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LIFE AND CULTURE
A walk for life
Five friends will walk a 50-mile Olympic Mountains trail to raise awareness of, and money for, pediatric brain tumor research. — Story, page 2
week’s
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KITSAP ARTS & CRAFTS FESTIVAL JULY 27-29 “Boardwalk,” a watercolor by Gerald Dowell, has such detail and clarity that at first glance it can be mistaken for a photograph. And it was a third-
place winner. Imagine the other great art you’ll see at the 53rd annual Kitsap Arts & Crafts Festival July 27, 28 and 29 at Kingston’s Mike Wallace Park, next to the Kingston Ferry Terminal. The event showcases the best in art by local artists and raises money for scholarships for local high school graduates. The headline event at the festival is the Juried and Open Art Show and Student Art Show. More than
180 student, open and juried artworks were on display at the 2011 festival. Kitsap Arts & Crafts has helped keep arts education alive in local schools, which don’t often don’t have the funding to keep their own programs going. Kitsap Arts & Crafts, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, cultivates and promotes the arts in Kitsap County by awarding art scholarships to qualified students, supporting the Art Docent Program in
public elementary schools and producing the annual Arts & Crafts Festival, as well as presentation of awards to winning artists. These programs are supported by festival proceeds and by contributions. Since 1975, Kitsap Arts & Crafts has awarded 181 scholarships to local youths to help further their arts education. The program gives $2,000 annual scholarships with three additional renewals,
‘Perpetually Coy’: graphite by Anna Hoey, 2011 first place, juried twodimensional
See FESTIVAL, Page 4
Kitsap Week Five friends walk a trail of pediatric awarness Inside
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Garden tour to bloom in Manette neighborhood By Patrick McDonough pmcdonough@soundpublishing.com
The Manette neighborhood will become the stage for a 10-stop garden tour on Saturday when The Manette Neighborhood Coalition hosts their inaugural Edible Garden and Tour de Coop. The tour features money saving demonstrations in winter gardening, container gardening, growing fruitbearing trees and plants in small spaces and building and maintaining greenhouse and hoop houses and will also offer anyone interested in raising chickens a chance to tour multiple coops. Manette gardeners will open their gardens during the tour to offer advice on growing staples such as carrots, cabbage, broccoli, strawberries, bush beans, swiss chard, beets, raspberries and a host of other garden favorites. Tamara Smith and Patrick Watson will host a garden on the tour, and Smith, a board member on the coalition, said the idea had come from a similar event held by the Bremerton Urban Garden Society. She said she had enjoyed
Economists say Kitsap County is faring better than most, unemployment cut in half By CHRIS CHANCELLOR cchancellor@soundpublishing.com
Patrick McDonough/Staff Photo
Eugene Brennan offers a tour of his garden which will be featured in the upcoming Manette Neighborhood Coalition’s inaugural Edible Garden and Tour de Coop. Brennan said gardens such as his can save people money as well as offer healthy food options and a create a healthier planet. that event and felt the Manette neighborhood also had a host of must-see gardens. For Smith, the tour offers a way to for people to meet their neighbors as well as examples of the possibilities of urban gardening. “I think the neighborhood is just a safer place when your
neighbors know each other,” she said. “And how often do you get to poke around in other people’s back yards to see how they garden?” Smith said her garden developed out of a love of cooking and seeking a healthy lifestyle. “I love to cook so this is
County moves to save millions in health care costs By KEVAN MOORE kmoore@soundpublishing.com
Kitsap County is moving forward with plans to reign in the ever surging cost of employee health care and is looking to save millions of dollars. Commissioners Robert Gelder and Charlotte Garido approved a pair of measures this week that will audit county employees’ dependents to ensure they are actu-
Small business remains biggest talking point as elections near
ally eligible for coverage and move the county to a self insurance program. The $21,000 eligibility audit could save as much as $200,000 and the move to self insurance could save $1 million in 2013 and as much as $12.5 million by 2018. Commissioner Josh Brown did not vote on the measures as he was out of town this week for the annual National Association of Counties meeting in Pittsburgh.
Gelder said that the moves are an attempt to “go down a path to bend the cost curve down for the county.” When asked why the county hadn’t done it sooner, Gelder said that it wasn’t a conversation the board was even having when he joined the panel. It is, though, something he’s been thinking about for years. “We started conversations toward end of last year,” he said. “There’s only so much
an extension of that,” she said. “It is good exercise and you know where your food is coming from and that it is fresh and healthy.” Health is also a primary inspiration behind the garden Jean Clark will host on See GARDEN, A10
time and resources and this is just another one of those opportunities that the time is right to do it.” Gelder said that the move to self insurance will save millions, but won’t change much for employees when they actually seek services and treatment. The big changes are more about administration than they are about delivery. “Employees will experience no change in the way their current insurance plan ‘feels’ with regards to their selected health care provider,” said Bob Furuta, the county’s director of personnel and human services. “From the See HEALTH CARE, A10
Red tape. Regulations. Restrictions. All are small-business buzzwords as political campaigns address the job market, arguably voters’ greatest concern, as local and national elections approach in November. Calvin Goings, a former Pierce County Commissioner who now is an assistant associate administrator for the Small Business Administration, where President Barack Obama appointed him in 2009, told the Port Orchard Chamber of Commerce last week that the economy is moving in the right direction. Goings, a Democrat, cited 28 consecutive months of job increases as one reason behind the growth argument. But he also attributed the movement to decisions, some unpopular, made by President Obama, including the bailout that saved Chrysler and General Motors from the “real prospect of liquidation.” Though many derided that decision, Goings noted that GM has repaid its loan and returned as the world’s No. 1 automobile manufacturer. That is outside of the small-business realm, but Goings said it is an example of the progress that is occurring to improve the economy. The administration proposal to further improved the climate for a small businesses, less than 500 employees, and allow certain small busi-
nesses to forgo capital-gains taxes. Another benefit with the assistance of the SBA, helps companies recognize that 96 percent of the world’s population lives outside of the United States. Goings said the SBA assisted 5,500 small businesses make their first exports. “Small business is the backbone of this administration,” he said. “Supporting small business has been a hallmark of this administration.” In 2011, the SBA supported more than $30 billion in lending to more than 60,000 small businesses. He said less than 7 percent of those loans in Washington state fail. Goings said there are 1,300 Small Business Development centers nationally to assist “an entrepreneur writing their first business plan” to obtaining a loan. The nearest is the Washington State University-Bremerton Small Business Development Center.
KITSAP ECONOMIC CLIMATE
John Powers, executive director of the Kitsap Economic Development Alliance, said the makeup of this area is different from most because of the presence of the Department of Defense and Naval Base Kitsap, both of which are significant market drivers locally worth $1.5 annually. In addition to the government jobs, Powers said they See ECONOMY, A10