the gasses that escape the flash suppressor at the barrel tip of the gigantic rifle. Bragge was part of the Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club’s annual Fourth of July celebration. The celebration, attended by 40 to 50 KRRC members, featured a membership potluck, the hoisting of two new large flags up the club’s flagpole, the reading of the Declaration of Independence, the liberty volley and other events. Typically, the Fourth of July celebration has been one of the more popular events. But after two years of decreased membership and consistent problems with the Kitsap County Prosecutor’s
Office and surrounding neighborhoods, attendance at the Fourth of July Celebration has taken a dip, said Marcus Carter, the club’s executive officer. “We’ve had more participation in years past,” Carter said. To a large degree, the rifle club’s problem is that members don’t know the club has reopened. The 72-acre club located on Seabeck Highway NW, a few miles outside Bremerton’s city limits, was shut down Feb. 9 after Pierce County Superior Court Judge Susan Serko ruled the club was a public nuisance and ordered the club to cease shooting until a conditional use permit was issued. The suit against the gun club was first brought by Kitsap County Prosecutor Russell Hauge in September 2010, after complaints of noise and unsafe conditions were levied by Central Kitsap Safe and Quiet, a local neighborhood group, Carter said. What followed was a lengthy legal battle that included injunctions, appeals, stays and every form of legal maneuvering under the sun, said Carter. Since 2010, membership was Jesse Beals/Staff Photo
shot in three of her home’s windows. Cronan, who lives on the 200 block of Flower Meadows Street in Port Orchard, said she believed the attack was part of an ongoing dispute with Keehn, whom she alleges has been running a hair salon out of her home without a business license and in defiance of a city “stop-work” order. Keehn, 30, said she filed for permission from the city of Port Orchard to operate a hair salon out of her home on the 2300 block of Flower Avenue soon after pur-
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Tensions between two Port Orchard neighbors that erupted after one attempted to open a home business last year led both women to head down to the Kitsap County Courthouse Monday and file restraining orders against each other. Shelia Cronan, 49, said she filed a restraining order against Amber Keehn after returning home from a camping trip Aug. 17 and discovering pellets had been
FRIDAY, July 13, 2012 n Vol. 121, No. 28 n www.portorchardindependent.com n 50¢
See Gun Club, A20
Sibling rivalry motivates local to Boy Scout fame Gentry becomes latest member of family to earn every merit badge By CHRIS CHANCELLOR Senior Reporter
When he saw his older brother gaining regional attention, Eli Gentry had one simple goal — besting him. The 18-year-old Eagle Scout recently added the final merit badge to his 133-piece collection, four more than his older brother, David, who also earned every merit badge there is. The two have more combined merit badges than any pair of siblings. “To me, a parent whose kids have 262 merit badges to dad’s zero — it’s incomprehensible to me, to be truthful,” the boys’ father, Paul Gentry, said of their achievements. “I can’t believe they did it. This takes five or six years each.” Boy Scouts of America, which does not keep an official tally of the achievement, periodically adds more badges.
BSA spokeswoman Renee Fairrer said only about 200 troops among 911,000 nationally earn as many as 100 merit badges each year. “It is highly unusual given the number of Boy Scouts we have,” she said. Gentry’s older brother was recognized for his work at a public Court of Honor ceremony at Port Orchard’s First Christian Church. His father said they also plan to honor their younger son in August — arrangements have not yet been made — before he heads to college. Gentry, who is homeschooled, said he wanted to become a Boy Scout when he saw his older brother, who now is a communication major at the University of Hawaii, join Boy Scout Troop 1532 in Port Orchard. Troy Pugh, a Bremerton native who runs Meritbadgeknot.com,
Contributed photo
Eagle Scout Eli Gentry earns on of his 133 merit badges. which honors elite Scouts, said he has admired the accomplishments of the Gentry family from a distance. He said the “pinnacle” for most families is to become an Eagle scout, which requires 21 merit badges. “Unfortunately, most kids — and their parents — do the minimum,” said Pugh, who became the third member of his family to earn every merit badge as a teenager in Ferndale in 1985. Gentry said he spent any-
where from five hours to earn his art badge to eight months documenting every single purchase he made and “what you plan to do with what’s left” of the money for his financial one. It also took him three years to earn his cooking badge, but he did that intermittently. Perhaps the most difficult were the water-related activities, which Gentry openly feared at one point. Among those are SCUBA diving, swimming and
lifesaving. “SCUBA had me pretty afraid, but he got through it fine,” Gentry’s father said. “Once he got under water, he did great.” He earned his final merit badge, for inventing, by building a contraption that uses handwarmers to heat a tent. “It pretty much validated everything I have done up to that point,” Gentry said. He said he became interested in engineering through the tutelage he received from professionals at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton. Gentry now plans on pursuing a career in engineering at Arizona State University beginning this fall. The Eagle Scout credits his parents for helping him meet his goals. Gentry’s mother jokingly refers to herself as the “chauffeur” as she has driven both her boys to numerous events. The younger Gentry said his father, a marathon runner, also is an inspiration — as well as his older brother. Pugh, who now is a financial
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adviser in Ephrata in Central Washington, said he has confirmed only 171 cases in which a Scout has earned every available badge. “I’ve been watching the Gentrys for a number of years now,” he said. “They’ve done a lot of different activities and have learned a lot of things. I definitely applaud them for setting a goal to learn.” Now that Gentry has graduated, he hopes to help other Boy Scouts reach their goals. After he becomes acclimated to the transition to ASU, he said he will volunteer with Boys Scouts there.
Inside this edition Veterans Wall............A2 Opinion.....................A6 Obits...........................A9 Sports.........................A8